Gamer’s Thoughts: The curse of being a critic?

I’m NekoJonez, 21 years old. I live in Belgium and I have been writing gaming related articles for over 5 years now. It has been quite a ride to be honest. But nothing prepared me for the curse that you get even without you wanting it. Yes, there are downsides in being a gaming critic. And not only the obvious ones. Believe me. In this article I will introduce my new series. In Gamer’s thoughts I will talk about a subject in detail that isn’t exactly 1 game. Look at it as expanded game quickies as well. So, that is a sub-series of this series of articles. Anyways, that blog update aside, let’s dive right into my thoughts on the matter of being a critic. Feel free to leave a comment on this article about the subject or what I have written. Thanks in advance.

The road to success?

What exactly do you need to do as a critic to be a successful one? Review the latest of the latest? Then you might have just finished an article about Watch_Dogs. Or should you go looking all over the internet for that one flash game that is so bad, it’s good and everybody should play it?

It’s a tough balancing act. This is a part of the curse of a critic. What style are you going to choose to write your articles, make your video’s … From experience, I have one thing to say on this matter. You have one of two different possibilities here.

One, you stick with one specific area in the gaming world. For example: Nintendo, EA, puzzle games… etc. You follow that company like it’s your life savings. Each new pixel revealed of their next game is like a bit out of your favorite food. These guys are sometimes, if not all of the time, the hypers. They create the hype for the next big triple A game.

And the other possibility is like myself. I honestly don’t care about staying true to one style of games. I play (too) much games. While I admit that I enjoy Nintendo games the most, I think I have proven on my blog that I can enjoy a PC game or a PSP game as well.

I have proof as well. This picture here are my latest catch at the garage sale I went to before writing this article. While there is a ton of Gameboy games and Pokémon merchandise. I also got a few big boxed PC games and some Playstation games.

So, it’s always a challenge. What do you do on your channel, blog or site? The video’s of big names on YouTube always say: “Do what you want to do.” or “Do something you want to do.” While that’s important, there are people easily getting views of playing those games that are extremely hyped.

Ever noticed that the Let’s Plays of those series have a weird drop in their views? The first view episodes have a big number of views. The following episodes have a drop in viewers. Why is this? Well, that’s because some people look up footage before they buy. Be sure of that.

Social media pains

A real struggle for me is how time consuming the social media is. You need to update your Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr… It piles up to a huge amount. Honestly, I can’t keep up with it.

In the past, I followed back all my followers. Now, one hot tip for the starting entertainers out there. Don’t do that. It’s just insanity waiting for you.

When I started unfollowing people on Twitter that either flood my feed with tweets, where in a language I didn’t understand or where inactive for years, I saw my follower number drop.

Now, you can argue that you should support your other small entertainers. But, is this really what you should do? Don’t get me wrong here, but we aren’t a publishing house. We are content creators. I write a gaming blog where I talk about the games I play or the gaming industry.

Only follow the people you find interesting. Don’t go following the big names to try and get attention. It won’t work in the long run. I wonder how many “dead subscribers” the big channels, sites and such have.

Do I care about the number of followers I have. Yes, in a way I do. But the most important to me is that I can interact with my followers. I hate people that just follow you to promote themselves. I don’t follow them anymore to avoid a messy Twitter feed. Now, I have a cleaner Twitter feed and I can keep myself up-to-date with the news I want. And this way I can be more efficient for my blog.

So you want to start blogging?

I haven’t fully finished talking about this subject yet. So, be sure that I continue this article with a follow-up. But before I sign off, I want to share some tips that I think are important when you want to start blogging. Since I have been blogging for 5 years. Maybe some of these things can help.

1) Don’t care about the numbers too much. Every start is rough. You will see highs and lows in the numbers. But don’t let it influence your writing. If one article didn’t do as well in numbers, it doesn’t mean it was a bad article.

2) Invite people to comment and don’t force it. Out of experience I have seen that the articles where I invite my readers to comment on my article, I see comments appearing. But don’t expect a comment on each article. Since the comment section should mean more to you, as the writer, then a place where people can “dump” their praise for the article. The comment section is meant to talk back and forth with the people who read your article. Try to use the comment section in that way instead of asking how they liked the article. You get better feedback this way.

Anyways, thanks for reading. I hope you enjoyed reading this first bit of my thoughts on things. This article replaces a creepypasta I was planning. It didn’t quite work out, so I had to scrap it. But don’t worry, one of these days you will see a new one from me. Like I said before, I will most likely come back on this subject. But for now, this is all. See you in another article.

Gaming Music – Number 7: Moar good tracks

Android Games You Should Try #4: Now with a special review

So, I got a mail from a developer. He asked me to review their game. This game will be the first entry in this article. I was planning to give that game a game quicky article, but it has too few contents for that. Anyway, welcome to a new Android games article. In June, I’m working on a ton of content for you guys. So, I’m playing more and more on my phone. As a short breaking between writing. Now, I have decided to be as strict as in my previous article. All these games are free Android games that you should try. They don’t have any or annoying ads. They are fun to play and they aren’t pay-to-win. These games are truly worth playing (and maybe taking a secret bathroom break during work). I also choose to take offline games. The reason for that is, not everybody their subscription included affordable 3G internet. So, yeah. Anyway, I have been talking too much again. Let’s start this new article in my Android games series. Oh, don’t forget! I quickly review, talk about each game and score it. I also give you the link to the play store page, so you can download it! But before we start, feel free to leave a comment on the games, my mini-review and / or your opinion.

Special “guest”: Adventure Birds

Now, I’m known on my blog to be fair. I don’t review the games I play very subjectively. Honestly, while I’m honored that this developer mailed me to ask a review on this game… I’m afraid to say that I didn’t like it.

If he didn’t ask, this game wouldn’t have made the selection for these articles. Now, this isn’t a bad game. It’s a well-made Flappy Bird clone. There is some more variation in the scenery. But that’s it. Besides trying to beat your top score, there isn’t anything more to this game than that.

I honestly got bored. This game is not for the hardcore gamers. This game is better suited for a (casual) audience looking for the perfect replacement to Flappy Bird. But the low score isn’t because this game is a bad game, this is the score I would give it. But objectively, this game deserves higher marks.

Score: 2.5 / 5

Adventure Land

I applaud this app! This game is truly fun to play. The only downside is that when you want to save your character, you’ll have to pay.

But this game gives you randomized hero’s each and every run. When I got my tablet, I played a lot of Jetpack Joyrides, but honestly, this is the better game. But not by much.

Each run feels different. While this game hasn’t any fun special objectives for you to achieve. This game gets really challenging but encourages you at the same time.

You can also change the randomly chosen abilities before you start the run. And you get a safe zone before you start the adventure. This way you can quickly “relearn” the ability that you have for this run.

There is a still a bit more to this game. And I leave that for you guys to discover. But this game nearly gets full marks!

Score: 4/5

Lost Keys

This game is simple. Go from point A to B. The only catch here is that you need to get all the keys before you can continue to the next level.

The controls are a bit clunky and require some getting used to. But in general, this game is a lot of fun. The only thing I dislike is how the game lacks a bit in terms of sound effects. Apart for dying and getting a key, there aren’t any sound effects.

This game isn’t too long either. This game only has 60 levels and this isn’t a bad thing, since in my opinion, this is just the right length.

The last remark I have to make is… Why can I select the areas I haven’t unlocked? They are grayed out, so I can’t play them, but I can select the area’s for some reason.

Score: 3.5/5

Strange Adventure

Remember my last rant? I talked about this game. Is this game worth playing? Heck yes! Does it have negatives? Well, it’s frustrating as heck. Narrow jumps and sometimes the solution isn’t clear at all.

But this game uses the clichés to its advantage. This game is truly a masterpiece on Android in my opinion.

It’s a more then just a platformer. It’s a clear parody with the problems of the current game industry. I might be looking way to deep into this, but this is what I think of this game. And because of that, the negatives are forgiven.

Score: 5/5

Closing words

This might be a shorter article, but blame the World Cup. Belgium just won from Russia! And what a strange match it was. I think I’m running out of Android games I want to talk about. So, it’s quite possible that this series goes on a short break until I find new games to write about.

To all (Android) devs, do you want me to look to your game? Click on my contact page! I’ll gladly take a look at your game. And maybe it will appear here on this article. Anyway, thanks for reading, and hopefully I see you at the next one.

First Impression: Bravely Default (3DS) ~ Featuring GamersHive

bravely-default-europe-box-art GamersHive Facebook

Official Site

Thanks for tuning in you guys. Today, I’m going to try something different. In the last few years, I met a guy on a garage sale with the same first name then mine. A few months ago, I found met him again through Dutch website, similar to eBay. After a few mails back and forth, I joined his Facebook group. Now, if you are a reader from Belgium and you’re interested in games… Don’t wait! Go take a look on that page. This is a group to my heart. They are collectors like myself. I might ask them to get the forums to work together. As a sort of apology to you guys and to them (because I haven’t mentioned them while I promised it) I asked their opinion on this game. Keep in mind, this isn’t a review since I haven’t finished the game myself. Yet, there are guys on GamersHive that finished it. So, I’ll be using their words to talk more about this game. The only “altering” I did to the quotes is translating them. So yeah, before we start, feel free to leave a comment on the article and or the game.

Unexpected.

Honestly, I wasn’t planning to play this game. I got this game thanks to my forum. When a few members where hyped about this game, I kept the title in mind. A week later, I was looking on the shelves of a local game store for any potential great sales in the 2nd hand section. When I saw this game on the shelves, I decided to pick it up. To check if the hype was really worth it. I rode my bike home and popped the game in my 3DS.

Bravely Default is what the new Final Fantasy should have been.

– Ringo G. (GamersHive)

Now, my friend. That’s quite a big statement. I’m ashamed to admit this, but I haven’t played too many Final Fantasy games. Actually I have never beaten one. Yet, I do love the formula of the game. While I heard mixed reviews on the latest releases, I do think that there is some truth in the statement.

First of all, let’s talk about the story. I’ll be using now a lot of a mini-review Sam Stevens placed as a comment to my post in the group.

The story is really beautifully created. It gives you the feeling to continue playing to see the ending.

– Sam Stevens (GamersHive)

I’m sorry Sam, but I have to disagree. The opening was truly unexpected. The introduction is done by using the AR features of the 3DS. It gives you a personal feel through the story. I haven’t beaten the game yet, so I don’t know how it ends but from what I have played… I don’t think the story is that good. You won’t hear me saying that the story is bad. That is totally not the case. Let me explain myself.

The main story is generic. It’s a basic story of “save the world with crystals”. But here the saying of “don’t judge a book by it’s cover” is very, very true. The execution of the story is what makes the story good. The dialogue, interaction with the characters and their backstories are all very well written. Sadly enough, some characters suffer from “tropes”. What I mean here is that they are your standard characters. To say it very crude, the characters don’t have a soul. I don’t see any change in their personalities. They stay way to close to what their what their trope is supposed to be.

Here the story looses a lot of it’s charm. Sadly enough, to experienced story tellers, the story becomes predictable. In summary, the story is good but not great. It has it’s moments here and there but there are so many missed opportunities.

Generic RPG or more?

Let’s move on to the gameplay. And to save me some trouble, I will quote some very true things from Sam Stevens.

Norende Village and the StreetPass support really aid you in your quest.

– Sam Stevens (GamersHive)

Now this is very true. On the surface, the game looks to have a basic RPG-style gameplay. With turn based moves and random encounters. That’s only the surface. The game is deeper then that. Sam gave two examples how the gameplay is more then your standard RPG game. What they exactly are, well… that I leave as a surprise to you guys.

The feature of being able to set the amount of random encounters is just amazing.

– Sam Stevens (GamersHive)

Oh yes! Sam, you are totally right. This is one of the big selling points in my opinion. It’s really hidden but it’s so handy. This way you can explore early dungeons again without having to be interrupted by weak enemies. It’s just great. Also, the game warns you if you disable the random encounters! The game might become too difficult if you try to play this without them. Yeah, great move.

Now, the title of the game is pretty much the gameplay of this game. You can either “Brave” or “Default”. The “Default” is your basic “Blocking” / “Defending” but with a twist. You earn a point when you “Default”. These points can be used to “Brave”. This way you can release multiple attacks at once. This adds a whole layer of strategy. Since if you “Brave” without saving points first, you will end up loosing turns with that character.

Negatives

Now, usually I would be about to wrap up my article. But since I mentioned some guys, I think I will continue this article for just a little bit. In this part, I will talk a bit about the negatives of the game. What didn’t I enjoy? I realize that I leave out a whole bunch of things that I haven’t talked about, but I save these for my review when I beat the game.

So, the first flaw I want to talk about is something that is a big shame. Minor spoiler here but at one point, you get an airship. It’s actually really early on. Now, you can go to every place on the map. And that’s amazing. The open world feeling is such a fun thing to play around in. Until you get a slap to the face.

When you try to enter a dungeon before you’re actually supposed to, the characters say that they shouldn’t go inside, since they haven’t business there yet. What? Like ProJared said in his “1 minute review”:

Let me experience my own mistakes.

– ProJared

This is very true.

Another mistake is how the game has micro-transactions. I don’t think I have to explain myself here. It’s just silly. I might talk more in-depth about it in the review. Although, I have already talked about it in my last rant. So yeah.

Another thing I dislike about this game is how grinding is such a thing. I actually stopped playing this game because of a part in the game where it’s a boss rush. And you will need to grind, a lot, in order to beat them. Either that, or I fail at understanding this game. It might be a combination of both. But I don’t the grinding in this game fun. Sorry.

Anyways, thanks for reading. I’ll talk more about the graphics, difficulty, music, controls and design in my review. I hope you enjoyed this article. Thanks to GamersHive for the amazing quotes. It was really fun to try out something different. Now, I have a game to beat to fully review it. Hopefully until then!

Rant #009.5: 10 things that I dislike about games. (Part 2/2)

not-sure-if-trolling-or-just-bad-game-design Part 1

Alright, let’s continue this rant. With the picture I used for the introduction at part 1 at the right side, let’s talk about 5 other things that annoy me in games. I started with issues with the control binding, tutorials, invisible walls, grinding and social networks. This second part of the rant has been written before part 1 got released, so I couldn’t add things from the comments. In any case, these things aren’t placed in any order. Since all these things annoy me. And what does it matter that one thing annoys me more then another one? All these issues need to be addressed! To close off this introduction, feel free to leave a comment with your opinion of my picks and or your most annoying things in video games. Thanks in advance. Anyways, let’s go!

#5: Micro-transactions of ANY kind

This stuff happens with DLC as well. I have seen DLC for Assassins Creed 4 to speed up some grinding. But you need to pay a small fee for it. Now these things give people an unfair advantage in some games.

Bravely Default made a big mistake here. There is a special “rescue” type item to save your party that works with micro-transactions.

I can understand DLC. If it’s additional content that you need to pay for. But these things to have additional gems or reduce waiting or grinding time boils my blood.

An amazing parody game is DLC Quest. You will get a kick out of this if you dislike this as well.

Before I move on, I have to mention something. In college, a friend of mine plays a soccer sim on his phone. He got annoyed that people kept beating him because they abused the micro-transaction system. So, this kills the balance in the game. Yeah. I promised him that I mentioned it!

#4: Online “noobs”

Okay, don’t get me wrong here. I have no (big) issues with noobs. There are people who need to learn how to play the game. You can’t expect yourself to be good at any game you play online. By playing the game over and over again, you get better at it.

In Minecraft, if you use a hacked client to make custom maps, I can understand. Yet, then you have a whole range of people who are just killing the online experience. And instead of flooding my whole top 10 here, I took them all under one entry.

I’m talking about campers, hackers, abusing the chat system… It all grinds my gears. Can’t you just play the game like normal?

Rust, is a perfect example of a game that got ruined by people who used hacks for example fly. I have seen YouTubers calling out at each other, and that’s where I draw my line.

Abusing glitches in a game, sure, why not? I mean, I used the “X-Ray” machines to find caves in Minecraft. I have no shame in admitting that. It doesn’t help me finding the best ores. It just helps me finding caves to find those ores or to make grinders work better.

If you’re a hacker, and you need your hacks to play the game, just keep in mind that you ruin the game for others! There is also a chance that you either kill the server, experience or the game for others. In my experience I have seen a server dying slowly because of the hacking.

I think I will leave it here for this entry. But this might be another rant coming where I talk more in depth of this subject.

#3: Flaws in the difficulty

Dear lords, is this something many gamers under us have such a hate for. Games that suddenly throw up the difficulty for the climax of the game.

Escape From Monkey Island on the PS2 made a major flaw here. You have to work out a whole rule set for an advanced rock-paper-scissor game. Now, I don’t have endless patience to figure this all out. So, naturally I looked it up online. And yes, it’s randomized each and every time! Oh lords, isn’t that fun.

I’m planning to write a “game quicky” about custom minecraft maps. But in these maps, they make this fatal flaw as well. When I still made YouTube video’s I had to cancel a series because there were too much spawners.

In CTM maps, there can be a lot of spawners. But they should be balanced. In Super Hostile maps, there are a lot of spawners but it’s possible. Because with enough light sources you can disable the spawners and such.

Now, when any game, mod or custom map throws an overdose of enemies at you that it becomes more of an endurance round, then the game is flawed.

Not to mention that games where the enemies can kill you in a shot or two on the hardest difficulty setting. I mean, it should still be playable. And you shouldn’t be afraid that each monster could kill you with the greatest of ease. That’s in summary what I mean with this.

#2: Backtracking, most of the times.

Yes, I’m looking at a game like the amazing 9 Hours 9 Persons 9 Doors on the DS for this one. While you don’t have to backtrack while playing the game, there is a major sort of backtracking here. This game has multiple endings.

Here is the issue, when you saw an ending, you have to replay the whole game over again to see the other endings. Auwch! You might have a speed-up button but still.

Thankfully the sequel fixed this. In Virtue’s Last Reward, you have a tree that follows the different paths. So, that way you can easily go back to one point in time and pick the different option.

Now, about backtracking. In some cases, I can understand it. Like you need to go first to one spot to fetch a power-up. In Castlevania(-like) games I have no problem with it at all. Since you can grind your character meanwhile. That’s clever game design!

But when the game design is so bad that you can easily skip something or when it becomes a big focus, then it’s no fun anymore. Take notes from the examples I mentioned above guys!

#1: Cliches / Bad game design

Now, my final thing are two things combined. When a game uses too much cliches in their game, the game gets boring and predictable. I hate it the most when it comes to cliches giving the game a bad game design.

From cheap deaths to jump courses you can’t fail… Yeah, it can ruin a game easily. I found a game on Android that demonstrates this to it’s full extend. From impossible timed challenges to moving platforms to spikes… You name it.

While this game goes of memorization, this game has great game design. And it’s rewarding to find the way the developer wanted you to finish the level. This game uses a ton of cliches in the right way and makes an amazing game with it.

For example, I’m not good in jumping puzzles. I fail them a lot. In the Wind Waker, there is a part in the ship that you need to do. It’s a part where you need to jump from platform to platform. When you fail, you have to restart. Man, did I hate that part.

Closing words

So, that was my rant on 10 things that annoy me in games. I know that a lot of these articles exist on the net but I tried to talk about things that almost never get mentioned. That got extremely challenging near the end.

All these subjects would have been a complete rant. But I never had enough material to write a full article about it. So, I’m glad that I was able to talk about it in this article.

I hope you enjoyed reading this. I’m really looking forward to your comments. Thanks again and I hope to see you at a next article.

Publishing: The Wild West just got wilder.

Hello there cowboy! Thanks for tuning in at my blog! I hope you enjoy the content I put out! If you think the wild west got boring, I think I got the solution. Do you remember that game High Noon 2 by HappyLatte? Well, I think I have great news. They just sent me over this press release for me to publish. It talks about a major update. I read it already and I’m really interested. Read it for yourselves, if you don’t believe me. And feel free to leave a comment with your thoughts and this release. It might help HappyLatte out!

Feel the adrenaline with Happylatte’s latest update to High Noon 2.Be like Billy the Kid or Annie Oakley from the Wild West with a new feature that allows upgrading your favorite weapons, then shoot the shit out of your opponents in a duel!

In the Old West, people spoke with their guns and a duel at High Noon was one way to settle a score, fair and even. Having the most powerful weapon, the quickest draw and the best aim was not always enough to stay alive. It took nerves of steel with bullets whizzing by, to take an opponent down and become a true gunslinger. For the first time in the High Noon series, players can now decide on their favorite pistol, which upgrades and evolves together with them. To unlock the gun enhancement, players need to master their weapon first. How to do that? Simply by shooting; the more duels, the quicker way to change your revolver to its ultimate model.

In addition to the weapon changes, very popular Indian Items that boost a character’s XP, are now available free for every single player.The last, but not less awesome, major change in this update allows getting precious Wampum with popular Silver. Blow your savings and buy everything you ever wanted!

Available both on iOS and Android, number of downloads for High Noon’s titles now exceed 13 million. High Noon 2 is a real-time shooter where the player fights with people from all around the world to become the most wanted outlaw! Feel the Wild West atmosphere by tilting your phone to aim and shoot your opponent to win the duels.

High Noon 2 is free to play, download now version 2.0:

iOS: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/high-noon-2-multiplayer-fps/id654941133?mt=8

Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.happylatte.HN2

About Happylatte

Founded in 2008 in Beijing, Happylatte is on a mission to build great mobile game classics for the world. Games that pack intense social experiences into tiny screens and deliver virtual worlds into your hand. Our current games, Days of Crime, Pee Monkey and the #1 chart-busting title High Noon, are a “newfangled” blend of free-to-play and massively multiplayer social games for Android and iOS smartphones.

NekoJonez’s Question and Purrswer #2: 10 Questions make a long one!

How’s that for starting off a Question and Purrswer? What’s this? Well, a question and answer with a neko twist of course. Want to ask me a question? Be sure to give a comment, send me a tweet, send me a mail, comment on my Last.FM profile, PM me on my forum… The possibilities are endless. Let’s get to answering the questions I got. And I totally didn’t steal this intro from my first Q & A. Because I add this section to it. Anyways, feel free to comment on this article. I mostly ask for questions for the next Q & A on twitter. Just saying. Oh, and all these questions come from Twitter. (Warning, thanks for the all the questions… This means it will be a long Q & A. Don’t worry, I’m trying out a trick so that this article is split into pages for your reading pleasure.)

#1: Am I going to buy Super Smash Bros / Am I hyped for it? – Asked by Austin from Arpegi

Short answer: One day.

Long answer: Well, depends on the money I have at the time of it’s release. Honestly, I’m more hyped for the remake of my 2nd favorite gen in Pokémon. Yes, I love the 3rd gen.

I also recently learned, thanks through my buddy Seraph, that Corpse Party is coming to the PC! And that with bonus features.

So, I have a two other games that I’m looking out for. Then I have a bunch of other titles that interest me. Like Tomodachi Life or Kirby – Triple Deluxe. Plus, I’m planning to save up my money for a lovely Wii U. Please don’t get me started at the Steam sales. It kills my wallet just thinking about it.

So, the short answer explains everything.

Now, am I hyped about Super Smash Bros.? … Ehrm, do I have to answer this question? I mean, my reputation… Hehehe… Okay, honestly. I’m not hyped. At all. To be quite harsh, I’m not a fan of the series. I do enjoy the series but it doesn’t pull me in as much as it does to other people.

Why am I planning to buy the 3DS edition then? Well, because I hope that a handheld edition actually draws me into the series. That’s why. But remember, my bar for quality is actually set quite high since it’s a freaking Nintendo game.

#2: Favorite movie genre? – Asked by Sam, a Minecraft friend.

Favorite movie genre, eh? This is a hard question for me, as I tend to be a “jack of all trades”. What I mean here is that I enjoy a lot of movie genres. Lately, movies don’t hold my attention span for the whole movie. When I watch a movie on YouTube or on any platform, I watch it in multiple pieces. I just get bored with there is no interaction. That’s why visual novel adventure games get so much love from me. I get drawn into stories with interaction.

Back to the question, I tried to answer it in a style of “what would you do if you are allowed to watch one style of movies for the rest of your life?”. After much internal debate, I decided. Then the action adventure movies get the highest rating in my taste. Movies like Indiana Jones, Monument Men or National Treasure and even the animated variant, like most anime movies, I tend to enjoy the most.

#3: Bravely Default Questions. Have you beaten it? (Q, Yes. DAT friend) – My opinion on it. (Asked by Drakulus23, a friend in the blogging world.)

I knew that at one day, people where going to ask me about Bravely Default. I talked various times that I was going to write an article about it. And as far I can remember, I haven’t written a full article about it. Not even a first impression.

Yet, I have talked about it in my latest rant. Where I talked about the hate of grinding I have.

Now, did I beat it? No. I haven’t beaten it yet. I’m working on it though. Honestly, I think I’m not going to talk in depth of my opinion since I think I’ll start working on a first impression after I finished up all the articles I have started writing. So, you will know in this month.

#4: Goat Simulator. (Asked by Sarah, a real life friend)

I’m sorry Sarah, but I can’t even stand to watch a Let’s Play of the game. After I seen a few moments of gameplay, something occurred to me. This game is nothing more then a tool to joke around with physics.

The game looks pointless, goalless … to me. Am I saying it’s a bad game? Honestly, to some extend, it’s a mediocre game.

I looked up what other critics say, while some disagree with me, I think that the review from the Guardian hits the nail right on the head. It’s nothing more then a phenomenon/meme spun out of control.

#5: My favorite piece of tech (Asked by LeoHartless, a co-editor @ BSB)

Oh lords. The most interesting question to get your friends to answer. The “favorite X” question. I answered one earlier in this article but now I have another one. These are the most fun to answer, since it really makes you think about the subject.

In the end, I choose a laptop. While I can image people thought that I would go for a handheld, I actually think that a laptop is my favorite piece of technology.

Think about it, you can take your games on the go. Plus, you can carry around your own office. It makes things so easy. Do you want to show something to a friend, just turn the laptop around and you can show it. With a desktop it’s harder to do.

I just love laptops for some reason. Even over my tablet. Laptops can just do more then a tablet in my opinion. And thanks to my laptop, I can be a hobby-blogger. And that’s a dream come true.

Pages: 12

Rant #009: 10 things that I dislike about games. (Part 1/2)

It has been quite some time since I ranted right? It’s time to change that actually. I have started writing this article multiple times. This was a very difficult article to write. Since I always changed my opinion mid-way. But now that I gave it some thoughts the last few days, I finally came up with 10 things that irritate me in the world of games. Be warned, since this is a rant, this list is highly personal. Feel free to leave a comment with your opinion and or your hated things in games. Without further ado, let’s get started.

#10: Unable to map buttons – AZERTY?

I put these two together since they are problems with the mapping of buttons. I live in Belgium. It annoys me when a game shows me an “Q” when I mapped the button to “A”. There are still a few countries that use AZERTY. But I get really pissed when it’s a big company that has offices in the EU.

There are games I refused to play since I couldn’t remap the keys. I’m very strict about these things. I have a set of keys I always use for playing games. And since the button lay-out is different for each game, I want to be able to change it.

Oh, and a neat thing is when you can add more then one button. But if that isn’t present, that’s fine. The way to change keys is the most important to me.

#9: Tutorials

I don’t need to repeat myself I think. Read one of my previous rants about this by clicking on the image.

#8: Invisible walls

So, you want to know what happens if you jump off that cliff? Oh, wait. You will never know since the game designers just placed an invisible wall there.

In some cases, I can understand invisible walls. They can be used to make the world feel bigger then it is. This can help people having a bigger immersion in the game.

Yet, there are games that use this to give the illusion that you are able to explore a vast open world.

But in Pokémon, it got a whole other level of annoying. There are people that stop you from going somewhere. For lord’s sake. Let me experience that I shouldn’t go there. Just don’t force me into a linear way of playing when you set-up a world you can explore.

How to fix this issue? Just put a cliff or something among those lines to avoid killing the immersion.

#7: Connect to social networks

This mostly annoys me in mobile games. Yes, I do play mobile games. I have to admit as well that I played and enjoyed Candy Crush. But when it got updated to the version you needed to log-in with Facebook, the game lost all charm for me.

All these games that require a social network to be played, is just silly. The game relies on how many people accept your requests. The fun is in spamming your friends with requests and invites.

You found a nice item? Well, you can’t open it, a friend needs to do it for you. I understand the idea behind it, but it’s just lame when it’s the main focus of the game.

Thank lords that Facebook introduced a feature where you can block apps. I nearly block every Facebook game. Yes, some got my interest but the fact that you need to connect your wall with it, is just … lame.

Look, you can fix this easily. Make a new social network for these games. Like an online arcade hall. This way you can play to your heart’s content. You can post things on your wall there. It’s meant for that. Other social networks, most of all Facebook, aren’t meant for achievements in social games. Don’t forget that some bosses of companies look at your Facebook profile before you can have the job. Wouldn’t it be a shame if you lost your chance on a job?

#6: Grinding, sometimes

Okay, let me say one thing here. Grinding is the worst thing in games. I understand the idea behind it, that you need to work hard to achieve something, like in real life. But here is the thing, your game progress comes to a crawling halt. Since you do the same thing over and over again.

Now, in games like Minecraft, I don’t mind grinding. I mean here, when you want to grind for XP, you can look for a spawner and set up a farm. So yeah, there are tricks and such that cut down on your grinding time.

When the grinding is fun, I don’t mind it. Yet, I’m very strict in it. I nearly stopped playing Bravely Default because of the grinding. I don’t want to be stopped by a level cap. It feels a too cheap way of making the game longer.

End of part 1.

To avoid that this article gets too long, I cut this article in two parts. I hope you enjoyed reading the first part. I’ll publish part 2 as the next article. I hope to release it as soon as possible.

I’m not done yet with this subject, so keep your eye on part 2.

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