Add ons the pros and cons of todays gaming.

     There are a few types of add ons for this gaming age and they break down into a multitude of type but I've decided to classify them in a way to break down what you're actually buying. The sad thing is this will almost look like a hatred of dlc or add on content and it's not it's kind of a consumer warning and realization on what exactly you're putting your money into.

1. The make me pretty category - This is mainly your skins, heads and other aesthetic purchases which can be both beneficial and well just plain dumb. Lets simplify Example: you're playing something with a main story line driven by single player with very little online interaction if the skin or image booster doesn't change your stats or give you some minor bonus it's kinda dumb. If however you are playing an online game and well a mixture of this stuff helps you sort you out of a crowd to enhance your gameplay it's worth the money. Now let me add some extra clarification when I say it's worth the money... if you're spending more than a few bucks it may be excessive, but prices are more up to if the purchase finds it worth it or not. Understand?
2. The boost me like a mother category - Mainly an rpg staple now a days. Tired of grinding in a game to the point you forgot the story? This is where these come in. Usually it's a few well selected points when put to good use or a piece of weaponry you're not supposed to have yet that gives you an edge. Problem is that if you don't follow as the game releases you can end up with a super weapon that gets you through really fast but well you missed a lot of the finer points of the game. This is kinda tricky in it's execution but trust me it's being overdone.
3. The "Ain't nobody got time for that" category - This one irritates me it's basically I bought a game but I want everything done for me so I'll buy a pack that unlocks all the cool shit everyone else earned and roll with my homies. I like to call this the cheatin mutha fucka pack just because usually it comes out after I spent hours unlocking all this stuff.
4. The useless category - This is rare, but does occur it's usually a small rinkydink amusement that does nothing for you except point out that you are willing to waste money. The sad thing is that I did buy a pack that sorta falls under this category and well it was more of a joke, but I felt dumb for wasting the money. (I'm looking at you little big planet)
5. The everything else category - This is where your levels and extra play time come in I'll be honest this is where most of your money should go. Anything that will help you enjoy a game more or further a story that you have been following this is where it should all be. If it falls under any of the other categories it may be a small percent it's fine but if it is mostly one of the previous categories well it might not be worth it. but that's for you the gamer to decide.

- William Dreimann

Games I did not like and why -

    I tried doing game reviews before and well sometimes it's easy and sometimes it just sucks because you end up feeling like you're telling everyone you like just about all games. It becomes quite a mess and you really don't get a true feeling for why a game sucks or what makes a game like a game. So I decided to break down games I didn't like even if just a part and why this game sucked or just had a bad portion and yes some are based on the trophy / achievement detail.

• Demon Souls - This game is visually beautiful and the controls are tight so far this is what I like, then you get to gameplay. This game pissed me off faster than lemon juice and salt on an open wound. First off the challenge is to do everything in a single life so no real argument there, but you occasionally don't get a direct choice or learning curve and sometimes this leads to an rapid repeat instant death. Here are some quick examples on why I hated this game. 1.) the enemy ranges too quickly from easy to nightmarishly difficult. 2.) if you die once the easy enemies somehow gain an ability to bum rush you 3.) each time you die you start from scratch with no level gain so it gets old quickly when you reach a turn you're not quite sure of. This would be an awesome game if it was toned down and given a fair learning curve for the beginner
• Deathspank 3 The Baconing - EA dropped out and the developers got to make their game as they wanted so yeah this works, but here's my issue... They lost the gamers attention when it comes to detail. The first two games were challenging and spent a lot of time killing enemies which ended up tying into the trophy play. By the end of the first two games you had most of the trophies and this wrapped the gameplay up nicely. The third got lazy things I didn't care for or need or use much came into necessary play for trophies and well it got ridiculous my example here is the kill count which doesn't seem that bad if you compare to previous titles but I killed all badguys in the game and still didn't reach the limit. Also the developers went to the annoying fall back of beat the game on the hardest difficulty. The gameplay kind of got old in the third instance and well who wants to play number 3 on hard when you were able to go through the challenge of 1 and 2 with out having to up the difficulty to make it a good game.
• X Blades - The concept for this game seemed really nice there was adventure magic and weapons but no direction what so ever. I spent hours running around in circles before I even got to somewhere I could recognize and the enemies just respawn in rooms you've cleared. This game lost me.

     There are more, but I figure I'm going to get more detailed so this will be continued in a further post.
- William Dreimann

Prequels and Gaming Mishaps -

     Sometimes a prequel is a good thing, but mostly it's a bad thing in the world of gaming. I was reading a rant online about how a prequel always ruins a gaming franchise. Ironically this is mostly true. There are rare occurrences where a prequel works, but then again there are more instances of people asking WTF questions when it comes to a prequel game. For example a good prequel is another characters story that ties into the creation of the game, best example I have for this is Darksiders 2 which is a prequel in one hand but another story in the other. As the events are happening around or before the first game yeah the basic ideal leads to the ending but there is a lot more story to tell. Sadly THQ is down and out so the third and fourth parts may never come to light. I know it's not a perfect fit, but that's the best example I have. Most of the time the prequel leads to questions and errors which the majority of players hunt down and question as to why this does not effect the primary storyline of the original game. Here is a list of common errors.

• New weapons - So you made a prequel but decided to up the arsenal and oh yeah you made a whole new weapon set that our hero spends most of the game collecting. At the end of the game where we know what happens next you show our hero armed to the teeth. WHAT HAPPENED TO ALL THE GEAR WE PICKED UP???? God of War did a nice thing with some of the prequels and gave a partial explanation to what happened to the weapons by having Kratos be knocked out seeing the gods take his toys and continue onward.
• Harder more legendary bosses - Now this works as you have to keep the challenge level up but here's a question the boss of the first game claims to have defeated all others to stay on top, you mean to tell me the enemy I took out in 10 minutes beat up the guy it now takes me 26 minutes to defeat.... really?
• The Hero did it clause - I love this one this partially works with the Harder bosses deal as some story tellers play this card way too often so with my previous question in mind you tell the story as the player took out the harder boss and the boss of the first game used that moment to seize power thus using the Hero as a pawn.... smart move, but again may conflict with your original story.
• Time issues - some prequels get this hero storyline mixed up a bit and well lead to questions about time and the observations of characters. Example team mate in game one tells you that they have never seen monster a before in their life. Prequel game team mate makes appearance as hero of prequel fights same monster you see in primary game and helps you defeat this monster.... are you telling me this character forgot????
• Weapon power - Ok so before you get the ultimate weapon in original game you get an ultimate power in prequel that is stronger than ultimate in original... see new weapons

And these are just the common mistakes. I'd like to get into more specifics of this, but I'll be honest I let a lot of things go due to the fact that well the prequel was either ok or sucked.

- William Dreimann

Trophies = The want of something that isn't real that is.

     This is an aspect of the gaming industry I like and at the same time appall. With a simple sound you think you're awesome of are intrigued as to what you did to earn a little badge of pixels that you have to brag to your friends about. I will admit I'm overly guilty of this too. This should have been around in the 80's because it's amazing how simple this idea is and how that now it's really hard to find a game that doesn't want to use this option. For the non gamers let me clarify a bit of how a trophy or on Xbox the achievement works. This is for some of you parents out there.

Gaming lingo Definition
Trophy/Achievement - a pixelated badge for completing a goal set forth by a gaming company builds your player rank/score.

     Now let me clarify the ups and downs of this simple joy and why they get so popular and also so despised by a gamer.
Pros

• some are easy to get and well that's free points of showing your friends that you can play a game.
• some are for things that one normally would not do in the game allowing players to see other options of gameplay.
• some are inside jokes that well give the player a laugh and a feeling of understanding by the game company
• some are for things that one just would not think possible

Cons
I apologize ahead of time for some of this as you got to know how much this irritates me

• Some games are short and sweet but there are anal retentive people who say you've not completed a game till you get all of the things offered.
• some are pointless. I swear if I get another trophy for pressing pause.....
• Some are for things you just can't see doing. IE killing off 5.9 trillion bad guys in a game that is populated with no more than a thousand enemies.
• Some are for things no one really wants to do IE playing a game for 2 years straight.
• some give away that you have beaten the game

Now I'll admit there are some exaggerations there but not for the aspects of what you are thinking. This is why the idea is great and a bit iffy at the same time. I have no personal hatred for the idea, but sometimes there are things that would be a nice end to a bad game instead of trying to complete all the trophy aspects.

- William Dreimann

Collection of Disposable Media -

     I've noticed that when it comes to technology that everything is awesome until the next big thing hits. Thus a lot of the gaming industry is disposable media. What does this mean to you the consumer or you the gamer... It means that the sixty bucks you just wasted on a game is like buying a lemon car. Now before I get some pissed off gamers going nuts let me explain this two ways.
1.) Monetarily speaking after purchase your game loses value unless it's made of some amazing unbreakable material that we now consider currency it's almost of no value to anyone after you purchase and play it once. Seriously look at the prices of used games and new games. Somewhere in between there is a hell of a drop. Yeah market wise it's reasonable, but seriously collecting games holds no money value unless you are talking sentimental or auction value.
2.) The game library approach. I collect games so do my siblings and family it's what you do when you play games the games still hold no money value but sentimental value. I commented before it's like buying a lemon car. Let me clarify in the game library aspect of things. A lot of games as of late have been published somewhere near incomplete as with digital downloading we can get add ons and patches to fix games that are otherwise broken. Sad thing here is this is a growing trend. I'll be honest Let's take a game and break down what you're spending on:

Borderlands 2 (don't get me wrong folks I love this game but it's a great example)

• Game itself new day one purchase $60
• first add on extra character $5 (non exacts estimates)
• first add on extra area $10
• next add on area $10
• bonus heads and colors $5
• next area $10
• small extra arena $5

Right off the bat with this you've now spent $105 on things that in the PS 2 days would have been on the disc. Not that I'm arguing against the way things are done now, but this is a growing trend in gaming as you are spending a whole load of money but you only really thing you're spending a smaller portion. Because well you got the $60 out of the way in one shot, the rest doesn't seem so bad. Now I could go into greater detail here on things like season pass and other aspects, but seriously this makes a great point. The gaming industry is selling you lemons. Not that I'm calling Borderlands 2 a lemon, but games are coming out with more add ons that should be part of the game from the beginning than afterwards.
     This is why I'm for and cautious of the future of video gaming. Look at the specs we have gotten so far of the PS 4 I'm hearing more about online sharing and other aspects and less and less about games. ATTENTION GAME COMPANIES we already have computers and consoles lets focus on why we play the game and not how we can share and brag about a game that may as well be a guy farting on a snare drum just to say we can. Just in case this got a bit confusing as I'm rereading it myself I'm trying to clarify some things and don't want to over edit here. The future of gaming as it has been is great and I'm for it, but I'm cautious to see what comes next as I think it will be like me sharing a picture with facebook. Yeah it's funny and everyone will share, but that's not a great game. The videogames we know and love are disposable media and should be looked at as a part of our culture and our hobby of gaming. Hopefully the future will bring us great stories and awesome games that we can share and explain to future generations of how far the industry has come.

- William Dreimann

The gaming industry and the view of an avid player.

      I'm a gamer and to clarify I'm not speaking D&D, table top or card games I'm speaking the all mighty world of videogames. I don't classify myself as a hardcore gamer or a pro gamer because well I'm not. I'm an avid gamer through which does allow me to have a view of the industry and the gamers perspective on what is being handled, dished out and sold to us the public. Some of it is a game worth playing others are just nightmares that seem to be set for people who want an impossible challenge. I guess this can be considered my thesis of things to come as well I've got a lot of opinions of what is in the gaming market and some rather strong feelings of what is being put forth as a great idea for kids and other aspects of the industry that seem pointless.

      I will state the following facts, so if you choose to troll or argue against these basic facts that I'm going off of please realize you will be ignored.

FACTS:

• I am a playstation gamer, I will not speak of things I am not familiar with. DO NOT ask me why I don't refer to the Xbox or PC versions as most likely I do not have them and possibly will not play them unless otherwise noted.
• I don't deal with Fanboy bullshit. You like Microsoft over Sony or vice versa great... just don't bring your drama to me at all.
• If you disagree with my opinions great, you can state that but don't try to bash me down over a minor detail because you disagree. My blog = My opinions.
• I speak for myself and views brought to me from friends..... this does not mean I don't disagree with what I may be posting read all information before arguing.
• I am capable of mistakes. If you can prove me wrong or if things change as they do good I'm not infallible. If you make your point I'll respond gladly as such and all is good.

With all this being said I'll be working on bringing some of this madness to the surface. Hope you're happy to read or find something new here that may bring a little insight. Thank you for reading.

-  William Dreimann