Videos

  • It’s Okay to Hate Google Stadia.

    It’s Okay to Hate Google Stadia.

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    People who hate Stadia used to bother me. I like Stadia. But I also like Playstation, Xbox, Nintendo and any other company that wants to contribute to this wonderful world of video games that I love so much. My annoyance wasn’t so much due to an affinity for Stadia specifically. I was annoyed because this new thing, Stadia in this case, resurfaced armies of closed-minded dorks. And those close-minded dorks would inevitably stir up blind supporters and their bickering would bring forth a brand new war fought mostly by the uninformed while disinterested or semi-interested bystanders avoided the warring factions like trying to side-step around a person asking for your signature to support some cause you realize is probably important but not more important than avoiding talking to a stranger about that cause.

    Basically, what I’m saying is that when Google arrived with Stadia, some full on embraced the new technology, some fought vehemently against the new technology, and some took a sideline to see what would happen.

    I’m here to tell you, all three stances are important. That’s right. Stadia haters are needed. Blind devotees are needed. Passive onlookers are needed. (more…)

  • Why Did I Pre-Order Cyberpunk 2077 on Google Stadia, a Game Streaming Service?

    Why Did I Pre-Order Cyberpunk 2077 on Google Stadia, a Game Streaming Service?

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    I just found out that Cyberpunk 2077 will release on Google Stadia on the same day as it will release on consoles and PC. So of course I pre-ordered it! Wait, why did I do that. That actually seems kinda dumb.

    Look, Cyberpunk 2077 looks like it will be amazing. I don’t question my excitement for the game nor my desire to play it as soon as possible. That’s not the dumb part. But when it comes to pre-ordering a game on a streaming service, from a consumer standpoint, from a gamer standpoint, from a not developer or publisher standpoint, pre-ordering a game from a streaming service is pretty dumb. Again, I did this, so I did the dumb thing, and if you also did this dumb thing, funny defend your dumb act. Let’s be friends, bonded by our dumbness. Friends who get to play Cyberpunk 2077 on launch day at…2:00 am? Hey, we’re dumb, remember. Let’s do it. (more…)

  • Why do video games come with physical maps (other than to tempt me as a collector)?

    Why do video games come with physical maps (other than to tempt me as a collector)?

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    Maps, as a concept, are very helpful when nativating video game worlds. Modern exploration games almost always provide an in-game map, so the player can check their position and waypoints with just a click of a button. But when video games come packaged with physical, paper maps, I get confused.

    Physical video game maps may have served their purpose in the past. There’s an argument to be made that retro video games lacked the on-board memory required for full in-game maps, especially detailed ones, so physical maps could actually be useful. But modern games? Why do they sometimes come with paper video game maps?

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  • Stadia’s direction, console lies, and games I played this month (September 2020 Channel Recap)

    Stadia’s direction, console lies, and games I played this month (September 2020 Channel Recap)

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    I had a lot going on in September 2020. In this video I recap what went on regarding my channel and regarding my video gaming life. Get ready for a video roundup, podcast roundup, “what I’m playing” roundup, and “what I’m reading”…also a roundup. (more…)

  • How to Play Mafia 3 in 4 Easy Steps

    How to Play Mafia 3 in 4 Easy Steps

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    Mafia 3 is a crime game set in a fully explorable open sandbox 1960’s New Orleans proxy called New Bordeaux, so the first and most important step in finishing Mafia 3 is to yearn for a life in 1960s New Orleans.

    Step 1: Yearn for a life in 1960s New Orleans

    There’s lots to love about 1960s New Orleans. It’s got lots of hungry alligators and it’s got lots of bad guys. And therefore, it’s got lot’s of entertainment. As the old New Orleans saying goes, “Laissez les bons temps rouler”, which is French for Let the bad guys roll into the mouths of hungry alligators.

    A LOT of your time will be spent feeding alligators. Which is to say a LOT of your time will be spent avoiding the actual game missions to instead feed alligators. Much of the fun of sandbox games like Mafia 3 or the Grand Theft Auto series or actual sandboxes is pushing the limits of the game’s systems to do things that the game designers didn’t expect the player to do. Except Psycho Phil, the Mafia 3 physics engineer. We’re all pretty sure that even though no mission tells you to, he secretly hoped players would line up dead bodies and drive over them like some sort of a classy and sadistic Monster Truck rally.

    Playing period pieces like this will open your eyes to how far we’ve come with our crimes. Mafia 3 taught me that in the 1960s, anyone could wiretap a phone line using an easily accessible junction box, a crowbar, and some found parts. What kind of parts, you ask. Just, just parts. 3 of them, specifically. All you had to do in the 1960s was open a junction box with a crowbar, smoosh some parts in there, and boom, you now can hear your neighbors discuss dinner plans and you can use those plans to commit some kind of dinner crimes. Those dummies. Just giving out all that crime data.

    Step 2: But DON’T yearn for the RACIST part of 1960’s New Orleans

    The player character, Lincoln Clay, is a non-white person during a very racists time of a very racists part of the American south. This tension is what drives much of the player’s motivation during the game. If you’re cool with racism, you’re not going to like this game.

    Mafia 3 is the fastest selling 2K game ever, so by the logic of capitalism, that means racism is dead, right? Yeah.

    Oh, but those sales didn’t continue, and because the game cost so much to make, the game turned out to be a financial loss. Boooo.

    Step 3: Pick your body piling spot wisely

    The missions of Mafia 3 are repetitive. In most missions, you are tasked with killing a guy who sends waves of other guys at you, so you must kill them as well. Kill all those guys, then kill the main bad guy, and eventually you win the game.

    The smart player will start each mission by choosing a place to hide all of the forthcoming dead bodies, then whistling to get the attention of a forthcoming dead body, then waiting patiently until the forthcoming dead body wanders close like an idiot who thinks a strange whistle is ever not a trick, and finally the smart player will make the forthcoming dead body a current dead body before throwing the current dead body in your pre-selected dead body storage area.

    I’ve had park bench body areas, bathroom body areas, shower body areas, but my favorite is the gatehouse body area because, I like the way the small room makes the piled bodies look even more piled.

    Mafia 3 is by far the best body stacking simulator I’ve ever played. And maybe even better than real body stacking, but it’s hard to say because it’s been so long since I worked at that tiny morgue.

    Step 4: subscribe to this channel

    I know that step seems self serving, but that’s what the game says to do. (dub over subscribe over recruiting boss). So you’d better do it. Remember all those dead bodies I talked about? Those guys didn’t subscribe. I’m not saying there’s a correlation, but I’m not not saying it.

    Music Credits

    • Pump Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com), Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
    • “Edm Detection Mode” by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.com) Licence: CC BY (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
  • A Review of The Suicide of Rachel of Foster of (game review)

    A Review of The Suicide of Rachel of Foster of (game review)

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    I heard that The Suicide of Rachel Foster is a lot like What Remains of Edith Finch, so I knew I had to play it because I love seeing games fail to be greater than the greatest game of all time. I’m probably approaching this game unfairly, huh? (more…)

  • Playstation AND Xbox Both Lie to Us About How They Approach Console Generations

    Playstation AND Xbox Both Lie to Us About How They Approach Console Generations

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    Hey Xbox and Playstation fans, I’m one of you, I love video games, and I’ve got some wonderful news to share with you. Xbox. Playstation. They both believe in console generations. They just lie to us about it differently. Maybe “wonderful” isn’t the way to describe that news, but it’s one less thing we all need to waste energy fighting about. (more…)