Video Game Tuesday: Oddball Uses of Gaming Tech

Hey all I’m back with a fun Video Game Tuesday. It’s some Oddball Uses of Gaming Tech!

PlayStation 3s in Hospitals: These were networked PS3s used for their processing power, it was cheaper to buy these consoles than other PC hardware for hospitals. The only way I know about this is because my Dad sold technology to hospitals for his job and he remarked on it at dinner one night.

Simulating Fake Crowds: Yeah you’ve probably heard about this, or seen it on TV if you watch sports, but various TV providers are now using game engines to produce fake crowds for sporting events and other things due to COVID-19. It’s going about as well as you might expect, which is to say as well as a flaming trash can. Don’t look too close at the crowds, or you’ll notice how utterly fake they are.

That’s it for this week’s Video Game Tuesday. What are some of your favorite oddball uses of gaming tech? Post them in a comment down below.

Video Game Tuesday: Next Gen Thoughts

Hey all I’m back with some of my ponderings regarding the next generation of consoles for this week’s Video Game Tuesday. It’s my Next Gen Thoughts!

Which is more powerful?: Let’s just get this out there right now, it’s a pretty close race between the two machines, Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5, with the Series X having a bit more processing power, while the PlayStation 5 has a near instantaneous load time due to it’s SSD according to Sony. Frankly we don’t know all the differences just quite yet, we might have learned them by now if they had some big news conference ala E3, but with COVID still an issue that has really hampered both Sony and Microsoft’s ability to make such things.

Which are you going to buy?: At this point I’ll probably be getting the PlayStation 5, but that’s personal preference for the game lineup thus far. This could change in the future, but as of right now that’s my current decision. I’m more interested in the Spider-Man game than I am in another Halo game.

Maybe that’ll change in the next few months, but those are my thoughts thus far.

What are you planning to get, if at all?

Video Game Tuesday: A Note on Review Scores

This week for Video Game Tuesday I’m answering a question I was asked a few days back. It’s A Note on Review Scores!

Review Scores?: First off if you don’t read my game reviews on GiN, this post won’t really affect you. That being said I ask that you do take a look at them if you can. Now regarding my review scores I’ve been asked why I’ve given several games 0’s, either in certain categories or just across the board in general. I have good reasons for doing that, and they fall into generally three categories, as I’ve only done it 3 times, although the third time the developers actually fixed the issue before my review was posted so I went back and didn’t give 0s across the board like I intially did.

My First Reason: Playing the game, Coffin Dodgers, made me physically ill. I couldn’t play it for more than 15 minutes before I got so sick I had to run to the bathroom to throw up. I don’t get motion sickness in general, though I do get it on extreme cases like very twisty roads like the Road to Hana on Maui. So I gave that game some 0s for it’s score. If it didn’t have frame rate issues, with multiple frames missing each second I would have been fine and I’d probably have enjoyed the game quite a bit.

My Second Reason: Plagiarism and Laziness, Sword and Fairy 6 is a Chinese RPG that was utter crap. It had terrible localization, plagiarized the hell out of Starcraft out of sheer laziness and was in general unplayable, period. It had frame-rate issues, the opening cinematic was utter nonsense and the very first on screen tutorials had multiple instances of improper grammar on just one screen. Games are made by people who should take pride in their work, if I don’t see that in the game, I have very little reasons to score it favorably.

My Third Reason: Being unbeatable, literally. Star Horizon is a game I reviewed very recently and it’s 8th level was literally unbeatable. They didn’t include certain enemy targets in that mission which led to mission failure, nothing I did fixed that issue until they patched it a couple weeks later. If a game isn’t actually beatable, I don’t care how amazing the story and gameplay might be, I’m going to give the game 0’s and advise people to avoid it like the plague.

I hope this clarified my stance on Review Scores.

Video Game Tuesday: Some Favorite Soundtracks

Hey all I’m back with a look at some of my favorite music in gaming for this week’s Video Game Tuesday.  It’s Some Favorite Soundtracks!

Ocarina of Time: For me this was the first game that I really loved the music to. So much so in fact that me and my brother could play various songs from the game on the piano when we were both younger. Although I’ll freely admit that he is a much better musician than I ever was. It was amusing to listen to our dog Sachi sing along with us though when we played the Song of Storms. If you’ve never heard a singing Shiba Inu, you should look up a YouTube video on it.

Final Fantasy XIII: I loved the music of this game, in fact Blinded by Light is still the song I set my various iDevices alarms to use.

Tales of Zestiria: I love the music of this game almost as much as I loved the gameplay. Since this is one of my personal top 10 RPGs of all time that is saying something.

Final Fantasy XIV: I love pretty much every song in this game, and I will download the soundtracks whenever they get released because of that. From Twilight over Thanalan to the Shadowbringer Theme, every song is awesome.

Tales of Berseria: Like with Zestiria I loved the music of Berseria, the fact that this is probably my favorite JRPG ever doesn’t hurt either.

That’s it for this week’s Video Game Tuesday. What are some of your favorite game soundtracks?

Video Game Tuesday: Good Games to play in Quarantine

This week for Video Game Tuesday I’m back with a list. It’s some Good Games to play in Quarantine!

Skyrim: This shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone who has ever heard of this game but if you’ve got a fairly decent PC Skyrim has nearly endless potential for gameplay with it’s countless mods that have been released in the nearly 9 years since it first released. Even if you don’t have a PC Skyrim is full of fun things to do for those in Quarantine. Whether it’s collecting every piece of Cheese in the province of Skyrim or just following the story you’ll have plenty to do.

Bonus Suggestion:

Morrowind: If you are feeling really adventurous you can load up Morrowind, it’s been out for 18 years and it also has plenty of mods to use. Thankfully this game should run just fine on almost any PC that’s been made since 2010. I do suggest getting a mod that increases your run speed though. You do move very slowly in that game.

Tales of Berseria: I’ve always loved the Tales of games, and Tales of Berseria is the best of the bunch. It’s got an amazing story, fantastic gameplay, excellent graphics and musical score. Frankly this is a must play regardless, but you might find this to be a very fun game to play if you need something else to do and prefer JRPGs over Western RPGs.

Persona 5 Royal: Sadly this game is only on the PlayStation 4, but Persona 5 Royal is a great game that has a fantastic story and while less action oriented than most RPGs, it’s still a very fun game.

Minecraft: Like Skyrim, Minecraft on the PC has plenty of mods, and is literally endlessly replayable, although some might get bored eventually.

No Man’s Sky: This game has come a very long way since it first released and has gotten very good. If you want to explore a nearly endless galaxy full of planets and moons to land on, No Man’s Sky is the game to play.

That’s it for this week’s Video Game Tuesday.