Video Game Tuesday: Violent Games Are Not The Problem

I’m back with a topic that is really starting to piss me off for this week’s Video Game Tuesday. Violent Games Are Not The Problem!

What?: So recently our beloved leader of the United States Vladimir Putin Trump, and no I don’t like Trump if you can’t tell from me implying that he’s a puppet of a foreign government, stated that he believes that violent media, namely movies and Video Games are at fault for influencing people to become more violent. I have so many problems with this bullshit that I could rant for ages. I won’t though, and will stick to a few paragraphs at most.

Video Games Do NOT Cause Violent Behavior: The American Psychological Association (APA) has stated in a recent memo that there is no viable link between violent games and movies and violent behavior. These are people who perform hundreds of studies and actually know what the fuck they are talking about. So the next time you turn on the news, and no Fox isn’t actually a news channel it was made for sensationalism not accurate or even coming close to factual reporting; and hear a person saying video games are the problem, ignore them. They have no idea what they are talking about. Besides if that was the case, and it isn’t because even watching an episode of Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood could cause a kid to become violent, there would be so many mass shootings around the world that most of humanity would be dead or hiding in the ruins of civilization.

Here’s the quote from the APA “The less publicized, more scientifically sound view [is] that little evidence exists that playing violent video games produces violent criminal behavior”.

So when Trump announced his meeting with video game industry leaders I was more then a bit pissed off. This isn’t the first time something like this has happened, in 2013 Vice President Biden held a similar meeting with industry leaders and it went nowhere because they aren’t the issue. Easy access to guns and poor mental health care are the things we should be focused on. The fact that so many people with mental health issues are not being helped by the government is a huge problem, and it’s not just an American issue.

We don’t as Humans have enough care for people with issues like severe depression. So many people believe that it’s something you can just get over, and that’s patently not true. I’ve dealt with severe depression for many, many years and it has never once gone away. I’ve had times in the past where I was almost able to forget the negative sides of myself, but it never fully went away. There’s always a part of me telling myself that I’m an utter failure and waste of oxygen. That I should just give up and find some shallow ditch to lay down and die in. But I’ve never once performed a criminal act of violence against another person. And I’ve been playing video games longer than I’ve known and felt my severe depression.

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

Video Game Tuesday: Swatting is Stupid

This week for Video Game Tuesday I wish I wasn’t writing this post.  Swatting is Stupid, among many other things.

Wait what?: So a little less than two weeks ago there was an incident in Wichita, Kansas (which is part of the US if you are unaware) where some asshole swatted a completely unrelated man who was fatally shot. Andrew Finch was the victim, and in respect to him and his family I won’t be naming the bastard who did the actual call.  I’ll just be referring to him as the “Asshole” from now on in this post.

What is Swatting?: Well I’m not talking about a playful slap or trying to squash a bug. I’m referring to the practice that has become a trend in recent years that has people falsely calling in highly dangerous situations into law enforcement agencies to interrupt other people. Whether they be streamers who regularly broadcast on Twitch to some poor sap who just handed someone else their ass, all these people are victims of an incredibly stupid stunt. I’m not going to call it a prank, because pranks don’t get people killed. It was really just a matter of time until this occurred, but the fact that it happened at all is incredibly telling of how toxic the online world can get.

Andrew Finch was a father and husband who didn’t even play online. So when Asshole lost in a game of Call of Duty he proceeded to Swat someone else thinking it was the person who had just beat him. It wasn’t, and it’s a very sad situation that occurred. Law Enforcement teams that are often termed as SWAT are frequently some of the mostly highly trained people in their respective forces, but even they make mistakes which can lead to tragic consequences.  In addition to actually taking care of situations where innocent lives can be lost because they didn’t act on a subtle cue on a regular basis, these teams are often among the first responders to arrive at a mass shooting situation. So they are under huge amounts of stress. While a portion of the blame goes towards the Law Enforcement teams of Wichita, it wouldn’t have even occurred if Asshole wasn’t being such a childish prick.

Asshole is now in custody and awaiting extradition to Kansas where he’ll be tried on multiple felony charges.

Wait you can get arrested for this?: Of course you’ll get arrested for pulling shit like Swatting. Making a false emergency call is a misdemeanor in the US according to a quick Google search while writing this post, but it can become a felony in certain situations. Such situations include calling in false threats, which is the main way Swatting occurs. For those unaware what the difference is, the general rule of thumb is that a misdemeanor is a crime in which you will go to jail, but not prison. Felonies on the other hand are crimes in which if you are found guilty of said crime you’ll go to a prison. There are differences, jails are short term while prisons are long term. So the general rule of thumb is that you go to jail for less than a year with a misdemeanor and you’ll be enjoying prison food for over a year if you commit a felony.

So moral of the story is really simple. DON’T SWAT. It’s stupid, dangerous and highly illegal.

That’s it for this week’s Video Game Tuesday. I’ll hopefully be back to a more regular post next week.

 

Video Game Tuesday: Story Censorship

Hey all I’m back with a topic that has meaning especially today for those in the US and EU. It’s all about Story Censorship!

Story Censorship?: I mean changing things in a game that affect the story, this could be removing missions or changing certain animations or models or scenes graphically to avoid getting hit with a higher rating. I hate this, it’s hypocritical and if you have to do so to ship a game with a “certain” rating you aren’t doing your customers and yourself any favors.

Give me an example: Today Tales of Berseria is launching in the US. In Japan there is a certain scene that occurs that directly impacts the story, and because of it’s graphic nature it was toned down to keep a certain rating. Bandai Namco America and EU have both said it won’t change the tone of the story. I’m here to tell you that any changes made, graphically or otherwise does affect the story. A game’s story isn’t made up of just gameplay.The story is made up of the text, the voice acting, the art, the music, and the gameplay. It all affects the story, so changing even a single part of that can and will change the intended tone that you as a consumer will experience. Normally I have great respect for Bandai Namco for bringing the Tales of series west much more often in the past decade, but the simple fact that they need to change the scene at all is a disservice to both themselves and us as consumers. I hope to be receiving a copy of Berseria to review, but regardless of whether or not I do receive it, I will be keeping this change in mind and it will affect my score, not greatly most likely but it will affect it.

There are other examples, like the Russian mission in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 which caused a very big controversy, but they are all disservices to everyone. Make it known that you ought to receive the original story intact, so you can experience it as intended. Otherwise you’ll be getting inferior games.

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

Video Game Tuesday: Launch Day Madness

Hey all for this week’s Video Game Tuesday I’m going to cover a topic most of you will probably be familiar with after last week. It’s all about Launch Day Madness!

What’s Launch Day Madness?: Well it’s just a made up term I use when talking about a launch of a particular game and the breaking of various things that occur on that day.

Like what?: Well, for one and probably the one most people are familiar with after last week’s launch of Pokemon GO, the servers are down, or busy. The reason behind this is fairly obvious, too many people at one time. Even if some people get in just fine it’s more due to their own luck, or foresightedness at logging in early, rather than you just being unlucky. If a game can’t handle the massive amount of people logging in when brand new content launches than the IT team behind the game has severely miscalculated the anticipated user base, or it’s increased influx. That was the case with Pokemon GO for most people that I know, and myself personally. I still haven’t caught a single ‘Mon myself yet. The server went down before I could catch my first one.

What else?: Well it could also be the website used to register users can be down, another thing people are probably familiar with after last week’s launch of GO. Sane reasoning, although not to the same extent, probably only up to 80% of the user base if it’s a new game. It can also be that certain parts of the game don’t work, like Instances in World of Warcraft’s The Burning Crusade or Wrath of the Lich King expansion launches.

Even if it’s not people having issue logging in, the servers might be unable to handle a certain amount of players in one area and that area’s server might go down. Like the Eastern Kingdoms going down during the Wrath launch.  Or it may cause server restarts causing people to quit the game and stop playing for up to a few hours.

That’s it for this week’s Video Game Tuesday! Do you have a favorite Launch Day Madness story? Share it below!

 

Retro Game Friday: My Favorite Imbalanced Items

This week for Retro Game Friday I’m doing another list! It’s My Favorite Imbalanced Items!

The Pistol from Halo: This baby was given to you in the very first level, and if you ever dropped it in favor of something else without picking it back up after emptying the ammo of whatever you picked up, you were playing the game wrong. This thing had ammo almost everywhere, and except for the most annoying level The Library, could be used to devastating effect from the first level to the final level. It had a zoom function, could kill most enemies in a few shots (including the Hunter enemies) and in multiplayer had no trail like a Sniper Rifle had. This thing was stupidly overpowered and was nerfed in later entries, although Halo: Reach and ODST did bring it back to a somewhat decent level of power.

The Fierce Diety Mask from The Legend of Zelda Majora’s Mask: The only thing preventing this monster from completely breaking the game was the fact that it was only usable in Boss Fights, but with it makes the final boss completely powerless to stop you. The way to get this item was to get every mask in the game and present them to the Skeleton Kid in the final dungeon, so it’s really only useable in the final fight if you don’t plan on playing the game after beating the final boss.

Farsight from Perfect Dark: This gun let you see through walls and then shoot through walls to kill your enemies. Oh and it automatically aims at your enemies. Need I say more?

The Unrelenting Force Shout from Skyrim: Given how many mountains this game has, or cliffs, or something to push someone off of, this shout becomes completely unbalanced in any situation when you are at a location with a decent height and place to push things off of. Pretty funny to use on the Bandit’s near Whiterun on the bridge.

Knights of the Round from Final Fantasy VII: While it really required a clever mixture of materia to cast endlessly to be put to best use, it still was the main force behind the complete imbalance it brought to the game. Thankfully it was hidden towards the end of the game, and if you were focused purely on the story it wouldn’t even be possible to get it, but if you did and used the mimic materia on the next party member they’d cast it too, and so on.

Mehrune’s Razor from Skyrim: I’m not done with you yet Skyrim, this Daedric artifact had an incredibly overpowered proc ability that would instantly kill a target, which while having a low rate of success was increased if you delayed getting the artifact until you well above the minimum level of 16 to start the quest to get it. To make things even worse, it was a dagger, one of the fastest hitting weapons in the game. Needless to say, having this allowed thief build characters in Skyrim to absolutely destroy people, especially once they gained the ability to enter stealth in combat by crouching.

Crissaegrim from Castlevania Symphony of the Night: This is probably my favorite item in the Castlevania series, more because of the mythology behind the weapon, than the fact that it completely broke the game, and dear god if you had two of them it was devastating. Crissaegrim had no animation lock when using it, which means that you could use it while moving, and it would swing as fast as you could hit the button. The fact that a single press of the button would have the weapon hit 2-3 times in a split second wasn’t even fair at all. The only thing making this even slightly balanced, and it isn’t really at all, was the drop rate. However clever people would go to a certain room to farm the enemy that dropped the item over and over again, until it dropped. Even more clever people would then repeat the process once more with it in hand to get a second one, because it’s possible to dual wield the monster.

That’s it for this week’s Retro Game Friday, are there some favorite Imbalanced Items of yours that I left out? Leave a comment below with your favorites.