Let’s explore Ubisoft’s innovative NEO NPC prototype, learning about its creation, functionalities, and possible effects on the gaming market. We’ll also discover how this revolutionary innovation promises to transform virtual world immersion, narratives, and player-NPC interactions.

What is Ubisoft’s New NEO NPC Prototype

Have you ever wished to converse with an in-game non-player character? An actual conversation carried out via unscripted action and response? To make this vision a reality, a small R&D team at Ubisoft’s Paris office has been working with generative AI. With the help of GenAI, their project, NEO NPC, pushes the boundaries of what a player can communicate with an NPC without undermining the authenticity of the scenario they find themselves in or the NPC’s character.

Ubisoft launched a Neo NPC prototype at the GDC. The prototype enables users to engage with NPCs that have unique personalities and experiences. These Neo NPCs include novel functions that give them the ability to react to players with spontaneous speech, contextual awareness, and real-time emotion and animation. With the use of advanced AI algorithms and machine learning techniques, NEO NPC technology gives virtual characters a higher degree of flexibility and autonomy.

NEO NPCs can create stronger bonds with players by using intricate speech systems, facial animations, and emotional responses. It can significantly increase player involvement and story engagement. 

Overall, the NEO NPC technology from Ubisoft is a big step in the direction of gaming that blurs the boundaries between virtual and real worlds. 

What Could NEO NPC Mean For Video Games?

The launch of NEO NPC technology from Ubisoft has a significant impact on the future of video games. An indication of what it might entail for the gaming industry:

Enhanced Immersion

Because NEO NPC technology creates more realistic and lifelike virtual worlds, it promises to greatly improve immersion. With NPCs showing actions and reactions that resemble those of actual people, players will get even more absorbed in the game world.

Dynamic Gameplay 

Games using NEO NPC technology have dynamic and unpredictable gameplay thanks to NPCs, which can respond to player actions in real time. It implies that gamers will have to deal with a virtual environment that is smarter and more sensitive.

Richer Storytelling

NEO NPCs’ advanced AI skills allow developers to create stories that are more intricate and detailed. Now, characters can have deep conversations, build intricate bonds with players, and make significant contributions to the story as it evolves.

Personalized Experiences

NEO NPC technology uses machine learning algorithms to customize gameplay to match each player’s preferences and play style. 

Increased Social Dynamics

Multiplayer and social gaming experiences are made possible by NEO NPC technology. Envision online environments where NPCs possess the ability to establish connections, rivalries, and bonds with both human players and other NPCs.

Of course, any new protocol will have some pros and cons:

Pros

• Players will feel more immersed owing to the NEO NPC prototype’s more realistic behaviors and interactions. 
• The game is more exciting and surprising when NEO NPCs can adjust to player actions thanks to their advanced AI skills. 
• Furthermore, by providing NPCs with more detailed personalities, motivations, and relationships, the prototype enables the telling of stories that are more intricate and subtle. 
• By offering more memorable and significant interactions, NEO NPCs can help players and characters develop deeper emotional bonds. 

Cons

• Developing advanced NPC behavior calls for a large investment of time and knowledge in development, which could result in longer development cycles and higher development expenses. 
• NEO NPCs’ greater complexity may put a burden on hardware resources, which could result in problems with performance or restrictions on gaming systems with lower processing power. 
• Moreover, the handling of virtual characters and the depiction of sensitive topics may become more ethically problematic as NPCs become more lifelike and autonomous. 
• It could take some time for players to become used to the intricacies of interacting with NEO NPCs. It could cause them to become frustrated or confused at first. 
• Older games or systems, may not support the advanced capabilities of NEO NPC. It makes it inaccessible to a portion of the user base. 

Possible Issues When It Comes to Voice Actors in Industry

When it comes to voice actors in this industry, several potential issues may arise. These may be…

Job Displacement

Traditional voice actors may worry about losing their jobs because of synthesized or procedurally generated voices as NEO NPC technology develops. It can result in opposition from advocacy organizations or voice actor unions, as well as job instability.

Quality Issues

Although NEO NPC technology might have amazing powers, it might be difficult to replicate the emotional richness and subtlety that come from using human voice actors. It could affect the complete gaming experience by making NPCs sound artificial or robotic.

Ethical Issues 

Using synthetic voices without obtaining the appropriate permission or paying voice performers may raise ethical questions. Ownership of synthetic voice data and intellectual property rights may come up.

Diversity & Representation

In video games, voice actors frequently have a major impact on how diverse characters are portrayed. There might be worries that diverse voice actors will not have as many possibilities because of NEO NPC technology.

Technical Difficulties

Effective NEO NPC technology implementation might need a large amount of technological know-how and funding. For voice synthesis algorithms to generate speech that sounds natural in a variety of languages, accents, and emotions, they must be continuously improved. 

Acceptance by Customers

When it comes to voice acting and NPC interactions, players may have different tastes. While some players could enjoy the novelty and ease of synthesized voices, others would value the familiarity and authenticity of human performances. For game producers, striking a balance between these preferences and preserving immersion and engagement may prove to be difficult.

Following the popularity of Aeon of Strife, WarCraft III's release in mid-2002 brought the creation of Defense of The Ancients, or DoTA for short, thanks to a modder by the name of Eul. The new developer of Defense of the Ancients incorperated much more complex systems into his creation, adding in a "jungle" between the lanes filled with more powerful, yet rewarding monsters that spawned every minute, and items to pick up and buy from a store at the very back of either team's base. Shortly after DoTA's creation, Eul decided that his own work was done, and left the modding scene for good. As Eul had left no legacy, or people to assist, modders came from all around to try and create their own evolution of Defense of the Ancients, dozens of different and tweaked versions popping up all over the place. After the release of WarCraft III's expansion, known as "The Frozen Throne", a person known as Meian made a variant that, although closely resembling Eul's original map, featured the best community made heroes of the time, and was named DoTA: Allstars. A few months following, Meian left as well (Yeesh, reported for AFK), however, unwilling to repeat Eul's mistake, granted the rights to DoTA's legacy to Steve Feak, also known as Guinsoo.Guinsoo had his own batch of changes for the ever-changing game, and helped proper the popularity of DoTA even further.

Guinsoo spent over a year adjusting, recreating and making the game the best that he could, as well as vastly re-imagining the map's layout, before finally stepping down, handing over development to a good friend of his, by the name of Neichus. After barely a few weeks, Neichus felt unworthy to carry the torch of DoTA's already popular legacy, and stepped down to hand development over to a modder named IceFrog, who changed nearly everything about DoTA: Allstars excluding the heroes, editing the mechanics, complexity, item diversity, as well as other factors. (At which point during development the pinnacle of difficulty and complexity, Invoker, was spawned, I can not say, but he's a real monster to try and play - trust me.) IceFrog's changes made him quickly loved by the community, and, with the creation of a DoTA forum and website, active users were reported to have reached above the one million mark. One. Million. People. All playing the same mod.

2008 marked the true beginning of the MOBA genre, with Gas-Powered Games releasing a full-priced game known as Demigod, featuring both player-versus-player combat and offline play against the computer. A free flash game called Minions was also released, instead focusing on simplistic visuals and a much easier gaming experience. However, neither of these could even get close to DoTA's near-total domination of the genre at the time, Demigod being rife with bugs and glitches to hamper the gameplay experience, and with Minions lacking the deep complexity and variation that DoTA had, with a mere six heroes, or eight if you bought an additional pack.

Heroes of Newerth was also developed to completion in 2010, developed by S2 Games as a almost entirely faithful adaptation of DoTA: Allstars. However, due to sale concerns, the game was shifted to the free-to-play model which is so prevalent in MOBA games today. Other heroes were added by S2 Games, making Heroes of Newerth it's own beast entirely.

Competition only heated up in 2009, with Riot Games' (founded in 2006 by Brandon Beck and Mark Merrill League of Legends finally showing up on the scene. This project was headed by Steve Feak, also known as Guinsoo, who had his own hands in DoTA's production. Riot Games themselves coined the term MOBA as the genre, short for Multiplayer Online Battle Arena. In the same year, Valve hired the stillambiguousIceFrog to work for them and help create a sequel to DoTA: Allstars.

League of Legends was a breath of fresh air into the MOBA genre, myself logging a rather disgusting amount of hours played in the few years I myself picked the game up for(2556 hours, according to a stat-tracker. I should really get a life). League of Legends was made with much less complexity than DoTA, but still managed to keep the fun and steep learning curve that DoTA prided itself upon. League of Legends has a new champion added roughly every month or so, and is as ruthlessly addictive as you might expect from a MOBA. DoTA 2, however, had finished completion in 2013, first announced in 2010 by GameInformer's website. (The resulting interest in the sequel's announcement crashed GameInformer's website - talk about a loyal fanbase!), and DoTA 2 was completed with Valve's insane level of polish and attention to detail, even enlisting Eul (the one and only) to help out with development. Between Valve, IceFrog and Eul, DoTA 2's creation was widely accepted, and the two titans of the genre have butted heads ever since.

Both League of Legends and DoTA 2 have a fierce fanbase, who constantly seem to wish to remind the other party of which game is better. In all honesty, which game you prefer is entirely up to you. There is no true better game, and which is better for you is entirely determined on your own tastes. I personally play both DoTA 2 and League of Legends on a regular basis, and greatly enjoy theseparateexperiences of both games. DoTA 2, League of Legends, and Heroes of Newerth are absolutely free to play, and are a blast to play once you get used to them. The MOBA genre is great fun, and you're thoroughly missing out if you don't play one of these in your lifetime.

This is hopefully the first of many articles for "Zerg Rush!", a weekly article not just focusing on the background of genres, but the reasons for their popularity, fanbase, and overall sales values, as well as poking a bit of fun at the gaming community if given a chance. MOBAs are pretty great, guys.

Now listen. I know what you're thinking. But seriously, the Wii U Is just about the sickest thing to be sitting in my living room since my elderly grandma (Love you Gran, get well soon xx). 

And I'm not just saying this because I got it back when it was still like $600. Since getting the Wii U, I've accumulated a fine assortment of games; Shovel Knight, Mario Kart 8, Super Smash Bros.Brawl, Lego City Undercover, Lego Hobbit, Just Dance 3 etc. 

While playing these on and off I got my PS4. I love the PS4 and love . . . most of the games I have for it. . . Around the same time my neighbor got an XBOX ONE. But as many people who got an Xbox or a PlayStation know, the launch title games weren't all that great . . . A lot of issues and a lot of disappointment. Ryse: Son of Rome? More like 'Son of the Bargain Bin'. Watch_Dogs? More like 'I'd rather be Watching my mum get eaten by Dogs'. Sure a lot of people love these games (I myself love the look of Ryse and think it's a pretty groovy game) but the general consensus seems to be one of disappointment. Assassin's Creed Unity, The Master Chief Collection it feels like every game coming out is being disliked by heaps of people.

Here's where the Wii U comes in. Mario Kart 8: Straight upgrade, no complaints. Bayonetta: More of what everyone loves. Lego Hobbit: Great Lego game, open world, fun for all ages. That's one of the things the Wii U has going for it, it's a console for all ages. From Skylanders to Resident Evil, gamers of all ages and skill levels can enjoy it.

The games coming out are so hype. The new Zelda, new Yoshi, new Kirby, XenobladeChornicles and even a new Starfox! This is so fly. Now of course I'm hyped for games like Bloodborne (Sorry Xbox owners) but the Wii U's track record for rad games is consistent. Captain Toad is such a basic idea but it's done so well and it's a heap of fun! Amiibos are fresh to death (even if they're getting a bit costly). I'm getting butterflies in my stomach just thinking about how sweet all this new stuff for Wii U is, and I just don't get the same feelings for many of the games coming to PS4 and Xbox.

Keep in mind I am still plenty excited for a lot of PS4 and Xbox games (I'm sure my neighbour will continue to let me use his Xbox), and this is all just my opinion but the evidence is there. This war is over. N1nt3nd0 izthasikest.

(Inb4 PC Master Race)

(Please keep in mind that my opinions may or may not reflect your own, this list is entirely biased)

The BFG 9000 from the DOOM series

With a name that is literally an abbreviation for "Big Fucking Gun," you can just imagine the kind of sheer force that is expelled from the barrel of this monster. The BFG 9000 fires highly concentrated bolts of plasma that explode into an immensely powerful concussive shockwave vaporizing anything unlucky enough be to within range. The BFG also appears in the DOOM film that was released in 2005, but it was renamed as the Bio Force Gun.

The Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device from the Portal Series

While not a weapon per say, the Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device, otherwise known as the Portal Gun (or as I like to call it, the ASHPoD) is used primarily for opening miniature wormholes to get you from point A to point B much faster. This also makes solving the puzzles issued by the psychotic GLaDOS during her little "tests" much easier as just about all of them need the Portal Gun in order to complete them. Plus if you happen to know a thing or two about physics, you could turn all of those cubes that you have to lug around into catapults using gravity alone.

The Needler from the Halo series

Unlike most people, I happened to like the Needler from the first Halo. If used properly, the weapon's explosive glass needles would deal a ton of damage against whoever was unfortunate enough to be on the receiving end. I suppose the only real downfall is the fact that its shots moved through the air at a snail's pace, but in my opinion, the homing feature makes up for that. Plus it can be dual wielded in Halo 2, doubling the amount of explosive crystalline fury at hand.

The Super Scope accessory from Nintendo

Unlike every other gun on this list, the Super Scope was a real accessory that was made by Nintendo for use with a small handful of games on the SNES. It was calibrated with a sensor that was placed on top of your TV set and was powered by six AA batteries. Because of the impact this particular weapon had on the gaming community (and because of how cool it looked), this weapon was revived in the Super Smash Bros series, but instead of it being a harmless toy, it instead fired bolts of light that could be charged up for extra power.

The Scarborough Fair from Bayonetta

While this weapon is technically four separate handguns by the names of Parsley, Sage, Rosemary, and Thyme, the Scarborough Fair instead feels like one gun as they are part of Bayonetta's fighting style called Bullet Arts. She grips one gun in each hand and the other two are strapped to the heals of her boots. They are made of a demonic alloy that makes them virtually indestructible and are used for killing angels due to a contract she made with a demon called Madama Butterfly. These guns are replaced by a blue variant called Love is Blue in the sequel, but I think these guns are more cleverly named and look much better as red.

The R.Y.N.O. from the Ratchet & Clank series

Bought by a shady looking merchant at the end of an alley on a distant planet, the R.Y.N.O. is a portable auto-targeting rocket launcher with multiple barrels making it obscenely powerful, especially considering that "R.Y.N.O." is short for "Rip You a New One." It also changes its appearance in each game, but that doesn't diminish its power in the slightest. It's just too bad that it is the most expensive weapon in the series, often costing millions of bolts to purchase.

The Morph Gun from the Jak & Daxter series

This gun, which is given to Jak by Krew as payment for an important delivery, has the ability to be quickly modified on the fly into one of 12 different weapon styles. These include a close range shotgun, a rifle with a laser scope, an arc cannon and even mini nuke launcher. This was one of the best and most versatile weapons in any game I've ever played, and the games were also good enough to back that claim up.

The Crossbow from Oddworld: Stranger's Wrath

This is probably one of the most unusual firearms I've encountered, but also one of the most unique. This crossbow was custom built to be used by a bounty hunter known as the Stranger and is mounted on the back of his right hand. The crossbow itself is nothing special on its own, but the ammunition it uses is very unique to be sure. Unlike most crossbows that use arrows or short bolt-like darts, this one uses creatures picked up by the Stranger as he's on his hunts. Some of these creatures are zappflies, stingbees and fuzzles and each one is unusually dangerous despite their names.

The Peanut Popguns from the Donkey Kong Country series

These wooden handguns first appeared in Donkey Kong 64 and are wielded by Donkey Kong's nephew, Diddy Kong. Despite the fact that they are made of wood and their ammunition is peanuts of all things, they are surprisingly powerful and have left quite an impact on the series as they reappear in later Donkey Kong Country games whereas the weapons of the rest of the DK crew didn't. They are even used by Diddy Kong again in the Super Smash bros series where the ammunition will sometimes drop shelled peanuts that can be eaten to regain health.

The Blazefire Saber from Final Fantasy XIII

Okay, I'll admit this is cheating a little bit, but the way I see it is that even though it is technically a sword, it can still fire live rounds which effectively makes it a gun. This weapon (and variations of it) is used by Lightning in the Final Fantasy XIII saga and in Dissidia 012. Because it is also a sword, if it happens to run out of ammo (which never happens in the game), you can still use the blade for melee strikes. This gun also appears in the game The 3rd Birthday as an unlockable bonus.

Well, that's my list folks, if you disagree with my choices, tell me why in the comments and what you would have chosen instead. Until then, I'll be seeing you.

Animal Crossing

Banjo-Kazooie

Bayonetta

BioShock

Castlevania

Chibi-Robo

Crash Bandicoot

Donkey Kong

Doom

Final Fantasy

Fire Emblem

F-Zero

Game & Watch

God of War

Golden Sun

Halo

Jak & Daxter

Katamari Damacy

Kid Icarus

Kirby

The Legend of Zelda

Mario Kart

Mario Party

Mass Effect

Mega Man

Metal Gear Solid

Metroid

Monster Hunter

Mortal Kombat

Mother/EarthBound

Okami

Pac-Man

Phoenix Wright

Pikmin

Pokemon

Professor Layton

Punch-Out!!

Ratchet & Clank

Rayman

Rhythm Heaven

Shantae

Sly Cooper

Sonic the Hedgehog

Spyro the Dragon

Star Fox

Super Mario Bros

Super Smash Bros

Tetris

Warioware

Yoshi's Island

Thanks once again for your continued support and I hope you all will still be reading my articles even after I reach 100. But until then, I'll be seeing you.

So then... How does a gamer who takes pride in his real life analyst skills write a weekly article when he takes\r more pride in a single character design (bio type stuff) than anything \r worth money? Well I got thinking and I'm good with weapons and stuff... I\r figured out how to build a Metal Gear and several weapons crossovers \r along with knowing many key vitals on the human organs. So why not look \r at just that. Weapons and characters. Stuff like did Sephiroth kill Aerilth. So, to make it easy I'm \r using weapons that "don't work" in real life so no guns and I may \r explain staves however magic is hard to cover as some spells are \r impossible.

I\r am going to place a note at the beginning here... I'm working around two \r "bases" for the weapons. My physical structure as it is something I can \r work with for using weapons, however I'm also gonna\r use world records for weight lifted and similar aspects. This should \r give a range of most people so because I say I can lift it with \r difficulty don't mean you will struggle. That said I'm male and I'll be \r using male records for consistency but will adapt for female weaponry

All the formalities covered I need a weapon...Metal Gear, Rail-Gun's, HF blades... What's the best to start with? Well... I'm gonna\r look at the HF blade as I like the concept, so what is a high frequency\r blade Its based on real stuff as a blade vibrating fast enough can cut \r anything while moving slow making it look good so far since its had high\r frequency vibrations sent through the blade however this don't work in \r practice. As either the blade would shake too much from needing constant\r vibration or it would cause your hand to go numb.

The\r issue is animals like ants that use similar techniques work because of \r the size and there is a constant source unlike in the games causing \r issues in implementing the theory to reality. However hypersonic \r technology may be a nice work around. The vibration from these is enough\r to help remove the drag and cut objects easier... We have an issue with\r the hand going numb though. You may be able to direct the vibration \r away from the hilt and into the blade however it would be a larger \r hand-guard and may break the blade if you are nanometres out.

It's\r a plausible weapon if done correctly however may need some work and \r bulky blades to be effective on anything without melting your hand. Or \r shaking bolts loose (not a hint for my next article at all.) Leave \r suggestions in my email (addavenye@live.com or gmarshall1996@gmail.com)

For putting Metal Gear Solid disc 1 in Monster Rancher 2, you got a Gaboo with a headband and camouflage, being an obvious throwback to Solid Snake.

Training consisted of choosing an activity to enter your monster in to train a specific stat, resting, battling, or going on adventures that tired your monster out, but had a big stat payoff. The game runs on a weekly basis, and you choose what to  train in for that week, for every four weeks, until you have to feed them again at the start of the next month. More often than not, your monsters would pass the training, but there are certain times where they'd go above and beyond expectations, cheat to pass, or just fail completely. During these times, you are given options to scold and praise your monster accordingly. It was always up to you to figure out when to scold or forgive, because letting them off the hook will only increase their cheating and failing ways. If you were too hard on your monster, however, they could run away. They could be gone anywhere from a mere week, up to a few months. Growing up, this weighed on me a lot, and I'd constantly check to make sure I wasn't accidentally pushing my monster away when I meant to hone their skills. Resting is lets your monster take a week off to recover from training or battling, to get them ready for another round. After months of training, you'd be ready to enter your monster in some battles.

Here you can see a Hopper at the ranch on Monster Rancher 2.

A battle taking place on Monster Rancher 2

A picture of an adventure, from Monster Rancher 2.

If you played Monster Rancher in the past, leave a comment letting me know your thoughts on it.

Though my question was why would I want to download these games where I'm being charged $2 to take off ads and have some free type of cloud storage? For me I have not found the answer seeing there is such a thing as classic console emulators and free ROMs of the same classic games in this series along with better touch screen controls. Though big companies like Nintendo have been getting their games pulled from very popular ROM sites such as Emuparadise, but I have still be able to find Genesis ROMs.

Rob doesn't an emulator app and ROMs take up more space on my phone then the games in the Forever series? Well reader I'm glad you asked that question. I downloaded Altered Beast and Comix Zone, both of those games took up 91.24 MB of memory on my Nexbit Robin. After curiosity killed the cat, I have downloaded the Cool Genesis ft emulator from the Google Play store and 16 games, all over that only took up just over 33MB of memory. That is just under a third of memory I am saving.

Emulators and ROMs maybe the bad boys of free gaming, they save space and are for the most part ad free. I have not had a 24 second ad pop up to save my game, so I think emulators and ROMs are the best way to play these nostalgic classic games.

If you can make a movie out of a video game plot, you have done it wrong. Although games like Resident Evil, Beyond Two Souls, or  Dead Space have well written plots for the most part, they don't fully utilize the medium they are placed in. They could have done as well if they were a movie, although heavily edited to better suit it. It's because the plot is straight forward told to you. You don't need to explore much to find any missing parts of the plot. They are just as good of a game as the rest (except Beyond Two Souls), but the reason behind this linear storytelling is because they were written like a movie, this isn't a bad thing since it works for movies, but it fails to fully embrace the medium it's in.

An excellent example of video game storytelling is Bioshock by Irrational Games. You have the "driving plot" pushing you through the game, but what makes it really shine is it's "hidden plot." The game rewards you for going down every hallway. When you do you can find supplies and audio logs to listen to. The audio logs provide you with the hidden plot, something that movies could never hope to accomplish. In a movie you can't hide audio files lying around the scene, the idea is absurd, but in Bioshock the plot is intentionally hidden away from you. You have to search for it in order to know why there is a city at the bottom of the ocean, something the driving plot won't be bothered to tell you. Bioshock also has hidden plot found around the world in the form of posters, blocked off doorways, blood spatters leading to a last word audio log from beneath the skeleton. These environmental hints are just as important to unravel the lore of the world as the audio logs. By giving the player the freedom to view the world freely and at their own pace you can put so much more detail into everything to tell the better story that movies couldn't hope to enjoy.

Another excellent example is Dark Souls by FROM Software. The driving plot is almost non-existent, and everything is told through the hidden plot which takes the form as difficulty, environmental hints, and flavor text. If you lack the skill to get to the late game you won't be able to experience the hidden plot. By doing this every late piece you unlock is rewarding. Getting a weapon from the boss you just defeated and get to read the flavor text to figure out what he added was to the plot. Nothing is more satisfying.

The reason why the story in so many games fall flat is because storytelling in games is relatively new. It hasn't be around as long as movies to learn all of the quarks of the medium. Although we have learned a lot about it such as when telling a story you need to reinforce it through the game play. The story should never be at the expense of the mechanics, and it should be working together flawlessly with it. You need to have a solid driving plot with an interesting hidden plot that gives reason to the players agency. We have the ability to tell the story in a piece-wise way that no other art form can, but as time goes on we will learn more about how to tell a good story, and we will create plots that can rival any story made in existence. Because games are the ultimate art form.

1. MAX PAYNE: I DREAMED A DREAM.

Being a gamer, it's not easy to dodge the discussion of Max Payne. Before going under the wing of Rockstar, Remedy's initial 3D run-and-gun had something that most shooters lack; good story, great atmosphere, and interactive disturbing shit that made you freak out. It wasn't all rooty tooty, point and shooty.

Still more emotion than Kristen Stewart, hardy har.

What really makes this one of the top three is simply put; interaction. Unlike other games where we're thrust into a prologue, the gameplay takes place after a turn of events, we witness the horrific murder of Max's wife and child up front. You examine the house, you pull the gun out, you shoot the people crazy enough to step up to Max Run-and-Gun Payne, and then you walk in to find this:

Baby blocks with reverse numbers on them; haunting, truly haunting.

 A game that starts out like this means to go on so. It isn't all go here, shoot there, right, RIGHT?

Wro--right! One of our top three is the dreaded dream sequences set in Max Payne's head. These had everything; long winding hallways, the demented sound of demonic laughter against the crying pleas of your dead baby, blood-soaked nurseries, and who could forget the blood in the dark? Precisely why this hits home with a top What The Fuck moment!

2. FALLOUT 3; Dun, dun, Dunwhich!

Fallout 3 was a brilliant achievement by Bethesda Studios. Something that it mastered was its ability to throw us into a world we knew nothing about. From there, it was your choice whether to be the prodigal white knight, complete with Geiger-counter and an unwavering trait of volunteering for everything, ever while everybody thinks you're the tightest shit out there that can get stuff done. Since daddy went missing you have a choice to follow him in his footsteps or make a left turn into nowhere and live your life away from the responsibilities of being a sacrificial dummy to save the world. Sometimes the game just straight up discarded logic : 

"You must go in there and get radiation poisoning so I can pull you out for the $5.99 DLC!"

One of Fallout's greatest additions comes in the form of The Dunwhich House. In a far corner of a map, away from any settlements, the Dunwhich house looms over the dead area. There are so many What The Fuck  moments that I'm counting the whole experience as one; from ghost flashbacks, to moving objects, to demonic backstories, and a looming mythology of H.P. Lovecraft.

I traded in all of my caps for a big ol' bag of NOPE.

3. SPEC OPS: THE LINE: EVERYTHING'S GONNA BE ALL WHITE.

Bu--but...how could anything American soldiers do be wrong?

 It isn't the act itself which makes us freak out here, but when we're sent to examine the remain, our protagonist walks through the charred and frozen remains of the enemy and discovers something bleak, and horrifically disturbing:

It turns out the orders were wrong, and the protagonist has just horrifically eviscerated a large group of civilian refugees. All's good in love and war, right? Am I right? 

Spec Ops: The Line was made to mimic such works as Jacob's Ladder and Heart of Darkness. Where once military shooters cared more for the run and gun rambo hero with the enemy's head on a stick routine, you constantly question your ethics and morality as a soldier in this game. And of course, with this What the Fuck moment, it's shown to be a very emotional, and classic game.

"Don't look, sweetheart." 

Do you agree with my choices? Are there any moments out there that you think tops these? \r

So real life hit me over the past few weeks and i've been unable to type my cybernetics weapon thing i decided to do... so i shortened it and done magic briefly (in prep for the third thing) so enjoy this short analysis and ill upload these as possible..

So\r I have a friend who designed a robotic arm for when / if I lose my arm \r building or testing his weapons and how dangerous some were I felt \r inclined to look into it... And its too easy too look into the workings.\r Nerve endings trigger movement by sending elecro-chemical signals and then its motors and hydraulics' kinda the basic stuff for me... And its been done... Sadly im\r not looking at speed of it just making it work and it exists already so\r I need a new weapon too look at... So from my spiritualistic point of \r view (basically souls being a part of a person AND souls having an minor\r influence on our world and the people in it) does magic have any \r validity to it? 

Now\r magic is the manifestation of energy and a soul is energy which is you \r so what can a soul do? Now I can say 2 things for definite the first is \r that each person has different spiritual abilities l can identify \r spiritual traits to a degree and read specific aspects of a soul... \r There are moral issues so simply put it takes time to look at a soul as I\r cant look when I don't truly know someone and then I avoid personal \r stuff so it can take weeks to look at aspects of a soul... It takes \r weeks to look at a soul you with the 6/7 years of training in this ive had it gives me the magic stuff some ground.the rest will be covered in the next few weeks as magic is a difficult topic

What if it turns out all those checkpoints were really dead though?

Bioshock Infinite places you in the role of Booker DeWitt, an ex-pinkerton agent sent to the angelic, ludite spawned, racist city of Columbia. This wonderful floating palace is home to the rich, the poor, the blacks, and the normal people. Ahem...Booker is tasked with saving Elizabeth, a princess locked in a tower, guarded by a massive bird which likes to fuck with you at every turn. Elizabeth, however, holds a secret. With her magical pinky-less hand she can manipulate time and space to create tears in the fabric of time, allowing her and Booker to escape to infinite dimensions of Columbia to escape the evil clutches of her sermon-spouting religious father; Father Comstock. 

The game sports a great story, with you dodging massive flying mechanical birds to zipping through time like some inter-dimensional Indiana Jones with a penchant for drinking strange liquids from bottles and throwing spinny hooks into people's faces! Starting off with a crazy entrance to Columbia and a strange baptism for Booker, almost killing him in the process, we begin Bioshock: Skyhook everything with a fucking pulse. 

Seems like Booker was hooked from the get go. Eh? EH?

After a long and arduous journey of escaping Comstock, fending off rebels against Comstock and finally fighting your way to him, Booker does what game protagonists do best and bludgeons Comstocks head on a holy water bowl. Symbolic as Hell, right? So here's where the twist comes in! Elizabeth is captured and Booker is launched through a separate dimension of Columbia. After returning to safe Elizabeth, it is alluded that Booker has been gone for a long time, and as such Elizabeth has managed to figure out the story, and all the little tidbits. SO!

Booker and Elizabeth plan to escape to Paris finally, but it turns out that that ain't on the cards for Booker. No baguettes and pencil mustache for him, non, non! Elizabeth leads Booker through a series of portals into the place where ALL other Bookers and Elizabeths from separate portals meet in an ocean of lighthouses. Elizabeth remarks: "There is always one man, one lighthouse, one city." 

Now that's just bullshi--

GOD, DANGIT, LEVINE.

So in the end, Booker and Elizabeth escape the lighthouse ocean and then here comes the kicker! 

COMPLICATED SPOILER AHEAD, DO NOT READ UNLESS YOU WANT HEAD TO IMPLODE:

Booker is taken to a similar baptism that he goes through in the beginning of the game. It is then alluded that Booker took a similar baptism many years before, but opted out of it because "dousing yourself in water doesn't absolve your sins." Booker becomes a gambling drunk, loses all of his cash, and realizes he must go to Columbia for a job to absolve his debts. HOWEVER. It turns out that YOU, Booker DeWitt, are in fact ZACHARY HALE COMSTOCK and that Elizabeth is Booker's legitimate daughter who Zachary Hale bartered with him over giving her to him as to erase his debts. HOLY FUCKING SHIT, KER-AZZY RIGHT? 

The explanation goes like so! Booker DeWitt lives in an infinite number of dimensions. Each dimension is created when a decision is made. For example, if I drink coffee in this universe, another universe splinters off where I drink water, or coke, or piss, yum yum. The baptism that Booker goes through forked off in two ways. Booker refused it and stayed as Booker, the war-hero, and another in which he became Zachary Hale Comstock, founded Columbia, and mastered inter-dimension travel (hence why he's old as Gahndi's nutsack). In the end, Booker realizes that in order to fully kill Comstock, he must die, and with an army of Elizabeth's, he is drowned under the water and one by one the Elizabeths from Comstock's universes are erased from existence. 

Or are they?

2. KoTor: Knights of the Old Republid: I AM YOUR FATH--YOU, I MEAN.

Knights of the Old Republic was a crowning achievement of Bioware. Sporting a control system similar to Mass Effect, it put you in control of one of the Old Republic's soldiers, an adept character who is tasked with stopping the evil agenda of Darth Malak, the apprentice to one of the most evil Sith lords in all of Star Wars continuity; Darth Revan. You spend a large portion of the game trying to fight you way through to Malak, learning about the characters, and your link to Bastila, a sexy jedi with a double lightsaber, a British accent, and a badonkadonk as round and hot as Tatooine itself.

Oh, I'mma use the Force alright, girl.

So you're working with a ragtag group of people to stop an Empire of evil. Bastila Shan was revealed to have killed Darth Revan in a large battle before the events of the game, however, this is the kicker:

YOU ARE DARTH REVAN

It turns out that Bastila only knocked him out and using the force, the Jedi council brainwashed Revan and wiped his memory and any trace of his actions as Darth Revan, thus returning him to his previous state of super-duper jedi hero. It was a twist that was delivered through hours upon hours of gameplay. But don't worry, it all ends well for our hero who saves the day and nothing bad ever happened to him again after that. He settled down and lived happily ever after and wasn't used to boost the sales of a dying MMO or anything.

The Old Republic what? 

3. SILENT HILL 2: 100% EGYPTIAN COTTON

Silent Hill has been a franchise which has slowly sort of began to rot like the skin-walkers that populate the foggy town, apart from the Norman Reedus reboot cause that looks flash as fuck. However, going back it's roots, Silent Hill 2 proved to be a formidable, atmosphere masterpiece from Team Silent. 

The story goes like this: You are James, a man who has lost his wife. After receiving a letter from her, telling you to meet her in Silent Hill, it becomes abundantly clear that that is where you're going. The game is like any other Silent Hill art, a worthy horrific endeavor choc-a-bloc with crazy characters and psychosis inducing horror.

Hahahahahaahahahaeeeeegugug OH GOD OH GOD OH FUCKING GOD.

The problem with Jame's wife is that she kicked the bucket a long while back thanks to the Big C. This meant two things; either it's a fake by some sick prankster, or it's the demonic spawn of Satan sitting in a rusted out warehouse, chopping up bodies and fucking leg-people waiting for you to show up. 

The smart money would go on prankster, but this isn't smart.

James spends the whole game jumping through demonic hoops, from fending off Toblerone-man, to going through a demonic hospital with faceless nurses. After shooting and killing his way through an army of the undead, he finally makes it to his wife. 

THE KICKER: Jame's wife has been dead all along and James murdered her out of some sick kind of euthanasia with a pillow.

Silent Hill has always been a game that looks in to its characters for their flaws, and the land has always been sort of a punishing, surreal world in which characters guilt mixes with the trans-dimensional horror, allowing the people to go in and out with some sort of dramatic change, except this time, that doesn't happen. The endings all come to a halting, depressive end in which your choices range from James driving his car into Toluca lake out of guilt, to saving the doppelganger of his wife, Maria, who ends up coughing like Mary did when she first started to get ill.

Isn't the world a happy place?

Those were the three biggest twist of gaming, for me at least. Watch this space for more articles. 

(Please keep in mind that my opinions may or may not reflect your own, this list is entirely biased)

The Revolver Gunblade from Final Fantasy VIII

Squall Leonhart's weapon of choice, this kick-ass blade is basically a single-edged broadsword with an over-sized 6-shooter revolver as the hilt. If you pull the trigger on it, it sends a shock wave up the blade making it vibrate which inflicts a more devastating cut. This weapon makes the most impact in the opening cut-scene just before you are given the option of naming your character.

The Valiantium Blade from The Wonderful 101

Said to become even sharper every time it slices into its enemies, the Valiantium Blade can act as a lightning rod to divert electrical currents, reflect lasers back at their sender, cut the thickest steel construction cables and can even be used as a key to unlock blast doors in certain locations. The only real flaw it has is its wielder as he is a hot-headed, arrogant jerk that only cares about his own selfish goals over the safety of his comrades. He eventually learns his lesson, but not after putting his entire team's lives in peril to chase after his own personal vendetta. Remember, a sword is an extension of its handler and is only as good as the person who wields it. Oh, and here's a little Easter Egg, the Valiantium Blade is also in Bayonetta 2 as the main weapon of the angel Valiance albeit in a different form.

The High-Frequency Blade from the Metal Gear Solid/Rising series

A technologically advanced Japanese katana made by the government that can cut the most durable of alloys due to it being able to resonate at a frequency so high that it separates materials at the molecular level. This blade has actually been in the possession of two previous owners before it finally found its way to Raiden, A.K.A. Jack the Ripper, and it is his weapon of choice during the events of Metal Gear Solid 4 and Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance. The blade is incredibly powerful and can be seen cutting an unmanned Metal Gear RAY unit completely in half during the prologue chapter of Revengeance, but while it is very strong, it kinda plays second fiddle to Gray Fox's Fox Blade which could be only obtained in the game when you pre-ordered the game at GameStop. Never really liked pre-order DLC bonuses because of that.

The Z-Saber from the Mega Man X/Zero series

The Keyblade from Kingdom Hearts

Destined to be used by the one who will save the worlds from the Heartless and the Nobodies, the Keyblade is a sword of great power that can change its shape depending on what kind of keychain is clipped onto its pommel. Because of its ability to lock the door to the heart of a world, it plays great importance and a very heavy burden on its wielder, Sora. In reality though, there are actually many keyblades all which now rest at an old battlefield called the Keyblade Graveyard where a large scale war once took place.

Soul Calibur and Soul Edge from the Soul Calibur series

Now, I know that they are technically two separate swords, but because of them both being pretty equal in power and magical influence, I have little choice but to consider them the same weapon (Especially considering the fact that they were once one blade at one point in their history, picture on the left). These two swords are basically two sides of the same coin, one is of light and the other of darkness. This is also reflected by the fact that the ones who wield them are good and evil variations of the same person. Soul Calibur is the weapon of choice of Siegfried and his demonic alter-ego Nightmare uses the Soul Edge in battle. "Transcending history, and the world, a tale of swords and souls eternally retold." Ahh, I'll never get tired of hearing that phrase.

The Energy Sword from the Halo series

As the name suggests, this is a sword made of energy, but the symbolism the sword represents within the Halo lore is actually quite fascinating. It states only the highest ranking elites can wield these blades. While these specific Elites are not allow to marry, they have the privilege to mate with any female they want regardless if they have a spouse or not. This is so they can preserve the lineage of sword wielders for as long as possible. Lore aside, this weapon is also very powerful as it can one-hit-kill any enemy as long as it is a sneak attack in the back. Seems a little cheap, but it gets the job done.

The Blades of Chaos from the God of War series

These weapons of mass bloodshed are wielded by everyone's favorite screaming Spartan, Kratos, but he doesn't use these swords by choice. When he pledged his loyalty to Ares, the God of War, he painfully chained the two blades to Kratos's arms. This gave him the power he needed to destroy his enemies with ease, but he was cursed to be Ares warrior-slave until the day he died. These swords are brutal, jagged, unholy weapons meant only to be used to kill and they certainly do their job without fail.

The Master Sword from The Legend of Zelda series

The all powerful "blade of evil's bane." This sword was forged with the power of the gods with the intent of being the weapon of choice for the Goddess Hylia's chosen hero. This masterfully crafted one-handed longsword also housed the spirit Fi, a calculative construct whose sole purpose was to serve the chosen hero until he completed his task. The blade strikes fear in all of the evil beings of the land and the only one who dared to fight its power was the Demon King Ganondorf and all of his reincarnated forms across the space/time continuum.

The Monado from Xenoblade Chronicles

Well, that's my list folks, if you disagree with my choices, tell me why in the comments and what you would have chosen instead. Until then, I'll be seeing you.

One hazard to avoid is if the book is just a retelling of the game because more often than not the author didn't fully play or understand the game before writing. The best route for video game books are if they are a prequel, a midquel, or a sequel/epilogue to the events of the game.

BioShock and BioShock Infinite

BioShock is definitely a universe that can and should be expanded. The first book is BioShock: Rapture. BioShock: Rapture is a prequel to the first game that that takes place after World War II. The book focuses mainly on Andrew Ryan as he begins to create his underwater utopia of Rapture and Ryan's relationships with Sullivan, Frank Fontaine, and Atlas. A problem with the book though is that with some of the explanations of some of the events in BioShock Infinite and it's two expansions, Burial at Sea Episodes 1 and 2, this book may not be canonical.

The next book is BioShock Infinite: Mind in Revolt.Though I hesitate to call this one a book because it is only about 35 pages long that you can finish in a little under an hour. Mind in Revolt is still definitely worth the read though. If you are a fan of the game you will appreciate the further insight into Daisy Fitzroy and the city of Columbia itself. Columbia isn't the utopia it makes itself out to be and Daisy isn't the saint her people make her out to be.

The Last of Us: American Dreams

This one isn't a book in novel form like the rest of the books in this article, but rather in comic book form. American Dreams is a mini series that ran for 4 issues and is a prequel to The Last of Us. This mini series focuses on the start of Ellie and Riley's friendship that leads into the story DLC for The Last of Us: Left Behind. American Dreams takes roughly one year before the events of The Last of Us and follows Ellie when she is first introduced to Riley whist in her Military Boarding School.

The art style is quite appareling and isn't like how it is shown on the cover. American Dreams was co-written by Neil Druckmann so there's no question of whether or not it's canonical. The mini series was released periodically, but now can be purchased with all 4 issues in one big comic book. This is a must buy for any fans of The Last of Us.

Metro 2033 and Metro 2034

Metro 2034is still a sequel to 2033, but instead of focusing on Artyom the perspective is shifted to Hunter, Artyom's man crush from the first game and book. It shows most of the events of 2033 through Hunter's eyes and new events he himself has to battle through. Hunter's character arch is actually pretty interesting and playing a game of his story would be amazing. Hint hint 4A Games for (hopefully) the next Metro game.

Mass Effect

The Mass Effect books have actually been treated fairly nicely with the three I like the most being written by Drew Karpyshyn, but there are others written by another author named Marc Walters that I like as well. All the books act as prequels, midquels, and sequels. Most of the fan favorite characters make an appearance or brief cameo in at least one of the books adding to the complexity that Bioware already put into them in the games.

Though, just like with BioShock: Rapture, there's no confirmation that these books are canon. I can confirm to you right now that one isn't though. Mass Effect: Deception. Not only is this game factually incorrect to the game's lore it is also not a very well written book. It really is a stain on the Mass Effect legacy. At least one part of Mass Effect 3 was really bad. Just imagine an entire book like that AND the author couldn't even bother to get the lore right. That's Mass Effect: Deception. I had to go into paint and color over it. It doesn't deserve to sit with those other books. Avoid it at all costs.

Out of all the books I've talked about and going to talk about, the Mass Effect universe, needs to be expanded on. We know Bioware are working on Mass Effect 4 (or the next Mass Effect or whatever they are calling it) and these books can not only help explore and expand on already established lore, but also hold us over until the next Mass Effect game. There's so many secrets and mysteries hiding in this universe. Why not expanded on it?

I'm a pretty big Mass Effect fan and I can safely say that all the Mass Effect books that aren't Mass Effect: Deception are pretty good. If you are a fan of the games you should check these out. Even if you want to you can read these at a library. They aren't a tough read, but if I were to pull one negative from these books; it's that you will have to have played all the games to understand everything being said. But if you interesting in reading these you've probably already played through them all.

The Elder Scrolls

Right next to Mass Effect on a list of "Games That Need Their Universes' Explored More" would be The Elder Scrolls and we get two original books to help fit that fit that category. The Infernal Cityand Lord of Souls. The Infernal City takes place 40 years after the Oblivion crisis (The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion) and Tamriel is once again threatened by an evil force. This time by a floating city that casts a shadow and where ever the shadow is cast people die and rise again as a kind of zombie. With a premise like that you may or may not be turned off, but the book is actually pretty well written and feels like a good adventure worthy of The Elder Scrolls name.

Lord of Souls takes place directly after the events of The Infernal City. Though, I must admit that I haven't finished this one yet. I'm still recommending it though because so far it's even better than the first one and reviews for it say the same. If anything, check out the first book and if you enjoy it get the second one. They are both still better than The Elder Scrolls: Online.

Uncharted: The Fourth Labyrinth

Uncharted: The Fourth Labyrinth is a prequel to Uncharted: Drake's Fortune written by Christopher Golden. I'm a pretty big Naughty Dog fan starting from Jak and Daxter so I was both excited and skeptical when I heard about this book. Here we have your standard Uncharted globe trotting story following Nathan Drake and Sully as they look for a fabled treasure within a mythical Fourth Labyrinth, but with a murder mystery added to it.

This time time Nate and Sully are accompanied by the murder victim's daughter, Jada Hzujak. The "who dunit" aspect gives the standard Uncharted story a more fresh take. The author, Christopher Golden, was also able to emulate Nate's and Sully's personality's almost down to a T on paper. Nate's still the lovable jerk and Sully is still that really cool grandfather you've always wanted.

As good as the book is it still isn't as good as the main Uncharted games. The only game it's better than is Golden Abyss, but that wasn't developed by Naughty Dog. The book is missing a certain "je ne sais quoi" that you only get with Naughty Dog. But in the end I still recommend that you pick this one up if you are an Uncharted fan it's still pretty good.

So in the end: video game books are pretty good, but if you want the REAL experience I'd advise you to play the actual game. Trust me. I'm a doctor man with a PHD in Video Games. If you want to read more into the lore of video games then you can safely bet on these books.

Have a good day :).

I'd like to start by stating that I have not personally played any of the games on this list. These are simply games that, for various reasons, have captured my attention. If you buy any of these games and they turn out to be terrible I take zero responsibility for your lost funds (but if you ask I'll apologize, I'm Canadian and super good at apologizing.)

1. Dwarf Fortress

Ok, I'm not going to lie, this game might be a little bit overly ambitious for this list. Dwarf Fortress is a deeply complex strategy game in which you control a dwarven outpost. There are no real objectives in this randomly generated world, and crazy and absurd events are likely to occur. This game was recommended to me by a good friend who is very much into this game, he has played numerous games and restarted countless times, but he assures me that it's worth it (for reasons other than Dwarves beating off enemies with severed limbs amongst other bizarre happenings).

-Screenshots from Dwarf Fortress.

One of the main reasons why I have not playedDwarf Fortressyet is that it seems to be very complex, and so much so that I am unsure of how much time I would need to dedicate to learning how to play. There's also the graphics; they are not exactly cutting edge, but I think with a little bit of imagination the narrative provided could easily make up for the lack of traditional visuals.

Dwarf Fortress is a game that I believe would be well suited to players who have enjoyed games like Rimworld. Both revolve around a randomly generated world in which the player is responsible for overseeing the activities, happiness, and lives of individuals in a colony, and as the friend who recommended this game once said to me "Rimworldis essentially just babby's first Dwarf Fortress."

From what I've been told the depth and unimaginably complex situations that are generated in this game are essentially never the same from one play through to the next and this is whereDwarf Fortressshines. Fair warning though, the learning curve steeps backwards before platueing.

2. Orcish Inn

This is a fairly new Steam Greenlit game and it's fairly simple. You are an orc. You run an inn. Your patrons want beer. You brew beer. Now you also have to grow barley and worry about whether or not your brew is too hoppy for your patrons, but aside from that it's seems like it will be an easy game to pick up.

I have watched a few youtubers play around with Orcish Innand initially it seems to be something betweenHarvest Moon and Terraria.

Currently Orcish Innis in alpha, but from what I've seen it's designed beautifully and there will hopefully be many new features to look forward to in the future. And hey, it's free, so you might as well give it a try!

3. Besiege

Once again, this game makes the list because I believe it would be simple to pick up, and deliver on the fun while not taking up a huge amount of time.

The singular goal of Besiegeis to build an ransacking vehicle/contraption/apparatus/thing that is capable of destroying a set target. The only real limitation is a modest height restriction, your imagination, and surprisingly good in game physics.

Like Orcish Innthis game is in early access alpha and is currently a little lacking in terms of the volume of content available, but if the alpha is an accurate indicator of what we can expect from the final product I think this game will be well worth themodest price tag of $7.79 CDN. There is really nothing more to be said about Besiege. If you like building, and you like destroying, you'll like Besiege...probably.

Please come back next time when I cover more secrets and Easter eggs that I've found over the years. I don't think I can find them all by myself, but I can sure as hell try. But until then, I'll be seeing you.

Luigi isn't in any way perfect. He's a coward, he resents the brother he looks up to, and he is often the subject of ridicule. But I like Luigi all the more for it. Adversity builds character, and if The Year of Luigi is evidence enough, he may someday become even more popular than the brother he holds in such high regard. But until then, I'll be seeing you.

Reason 1: Value

Reason 2: Free Online Play

Once again, if you are on a budget, this is a great alternative to XBox Live and PlayStation Plus/Now as there are no online subscription fees. However, while there aren't many games on the Wii U that use online gameplay, the ones that do are very good and are (for the most part) stable with little lag or connection drops. (Keep in mind this still does happen regardless of which console you choose.)

Reason 3: Backwards Compatibility

Out of the three current gen consoles, the Wii U is the only one that can play the games of its predecessor without the need for modding. And because you can transfer your all of your Wii Shop Channel purchases and save files from the Wii to the Wii U, you could move all of your data onto the new Wii U and sell the Wii at GameStop/EBGames or on eBay for some quick cash to help cover the cost of the system.

Reason 4: Exclusive Games

When it comes to games, exclusivity is what usually sells a console, and out of the three, the Wii U has the widest and most fun selection of games you could ever ask for. Here are some examples:

• Super Mario 3D World
• Bayonetta 2 (Includes Bayonetta 1)
• The Wonderful 101
• Super Smash Bros for Wii U
• Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker
• Pikmin 3
• Nintendo Land
• Hyrule Warriors
• Mario Kart 8
• Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze

Reason 5: Amiibo

Reason 6: Off TV Play

Say you're the kind of person that lives in a house with other people (terrifying I know) and they want to watch a show or movie on the TV you're using, but you're playing games and don't want to give up the remote because you just got comfy. Well because of the Wii U's GamePad, most games for it have the ability to play the game with the TV on a different channel or even completely off. This even applies to the TV streaming apps on the system as well. No more fighting for the remote!

Reason 7: Miiverse

Most gaming forums are usually pretty boring and lackluster due to a lot of them being run by a small handful of people in their spare time, but since Miiverse is run by Nintendo itself, there is an air of family friendliness which is a nice alternative to the many other forums I have found to be uninviting. Also, if a game supports Miiverse, you can post screenshots of your achievements or if you're stuck, you can ask for advice in game specific communities. Plus every once and a while, Nintendo's employees will post updates on news, contests and various other activities which help to mix things up a bit.

Reason 8: Local Asymmetrical Gameplay

Reason 9: No More Friend Codes

Assuming you were like me and hated the Wii's constant use of friend codes in any game that had online, then you'll love the fact that Wii U has abandoned that feature entirely in favor of a Nintendo Network user ID. Plus it also gives you the ability to send friend requests instead of the stupid and tedious act of registering each other's friend codes and hope that it worked.

Reason 10: Unique Single Player Experience

Single player games that put emphasis on use of the GamePad are often the most entertaining to play as the second screen provided by the GamePad is frequently put to good use. Usually it provides easy access to a map or your inventory, but there are a few games that offer a more unique experience by using the GamePad in conjunction with the TV. It just feels innovative and fresh.

Hopefully these reasons will help sway you into buying a Wii U the next time you have some extra cash to burn. But until then, I'll be seeing you.

Super Mario Bros.

There is also a way to continue after a Game Over. At the Game Over screen, hold A and when the Title screen reappears, press Start. Do not release the A button during any of this or it won't work.

The Legend of Zelda

There is a way to start the game's Second Quest right off the bat. All you have to do is enter ZELDA as your file name. If done correctly you should see that Link is now holding the Magic Sword. Word to the wise, the Second Quest is not easy, so be prepared for the worst.

In The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, there is a hidden chamber under the castle that contains a large sum of rupees, but you cannot access it by normal means. What you need to do is start at the Sanctuary and use the Pegasus Boots to get to the bush that covers the hole that you entered near the castle at the start of the game as quickly as humanly possible. If you were fast enough to get there, you will enter a cave by falling in from the ceiling. A stone tablet in the back of the room will tell you that the room belongs to Chris Houlihan and asks you to keep it a secret. I guess the cat's out of the bag!

Donkey Kong Country

Quite a few cheat codes were programmed into the game to give you a much easier time with completing the game or just for fun. Most of the codes are entered on the file select screen when "Erase Game" is highlighted. They are as follows:

• Down, A, R, B, Y, Down, A, Y (activates sound test, press Select to cycle though them)
• B, A, R, R, A, L (start the selected file with 50 lives)
• B, A, Down, B, Up, Down, Down, Y (allows you to hijack control in a 2-player co-op game)

A couple stages also have secret shortcuts that let you bypass most, if not the entirety of the level. In the first minecart stage, if you can manage to jump over the barrel cannon and land in the pit close to the cliff wall, you will be launched out of a hidden cannon and transported to the end of the stage. There is also a shortcut in Stop and Go Station. Just head left through the entrance to be warped to the end.

Well, that's it for now. If I find more tips or codes, I'll be sure to let you all know as soon as I can. But until then, I'll be seeing you.

I love golf games. I love Kirby games. But the question is, would a Kirby golf game be any good? I think the answer would surprise you. Originally released on the SNES in 1995, Kirby's Dream Course combines the ascetic of Nintendo's Kirby series with gameplay that combines the elements of golf and billiards. This fusion of styles may sound a bit strange, but it works astonishingly well.

Now when the Wii came out, I started to notice a trend in some of the games that Nintendo developed. More and more titles that Nintendo released for the console had 8-bit sprites of Mario and company hidden in the environment. An example would be in Wii Fit and Wii Fit Plus where both had Mario sprites hidden on the running trails. Alone, this would just seem like a simple Easter egg, but there is more to be found.

With the fact that now even ONE pixel character has been officially named within the games, I propose that one of two scenarios will happen in the future. Either A: Nintendo will retcon the old arcade and NES titles to being set in the Flat Zone and ignoring Mario's past life living in Brooklyn, New York with Pauline and his pet ape Donkey Kong; or B: Nintendo is planning a new game in which the denizens of Flat Zone invade and have taken on the forms of the first people they see being Mario, Luigi and the people of the Mushroom Kingdom. Personally, I think the former theory holds more merit, but until then, I'll be seeing you.

I am also excluding games that are already getting movies so I apologize to games like The Last of Us, Uncharted, Half-life, and Portal. The games on here aren't obscure by the eyes of us gamers, but not many of them have been considered for a film adaptation. So you may not see the games you wanted on here.

Hotline Miami

Clearly the developers, Dennaton Games,were at least some what inspired by Drive (2011) starring Ryan Gosling. This bloody, pulse pounding game could transition fairly well to the big screen. I believe it would be important for the actor to play Jacket to not speak, but rather show his emotions through his actions. It would keep the air of mystery around him like in the game.

The soundtrack is one of the best you'll ever hear in gaming and would work for a film adaptation. The story is very well written and is a damn good one at that. It would be preferable that the combat/fighting scenes are as smoothly choreographed as the fight scenes in The Raid and as stylish as the fight scene in the nightclub in John Wick.

Do you like hurting other people?

The Cat Lady

It's no secret that I love this game, but The Cat Lady would still work as a emotional psychological thriller movie. The point and click gameplay that helped make the game unique doesn't necessarily need to be in The Cat Lady to keep the intriguing story and spooky atmosphere. It would basically be the proper Silent Hill movie since Hollywood screwed that up twice.

The actress that would play Susan can not be attractive, or at least can't be extremely attractive like most actresses since Susan is depicted as being unattractive. The overall mood and atmosphere would also have to be perfectly recreated down to a T. Let the scenery do the talking rather than the actors. Though Susan would have to talk, unlike Jacket from Hotline Miami.

Nekopara

Now hear me out.....this explanation could go a few ways so let me explain. I am not a weeaboo. Hell, the only anime series I've ever seen was Pokemon when I was a kid, but the Nekopara Vol. 1 visual novel was very well made. I can definitely see it as either a movie or an anime series. The hentai and other stuff aside, the story was pretty convincing and you do end up caring for Chocola and Vanilla.

Who would play Chocola and Vanilla would be anyone's guess. The humor and drama were well handled..and yes the sex scenes were too, but those probably wouldn't be in a movie or anime series. Maybe a hentai series which would be...interesting. Anyways, Nekopara still has a good convincing that you should definitely check out.....but for the "full" experience you need to buy the 18+ version off of the developer's website. Just a suggestion.

Alan Wake

If you haven't played Alan Wake then shame on you. Just kidding. Alan Wake is a game set up like a T.V. series. Even to the point of having a "Previous on Alan Wake.." narration between chapters. If you've played the game then you know that it has an absolutely amazing story. Obviously taking inspiration from Stephen King. Alan Wake even references him as an inspiration.

It would be fairly easy to adapt Alan Wake into a movie. The model of Alan Wake is based off Ilkka Villi and voiced by Mathew Porretta, whereas Alice Wake's model is based off of Jonna Järvenpää. Having Ilkka play Alan Wake in a movie would be the preferable option andJonna Järvenpää as Alice Wake. The dark and spooky atmosphere of the game would make this film a great psychological thriller. Check out this awesome music video from Poets of the Fall to get a taste of an Alan Wake movie.

Max Payne

Okay, okay. I know that this one shouldn't count, but holy hell, the actually Max Payne movie was so awful. Like really?? Mark Wahlberg as Max Payne?? Nothing against the guy as an actor, but as Max Payne? That was a horrible idea. Max Payne's story is so tragic, but the way he goes on a war path, in the games, for revenge is stylish and awesome. This shouldn't have been a screw up of a movie, but it was. So why not a reboot?

Remedy, the developers of Max Payne 1 and 2, did the same thing with Max's character model as they did with Alan Wake's; they based it on a real actor. He even voices Max in the game. James McCaffrey is the definitive Max Payne and should have played him in the movie. So in a reboot, James,should play Max. With Courtney Cox as Mona Sax since they look alike. The dark noir tone of the Max Payne games would work beautifully on the big screen.

Obviously, I wasn't able to put every game that would work well as a movie on here. Which is why I'd like you to comment on this with your suggestion of a game that would be a cool movie. Hopefully, I can make an updated list with all the suggestions. Until then have a good day :)

Reason 1: The Story

Reason 2: The Director

Many of you know that who directs the film can either make it or break it depending on how they interpret the source material. A good example would be Joss Whedon when he directed The Avengers, whereas a bad one would be M Night Shyamalan when he directed that godawful film, The Last Airbender. Now the director that has signed on for this film is Roy Lee of Vertigo Entertainment who has directed the fantastically scary films The Ring and The Grudge which both follow under the same kind of psychological horror that Five Nights pulls of quite well. If anyone can make a good film based on that game, it'll be him.

Reason 3: The Original Creator's Involvement

"The story really lends itself to being a movie and it taps into a largely unexplored niche of horror that a lot of people will be able to relate to."

The troops are your main means of getting a large bronze bell from your side of the field toward the back gate so you can proceed to the next stage. Once again, by itself, this sounds fairly easy enough, but you also have that big freaking cannonball to worry about, and it CAN kill your soldiers if you aren't paying attention. However, if you can find it, there is a power-up that can help with this. If your odama is glowing green, not only will it not flatten your army, but it will also turn any enemy soldier that you crush over to your side. This is often necessary as adding more troops to the field will raise your army's morale making them more likely to follow the orders you will eventually and inevitably scream into the microphone.

If it wasn't already hard enough that these two gameplay elements were clashing head to head with each other, there is one last one that pushes the difficulty over the threshold from being reasonably fun and challenging to being a hair pulling nightmare. Each and every level in the game has a VERY strict time limit that results in an INSTANT loss regardless of how many odamas you have left. This time limit bullcrap is the reason why I was unable to legitimately get past the eighth board, otherwise known as The Spider Temple.

While this game is extraordinarily hard, I don't at all hate it. Its challenge is excruciating, yes, but it more than makes up for its short length. It reminds me of those old NES games that were short but had enough challenge to make it worth it. All in all, I suggest you try this game out if you're looking for a legitimately challenging game that is guaranteed to make you rage. But until then, I'll be seeing you.

Score:

What is really unique about this game is that it is played with a special controller called the DK Bongos. Each respective drum moves DK left or right, rapidly drumming will make DK run and both drums at the same time make DK jump. Clapping your hands (or ANY loud click, snap or tapping noise) will make DK clap. This is how you engage in combat with larger and stronger enemies, grapple onto vines, and how you grab bananas. This control scheme works extremely well for how the game is laid out, especially when considering that the game was likely made with the DK Bongos in mind. The control scheme that would have been required for a normal controller would have been very unintuitive and extremely difficult to use.

All in all, this game is probably one of the most fun and unique platforming games I've ever played. It has great visuals which rival even some current gen consoles, the music is fantastic and gets even better when you start to rack up a high combo, and the gameplay is well suited for the controller that was made before it. Definitely worth your time and money, assuming you can find a working pair of bongos. But until then, I'll be seeing you.

Score:

Graphics

Now the DS version released in late 2007 was much different as it has fully polygonal characters, enemies, and environments which made everything feel much more alive and vibrant. Plus it allowed for much more detailed character animation which was shown quite prominently from the game's many dancers scattered around the world's many towns and kingdoms (I'm quite partial to the City of Troia myself). Overall, the DS version a much better visual treat than the SNES version.

Music

If Final Fantasy's spinoff series Theatrhythm has shown anything, then the music is just as iconic as everything else in the game. The music in the SNES version is especially good, ranging from atmospheric, to intense, to melancholy and even climactic. It certainly does its job considering the hardware limitations imposed by the console's specifications.

The DS version however is honestly not much different. Aside from having some slightly better audio files for the game's midi tracks, the music is virtually identical. There are a couple of songs in the game where the music is noticeably higher quality than its SNES counterpart (Most noticeably Fabul Castle) which is I guess a pretty nice bonus if you happen to remember what the orginal sounded like. All in all, I'd say the DS version wins this category, but not by much.

Translation

Now because the DS had a much more memory, a more accurate and faithful translation of the original story could be used in the game allowing for a much better understanding of the plot which was also accompanied by cut-scenes with stellar voice acting. In addition to this, more of the story that had been left on the cutting room floor during the SNES version's development period was able to be re-added allowing for even more back story to be told on the game's antagonist, Golbez. Gonna have to give the scoring point to the DS version here.

Gameplay

Now if you want a REAL challenge, the DS version is where it's at. The enemies are much more threatening and items and characters can actually be customized further to better suit your needs. The boss battles are also require much more thought involved as well as many of them either counter half of what you throw at them, or they they are immune to everything else. Also, exclusive to the DS version are special side missions with Namingway, and a special little Eidolon that you can also customize and have fight in place of your summoner, Rydia. This Eidolon can be trained to become stronger through minigames that are played with the touch screen and can also be used in a special one-on-one battle mode with another player a la Pokemon. The DS version is definitely the way to go here.

Overall

The DS version is hands down the winner of this contest. It just has so much more to offer than the original and it really shows. While the SNES version has a special place in my heart, it just can't hold a candle to this exceptionally well made remake. Plus, since it is a DS game, it can be played on 3DS systems without any problem. Don't have a 3DS either? Well there is also a PC version available that is basically the same version as the DS one, minus the special Eidolon and the associated minigames. Not really a big loss, but I like to have my games with as much content as possible. Maybe you do too, who knows? But until then, I'll see you next time.

SNES Score:

DS Score:

In February of 2014, Sega announced Sonic Boom: Rise of\r Lyric, which was to be the first game in a sub-franchise of the ever-popular\r blue blur, tying in with a toy line and a new cartoon. The game was to be made\r with the Crysis Engine, boast beautiful visuals, and provide a gameplay\r experience not unlike classic sixth console generation platformers. The game\r was developed by Big Red Button, which was comprised of experienced developers\r who worked on Uncharted, Jak and Daxter, and other beloved series.

Well, that could have gone better. The game was released with poor sales, critical panning, and scalding reception from fans.

This rough reception sounds awfully familiar, doesn't it?\r Let’s rewind about eight years, to when the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 had just\r hit the market, and Sega was developing a Sonic game that would take full\r advantage of these new consoles. Sonic the Hedgehog (often referred to as Sonic\r Next-Gen or Sonic 2006) was marketed with an epic story, a day to night system,\r and a massive world to explore.

Whoops.

If the Sonic franchise is a classroom, then Sonic 2006 is\r the butt of all jokes, the student with minimal talent, a grating voice, and many\r bugs. People still mock that student to this day, even though he has long since\r left the classroom. At the very least, he was musically adept.

In a franchise as saturated as Sonic’s, with many different\r games spanning a variety of genres, Sonic 2006 has been the laughing stock of\r the franchise, with fans and detractors of the series alike never forgetting\r its massive faults, regardless of the quality, good or bad, of any game to come\r out since then. To a critic, this can seem like an unusual perception. To a fan\r who was disappointed with Sonic 2006, it’s as though the game’s poor quality is\r a residue that has splattered onto every Sonic game to come out since then. It\r is justified to find this unusual. In the mind of this critic, the quality of\r one product does not represent the quality of a franchise as a whole.

The Sonic franchise does not have the luxury of being seen\r this way, as it has far more games than most franchises, and has been a beloved\r part of many gamers’ lives. As such, it can be difficult to look at the series\r objectively. One’s emotions can easily get in the way. This way of viewing the\r series has lead fans to blind themselves from enjoying other games in the\r franchise.

Sonic 2006 and Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric’s similarities are\r clear. They’re critically panned, hated by the fanbase, and are both made fun\r on a memetic level. So what are the differences in their failures? What\r separates Rise of Lyric from Sonic 2006 comes down to their development periods.

Rise of Lyric was developed by a third party\r company, Big Red Button, whereas Sonic 2006 was made by Sonic Team, Sega’s go-to developer for Sonic games. The rumors as to what went wrong during Big Red Button’s development\r of Rise of Lyric have been piling up since the game’s release. Supposedly, most\r of Big Red Button’s staff was fired during development, causing the game to\r suffer. The game was riddled with even worse glitches than Sonic 2006, including a means for finishing the\r game within a half-hour. Further, the Crysis Engine did not work well with the\r Wii U’s hardware, resulting in a significant difference between the game’s\r promotional trailers and the final product (Mind that the HD version of Sonic\r Unleashed, a game with Pixar level visuals, was released on consoles less powerful\r than the Wii U).

The nail on the coffin was that the game did not fulfill any\r of the promises that were made before its release. The proposed character\r development that Sonic was going to go through did not happen, several plot\r threads are alluded to and dropped, returning and new characters alike serve\r little to no purpose, and in the end, little is accomplished to justify this\r new Sonic universe’s existence. Not a good sign for Sega, let alone Big Red\r Button, who might have Rise of Lyric as their only game.

Sonic 2006’s poor release can be attributed to Sega wanting\r to rush the game out to store shelves in time for Christmas, therefore leading\r many game elements to be left on the cutting room floor. Quality control was\r almost nonexistent. The game’s disc didn’t even have hacker protection. It\r wasn’t the first game to suffer from a rushed release. Suffice to say, it won’t\r be the last.

Whether not Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric has the same negative\r impact on the series as Sonic 2006 has yet to be seen. But it shouldn't.

Sonic 2006 represented a problem with Sega’s treatment of\r their flagship franchise, and they would later go on to rectify these problems\r with later games. While opinions vary on games like Sonic and the Secret Rings,\r Sonic and the Black Knight, Sonic Unleashed, and Sonic Lost World, they were\r much more well-received than Sonic 2006. Sonic Colors and Sonic Generations are\r especially praised for appealing to Sonic fans both old and new, as well as being\r quality games in general. Rise of Lyric’s failure does not represent anything.\r It is a bad game developed by a third party company, and that is the extent of\r it.

It seems that the mood of the Sonic fanbase, as well as\r outsider opinion of the series, depends on the objective quality of Sonic's\r most recently released game. Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric has left the fans\r disappointed, turning them somewhat bitter, and there is no doubt the game will\r be used as ammo against Sonic Team's next product. The fanbase should find\r solace in the positively received Sonic Boom cartoon series (Saturdays on Cartoon Network), and Sonic's more beloved recent games. 

If any lesson should be taken from this, it's\r that even a poor product can lead to a positive outcome. Sonic Boom: Rise of\r Lyric, like Sonic 2006 before it, may stand as a memetic failure in a franchise\r with many ups and downs, but it should be nothing more than that. Only time\r will tell if the fanbase will allow it.

Now since we are still in this current generation of games, only time will tell if gamers will eventually reconcile their differences and focus more on what the future of video games has to hold. With the Oculus Rift, mobile games, and indie games being funded by Kickstarter, we can only hope that the future will shine. And come rain or shine, sites like novoGamer.com will provide info on games old and new. But until then, I'll be seeing you.

(Please keep in mind that my opinions may or may not reflect your own, this list is entirely biased)

Alex Kidd in Shinobi World

Mario Sports Mix

Injustice: Gods Among Us

Mortal Kombat Series

Poker Night at the Inventory

Wario Blast

Pokemon Conquest

Battletoads & Double Dragon

Disney Infinity

Project X Zone

Samurai Warriors 3 (Wii)

Mario Kart Arcade GP Series

Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate

Fortune Street

Street Fighter X Mega Man

Dissidia: Final Fantasy

Kingdom Hearts

Capcom's "VS" Series

Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games

PlayStation All-Stars battle Royale

Soul Calibur Series

Kratos from God of War

Professor Layton VS Phoenix Wright

Sega Superstars Series

Super Smash Bros. Series

Well, that's my list folks. It has been a long road to get this far and I really appreciate you reading the entirety of this article up to this point. Thank you for your continued support, and until next time, I'll be seeing you.

(Please keep in mind that my opinions may or may not reflect your own, this list is entirely biased. It should also be noted that many of these entries spoil story elements from the games they are from. You have been warned.)
\r

The Ride Armor from the Mega Man X Series\r

Let's start with something simple first shall we? The Ride Armor is a series of small multi-purpose mechs that are are deployed to areas of interest to help the Reploids and/or Mavericks in their war against each other. While there are many different varieties that are designed for specific battle scenarios, my personal favorite from these games is Vile Mk. II's Goliath Armor from Mega Man X3. It is heavily armored, fast, and is equipped with spiked fists and a chest mounted buster cannon. It's only real flaw is that it can only be ridden by Vile, which I personally find to be a bit unfair, but I guess it's alright since X gets four of his own to ride in that game.

The Platinum Robo from The Wonderful 101

The greatest weapon devised by Mother Platinum in order to repel the invading alien force known as GEATHJERK; the Platinum Robo is a massive mech aligned with the CENTINELS and created to aid the Wonderful Ones. It is roughly one hundred meters high, has the combined abilities of all of the Wonderful Ones, and it can also utilize the weaponry of both the CENTINELS' Virgin Victory and the enemy Cough-Foon ships. It is also theorized that it may be the reincarnated spirit of its creator (and Luka's mother), Professor Margarita Redgrave, but that has yet to be proven.

The Drill Dozer from Drill Dozer

I bet you're thinking "How can this tiny thing possibly be considered a mech?" Well, it has legs, and that's one of the primary prerequisites for it to be classified as one. The Drill Dozer is a compact, one-ton mech that can drill through hard earth and stone like it's nobody's business. It can also use its drill like a screwdriver and use it to turn screws, bolts and gears to help its pilot Jill get to her intended goal, which is usually a treasure or jewel of great value. Not a bad vehicle to get the job done if you ask me.

The Tinker Tank from Shovel Knight

This mech in particular is probably MUCH more advanced than the technology of its time would allow, but it's freaking awesome so I'll allow it. The Tinker Tank is a massive wood and iron medieval themed mech made by the rather diminutive Tinker Knight in order to compensate for his stature and overall poor strength against Shovel Knight. It is equipped with a colossal drill lance, rocket launchers and a massive cannon that can fire both missiles and bouncing grenades. Plus if that isn't cool enough, at the end of the game it is revealed that Tinker Knight started to make little toy versions of that mech for the village kids to play with. Please make these real Yacht Club Games!

The Magitek Armor from Final Fantasy VI

This magic-powered piece of machinery is the primary mode of transportation of Emperor Gestahl's army, and Terra for the first area of the game. It is surprisingly durable considering that its coloring suggests that it is made out of bronze or copper, and it is equipped with many pieces of magic-based weaponry like beams of lightning, ice and fire, and more advanced tech like missile launchers and a fogger that sprays dangerous microorganisms. This excursion is short-lived though as they are can only be piloted in two small segments in the game, but I hear that they made a comeback in the new expansion for Final Fantasy XIV. That makes me a very happy camper indeed.

The Anthropomorphized Battle Engine from Codename S.T.E.A.M.

This is a bizarre entry for sure, but it is very cool nonetheless. The Anthropomorphized Battle Engine (AKA The A.B.E.) is a giant steam-powered combat mech built for the sole purpose of fighting off the invading alien menace known as the Shoggoth, but if that isn't weird enough, its appearance is modeled after President Abraham Lincoln and it's piloted by him as well. When engaged in combat, it has the ability to use its internal steam to propel its fists forward at rocket speed, or to power the mech's wrist-mounted Gatling gun. This is probably the most absurd entry on this list, but I can't help but smile when I play as it in the game.

The Glastonbury from No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle

Commissioned by Travis Touchdown and built by Dr. Naomi, the Glastonbury is a gigantic mech modeled after the mech from Travis's favorite anime series, Pure White Lover Bizarre Jelly. In classic anime fashion, this mech is armed with a giant energy katana (in the shape of a guitar no less), laser cannons, and a devastating attack called "Anarchy in the Galaxy" which completely vaporizes everything in the surrounding area. However, Travis doesn't get to use it for very long as it confiscated shortly after the battle ends because it is described as a "public nuisance." Imagine how much money was lost on the construction of that thing only for it to be impounded ten minutes after its first test run.

The Umbran Armor from Bayonetta 2

Built over five-hundred years ago by the Umbran Witches to help them in the great war against the Lumen Sages; the Umbran Armor is a large and powerful magic-fueled suit of armor that greatly improves the abilities of its pilot. While it is similar in design to Final Fantasy VI's Magitek Armor, its abilities are vastly different. Instead of magic-based attacks and abilities, the Umbran Armor's weapons are much more technology-based with machine gun mounted arms, shotgun mounted legs, and a powerful jet propulsion system allowing it to skate along the ground or even take flight. Even though the chapter you play it on is short lived, you can get a trinket afterwards to allow you to use it as a modification to Bayonetta's Umbran Climax ability. This is very cool and helpful power-up to be had.

The Great Sacred Treasure from Kid Icarus: Uprising

Built by Dyntos, the great God of the Forge, and given to Pit after he completes his "three" trials to see if he is worthy enough to us it, the Great Sacred Treasure is a fantastically powerful mech made from the most durable and magical metal known to man: Orichalcum. This mech is capable of changing into several different forms to better fit the situation at hand and is equipped with a gatling turret, arrows of light, ring lasers, an energy sword, and a massive divine cannon that can devastate even the vindictive god Hades. It doesn't last very long though as it is only used in the final chapter and is slowly destroyed by Hades as you fight him. It's too bad though, Pit had so much fun using it before the fight.

The Mechonis from Xenoblade Chronicles

This is by far the most massive of any mech I have ever seen. One would initially assume that the Mechonis, the colossal titan that killed (and was killed by) the Bionis would just be a simple relic of times long past, but about half way through the game you find your way from the Bionis to the behemoth corpse on the other side only to find an entire country within its body and a control deck inside its head. It started to move again after Egil in the Yaldabaoth took control of it in the absence of its goddess Meyneth and nearly destroyed all life on Bionis in the process. He would have succeeded too if Shulk and his friends hadn't intervened.

Well, that's my list folks, if you disagree with my choices, tell me why in the comments and what you would have chosen instead. Until then, I'll be seeing you.

https://pcpartpicker.com/user/Darklight249/saved/P...

We'll start with a "Gamer" tier AMD PC. It's powered by an AMD FX-6350 clocked at just under 4 Ghz and has 6 cores. It's cooled by the tried and tested Cooler-Master 212 EVO. I run one of these in my toaster of a PC and it hasn't failed me in years. Next we have two 4GB sticks of Corsair Vengeance RAM with a speed of 1600mHz. With all this gear, we need something to mount it to and that would be the MSI 970 Gaming Motherboard. With support for up to 32gb of DDR3 RAM (more than you'll ever need) and crossfire support this will work great for small upgrades. Making our games look bad-ass is an XFX R9 380 video card running at 990 mHz and 4gb of GDDR5 Memory this will be more than enough for most current games to play with decent frames on the higher settings. For the operating system and basic software we have a SanDisk Z400s 128 GB SSD, with its blazing speeds and decent storage at this price point it is perfect for a $750 build. And, of course, for all your games, music and 100% legitimately bought movies is a trustworthy and reliable WD Blue 1TB hard drive at a speed of 7200 RPM. To power all of this is a Corsair RM 650W 80+ Gold Certified Power Supply, and with modular cables your PC will be easy to manage and nicer to look at, and finally holding this all together is a Corsair SPEC-02, with plenty of space for upgrades and compatibility with corsair all-in-one water coolers and multiple other company coolers this will work perfect for multiple upgrades to come, and all of this for just $740!

"Paladin" - Intel and nVidia $900 USD Build

https://pcpartpicker.com/user/Darklight249/saved/Z...

Next is the "Gamer" tier Intel/nVidia build I dubbed the Paladin, as to contrast the AMD Devil and to make the point that this thing is really really white and nice looking. Seriously, with its' blindingly white and highly modular NZXT H230 and it's equally blinding but super-reliable 8GB of Kingston HyperX Fury Memory this thing lives up to its title. The i5-4690 from Intel runs this beauty at 3.5 Ghz and 4 cores your computer will run like a breeze. Talking about a breeze, keeping this cool is the Cooler-Master 212 EVO once more. This cooler is just too good to ditch, with its' great price and reliability it will keep your CPU from melting under some of the most intensive conditions (assuming you don't overclock it). Holding this all together is a MSI Z97S SLI Krait Edition Motherboard, and other than its' stunning color scheme it blows the competition away with SLi capabilities and support of up to 32 GB of DDR3 (once again, more than you'll ever need). An MSi GTX 960 OC Edition is the video card of choice with this build, with 3.5GB of GDDR5 Memory and a core clock of 1.1 GHz this will run most games at high without a problem. Holding your OS is a 120GB A-Data Premier SSD and your precious, precious library of cat memes and steam games is the WD Blue 1TB HDD once more. And now, finally, powering this thing with juice is a 500W Silencer Mk III from PC Power and Cooling, with a 80+ Bronze certification this thing won't literally toast the components of your build. At $907 USD, this PC costs more than the Devil, but with the undeniable benefits of NVidia software and smoother sailing with an intel CPU, to some the extra $150 is worth it.


"Toaster" - mATX $1650 USD Build

https://pcpartpicker.com/user/Darklight249/saved/f..

Now, despite the hot name this thing is anything but a toaster, with a Antec KUHLER H2O 650 Liquid Cooler to keep the 4 GHz Quad-Core i7-4790k processor from melting and a water-cooled XFX Fury X and its' 4GB of cutting-edge HBM Memory to keep it chugging along at 1.05 GHz nice and smoothly. Connecting the dots is the \r \r \r \r \r Asus H97M-E motherboard with support for 32 GB of DDR3 (still, more than you'll ever need) and basic CrossFire/SLi capabilities. Two 8GB sticks of Kingston HyperX FURY Memory running at 1600 mHz keep the machine running smoothly even with Google Chrome open, and with a 120gb Intel 530 Series SSD for the OS as well as the reliable and sturdy WD Black 1TB HDD you will never lose data again. A 550W Fractal Design Tegra M is what powers this box of goodies and to hold it all together the small but sturdy and highly modular \r \r \r \r \r BitFenix Prodigy M. With a total cost of $1650 this is for the gamer/enthusiast who really wants a great portable monster of a PC.

This is only the first part of two, be sure to come back see the enthusiast builds and the almighty BEAST!

(Please keep in mind that my opinions may or may not reflect your own, this list is entirely biased)

Bravely Default is a newer game for the Nintendo 3DS made by JRPG genre veterans Square Enix and follows in the footsteps of Final Fantasyby having many of that series staples like a team of four, job classes, and turn-based combat. Unlike that series though, it has two features called Default (an action similar to defend in which you give up that character's turn to store one point for future use), and Brave (an action in which you use up that character's saved Default points to attack multiple times in one round). This made battles much more strategic as you had to think of the best times to use these commands in order to win, especially in more difficult fights.

EarthBoundis the second game in the Mother trilogy of role playing games made by Hal Laboratories and APE inc of Nintendo. Going outside of the tradition of having games of this genre set in a medieval setting, EarthBound breaks that trend by having the game set in a modern setting more analogous to the United States set in the mid 90's. Another feature that made this game stand out was its health bar system. Whenever a character got harmed, their health would slowly roll down like the numbers on an odometer. This caused a level of tension and urgency that was not common in turn-based JRPG's of that time and it was a nice way to change up the tired formula.

While this series originally started off without this feature, it eventually became a series staple when Final Fantasy IV came onto the scene. This battle mechanic made it so that turn-based combat was completely phased out in favor of performing your action when your turn meter is filled. Enemies could also do this and attack before your turn can begin making battles much more tense as your character could potentially die before you get a chance to finish casting a spell or using an item. I've always been more partial to normal turn-based battles, but this is a nice change of pace.

Pokemon is probably the biggest cash cow that Game Freak and Creatures inc has created for Nintendo. It has literally hundreds of monsters that you can recruit and train for battle against other monsters that have been trained by the opponents you will face in the game. Now because you can literally make your own team of six of these beasts, they had to be designed with unique qualities about them. These qualities, called "Types," causes them to resist or falter against attacks of specific types that clashes with their own. Since each pokemon could have a mixture of any two types, it creates a large array of strategy that made the turn-based combat very interesting, especially since attacks got a power boost when they were used by a pokemon of the same type as the attack.

This game is a rare gem. The entirety of the game is focused around time travel and the exploration of two separate timelines created by the main character early in the game, but that's not what I'm going to be focusing on. This game had a rather unique battle system where all the enemies were placed on a 3x3 grid and could freely move around in the space that they had control of. Now because a lot of your attacks would be AOE-based instead of just attacking an enemy straight on, you could push, knock aside, or grapple enemies so they would all reside on the same square so you could attack and finish them all off at once. This made battles much more involved as it made the player think of strategies that could vanquish foes as efficiently as possible.

Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door hold a very special place in my heart for its fantastic story telling and surprisingly engaging battle scenes, plus it had clever ways of implementing the game's art style into the gameplay which hadn't properly been taken advantage of since then. My favorite things about the battle scenes though would probably have to be the Stylish Commands. These actions could be performed at specific times during attacks, but because a prompt doesn't show up for the right time to perform them, they are often overlooked and difficult to time correctly. Successfully pulling off a Stylish Command however excites the audience and gives you more stage appeal which charges your special meter much more quickly. I had a lot of fun with this feature.

Chrono Trigger is masterpiece among the JRPG genre. It had a fantastic story that flowed naturally and had organic character development for its time. Even the music was perfect for setting the atmospheric tone of each area and time period in the game, but the gameplay was rather unique among JRPG's around the same time. Instead of the standard four party members on one side of the screen and the enemies on the other side, you had three party members that could stand anywhere on the field assuming there was solid ground. This was also featured in a few other JRPG's around the same time, but no other JRPG (at the time) had the Tech system that Chrono Trigger had. In addition to each character having their own special attacks that use up Tech Points, characters could also team up and unleash Dual and Triple Techs that would be far more useful that the sum of their parts. This made battles much more interesting and had a very unique strategy about it.

Golden Sun hearkens back to the golden age of JRPG's when they were just starting to get popular. It has a simplistic combat system and a story that was compelling, but easy to understand, but the customization with the game's collectible Djinns was what made the game interesting. In each of the three games, there was a multitude of small creatures called Djinns that you could find and equip onto each of the characters in your party. Each one would boost the stats of the character that it was applied to and would also grant them access to certain spells. In addition, while in battle you can activate one (or many) of the Djinns at the cost of the bonus stat boosts they offer and it will perform an action like attacking the enemies or healing your party. This gave combat a very nice risk/reward mechanic that I wish would be implemented in more games.

Now this is an interesting title. Pier Solar and the Great Architects is a much newer game made in the style of JRPG's from the 90's and released physically for the Sega Genesis (Mega Drive) and Sega Dreamcast, and digitally for many modern consoles. It had the same tropes of JRPG's of that time like turn-based combat, element-based spells, and random enemy encounters, but what made this game stand out was it Gather command. This ability, that all party members could perform, caused the character that used it to gather energy for increased power or to use specific abilities, or to transfer to another party member so they can use a specific skill earlier. This strategy of saving and sharing power among teammates gave the game a much better appreciation toward the characters as a whole as they all play important parts in battle and would help each other to get the job done more efficiently.

This game was an unusual one, and probably a little overlooked as this was the only game from this series that was released overseas. Magical Starsign was a space themed JRPG for the Nintendo DS with heavy emphasis on the use of magic spells. Tapping the character that just cast a spell at the right time increased its effectiveness, and spells act in accordance to an element wheel that is similar to Rock-Paper-Scissors. But what really made the battles interesting and fun was the mechanic that caused the spells to change their area of effect depending on whether the character that cast it was in the front or back row. Spells cast from the front row would only target one, but if it was cast from the back row, it would target all in the area. This would make changing rows a strong priority as many enemies were immune to, or could be healed from certain elements and this would cause trouble for the player if he/she didn't take immediate action.

Well, that's my list folks, if you disagree with my choices, tell me why in the comments and what you would have chosen instead. Until then, I'll be seeing you.

I have been coming to terms with the fact that my childhood was short lived since I have been employed for the majority of my life in one way or another ever since I was ten years old. I have had little time for games and being destitute during that time meant that if I wanted any kind of games, then I had to pay for them myself with the money that I earned. This made me appreciate the games I bought even more and I carefully chose which ones I would be purchasing. But I guaranteed you, nine times out of ten, the game would always be something from Nintendo. They always put love and care into every game they made and it made them all the more special to me when I actually learned a life lesson from them. They were like the Father I never had, and that's why it greatly pained me to find out that the great Satoru Iwata, CEO of Nintendo and master programmer for many great games like Balloon Fight, EarthBound, and games in the Kirby and Pokemon series, had passed away.

When I found out this news, I was distraught. It was like losing a family member that you secretly loved the most and I didn't really know how to cope. He was an inspiration to me and his charm, humor, wisdom, and overall likability made him very much a father figure in a time where I didn't have a strong male influence in my life. His soft spoken demeanor gave me a sense of comfort that I desperately needed in times of great stress and he was always so apologetic even when things didn't go as initially planned. Listening to his voice always calmed me when I was feeling annoyed or enraged because it gave me the feeling that everything was going to be alright. Now that he is gone, I really don't know what to do now...

So, as a tribute to the late, great Satoru Iwata, I have prepared a Haiku in his honor to help me grieve in this time of great stress. I hope you will all appreciate it.

One of the greats, gone,
Now, forever a legend,
Now we understand.

Thank you for reading, and I wish you all to leave luck to the heavens.

Before I begin, I'd like to state that, for the record, I'm a huge Metal Gear fan. I've played through every entry (except The Phantom Pain since it's not out yet) and loved them all. I could go on for hours about what is so great about this franchise, but fans and non-fans alike need to realize that something fishy is amidst the early Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain reviews.

Metal Gear games have been known for getting perfect scores in the past, so is The Phantom Pain worthy of the 9's and perfect 10's it's been receiving from early reviews? I personally do not know yet (I haven't played it yet). It could, by all means, be as amazing as early reviews say it is, but that's not the issue here. It's how certain game journalists played the game early and reviewed it. That's what needs to be addressed.

Typically, when a game journalist wants to get a copy of a game early to review: they contact the developer/publisher, inform them of their intentions, sign an NDA (Non-disclosure agreement), and get the game early to review, but that's not what happened with The Phantom Pain.

The following is a statement from Dan Dawkins at GamesRadar:

"For fear of spoilers, Konami invited journalists to review the game at five-day 'boot camps' tied to strict NDAs (non-disclosure agreements). We played between 9am to 5pm, with no unsupervised play outside these hours. That's a maximum play time of 40 hours, assuming no stoppages for eating, drinking, stretching or reality. So you're trying to complete a 35-50 hour game (or longer, depending on your play style and the nature of your 'completion' I can't say more), that you've been anticipating for five years, in a realistic window of 30-35 hours. On one hand, you're finally immersed in one of the deepest, most experimental, open-worlds in history – overwhelmed by side-missions, upgrades and secrets – on the other, haunted by a tick-tock race to reach the 'end' without knowing when that is."

That last paragraph is reason enough to not trust early reviews, but it goes even deeper.

This statement also comes from Dan Dawkins and gives you a bit more insight into how the game was played:

“Based on the UK boot camp, I know of only one reviewer (who was able to play for six days) who has seen enough of the game to deliver a meaningful perspective and I can't even explain why for fear of spoilers. In my boot camp, reviewers were charging through missions wearing the chicken hat (which makes you invisible) almost completely ignoring Mother Base and all the side-ops in a race for the 'end'. Will it score high? I mean, duh, but I don't feel the boot camp was sufficient basis to offer my views on Kojima's intentions and MGS5's abiding legacy. At times, the boot camp felt like being gifted a bottle of Macallan 1946 whiskey in a frat house and being told to chug, chug, chug.“

That last statement openly reveals that most journalists that partook in these 'boot camps' did not play The Phantom Pain to it's entirety.

So how is it that these same journalists that gave The Phantom Pain 9's and perfect 10's did so without even playing through the entire game? I shouldn't have to tell you that you have to play through the ENTIRE game to review it fairly.

A hands-on report from RockPaperShotgun claims that reviewers were under strict NDA to "share only information that was deemed necessary by Konami higher-ups."

It's completely understandable that Konami doesn't want story spoilers to be leaked, but they went about it all the wrong ways. The way Konami went about this means that journalists cherry picked the things they liked to put into their reviews and did not report on many things that may have hindered the game experience if Konami found these details "necessary".

Many journalists were quick to point out that the story wasn't up to par with previous Metal Gear entries, forced combat in many unnecessary moments, and included serious pay-walls in the form of microtransactions; yet that still warrants scores of perfect 10's by the same journalists?

The two aforementioned journalist sites did not have to share the 'boot camp' and NDA details, but they did. Most journalists wouldn't have and most didn't. All the journalists that gave The Phantom Pain 9's and 10's failed to mention the inner workings of the 'boot camps' and the NDAs. Were they trying to hide something or did they simply "forget"?

Again, this article isn't bashing The Phantom Pain. Is The Phantom Pain worthy of the 9's and 10's it has been receiving? It very well could be, but that's not the issue here. This article only serves as an attempt to bring important information to light that was trying to be hidden.

Well, with The Last of Us 2 being accidentally confirmed, it seems only fitting that some analysis be given to the original. There's a lot to analyze about Naughty Dog's post-apocalyptic shooter, but in this case, we're gonna look at what makes the ending of the game so damn powerful. But first, let's talk about the game itself. Needless to say, spoilers galore. Stop reading now if you haven't played or beaten the game yet.

The Last of Us ruined the post-apocalypse genre for me. Not just in games, but in all forms of media. I don't care how good The Walking Dead is. I don't care how fun Left 4 Dead is. The Last of Us did everything you could possibly do with a post-apocalyptic setting, and did it right. The biggest thing it did right: showing an unadulterated sense of humanity.

I've described this game to my friends as one of the most human games ever made. It's completely fantasy free. The infection is based on a real fungus. There are no big action setpieces. It's free of contrived Hollywood elements... mostly, and every line of dialogue feels real.

What makes the game 'human', though, is its characters. They aren't part of roaming bands of freedom fighters or bandits or post-government oppressors. This ain't Fallout. They're just people, trying to do whatever they can to survive. We see all sides of what an apocalypse can do to a human.

We see those who shut out emotions and personal feelings to avoid being hurt.


We see those who adapt.


We see those who try to hang on to a sense of normality.

We see those who scrape for any sign of hope.


We see those who were worn down by despair and violence and became something horrible.


Most of all, though, we see Joel. We see how he was hurt, how he copes with the decaying world around him, and how he becomes so desperate to have an anchor, to stay sane, that he does the most selfish, selfless thing anyone could do in his situation.

Throughout The Last of Us, Joel's only constant companion is Ellie. Thanks to some smart programming and perfect writing, Ellie oozes charm and depth, and quickly becomes an emotional crutch to both Joel and the player. It can be easy to forget that the endgame is to deliver her to the Fireflies. For the long journey, you might forget that there was even a destination at all, until you reach the hospital.

The Fireflies take Ellie away from Joel, with the intent of extracting a cure from her brain. Unfortunately, that means she'll die, and Joel will be left alone. In the twenty years that he's survived the infected world, Ellie is only thing he loved, and now she has to die. Joel is... not well. Yeah, he's stable, he's collected, he can hold his own in a fight, he's a survivor. That's why he's scary: give him something to fight for, and he'll get it. Until now, all he had to fight for was his own life. Now that he's fighting for someone else, he kills fully armed soldiers to get to her. Worse, if you allow it, he kills doctors. How many doctors do you think are left in this mad world?

As he escapes, Marlene tries to reason with him, saying that killing Ellie to get the cure for the infection would be the best possible ending for her. Given what Ellie witnessed and experienced during the journey, Marlene's arguments have credence.

But here's what we don't know: What do the Fireflies intend to do with the cure? They openly hate the government. They're distrusted by just as many people as those that worship them. Who's to say they wouldn't keep the cure for themselves? And that's assuming a cure can even be made to begin with. We don't know. That's the key. Joel kills Marlene anyway, so we won't ever find out.

So, where's the morality on this? Who was doing the right thing? That answer becomes even more ambiguous when Joel outright lies to Ellie about what happened. And we don't know if she fully believes him. Still, what was he supposed to say? "You remind me of my dead daughter and I love you, so I doomed humanity just so I could be happy" ? That would push Joel straight into villain territory. But he's not a villain. He's just a man trying to survive, and Ellie is his survival.

The beauty of The Last of Us is given form in these last moments because how much we don't know. We don't know what's going to happen next, who is the moral victor, and how this is going to affect Joel and Ellie's relationship. All we do know is that humanity is fucked, and it's either one man's fault, or nobody's fault.

Games usually have a goal. Whether it be to reach a high score, beat a series of levels, defeat certain foes, complete missions, and so on. Your mission in The Last of Us was initially to deliver Ellie to the Firefly hideout. But it wasn't long before you might have forgotten that. Soon, your goal was simply to protect her, because so long as she and you were together, you were happy.

Now, let's assume that a cure could've been made from Ellie's brain .When you, in control of Joel, took her away from the Fireflies and destroyed humanity's last hope, you fulfilled your self-assigned mission. You protected her. Humanity will die, but you protected her. Congratulations.

A winner is you.

What are they?

First of all, amiibo are little figurines that are around four inches tall (or shorter) and feature characters from various video games made by (or approved_2 for sale by) Nintendo. Some of these figures come in series and sets that are designed in a theme from a specific game like Mario Party and Super Smash Bros. Each of these figurines are also set on a small stand that is a little less than two inches in diameter, and the base contains a Near Field Communicator (NFC) pad that can interact with a reader embedded in the Gamepad of the Wii U, bottom half of the New 3DS, or the yet to be released NFC reader for the classic 3DS. Each of these figurines act in one of two ways: as a key to unlock content locked away within the game's code; or as a memory card for amiibo specific game modes. Now before you get all up in arms exclaiming that Nintendo is starting to act just like EA with having content locked away on the disc, just hear me out first. With the exception of Splatoon, the content unlocked by the amiibo's "key" function is often negligible and doesn't offer anything to the full enjoyment of the game. It's just a nice little bonus for people that own the figure and are often considered bragging rights stating that you own it.

Pros

1. They are very well made and extremely detailed considering their small size and they are cast in a very nice, sturdy plastic that doesn't feel cheaply manufactured.
2. Most of them are fairly priced at an MSRP of $12.99USD which is great for people that like to collect many figurines of their favorite characters.
3. They are region free meaning that if you have an amiibo imported from another country then it will still work with your game.
4. They aren't locked for use with a specific game. I.E. specific amiibo that may have been designed for Super Smash Bros can be used with Mario Party 10 or vice versa. This is useful if you like the design of one version of a character but not one of the others.
5. The "memory card" function that is used for amiibo specific game modes allow for a customizable experience that can be continued at a friend's house if you so choose.

Cons

1. Because of their unexpected popularity and Nintendo's failure to increase manufacturing to keep up with the demand, certain specific amiibo are often much more difficult to get a hold of due to the low number of them. Also, retailer exclusive and limited edition amiibo should never have been a thing. It just adds to the difficulty of obtaining one at retail price. I'M LOOKING AT YOU, SCALPERS!
2. The "memory card" function of the amiibo can only be used with one game at a time. If you wish to use the same amiibo with a different game, you'll either need to delete the data on the amiibo you currently have, or buy another one of the same character.
3. Keeping their collector's value is nearly impossible if you want to use them but not remove them from their box as an NFC blocker is embedded in the bottom of the package preventing their use while unopened.
4. While extremely rare, it is possible to accidentally buy an amiibo that that has a broken base or lacks the NFC functionality, and if you bought one from a place that doesn't allow you to return goods that have been removed from their original packaging, then you would be stuck with a piece of plastic whose only purpose is to take up space on a shelf in your room.

Closing Statement

Amiibo are a great little bonus for figurine collectors and Nintendo gamers alike. They have a charm about them that pulls people in to buy them and they are really well designed and priced well (assuming you buy it at retail). They aren't without their faults, but I see that the only real big problem of theirs is availability. If you can get a hold of a few yourself, I suggest you buy them regardless if you own anything Nintendo related that can use them. They are still considered figures and you could treat them as such, but until then, I'll be seeing you.

1. Stealth is your best friend. The enemies you face may be powerful, but they're dumber than a sack of hammers and are as attentive as deer in the headlights. Be as quiet as possible when approaching from behind and you might be lucky enough to deal a critical strike on them or even steal one of their weapons before they realize you're there, but if you accidentally alert a hoard of them just run away and hide; they'll eventually lose interest.
2. Stalfos are extremely frail. Despite their intimidating nature and powerful weaponry, stalfos of all kinds can be easily dispatched with a headshot from your bow. Be true with your aim and they'll topple like a house of cards.
   
3. Fight smart, not hard. In many cases it much easier to have the environment do your fighting for you. Keep a look out for boulders to push off a cliff into a small gathering of enemies below or something hanging near campsites that will cause some chaos if it is severed from its tether.
   
4. Find the DLC Equipment. The Phantom Armor and Majora's Mask are invaluable very early in your adventure as the Phantom Armor has a combined defense of 24 and each piece in the set raises your attack power by one level, and Majora's Mask makes most monster types ignore you unless they are threatened. Be extremely careful when procuring these pieces of equipment though as they are all found in enemy territory.
   
5. Be confident in your abilities. Unless you are absolutely certain in your skill level and equipment, DO NOT engage a lynel. Early in the game these monsters are death incarnate and many will be equipped with bomb arrows.
   
6. If you own amiibo, use them. No matter what the amiibo is, scanning one will give you a small handful of food or materials that will definitely help later. Even better, if one of the amiibo that you own is Wolf Link, then you have a partner that will help you fight the many beasts that stand between you and your ultimate goal.
   
7. Study your cookbook. Remember when cooking meals or mixing potions that the right ingredients can make all the difference. Combining ingredients with different attributes will cancel them out so be sure to use like-named foodstuffs like "mighty" or "armored." Also, dragon parts are not classified as alchemy ingredients; they're considered seasoning, so be sure to use them in food instead of potions with their horns having the best effect.
   
8. Ancient arrows = death from above. If you happen to find a few ancient arrows on your quest, save them for when you are REALLY in a pinch. With perfect aim and the right bow equipped, these arrows are strong enough to one-shot a silver lynel. However, enemies are instantly vaporized when shot with these arrows so you won't be getting any spoils from them. Plus getting this ammo replaced is a rather expensive endeavor so only use them if you have no other choice.
   
9. Be a shutterbug. After you get the camera rune, take pictures of everything the next time you come across it. If you are having trouble finding ingredients and materials for armor or stealth potions, you can set them to the sheikah slate's sensor so it will ping when you get close.
   
10. The best offense is a good defense. Good shields are a commodity early in the game so mastering the perfect guard is a must. Even a pot lid won't lose any durability if you manage to successfully parry a guardian's energy beam. Also, shield surfing will wear your shield down faster than any form of combat; avoid being Legolas until you can easily get more shields. If you're brave enough, a good strategy would be to sneak into Hyrule Castle while wearing Majora's Mask so you can more easily obtain the Hylian Shield from the Stalnox in the castle's dungeon keep. That shield can last for an absurdly long time, but once it breaks you won't be able to replace it until the Tarrey Town side quest is finished.
    
11. Elemental weapons: Your own personal climate controller. Flame and frost weaponry are not just effective in combat, but when sheathed on your back they can keep you warm in cold climates and cool in hot ones. This is important to know if you run out of meals and potions that give you those benefits.
    
12. Take advantage of weather conditions. While it may be dangerous to travel out into a thunderstorm with a bunch of metal equipment, it may be a good idea to take at least one rusty weapon with you. Since the lightning will be attracted to the metal, you can use this to your benefit by throwing the blade at your victim's feet at the last second and have the gods smite your foes for you. Just be sure you don't get electrocuted in the process.
    
13. Gotta go fast. Even if you aren't going to do the trial the moment you arrive there, activate the shrine anyway. The more fast travel points you have, the better.
14. Ration your weaponry. Never, EVER, throw a weapon at an enemy unless it is a boomerang or it is already getting ready to break. Once a weapon is thrown at your foe, it instantly shatters meaning you now have one less pointy stick to defend yourself with. Also, some enemies like ice wizzrobes and fire lizalfos have elemental weaknesses, so you can prevent a lot of unnecessary weapon damage if you slay these fiends with the blade or arrow that has the element containing the polar opposite of the monster's name.
    
15. Full body baptism. With the exception of lizalfos and octoroks, most enemies cannot swim. If you can somehow lure them to deep water and knock them in, they will drown and die instantly. This feat can be achieved much more easily if you have Kilton's spring hammer.
16. A link to the past. And last but not least, if you've already played through the game on the normal difficulty setting, great! Use your memories of your previous playthrough to breeze though the side quests with ease.

Well that's all the info I can summon from my research so I certainly hope it helps. If you're still having trouble, then I have no idea what else you can do but to start farming for fairies; they might be able to keep you alive for a little while longer. But until then, I'll be seeing you.

I currently work in a support role at an inclusive, public College in County Durham, England that is in the Top 20 bracket of Sixth Form in the country (Quite an achievement since most in the top 20 are rich private colleges) and I have performed the same role for other schools and Universities for nearly 20 years.

Gaming is a hobby of mine outside of my work. It is not my only hobby but it would be accurate to say it is my primary one.

My political affiliations are, well, none. That is to say that I am very distrustful of both the Left and the Right and I find that political parties to be nothing more than legalised Mafia organisations. I have been labelled an Anarchist as a result, however that would be inaccurate as I am agreeable with most of the structure of the British Government (House of Lords should be replaced with something else though!), I simply prefer to vote for a non-party individual to be my representative and hope one day that the House of Commons is filled with nothing but non-party representatives, although I'm willing to concede that it won’t be likely to happen within my lifetime.

I have also been likened to Conspiracy Theorists types that believe in the Illuminate and the New World Order (Not the Pro Wrestling faction) and that 9/11 was an inside job. In reality I have taken on their incredulity so much they think I am a C.I.A. “Psy Op“. An MI5 operative would be more believable since I am British but it goes to show how moronic they can be!

Anyway, that is enough introductions. I have a challenge to issue.

For the past year the Twitter hashtag GamerGate has been a significant talking point within the gaming world, if not necessarily aloud within the development and publishing part of the industry. Over 8 million tweets have been posted in the hashtag that was declared by its detractors that it would be over in a week, then a month and then it became just wishful thinking as they buried their heads in the sand, or at least they started to use blockbots!

Why the hashtag started is merely down to consumers being unable to raise their concerns about the unethical state of the industry’s media. When revelations came to light in the summer of 2014 that there was a conflict of interest between a reporter at Kotaku promoting a game without first, disclosing his financial support towards the game he was promoting (This earned his name being listed in the game’s credits), secondly not disclosing their close personal relationship, consumers had decided after years of suspicion of unethical behaviour in the gaming media that questions finally needed to be answered. They were instead met with censorship. Comment sections were being suppressed and forum threads deleted on a massive scale.

Consumers were left to turn to Twitter, YouTube and Chan Boards (Ones that would allow GamerGate discussions) to raise their questions and concerns. The actor Adam Baldwin was the first to use #GamerGate on Twitter while linking to one of the many videos being made at the time, talking about the gaming media’s unwillingness to tackle the accusations levelled at itself. While personally, I would have preferred a different name rather than using the clichéd suffix of having “Gate“ at the end of a scandal, you work with what you get and everyone else in the hashtag took to using it.

Rather than deal with the accusations and the evidence presented to them, the games media instead attempted the head in the sand technique by releasing the many “Gamers are Dead“ articles on the hope that they could emerge from the sand and be surrounded only by like-minded ideologues within a purpose made bubble, housing only the worthy (translated: privileged) few and keeping out the unclean “misogynists“ (translated: working class).

Over the following twelve months the narrative from the gaming media, which would infect the mainstream media, was that GamerGate was nothing more than an organised harassment campaign against women and other minorities trying to get into the male, patriarchal dominated video games industry simply because they were women and minorities. Unlike the significant number, if not the majority in the video game world of women and minorities that have already been in the industry, with great successes for the past 25 years that gamers have had no issues with at all!

What I have always found to be fascinating was the effort made to keep the narrative about GamerGate being a hate movement for this length of time. Proponents of Homeopathy and Geocentricism (Theory that the Earth is the absolute center of the Universe) are rightly mocked in academia and the media for their claims, largely in part because they are unwilling to offer evidence for their assertions or claims. Even if they do offer something they claim to be evidence, it is so faulty that it only serves to prove how spurious their claims are.

With opponents of GamerGate however, they have managed to go a whole year without ever being seriously held to account and prove the validity of their claims, albeit not that surprising given that they have the privilege of controlling the mechanisms for pushing the narrative. Disturbingly some on the Anti GamerGate side say without any irony that “Evidence is a patriarchal construct“ which does not help any attempts they might make to dissuade observers that their “Listen and Believe“ mantra is very much cult-like.

So here is where I finally put the challenge to opponents of GamerGate. Many will right now be shocked or “triggered“ to realise that a GamerGate sympathiser is in fact not stuck in a basement (They don’t really exist much here in the UK) but is in fact working in an educational establishment supporting the learning experience of young adults which I'm sure they find “problematic“.

Now as keen as they will be to call my employer and claim that I am every evil under the sun and demand I be fired ala Tim Hunt, I suggest they don’t for two reasons. First, I have already had two meetings with management over my support of GamerGate, they are supportive of my views.

This was done in preparation for meeting my constituent MP in July as I figured those who were Anti GamerGate then might try and harm my livelihood and yes you read correctly, I spoke to my MP about the demonisation of GamerGate supporters in the media after seeing two supporters of GamerGate claim on social media that they were going to attempt to take their own lives. The Anti side do not have exclusive access to Left Leaning, Female Politicians.

If the Anti side attempt to sully my name to my employers, the claims will either be ignored because they already know it is not true, or they will pass the complaint onto me in case I wish to invoke those infamous UK Defamation laws, or if the college believes their name is in danger of being besmirched they will make inquires on the same said laws or even possibly the Malicious Communications Act 1988.

Secondly, there will be no need to risk jail time in your attempt to destroy my livelihood because I am in fact going to gift you an open goal with my challenge if you can complete it. Based on Chris von Csefalvay’s statistical analysis, the best educated hypothesis is that GamerGate supporter’s numbers are rounded to be 100,000 people. For the Anti Gamergate statement to be true, that the majority of the hashtag for this whole year is nothing but harassing and doxing women, then 51,000 accounts on Twitter will have to be identified as doing nothing but harassing and doxing.

For perspective, Chris von Csefalvay came to a conclusion of 0.2% he believed was harassment only. That would be 200 accounts needed to be found to match that percentage, which of course is nowhere near the majority and I am sure that the opposition do not want to be likened to the sort of bigotry that says “Because this one Radical Islamist blew up a train, all Muslims are terrorists“!

However, if they can produced verifiable evidence of 51,000 Twitter accounts that have done nothing but harass and doxx, I will offer my resignation to my employer stating that I cannot realistically continue to be trusted to safeguard our students and for bringing down the reputation of the establishment as a result of supporting a hate group for a year.

There are some requirements to meet the 51,000 mark however. First, don’t just give me a list of account names from a Block Bot. That doesn't show me anything other than a list someone has decided to generate to help people with more burying heads in the sand. Plus considering that at one point Kentucky Fried Chicken ended up on a block list, without any reference to GamerGate made, that list’s trustworthiness is about zero!

For every name that you are putting on the list has to come with evidence of a section of tweets proving that the account is a GamerGate supporter and that they are mostly harassing or doxing people. Sorry, despite what may have been said recently at a UN Women’s conference, criticising someone making hypocritical statements, logical fallacies, lacking or refusing to provide evidence or citations for arguments or mocking statement/arguments made using sarcasm, parody or memes does not count as harassment in rationality let alone the law. Threats of physical harm counts as harassment.

Second, an account on the list will be disqualified if found that the account is in fact the common problem of a third party troll and I am referring the true definition of a troll here which is someone saying anything to rile up anyone and everyone, not someone who questions your assertions. If the account is only 6 months old maximum with less than 500 tweets, zero following count, low favourite numbers, that is a troll account made just to troll. If an account is found attacking both anti and pro GamerGate and anything else that is trending, that is also deemed a troll account and won’t count.

So there you have it Anti GamerGate, here is your chance to not only prove that the majority of GamerGate is actually harassment but you also get the chance to end the career of a supporter. Since I am what you call working to lower middle class, losing my job would mean I would become homeless and destitute within a month or two, which seems like a fitting punishment for someone promoting a hate group does it not?

Oh, you feel uncomfortable possibly making someone working class drop into poverty? Well if it makes you feel any better, you have never had any conscience or cared about that before! That is the point of all this though. I am willing to put my head on the block of the guillotine and I am daring you Anti GamerGate, Social (Media) Justice Warriors to pull the string. Because then you might finally realise and come to terms with what you are and the rest of the world can finally get to see who you really are.

Although I am sure that some of you will be quite content to do that while telling the rest of the “peasants“ watching that they can eat cake.

#1: Add Optional Premium and/or Paid Accounts

Microsoft's XBox One and Sony's PlayStation 4 both have one thing in common that seem to keep drawing in more consumers, and that is XBox Live's Silver and Gold Memberships and PlayStation Network's PlayStation Plus and PlayStation Now accounts. They are paid subscription accounts that have special features available only to those that have them. This usually includes improved internet stability and security, cloud service, special discounts for certain games, and early access for some games still in BETA, and with PlayStation Now, streaming games from earlier systems at no extra charge. If Nintendo did something similar with their Nintendo Network, they could add something like a "Nintendo Network Premium Account" that have features similar to this.

#2: Unlock the Region Lock

There are many gamers (like myself) that like to import games from other countries. This could be because some games aren't available in the country where you live, or certain games are heavily censored when they were localized for your country of residence. This however can be an inconvenient problem if the console isn't region free. Ever since Nintendo had started making games, they have always tried to implement a form of region locking on all of their home consoles, and now it has spread to their portable systems starting with the 3DS. This makes it expensive if you want to import games because it now requires you to buy a system that matches the region the game is in as well. Now, we have seen hackers exploit the 3DS to make it region free before, so I propose that Nintendo can do either one of two options with this one. Either A: Make their next set of systems region free from the start; or B: Offer a paid digital "Passport" on the eShops that unlocks the system for use with imported games. If Microsoft can do it with an update to their XBox One, Nintendo should have no excuse to not do it to the Wii U, 3DS or the yet to be released NX.

#3: Match their Competitors' Specs

While Nintendo has been absolutely fantastic when it comes to gameplay, they have been shown to sometimes be "behind the times" with their system's tech. This has spawned some issues that could be the cause to why so many games haven't been ported to their systems. It's probably also the reason why so many of Nintendo's old 3rd Party stand-by games went to PlayStation when Nintendo showed that they would continue to use cartridges. If Nintendo is to step up their game and give players a reason to pick them over their competitors, they need to either match, or surpass the graphical and computing power of their rivals if they are to get more games ported to their systems. This can be a challenge however as Nintendo usually goes lower to save on money and to make their systems for affordable, but I'm sure that if they tried, then they can pull it off.

#4: Make More amiibo Compatible Games

Thanks to Skylanders and Disney Infinity, amiibo has grown to be quite the phenomenon with collectors, and for good reason. They are really well designed, sturdy, fairly priced, and can do a variety of things in games that support their use, that is if you can find a game that uses them well. So far Splatoon, Super Smash Bros 4 and Chibi-Robo: Zip Lash are the only games I've seen that use the amiibo well enough to warrant a purchase of one, assuming you aren't a collector. As such, Nintendo needs to make more games in which amiibo have more compelling uses and more free titles that can only be played with amiibo. Animal Crossing: amiibo Festival is a good start, but it isn't good enough. We need a Skylanders styled game that use these things, or some kind of digital trophy case app that gives a little bit of flavor text and a small mini game specifically for that amiibo when it is scanned.

#5: Make a New Loyalty Program

When it was still active, Club Nintendo was great. I ended up getting a lot of really cool stuff from there and it is partially the reason why I started pre-ordering my games instead of getting them a few weeks after they came out (registering games early netted you more spendable points). This was an ingenious way to get people to buy their games early, and it was also a great way to get exclusive rewards that you wouldn't be able to buy normally like a special Mario cap or a re-issued Ball Game & Watch. However, it kinda fell to the wayside when the rewards started to become a little...lackluster, and as such the program was canned. I thought the idea of cool exclusive rewards should be brought back in some way with a new loyalty program, but since physical rewards are expensive to produce (and probably the reason why Club Nintendo stopped offering them), I propose a digital program that can offer exclusive digital themes, games, and gift cards to loyal buyers.

#6 More Physical Pre-Order Bonuses

If there is one thing I know about pre-ordering games, it is special bonuses make sells happen. Every time I've tried to pre-order a game in the Zero Escape series so I can get the special bonus watch that came with it, I was always too late and never managed to get one. Nintendo needs to do this more, especially in North America because I keep hearing that UK stores like GAME offer a ton of physical pre-order bonuses for the games that they sell while we only really get digital ones like exclusive DLC or a digital soundtrack or art book. I feel that this is incredibly unfair to American, Canadian, and Latin American consumers as they are missing out on some really cool stuff and it would get Nintendo the sales that they desperately need to survive in the gaming market.

#7: STOP WITH THE YOUTUBE COPYRIGHT CLAIMS!

Even though Nintendo has been pretty good on what they've put on their YouTube channel (specifically with their Nintendo Directs), this has caused nothing but trouble with Let's Players, Reviewers, and News channels on that site. Nintendo, for some reason, has been issuing copyright claims left and right for videos containing gameplay of games they've created and/or produced even though most of those videos technically count as free advertisement. From my experience, gameplay footage =/= playing the game first hand. I have actually ended up buying MORE games because of some Let's Plays I've seen on YouTube. Come on Nintendo, even though you are well within your legal rights, please just let your fans make their videos in peace. And while you're at it, you should drop the whole Nintendo Creators Program as well. That just spells nothing but trouble.

#8: Make ALL Virtual Console Games Cross-Buy

If you happen to own two or more game systems by the same company, you should expect to be able to buy the game once on your account and be able to use it across all platforms, right? Sony does this with their PS1 classics and Xbox with their XBox Live Arcade titles and they have had few complaints among their consumers, but Nintendo doesn't seem to grasp this very well. Nintendo has hundreds of games that would benefit greatly from being playable on all systems, but the thought of buying the same game again just to play it on another system is very deterring, especially when some of the games are exclusive to a certain platform. Make them work with all systems, including the N64 games, and I'm sure that would make a lot of consumers happy.

#9: More Cross Compatible and Cross Platform Games

I don't really know how to word what it is called exactly, but what I'm referring to are entirely different games that have the ability to unlock features in each other, and games that allow for multiplayer across different platforms. I remember when Metroid Prime had the ability to have special unlockables when it connected to the Game Boy Advance game Metroid Fusion. It gave a reason to buy and play through both games and it gave them reason to be replayed. The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker and Animal Crossing both did something similar where if you connected a Game Boy Advance (without a game) to the console, it could download special extras to the handheld that added to the experience. Now for cross platform multiplayer games, I have only really seen two games that offer this on the Wii U and one of them has kind of an odd way of doing it. Let's just hope Nintendo gets better at this in the future.

#10: Universal Accounts

Now I'm sure this has irritated a lot of fans, but the Wii U and 3DS have a rather annoying form of linked accounts: Only one Wii U and one 3DS can be linked to a single Nintendo Network account at a time and you'll have to transfer all of the content on the system if you want to upgrade. Microsoft and Sony have a universal account system that works for all of their platforms and it allows them to re-download any and all compatible games and software onto a newer system at no additional cost. This is an excellent way to keep consumers and fans as long as possible and it helps buyers to save as much as possible while still enjoying their hobby.

If Nintendo does these things, I'm sure it can bring them back into relevance with their old consumers. If not, well at least they would be on equal footing with their competitors. But until then, I'll be seeing you.

That was the beginning paragraph of the editorial called "Pound of Flesh" in issue 53 of Amiga Power magazine, just shy over 20 years ago in September 1995. It would be accurate to say that this editorial is only infamous for gamers in the UK save for a handful of Amiga enthusiasts overseas. Even then it will only be known for those of us that were in households that either chose to have an Amiga 500/600/1200 as their gaming machine, or in the case of myself, a household that couldn't make enough money to get into the console craze that Nintendo or Sega were offering at the time and had to settle for the option of getting a cheap Commodore machine where budget games could be bought for as little as £2.

However for those few of us old gaming fogies who were avid Amiga Power readers, their commentary in September 1995 has been coming back to our memories at this time , probably more so given that we are now over year of GamerGate happening.

The two page spread (Which you can view a scan of here) took a sarcastic tone to the subject of collusion and conflicts of interest, not as a way of dismissing the notion that there were issues between news outlets and publishers but simply because everything Amiga Power did was with a mocking tone. It was what made them popular with readers. They were rebels without a cause and openly, brazenly in fact, mocked and jabbed at everyone else in the Amiga community even their big sister publication Amiga Format, which was under the same publishing arm of Future Publications.

While reading a quote from the piece "after the meal, Binary Magician Interactive's PR guy Gary let me drive his Testarossa to the office. He's great, and we played the game for an hour while chatting about getting hammered together that night" it is obvious that the line was made for comedic effect and not to be taken too seriously as an actual example of what went on with reviews. With hindsight of the last 20 years with what we have since learnt about some the practices that have gone on between reviewers and publishers, there is an element of truth to AP's comedic statement.

In fact if you take selected moments of the article two decades on, you can match them with incidents that have been reported or at least speculated within the last decade.

This still remains one of the main talking points and concerns with consumers. How much influence is exerted on reporters and reviewers as a result of being "wined and dined" by publishers? William Usher talked about this three years ago in an article for Cinema Blend. John Walker wrote a blog about this subject in October 2012

If the words of former editor of Official Australian PlayStation 2 Magazine Richie Young are to be believed, one does not need to have to become close to a developer that an affair can happen. If you want sex in exchange for positive coverage, publishers have allegedly been willing to go that route!

"And it shall pass that the reviewer can't get off level one. And he shall not care for the game, or want to play it for more than 20 minutes. But lo, he shall be fearful of the software company dropping advertising and missing him off the free create of beer list at Christmas, and he shall tremble and quake mightily as all rival mags have given it a high score. So he shall give it a score low enough to dissuade potential buyers, yet high enough to pacify the software people. And that score shall be the NUMBER OF THE BEAST, and it shall be 73%."

The scoring of games has become such a messy debate that it is surprising that not many review magazines and websites have abandoned scoring games altogether. Putting aside the asinine reaction of the small set of readers who are offended that a game they place all their hopes and dreams on only getting 7 out 10 and not 9, the lack of trust in publications giving scores without any influence from game publishers has been greatly noticeable for a number of years now. Not to mention the inadvertently created horror that is Metacritic which has shown the complete disconnect between reviewers and consumers and much worse, led to the culture of developers struggling to gain employment because companies demand that they have a profile of games that score 90 or above on the website.

The most famous incident of impropriety between publishers and reviewers over the score of a game is still Jeff Gerstmann losing his job at Gamespot in 2007 following his review and average score awarded to Kane & Lynch Dead Men while Eidos was paying for game to be heavily advertised on Gamespots? website.

" These graphics would be remarkable enough on a PC 486DX, so they're truly astounding on a CD32' is a euphemism for The Amiga version's still three months away from completion, so we've played the PC version on a 486DX, even though it features texture mapping and gourard shading far beyond the capabilities of the Amiga and therefore gives a completely false impression of the game. But hey, we've got the much vaunted and meaningless exclusive" And you think we're making this up.

For the moment I would say that it would only be speculation that this still happens today. I have yet to see a review of a multi-platform game that did not disclose which version was used to review the game. I had some notes of allegations of this happening more recently on websites but those links turned up as smoke however do not construe that as me dismissing that it would ever happen. If anyone does have examples to offer, please post them in the comments section below, I will be happy to edit later.

Take more quotes from the article and you can likely think of a similar incident that has been reported or alleged within the last five to ten years. I would be easy to argue that it is cliched to use the phrase "The more that changes, the more things stay the same", however given what we have seen in the twenty years since AP's editorial is that it can't be considered cliched, if in fact it is proven to be true and accurate to say about the state of the gaming press.

The fact that we can look back two decades ago at this article and say today that the same things have been happening in the industry, solidifies the argument that GamerGate was not a sudden explosion from one moment of impropriety. It was the straw that broke the camel's back from twenty years or more of abuse by the media that was suppose to be advising and protecting the consumers. Amiga Power might have been able to find humour in it back in 1995. Today with the industry worth an estimated $80 Billion, consumers do not find it funny anymore.]]> 55LJJjRD4V7 Thu, 08 Oct 2015 09:02:00 +0000 https://novogamer.com/articles/top-ten-games-under-ten-dollars-ZKQzwNYdVA Black Friday is fast approaching and one thing is on everyone's mind because of it: Getting the best deal possible. However if you're short on cash, even the most tantalizing sales can still be out of your price range. I'm here to help with that. Since I myself am usually a little short on cash as well, I have found several extremely good games all at ten dollars or less. So if you're looking for some good, inexpensive games (or if you're just being cheap), I present my top ten list of video games that are $10 or less.

(Please keep in mind that my opinions may or may not reflect your own, this list is entirely biased.)

FEZ (XBox 360, PS3, PS4, PSVita, Steam)

FEZ is a puzzle/adventure platforming game made by Phil Fish of Polytron. It has this unique game mechanic where while the game is played in 2D, the world can be rotated 90 degrees to get a different view of your surroundings. It also has a very charming feel and rather calming soundtrack. This has been one of the most enjoyable games I've ever played, and even though many people don't agree with Fish's opinions or practices as of late, you should not condemn the game solely on that fact alone. Remember, it is okay to like someone's work even though you don't like its creator.

VVVVVV (Steam, 3DS)

Pronounced as "The Letter 'V' Six Times," this game is a 2D adventure platformer designed in the style of old Commodore 64 games. While the game has a very retro look, it has a rather interesting gameplay mechanic wherein you cannot jump. Instead, pressing Up or the "jump" button will reverse the pull of gravity. It is a ton of fun and also has a fantastic soundtrack to boot. Definitely download it if you like retro games.

Retro City Rampage (Steam, XBox 360, WiiWare, PS3, PS4, PSVita, 3DS, MS-DOS)

Speaking of retro games, Retro City Rampage is a mission-based adventure/sandbox game reminiscent of the Grand Theft Auto series but presented in the graphical style of many classic gaming systems and computers of the 80's. For the most part the game is entirely open-world; There is a ton of stuff to collect and explore and there are even secret cheat codes that can be found as graffiti. Considering that this game can be downloaded on just about everything, there is no reason why you shouldn't get it.

BOXBOY! (3DS)

This is a rather charming game made by Hal Laboratories, the creators of game series like Kirby and Super Smash Bros. It is a puzzle platformer in which you play as Qbby, the eponymous box boy who has the ability to spawn blocks from his body to help him solve puzzles and traverse the treacherous terrain of his world. This game truly excels at what it does. It gives you one main game mechanic, and gives you so much stuff that you can do with it. Plus it has a rather interesting monochrome presentation that gives it an unusual indie feel to it. Definitely download this game if you own a 3DS.

Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved (XBox 360, Steam)

Like arcade-style games? Then you would definitely love this. Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved is a fast paced, twin-stick shoot-em-up that has on occasion been described as being like "Asteroids on steroids." It is action-packed, has a ton of color and flashy graphics, and is extremely addictive. Its simplicity is this game's strong suit; it doesn't need much and it still pulls it off extremely well. Download it whenever you get the chance.

Teslagrad (PS3, PS4, PSVita, Wii U, Steam)

Teslagrad is an atmospheric Metroidvania game with a heavy focus on electricity and magnetism as part of its gameplay. It has clever puzzles and a rather intriguing story that is told via puppet shows in special theater halls that you will occasionally find as you explore. While this game doesn't have much combat, it doesn't really need it as the puzzles and the secrets within the story is what really make this game shine. A must have if you like Metroidvania style games. (Please note that only the Steam version of this game is less than ten dollars when not on sale.

Papers, Please (Windows, Steam)

Not really the most compelling game at first glance, but looks can oft be deceiving. Papers, Please is a story driven simulator where you play as a checkpoint inspector at the border of the fictitious country, Arstotzka. At the end of each day, you are payed five credits for every person you successfully process, but all of that money must be spent wisely on food, medicine and shelter for your family or else they will get sick and eventually die. This makes making choices harder as moral conundrums arise and a rebellion uprising makes itself apparent. If you like story-driven games, then this might be the game for you.

Pac-Man Championship Edition DX (XBLA, PSN, Steam, Windows Phone, iOS & Android)

Pac-Man has always been an addicting game series, but this one takes the cake. Pac-Man Championship Edition DX is very likely the fastest and most addicting classic-style Pac-Man game to date and it definitely shows. It has the same old Pac-Man gameplay that made the series what it is, plus a few tweaks here and there to make it much more interesting and thrilling. Instead of progressing from board to board, the maze changes on the fly as you play, plus the timer makes for a much more interesting experience as you are racing against the clock to get as many points as possible. This game is a lot of fun and cheap to boot.

Noitu Love 2: Devolution (Steam)

To be completely honest, I first heard about this game by watching Steam Train on YouTube, but once I saw it, I was hooked. Noitu Love 2 is an arcade-style beat-em-up with a graphical appearance and presentation that is very similar to games like Metal Slug and Gunstar Heroes. The gameplay is actually pretty unorthodox for a beat-em-up; you move with WASD controls and you attack by aiming and clicking the left mouse button, but as unusual as this seems, it works really well. If you like games like this, this is likely going to give you many hours of fun.

Undertale (Windows, iOS, Steam)

This game was a rather unexpected gem that has spawned a rather large following in a very short time frame. Undertale is a JRPG-styled indie game where you have the option to fight, but have the ability to completely finish the game without ever harming anyone. This has the unprecedented ability to make the player question their morality once they start to stray from the path they started on, because not only does the game give you the power to win by not fighting, but it remembers everything you do, even if you reset the game after you've saved. This game is far too content dense for me to list the rest here, so I will be reviewing it separately at a later date.

BONUS: Any classic game offered by Nintendo's Virtual Console Service (3DS, Wii, Wii U)

Don't like those fancy new games? Why not take a nostalgic trip down memory lane then? With the exception of Sin & Punishment, every game on Nintendo's Virtual Console service is between $5-10 and can offer the same amount, if not more content than many modern downloadable games. Definitely consider this option if you like classic games.

Well I hope this helps. I know it probably would've helped a lot more if I listed more than what I did, but cheap high quality games are really hard to find these days. So while it isn't much, I hope you try out these games anyway, but until then, I'll be seeing you.

So when I picked up my PS4, the first game I decided to give a shot was of course, this. Rocking into remastered edition showed me two things; the graphic capability was beautiful, and two, five minutes in and my heart would collapse from the emotional gut-wrenching tale that Naughty Dog and the IP's Neil Druckmann wanted to tell. Not five minutes in and we're shown the man we're to play; Joel, and the morally ambiguous tale following the death of his daughter launches away!

"I got you this watch so you can count down the minutes til I eat bullets, dad."

I slipped through the game on normal difficulty, marking it for all the right things; the writing, the characters, the believability of the cordyceps infection on its victims. This was why the game was so beautiful, under the construction of several teams, it seemed that Naughty Dog didn't want to just give us a run-and-gun game--they wanted something soul. If not for the little things, the way characters flinch at flashlights, the tiny little comments, or the completely beautiful desolation of the world we're seeing, then the game wouldn't stand on its own merit. Yet, this isn't why I believe it gave a lasting impact on me.

I completed the Last Of Us within two days and I loved every single moment of it as a game. I can understand why it won 240 awards, and did exactly what I expect Naughty Dog to do; make worthwhile games.

Then I decided to give Grounded a shot.

For those of us that weren't illuminated by the brilliance of this game, a little bit of backstory must be given. See, I've played games where supplies dwindle, hope runs out, and you're left to ponder the constant fear of death and destruction from whatever the fuck's coming around the corner to eat your ass like groceries, but this game toppled that effect.

"You think this bothers me? I took on six clickers with a paperclip once!"

When it comes to TLOU, Grounded places the character in the worst case scenario. The entire game sets you up like so:

Welcome to The Last Of Us.

FUCK YOU.

While the game tried to implement a system of dwindling resources against an onslaught of zombies, bandits, fireflies, the environment, Donald Trump, AIDS, and thirst, there was always the feeling of safety in you finding supplies, healing up Joel, and moving onto the next part. However, Grounded cuts down supplies by 90%, lowers health to 10%, and increases the enemies, the AI, and the overall shitstorm of gunfights, monsters, and everything!

While before you could count your twelve bullets of your snub-nose revolver and think "Eh, fuck it, if I miss, I miss," you aren't given such a privileges this time around.

"I can take all of em out if they stand in a line."

You are to completely change your way of thinking. You don't have bullets, you don't have health packs, you have six men coming for you, and you've got a paper-clip, a piece of string, an arrow, a brick, one clean sock, and four nails. Facing people head on is a complete suicide act with the AI hiding behind cover and only coming out to shoot the second you pop out yourself, you're completely outnumbered, underwhelmed, and that is why I absolutely love it.

Joel and Ellie are on the moral ambiguous line of storytelling. We hear plenty of times that he's changed throughout this world; once a dedicated father and hard-worker, he had now become a murdering, flip-flopping smuggler who doesn't acknowledge the right or wrong in the world. Yet, we see him as a complex, real character and from that we empathize, and it makes wanting to see him and Ellie survive so much more that Grounded really gives us the game we're aching for. You feel the desperation in the their situation and story, and when you finally get to the third act of this magnificent tale, you feel like you've been through the same ordeal yourself. You've scrounged up molotovs, snuck around more clickers than a ninja in a nightclub line, and come out of every ordeal by the skin of your teeth, and overcome it in the only way you could.

When those credits finally started rolling, I really did feel like I'd been through one hell of a journey. And from it, my entire gaming perspective changed completely. While going back over old games like Fallout 3, New Vegas, Far-Cry 2--I began to realize that I was running and gunning my way through everything. When looking back to the gameplay of Grounded, it made me appreciate everything so much more. I would look back and completely evaluate every action I would make. When I hopped on Alien Isolation, I'd collect everything, work out every kink, save every piece of scrap, and barely used any supplies while evading the evil bitch. While playing Fallout, my stimpaks wouldn't falter or fade--my guns would be repaired, and I'd be cautious. I would leave settlements in Far Cry with more bullets than I spent, and health too. The Last Of Us completely revolutionized my playing style and made me appreciate the important of both challenging gameplay, style, and story.

Unfortunately now all I can do is throw bottles to distract my family while I search my fridge for food and if anybody asks me how I am, I instinctively smash their heads into cupboards while screaming for Ellie to run.

Free-to-Start (Examples: Fatal Frame: Maiden of Black Water, Killer Instinct, Zen Pinball 2)

A Free-to-Start game (Also known as Free-to-Play) is any game that offers a small snippet of the game for free, but after that snippet is finished you would then need to pay real world currency to permanently (or even temporarily) unlock a portion (or the rest) of the game in order to play new content. Now, I can understand why people wouldn't like this. Much of the game would be locked behind one or more pay-walls that you cannot pass unless you fork over some of your hard earned cash. Sometimes (and often without paying attention) you would dump more money into the game than it would theoretically be worth. You would just keep feeding money into the game just so you could keep playing for a chance at new content. I'm guilty of this when I play Nintendo Badge Arcade. The thing is, many mobile games are literally Free-to-Play and the only things that are priced are power-ups that can help you get past an area where you might be stuck. Exactly where does the hate come from then? My theory is because the game might be fair most of the time, but it may spike in difficulty and you would have to pay to gain an additional boost. This might be the case, but who knows for sure...

Freemium (Examples: Team Fortress 2, Star Wars: The Old Republic, League of Legends)

A Freemium game is any game that otherwise offers you the full single-player and/or multi-player campaigns (if not most of them) completely for free, but with a catch. This catch is while a lot of the game is free, much of the game's content can unlocked through normal (but extended) play, but with the ability to bypass this through paid transactions. This includes, but is not limited to: additional cosmetic options to your character, more powerful bonus weapons or characters unavailable in the main game, additional areas or game modes, extra in-game currency, or even items and equipment in the game that you can unlock from normal play. I could see why this would be a hot button issue with many gamers, but I can also understand why this would be a viable alternative. If you are a player that has little time for games and/or are impatient, you can pay a little cash for specific features to help you quickly get the items or goods that you like the most. Although I can also see why many don't like this either. While I occasionally play Team Fortress 2, I don't play it often enough to win any random drops that get me what I want, but I don't want to shell out any of my cash for anything on the Steam Workshop either. It's why the phrase "Pay-to-Win" exists after all...

Pay-to-Play (Examples: Skylanders, World of Warcraft, amiibo)

Similar to Free-to-Start games, a Pay-to-Play game only lets you continue playing as long as you keep feeding money into the beast. But unlike Free-to-Start games, these are almost all subscription or physical media based and more often than not, there might not be a free portion of the game to try. Depending on the game, if you want to continue playing so you can see new content, you will need to subscribe to an online service with regular monthly payments, or buy more physical objects that are compatible with the game in question. These subscriptions and add-ons can drain your bank account faster than anything I've seen, and I should know as I regularly buy amiibo whenever they become available. Games like this are notorious for not only for charging you the subcription/media fees but also charging EXTRA for the main game and any major expansions that become available for it later. These types of games are also the major cause for "subscription fatigue" which is usually why most gamers only have one game of this type (assuming they have one at all). I theorize as time goes on and as inflation gets out of hand, people just start to see the futility of spending money on frivolous things and start to become bitter when they are being charged for every little thing, even if the cost overall is negligible. But I digress...

So with my analysis on these three game formats, only one question remains: Are these types of business practices unethical, or just a necessary evil? Well... Money is inherently evil to start with and it makes them look greedy when they abuse paid transactions to no end, but unfortunately it is a necessary evil whether we want to admit it or not. It drives the economy forward and it makes sure the people that worked on the game still get a paycheck. So if you happen to play games like these (I do all the time), just remember that the money spent on it is more than likely being used to make sure that company that made it stays in business. But until next time, I'll be seeing you.

Quote from K. Lee Lerner’s Social Issues Primary Sources Collection

In years of internet mud-slinging (because using the word “debate“ would be insulting to everyone’s intelligence) that I have taken part in, I now believe that out of all the cults that think cognitive dissonance is a positive trait, the opponents of the hashtag GamerGate (Anti GamerGate) are now at the top of the league.

Having had the displeasure of being had at by 9/11 Truthers, Creationists, Flat Earthers, Geocentrists, Homeopathy pushers, Anti Vaxers and others, I have been well versed in how much level of ignorance people are prepared to instill in themselves in order to protect their world view from being challenged. Like the others Anti GamerGate and by extension radical Third Wave Feminists and Social (Media) Justice Warrior types will not be swayed by evidence or proof that their assertions are without merit.

As Chuck Klosterman wrote in “I wear the Black Hat: Grappling with Villains“,

“And this, of course, is the central problem with conspiracy theorists√¢‚Ǩ≈†√¢‚Ǩ‚√¢‚Ǩ≈†once you inflexibly accept that something is a conspiracy, any contrary evidence has the paradoxical effect of making your case stronger. Every contradiction deepens the conspiracy.“

What sets Anti GamerGate apart from the rest however is that other proponents of conspiracy theories will at least make the effort to provide what they consider evidence to prove their hypothesis. Of course what they offer is usually terrible and does not stand up to any form of scrutiny, but at least they try and make the effort. Anti GamerGaters however have the unique standing of demanding to be taken seriously and with respect by not offering any evidence at all to prove their assertions. Their mantra of “Listen and Believe“ is more than a catchy saying on a presentation screen.

Some will try and offer what they call evidence by linking a “peer reviewed study“ (Usually not reviewed outside of the circles of the discredited subjects) or an online article from The Guardian (Which is usually just commentary with near infinite click loops to other commentary, not actual objective news) but is presented in a way that is no different than using the argument “The Bible exists, therefore it’s true!“.

That is a rare occurrence for Anti GamerGate though. Normally it is blasphemous to question Anti GamerGate to give evidence for their claims. In fact just even allowing anyone sympathetic to GamerGate’s concerns about journalism in the industry to discuss it at conventions has the opposition cry “Heresy!“

It won’t come as a surprise to me that some of Anti Gamergate will immediately see this and shout “LOL! Irony!“ and claim that #GamerGate itself is just a paranoid conspiracy theorist group. Granted you can find a handful that take the Frankfurt School Boogeyman far too seriously, but let’s take a moment to point out some basic truths.

Fact: Nathan Grayson did give positive coverage to Zoe Quinn’s Depression Quest game without disclosing that he funded the game to the point that he is named in the credits. Anti GamerGate like to use the word “review“ as a way to try and discredit GamerGate since there isn’t one but it is the Anti side that uses the word deceptively, while a handful on the GamerGate side occasionally uses the word mistakenly. Nathen and Zoe’s later affair is only relevant in that the revelation from Eron Gjoni’s Zoe Post was the led to ethical problems being found.

Fact: Collusion between journalists of different publications did take place via the GameJournoPros e-mail list and discussed matters such as blacklisting former Destructoid writer Allister Pinsof in 2013 and how to limit the discussions consumers were trying to have about the industry’s press following the Grayson revelations in August 2014.

Fact: GamerGate wasn’t a sudden flash reaction because of one woman. Concerns with gaming press practices were raised over the years, from the Mass Effect 3 ending debacle, the Jeff Gerstmann/Kane and Lynch incident, and as I covered in a retrospective, it was a point of discussion in Amiga Power 20 years ago. GamerGate was simply the straw that broke the camel’s back following the press’s unwillingness to discuss the concerns of consumers by scrubbing threads and banning users, forcing those concerned about the lack of standards in the gaming media to use a Twitter hashtag as their only forum for a while.

Fact: No arrests let alone charges have been made against anyone using the GamerGate hashtag or being a vocal supporter. For all the scare stories that GameGate is nothing but harassment and a hate group likened to ISIS, there has been no indication of any arrest made due to harassing messages made to anyone that bares the words GamerGate in the message. The only time the FBI has actively done anything publicly known is telling local Washington D.C. police to treat the bomb threat against GamerGate supporters at their meetup in May 2015 was credible and should be treated seriously.

Fact: While it cannot be questioned that prominent names that are opposed to GamerGate have received disgraceful and outright threatening messages, what has never been proven is that GamerGate is responsible for the majority of it let alone any of it. My first Special Comment here on NovoGamer was a challenge to Anti GamerGate to finally show the numbers needed to prove their assertions true. Considering all that has been written over a year of GamerGate existing, it should have been easy for them and I would right now be unemployed. I have not received data close to 200 accounts which would meet Chris von Csefalvay 0.2%. I have not even had data passed to me come to a double digit figure!

However whether it is hubris that prevents them from admitting they got the whole story of GamerGate wrong or they are ideologically driven to smear the movement because their faith demands it, GamerGate’s opposition will come up with some pathetic reasoning to highlight the “dangerous threat“ that is the hate group that never was.

Take Arthur Chu’s article on the Daily Beast claiming that GamerGate was responsible for the Veerender Jubbal photo-shopped image that made the rounds on social media following the 13th November Paris attacks. Cathy Young’s excellent piece counters the false narrative by highlighting the evidence internet diggers found after the weekend showing that the image was originally created in August and that both the creator of the image and the one spamming it were third party trolls.

Days after this was common knowledge however, Rich Stanton of Vice brazenly came out with a piece that doubled down on the notion that the shopped image was perpetrated by Gamergate as a whole because of one person that was clearly a GamerGate supporter based on the conspiracy theorist favorite trick of quote mining, while conveniently ignoring the evidence that other quotes would make the one spamming the image appear to be an Anti GamerGate supporter which would only confirm that it was likely third party trolls responsible for the whole situation.

Arthur Chu would then follow up with an article claiming that the recently successful Netfix show Jessica Jones was written specifically with GamerGate in mind and to highlight the terrible threat they are. The suggestion is made absurd given that as we have established no one has offered any credible evidence that GamerGate is as evil as they say, but in this specific case it is also rendered laughable given that the Marvel character that the show is based off was originally created back in 2001, 14 years before GamerGate began. This level of cretinous thinking gave rise to the GamerGate in jokes of supporters owning TARDISes.

There is irony here that can’t be overlooked. For all the articles from The Daily Beast, mostly from Arthur Chu, that claim that GamerGate has been responsible for doxxing innocent people without any shred of evidence, the site was recently condemned for putting out the personal information of someone that was falsely attributed to the recent San Bernardino shootings. As for Rich Stanton, unlike GamerGate, he has been found to use social media to issue threats of physical violence. Although I am sure he will probably take the cowardly defense of saying he was only joking around.

Huffington Post Canada recently posted a clear click-bait op ed “Women will save the gaming industry. Hear that GamerGate?“ Again no substance offered to back up the assertions that GamerGate is a women hating group other than simply “Because we say it is!“ A choice quote from Natalie Zina Walschots in the piece,

"The average Gater is a pretty sad and lonely human being who sees themselves as marginalized. They perceive something they love being maligned.“

This is an ideal example of the humorous projection that is exhibited by the Anti GamerGate crowd. This is where the claim that they have put on a big screen about whoever they are opposing is actually coming from their own flawed character. When you look into those on the Anti Gamergate side, with a few exceptions, they are mostly white, upper middle class if not so wealthy they enter the upper class level, living in selective areas of San Francisco, Seattle, Uptown New York, or Metropolitan London. The gap between their level of privilege and the oppression they claim to be stifled under is so wide you could build a bridge over the Grand Canyon with their intellectual dishonesty and still have enough road left to reach past the Arizona border.

Those complaining about the gaming industry’s and culture's “diversity problem“ should take a moment to finally do some self-reflection. Take a look at who you will find at a “Progressive“ gaming conference and compare to the crowd at a fighting game tournament held anywhere in world. Much like Winston Churchill warned of those that claimed to be Anti-Fascist turning out to be actually Fascist, those that claim to be Anti Exclusionary appear to be quite Exclusionary.

If you want a further example, take a look at a recent exchange on Twitter where Rhianna Pratchett who co-wrote the successful reboot of Tomb Raider and is a veteran of the games industry for over 10 years now, who has previously stated that those complaining about diversity are making mountains out of mole hills. So naturally a moronic Anti GamerGate male Social Media Justice Warrior who has no ties to the industry knows more than what Rhianna Pratchett does. The fact that he refers to her as an “Uncle Tom“ does not leave much room to wide interpretation.

Because actually it’s all about being supportive and inclusive of women in the industry!

The final bit of cognitive wackery displayed by an opponent of GamerGate I will highlight is another recent article by Alyssa Rosenberg at the Washington Post titled “Donald Trump is the Gamergate of Republican politics“

We are already at Stretch Armstrong levels of stretching here linking Donald Trump with a discussion about the ethical failings of gaming journalists. Keep in mind that the default auto speak of Anti #GamerGate is to say that GamerGaters are right wing. Not entirely surprising given that Anti #GamerGate for the most part are so far off to the (authoritarian or regressive) left that anyone else not with them comes across as right wing. Survey after survey that has been done however shows that the overwhelming majority of GamerGate are left libertarian.

It should not be dismissed that there are right wing libertarians within the movement and a number of them are pulling for Trump in the Republican race. Given his recent comments about wanting to suppress Internet Speech however, that small support that is there will be in danger of disappearing given GamerGate strongly promoting free speech and unrestricted internet. Most in GamerGate of course will be pulling for the Democrats with Bernie Sanders seeing significant support and some bemoaning the fact that Elizabeth Warren is not running in place of Hillary Clinton.

This thought is a very American-centric discussion and one of the aspects of GamerGate that its opponents continue to be ignorant about is the international support the movement has given that gaming is the biggest international entertainment industry at this time. So quite frankly suggesting that all of GamerGate is pulling for Trump is ludicrous not just because both entities do not align up on the political spectrum but also that a lot of Gamergate have no horse in the race, therefore don’t care much in the race because the race is in an entirely different nation.

While I can’t claim to speak for every British or European citizen I would take an educated guess that Trump will be getting little support first due to us Brits still not forgiving Trump for almost destroying a part of Scottish countryside to make a Golf Course, and secondly that whoever wins the US Presidency is meaningless. The message from us to them will be the same. Stop snooping in allied countries business!

Back to Alyssa Rosenberg’s article though. Again the names of noted Anti GamerGate personalities are name dropped as victims without any evidence provided that the majority of GamerGate was responsible. The kicker though comes with the “evidence“ presented of why GamerGate and Donald Trump are linked. She shows a Tweet of Trump giving a message of support to an account identified as a GamerGater supporter. That’s all. One Tweet, one account. Just one.

I’ll remind you of the numbers involved in GamerGate. Chris von Csefalvay’s analysis came up with 100,000 to 150,000 accounts supporting GamerGate and by the time the hashtag got to it’s first birthday it got to around 7.5 million Tweets posted. Alyssa gave one tweet to one account as evidence. Purveyors of religion at least make the effort to cite more than one passage from their alleged holy texts when trying to make an argument.

In closing I will say that it is entirely possible that those who have wrote denouncing GamerGate may not actually believe what they write but they do so only because of the belief it garners attention and clicks. However as I have suggested before, given that GamerGate supporters are big users of Ad Blockers and Internet Archives, the reality is that click bait articles will receive diminishing returns.

For those of the faithful that truly believe the existence of the GamerGate Devil spawn however, their pathetic arm flailing from ether being found with their hand in the cookie jar or simply crying at their increasing irrelevancy as alternative news sites and streaming media outlets increase in popularity simply highlights their hilarious ridiculous public spewings which of course leaves them open to nothing but abject mockery, which I’m sure they will continue and try to call it “targeted harassment“.

This is purely anecdotal, but having shown what GamerGate is about to various contacts from my near 20 years in the education sector who have been curious about the story, their reaction has been that they do not care too much about GamerGate’s grievances since it pertains to video games. However they have ether found the antics of Anti GamerGate to be a source of side splitting amusement and some suggesting that they would use some of their preposterous moments in Critical Thinking classes to show students what not to do as they progress further into their education, to some being concerned that for all Anti Gamergate’s incredulous ranting they are being taken seriously by some sections of the gaming industry and beyond.

It may still take a few years but like all tin foil hat wearers such as the 9/11 Truthers and the Anti Vaxers and all other groups who are based on weak foundations, Anti GamerGate types will fade into obscurity due to being unable to stand against the scrutiny of the Internet because for all the dark mess that is out there, it still does not diminish the bright ideal that the Internet is where religion and bad ideas go to die.

If you will indulge me for one more quote since we are in the midst of a new McCarthy era on steroids, from Edward R. Murrow,

“The speed of communications is wondrous to behold. It is also true that speed can multiply the distribution of information that we know to be untrue.“

\r

Good Night and Good Luck.

#1: More/Better Free-to-Start amiibo-Powered games

Nintendo has already done something like this once in the past with amiibo Tap on the Wii U (which I also reviewed), but I feel that it while it works on paper, the overall execution in amiibo Tap is somewhat flawed. In order to fully optimize the functionality of the amiibos, actual games that require amiibo to play need to be made, and I'm not talking like Animal Crossing: amiibo Festival or the amiibo Party game mode in Mario Party 10. I think games like Skylanders and League of Legends could provide inspiration for future free-to-start amiibo-powered games that would actually be worth taking a gander at.

#2: Cross Series/Cross Franchise Data Transfer

With the announcement that the Wolf Link amiibo that will come packaged with The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess HD can use its saved data to do something special with the currently untitled Wii U Zelda game, it got me thinking, "Why Nintendo hasn't done anything like this sooner?" By saving data from one game onto an amiibo and using that data to directly influence another game in the same series or even an entirely separate franchise, it could open up many more customization ideas during gameplay. Imagine if you will a special area in one game that cannot be entered unless you do something in another and save that information onto a compatible amiibo, then you take that saved info and present it in the first game to open up the path. A remake of The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages/Seasons could benefit greatly from this as the bonus missions unlocked from linked play were a real pain in the butt due to its inane password system. Amiibo data transference could solve this problem and that data could be used again in a future game to unlock a bonus later down the line. You know, as an example.

#3: Optional Gameplay Modifiers

I think I speak for everyone when I say that sometimes a little help in certain games is welcome, so when a game suddenly gets too difficult for you to complete it under your own power, where does that leave you? Frustrated, tired, and irritable, with a slowly growing level of seething rage. This is why many games used to have cheat codes in the late 80's and early 90's, but since that trend seems to have all but completely vanished, I propose that amiibo step up to take its place. Kirby & The Rainbow Curse on the Wii U already does something like this with the Kirby, King DeDeDe, and Meta Knight amiibo from the Super Smash Bros set. Scanning one of these amiibo into the game gives you a little boost to help you through a particularly difficult stage, but only once per day. Drop the once per day limit and this could be a very nice alternative to the all but forgotten cheat codes of yore.

#4: More/Better Bonus Content

Everyone loves bonuses in games. It gives you reason to keep playing or to come back to a game after its been finished. So why not make it so that even better bonuses could be unlocked through amiibo? Splatoon has something like this already, but I am talking about something a bit more extravagant. I think some future games should have special versions of NES games that can only be unlocked through scanning an amiibo. Super Mario 3D World kinda already did this once as well where if you have save data of New Super Luigi U saved onto the system's hard drive, you would unlock a special version of Mario Bros that has Luigi as both player 1 and 2. Nintendo definitely needs to do more of this.

#5: Card "Sets"

Amiibo figures are a bit pricey; there's no doubting that. But with the recent introduction of the Animal Crossing amiibo cards, it got me thinking why Nintendo hasn't offered whole card sets as an alternative to the figures yet? The Animal Crossing cards may be sold in booster packs, but I figure that whole decks that would encompass the entire series would make it much more affordable for non-collectors. Here's an example: if they sold them at the same price as the Animal Crossing cards, you could theoretically get all 58 amiibo for Super Smash Bros for less than $60. The only real downside to this is that the cards are much more fragile compared to the figures, and aren't nearly as stunning as them either.

#6: More/Better Figure Bundles

This one is pretty self explanatory. While Nintendo already does this, they need to do it more. Bundle packs of figures sold at a discounted price make it more worth the buyer's time to go out of their way to purchase a few, especially if it is some that they genuinely want. As an example, I think a double pack of Lucas and Ness from the EarthBound series with a $20 price tag would be a fair deal and a triple pack of Kirby, King DeDeDe, and Meta Knight for around $30 would also be pretty fair. Make it happen, Nintendo!

#7: Card "Games"

Amiibo cards are definitely a good idea by itself, but like the figures they don't really have much use outside of the games besides looking pretty. So I propose that "non video game" games be made that can take advantage of the cards. The Animal Crossing amiibo card series already has a good start to this already by having dice numbers and Rock-Paper-Scissors symbols on the cards themselves, but it seems they can only be used in the mini games in Animal Crossing: amiibo Festival. We just need board games and/or rules that can use them properly outside of the video games they're compatible with, and maybe even a board game bundle that comes with a bunch of cards as well. And while we're at it, Pokemon TCG amiibo cards would also be pretty cool.

#8: Multiple Profiles

As useful as the data save feature on amiibo is, it can only save data from one game. That means if you want to use that amiibo with a different game, you would either need to buy a new amiibo of the same character, or delete the existing data on your current one. This has made things a little frustrating for some people, namely me. The thing is, Activision has already solved this problem with their exclusive Donkey Kong and Bowser Skylanders by having them have a twistable switch on their base. This allows them to be used as both Skylanders and amiibo with both settings having their own unique save data. So why hasn't Nintendo taken notice of this and implemented it in newer amiibo so they could store data from multiple games? If they did this some time in the near future, I'm sure it would probably make a lot of amiibo fans like myself very happy.

#9: More Third Party Characters

I'm sure that a lot of you agree that the current selection of amiibo is pretty good right now, but at the moment only seven third-party characters have been confirmed so far. When you consider that that is 7 out of roughly 100 different figures (at the time of writing this), it makes for a rather non-inclusive experience for fans of other series. This is why I think there should be amiibo of other characters for games that will eventually be released on a Nintendo system. I'm sure a lot of fans would love to have a Rayman, Shantae, or Commander Video amiibo. I know I would.

#10: Better "Special Edition" Figures

Special edition amiibo are an odd case. Usually they are just the same characters in the same poses as the previously produced models, but with a different paint job (usually in a shiny variant). It wasn't until recently when a friend of mine put this thought in my head: Why can't they be more like action figures? And honestly, he's right. Poseable figures with interchangeable or luminescent parts, would make for fantastic special edition amiibo. It would give the figure a much bigger reason to use it outside of the game(s) it is made for. Most of the Skylanders Superchargers vehicles have wheels or propellers that can spin in place, and some of their earlier special edition figures would glow when placed on the Portal of Power. It's confusing that Nintendo hasn't implemented these features in there own product; I would assume it is to keep production costs down, but is that really a reason to not do it in its entirety? Nintendo occasionally likes to call themselves a toy company after all. As such, they need start making actual toys then.

Well, those are my thoughts on the matter. At the moment, amiibo only really appeal to hardcore Nintendo fans and avid collectors. They are having a bit of trouble finding the right mix of demographics, but if Nintendo were to see these ideas, I'm sure they would take a few of them seriously (I'm a bit partial to numbers 2, 3, and 7 myself). If you have any suggestions of your own, please let me know in the comment section, but until then, I'll be seeing you.

Video games come and go. Such is the way of life in a\r constantly shifting industry. Back in the day we had two-dimensional games\r where we shot things in the face for points, and now we've got\r three-dimensional games where we can fuck Japanese-Anime sluts for fuckpoints.\r Fortunately, we’re not really here to discuss how many sexy-score we can get\r for Onii-Chan’s Fuk Fuk Adventure although a later editorial may come in handy. \r

"Winkidy wink."

Some say that graphics make the game, others say story√¢‚Ǩ‚I am\r an advocate of the latter. While it’s great to see how defined Master Chief's\r ass is in the remastered Halo edition, I must say that the games that have\r stuck with me throughout my existence seemed to all have the makings of cult\r hits based on gameplay, story, music, and overall atmosphere as opposed to the\r ultimate aesthetics. So I decided that maybe it would be time to show some of\r my favorite games that I believe are as good today as they were when they were\r released eons ago before the fire nation attacked. \r

"Dem pixels doe."

This series will just focus on some of my favorite games,\r and the reasons to why I think they are as great now as they were back then. I love them and continue to play them all on\r account of their story, atmosphere, how well the game affected me, and even the\r gameplay itself. This editorial is what we like to call an opinionated piece, and whether or not you agree or disagree, may I\r inform you that tissues are cheap in this day and age, and if not, you can\r always wipe away your tears with a sleeve, or a sock, or whatever’s at hand. This is a personal editorial on some of the\r greatest games I believe have been made. Whether you agree or not, is\r completely your choice.
\r

RESIDENT EVIL 2

Fear comes around a second time, to fuck you in the ass.

When I was a baby boy, I remembered playing a pirated version of this on my chipped PlayStation 1. Being launched into the fiery abyss of a destroyed truck, to running through the choc-a-bloc streets of Raccoon City with zombies all around, you couldn’t help but just shit your pants as a child. The memories were just infinite; the music upon entering the R.C.P.D with those piano chimes, and the clicking cacophony of feet against the whistling wind of the dead city and the Licker jumping down from the ceiling√¢‚Ǩ‚OH JESUS.

Turn off. Unplug. Wind up power cable. Throw out window.\r Never play again.
\r

Resident Evil 2 was just one of those chart topping, survival horrors that was burned into my fears as a child. I remember it having the same effect as Dino Crisis, with its haunting score and diverse range of enemies; all scary, all shit-pantingly horrific in their execution against the map.

The game was just beautiful in so many ways too though, from the classic conspiracy story, the replay value, and the constant fear of things coming for you all the way to the entire atmosphere of the city to the underground Umbrella base. It was one of the first horror games I played, and one that haunted me for years to come. I always find myself going back and relaying it every couple of weeks or so. It was a classic, straight up in every way; except for that really bad cardboard voice-acting which I don’t miss so much.

"ADDDDDDDDDDAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA."

SUPER MARIO LAND

That fucking music.

Doo-doodoo-doo. Doo-doo-

GET OUT OF MY HEAD.

Super Mario Land was the first game I ever played on my original Game Boy way back in the summer of '98. My grandmother bought me it, and from that first level with that music ingrained into my brain so much I’m sure I can still hear it on quiet nights, I was hooked. The gameplay was the core dynamic of a Mario game, all the while being able to play it while in my mom’s car while I wore that flaming dragon shirt and sunglasses, counting how much pussy I was gonna get when I hit that Egyptian world.

"These brothers ain't the only thing with hammers, youknowwhatImean?"

We all knew it. The tiny screen, the hammer brothers fucking you up, and the impending doom as you watch your whole life-count slip away into nothingness. Super Mario Land is the definitive Mario game for me√¢‚Ǩ‚and I know I’m gonna hear some screams about how Super Mario Bros or Super Mario 64 is the ultimate game but to me, playing this at my nan’s house, getting all the way through to the end and dying in a fiery blaze of anger from that one hammer hitting me, well that’s just pure childhood right there.

SONIC THE HEDGEHOG

Gotta go faster.

The first console I ever owned was a Sega Mega-Drive (or Sega Genesis depending on where you got the shit but I don’t know, who cares, I don’t) and the first game I ever actually played was Sonic the Hedgehog. It’s safe to say that this was the game that launched my love of video games altogether. Cutting through Green Hill Zone to that beautiful, instant-childhood inducing music, and then Marble Zone, Casino and the others just always makes me happy. I loved Sonic growing up and I still love it now, with the help of emulators and improved technology it’s still a game I play on the go. It’s a classic to me and many others I know. Although I have rarely ever managed to complete it.

"I'm still a good gaymur, right?"

This game just gets mentions on the nostalgia factor. It’s always been a favourite and is still one of them.

BATMAN VENGEANCE

Arkham Beta 0.2

Before we were given the beauty of Rocksteady’s Arkham series, and that one game where Christian Bale actually did voice-work, Batman Vengeance was released on PlayStation 2. I remember getting this game for Christmas and wondering what the fuck was going on with it. After much excitement I played it, and was absolutely blown away by it. I was one of those 90's kids that grew up with the Batman Animated series, would wear Batman pyjamas, collect corpses of dead bats and hide them under my bed√¢‚Ǩ‚

Well, I loved Batman, that’s what was key. The story was an original, focusing on the good and juicy tidbits of the show with familiar faces like Mister Freeze, The Joker, Harley-Quinn and everybody’s favorite caped crusader; Brucey himself. The gameplay was like the original Arkham game, truly, in the fact it had stealth components, Hamill and Conroy as the bitter enemies, and plenty of cool levels, secrets, cheats, and an enthralling story involving Batman and the Joker in a tussle of moral crusades against Gotham. The music and cartoonish style was great. I still play this when I can on my old PS2. The style, story, and overall atmosphere was just like the TV show, except you could fly around and fuck shit up with batarangs way before Arkham’s series made it cool. Take that, mainstream douches.

"Yeah I like it, but you’ve probably never even heard of Vengeance anyway."

MANHUNT

Bagged for life!

I’m somewhat of a Rockstar fanboy. Take me outside, line me up, and pelt me with copies of San Andreas until I die, but that’s the truth. I think their early games were some of the greatest ever created, and none other stands to gain my approval more than the disturbing, gory, and beautifully atmospheric creation that was Manhunt. This game has been widely controversial and was even the focus of a large court case involving a murder which was said to have been implemented due to the games graphic content. The case was thrown out but come on! A game that makes this much controversy must be great. I mean, you can literally suffocate people with a Tesco bag.

“The second Karen turns, I’m going for a three-star kill.

The story centers on death row convict: James Earl Cash, who is sentenced to death, but is given a second chance by a grimy, fat snuff-film director called Starkweather who puts Cash through many trials in the decaying Carcer City for cheap thrills, footage, and monies. The game implemented stealth kills with pretty much anything, including plastic bags, glass shards, baseball bats, and even wires. The voice-acting from Brian Cox is absolutely fantastic, as well as Craig Conner’s score, the gameplay which is a mix of both stealth and all out brain-damaging gore, and the atmosphere pushed the boundaries of improvisation in terms of killing, and the feel of Carcer really puts you in a city that feels real, scary, and full of psychotic chumps waiting to hunt you down and cut you up!

It's got everything from a crazy, dark 80s-type score, a multitude of weapons, brilliant voice acting, degradation, fantasies of snuff, rape, violence, gore, and all for under $15. Bargain blood!

HITMAN 2: STEALTH ASSASSIN

Bald Strategy!

I loved the PS2 gaming era. I loved everything from Ico to Final Fantasy VII. I loved MGS, I loved so many games but Stealth Assassin was just one of those games I absolutely loved to play over and over and over and never got bored. You could be the hitman of your dreams. You could sneak in like a shadow, carefully dressed as the maid, delivering fresh pants upstairs and when your victim ain’t looking you could shiv him in the kidney or strangle the life out of him, dress in his clothes, and walk away like a king. OR you could do it my way and step in there with an MP5 and fucking obliterate all the witnesses; the kids, the dog, the God-damn maid, the bodyguards, that one little frog, the scarecrow, and even yourself if you felt like it with that little sticky bomb.

Stealth Assassin was just a brilliant game from start to finish, from each level showing diverse paths, a multitude of weapons, Jesper Kyd on the drums, and of course Agent 47 himself. I remember going to my dad’s and playing this for hours on end, never really faltering in my attention to detail in making sure every. Single. Person. Was dead. There would be no witnesses in the end. I was the reaper. Eight year old me had the makings of a homicidal, nay√¢‚Ǩ‚genocidal maniac, and we have Eidos to thank for that shit.

That’s it for part 1 but watch this space for other parts as\r we’re in for a sexy, bumpy ride. Do you agree with me, do you disagree with me? Comment and let me know if you think I'm an asshole or a nostalgia-whore. I promise to get back to you! Hopefully more to come in the future!
\r

(Only creatures that are non-playable in their source game are eligible for this list. Also, please keep in mind that my opinions may or may not reflect your own, this list is entirely biased)

Lumas from Super Mario Galaxy and Super Mario Galaxy 2

Pikmin

LocoRoco

Slimes from the Dragon Quest Series

Tamagotchi

Chao from the Sonic the Hedgehog series

Chocobo from the Final Fantasy series

Pichu from the Pokémon series

Nintendogs

Lynians from the Monster Hunter series

Ahem...Well that was my list. If you disagree with my choices, tell me why in the comments and what you would have chosen instead. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to take a sledgehammer to a shed wall in order to reclaim my manliness. Until next time, I'll be seeing you.

Honorable Mention: Viva Piñata

I would've included at least one piñata from this game in the list if it wasn't for the fact that all of them in the game are pretty much equal in cuteness, but only in large numbers. It wouldn't have been fair to just choose one.

DRM, or Digital Rights Management, is a “systematic approach to copyright protection for digital media“ and a way to “prevent unauthorized redistribution of digital media and restrict the ways consumers can copy content they've purchased“.

So basically, due to all the nasty, poor, disgusting people who illegally pirate games and other digital media, a new system had to be created to protect the copyright holders’ content.

Now, I know you’re thinking, “But DRM sucks, especially always online DRM. I’m sometimes unable to play games because of it“. Or “Passive DRM programs like Steam, Origin and uPlay (which all double as digital store fronts) ruin games, and end up being another program running in the background“. But I’m here today to prove to you why DRM is great and how it will revolutionize the gaming industry.

1. It makes sure game developers get paid for their work

Now I don’t know about you, but we live in a capitalist society, where if you make something worthwhile you should get paid for your time and effort.

Pirates, on the other hand, want to unrestrainedly eradicate our capitalist society and believe we should be living in a socialist society where everything should be free, and you know what the next step from socialism is? COMMUNISM. And in a Communistic society, Developers wouldn’t be able to receive a fair pay for a fair day’s work.

2. It makes you feel safe

When you buy a game you should feel safe that no one will be able to steal your game key. DRM makes sure that once your key has been activated, it will stay linked to your account and that it won’t be stolen by criminals.

3. C’mon, it’s 2016

Why would you want to torrent or illegally download a game in 2016? What? Are you a criminal? (As well as sexist?)

4. Pro tip, you can’t anymore

Due to the huge rise of pirating in the gaming industry, a software firm had enough and reached into their code and made Denuvo. Denuvo is literally the greatest thing ever to happen in the gaming industry since pong. It BTFO’s pirates and protects games from being illegally distributed.

5. Quit being poor!

Yes I know, “this isn’t why DRM is great, you’re just reinforcing a sad truth I’m trying to forget about“. But it needs to be said, it’s simple. If people weren’t poor, DRM wouldn’t be a thing!

Remember what I said earlier, that due to poor people pirating digital media like video games, DRM had to be created to protect digital media. Wellif you weren’t so poor, we wouldn’t be having this conversation, now would we? So quit being so lazy! Get off your lazy arse and go find a job! Go to college if you have to! Just do something! You’re hurting the gaming industry!

6. Valve's Gabe Newell has died for your sins!

As it reads in John 14:6, “I am the way, the truth, and the life, No one gets good deals and amazing service except through me“. Gabe Newell died for the sin of illegally downloading games and yet we continue! Was his death for nothing!? We all demand better in the gaming industry, but maybe it’s not DRM that should be blamed but us!

7. I shouldn’t be the one who has to educate you

Seriously you lazy bastards, why do I have to teach you this? You should just know that pirating is bad and you shouldn’t illegally download digital content! What? Do you hate F R E E D O M ?

8. C’mon! It’s 2016!!!

I can’t believe I need to say this again, but I will! Why pirate games when you can just spend your money and buy them! You do realise illegally downloading games is against the law right? You could even go to jail!

9. DRM is paving the way for the future

I’ve already mentioned that DRM programs like Denuvo is already Rekin’ pirates and because of it, it is paving the way for a pirate free gaming industry. Developers will one day be able to put out games whenever they think the game is complete, and at whatever price they believe is reasonable.

10. Listen and Believe

What I have written in this article is THE TRUTH. DRM is great and will revolutionise the gaming industry and digital media. If you follow the reasons listed above, game developers will be paid in full for their honest work and not feel like they need to worry about job security.

And one day, we might live in a world free of pirates trying to turn our great capitalist society into a communist one.

Thank you for reading my informative and objective article on DRM. If you wish to join me in my fight to DE_Stroy DRM, then follow me on twitter “@MrED_What“. And why not read some of our other articles on our profile.

Sources: http://searchcio.techtarget.com/definition/digital...

Please note, this is satire

This is what ED does when he doesn't have access to his computer...
We have a YouTube channel, you should Subscribe.

First, lets start with the commercial itself.

Now as you can see, the commercial starts up with the song Believer by Imagine Dragons. A young man in his home wakes up and grabs the Switch console off of his night stand so he can continue his gameplay in Zelda: Breath of the Wild. Then it switches to a different scene of an older man and his son playing Arms with the Joy-Con controllers in TV mode. During this time, the lyrics of the first half of the first verse are playing.

First things first
I'ma say all the words inside my head
I'm fired up and tired of the way that things have been, oh ooh
The way that things have been, oh ooh

In my eyes, these lyrics surprisingly enough actually have quite a bit of weight to them in this context. The way I see it, this bit represents Nintendo's quiet thoughts regarding the reception of the Wii U. The console did poorly, so Nintendo got "fired up" to create the Switch because they were "tired of the way that things have been."

In the next part, the scene changes to the present the Switch's tabletop mode with the Joy-Cons being used to play some party games with a second person. The second half of the first verse starts to play during this section.

Second things second
Don't you tell me what you think that I can be
I'm the one at the sail, I'm the master of my sea, oh ooh
The master of my sea, oh ooh

To me, this part represents a frustrated Nintendo's response to the backlash of the Wii U. Also, by showing off that each Joy-Con can be used combined as one controller in the first part and as two separate controllers in the next, it mirrors the lyrics' message saying that Nintendo is the master of their domain. No amount of backlash will be able to tell them what everyone thinks they should be.

At this time, the song begins to reach the chorus and it switches back to the young man from the first part. He then proceeds to dock the console so it can switch to TV mode. Right when the TV screen flips on is when the chorus rapidly crescendos to display the feature that the Switch is both a portable system and a home console skipping the song's bridge in the process. The first half of the chorus couldn't describe Nintendo's situation better.

(Pain) You made me a, you made me a believer, believer
(Pain) You break me down, you build me up, believer, believer

This part to me shows Nintendo's struggles with the Wii U over the five years its been out. The Wii U broke them down to the point where they were built back up and inspired by it to make the Switch.

The second half of this part then shows off the Switch's local WiFi multi-player by using Splatoon 2 as the demo. The lyrics presented a nice pun during this part.

(Pain) I let the bullets fly, oh let them rain
My luck, my love, my God, they came from
(Pain) You made me a, you made me a believer, believer

The use of Splatoon 2's gameplay during "I let the bullets fly" was a nice touch, but my speculation is that the other half of this excerpt is Nintendo's way of saying that despite the backlash, they appreciate the criticism that they've had to endure and they're better because of it.

It's here where they skip to the final verse where everything culminates to one final demo reel of many of the games that are coming out for the Switch in the coming months mimicking the lyrics in this part as well.

Last things last
By the grace of the fire and the flames
You're the face of the future, the blood in my veins, oh ooh
The blood in my veins, oh ooh

This last part right here has two meanings to me. It's both referring to the games coming out for the Switch in the near future, and the fans who are what shaped the company to what they are today and likely who will shape the company in the future. If it wasn't for us and how verbal we are, whether it be positive or negative, Nintendo wouldn't be able to survive.

This commercial was so masterfully crafted that I can't fathom how they manged to present such a deep message in a 1 minute 41 second long advertisement (assuming it was intentional). Now this is all just theory and speculation, but I believe it to be true. And if it is true, then you can bet Nintendo has made a "Believer" out of me. So until then, I'll be seeing you.

EarthBound Trilogy HD

No matter what forum or gaming site I visit, the one game I've seen that everyone wants on Virtual Console is Mother 3, and to tell you the truth, I'm one of them. I've played through the fan translation in its entirety and I loved it. But don't think that a Virtual Console release is what we need. Because the fan translation patch is already readily available to the public for free, I propose that a collection of all 3 Mother & EarthBound games redone with HD graphics would be the best way to go. It would breath new life into a series that had been neglected for such a long time.

Metroid Prime 4

We desperately need a proper new Metroid game, I think we can all agree on that. Now I'm not saying that Federation Force was bad; I actually enjoyed that game quite a bit. But I do think we need a new entry in the series where you play as Samus. There is so much that can be done with the game on the Switch, especially since both Prime 3 and Federation Force ended in a way that alluded to the enemy hunter, Sylux. I would think that if Prime 4 were made, you could have the ability to switch between the two characters and they would each have their own unique abilities and story line. Just a thought.

Hyrule Warriors Complete Edition

Hyrule Warriors was a helluva lot of fun despite its simplistic gameplay, but I think that Hyrule Warriors Legends on the 3DS was a little lackluster compared to the Wii U version. I think that combining all the features, content, and DLC of both games and releasing it on the Switch would make for a great collectors pack. But then again, since it would technically be the third iteration of the same game, I think a "casual mode" where you gain rupees, materials and EXP at a greatly accelerated rate would make the game much more enjoyable for those that lack the time to do all of that grinding.

Super Smash Bros for Switch

This situation would be similar to the Hyrule Warriors idea from the previous paragraph, but since both the 3DS and Wii U versions of Smash have vastly different content, I propose that having all of the characters, most of all the stages (with obvious duplicates removed), both Smash Tour and Smash Run, and the inclusion of Tag-Team Battles. And while we're at it, maybe bring back the Ice Climbers and Wolf. I was understanding of Ice Climbers being removed, but I was a little shocked that Wolf never came back.

Final Fantasy Hexology

This is another collection much like the EarthBound one I said earlier, but unlike EarthBound this wouldn't require a lot of work to do as the HD remakes already exist. Now the "hexology" I'm referring to is the first 6 Final Fantasy games on the NES and SNES which to my knowledge were all remade for iOS and PC in some form. Just port all of those to Switch and sell it for $40-50 and you're set.

Super Nintendo Land

I'm probably one of the few people that wished that Nintendo would make a sequel to Nintendo Land. The game was fun, so sue me. But as fun as it was, it was kinda lacking in the variety department. So I think a "deluxe" version of the game that has a few more attractions based around other games like Splatoon or Star Fox would probably make the experience more enjoyable in the long run. I personally think there should be around 20 attractions total, even if that means recycling the ones from the previous game.

Bayonetta 3

THIS NEEDS TO HAPPEN. This series is criminally underrated and has been the subject of a lot of unnecessary backlash because people can't handle how the main character looks or acts. But the thing is, the series is one of the most fun, most polished games I've played in a very long time. And since the Switch seems to have a minor focus on paid online play, I think the online multiplayer this time around should be a MOBA of sorts where you make and customize your own Umbran Witch/Lumen Sage and play as them during the great war that happened 500+ years before the series starts.

Kirby Air Ride 2

Kirby Air Ride for the Game Cube was one of the most fun and most replayable racing games I ever owned. There was so much to do despite how little there was actually in the game. Now since the original game had a lot of focus around randomly selected events and challenges, I think a sequel could amp that up quite significantly if they also made the City Trial map and the race courses procedurally generated as well. And of course add more characters, air ride machines, and challenges as well.

Pokken Tournament Deluxe

I really liked the original Pokken; it gave me and a lot pokemon fans what we've been asking for for years. But I am a little disappointed that ONLY the arcade version of the game had been updated with 4 more characters since the release of the Wii U version. So I think the game needs to have a rerelease on the Switch with all of these new characters available, and maybe 3-6 new characters and a tag-team game mode to make it more worth your money to double dip.

Digilux: The Complete Art Style & Bit Generations Collection

I may like my fair share of difficult and challenging games, but that doesn't mean I don't want to kick back and relax with a simple game every once in a while. That's why I think a compilation of all the games from the Art Style and Bit Generation series would be perfect. These games have all but fallen completely off the radar in the past 7 years and I think a revival is in order. There's 15 games in these series each with their own gameplay styles and some of them even have multiplayer game modes; they would be perfect. (By the way, if you're curious about the name Digilux, it was a prototype name that Nintendo was originally going use before Art Style)

Well, those are my opinions on the matter. The Switch has a lot of promise for a great lineup of games, but only time will tell if devs will take advantage of the system's features. While just about none of these game ideas of mine actually do that, they are desperately needed regardless of what features they lack for the new system, even though this is just wishful thinking for me. So until then, I'll be seeing you.