THE TIMES AMAZING

I am going to have a very good year.

In fact I am going to have a few very, very good years!

Not only an I mere weeks away from turning my scenery upside down and inside out for the foreseeable future but a number of cool things are going to happen within this first year of this happening?!

I cannot really go into detail about the humongous scenery change that is going to take place but it won't be too long now.

But what I want to mention that I am excited about are a couple of other things, one briefly and the other in more detail.

The brief thing, because it's not really the subject of this blog, is an upcoming film in the spring of 2016. This is of course the Batman V. Superman Dawn of Justice film.

I might not look like it in the flesh out sound like it but I am a bit of a nerd. Well that's what they seem to call people like me anyway, lol. I was a big comic reader of both Marvel and DC. Loved both Superman and Batman but was a huge collector of the Justice League comic.

The trailer to this film had to be about the best trailer I've ever seen fit a film! I don't say that lightly.

Yes I had a few issues with The Man Of Steel but on the whole I loved it.

Dawn of Justice is, for those I cannot imagine not knowing, leads onto the Justice League movie. I have had some issues with Aquaman ... well not looking like Aquaman in shots I've seen, but it's early days. They seem to have got it right with Ben Affleck as Bruce Wayne so anything is possible.

Very interested in the Marvel movies of Civil War, not big fan of Cap to be honest and still not bought Winter Soldier, but if Spider Man is in it with Iron Man and dive by Marvel then my soul is sold! Lol!

Unfortunately my other favourites have either been ruined consistently or not covered fully or ... merely rumoured. Respectively these are of course X-Men (ruined the greatest story in Marvel Comics), Silver Surfer (ruined by same studio that is ruining Fantastic Four presently but not big fan of FF) and Shazam (keep hearing people mention he is in Justice League).

Leaving the world of amazing movies I now lead into another big form of entertainment. One that like movies has seen spits and starts in recent years but I think now will follow the movie industry in stepping up a gear?

Video games.

I say 'step up a gear' because the rumours seem to have been confirmed after I did something I rarely do. Watch a showcase! I don't even normally see any E3 videos until way after the event ... if at all!

I bloody well did this time around and E3 had not even started officially!

I am speaking about Bethesda's E3 special.

Sorry to fanboys of other titles but nothing had ever grabbed me as much as Elder Scrolls and Fallout. They start the game in such a cool way and I had goosebumps in entering the world for the first time in both titles.

Not only did you get to see some amazing Fallout 4 stuff and gameplay but as I thought the title will be released this year. Added to this you had Doom, which looked amazing, and Dishonoured 2, which also looked amazing!

Not played Doom since the early days and the Quake titles too. But watching the gameplay it removed me of the old days but with better graphics! Cool!

I loved Dishonoured. I purchased the Game Of The Year edition and I only had two complaints with it. The maps were too small and the game was too short! Better graphics, larger open world and longer ... err much longer and I'm in heaven!

What's more is that come November, this year, I will be embroiled with Fallout 4 for months. Not long after will be the Batman V Superman and likely not long after that I would wager Elder Scrolls 6 well be announced, likely at the next E3?!

After all they always start the follow up of a title after finishing the current one. What seems quick to me was playing Fallout 3, Skyrim and New Vegas. The new generation engine is done in Fallout 4 so not a long shot to think a year to 18 months to Elder Scrolls?

How cool is that? How cool is all of that?!

I note think that we are entering a period of the next two to four years of some amazingly cool movies and games. Doctor Strange is another big favourite of mine, though I'm buggered off I can remember details of his stories. The things coming are already so cool it's staggering and then there are ask the little gems that will pop up, or get released even, we did not even hear about?

You just know this is going to happen ... several times over a year to 18 months.

There are other titles, of both recent and distant times, that could get the next gen graphics and open world scenarios of Fallouts/Elder Scrolls/The Witcher 3 that could send us all bonkers?!

Oh my bloody God! I almost forgot Deus Ex Mankind Divided?!

Oh man! Excuse me a moment while I composed myself?! Lmao! Hmm thinking of other titles I really like. Hmm ... ooh Need For Speed! Hour the new one is cool? So need a racer. Oh God ... Star Citizen?! How they come up with better title, lol. Sounds like a Goat Simulator in space! Lol! Still it's about the coolest endeavour out there only rivalled by Fallout 4 for me.

Yeah the driving games did not really do it for me, like Project Cars and umm ... the other one. Elite Dangerous surprisingly did not do it for me either. Oh yes and there is the lack of flight simulators outside of the Eagle Dynamics titles. I'm going way back again here by mentioning Falcon (Rowan), Total Air War (Digital Image Design) and Comanche. I miss titles like that and nothing out there really appeals. Flaming Cliffs 3 did but that took forever ... err probably still is?! Lol!

So yes a cool time and the fact that space sims have and are returning maybe flight sims week too?

This is skirting with the words 'Golden Age' for the next year and maybe ... just maybe it will dive right in?

THE BUZZ AROUND E3 2015

I simply had to do a post about the upcoming E3 in this year of 2015.

This is partly because there has been a great deal of talk and a mountain of rumours the likes of which I have never seen before.

There is so much talk about hardware that this alone is exciting what with virtual reality so close to being finalised as well as Microsoft and this Holo Lens gadget they have been working on that looks cool. Finally something similar to that seen in Iron Man films and The Minority Report.

Then there are the games rumours!

I have had trouble keeping track of everything and I seem to be finding out about something new every few days to a week.

I have stated before that I am excited over Star Citizen and that I have been around long enough in gaming, almost worked for Pivotal Games at one point, that I played the Wing Commander games and Freelancer.

I could honestly say that seeing Chris Roberts video about what he had been up to actually provoked me into building a new rig for the first time in quite awhile!

Frustrating that it is so far away from release.

I was also excited about Elite Dangerous but then started worrying about their announcement of no single player campaign and reviews by players static its galaxy wide and three inches deep, or something to that effect. Wanting to buy it to fill time until I go away over a humongous court case which will shock the nation I ended up buying Dying Light instead. Recommended by a brother who was always into consoles but made the jump to a PC.

As well as those two space sims there is also No Man's Sky which looks interesting but not too sure about. Now I find out about one more!

Starfighter Inc.

Here is the link to the Kickstarter page for StarFighter Inc. ...

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/impellerstudios/starfighter-inc

It is another Kickstarter project but this one has huge kudos behind it because its largely made up of the team that worked on the X-Wing and Tie Fighter series. A couple of guys also that worked on Crysis, Homefront, FarCry and a few others.

About bloody time some space sims got made and as well as them being missing there has been no flight sims for years either, the latter being what made me get into computers in the first place because I was obsessed with fighter aircraft, wanted to be one when I was a kid and had a famous great grandfather who was a test pilot. He worked for Avro and the RAF and was testing an aircraft called the Avro Manchester which they tried several engines with but it crashed and he died. They added two more engines after this fatality and the Avro Lancaster was born.

But I like a great deal of games and was obsessed with 3D also and owned one of the early Voodoo cards. I went through two if I remember correctly.

There are many games I love and fond of, despite some driving me nuts at times and I wondered what the designers where thinking of ... or smoking in some areas.

Some seem to be almost perfect but missing vital things. Like when I played Dead Island Riptide, and now Dying Light. I will now always remember Kick Zombie ... sorry I mean Riptide because I did not understand the game, frustrated the hell out of me and I left it alone for months. Then one day I went back to it and realised it was not just a game where you pick up a slightly better gun every now and then and you had to make cash and build weapons. Weapons that were mostly hand to hand close range stuff in a melee fashion. This to me was kinda knew and once I realised how it worked the game was transformed into something bloody fun.

The not so large map, well I did play Elder Scrolls Skyrim before this, looked pretty good and it made me wonder about how the next generation version would look. However it did feel like it was missing something to make it feel like a living breathing place to roam around. Something you get in Skyrim and Fallout ... animals. Wildlife. Ooh I just remembered I did see fish in Dying Light, lol.

As well as being surprised and falling in love with Bethesda and their two biggest properties in Elder Scrolls and Fallout I also loved Deus Ex Human Revolution but another one I was confused how to play to begin with. I did also like The Witcher but this was the most frustrating of all the games with some pretty horrible boss fights along with regularly being confused about what to do next and where to go. Some things being seeming impossible to find.

I also liked Need For Speed Hot Pursuit and noted there was nothing really about. I was interested in Project Cars but wanted something more open world. I also liked Dishonoured but in all honesty and even though I bought the game of the year edition with all DLC I thought it was way, way too short and with very small maps.

After the free running of Dying Light I am not interested in the Mirror's Edge series, lol.

Here is a list of things I have heard are coming at E3 or otherwise ...

Fallout 4 (I am betting game play)
Elder Scrolls 6 (I am betting cinematic rumour behind closed doors)
Deus Ex Mankind Divided (oh man am I excited over this)
Homefront: The Revolution (looks and sounds cool)
Star Citizen (looks and sounds the coolest)
Starfighter Inc. (could be surprise hit and BE the coolest?)
Dishonoured 2 (large open world map and plenty side quests and could be great)
Mirror's Edge 2 (sounds cool)
Mass Effect 4 (whats this? Oh just my heart stopping!)
New Need For Speed (Good one would be super cool especially if open world maps)
Cyberpunk 2077 (sounds cool but Witcher drove me nuts)
New Splinter Cell (as above lol, have blacklist and its BAD in places but super cool the rest of the time!)

I have included the unlikely title of Elder Scrolls 6 because it might not be that unlikely. I would have imagined that after the success of the last two Fallouts and the Elder Scrolls that Bethesda may have been able to expand their capabilities. There team, so to speak. Or pulled in other software houses that they may have previously worked with?

Like music label companies the publishing houses would be dead keen to get up to date versions of both of the two biggest and most popular properties out of the door and onto the shelves. You can bet your sweet arse that they would have been pushing for this and to achieve that you would need a bigger team or working with another software house.

I am sure you wont see anything more than some screen shots or some artwork or title, if that. But it may not be so long after Fallout 4 that you see the next Elder Scrolls released. Just my guess.

You just need to look at BioWare. Dragon Age Inquisition is still a new game but we know that Mass Effect 4 is coming and will likely see at at the E3 event. I would imagine that Bethesda is a bigger team now than BioWare and with them doing the old one-two with their two properties it simply is not implausible that Bethesda will do the same.

They also have that little event they announced that takes place a couple of days before E3 itself starts and this intrigues me no end. Yes an announcement of a Fallout 4 would be pretty big news but this in itself warranting a standalone event? No. Also makes it more unlikely when you hear about the fact that they have invited a bunch of people to see some stuff behind closed doors.

Fallout 4, they say it is that they are showing and not in game footage. Hmm ... yes quite bizarre. No I wonder if the surprise might turn out to be that the showing behind closed doors of not in game footage may well be something else. I think Fallout 4 will take centre stage and not shown behind closed doors. It is its own standalone event after all.

So a cinematic piece for what then, I wonder? Maybe that little thing behind closed doors might just be an Elder Scrolls 6 peak? I think its possible, as apparently it has happened before I read somewhere, that Fallout 4 is more or less done and the release will be sooner than expected and at the same time announce that Elder Scrolls is well on its way too and not far behind?

Bah! Maybe its just wishful thinking? Lol.

I do like to try to deduce little puzzles and am normally quite good at it. However much of that energy has gone into dozens and dozens of other areas all of which I allowed no margin for error. This will become extremely clear on my corruption blog and oddly enough within the next couple of weeks!

It is also about time we saw a load of stuff in the next generation of graphics and are long overdue it in my opinion. So it seems both likely and quite exciting that a Tsunami of announcements is upon us.

My head is spinning looking at that list alone and all I keep thinking is that most of that is likely to appear and a few things that were unexpected too?

In just three weeks we will find out and oddly I have my own exciting things going on that may lead me to head out of town for ... well an unknown length of time that could be ... well long.

I will still post about things and still be keeping an eye on events at E3.

However if I hear of a new decent flight simulator or two based on F22's, F35's or EFA along with maybe Apaches or Comanches I may not be able to post due to heart failure?!

DISHONOURED FINISHED

Well that was quick!!

It seems that there are far, far more and greater differences between this title and Bethesda's other two big titles than you would be aware!

First of I liked it but , oh my God did it have enough flaws or not and though I still have the two, well it says three but I will go with two, extra mission packs that I have issues with before even playing them!

Right for me what was the most annoying problem with Dishonoured was the idiot idea of the story and characters altering how the speak or respect you based on how many people you kill or let live!

UMM STUPID!!!

Your not given enough to achieve this and many times its impossible to achieve anyway. I would also imagine that this would take far more repetition that would drive you insane to achieve this. This was already bordering on ridiculous especially the number of times I entered a building without being spotted at all and found two groups of assailants in both directions in neighbouring rooms with one who walks into your room and spots you immediately?!

Number of sleeper darts on this occasion? None! Maximum number you could get away with not killing in this situation? ONE! Ability to back off out the building and pick up sleeper darts? NONE!

This is of course forgetting the fact that these people want to dice you up at every turn, blow you to bits and throw you to the rats! I was really effing annoyed when the boatman Samuel, who I really liked as a character, told me he would 'let me go this time' and 'why was I so brutal'?!

The person that wrote these ideas in must have been a stoned hippie, for sure!

The game was not just way too short it was bloody MILES too short! Exactly the sort of gamer I learned to dislike.

Sorry but I think games this short are not worthy of a £50 price tag when new, nor £40 or even £30!

Elder Scrolls and Fallouts, yes though they could still do with bigger maps and slightly more longevity!

The funny thing is that it is rife and commonly known that the parent companies want you using their stuff and titles and not someone elses. Everyone knows this. So why they have never strived to make games last longer and reducing the waiting time between finishing one title and then acquiring its follow up is utterly lost on me! Never understood that.

I find it funny that since I first got into gaming I watched as games got shorter and shorter and eventuially becomiung ridiculous, sorry Half Life 2 fans but it is and this God like worship of Half Life 2 that exists today is totally weird to be honest. I mean you do not get people talking or worshiping Space Invaders, PacMan, Defender, Jetpack or even Pong now do you? Yes Half Life was good and I was there in the store the day it came out! But was shocked out how quickly you could play through it!

Yes so the games went from having a longevity, interest, that lasted months to just hours! During this time the graphics went out beyond even an orbit of Earth. I put it down to the fact that everyone was concentrating on this but that when this slowed down, which it had to do eventually, the games would increase in their longevity.

In fact I think that this is the one bad element of gaming that has forced the lustre to lose its shine. You get put off after several titles that end up being so short lived. Also and by the time I had figured out the way to play Dishonoured I was already over half way through the game! Once I rescued Emily, young girl in the game, the first time around I was beginning to think I had actually finished the game and I thought 'oooh no! It cannot be?! I am going to rip crap out of this game on my blog!!' LMAO!

Then I noticed my achievements in Steam and I thought 'Oooh no, I made a mistake there it has bloody ages to go as I have only achieved 10% of the achievements!' Then the double cross, drugged, whiz around Dunwall with an elements of freedom not been given earlier in the game and suddenly the game was over!

OOPS!

Also the added content is disappointing and somewhat contradictory to the way they want you to play it because after being sent off to do things and being scorned for killing people that were trying to kill YOU the extra content has you playing as someone who murdered the Empress at the start of Dishonoured, not an evil one and instead a nice Empress?!

God you really need to work on this one! I had no problems avoiding killing all but the most deserving in all the Thief games, except the latest one as I have yet to complete it! Umm I have not killed too many people and if I have killed any at all I am not being scorned for it, lol.

Now for the reasons I liked the game and would love to see a much improved follow up version and hope Bethesda really pull their finger out!

I love the design, characters and story and its not that often I get drawn in to a story like that. Half Life was the early master of that one. I also loved the city and the powers, though annoyingly found myself firing darts off at walls instead on Blinking, form of teleportation power you have in the game. Yes despite doing this countless times and often firing off several bolts I still managed to kill too many people it seems, lol.

Now the things that sprung to my mind as I was playing it ...

1 H.G. Wells

2 Sherlock Holmes (original films)

Or to put it simply a kind of old world science fiction 'who done it'.

However ...

The blink power oddly did not always work on all objects even at times being well within range.

Guards would sometimes appear out of nowhere, seemingly, and a few times I simply could not see where they were coming from and seemed like they were spawning out of thin are a few feet from me. I would take on a group of five or 6 but would be closer to a dozen once I finished, after repeating this several times after getting killed by an unseen assailant after being convinced I had dealt with them all?!

Also it suffers from a little problem, albeit differently, from something I find in both Elder Scrolls and Fallout and I call it the 'Sticky Pixels Syndrome'. Oh yeah just remembered it does not suffer from 'Varying Player Height Syndrome' I get in Fallout 3, lol. Often you suddenly feel like you are completely disabled because your unable to walk in certain direction because your near some obstacle or against it. Sometimes you cannot bloody move at all and the only option is to reload the last save! When this happens in Fallout 3 because your in a gap or dip in a bloody boulder its infuriating and very much more so if you realise you have not saved the game in awhile, lmao.

The overall size of the world is tiny, or at least it feels bloody tiny! Fallout 3, New Vegas and Elder Scrolls feel like they are 100 times larger, no a thousand times larger? Lol.

What I also loved though was the look of everything, it had great colour and looked like a beautiful watercolor painting very often! Now had some one asked me if you could create a world in a 3D game with the beauty of water colours I would have told them it was impossible or they were mad.

So really a shame it was so short as this had the makings to be something extremely stunning and memorable for me. It still has this option depending on what they do if they decide to do a follow up?

Maps and freedom way bigger and greater and do not make it so hard to be the good guy by restricting the hardware needed to be the good guy, remember its about CHOICE. A bit stupid when you have all these powers and abilities but cannot carry more than 10 sleeper darts for your crossbow, yet you can carry 20 normal bolts?! Hmm or was it 20 and 30? Lol, I hate you fibro-foggyness!!

Well at least I will now be keeping an eye out for three Bethesda titles in the future! Only I would wager that as Dishonoured was the most recent off the three its safe to say that a Dishonoured 2 is further away than both Fallout 4 that they are only rumoured to be working on and might only be piecemeal if they are and even Elder Scrolls 6?!

I hate the fact that Elder Scrolls Online exists for so many reasons its not true! I might have been very interested in Elder Scrolls Online for about a months time had it not been for the sheer expense of buying and then the humungous monthly subscription on top of that! Plus its been ripped to buggery by just about every reviewer and gamer since release! I know a video I saw of gameplay looked like utter mayhem and one big battle frenzy with obviously a load of players who kind of miss the point of what Elder Scrolls is all about?!

I think I would rather go for World of Warcraft ... well if the graphics were not so dated looking! Or cartooney, lol.

Now if only there were some other software publishers that had three titles I was as interested in as I am these three, well OK two and a half, from Bethesda?

EYEING UP THE BITS AND PIECES

It seems that the chap I was mentioning before, at least I think I did (Fibrofog) is Jay Z Two Cents or something similar.

Due to the disappearence to the Canadian duo I have now added this chap to my susbscriptions, something I am very choosey about doing. However I liked his frank and funny approach to testing and reviewing things.

I am, I will admit, heavily looking into things right now and ... will be for the next couple of weeks to which after this I am going to be ... taking action regarding a few bits and pieces.

I have also been looking at more up to date games and even purchased a copy of PC Gamer recently. Now I had the first ever copy of that along with a few others. Some of these are no longer in existence and some are.

The titles I have read about have me somewhat excited I must say and I have a driven determination to try and achieve things over the next month!

However I do tend to like single player itles to multi player ones so I will have to check and make sure as to what is what and not make any mistakes in a months time.

But I do love flight Sims and am eager to see more about ...

Star Citizen (read its MMO :( )

Elite Dangerous (read its MMO :( )

Eve Valkyrie (MMO)

I was interested in X Rebirth as I played all the others but my word does it get a panning from people so ... maybe not?!

I also like Role Playing games along with open world games that can last you a long time, several weeks as opposed to several hours.

I love the two titles I have along these lines of

Elder Scrolls V Skyrim 

Fallout New Vegas (played Fallout 3 too)

Deus Ex Human Revolution

None of the follow ups to these have been announced quite unfortunately. Many are stating they are some way off but I whink maybe as not as far off as many think due to the launch of the new consoles of the PS3 and XBone?!

I am interested in ...

Crysis 3

Farcry 3

But I will have to check them out further and was also interested in Metro Last Light.

There are the Wolfenstein and Watch Dog titles too. Dragon Age Inquisition along with Tom Clancy's The Division and Dying Light. Also the H1Z1 sounds interesting thus far. Also Project Cars or any ohter driving game I can find I think will be of major interest?!

I also have a rough list of things that comprise .. umm ... ten things ... ooooh wait no? THIRTEEN things, lol. These are not games!

There are a few others rumoured about that seem interesting however I have lost count of the amount of hype a imminent title has acquired only for it to be a let down upon release for one reason or another. These companies should really not sell themselves out to parent companies who will treat them like musians are treated and rushed something out that is unfinished.

What I also foind surprising is that in this day and age where you can write things to optical disks so easily or provide your own downloadable content that things are still squeezed in this way? Especially now that you have things like Kickstarter too where scores of people go wading through it for projects of interest!

I mean there is very big name in music that got around all this kind of thing and will not pander to the greedy execs wanting money immediately and not content to wait and that of course is Radiohead.

Whatever I do in about one month from now you can bet that my best camera will be at the ready and fully put to work! I am also leaning in a direction I have not done so before and never wanted to before. Yet I am pretty sure that this time around I am going to dive into that area?!

Also I am interested in looking into Dishonoured which I nearly bought when it came out but was not too sure, but now their is talk of Dishonoured 2 and hopefully this will be followed, or preceded, by Fallout 4 (read rumour Boston was scouted for this) and then Elder Scrolls 6?!

I have another blog whereby it always seems that everything I do comes togeether at the same time along with things being released in the media. Maybe this endeavour will follow suit?!

I might have to finally get a hard line?! (:-P)

Fingers crossed!!

One month from now this blog will get a great deal of content along these lines as will my YouTube account!

At long bloody last and should be the first of two, maybe more?!