THE SMOKING GUN

I stated before in previous posts that I am aghast at the state of PC gaming and the more titles I go through the worse it gets. I mean that literally.

The worse it gets with games the worse it looks for reviewers.

Yesterday and today I have been playing Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell Blacklist.

Now to give you an idea of how ridiculous it appears to be in all aspects I ordered the Splinter Cell Blacklist game at the same time as I ordered Call Of Juarez Gunslinger and Red Faction Armageddon. For some bizarre reason the Splinter Cell Blacklist game took a great deal longer to arrive than the other two. Now then where one thing stands out...

While the Splinter Cell game was downloading its second patch which seemed to also be 17GB I finally completed Call If Juarez Gunslinger. Well I say finally because I was stuck at this stage where I was in a huge gunfight with not only all the famous US outlaws but each character had several versions of themselves...hardly seems fair does it?

Did I mention they were all ghosts? Lol.

No I say 'finally' because I was stuck for a fair old while. I did not realise this was the end of the game mind you. I could not believe I had finished it while waiting six hours for Splinter Cell Blacklist to finish installing despite ordering the games at exactly the same time!

I doubt I have completed 20% of the other title, Red Faction Armageddon.

When I started playing Splinter Cell I really did not know what to expect. I have always wanted to try all the Tom Clancy games but read such bad things about them all. There are a lot of titles and the vast majority of them get extremely bad reviews by magazines and gamers.

I have scratched my head over this for a fair old while and it simply makes no sense, how the hell are these idiots making any money?

Unless it's just the PC versions of the games in which case see something needs to be done. 

The more and more I play the more and more I think that either games software houses or the publishers or perhaps both are taking the right royal piss out of PC owners.

A few new titles in to my return to gaming and I came across something I never had before and I very much mean this literally. I was completely confused when I paused and tried to save my game progress. I was stunned and spent bloody ages looking for something that simply was not there?!

How very bizarre that is! It's literally unnerving because you don't trust whatever is it has shut its saving checkpoints. 

Now the odd thing about realising you have this bloody stupid, yes bloody stupid, system in games but I have one series where this literally occurs, read changes, during one particular series. I think this was where it occurred and that was Crysis. The first one you good safe your games and a quick look at Crysis 3 and it was gone.

I don't know whether it's pure laziness or they are literally taking the piss but I have gotten so frustrated about this that I feel I want to contact the coders and publishers and talk then to piss off over you consoles completely and one come back when they have they have grown up!

So my first few titles of Fallout 3, Fallout New Vegas and Elder Scrolls Skyrim and the old fashioned way.

Yet all those three titles I mentioned all have this checkpoint system and one game dies this very badly. Very badly.

This is so obvious and potentially game breaking that's it's amateurish but the fees they command are anything but. 

Splinter Cell Blacklist is the one that implements it badly. Also the design of the game is also somewhat bad too. In fact the whole Tom Clancy bunch I have are still really messed up. I will explain each and with the reasons...

Ghost Recon Phantoms

Was told by Game Store was single player but the exact opposite is true. Was surprisingly better and more fun to play than I thought it would be. I also paid for it die it being a free game. Graphics pretty good and nice controls, especially the getting into cover button as well as firing from cover.

Pay to win which I detest as utter angreed and will destroy the gaming industry for all but idiots, believe me.

Ghost Recon Future Soldier

Expected and hoped it would be similar to Phantoms and it was... mostly. A bit short though and menus and other noon gaming screens where abysmal and bland.

Ghost Recon Advanced Warfare

Thought this would be like Phantoms but no, old, bad graphics and bloody hard. You get seen when it's impossible to be seen. Uninstalled it.

Ghost Recon Advanced Warfare 2

As above but not uninstalled just yet.

Splinter Cell Blacklist

Odd as it has the best graphics out of my bunch but other things let it down badly. I think that gamers get bitter about shite games because they want to like them so badly but that they end up feeling let down.

Aiming from cover often really stupid and does not work! Why you would it something in the game that's still broken I have no idea. Often your cross hairs are on a wall when submitting to aim from cover.

Saving checkpoints often too far apart in sections that will become boring quickly and then frustrating soon after. The first mission went like a dream but then the same thing happens with the two next missions?!

The controls are clunky like the aiming from cover is. It is already like this was a prototype to test the new controls? 

After a break for sleep just then I returned to playing Splinter Cell Blacklist and I am afraid to say that the three games I just bought are very disappointing, very very disappointing indeed.

The layout of the missions are absolutely dreadful and so is the game elements. Everyone is scattered about and each part is like a game of chess with everyone on high alert?! They simply would not be like this unless there was a full on attack or they knew one was coming. There is also no skill involved devastate toy work from trial and error which you have no choice in doing because along with far too many men scattered about they have the aforementioned dogs and can survive several bullets to the face while wearing normal clothing while your downed with a lot less.

I also had a really fecking annoying part where I managed to progress further and fur done bizarre reason they placed in the odd guys with armor?! I guess the cheers thought they were being clever and smart, err no your not, in suggesting that they can only afford helmets for one in ten men?!

Here is a tip guys, anyone in the spy or military industry that wants to be covert in their actions they do not go wading right through the middle of a complex with so little in the way of cover.

The controls are clunky whereas in Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Phantoms game is just right and not only are they clunky they are also terribly unresponsive.

If this were any other type of gadget you brought the would be an uproar about it, often making the news and at times millions of things can be recalled from a hoover to a car.

But hey, is only pennies your wasting right? I mean fifty or sixty quid is nothing really...or should I say twelve quid a month for god knows how many months? Or both?!

There should be a body set up that makes sure these games are not either shite or broken before going out the door. If they are and insist upon releasing them then they should be told they can only will them at gashed the price.

I tell you the only way you get through to anyone is money...well outside of physical violence towards them and no I don't mean threats, murder or manslaughter!

I am not saying this because of my own frustrations, you will really need to get you realize this about me. Have I bought a game on release at full price yet? No. So this does not affect me really and the only frustration I have is that I would want to buy one at full price within the first week of release but it is foolhardy to do this. I mean you would have to be a complete fool to just keep doing that!

Two titles I was looking forwards to were Dragon Age Inquisition and FarCry 4. Now with FarCry this was down to since really stupid game design. When it is that bad and you the discovery that 80% of gamers dry the same and it's even listed in games magazines in their to ten of cardinal rules you do winner to who these people are?

Now when I took my...sabbatical from games they had just worked out that the driving force behind games should be gamers and gaming access not money. Oh? Well no it shouldn't and anyone can say what as many times as they like it simply won't change facts. Done and done! The euphoria from playing games is as old as anything whereas the fault ridden idea that everything is driven by money is wrong, been around only five minutes and already proved itself as being felt ridden and simply does not work. The pioneers did it because they enjoyed it with the very idea if being paid to do that which you enjoy was a good thing to achieve.

But like everything else everyone starts to view others as reaching the point ode sitting on your arse while the dollars mount up. When this happens you lose focus and do not strive so hard to come up with ideas. The may well be exceptions to this rule but I cannot think of any. Though I did read an inspiring article about a couple living in a tree house while making thrift own games!

The of course you have the seeking of their souls because a few hundred thousand is not enough, they want millions. Or millions are not enough they want billions. Lol.

Like a man with a name like Dyson you start up thinking you could create something new or vastly improve something that already exists.

You want to recreate something or you want to create something completely new. But surely you want it to be good, right?

If and when I create something I want it to wow people. I would want it to blow their minds. I would want it to be both polished and operational as well as well built and reliable. These are the golden rules for seeing the boat out to sail.

Full stop!

But this has evaporated over time with everything. Now you have these groups of people that simply want to buy a customer base. They buy something that's successful and then make a pile of bull manure to flocks of people hungry for more of the same.

They think of spending far less money while taking the same or very similar amounts of the surf. This simply does not work. They stupidly and stubbornly state it does and is the only way, well they are not going to admit they are idiots ate they, to you things. No...it's not. Your just unbelievably stupid and naive and think that the customer base are more stupid and naive than you are?! Which I rather find offensive somewhat, dear boy!

Hmm shoveling shite out the door. Sounds like a good line to use for the headline? Lol.

No I have yet to purchase a title that's new because I am still missing one component for my PC, put off because over £300 has gone to...help others. Even saying that I would still wait awhile. Oh yes, I wandered off there for a meander, sorry a bit light headed right now.

FarCry 4 got lower scores than I expected it to get and everyone seems to say something derogatory about the missions! This really annoyed me because I immediately thought the exact she things that marred FarCry 3 had remained.

This to me means someone wants firing or at least kicked in the gonads to be taught a lesson. Stupid, stupid, stupid. 

I have listened to the absolute garbage doing the rounds for years about PC gaming is going to die a death. They were staying this long before my computer science degree and for the last 14 years since then.

I started to think at one point that the rumors of these PC's demise was manufactured by either the game coders themselves or by the publishers? With the idea of doing people complaining so they can get a while new pile of cash for the same product. Could be both but I imagine the publishers would be the likely culprits?

What amazes me with the Tom Clancy games is that I have five titles here now and only two are alike while the others differ drastically in their controls. Weird.

I would be interested to speak to people that are fans of this lot, would be interesting to see what they say.

Now I did have A Tom Clancy title many years ago. I think it was likely prior to Quake 3 Arena but could have been after that title was released. Whichever one it was I am sure I remember you belonged to a group of four. I seem to remember, perhaps wrongly, having to control each one of the four which was confusing at the time.

A world away from a couple of titles of theirs I played recently with Future Soldier and the two Advanced Warfare games. Though the two latter titles are ridiculously hard. 

It seems to me that there were stages in game making when it was not just physics they needed lessons in but eyesight too! Maybe they're still is? Just tonight I was playing Ghost Recon Phantoms when I was killed by a sniper watching a passageway I did not even go anywhere near?! The were a couple of times tonight when I was killed and the culprit was shown behind a wall, one so badly I thought there must have been the user of cheat codes because a few bullets that found me actually rounded a corner by several feet!

Now also quite bizarre was the fact that this was not the only oddball thing to occur. The was a period where everything just went mad. All the opposing side seem to be running around like nutters for several minutes before I noticed a couple of them were moonwalking backwards?! The was also a period where I emptied two complete clips into an opponent who survived only to turn around and kill me with a single bullet?! This happened twice and another time was when I shot someone several times who disappeared fur a split second behind a corner and then appeared again getting my last couple of bullets in the magazine but this opponent, who had been struck by at least ten of my bullets, just carried on walking towards me while aiming his gun at me as if he or she knew they would not die?!

No they did not have that strange glowing red forcefield thing going on either. I did at least figure that one out. Not the red shimmering fog either which interferes with electronics, or appears to.

Oh yes, I am also extremely interested to know how I can be invisible (cloaked), laying on a floor and 200 yards away and after shifting my position I do get my head blown off as I raise my head before I even clap eyes on them?!

I don't know if updates can make things go awry. These strange goings on did not happen previously. It was almost as if I was playing a team that were several tiers above me in the weapons and gadgets department. 

So there matchmaking is a bit odd either that or I'm not completely all up on how everything works. I got added to a fire team and I have no idea what that is. Not sure how the clans work yet either.

Well I did say I was new at this.

Maybe when I've finished typing and posting this I will actually go and look. Well I have planned to do that several times but.. well I forgot. I do that and I tend to lose track of time too.

Would be interesting to drive into this with the relevant companies and governing bodies and due to what I managed to acquire on all the public services, bar two, and several big name retailers I should do rather well. Especially as I have learned new tricks and plenty of gadgets too. 

I would have to wait until I have cleared some of the backlog of things I have been working on for my corrupting blog. The two Police forces along with the DWP, Atos and the NHS will all likely be cleared over the next 6 months. My 7 concurrently running plans shod have it since reached their destination too? Metaphorically speaking of course. 
I find one thing extremely bizarre that is not merely just going on but seems to be the case right across the board and everywhere I look...

Over time as we, human beings, learn so we then improve the things that we use and the things that we do.

Of late the opposite is true and all actions and creations seem to have gradually for worse and worse in the last ten years of so.

I hope this changes before to long?

Unfortunately those that now need to take action to change things for the better wing because they will either fail to see it or just be stubborn and wait for it to fix itself.

I for one simply hope that where games are concerned that we have now had two Fallout games and one Elder Scrolls with Skyrim asking with FarCry 3 and now 4 and the greedy companies will realise that they will benefit more if they concentrate on both working models and fun to play ones. 

Though the tithes might have their own little niggles the are easily forgiven when the title is something special.

Hopefully these linear games with mad chess like sections that threaten to bore you to the point of blood setting from your nose and eyes?! Lol.

If Splinter Cell Blacklist had a large open world a little harder than Skyrim with the control line that of Dead Island Riptide or Call Of Juarez Gunslinger ir even its own Ghost Recon Phantoms it would have been up there with the greatest games. What you are left with is a stylish and good looking game with a great idea adrift in a confusing sea of mediocrity.

I am hoping that this all now ends but then does not get fucked up by a bunch of greedy idiots that wasn't micro transactions and okay to win methods in games who did only prove themselves to be even now stupid than this by doing that "..this is the way it's heading"?! No it's not you moron! Just because the greedy corporations you sold your souls too stress all insisting they want it this way you only get permission to do so from gamers. Because they will be the ones to part with their cash. Only complete idiots pay to win on these things and while many gamers with a brain are already up in arms over this it won't be that if before even the most naive realist its a con. Yup a con.

Luckily for me Pink Floyd, Mike Oldfield, Jean Michel Jarre, Moby and Radiohead among others never asked for a monthly fees to continue listening to the music on a CD every month. Otherwise I would end up paying several thousand each month?!

So hopefully I am keeping my fingers crossed that they realise their mistakes?

Though somehow I doubt it.

THE NUMPTIES OF THE WORLD

Well would you Adam and Eve it?

I posted about a title I bought called Ghost Recon Phantoms a few days back? Well due to a lingering illness, and my Fibrofog yesterday where I left the house without it, I still have not returned the offending item to the Game Store.

Last night, a few hours before I had my illness, don't ask as I don't know, returned like an F5 Tornado I ended up trying to download the game again. That was around... hmm 10pm and this time around it seems to have downloaded it.... IN PART!

Yes it is around 75% done after 14 hours. I have downloaded games twice that size in an hour. I should really add on a good day? Lol. But even a game twice the size of Phantoms would not take half this long on a bad day. That is my point and it is not finished yet.

The reason why I decided to have another go is because it seems, read 'seems', that people are split down the middle over this title? Some, sounding rather like me on a frustrating, painful and pissed off day, rage about it being a 'Pay To Win' game from an AAA publisher. Others that defend it state you do not have to pay to win at all one individual stating an impressively high level without 'paying a penny'.

Do you know what I thought? "Point one way to find out who is right and whether these fans are just a huge pile of steaming fanboys I start as much as pay2win. Because it's thoughtless and mindless driven who have no concept of what sport is about. A bit like the murderer who complained that a Brazilian athlete that beat him complained his... 'blades' were better than his! This is a man who wanted to be accepted into the races with people without these 'blades'?! Who managed to convince a massive judge that having three bullets lodged your dead girlfriend from your gun in a flecking toilet is an accident.

A little tip here as I cover this in depth on my corruption blog, if you use two different tools one will always be better than the other. However using a tool that replaces half your legs at a fraction, literally, of the weight with far greater flexibility is the actual comparison that is not fair!

Another example of a man that I knew had some very serious personality issues right here at the London Olympics. I was barely coming to terms with the fact that this bladerunner was going to be there, let alone want to compete with normal athletes and complain about tools used by a Brazilian rival. I did not even watch the damned Olympics, though I did secretly help thousands of people who attended. A fact they are musky none the wiser of to this day. Another blog, Man!

What?! I never said it was Oscar Pestorius! Oops! Lol.

Anyway, I digress to try and make lighter of a miscarriage of justice that took place on a global stage. Yup he still has idiots as supporters! The mind boggles!

Which brings me nearly around to this Pay To Win fiasco. Sorry but it's stupid, naive, shows nothing but contempt for your consumers and waltz around like they can rip you off and there is no comeback?! Well yes that's why I call fanboys idiots. I wound simply as at which point do they decide to draw the line? If I ask ten thousand people I wound get ten thousand different answers. In other words it is not fair.

Or to put this another way, I do not want to run around in a game I have ploughed £10 into only to be beaten marginally by a ten year old whose parents ploughed four times or more the amount in that I did! It's FUCKING stupid! THE END!

If you walk into a store and buy an Massive Multi Player Online game or just any online game you all pay the same money and start on an equal footing, or near as. Imagine getting into a game two years late when others have ploughed hundreds into theirs? Well I suggest buying a closing device if you have one on offer as short of immediately ploughing in a couple hundred nicker in one go your gonna spend the day getting annoyed at being canon fodder.

There are also a number of other issues like this I shall briefly explain before I point out a little BBC news report I linked to on another site. YES the corruption one! Lol.

This attitude started out, as far as I can tell, on mobile phone apps. Gotten away with by targeting their incessant greed at the new wave of ever younger kids acquiring mobile phones no doubt? I complained to others about this and simply stunned that they wound attempt this. Granted those earlier ones were not of the Electronic Arts of this world but it was bound to catch on. I know who are firmly to blame for this, take your pick from the only two candidates of Apple and Google. I also realised that surely they were so brazen about this it was only a matter of time before this infection affected the biggest and best loved  titles? Not content with a monthly subscription fee you have to pay over the top to purchase the game and now post for guns that wound not surprise me of some cost more than the real McCoy?!

However an online game is a different animal to a sticker player game for the most part. I like the idea of co-op but what worries me is that your launched into a game populated with 8 year olds boasting everything in sight rather randomly? Then I saw pictures of Elder Scrolls Online! Lol. Oooh dear. Then there are the maps and a large open world could be tricky, unless of course your World Of Warcraft. But then that's a bit long in the tooth graphics wise these days and we are in the verge of the next, next, next generation and if you have seen Star Citizen then on PC it is more next, next, next, next generation! So enjoyable gaming online will come down at least in part to map design. Except even when I was last into gaming, until very recently, was when Half Life 2 was released, YES the first time and Quake and Doom befite that, it was obvious everyone wanted to go multi player. Quake 3 Arena being the first big name multi player title out. I hated that. But even then I did not stop to think... how many games can you have pulling this off?

You can only reasonably have a couple of titles of FPS's, RPG's, Car Racing titles and everyone else will have a tough time breaking into this elite group. That is creativity gone out the window then? Lol?!

Cannot help but think that this is the reason some old forgotten names are back into have creation too?

Funny then that after being out of pc gaming for a fair few years that this new... direction... bad direction is going a bit awry? Also amusing is how Electronic Arts,.... umm and the other ones lol have all bit wanted to hand over publishing rights to Valve and their Steam idea, an idea I did not like then and still do not like today. But I do not dislike it as much as I did. Because no matter what anyone says and my fellow students from my computer science degree will testify to us that they were shocked that in a split debate I was in the camp in favour of tangible things! This is because of the existence of fans, not fanboys who are the same but lacking in intelligence, resort to name calling after initially provoking an argument ergo the original trolls. True fans of literature, music, films and games want something they can... feel! I like Pink Floyd and Radiohead among others books on various sciences (not novels unfortunately as the are many I would love to read) and now RPG's like Elder Scrolls, Fallout, Kingdoms of Amulur, Mass Effect, Borderlands and others and will likely get added to? No way would I rather pay, especially as it is often more, for a digital download only. I have a hard back to copy on an optical disc and hopefully with some nice booklets and a map?

See?

I have been at this post for a while now. Dare I wonder whether Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Phantoms finally ceases to be a.... ghost? Phantom? Sorry you can all groan now. Do I dare wonder if I will manage to start the game and live longer than sixty seconds before setting a picture of my grey matter on a nearby wall before collapsing realising it is not some ruffian graffiti artist?! Lol.

I may. For a little while. Before I wonder if it is safe to move without creating an almighty mess before reaching the computer?

TOM CLANCY'S TOSS WARE

I cannot quite believe I am going to type out this post!

I also cannot quite believe some of the things I am going to type about and am shaking my head right at this minute while wanting to remove my teeth from my head one by one with the use of a set of pliers?!

Today I ended up with something I did not expect. Something I had been considering for a while but did not expect. I bought something on a whim and it is extremely likely that I will return it and ... oooh boy do I have some things to say to them when I do!

I bought a game... a Tom Clancy title I have been familar with for years but it was many years ago I last played a title. I had been wondering for a while now what they are like these days, only have been put off by them as despite the number of titles they get slated, read ripped to shreds, a fair deal by gamers.

Now before I explain what has happened ... or rather NOT happened I will explain that in my Amazon wishlist of PC Games is the Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Trilogy. Remember that!

I wandered into my local Game store today. This store has become annoying as a year ago they always had several titles, often budget priced too, that I wanted to purchase but could not. Due to the lack of graphical grunt in my laptop. But this year and now I have a PC capable of playing all titles, regardless of what Custom PC (ooh that reminds me) and now err PC Gamer say which is completely wrong, see last paragraph. I spotted a chunky black box on the PC Games shelf which has been devoid of a while list of titles I would have purchased all year! My Bethesda games, 3 of them, all came from Game. When I looked at the chunky black box it was Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon special edition. It was £15.99 and took iit to the counter. I asked, to be certain, if this was a single player game and not an online only game.

Now this bit you need to realise as they said "No its single player and they normally state clearly on the box if its online only and it says nothing" after checking it over.

Now follow the following points very carefully...

1 It IS an online only game!

2 It is ALSO a FREE GAME, yes you read that correctly this is a free game!!

3 The special part of this box is a single useless hardback book of just pictures of the outfits?!?!

4 Not a single line of code to the game is on the DVD disc and I am afraid it gets worse, a lot worse as ...

5 After two hours of downloading the bar had not moved and it still stated that there was 59 minutes left which is what it did when I ran the fecking game!!!

6 After investigation on the internet there is feck all on the UBI Soft forums, they are always useless anyway, and where I discovered that the game was a free title I also discover that not only is there no code to the game on the DVD, so why a fucking DVD yuou bloody morons, but that it is not on their fucking severs either and your downloading it from ... errr OTHER PLAYERS!!!

7 Almost last but not least is that there are a humungous number of gamers that have the exact same issues and cannot download the game let alone installing it! Not much in the way of answers and the only smart one used the word "Torrents". Jesus Christ!!

8 Best of all is that it turns out that this is an AAA title of game belonging to that which I not only absolutely detest with every fibrte of my being and believe the creators and publishers should be locked up in a burning prison cell for all eternity because it is a PAY TO WIN TITLE!! SPECIAL FUCKING EDITION?! ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?!

Phew! Got that lot out of the way!

To add insuklt to injury my connection is bloody crap tonight. Or so I thought but then realised that it is being doggedly slow since I attempted to download and install this Tom Clancy Ghost Recon title and I just realised I forgot a point above...

9 The graphics are dated and for gamers to say that we cannot be talking 2 years old, ergo Skyrim, or even three. In fact some stated that this was first generation consoles?! They were likely being over the top sarcastic but even so...second generation consoles?!

I would NOT, repeat NOT buy a title regardless of how little it costs if it was released before 2007, that is my absolute limit and even then only if gamers absolutely rave about a title. Like Dragon Age of Kingdoms of Amulur.

So there you go...I simply cannot believe the absolutely dreadful experience I have had with a UBISOFT game of one of the Tom Clancy titles!

I have noticed that the box has the Steam logo on it as well as the UPlay logo? I am currently lookiung to see if I can download it off Steam instead?

I cannot believe not just how utterly abysmal this was handled by all involved but also that this atrocity was a free to play title placed in a box and put on a shelf to look like it was something special?! Bugger me even if it was in a standard DVD case it would have been taking the piss!

Oh now will you look at that?! Immediately the title is downloading on Steam and at around 200k/s or more! God knows what it was on UPlay but it was not even a quarter of that if it downloaded anything at all.

Now the question is I am supposed to get something for free with this specia edition, oh in a free play but pay to win title to get you into it of course there is free stuff!! LMAO!!

Now I am going to play Alien Isolation for an hour and then see what the percentage of the download is? I can tell you that in just a couple of minutes it has downloaded 60MB and yet using their own launcher it downloaded 130MB but took two hours to do that?!

Oh..MY...GOD! I will make doubley sure in future that if ANY GAME so much as hints at downloading it all from them or worse still other players you will not see my arse for DUST!!

I certainly wont feel guilty anymore when I am checking out details of something on the Internet on my smartphone!