Just A Quick Update

So I figured I would give you all a quick update to let you know what is going on. Since I received quite a few emails about why there was no Reader Post or an Ask Gauss this past week. Now first off I am alive so no need to worry about that or in some of your cases you can stop cheering. I thought I would be able to keep the blog going while I had some stuff going on in my personal life but that doesn't seem to be the case. So don't freak out this isn't about me not blogging anymore.

So over the next week or so will probably be MIA since I will not only be packing up but also moving. So with having to do all of that I just won't also have the time to research topics and bring you the best content possible. No one likes makeshift content so I am not going to do it. Feel free to still send me emails as I will have some breaks and will try my best as always to respond in a timely manner. Until then try not to have too much without me.

Gauss

The Rise Of Fantasy

So, I was recently watching an interview with Charles Dance, who played Twin Lannister on Game of Thrones. He is also voice acting for one of the main characters for Witcher III. He was talking about how fantasy has come full circle recently. Now myself I have always been interested in fantasy. To me if you are going to play something that isn't "real" you might as well go all out. Give me magic, give me dragons, give me whatever else you can think of.

Now I know others have always stay away from this sort of thing as it seemed too far fetched and unrealistic in games. So why now are fantasy games becoming much more popular? Well I actually think this can be attributed to graphics. Yes these things are just as much supernatural as they ever were, but I think the visuals are so beautifully designed those doubters just don't think about it.

Really though I think it has become the norm that any fantasy game to get into the mainstream has to be beyond amazing to look at. People won't accept a poor looking fantasy game unless they are a fantasy fan in general. Those that need convincing need the visuals to bring them in. This isn't a bad thing really. As I have always stated graphics aren't the most important thing to me, but if the gameplay is great and it looks amazing then that is what makes a top level game. One that will be played and enjoyed by everyone.

I urge you the next time you are messing around in a fantasy game pay attention to the details involved and keep that in mind when you switch to a game with another thing. You will realize the detail just isn't the same. Look what this has done for us though. With the current popularity of fantasy games they have been given more funding and have made countless fantastic games for all of us to enjoy. That in itself is something to be thankful for!

Here's A Letter From The Princess

Here we are in the middle of the week wondering what to do with ourselves. Although if you are here you are probably expecting a list of some sort. You wouldn't be wrong in thinking that, because today is list day in Gauss land. What is the list about this week you may ask? Well I figured with the release of Assassin's Creed Chronicles it would be a good time to look at what I feel are the best Side Scrolling games out there. So here goes.

5. Little Big Planet

Now there were so many games that could have made this list and the reason this made it over the others was not only because of it's focus on the modern version of a side scrolling game game the wonderful environments that just make it fun to play.

4. Mega Man 2 

When it was released the creators said it was by far and away the best Mega Man game there was. Of course, it was only the second game at the time, but it is a statement that I would say holds true till today.

3. Donkey Kong Country

A game that stretch the 16 bit world to the limit. Not only was this game ahead of its time graphically it was a blast to play. Also bordered on unfair and insanely difficult but you could not hate on it because hey it is Donkey Kong

2. Ducktales

A game that most recently got itself a graphically update because someone realize an entirely new generation of gamers needs to play this game. Based on the cartoon which the modern gamers probably have no idea about, but still a great way to spend a gaming day.

1. Super Mario Bros 3

I thought to myself for awhile if it was going to be Super Mario World just because of Yoshi but really I just couldn't. This game really is everything you want a side-scroller to be. Fun, difficult, and makes you think. I think anytime one is made this is the game they look to as comparison 

There they are. What I believe are the best Side Scrolling games their are. Agree with me? Well probably not. So let me know what you think is better one way or another.

You Fail At DLCs If...

Fail Day! Yes it has already been a week and already so much fail to talk about. With that in mind everyday could probably be fail day, but then I am not sure it would be as fun. This week I thought I would take a look at DLCs you the love hate relationship we all have for them. So sit back and let's have a go.

You Fail At DLCs If...

• You had no idea it stands for Downloadable Content
• You have day one additional content DLCs
• You have consumable DLCs so people can get ahead quicker
• You pay for consumable DLCs
• You continuously release DLCs monthly for a large chunk of the full game
• You are Electornic Arts
• You make people pay for patches which fix bugs
• You have DLC content on the shipped disc which has to be paid for to unlock
• You have to release one of your DLCs free because you messed up your release of the game
• You have console specific DLCs
• You make DLCs manditory for quality of life improvements
• You make the true ending to a game be on a DLC

and finally

• You never pay for the expansion DLCs then complain you have no idea what has gone on with the story of the game when the next comes out

There you have it this week's edition of Fail. I will excuse you all now to go complete your downloads.

Warlord Blackhand

So here we are on yet another Monday. Monday's can suck if you work a regular week and they can also be a lot of fun if you are a WoW Raider and killing that final content left before Tuesday reset. Something which reminds me of some good and bad times all around. So when I saw this Machinima Tribute to Warlord Blackhand and his Foundry by Suge I couldn't help but share. So if you have taken part in the raid or not have a look and enjoy the show!



Now if you are raiding or not tonight you are now ready regardless!

Ask Gauss

Sunday or as it will be for the next few months Game of Thrones Day. Hopefully your weekend wasn't too wasted and you actually got to do something with it. If not well there is still time you can get to it. Or you can sit where you are and read all the answers to the questions I picked this week. With that in mind here we go!

Regardless of your DLC rant the other day how are you finding MK10?

The game itself looks beautiful, although I did already know that from demos and previews. The story mode and the fighting are also well polished and I am likely it. It is the best Mortal Kombat game it quite some time as I found in previous versions the fighting became secondary to everything else. They didn't let that happen this time, which makes me happy. If you are a fan of the fighting genre you will enjoy this game plane and simple and should pick it up. Just try not to be furious at the DLCs they have.

Did you think the WoW Token would be this variable in price?

Well Blizzard said they would adapt it to the market, which they are. The problem as is with anything new is people will try and then never again. There will be an influx of supply because of everyone buying it and then the influx of people buying it for a couple months for those that find themselves farming to keep their sub free. Now for those who have stores of gold this may actually take awhile to happen, but then some may just like to stand on their mount of gold and swim in it like Scourge McDuck.

Hearthstone on Mobile!

I know bathroom breaks will never be the same again!

There you have it. The questions I chose for the week. Hope you all got something out of them and if not hopefully you killed a few minutes while you read them. Enjoy what is left of your weekend!

Destroying Their Core Before They Destroy Yours

So I often get people asking me in any game how you can get others to do what benefits the team. Lately many of these questions have to do with Heroes of the Storm and how you can get your team to understand certain things are important. Why people should stop what they are doing and help out with something else. This brings me right into this week's Reader Post by Tidragon. Who has come up with a pretty fail safe way to go about explaining it.

There is only one important thing in Heroes of The Storm:

Destroying their core before they destroy yours.

As a corollary:

If anything they're doing can destroy your core, absolutely anything else you are doing is wrong unless it is "destroying their core first". You need to stop whatever you're doing and stop whatever they're doing that is going to blow up your core.

As a corollary to the corollary:

This means that if an objective spawns which is going to destroy your core, you need to grab that objective. If there is an attack on your core, you need to defend your core.

There is literally no point in defending your core from random minion waves if your foes are going to grab the Sky Temple and blow up your core from afar. Likewise, there's no point in defending your core if they're going to turn in to the pirate and blow it up with cannonballs. But there's also no point in capping the objective if your core is going to be destroyed before you destroy theirs.

In most of these situations, you effectively have to capture the objective unless the enemy team is pushing your core. The minion waves are less important unless they are going to destroy your core before them grabbing the objective will.

I know this may seem like an odd endgame thing, but it is actually a really important thing to keep in mind at all times. Your goal is to blow up the enemy core. That is the only thing which will end the game in your victory. Their goal is to blow up yours.

Whatever you're doing should be whatever it is which makes it most likely that you blowing up their core is going to happen before they blow up yours. If you understand this, you'll understand a great deal.

This is why capturing objectives is often so important - literally every single objective in the game is about pushing through towers. Curse disables all the towers - it means you need to push. The garden terror and dragon knight are both for pushing enemy towers down. The golem and webweavers are all about spawning in and attacking enemy towers. The Sky Temple and the Pirate Ship both directly blow up enemy towers. Getting through those towers - and most importantly, destroying keeps - gets you closer and closer to the enemy core. Destroying the core wins you the game.

After "losing your core", the next worst thing that can happen to you is losing your keeps. The next best thing after "destroying the enemy core" is "destroying the enemy keeps". The vast, vast majority of the time, destroying enemy keeps (the inside ring of keeps) is better than destroying an outer ring, because destroying a keep causes catapult minions to spawn in that lane. Catapult minions not only push through enemy minion waves, but attack the enemy core from outside of the core's attack radius. This forces the enemy team to devote resources to preventing that lane from destroying their core on its lonesome, because it will do so unless your own keep has been destroyed. This constant distraction makes it easier to destroy other enemy keeps or capture objectives, or generally bother the other team.

The only thing worth foregoing destroying an enemy keep for is either defending your own keeps, defending your own core, doing something which is going to destroy an enemy keep (capping an objective, for instance, or setting off the boss), preventing the other team from doing something which is going to destroy your core (preventing them from capping an objective or setting off a boss), or wiping the other team (this is okay, but still iffy unless you are going to blow up one of their keeps after you win your teamfight - though frankly, you should be able to).

There's this sort of... prioritization thing. And understanding this is pretty important to being a helpful teammate. If you're just randomly pushing a lane, and your keep or core is under attack, you're not really helping unless your teammates have it under control. If there is a teamfight going on, you need to be either helping, or it needs to be part of the plan (communicated to your teammates) that you're not going to be helping because you're split pushing, and their job is to delay and not die, and prevent the enemy team from rolling down and murdering you while you split push (which is bad). And even in that situation, your split push needs to be quickly earning you towers down - just poking stuff isn't enough. Some characters are good at pushing, others aren't. If you're a bad pusher, you shouldn't be split pushing.

But in the end, it is all about keeping your core alive, and blowing up theirs. As long as you blow up their core first, everything else is irrelevant. And if your core is going to be blown up first, everything else is irrelevant. The only thing which determines a win or a loss is that core, so if a chain of events is the only way for you to either blow up their core, or avoid your own core being blown up, you must adhere to that chain.

See now this may seem like pretty common sense to most people, but I think you would actually be quite surprised how it isn't. But now you have it a way to explain to all those people driving you insane each and every game. Have a good weekend!

Token Fatalities

So as most of you know I am for the most part not against DLCs. I don't mind DLCs that are cosmetic where people have a choice pick them up to make characters look in specific ways or do certain things. I do hate day 1 additional content DLCs because to me if you are releasing a game and the additional content is there it should be included and be for everyone. Now this doesn't include collectors or limited edition bundles because again this to me is almost always purely cosmetic and is not really anything of significance to the game itself. Also I hate DLCs that unlock content which is doable in game as a shortcut. I know this doesn't effect me, but this to me defeats the purpose of going through a game and playing it. This is a mixing of free to play game style with a purchased game and in my mind is bordering on the greedy end.

One thing I can't stand though is companies is releasing addons or DLCs which are 1 time uses which are also shortcuts. The new Mortal Kombat has purchasable 1 time use "Easy" Fatalities. Basically giving you the ability to preform an easy fatality with a simple couple button combo. Not only are fatalities not hard at all to preform charging people a one time use shortcut to me is wrong. Now to me this purchase seems completely useless, but I know people will buy this.

Some might say this is a company profiting from players lack of skill, and who cares. I care. I hate it when companies think they can take advantage of people in such a way that rewards laziness and complete lack of motivation. Why? Because this breads a population of entitlement and these will be the people that will be the ones bitching on forums and causing the games that I love to be changed for their benefit.

Maybe I am overreacting, but there has got to be people out there that think this is wrong just as much as I do.

I Can Shoot The Wings Off A Fly

So there comes a time in the video game world where you have these awesome teaser trailers that get you so pumped up for it. Even sometimes there is an announced release date and then as it is just gone. The game is canceled and never sees the light of day. This is what my list is going to be about today. What I think the top 5 most anticipated canceled games.

5. BC

A game which was promising so much that was getting everyone who had heard anything about it pumped up for its release realized the game they wanted to make and the game they were actually able to complete just wouldn't be one and the same. I honestly believe even this game would even be hard for developers to complete

4. Thrill Kill

Here it is one of those games that had a release date, but then was scraped. When EA purchased the company making the game they decided to shelf it because in all likelyhood ESRB was going to give this game the game an AO rating. EA wanted to distance themselves from that and the game was canceled. This didn't stop the developers from releasing the almost finished product online though.

3. Shenmue III

One of the games that so many RPG fans wish they could get their hands on. The first 2 games although expensive beyond compare at the time were very well received, but with the fail of the Dreamcast and Sega's reluctance to spend on the series again the game was canceled. 

2. Star Wars 1313

SO Disney bought Lucasarts and canceled pretty much all video game projects. This one actually looked quite promising giving us a different darker look at the Star Wars universe. Now the only reason this isn't number one is because it is believed that the project will be re-launched under the Disney name.

1. Starcraft Ghost

Was there any doubt? This game was hyped from the very start. While it has never been officially canceled it was put on the backburner and never talked about again. The game had people hyped all around and Blizzard even had cinematics all ready to go, which they had shown off making the lack of Starcraft Ghost that much more hard to swallow.

There you have it my list for the best of the canceled games. Don't agree with it? Have another you think should have been mentioned? Well go ahead and let me know one way or another.

You Fail At Mortal Kombat If...

So today is the day. The day when get to fight to the death in the newest Mortal Kombat game. Besides all the fun you will be having fighting to the death, do you know that there is a pretty rich history behind Mortal Kombat. So in this week's edition of fail I figured I would would put to the test how much you may know.

You Fail At Mortal Kombat If...

• You weren't aware Brandon Lee was supposed to play Johnny Cage in the Mortal Kombat movie, but obviously could not because of his death on the movie "The Crow"
• You did not know Sub-Zero is the only character to appear in every game excluding spinoffs
• You didn't know Mortal Komabt is one of the major reasons ESRB exists today
• You did not know that Mortal Kombat was one of the first games to use digital actors
• You didn't know Ermac was a glitch and wasn't even meant to exist
• You were not aware there is a move in rollerblading called the "Lui Kang" since the pose resembles his flying kick
• You didn't know you were being lied to when your friends told you there was a secret way to get "Animality"
• You also didn't know because of the countless rumors of "Animality"  it became a thing in MK3
• You were not aware Cyrax and Sektor were originally supposed to be called mustard and ketchup
• You didn't know you could play Ping Pong in MK2
• You didin't know "Johnny Cage" intials is a shoutout to Jean-Claude Van Damme
• You were not aware "Rain" is reference to "Purple Rain" and "Prince"
• You didn't know Jack Thomspon, the anti video game violence critic, sued the series since a create a player was done to his likeness 

and finally

• You didn't know "Kombat" is one of the most often misspelled words in gaming.

There you have it. How did  you do? How much did you actually know, and how much of it did you actually google to see if I was bullshitting you?

Azeroth Armory

Monday! Yes it is here again for all of us to dread. Not always though since I know you come here to get away from it all and see what I will be showcasing this week. Now I know I shared a man at arms episode not too long ago. Blizzard though has started what seems to be a new mini series forging weapons throughout Azeroth. Now I am all for this especially since it is our friend Tony from Previous seasons of Man At Arms. This Series know as Azeroth Armory started out forming the iconic weapon Gorehowl. If you have not seen it I urge you to watch this legendary weapon be forged and wielded.



Now I jsut need to get me one of those.

Ask Gauss

Sunday! Yes as I say every weekend your weekend is almost over. Well at least this weekend you have Game of Thrones to look forward to! As with any Sunday though there are things to do and around here that means answer some questions. So let's get to it.

With the release of MK10 do you think Fighting Games have a chance of being main events during gaming competitions?

Do I think we will see Mortal Kombat played at Esports tournaments like MLG? Yes, of course, we will. Do I ever think it or another fighting game will be the main event of the show? No. This is not because I don't think the players are not skilled or the game isn't fun or hard to play well. I don't think it has the viewing experience of RTS or MOBA games. There just isn't enough action to sit and analyze and commentate on, and in my eyes it just comes down to that.

What do you think of the new side scroller Assassin's Creed?

Here is the release trailer if you haven't seen it yet


Now granted this is a new type of Assassin's Creed game, but the really the first thing I thought about after watching this is I would love a 3D world game for these 3 assassins. Second thing I thought was that this style might actually be fun to play. So with that in mind I hope this is a gateway to full scale games being a thing.

Did you get into Legacy of the Void beta?

No I haven't. It just started though so I still have hope

There you have it questions all answered for the week. Hope some of you got something out of them. Enjoy the end of the Masters and Game of Thrones!

The Learning Mindset

Friday! Yes it is already here. With most Friday's you don't want to do much of anything and really today shouldn't be more different. With this week's Reader Post Roboroadkill talks about something many people always mention, but do not go into. When you are trying to improve in the way you play any game there is a period of adjustment when you are not really better at all. This discourages people from actually putting in the effort because no one really likes losing. So have a read

A lot of the time don't want to take the necessary steps to improve because in the short term it might affect their performance. In my basketball experience I've dealt with (And still sometimes dealing with) some players who will not want to change their shot because their performance in the short term will be affected. People asked me for advice on shooting all the time, and when I'd give them my two cents on how they could improve, I'd always tell them "It's going to be uncomfortable, you're going to miss a lot of shots, more than with your current shot. But if you can get rid of the microwave mindset in the long term your performance will get better" The ones that really wanted to get better, listened. The ones that didn't made the excuse that they didn't want to miss shots NOW to affect how they will shoot later.

This is very true for Starcraft players. A few months ago I got advice from masters/GM Zergs and I'd only implement the stuff that would help my improvement now, and not for the future. This hurt me a LOT. In retrospect I had it better than any Starcraft 2 player could really dream of. Lots of time on my hands to grind out games to improve my mechanics, and a bunch of high level Zerg's to help me out with game knowledge and decision making. But the lure of those darn ladder points was just to strong and look where I am now. 

You MUST remember to that working towards a future goal requires all your attention to remain in the present, but don't sacrifice your performance in the future for short term gain. Great, you went on a winning streak by roach all inning every game. You just learned how to roach all in, learn from those games if you can, but if you want to be a macro player don't roach all in, focus on macro and don't cheese because you want ladder points. 

^^ This is very important for people who want to take the step towards a learning mentality, otherwise you're just going to get mad because your ladder points are going down even though you're getting better. 

Now on to the real meat of the subject which is why you lose more when trying to learn. This is a complicated subject, and I haven't completed my research but I've made some discoveries that have been interesting. 

In basketball the game goes so fast at the higher levels that you literally can't think you must do everything on instinct. The reason being is because once you have already thought about which kind of layup you want to do the widow for doing said layup is already gone. 

However when you're training, you're always thinking about what you are doing and continue to improve it through mass repetition. The same thing applies the Starcraft 2. 

When you are in a learning mindset you're always thinking about what you're doing to correct it. When you scout something you're always constantly running things through your mind about how to stop it, when the timings hit etc. Over playing massive amounts of games with this technique things will start becoming instinct. This is in fact the reason why commentary diminishes the level of your play drastically when you're streaming. Instead of the players just reacting on instinct they find themselves having to think about what they're doing and on top of that actually SAY what they are doing. 

So when you go into a game with an analytic mindset you're going to lose more games because reactions aren't as quick, not as precise, mechanics will diminish because brain power is being used elsewhere etc. But what people don't seem to understand is that something more important is going on. I'm only 15 so I barely know anything about the brain, so I'm not going to try to dump some scientific stuff on you guys, but this is what I'm finding. If you grind out massive amounts of games while thinking about what you're doing, all this information becomes subconscious. You're absorbing massive amounts of information and you don't even know it. 

Think about Koreans in a pro gaming house. They are constantly analyzing replays with each other, watching, and playing the game. They are absorbing so much information on a daily basis that everything is being drilled into their subconscious. 

How the winning mindset works

As I mentioned earlier before with basketball and how no good player thinks about what they're doing when they're playing and are simply reacting on instinct, basically their mind is blank. This applies to Starcraft 2. Ever notice pro players sitting in their chair just kind of getting into the zone? Blanking out so to speak? Well this is because their goal is very simple: Win the game. When the goal is to win and not to improve your mind needs to be blank. Everything must be instinct. You can't think about how you micro your Zergling's just do it. Those 50 ZVZ's you played with your friend focusing on Ling Bane control will now pay off because you aren't thinking, you are just reacting and playing off instinct. 

I did an experiment where I tested how this worked. I played a whole bunch of ladder games thinking about my opponents builds, scouting information, how I was going to react etc. The learning mindset. I had around a 50% winrate against mid - top diamond players, basically my level of play. Then after doing that I switched it up and approached the game as a pro player would, the goal was to win. Immediately I starting destroying everyone. My macro and micro mechanics were crisp, I was responding to everything my opponent was doing on time and I wasn't even thinking about what I was scouting I just immediately reacted. My winrate jumped to around 70% percent immediately even in my worst match up and I was making a ton of progress on the ladder. Then I pulled the plug, started playing with the learning mindset again and my winrate starting going down. 

When implementing the learning mindset and using it to aid in the winning mindset the results can be amazing. 

This isn't 100% but my findings have been interesting to say the least, and I'm looking forward to delving into this deeper. 

Hopefully you enjoyed the read and found it helpful. Thanks for reading!

So? I think he has done a really good job of explaining even if basketball is involved. Certainly some food for thought while you are ladder this weekend.

If Video Games Were Like Game of Thrones

So as most of you should know Game of Thrones season premiere is on Sunday. Like yesterday when it gave me motivation for the list. Today it gives me motivation for a different kind of topic. What happens if Video games were like Game of Thrones? Now what does that mean? Well basically when things don't work out how they really should. They just end in such a way that leaves you in shock and wondering why they would do that. So here is a few examples of what would happen if that was the case.

• Ellie shoots Joel at the end of The Last of Us
• Aerith survived Sephiroth's Sword, but then Cloud ends up drowning her
• Vivi is the first Black Mage to die
• Earth loses Mortal Kombat
• Ezio kills Christina
• Tirion doesn't make it out of the Ice Block and we as the heroes all join the scourge 
• Tassadar is Amon
• Mario finds Princess Peach dead in Bowser's Castle
• Lee kills Clementine as a Walker because she didn't shoot him
• Dekard Cain is one of the Lords of Hell

See now wouldn't that be entertaining? As you can see I have a little Game of Thrones on the mind.

I'll Miss You..

So here we are Wednesday only 4 days from Sunday and the Season Premier of Game of Thrones. Now if you don't watch Game of Thrones you should. Even if it doesn't follow the books completely it is still far and away the best show on television. If you don't watch it you will not know that it is know for some of the most shocking deaths anywhere. So when coming up for this week's list I thought I would share what I believe are the most shocking deaths in Video Games. Now this is obvious but spoilers.

5. John Marston - Red Dead Redemption

So John is a criminal that is made obvious by the get go. He is willing to give up the other criminals for his family to have a chance at a better life. After he does what he is told the very man who was supposed to give him his freedom betrays him and he his killed brutally by an onslaught of bullets

4. Joker - Arkham City

So Batman doesn't kill anyone. That really is a Batman thing it doesn't happen, but then this happened. Even if it was by accident it still happened, and I will never stop being shocked that this happened.

3. Lucy - Assassin's Creed Brotherhood

So this is the girl that saved you. Brought you to some other Assassin's and lead you on to the path for better things. Then all of the sudden your body loses control from this other weird being and you stab her. Granted you find out later she was a double agent, but ya that happened.

2. Aerith - Final Fantasy VII

Not sure you could do anything with Video Games and Death and not include this scene. This afterall had all the shock value. Even with the graphics of the day you could see and feel the intensity of the scene and the shock value when our favourite big baddie pulled the sword out of her.

1. Lee Everett

You could probably include the shock value from the moment he got bit. You were left wondering if you messed up and what you were going to do. Then, of course, with Clementine shooting him in the end you are just left with what in the living hell did I just play.

There you have it my choices for the most shocking deaths in video games. Not sure if it is the best tribute to Game of Thrones, but it was an attempt. Do you have any shocking deaths you thought should have been included? As always bitch about it in some way or another.

You Fail At Fighting Games If...

Fail Day! With the release of Mortal Kombat X just around the corner I figured now was the best time to use this Fail Day that I have kept pushing back for awhile now. What is it you may ask? Well it has to do with fighting games in what I believe people fail more in than any other game. So here we go.

You Fail At Fighting Games If...

• You have no idea where "Finish Him" comes from
• You believe your skills as a button mashing facerolling pally makes you the perfect fighting game player
• Your idea of a combo is using more than one button
• You believe people who use ultimate attacks or finishers must be hackers because you can't do them
• You always play characters which have the designation of cheap
• You don't know what the differences are between all the Street Fighter II games
• You predictably go for grapples whenever in close range
• You play the guest characters in other games because they come from games you play
• You don't think wrestling and boxing games are fighting games
• You turn down gore whenever possible
• You don't play them because they are not realistic
• You play them for their story mode
• You think your ability to beat the single player mode makes your awesome in everyway
• You rely on ring outs in Soul Calibur

and finally

• You have an opinion on the best fighting game there is but it is the only one you play, and you could careless what anyone thinks

There you have it this week's edition of Fail. Hope you enjoyed it or raged through the entire thing. Either way I am completely cool with it.

Victory Teaser

Happy Easter Monday, or  Happy Monday to everyone else. If you have been out of touch with the gaming world you may not have noticed that some footage of the newest AC game code named Victory was leaked. This is an Assassin's Creed game set in Victorian England. Now it does kind of suck that this footage was released but that didn't stop a fan from making their own Assassin's Creed Victory Teaser Trailer which is going to be my showcase of the week! So have a watch and let me know what you think.



Well? Thoughts?

Ask Gauss

Happy Easter everyone! Or just happy Sunday to everyone just sitting around enjoying their weekend. Not matter what you are doing you are here for a reason. That being to see the questions I am answering this week, or maybe even seeing if your question was one of the ones I decided to pick. If you are unsure how to send those questions in there is a bunch of ways on the right side of the page to get a hold of myself or you can just email me at gaussafication@gmail.com with that taken care of let's get to the questions.

What was your favourite April Fools joke this year?

There were quite a few good ones this year in games and out, but I always tend to get the biggest laugh out of random patch notes from games. This year didn't disappoint with this epic line from the Hearthstone patch notes

The spell Blizzard now causes enemy minions to attack Soon™

I know it is funny but I probably laughed way too much at it.

Do you think difficult games like Bloodborne will ever catch on?

I am not completely sure what you mean by this. If you mean everyone will want to play them then I think it is where people expect it to be. I think some of the changed they made from the souls games to Bloodborne made it less punishing in terms of the death, but the game itself is not easier. Games out now always have a specific audience that really is great about gaming now there is something for everyone. Also games that tend to be part of a too large of an audience normally always fail at making specific audiences happy. I think Destiny is the perfect example of this. If you like a game should be happy with that making others wanting to play it can have a bad effect of the quality you like.

I was sad to see no April Fools joke form yourself

Maybe that was the joke?

There you have it questions for the week all answered. Hope the answers were good for the ones asking and for those of you reading. If I did not get to your question I will eventually if I answer it on here or not.

A Pirate's Life

Happy Friday or Good Friday if you are into that. Most of us are probably sitting around enjoying your day off and wondering what to do. I guess I should feel honored you decided to come here and see this week's Reader Post. Or maybe not since it really is the only post of the week I don't write. Well this week we are looking at Hearthstone and Slickriptide's wanting to make a Pirate themed deck.

I've been thinking a lot about Gang Up in anticipation of BRM. One of the problems of the pirate "tribe" is that their synergy is with things that are not pirates; typically weaponry. If you put enough pirates in your deck to effectively exploit those synergies, then you usually end up with too few non-pirate cards to make an effective overall strategy, and those non-pirates have no synergy with the pirates. 

In thinking about this problem I had imagined a "Press Gang Leader" card that would be a minion with a trait that read, "All of your minions are pirates". The effect would be that any minion you played would activate a "when a pirate is played" card (Ship's Cannon or One-eyed Cheat), would receive a Southsea Captain's buff, and would be a potential draw for Captain's Parrot (which would be borderline overpowered, or maybe just flat out overpowered).

The problems are obvious enough that I never posted it as a suggestion. Now, I see instead a card that lets me play a pirate and then put three more copies of that pirate into my deck.

I'm finding this to be pretty interesting.

Granted, it would be way better if they went into your hand, but this deals with one of the biggest problems that pirates have - If your deck runs well with pirates, it probably runs better *without* them. 

Gang Up lets you put in a handful of pirates and include the cards that make your deck *good*, then play one pirate and pull a bunch more of them out of thin air. You still have to draw them, of course, but now you have a way to circumvent the 30-card deck size.

I won't even start on the glory of a deck with seven Captain Greenskin's in it. If only this card had been around in the days of Stupid Pirate Tricks...

Rogue is clearly the hero to aim this strategy at. Since GvG, Valeera has a bunch of weapon boosting tricks and she has always had one of the best card drawing engines outside of Warlock. If her weapon is destroyed she just shrugs and pulls out another. In fact, destroying her own weapon is one of her things.

This opens a lot of potential. If your deck is already packed with pirates then you have six more opportunities to fire your Ship's Cannons. Potentially six more 3/3-with-taunt Dread Corsairs that can be played for free with a 4+ weapon. Six Southsea Captains. Six Bloodsail Raiders, boosting their attack off of your boosted weapon.

The flip side, of course, is that Gang Up can probably be used to better effect on something else that isn't a pirate. That's the way of the world. However much that happens to be true, the fact remains - This may be the single best card so far for a pirate-themed deck to include.

I have always wanted to see a pirate deck work, but just like any themed deck there tends to be gimmicks involved for it to be successful. Not that they aren't fun to play though! Enjoy the start to your weekend even if it is not a long one!

Warhound Online

So yesterday was April Fools and with it came jokes from games all around the world. I know some people hate it and it "ruins" gaming for the day, but I for one think it is amazing. From the fake patch notes to some games actually implementing things into the game. One particular year was by far and away the best.

Who remembers logging into Starcraft oon April Fools day 2013 to find that your SCVs, Drones, and Probes had all been replaced. And what were they replaced with? Well Warhounds, of course. You see there was much talk about the warhound being a unit during beta that really had no place. It was OP or somewhat situational and there was no real place for it. It was then scrapped and we never saw it again until they became all races workers for the day.

I have never laughed so hard every single game in my life. It really was the greatest thing. If you were playing against someone and it was their first game they were beyond confused and thought their game was glitching and you would just play along and say everything was fine on your end. They would come to your base and say the exact same thing. Never have I ever played with people that were confused by such a simple thing, and didn't realize what day it was.

Really though April Fools is about things being fun and not very serious so to all the people freaking out about things yesterday learn to have a sense of humor and not be overly serious about everything. It is a game and should be fun afterall.

You Must Construct Additional Pylons

Here we are with another Wednesday. You like me this morning were probably wondering what this week's list was going to be about. I always have a few ideas, but then it has to come down to me actually making the decision of which one to do. I came to the conclusion that I wanted to choose the best icon phrases from video games. The are recognizable with a game and not necessarily just one character in the game. So here we go.

5. This Is My Story - Final Fantasy X/X-2

Final Fantasy X and all it's parts had one thing in common besides the universe. It was this phrase that we first heard in the opening sequence, which was also the first time Final Fantasy characters ever spoke. There are not many better than this one.

4. Endure and Survive - The Last of Us

The Last of Us is not only a game, which will go down as one of the best ever. It is a game whose story is one that kept you there being part of it wanting more. Scared for each character as you progressed further and further through it. Then we have this phrase from comic books within the game exactly what we should be doing.

3. Requiescat In Pace

Ezio may be one of the most loved video game characters of all time. He brought us many memorable moments across 3 games and one short film. The thing he is know most for is letting those he killed or those who he found dying rest in peace.

2. Lok'tar Ogar - Warcraft Series

Screw the Alliance these are the words which will forever be given to the world from the Warcraft universe. Victory or Death so simple, but yet so true.

1. My Life For Aiur - Starcraft Series

Are there an words that are more iconic? You could even look to the title and say this series has more than one iconic phrase. Both of them actually made it into Cards Against Humanity. Even if I play Protoss there isn't much arguing about this one.

There you have it. Are there other iconic phrases you think should have been included? Well then let me know one way or another.