We Slay Dragons

Wednesday! So unless you live in a bubble you probably know No Man's Sky was released yesterday. You may also know it is one of the most hyped games of the year. Now at this time we don't know if this hype is all for nothing. In time we will know the answer to that. Now you are thinking what does this have to do with this week's list? Well how about the most over hyped games then ended up being pretty bad.

5. Duke Nukem Forever

The game was in development for over 15 years. Really the only reason this isn't higher on the list was a lot of gamers thought that would be a dead giveaway to the game failing. The thing is though many hoped nostalgia would draw people in. People bought it and pretty much everyone hated it.

4. Watch Dogs

So it was this large immersive world that we were excited about for years after its first E3 appearance. It promised so many things, while it did deliver these things you felt cheated because they were nowhere near as good as you hoped them to be. It really does boggle my mind that they are releasing a second game.

3. Destiny

So this was supposed to be a game that had the little things from every genre of game that people liked and put it into something every fans of those genres would enjoy. Problem? That was exactly what it is. It was only little things from every genre and the game feels forced. offers little to nothing original and well it is just awful.

2. Spore

Game that had goals to be something epic. Everything you heard about got you beyond excited to play. The similarities between the hype of this and No Man's Sky scares me. Instead of space this was based in single cell organisms. Really it just ended up being a collection of mini games that left it as a very lackluster experience

1. Lair

Anytime you mention hype this game pops up. I am not sure any game has ever been hyped more. The problem was it was a launch title and because PS2 was around so longer the difference in specs between console generations was huge. This game promised to use everything the PS3 had to offer the problem wasn't the story was bad or the game sucked it was that the controls were so aggravating that no one wanted to play the game because of massive amounts of frustration. There eventually was a patch to fix the control issues, but the damage was already done.

There you have it my list for the most overhyped games that just ended up not living up to any of it. Issues with my list? As always let me know in one way or another.

You Fail At Destiny If...

Happy Fail Day everyone! Now it has been a week since we have all had a chance to play Destiny in one way or another so as normal today is the perfect time to say why you, others, or myself have failed at it horribly. We all are obvious experts so let's just get to it.

You Fail At Destiny If...

• You are not playing it on current gen
• You were expecting a true MMO
• You aren't left wondering how it is a repetitive grind-fest without any real grinding
• You don't think the scenery is some of the best ever
• You think anyone giving criticism to the game must be wrong with everything they have said
• You believe the game is difficult
• You don't like Peter Dinklage
• It doesn't leave you wanting more
• You think it is game of the year material
• You love the server shutdown warnings
• You don't find it odd they already have a DLC and expansion schedule 1 week after the release of the game
• You think the story is one of the best ever written
• You enjoy the spider boss in Nightfall Mansion

and finally

• You still think playing it on XBOX is ok

There you have it this week's edition of Fail. Hope you all enjoyed it if I was referring to your misgivings or not. Happy shooting!

Ask Gauss

Sunday! Yes here we are at the tail end of the weekend and up here in the land known as Canada seems as if the warmer temperatures are finally starting to say goodbye. Just means there is more excuses to stay inside and get my game on I guess. Also you could argue there is more time for me to reply to your questions in a timely manner. So I will try. With that in mind let's get to some.

So why do you hate Destiny?

Again I don't hate the game. I actually enjoy playing it. I have just said the game is rather repetitive in the main storyline missions. Often criticism gets mistake for hate for me and I am not sure why that is the case. I have been having fun playing and I will continue to do so. This just means the game is a good game just not a great one in my books. Just leaves you wanting more in a variety of ways because the game itself doesn't have a real identity. So hopefully that puts this to rest .

Did you happen to see that ridiculous play from Reynad during the Hearthstone matches at Dreamhack?

If you haven't had the pleasure


All I can say is this is the type of play which sets you apart from great players. I never even thought of this while staring at it just as long as he did. All I really could think to do after it happened was to slow clap and say to myself I am not worthy.

When was the last time you played LoL?

The last time I was bored enough to update it and log on.

There they are answers to questions for this week. Thank you to everyone who sent something in regardless if it was answered on here or not. Would not be possible without all of you. So again thank you, and enjoy the rest of your weekend!

Nature Of The Game

Friday is here and you can take that deep breath as the weekend is almost upon you. I know isn't it a great feeling? Now I am assuming most of you read my post yesterday about Destiny. I have been enjoying the game even though I did have some negative thoughts about the game. I thought maybe it was because my lack of interest in shooters that the game itself would have a hard time keeping my interesting for more than it would take to see a little of the end game content. I must say I didn get a lot of interesting feedback including this submission by FlipmanV for today's Reader Post. If you agreed with my post yesterday or not this is another interesting point of view.

Are some gamers simply naive towards the basis of game design?

Destiny's gameplay is repetitive is something Gauss and others have said, the argument I hear to counter this statement is: 

Well, in Mario all you do is jump. In Call of Duty, all you do is shoot people. In Star Fox, all you do is shoot ships. In Tetris, all you do is stack.

Using this argument only shows that you lack knowledge or experience in gaming. Seriously.

Mario games are essentially a logical, action puzzle game featuring different challenges until the end. CoD and Battlefield takes you through the story while mixing up gameplay. Ride a tank, race through this jeep, use pistols only, stealth mission, etc. Star Fox [64] is a rail shooter in which the field is dynamically changing. Bosses also require different strategies to beat. Actual strategies. A puzzle game is logic-based. Saying it's repetitive implies that you're not willing to learn any potential combos and strategies. Most puzzle games are insanely difficult to master.

Let's look at Destiny. All the missions remain the same. You ride your Sparrow to the destination. You kill enemies. You then have your Ghost hack some sort of machinery. Then you fight a wave of monsters and eventually leading up to a boss, while boss summons more monsters periodically.

Now, the enemies aren't any different. You hit their weak spot, which is 90% of the time, in their head, eyeball, or stomach. You shoot and take cover when you're low on health. Your strategy doesn't change, you're literally not doing anything different. There's stuff like the Hydra and Hobgolbin which gives the illusion that it requires "strategy", but waiting until they lower their shield is not a strategy and requires no extra skill.

There's no missions like in CoD/BF in which you have to ride a gunship, or a sneaking mission, or a boat mission, or any other mission that simply doesn't involve whatever the hell you've already done on the first 3 missions.

Other than the sword-fight level, there's no instance in which you needed to change your strategy or do anything different. It's about as mindless as it can be. Similar to Assassin's Creed I and I believe even Gauss would agree that was one of the most repetitive games ever created.

Thank you FlipmanV for your take on this whole thing. Like I have said before I have been having fun playing the game and I will in all likelihood be playing it for a couple weeks before I think I will lose its flare and then will put it down for awhile. This doesn't mean it is a bad game it just means it isn't a great game.

Enjoy your weekend everyone!

Non Spoiler Destiny Review

So as is custom on Thursday when I am playing a new game going to give my non spoiler game review. So there should be no reason to complain about how I ruin the game for you for any such and such reason. If you are worried about that know that I am not even half way leveled up so their really is no way I could possibly do that anyway. so here goes

I like the feel of the world, It is well designed and the visuals are something many other games will be comparing themselves to. I am not sure Destiny's interesting lore is going to pull itself together into a good story, but who knows I could be wrong.  Not coming from a true shooter gamer I can see the gameplay fundamentals are there along with the  the level designs. The missions themselves which connect you to the lore seem always to be go here then there and shoot things on the way. There is not much dialogue about the story itself except when Mr. Dinklage makes his presence known.
Now compared to most MMOs the story showcased and lore is basically the same you would get in any run of the mill MMO, but when you start comparing it to an MMO you realize it is missing many key elements which an MMO has.

The levels are huge by single-player open world game standards, but compared to an MMOs, they feel quite limited. One favourite thing to do in MMOs is shout across an entire zones to let it be known you have arrived(Pi anyone?). In Destiny you can't so much as talk to the people you see unless you are in the same party. As someone who has played a few MMOs it is hard to accept that as the norm.
This is why I think the makers shyed away from calling Destiny an MMO. It feels close enough to start talking about it, but once you do things don't really fit into place. I think anyone who has played it could agree that it really doesn't fit into any category at all, because you find elements in the gameplay which fit into certain niche but then thats it, and then you try to find something else to compare it to.  There is no denying that Destiny shows off amazing looking worlds, and gives you an countless exciting firefights. But the game feels so in-between game types it is hard for me to find the type of person I would recommend it to.

I know this sounds negative, but I have been having a good time with it. Aside from the combat the others aspects of the game are not done nearly as well as other games which focus on them. It does them enough to have fun with it, but I just find myself wanting more or forever comparing it to something else. I feel like Destiny is going to be a game people will talk about how they had a bunch of fun playing it, but it could have been so much more. I guess only time will tell with that though.

You Fail At Knowing About Destiny If...

Happy Fail Day everyone! This week I might be doing something surprising I will be talking about a shooter in the same breath as something I will actually be playing. This would be Destiny as I have picked it up and will be giving it a shot. At least for a couple weeks. So if you haven't heard or no nothing about Destiny this is for you.

You Fail At Knowing About Destiny If...

• You didn't know it was an online FPS
• You know nothing of "The Collapse"
• You were not aware it is about exploring our solar system
• You didn't know they have been avoiding calling it an MMO
• You missed them calling the game "alive"
• You didn't know you won't be able to play the  Dust Palace mission if you don't have a PS4
• You didn't know the game is heavy based on matchmaking
• You haven't looked into which focus interests you the most
• You have made the connection between "the traveler" and "God"
• You didn't know the 3 races are Human, Awoken, Exo
• You were not aware the class choices are Hunter, Warlock, and Titans
• You are not pumped that the robot is going to be voiced by Peter Dinklage

and finally

• You will be playing it on XBOX

There it is this week's edition of Fail! Happy shooting everyone!