The Breakdown: Far Cry Primal Releases And The Reviews Are In, Del Toro And Kojima Share Their Bromance, And More

Hello beautiful people of the Internet!. It's Tuesday. So that means you survived Monday... YAY!, but it's only day 2. To take the sting out of the of the soul crushing suckery of the early business day of the week. The Midweek Breakdown has been coming to you every Wednesday, and due to popular demand, it'll be coming to you every day of the week as The Breakdown. So site back waste clock hour time, and enjoy! 

First up, Far Cry Primal released today, and the reviews are out. Across most outlets, Far Cry Primal is scoring at about 80 out of 100 (or 8 out of 10 for the math challenged). The biggest complaints abut the game is the inability to block and parry. A lack of compelling antagonists. As well as having so many side missions that you could fill out your skill trees and still have extras floating around on your map.



Last week at the DICE Summit, we got to see bromance Hideo Kojima and Gillermo Del Toro in full bloom. These two had a chance to do a sit down keynote and it was magic. Although the two speak different languages, it appears that their homies. During their talk, they highlighted the unifying force of media and story telling. I really suggest that you check it out, and a word to the wise, don't be surprised if we see these two working on a project together in the future.



And speaking of other creative works, The Walking Dead: Michone Episode 1 launches today on PC/MAC, PS4/PS3, and Xbox 360/Xbox One. If you some how don't have any of these or insist on playing on a mobile platform, check your market place apps on Thursday to pick it up on iOS and Android.

In other Walking Dead News, it has been reported that Robert Kirkman (story) and Charlie Adlard (art) are working on a 48 page back story for Nagan. No release date info available yet.

And while we're on the topic of things to spend your hard earned money on. Have you ever loved an eSports so much that you'd donate to the prize money. Well that's what happened when the Halo World Championships were announced. Initially Microsoft had offered a 1 million dollar prize for the winning team. However, the masses thought that it needed to be more. Through crowd sourcing the winning purse has been bumped up to 2.5 million dollars. Making the Halo World Championships the largest cash prize ever for an FPS championship. Check back later for more details. Currently the Championship is scheduled for March 18 through the 19th.

On topic with Microsoft news, Bill gates is not a a douche?... It was reported by the financial times on Monday that when speaking of Apple's battle with the FBI over breaking the encryption on iOS, Bill Gates was quoted as saying:

"It is no different than [the question of] should anybody ever have been able to tell the phone company to get information, should anybody be able to get at bank records,"

"Let's say the bank had tied a ribbon round the disk drive and said, ‘Don't make me cut this ribbon because you'll make me cut it many times.'"

As of yesterday Bill went back on the record to walk back his previous statements, saying that he "disappointed" by the reports that he supports breaking the encryption. He also made the following statement:

"I do believe that with the right safeguards, there are cases where the government, on our behalf — like stopping terrorism, which could get worse in the future — that that is valuable."

So maybe he isn't a complete douche canoe, but personally, I think Bill Gates is talking like a man with paper asshole, but I'll leave the judgement of this to you fine/ borderline anarchist people. 

That's all I have for today, stop back by later for more content. I really appreciate your support. Please share, and make sure to follow BaicunnPress, on Twitter, Google+, and Facebook.

-Chali Baicunn

Freemium Game Engine... SAY WAT?!

 Hey guys! Thanks for stopping by again. Coming to you today with some pretty interesting gaming news.

You know how Amazon licensed the CryEngine from Crytek last year, and no one really knew why? Well it turns out that Amazon is getting into the video game industry with Lumberyard. But that's not the really interesting part.

The most interesting part of this project is that it's a free license to develop from. And not free like the

CryEngine, which was free for students and hobbyists, charged if you wanted to take a product to market. Lumberyard on the other hand is free for anyone to publish their game, whether hobbyist or business. Amazon's only serious requirement is that you register your game with them before release, and that web services, like servers be hosted through them. Long short they're playing the freemium game, but with servers instead of micro-transactions.

So, I know I brought up 2 dirty words to a lot of gamers; freemium and micro-transactions. However, none of the features of the Lumberyard tools will be locked behind a pay-wall, and from what I can tell there are no licensing fees either. To highlight these points, I've directly pulled down a few interesting bits from the FAQ section (I kept the existing links in so that you can click around if you want to. They will open in other tabs):

Q. What is Amazon Lumberyard?
Amazon Lumberyard is a free AAA game engine deeply integrated with AWS and Twitch – with full source code provided. Whether you are a major studio, an indie developer, a student, or a hobbyist, Lumberyard provides a growing set of tools to create the highest-quality games, connect your games to the vast compute and storage of the AWS Cloud, and engage fans on Twitch. Lumberyard helps developers build beautiful worlds, make realistic characters, and create stunning real-time effects. With Lumberyard’s visual scripting tool, even non-technical game developers can add cloud-connected features to a game in minutes (such as a community news feed, daily gifts, or server-side combat resolution) through a drag-and-drop GUI interface. Lumberyard is also integrated with Amazon GameLift, a new AWS service for deploying, operating, and scaling session-based multiplayer games. With Amazon GameLift, Amazon Lumberyard developers can quickly scale high-performance game servers up and down to meet player demand, without any additional engineering effort or upfront costs.
Amazon Lumberyard is free, and available in beta for developers building PC and console games, with mobile and virtual reality (VR) platforms coming soon. With Amazon Lumberyard, developers only pay standard AWS fees for the AWS services they choose to use. With Amazon GameLift, you simply pay for the standard AWS fees for Amazon EC2, Amazon EBS, and data transfer you actually use, plus a small fee per Daily Active User.

Q. How does Amazon make money with Lumberyard?
Lumberyard is free, including source. We make money when you use other

AWS services. We built Lumberyard to make it faster and easier to build fantastic live, multiplayer, community-driven games – which naturally connect to the cloud to provide these features to players. However, there is no requirement to connect your game to the cloud. There are also no seat fees, subscription fees, or requirements to share revenue. You pay only for the infrastructure resources you choose to use. For full licensing details, see Licensing below.

Q. Can I use Lumberyard for non-game purposes, such as architecture, simulations, and animated movies?
Yes, please do.

Q. If I build a single-player game that uses no cloud connectivity, do I have to pay to use the engine?
No, in this case you would pay us nothing.

Q. Do I need an AWS account to use Lumberyard?
No, but by downloading or using Lumberyard, you agree to the AWS Customer Agreement and Lumberyard Service Terms. If you want to use Amazon GameLift or Lumberyard’s Cloud Canvas to build connected gameplay features, you or someone from your game team needs to register for an AWS account and provision services to your account.
Q. Do I have to run my game on AWS?

No. If you own and operate your own private servers, you do not need to use AWS. You also don’t need to use AWS if your game does not use any servers. For example, if you release a free-standing single‐player or local-only multiplayer game, you pay us nothing.

Q. Is there a surcharge or other additional fee over and above AWS service rates for Lumberyard customers?
No.

Q. Can my game use an alternate web service instead of AWS?
No. If your game servers use a non-AWS alternate web service, we obviously don’t make any money, and it’s more difficult for us to support future development of Lumberyard. By “alternate web service” we mean any non-AWS web service that is similar to or can act as a replacement for Amazon EC2, Amazon Lambda, Amazon DynamoDB, Amazon RDS, Amazon S3, Amazon EBS, Amazon EC2 Container Service, or Amazon GameLift. You can use hardware you own and operate for your game servers.

Q. Is it okay for me to use my own servers?
Yes. You can use hardware you own and operate for your game.

Q. Can I use the game assets that are included with Lumberyard in my game?
Yes. Lumberyard includes asset packs that you can use in your games and prototypes. We also provide additional high-fidelity assets and samples that you may find useful on our website.

Q. Is Lumberyard “open source”?
No. We make the source code available to enable you to fully customize your game, but your rights are limited by the Lumberyard Service Terms.

For example, you may not publicly release the Lumberyard engine source code, or use it to release your own game engine.

Q. Can I take Lumberyard and make my own game engine and distribute it?
No. While you may maintain an internal version of Lumberyard that you have modified, you may not distribute that modified version in source code form, or as a freestanding game engine to third parties. You also may not use Lumberyard to distribute your own game engine, to make improvements to another game engine, or otherwise compete with Lumberyard or Amazon GameLift.

It appears that Amazon is really going in a new direction as far as game development goes. I went ahead and browsed over the documentation, and sample assets and their both pretty on point. Amazon is reporting that they are planning releasing more sample asset packs in the future. If your still not convinced here's a few more entries from their FAQs that might convince you that Amazon is really thinking forward:

 Q. Can my Lumberyard game connect to services like Steamworks, Apple Game Center, Google Play Games, or console social services?
Yes. Your game may read and write data to platform services and public third-party game services for player save state, identity, social graph, matchmaking, chat, notifications, achievements, leaderboards, advertising, player acquisition, in-game purchasing, analytics, and crash reporting.
 
Q. Can I include Lumberyard’s tools so my players can build mods for my game?
Yes. Your right to redistribute Lumberyard in your game includes the right to redistribute pieces of the development environment in your game too. A list of redistributable components is included in the documentation. These rights also apply to companion products that you make available to end users to modify and create derivative works of your game. If you want to distribute Lumberyard components in source code form, please contact us.

Q. Does Lumberyard support integrations with third-party middleware?
Yes. If you’re a middleware provider interested in integrating with Lumberyard, please contact us

After looking over everything that Amazon is giving away, you might be curious as to why would they do this. I think the real question is why wouldn't they. By requiring developers to register their games before release, Amazon gets a sneak peak at new games, and can decide to if they want to invest before any other publishers can get the drop on them. Plus this gives them the ability to make some serious cash for server fees. I recommend that you check out the project in full for yourself. Cruise on over to Lumberyard's site and check it out.


What do you think? You going to give it a go? If you heard about it here and do make something, let me know, I'd love to have a look. Thanks again for stopping by. Your support means so much to me. Don't forget to share, and comment. Please make sure to follow on Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. Also if you want to game with me sometime, make sure you add me to your friends list on pretty much every platform, just search for Chali Baicunn. And as always, I'll see you next time. 

-Chali Baicunn

Diving Into Pokemon GO - Part 1: The Data

Hey! What's ongoing on out there?! Thanks for stopping by. I don't know about you, but I'm a bit of a Pokemon game fanboy. I started off on Pokemon Blue, and it was really the first game that ever made feel like I was on my journey. And because of that the Pokemon games have always held a special place in my heart. Needless to say, after the debut Pokemon GO announcement, I've been anxiously awaiting it's release. With many sources speculating on a February release, I figured now is a good time to see what conclusions can be drawn from the whole of publicly available information. This will be a 2 part project. This post will be a collection and summary of available information, and Part 2 will be the analysis, speculation, and conclusions.

Background Information:
All of the significant background information regarding the concept and history can be found in the following press conference. It's long, but there is TLDR under the video:



TLDR: Pokemon GO is the brainchild of Satoru Iwata of Nintendo and Tsunekazu Ishihara of The Pokemon Company. Originally conceptualized in 2013, the idea was to bring Pokemon the game into the real world via augmented reality on a mobile platform. At some point Niantic was tapped to provide the real world mapping and mobile platform development, as they have experience doing this in their game Ingress. Nintendo was tapped for the development of the Pokemon GO Plus; a bluetooth enabled device to be worn around the neck or wrist. It is equipped with an LED and motor. It will be used to send players notifications, when they are not in app. The game will be free to play, and is expected to have an early 2016 release. Also there was a mention of possibly marrying, future generations of the DS games with Pokemon GO.

During the above video the following trailer was shown. Go ahead and watch it, and I'll post some observations under the video:

• From the first scene we can tell that players will receive alerts regarding the location of wild Pokemon with directions. 
• If you pause the video at 26 seconds, you'll see that the alert states "Wild Pokemon" and shows a distance and direction of travel, but you can also see that there appears to be a silhouette of a Pikachu. 
• When the video continues to 30 seconds, we can see that this player is being directed to a location named Minato-ku in Tokyo, Japan (here's the Wiki page). 
• At 33 seconds it appears that a player is alerted to the existence of a nearby Pokemon via the Pokemon GO Plus device. If you listen closely, you'll hear a chiming.
• Before the 1 minute mark we see three first gen Pokemon, all with what appears to be HP bars and level listed. 
• We also see that there are items available (assumed to be gathered through microtransactions). Multiple Pokeballs are shown and a Honey. 
• Interesting point though, it does not appear that any of the players have to battle any of the wild Pokemon before successfully catching them.
• At 1:06 into the video, a trade is shown. It is assumed to be via bluetooth or NFC due to proximity of the players and the animation showing a direct swap.
• At 1:16 it appears that one player launches an unprovoked attack (not a challenge)
• By 1:35 it appears that a group of trainers have challenged another group to a battle.
• Around the 2 minute mark we are introduced to a timed "event/ boss battle". It appears that multiple trainers are facing off against Mewtwo.
• At the end of the battle, there is a congratulatory message is displayed on a large screen stating that Mewtwo was captured. 

Niantic Interview With Gamesbeat:
I've pulled down several relevant details unveiled in a Gamesbeat sit down interview with Niantec's John Hanke; CEO and Mike Quigley; Chief Marketing Officer, and will be posting them directly below. The full interview and article is here.

"GamesBeat: I’m curious about what you think of mapping Pokémon onto this engine where location is such a big advantage. Location can also be a challenge or disadvantage in some other ways, though. In some past location-based games, if there’s not enough players in an area, they’re not really socially connected. If you have to travel very far to find something, is it really worth doing?

Hanke: We’ve learned a lot on those fronts with Ingress. Even if you’re in a small town — I grew up in a town of 1,000 people in Texas. We had that as a design goal. If we’re going to build a game that works with location, it has to be fun for people anywhere to play, in small towns as well as San Francisco. If we designed something that only worked in San Francisco, it wouldn’t be a real success. We wanted it to work globally..."

"GamesBeat: How do you plan to handle the distribution of different items and things in the game?

Hanke: Our goal is to make it so you can walk out of the house and within five minutes, you can find Pokémon. It may not be the most rare Pokémon in the world, but there’ll be a population of Pokémon living near all our players. Gyms will be a bit more rare. You want to find gyms so you can level up your Pokémon and battle there, so it will take a little more effort to get there.
Pokémon will live in different parts of the world depending on what type of Pokémon they are. Water Pokémon will live near the water. It may be that certain Pokémon will only exist in certain parts of the world. Very rare Pokémon may exist in very few places. But you can trade. If you live in a place with lots of water Pokémon and you come to an event — we have these Ingress events that are getting bigger and bigger. We’ll have our biggest weekend ever on Saturday.
We’ll have events for Pokémon as well. Those are competitive, but they can also be places to trade stuff with other players. Pokémon trading is going to be huge. You can’t get all of them by yourself. If you want all of them you’ll have to trade with other players. Or you have to be someone who takes time off work and travels the world for a year. There may be people who do that."

"GamesBeat: Nintendo also wants to do their own unique device, right?

Hanke: The Pokémon Go Plus, yeah.

GamesBeat: At the same time they’re racing into mobile, they have their own dedicated hardware.

Hanke: It’s a nice way to take a step in the mobile ecosystem for them. That came out of two influences. One was a learning from Ingress. We wanted to give people a way to play the game where you didn’t necessarily have to take your phone out and interact with the UX. Part of the idea of the game is, you’re outside and you can see beautiful things. If you’re always staring at your phone, you’re not seeing the world around you.
We had brainstormed this idea. Why not have a little device that buzzes when you’re near something important? You can interact with it in some subtle way, and then later on you can open up your app or your tablet and you see, “Oh, I got this or did that.” That was one of the influences.
The other was, imagine that a parent is playing with a kid and they want to give the kid a device to interact with rather than handing over the phone. I’m often handing my phone to my kid, because he’s bored or whatever. But the idea is you can give them the Pokémon Go Plus device. It vibrates and flashes when you’re near Pokémon. When they press a button in a certain sequence they capture it. Then, later on, you can look at it together on your phone or tablet.

GamesBeat: The functionality is pretty much the same as you’d do with your phone?

Hanke: It’s more limited, but it’s heads-up gameplay. I can show you the design prototype. It’s very slightly bigger, a bit heavier, but this is pretty much the size of it. It comes with a bracelet so you can wear it like a wrist device. It’s Fitbit-ish in terms of size. Battery lasts a long time. You don’t have to worry about charging all the time. This is a multicolor LED and button. You’ll notice that it’s the Google Map pen with the Pokeball shape and color fused together. You can imagine kids going to school with this on their backpack."


Pokemon Superbowl Commercial:



I reviewed the commercial several times, trying to tease out any extra info. However, it appears to be dedicated marketing info, with lots of hidden references to Pokemon, but no obvious easter eggs to give us anymore details about GO.

 The Number of Catchable Pokemon:
*!Warning Unable To Verify Source!*
Sever outlets are reporting that all 721 Pokemon will be available. I have been unable to verify the original source of this data. It is being notated as an anomalous data point until verified.



Niantic Will Demo Pokemon GO at GDC (Game Developer Conference):
According to an announcement on GDC's site John Hanke of Niantic, will be demoing Pokemon GO during a session titled, "Catch 'Em All: Pokemon GO and Real World Gaming". No Date or time details have been released yet, but we know that the session will take place during the Smartphone & Tablet Games Summit. The following has been directly pulled from the announcement:

"Over the last three years, Niantic, Inc. has been defining the genre of Real World gaming, using smartphones and tablets to connect the digital world to the physical world. Niantic's newest game, Pokemon GO, ups the challenge of real world gaming design, taking a beloved franchise and setting its hundreds of brightly-colored monsters loose across the globe, adding a new Bluetooth wearable device created by Nintendo to the mix. Join Niantic founder and CEO John Hanke as he discusses how the company has developed a unique vision for delivering a mobile Pokemon experience that gets would-be trainers into the outdoors.

Takeaway
Attendees will get a first-hand, in-depth look at how players are interacting and exploring the world with one another through Pokemon GO, the collaborative approach to design and development for the game and the next evolution of augmented reality and real-world mobile gameplay experiences."

If I missed anything, let me know so I can get it added. Part 2 will be releasing later. Please make sure to follow on social media. Especially Twitter as all new posts are pushed there as soon as they are published. Be sure to check out Part 1 and Part 2 of my "2016 Make It Or Break It For Nintendo?" series Part 3 scheduled for later this year. Thanks for stopping by again. And as always, I will see you later.

-Chali Baicunn  

Pure Hyperbole: Bethesda's E3 2016 Showcase Speculation

Hey you fine people of the Internet! Thanks for stopping by... And FUCK MONDAYS! Haha! Bethesda has announced that they will be doing another E3 showcase this year. I did some coverage of last year's showcase (links to the posts here: DOOM & Dishonored 2). In this post I'll be speculating what they may be showing this year. I'll be breaking it down by title. Let's jump in. 

*On 2/4/15, Besthesda announced a release date of May 13th for DOOM. I think it's safe to assume that Doom won't be showcased this year.*  - Posted 2/8/15

DOOM:
GameInformer has managed to snag some pretty nice exclusives with this DOOM. When you look past the hype and read between the lines, there are a few interesting details available from them. What we know so far is that the new DOOM visually feels like the classic we know and love... It's just been turned up to 20.

What We Know:

• Classic single-player DOOM
• There will be at least the following weapons: pistol, chainsaw, chain gun, super shotgun, combat shotgun, plasma rifle, heavy assault rifle, rocket launcher, and of course the BFG9000
• Weapons are upgradable via items drops in the campaign
• Multiplayer is available through the "Arena"
• SnapMap feature allows users to create custom maps quickly and easily.

BaicunnPress Guess:

• DOOM will be the headliner of the showcase (first presentation)
• Bethesda and idSoft will specifically showcase multiplayer and SnapMap
• Weapons will be upgradable in multiplayer via item drops from enemies
• SnapMap will allow for multiplayer and single player maps
• SnapMap may allow for demons to be placed in multiplayer  games
• More weapons will shown
• (Out on a limb guess featured below. Keep reading)

  


Dishonored 2
First shown during Bethesda's E3 2015 showcase. This next chapter of the Dishonored series will return to the Empire of the Isles. Arkane Studios (dev) has promised to continue the sandbox mechanics, and the graphics appear to be highly polished. The game was originally set to be released in Spring of 2016 and now pushed back to December 30, 2016 (after being reported for a 2017 launch in November 2015).

What We Know:

•  Sandboxing mechanics will be present just like the first dishonored.
•  There are two characters to play as now (Corvo Attano & Emily Kaldwin)

BaicunnPress Guess:

•  Dishonored 2 will be the second presentation
•  The world will be more open world (think GTA but probably smaller)
•  The release delay is two fold. One, game was not released on time because online/ multiplayer was added. Two, release date was changed from 2017 to 12/30/16 to allow the game to be available for a 2016 Game of The Year award. 

Fallout 4 DLC: I imagine that we'll be getting some Fallout 4 DLC this year, and if they drop it on the market around E3 the time would line up so that it would be about midway to the 1 year anniversary. I'd also expect a possible announcement of 1 year anniversary DLC.

New Skyrim: This is a total shot in the dark, but it's been since 2011 since Skyrim was released. I think we're do for another.

New Wolfenstein: I'm making this guess only because there has been a Wolfenstein title every year since 2014. It seems to me that both "Old Blood" and "New Order" have done fairly well for themselves. It may just be that Bethesda has decided that Wolfenstein is popular enough and profitable enough to make it a cheap cornerstone title that always keeps then relevant and is a constant source of revenue. Remember that "out on a limb guess" I mentioned before.... Here is goes... I'd speculate that if there is a Wolfenstein announcement, there will be an offer for beta access to the next DOOM title.

What do you think? Am I right? Am I wrong? Let me know what you think on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, or in the comment section below. Thanks again for stopping by. I really appreciate your support. As a side note, I am working on a few ways to get more content out, and in different media forms. Stay tuned for more details. 

-Chali Baicunn

EA's Battlefront Update: Legit, PR Bullshit, Damage Control?

Hello and welcome back again! Thanks for stopping by. Brand new Star Wars Battlefront news just released, and oh boy is it good-ish news. I'm trying to be hopefully optimistic, but with the shit stain that EA keeps leaving in my life it's going to be hard to do. I have not hidden my feelings about this game. I have been more than disappointed. As an interesting side note, I did not lock down my PSN account, and over the weekend, myself and my 5 year old became the owners of the Season Pass. Although this was my fault and I do not expect any refunds, I am now $115 deep in this... So I'm going to keep posting on it, and calling out the bullshit when I see it, and give praise when it's deserved. With that said, this post and any future posts about Battlefront and it's Developer/ Publisher will be subjective, but I will present logical & possibly inflammatory arguments to support my opinion. You'll also see several times in my posts that I refer to EA and DICE interchangeably, and that's because EA owns DICE and so as a concept they are the same thing. So let's not delay any further and jump right into the post. 

Battlefront is finally getting an update today, and EA is being a little more transparent. All of the details are outlined on in a post titled "The Road Forward" written by Sigurlina Ingvarsdottir; Senior Producer for Star Wars Battlefront. And with this update comes a bit of renewed cynical optimism for me. I'm honestly not sure that EA/ DICE can save this title, as they are going to be restricted to what the engine can do. Also at this point, any of the changes asked for by the community are completely dependent on EA's ability to listen to it's audience.

First we'll start with the really bad. If you remember in last weeks Midweek Breakdown, I had mentioned that Battlefront Community Leader; Sledgehammer70, had congratulated the community in smashing the Christmas Holiday Community Challenge. He was so pleased to tease us with a special gift for the community, in the following post made on the Battlefront Community Page:

"Just before the holidays, we kicked off the first Star Wars Battlefront community event, where we asked you to play 500,000 hours as Han Solo and Luke Skywalker. 

Today, we’re happy to let the community know that you smashed the 500,000 hours played mark, playing over a total of 1.2M hours as Luke Skywalker and Han Solo between START and FINISH. Most impressive.

This achievement is worth a special reward that directly ties to Han Solo and Luke Skywalker. What could this reward be? In true Jedi fashion, it will be revealed in the coming update this month. You will want to look to Hoth to show the fruits of your labor once the January update has been released. Stay tuned to our official channels for more details."  

This tease left many in the community to speculate that the gift would be playable tauntauns. Well the wait is over. The update is coming today, and do you know what these def bastards gave us? Mother fucking Luke and Han themed outfits when playing as either on Hoth! Fucking really?! You know and I both know that the tease was masterful execution of PR bullshit.

To be fair though, there are more updates being released today. (Link to the release notes at the bottom of this post.) Along with some pretty significant balancing tweaks, we're also getting some well needed spawn adjustments. We can also now play Blast, Droid Run, Drop Zone, Hero Hunt, and Heroes vs Villains multiplayer modes on Raider Camp. This is the same map used in Tatooine Survival. EA also made the following promises in their announcement:

"In February, we will continue to add more free content for all players, including a new Survival mission on Hoth, and a brand-new Hoth multiplayer map that will support our larger game modes including Walker Assault, Supremacy, Fighter Squadron and Turning Point. Speaking of Turning Point, we are also excited to make this popular mode available on all maps that currently support Walker Assault and Supremacy in the February update.

In March, we will be adding another exciting new multiplayer map on Endor that will support Walker Assault, Supremacy, and Turning Point, and an additional Tatooine Survival map."

So it looks like we'll be getting a bit more free content. I believe these kinds of changes are great steps in the right direction. And I will even thank EA and DICE for do these things. But wait there's still more...

The other major parts of today's update have to do with adding private match functionality, Community Events, and Daily Challenges. I currently do not know how well or even the mechanics of private match making. I have so far been unable to find information on the number of players allowed, or game mode restrictions. I know people have been asking for it, but it does little for me as most of my friends have abbandoned this sinking wreck due to hollowness of the game. It's probably safe to say they won't be coming back just for private matches, a few maps, and some added balance.

Community Events and Daily Challenges are a whole other beast. Honestly this announcement makes me think that DICE/ EA are not really in touch with the realities of gaming. Especially when we look at what the follow section of their public announcement says:

"The introduction of Daily Challenges and Community Events. These are designed to rally the Community around certain goals and objectives, giving players the chance to earn credits and unlocks even faster. We'll have more news regarding Community Events and Daily Challenges in the days ahead."

Just let that sink in for second... If you've played Battlefront for any extended periods of time, you should realize that at some point credits become useless and stop adding any depth to the game. After unlocking ever gun and ever Star Card, the only thing to spend credits on are skins. As I and many other reviewers have pointed out, the skins are lazy and add nothing to the game. Many people have even argue that they may even take away from the game, as most of the alternative skins simple remove the helmet from the stormtroopers, and this is not ok with many a Star Wars fan. 

So we've established that more credits are kind of meaningless in the macro-scope of the game. Then if history repeats, and we assume that community rewards for completing challenges and events will be more character skins. So this equation would then apply:

 More Credits + More Skins = 0 Net Gain

This is speculation at this point. But it feels par for course when it comes EA and its subsidiaries, and is absolutely the dumbest way to reward people play for playing the game. It adds no depth or substance to the core game, and only pisses of those of us who purchased a over hyped product with high expectations. This shallow attempt at appeasement, will only further decrease interest. Thus setting up a scenario where EA cuts its losses and stops truly supporting the title.

The final bit of news released with the update announcement was details about the Season Pass DLC. As expected the DLC will be released quarterly, with expected releases in March, Summer, and Fall of this year, and one more release sometime in early next year. The following list and descriptions are taken directly from the update post:

"Star Wars™ Battlefront™ Outer Rim (March 2016) - Fight among the factories of Sullust and battle within Jabba the Hutt's palace on Tatooine
Star Wars™ Battlefront™ Bespin (Summer 2016) - It's hunt or be hunted in this action-packed experience set in the Cloud City of Bespin
Star Wars™ Battlefront™ Death Star (Fall 2016) – That’s no moon! One of the most iconic locations in the Star Wars universe makes its debut in Star Wars Battlefront.
Star Wars™ Battlefront™ Expansion Pack 4 – Title TBA (Early 2017) – We will have more details to share about this exciting new expansion pack in the coming months."

Many of these changes seem to indicate that EA and DICE are listened; at least some what listening to the community. But they've had since November to address these issues and have not. So why now? Is it because the swell of Christmas noobs that have beaten down the forums with complaints? Is it because of the hordes or vocal and disappointed reviewers? IDK...

EA ends their announcement with the following:

"At DICE, we're passionate about what we've created with Star Wars Battlefront, and are committed to supporting not only the game but all of our fans over the months ahead. We can’t wait to keep traveling through the galaxy far, far away, with all of you."

The above statement just really rubs me the wrong way. Yeah it's a great sentiment. It makes people feel warm and fuzzies. But, after personally witnessing at least a decade of EA's consumer abuse. In their slowly escalating extortion campaign of releasing what can only be described as underwhelming and incomplete titles with pay for DLC. Each proceeding title worse than the last, in content and in sales. It really just seems like EA and it's subsidiaries are seeing just how far they can push the line before gamers revolt.

So here are some parting thoughts for EA/ DICE: How many people in the Battlefront community have to tell you that they want substance, not skins? How many people have to complain about your lack luster performance before you supply their needs? And honestly you wouldn't be so bad if your marketing hype machine wasn't so good, and your business model so opaque. Again, I'll admit that you took baby steps today, but is it that you cannot provide for the wants your fan base due your inability to deliver? Or does your failure come from some morally abstract authoritarian concept that you alone may be the gatekeeper of the needs and wants of your customers? I'm personally leaning towards the latter. Your names have become synonymous with a concept of everything that is wrong with the gaming industry. If I'm wrong prove it! Own your mistakes, make good on your hype, and earn back the respect of not just your customers but the greater gaming community.

At this point, I'm a bit more hopeful. However, I'm not holding my breath. EA has screwed the pooch so far,  I can't expect much more for the fixes. And with that I'm done for now.


Thank you guys for stopping by. I really appreciate your suppose. So what do you think. Am I over reacting? Should I take it a bit easier? Let me know on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, or in the comments sections below. Please share, and as always, I will see you later. And as I said earlier you can expect more Battlefront content in the future. I'm going to beat this dead horse until it becomes a horse zombie, and starts trying to change other horses into zombie too. (Well that an excessively convoluted metaphor, but I think it works.)

-Chali Baicunn

2016 GDC Awards: The Nominees Are In

Hello people of the Internet! Thank you for stopping by! I hope that you're all having a fantastic day! Yesterday we talked about the Independent Game Festival Awards, and today I have a list of the nominees for the Game Developers Choice Awards. You'll see that even some of the nominees for the IGF made it into the running for the GDC. Hope you enjoy, and I'd like to get your feedback on the nominees.


The 16th annual Game Developers Choice Awards will be presented on March 16th starting at 6:30PM PT. The event will be hosted by Robin Hunick. Known for her work on Journey, Boom Blox, MySims, and The Sims 2. As well as being to co-organizer of the Experimental Gameplay Workshop at Game Developers Conference. This year both The Witcher 3 and Metal Gear Solid V managed to snag 4 nominations. Check out the whole list of nominees below. However, the nominees for the Lifetime Achievement, the Pioneer, and the Ambassador Awards have note been announced yet. Be sure to tune in at 6:30PM PT on Twitch (here) to watch the awards. Make sure you keep watching after the GDC Awards, as the IGF Awards are scheduled to start immediately after on the same channel.   


Game of the Year
Fallout 4 (Bethesda Game Studios / Bethesda Softworks)
The Witcher 3 (CD Projekt RED / CD Projekt)
Metal Gear Solid V (Kojima Productions / Konami)
Bloodborne (FromSoftware / Sony Computer Entertainment)
Rocket League (Psyonix)
Honorable Mentions: Her Story (Sam Barlow), Super Mario Maker (Nintendo EAD Group No. 4 / Nintendo), Undertale (Toby Fox), Splatoon (Nintendo EAD Group No. 2 / Nintendo), Life is Strange (Dontnod Entertainment / Square Enix)
 
Innovation Award
Her Story (Sam Barlow)
Super Mario Maker (Nintendo EAD Group No. 4 / Nintendo)
Undertale (Toby Fox)
Splatoon (Nintendo EAD Group No. 2 / Nintendo)
The Beginner’s Guide (Everything Unlimited Ltd.)
Honorable Mentions: Rocket League (Psyonix), Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes (Steel Crate Games) Cibele (Star Maid Games), Life is Strange (Dontnod Entertainment / Square Enix), Metal Gear Solid V (Kojima Productions / Konami)

Best Debut
Studio Wildcard (ARK: Survival Evolved)
Toby Fox (Undertale)
Moon Studios (Ori and the Blind Forest)
Moppin (Downwell)
Steel Crate Games (Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes)
Honorable Mentions: Asteroid Base (Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime), Question (The Magic Circle) Thomas Happ (Axiom Verge), Dinosaur Polo Club (Mini Metro), MidBoss (Read Only Memories)

Best Design
Rocket League (Psyonix)
Metal Gear Solid V (Kojima Productions / Konami)
Bloodborne (FromSoftware / Sony Computer Entertainment)
Fallout 4 (Bethesda Game Studios/ Bethesda Softworks)
Splatoon (Nintendo EAD Group No. 2 / Nintendo)
Honorable Mentions: Her Story (Sam Barlow), Super Mario Maker (Nintendo EAD Group No. 4 / Nintendo), Undertale (Toby Fox), The Witcher 3 (CD Projekt RED / CD Projekt), Ori and the Blind Forest (Moon Studios / Microsoft Studios)

Best Handheld/Mobile Game
Lara Croft: GO (Square Enix Montréal / Square Enix)
Fallout Shelter (Bethesda Game Studios / Bethesda Softworks)
Downwell (Moppin / Devolver Digital)
Her Story (Sam Barlow)
AlphaBear (Spry Fox)
Honorable Mentions: Prune (Joel McDonald), The Room Three (Fireproof Games), Subterfuge (Ron Carmel and Noel Llopis), Pac-Man 256 (Hipster Whale and 3 Sprockets / BANDAI NAMCO), Sage Solitaire (Zach Gage), SteamWorld Heist (Image and Form), You Must Build a Boat (EightyEight Games)

Best Visual Art
Ori and the Blind Forest (Moon Studios / Microsoft Studios)
The Witcher 3 (CD Projekt RED / CD Projekt)
Star Wars Battlefront (DICE / Electronic Arts)
Bloodborne (FromSoftware / Sony Computer Entertainment)
Splatoon (Nintendo EAD Group No. 2 / Nintendo)
Honorable Mentions: Metal Gear Solid V (Kojima Productions / Konami), Rise of the Tomb Raider (Crystal Dynamics / Square Enix), Batman: Arkham Knight (Rocksteady Studios / Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment), The Order: 1886 (Ready at Dawn / Sony Computer Entertainment), Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture (The Chinese Room / Sony Computer Entertainment), Fallout 4 (Bethesda Game Studios / Bethesda Softworks)

Best Narrative
Her Story (Sam Barlow)
The Witcher 3 (CD Projekt RED / CD Projekt)
Life is Strange (Dontnod Entertainment / Square Enix)
Undertale (Toby Fox)
The Beginner’s Guide (Everything Unlimited Ltd.)
Honorable Mentions: Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture (The Chinese Room / Sony Computer Entertainment), Fallout 4 (Bethesda Game Studios / Bethesda Softworks), Until Dawn (Supermassive Games / Sony Computer Entertainment), Cibele (Star Maid Games), Soma (Frictional Games)

Best Audio
Star Wars Battlefront (DICE / Electronic Arts)
Ori and the Blind Forest (Moon Studios / Microsoft Studios)
Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture (The Chinese Room / Sony Computer Entertainment)
Metal Gear Solid V (Kojima Productions / Konami)
Crypt of the NecroDancer (Brace Yourself Games)
Honorable Mentions: Fallout 4 (Bethesda Game Studios / Bethesda Softworks), The Witcher 3 (CD Projekt RED / CD Projekt), Life is Strange (Dontnod Entertainment / Square Enix), SOMA (Frictional Games), Bloodborne (FromSoftware / Sony Computer Entertainment), Splatoon (Nintendo EAD Group No. 2 / Nintendo)

Best Technology
Metal Gear Solid V (Kojima Productions / Konami)
The Witcher 3 (CD Projekt RED / CD Projekt)
Star Wars Battlefront (DICE / Electronic Arts)
Fallout 4 (Bethesda Game Studios / Bethesda Softworks)
Just Cause 3 (Avalanche Studios / Square Enix)
Honorable Mentions: Rise of the Tomb Raider (Crystal Dynamics / Square Enix), Batman: Arkham Knight (Rocksteady Studios / Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment), Splatoon (Nintendo EAD Group No. 2 / Nintendo), Super Mario Maker (Nintendo EAD Group No. 4 / Nintendo), Halo 5: Guardians (343 Industries / Microsoft Studios)

Thanks again for stopping by! What do you think? Do you agree, do you not? Let me know on Twitter, Facebook, Google+, or in the comment section below. I'm currently getting everything organized, so that I can bring you more content with more substance. Make sure you share if you like what you see, and I hope to see you back here in the future.

-Chali Baicunn

IGF: Let's Talk Indie Awards

Hello and thanks for stopping by! Hope the internet is working in your favor today! Today, I want to raise awareness about the Independent Games Festival Awareness. Let's be honest; indie games don't get much press, and to be fair some indie titles suck. (Just putting that out there.) The IGF Awards are a great way to start looking for the next great indie titles that don't suck.

The competitors have been thinned from the original 750 into 7 distinct categories by 400 industrial insiders. Up for grabs is over $50,000 in prizes plus $30,000 for the Seumas McNally Grand Prize. Check out the following list of the nominees and honorable mentions taken directly from igf.com. The 18th Annual IGF Awards will be hosted March 16th from the Moscone Convention Center in San Francisco, immediately following the Game Developers Choice Awards. Be sure to tune on Twitch via the live stream found here on March 16th starting at 6:30PM PT to watch both the Game Developers Choice Awards and 18th Annual IGF Awards.

(The following is taken directly from the IGF Announcement page)

Excellence in Visual Art

• Mini Metro (Dinosaur Polo Club)
• Panoramical (Fernando Ramallo & David Kanaga)
• Gnog (KO_OP)
• Armello (League of Geeks)
• Oxenfree (Night School Studio)
• Darkest Dungeon (Red Hook Studios Inc.)

Honorable Mentions: Forkride Grilltime Sloth (Black Pants Game Studio [Sebastian Stamm]); Epistory - Typing Chronicles (Fishing Cactus); Kingdom (noio & Licorice); Alto's Adventure (Snowman); Future Unfolding (Spaces of Play); Astroneer (System Era Softworks)

Excellence in Narrative

• The Beginner's Guide (Everything Unlimited Ltd.)
• Black Closet (Hanako Games)
• That Dragon, Cancer (Numinous Games)
• Her Story (Sam Barlow)
• Undertale (Toby Fox)
• The Magic Circle (Question)

Honorable Mentions: Oxenfree (Night School Studio); Orion Trail (Schell Games); Cibele (Star Maid Games); Contradiction  (Tim Follin / Baggy Cat Ltd); The Writer Will Do Something (Tom Bissell and Matthew S. Burns)

Excellence in Design

• Mini Metro (Dinosaur Polo Club)
• Kingdom (noio & Licorice)
• Her Story (Sam Barlow)
• Keep Talking & Nobody Explodes (Steel Crate Games)
• Superhot (SUPERHOT)
• Infinifactory (Zachtronics)

Honorable Mentions: Gang Beasts (Boneloaf); Imbroglio (Michael Brough); Duskers (Misfits Attic); Chaos Reborn (Snapshot Games); TIS-100 (Zachtronics); Soft Body (Zeke Virant)

Excellence in Audio

• Mini Metro (Dinosaur Polo Club)
• Panoramical (Fernando Ramallo & David Kanaga)
• That Dragon, Cancer (Numinous Games)
• Darkest Dungeon (Red Hook Studios Inc.)
• Lumini (Speelbaars)
• Undertale (Toby Fox)

Honorable Mentions: Heart Forth, Alicia (Alonso Martin); The Beginner's Guide (Everything Unlimited Ltd.); Gnog (KO_OP); Oxenfree (Night School Studio); Kingdom (noio & Licorice); Inside My Radio (Seaven Studio)

Nuovo Award

• The Beginner's Guide (Everything Unlimited Ltd.)
• Panoramical (Fernando Ramallo & David Kanaga)
• Fantastic Contraption (Northway Games & Radial Games)
• Orchids To Dusk (Pol Clarissou)
• Her Story (Sam Barlow)
• Cibele  (Star Maid Games)
• Keep Talking & Nobody Explodes (Steel Crate Games)
• Progress (Tim Garbos, Martin Kvale and Joel Nyström)

Honorable Mentions: Enough (cabbibo); Sentree (Glitchnap); Affordable Space Adventures (KnapNok Games and Nifflas' Games); Vignettes (Pol Clarissou, Armel Gibson); Future Unfolding (Spaces of Play); Sage Solitaire (Zach Gage); TIS-100 (Zachtronics)

Best Student Game

• Pitfall Planet (Bonfire Games)
• Ape Out (Gabe Cuzzillo)
• Beglitched (Jenny Jiao Hsia & Alec Thomson)
• Circa Infinity (Kenny Sun)
• Orchids To Dusk (Pol Clarissou)
• Chambara (team ok)

Honorable Mentions: Anarcute (Anarteam); Gathering Sky (A Stranger Gravity); Not Everything is Flammable (DAM: David Shiyang Liu, Alex Hu and Mac Lotze); FAR (Mr. Whale's Game Service); Sumer (Studio Wumpus); Bad Blood (Winnie Song)

Seumas McNally Grand Prize

• Mini Metro (Dinosaur Polo Club)
• Darkest Dungeon (Red Hook Studios Inc.)
• Her Story (Sam Barlow)
• Keep Talking & Nobody Explodes (Steel Crate Games)
• Superhot (SUPERHOT)
• Undertale (Toby Fox)

Honorable Mentions: The Beginner's Guide (Everything Unlimited Ltd.); Panoramical (Fernando Ramallo & David Kanaga); Affordable Space Adventures (KnapNok Games and Nifflas' Games); Twelve Minutes (Luis Antonio); Oxenfree (Night School Studio); That Dragon, Cancer (Numinous Games); Cibele (Star Maid Games); Soft Body (Zeke Virant)

I am personally interested in checking out several of these titles. I've included a short list of games that I will be checking out in the future. I've also included the descriptions that were submitted with the entries into the IGF Awards:

Her Story:
Her Story is a crime fiction game for PC, Mac and iOS that takes place entirely on the desktop of a 90s era police computer. Players search through a database of interview room video footage to piece together the story of a woman questioned seven times by the police.




Darkest Dungeon:
Darkest Dungeon is a challenging gothic roguelike turn-based RPG about the psychological stresses of adventuring. Recruit, train, and lead a team of flawed heroes against unimaginable horrors, stress, famine, disease, and the ever-encroaching dark. Can you keep your heroes together when all hope is lost?




Oxenfree:
Oxenfree is a single player adventure game that's equal parts coming-of-age tale and supernatural thriller. You play as Alex, a bright, rebellious teenaged girl who brings her new stepbrother Jonas to an overnight party on a decommissioned military island. The festivities are framed by a dangerous sneak to a forbidden beach, celebrating with friends and navigating prickly situations with enemies. But the night takes a horrifying turn when you unwittingly open a ghostly rift spawned from the island's cryptic past. How you deal with these events, your peers, and the ominous creatures you've unleashed is up to you.




Thanks again for stopping by. Keep dropping by for more updates on all things nerdy. If you think something isn't getting enough coverage, hit me up on twitter or using the contact form on the home page. As always, please share and comment, and I hope to see you in the future.

-Chali Baicunn