/endrant

One major part that I think has fallen off of the face of video games is the immersion that they once used to give to people. Maybe that's because I have grown so accustom to the amazing graphics and story that most video games have now a days, but to me it feels all developers care about anymore is pushing out big titles. Can you really blame them either? The video game community will bitch and moan about how they want so much more from a game. Yet the second a developer releases a game that didn't have any of the things the community wanted in it everyone still buys it. Even on top of that the community will still complain about how much the game sucks and all that. Well if you know the developer wasn't going to be adding these things you wanted to the game, why did you still buy it? That is literally telling these companies "I don't like what you did here, but I will give you money anyway" and in return they can say to themselves, "hey everyone, lets basically make the same game over and over with different titles and story lines and we will make millions!" The sad part about it is they aren't wrong because that is exactly what is going on with the video game market now-a-days. I've recently been playing a game near and dear to my heart The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. You may be thinking, "but wait, that says elder scrolls and that's not Skyrim what gives". Well, I will put this simply, Oblivion is the game Skyrim wishes it could be. This game came out in 2006 and was easily one of my favorite childhood memories. Even to this day the experiences and game play I have with this game is like none other and its 9 years old. My mind is officially boggled by the fact that with this current technology that we possess that we can't even make a better game then one from 9 years ago. Don't get me wrong Skyrim was no push over it was a pretty fun game, but it was basically a "revamp" of Oblivion, and still can't stand toe to toe with it. As much as I was saying that the gaming community in general is shit, I wasn't just referring to the consumers. The producers also play a substantially big role in this problem as well.

Toxicity

The video game community is so shit. Honestly, one of the worst groups of people you could probably ever associate yourself with. The only thing I wonder if its only this way in the US or if its global. I feel that not every person in the gaming community is terrible, but the ratio from good to bad is way off. The community is extremely toxic. People will go out of there way just to make sure you have a terrible time trying to do something you enjoy. How messed up is that. A person will spend hours of there life trying to figure out how to manipulate a certain thing in a game so that when you play it they can use it there advantage to always win against you. An example of this is in a game called DayZ. DayZ has so many cheaters in it because they all use these things called scripts that will allow them to teleport wherever they want, kill someone whenever they want, etc. These scripts aren't just handed out either, well after they are figured out they are basically, but a person had to sit down and figure out the coding process to actually get that to work. Not only that, he has to figure out how to make it work while trying to dodge the anti-cheat software that most games have now a days. On top of that, instead of blaming the person that is doing this thing the players will start criticizing the game/company. What kind of logical sense does that even make? Not to start a huge thing here, but that is just like blaming the gun and not the person firing the gun. Why does the community do this? My theory is that people who have the time to do all this must actually need make people angry. They need to hear that person rage and quit and get super upset over what he is doing. Why he needs this I have no idea, it must some kind of like fetish thing or something. Over the years of this happening to, you can see the toll it has taken on all gaming communities. Now whenever someone is decent at a game and doing better than someone else it obviously makes him a "hacker". Anyone that seems to have any sort of skill in a game and isn't a professional gamer just turns into a hacker. And its incredibly sad to see these great community figures that try to help the video game scene grow and they have to tell these people to try and join the community when its so toxic. No one wants to willingly join a community that is so incredibly annoying and just plain bad.

The Nation

Last week I talked about the now almost 14 year old game we know and love called Super Smash Brothers Melee. There was a tournament called The Big House 5 held in Dearborn, Mi sometimes recently that I also talked about last week. Well, this week I was honored to actually be able to go to one of these Melee tournaments and not just watch a stream of it. Now let it be known, compared to TBH5 this tournament was basically nothing. It was held at MSU and had about 20 or so player actually in the tournament. Among those players was the guy that actually ran TBH5, he is known as Juggleguy. To me it was pretty crazy actually being able to see him and person and see him actually playing the game. The room that it was held in was kind of like a lecture room with 3 big projectors up front, and 4 long tables that stretched from the wall to wall of the room. Each one of these tables had 3 of those old school box TVs that seem to have no use in the real world today, and either a Gamecube, a Nintendo 64, or a Wii u. I wasn't actually in the tournament I just decided to take the trek down there to check it out because I always wanted to go see what a melee tournament was like. Let me tell you one thing about these tournaments, no matter how many people are there it will get loud. The people in the Melee community are so passionate and so into this game, that when something cool happens in a game the only thing that seems right to do at the time is to yell. Even if you don't really know exactly whats going on in this game, it feels like you just get swept in all the emotion and can't help but joining in on the yelling. Another thing to keep in mind if going to one of these tournaments, is that there will be very few females. Now I am not trying to be sexist in anyway, but it just seems that all throughout the video competitive scene in general, it is very male dominated. Anyway, this tournament was actually a lot of fun to attend even though I wasn't playing. Watching the intensity in peoples faces and the way they can manipulate the characters they play and how they handle the controller is breathtaking. If you have ever played this amazing game we refer to as Melee, I highly, HIGHLY encourage you on watching some high level players play the game. The mix of nostalgia and amazement of the game in front of you will be worth it I promise you.

Old and New

This week/weekend was and will be jam PACKED full of amazing games. First over the weekend The Big House 5 tournament took place in Dearborn, Michigan. Sadly I was a little to late when it came to getting tickets and I was not able to go. The Big House 5 was one of the biggest Super Smash Bros. Melee tournaments of the year, it even had more entries than APEX 2015. The tournament had 2 streams available for it but the one the majority of people watched was the VGbootcamp stream.(http://www.twitch.tv/vgbootcamp) The person who ended up winning the tournament was a Swedish player named Armada. Armada is very known for his peach but opted to play his fox most of the final rounds it seemed because he was going up against a puff(jiggly puff) player named Hungrybox. Both Armada and Hungrybox are well known very skilled professional players, but they also might be some of the most hated players as well. It was kind of easy to tell this because when these 2 were playing the crowd (which was about 99% US) was having a hard awkward time figuring out who to cheer for. I feel they eventually gave up and just cheered whenever good plays were being made. It was kind of upsetting watching a swede taking home the first place trophy at an american tournament, but its hard to be mad at him because you could tell Armada was outplaying ever single person there. If you are interested in learning about all the past players and how melee became apart of the competitive gaming scene I will leave a link below that explains everything about the history of melee. Now with whats coming up with week is going to be very, very hit or miss. They are releasing OPEN BETA for the new Star Wars Battlefront being made by EA. Now, yes Star Wars Battlefront could potentially be an amazing game with hours and hours of gameplay to be had and yada yada yada. BUT, let us not forget that this game is being made by EA. If you don't understand why this is a problem, go play any game that was made by this company after Battlefield Bad Company 2. This company is known for taking some of the most anticipated games titles and putting the ol' "EA twist" on it and ruining the entire thing for everyone. Streams of the CLOSED BETA are out there showing off the gameplay and from what I have seen and heard from others is that it won't be another one of those "EA ruiners". Maybe this could be the game where EA makes a turning point for there company and starts making good games, I don't know. What I do know is that if EA does ruin this game, they will have a lot of nostalgic grown ups pretty pissed off with them. 

The Smash Brothers Documentary

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jX9hbbA-WP4