The #QuestForPerfection is over

So here we are once again. Living a nightmare this seemingly eternally on loop. I could write angrily about any number of things that went wrong to lead us to this point, but it won’t soften the blow any. I regret to inform you all that yes, ONCE AGAIN, the Detroit Tigers have lost out on their chance at an undefeated season.

Now, I hear you out there. Shouting at your computer screen. Saying “BUT JUSTIN NO TEAM HAS EVER GONE UNDEFEATED IN BASEBALL YOU CLOD.” First, turn off the Caps Lock there, sports fan. Second, rude. Third, and most important, just because something hasn’t been done before doesn’t mean it can’t be done. We live in an era where we’ve gone to the moon AND we've found a way to microwave eggs without them exploding.

I’m here to say that an undefeated season isn’t just a goal to strive for, but it’s an inevitability. Let me throw some cold, hard facts your way. The fewest losses in a 162 game MLB season? The 2001 Seattle Mariners went 116-46, which gave them an astonishing 72% win percentage, good enough to lose in the ALCS that year to the New York Yankees, whom they actually took the record from. In 1998, the Yankees went 114-48, and I’m sure they were none too pleased with having Seattle stomp all over their turf.

So let’s look at the improvement we’ve seen since 1961 when the MLB went to the 162 game format we all know and love. In 1961, the New York Yankees went 109-53. This was later, in 1969 (nice), tied by the Baltimore Orioles. The Yankees would then reclaim sole-ownership of the record in 1998, as mentioned earlier.

So, since 1961 through 2001, which is 40 years, we saw a 7 game improvement in regular season records. Using that logic, it would be reasonable to assume that sometime between 2001 and 2279 we will see an undefeated season. The math checks out, so I don’t think I need to explain this any further.

Now when we discuss the origin of baseball, it’s hard not to travel over the pond and compare it to the game of Cricket. Now, like most Americans, the only thing I know about Cricket is that they use poles in the ground and their bats are more rectangular in shape, which automatically makes it a more elegant and well-thought out sport than baseball. So it stands to reason, that since baseball is the more vulgar and barbaric cousin to this time-honored English sport that we could eventually emulate their success. And what success it has been!

As it turns out, the first recorded undefeated season in first-class country cricket was in 1864. EIGHTEEN SIXTY FOUR! Now you might say that this isn’t a great statistic, since Surrey pulled off this amazing feat by only playing 8 games, but it only gets more notable from there! The best record I found was in 1925, Yorkshire played 32 games without a loss. That means in just 61 years and with quadruple the number of games, they could still achieve an undefeated season. This is remarkable and proves just how much catching up we have to do with our overseas comrades!

Now, using my above example, it would be expected that within some period of time between 2001 and 2041 we’re going to see a 7 game improvement on the 2001 Orioles record. It’s gonna happen, it’s just a matter of WHEN. Obviously we’ve wasted 14 seasons before now, so the hope of all fans of statistical improvement keep holding on hoping to see us get there. But I want to go a step beyond that. I don’t want to wait until 2279 for perfection to be achieved, mostly because I probably won’t be alive then and I have no interest in passing this historical moment down to future generations. I think it’s time that we come up with a strategy to ensure we see it as soon as next year.

1. Convince players on all teams but one to not participate in the game.

Now, I admit that this might be tough. Those players have some pride in their work and they aren’t going to just want to let themselves get ROFLstomped into oblivion day after day. But as long as they’re going to get paid, you might be able to make a compelling argument that they’ll be immortalized as part of the greatest season of baseball in history. Try to not mention exactly what that role would be, of course.

Also, it’s important to note that I’m not saying players should quit, because then they’d get replaced by minor league players who would probably still scratch a win or two out, completely destroying the purpose behind this grand project. It’d be like if they let an intern work on the Sistine Chapel. Yeah, it’s beautiful, but everyone keeps looking at the one spot where Roger jacked up his brush strokes. So instead, they'll play, but not do anything. Pitchers will just underhand throw, fielders will take naps or make picnics, and batters will just stand there and get struck out. It will be beautiful.

It goes without saying but for this plan to work, we also would have to nominate a team to be the first undefeated team. I speak with no bias when I put forth the Detroit Tigers as the team to do this. This may make it hard to convince Minnesota, Chicago, Kansas City, and Cleveland to participate but worst case scenario buy them all free cruises and then just have the ship remain out at sea for the entire season. Ship them food and stuff but then sink the boats with the supplies so they can’t escape. Cover all angles.

2. Send all players from all teams but one on a big cruise ship and then have it break down at sea.

Well I guess I kind of spoiled this one. Same thing I was just talking about, but the whole league, not just 4 teams. More expensive, but should still be very effective.

3. Convince the MLB Commissioner to prematurely end the season.

Now that we’re no longer under the Iron Fist of Bud Selig and his Unrelenting Hatred of Expanded Replay, I think it’s fair to say that we are prepared to enter an era with The More Open-Minded and Easy to Talk To Commissioner Rob Manfred. Naturally, I propose we should take full advantage of this and end the season immediately if the Tigers get a win. I mean, really, if we’d have just taken this approach this year we wouldn’t be over a thousand words into this blog post, now would we?

We’d have to present a compelling argument to the commish if we’re going to try this, and I don’t know if “baseball history” will quite be enough. So I’d say if necessary you should probably be prepared to lie a lot. Maybe if you convince him that the owners are secretly out to get him and make him like super paranoid he’ll eventually cave and cancel everything. I dunno, I’m just the idea guy here.

4. Just outright cheat.

Just for the record, no, none of the above would be considered “cheating” per-se. It’d be influencing, but not outright cheating. But assuming that all of that has somehow failed (probably a totally reasonable assumption), now we have no choice but to cheat.

I’m not proposing violence. There’s nothing much to be gained with a  bat-assisted bench-clearing brawl, mainly because all of your players will get suspended (especially if you failed to win over Manfred in option 3) and eventually you’ll run your pool of farm players dry. And while you could probably start signing guys off the street, eventually you’ll end up in a situation where even the beaten and bloodied opposing team with their multiple lacerations and fractures are better than your completely healthy team entirely made up of concession stand employees.

So with that out the door, the next best option available is to start messing with results. Hire people to sneak into the score board and change numbers during the game. Make sure that Joe Buck is calling every game since he’s probably not paying attention to the score anyways and can be easily tricked into believing your ruse. Hack into the MLB record keepers’ systems and arbitrarily change data and scores. After all, a loss only counts as a loss if it’s still a loss at the end of the season.

Sure, this will probably lead to a 300-page article on the 2017 MLB Season on Wikipedia, but history will have still been made, and ultimately history doesn't care if there's an asterisk next to it or not. Unfortunately, the soonest it can happen is next season, as this one’s already a lost cause (I don’t count the Baltimore Orioles, who as of this are undefeated, because they aren’t the Detroit Tigers). Or is it?

So, by my math, if the Tigers manage to not lose again, they would finish the season with an ASTONISHING 99.3% win rate. But, if we just plug this number into Microsoft Excel and “accidentally” use the ROUNDUP function in place of the ROUND function, suddenly that sure looks like a perfect season to me!

Justin's Attempt to Break Madden

Last night, inspired by Jon Bois and his endlessly entertaining Breaking Madden series, I sought out to perform an experiment within Madden 15 (I have developed commitment issues with slapping down full price for new iterations of NFL games based on the last 3 being fairly disappointing, so I lack Madden 16). Based on an embarrassing performance last week by the Kansas City Chiefs, where they became the only team in NFL history to kick seven field goals in a game and lose, I wanted to take the idea to a new level.

Kansas City committed very hard to the field goal in Week 4. Even in situations where they had a 40% chance or better to convert on 4th and short, they opted to boot the ball through the uprights. Doing so doomed them, as they could never get the lead back. As punishment, I have taken away their offensive playbook, and left them with just a single card, detailing the formation and instructions of how to kick a field goal. They’re going to try and take this newly developed playbook and win a World Championship.

THE SET UP

1. Make Kansas City kicker Cairo Santos a God among kickers.

This involved me bumping Kicking Power, Kicking Accuracy, Strength, Awareness, Agility, Stamina, Consistency, and Confidence all to 99 and flipping the Clutch trigger.

2. Turn Kansas City’s offensive line into an impenetrable wall.

As you probably guessed, this meant every stat even remotely important to an offensive lineman tasked with not letting a ball get touched got bumped up to 99 here as well. Originally I was going to make mountain men and have them join the team, but I got kind of lazy, so we’re going with the same line in place at the end of the 2015 season, sans any injuries.

3. Change how football is played in Kansas City.

Kansas City can only kick field goals on offense. Nothing else. Defense will be completely played through SuperSim. So if the defense steps up and scores points, it’ll all be based on Madden’s mathematics. Offensively, the goal is an empty statline with exception of Cairo Santos.

4. Put the game conditions in favor of our experiment.

This means global Kicking Accuracy and Power goes up to 100. This shouldn’t affect any of our opponents, since SuperSim is a tricky thing that doesn’t really seem to consider sliders, weather, or consistent stats and just kind of does what it wants.

THE GAME

So there we go. We’re playing on Pro difficulty with full 15 minute quarters. I simulate all defensive plays and also all punt/kickoff returns. Once offense is up, I kick the ball. Wind and weather will do what they do.

My initial concern with this is if the experiment was even feasible. I mean, of course it isn’t in real life, but Madden normally allows some crazy things to happen once you mess with sliders and stats enough. As it turns out, I found out just how viable it was when I kicked a 97-yard field goal on my 3rd possession (took me a bit to get used to lining everything up).

At the end of the 1st quarter, the score was Tennessee Titans 34, Kansas City 27. So the downside to missing a field goal after a touchback is it gives the other team the ball on my 20. Not great stuff. Titans QB Zach Mettenberger’s stats looked positively insane not long into the game.

The 2nd quarter was a different beast. With the wind having now turned around and blowing at me, 97 yards was simply out of man-god Cairo Santos’ range. This meant on over 50% of the possessions of the 2nd quarter I’d miss the field goal and Tennessee would score in some fashion. I entered the 2nd half down 87 to 54.

The 3rd quarter was all about making up ground. I hit the dirt running and started evening things up quickly. Defense even managed to help out with a nice pick 6. At the end of the 3rd, the score was Tennessee 103, Kansas City 94.

But then, in the 4th, the wheels fell of the wagon, when with 5 minutes and some change left to go, Madden locked up following a successful Kansas City field goal. Which, this happens with games every now and then, so it’s something you have to deal with. I restarted the game, loaded the auto save, this time missed the field goal (the wind had inexplicably changed intensity and direction after the load, because surely weather isn’t an important condition to maintain when resuming a game), and the game locked up again. Two more attempts, two more lock ups. Madden had been broken on my first ever experiment.

So, based on the conditions behind the lockup, my best guess is I tripped some internal counter and the game didn’t want to process any more field goal attempts. So, I need to work around that. For one, I could actually do the kick/punt returns to try and get better field position, that way it’s not consistently a touchback. For another, I could reduce the game time down to 10 minutes to try and reduce the number of opportunity. Another options is… wait. What the fuck am I doing?

THE BREAKDOWN

Let’s recap, a video game released in 2014 for the Xbox One based around the most popular sport in the United States that has been around since the early 90’s through multiple iterations and is part of the most successful video game franchises of all time has broken because I kicked the dang ball too many times???

If Madden NFL was made by a small independent studio with a handful of employees, I could understand this. But it’s one of the biggest money-making franchises out there. It’s been getting annual releases for almost as long as I’ve been alive. When the game breaks in stress-tests the nature of replacing one team with tiny incapable people and putting them up against 7-foot tall 400 pound abominations of nature, I can understand why something inside might break. But that’s not what happened. What I did is akin to taking the Madden Dream Team (which in many iterations of the game existed as a combination of the greatest players of all time) and just kicking the ball over and over again. I didn’t change anyone’s physical stature, and I didn’t change anything on the opposing team. I only modified 12 players.

When you test a video game, it’s not uncommon to take a single feature of a game and test it over and over and over and over in every scenario to make sure it works. Surely, kicking endless field goals is a simple thing to test. And it’s not like I broke the scoreboard, the game crashed even when I missed the posts completely.

When Madden removed the fully canned animations and went with a true physics engine, one of the understandable risks of doing so was that bizarre bugs would occur. And sure enough they have. Players skidding across the ground, flying in the opposite direction they were hit, the ball doing whatever the hell it feels like, and those are accepted things when you cram physics into a game in less than a year. This is the third year of the engine, so by now it’s been tested both internally and by a massive player base, so you’d expect most of the issues to be ironed out, and you certainly wouldn’t expect the game to lock up because of a stat going too high.

I can’t really stress how unacceptable this is. I work with software for a living and have done my fair share of scripting and coding. To have a video game developed in 2013/2014 that consistently fails because of a number going too high simply isn’t acceptable. And what I get even less is how experiments like these occur with no crashes, but too many field goal attempts causes consistent failures. I know in real football not every stat is equal, but c'mon.

EA, fix your game. As the proud holders of a monopoly on this license, you kind of owe it to fans of the sport of football to produce a game that has had actual beta testing done to ensure this kind of thing doesn’t happen. If I run into a 5’0” 160-pound quarter back at full speed with a 7’0” 400-pound linebacker and he spins around in a circle six times and doesn’t properly get up next play, fine, I did something you may have honestly never expected. But numbers should never break a sports game.

Some Thoughts on Society

This is going to be kind of rambling and all over the place but here we go.

The world is a different place than it was 10 years ago. Ask anyone, and they'll give you their personal list of the major things that have changed. In particular, though, you'll find one thing echoed by what seems like a limitless number of people, though said in many ways: people are too sensitive now/everyone gets offended over everything/people can't take a joke/Political Correctness is killing comedy/etc.

Take your pick of any of those, but they all boil down to the same thing: people have become very vocal about the things that bother them. This is a stark difference from the world I grew up in. When I grew up, you kept thoughts that made you different from the crowd to yourself, that way you didn't get ostracized or beaten up for them. (For the record: this becomes more true of a scenario based on the region of the world you live in. Having grown up in the 'burbs south of Detroit, I feel that my situation was probably still much better than someone in the bible belt or, say, the middle east.)

When I was growing up in the 90's, and even into the early 2000's, people's worlds were pretty much just their social bubbles. That bubble tended to just be the people you know. Sometimes that would branch out to include people on the internet, but it was mostly within small, closed communities (chat rooms, instant messenger, etc.) As such, if someone held beliefs that would but them at odds with the people in their bubble, it's a safe bet they'd keep that to themselves, for fear of the bubble bursting and they be left alone.

As we moved into the late 2000's and through today, through the advent of social media, public comment boards, and the blogosphere, people now can step outside of that bubble and find people that feel the way they do, they can learn that their thoughts/beliefs/feelings are shared by others. This gives people more confidence to stand up and say something where they previously held silent, because they know others out there that will back them up.

There's also access to so much more information and news sources than ever before. Suddenly you don't become a conspiracy theorist for saying things like "black people seem like they get mistreated by the police a lot", because you can cite sources that you might not have found before in say, Missouri.

What's happening as a result of these changes is that people no longer have the same fear of being cast away for their thoughts. Where before a woman might sit silently during a rape joke at the local chucklehouse, despite the fact it offended her or brought back horrific feelings of the past, she can now go to the internet and post her thoughts. While this can go many ways, at the very least a dialog exists, it doesn't just die internally.

The problem with that scenario is then you will inevitably get people who will make such statements as "it's just a joke", "lighten up", or "people just don't have a sense of humor anymore." These often can be summarized up thusly: "it bothers the hell out of me that my jokes could be considered hurtful because up until now I never cared about how my words might affect others and this changes everything." Or, it could be summarized as the most dangerous word on the internet: privilege.

For decades, people just kept their problems to themselves. They didn't speak up when things bothered them. Historically, it's not until something comes alone that helps validate their beliefs that they start to speak up. The civil rights movement is a perfect example of that, as suddenly people felt like they had support when they said "enough of this." The internet has provided that validation to many.

The biggest issue with this are the people who get bothered by this. Suddenly they're being faced with the reality that maybe their worldview isn't aligned with the way things actually are. They're unable to accept that they may be held accountable for the things they say. They simply can't fathom how people can't tell when they're joking. It's not that people are just now being offended by it, it's just they are just now TELLING YOU that it offends them.

Examples of this crop up now more frequently than ever. "Feminism is destroying games", "The confederate flag isn't a symbol of slavery", and "SJWs are the devil" are just some examples of this. All of these are examples of deflective verbiage intended to not address the problem and instead pretend like this is the fault of the people complaining, not with the system we operate in.

Many people have been comfortable for years with zero accountability on how what they say or do might affect those around them. The fact is that this is no longer the case. You can and WILL be scrutinized for your beliefs and views if they bother someone. Instead of immediately blaming them for being offended, take a few moments of your time to try and understand WHY it bothers them. Engage them. Discuss, but don't accuse or deflect.

It comes down to empathy. You don't have to have firsthand experience with something to know why it affects someone. And you can still be funny and entertaining without relying on offensive humor. It just requires a bit more creativity... and a bit more thought.

I know this was kind of a brain dump, but it's something I've been thinking about for a couple of days now and wanted to get out there. Discussion is always welcome.

The Protomen and The Megas

So, about a year-ish ago, I was told by a friend of mine about a couple of video game inspired bands, The Protomen and The Megas. I had heard of both of these bands before, but never listened to any of their music. Then Capcom released a 25th anniversary album of Mega Man inspired music, which featured a wide variety of bands and artists, including 3 songs each by The Protomen and The Megas. I immediately was grabbed by both groups as the songs were catchy, fun, and also seemed to have a story to tell.

I decided to first take the plunge on The Megas, buying up Get Equipped (music from Mega Man 2), and both History Repeating Red and Blue (music from Mega Man 3). As a huge fan of Mega Man 2 (especially the music), I decided to start off with Get Equipped, which also included 2 tracks that were featured on the 25th anniversary album. However the versions on Get Equipped are different, in that they feel more like rough cuts while the versions on the anniversary album are much more polished. Overall, I enjoyed Get Equipped and one element I liked is that for the robot master's stage music, they tried to basically infuse a personality and story into each of them, usually told from the perspective of the respective robot master the song is about. They tried to paint some interesting pictures of them which really kind of grabbed me and fleshed out the ideas behind the game.

Then I checked out the History Repeating albums, and suddenly I shifted The Megas way up my list. These albums are phenomenal. Much like Get Equipped, the music is all based on tracks from the game, but they lyrical quality gets a huge step up and some of the stories given to the robot masters are just fantastic. From paining Hard Man as a former champion looking to take on Mega Man to regain his former glory, to Needle Man being a kind robot trapped in the body of a killer. Some really interesting concepts. The best of which comes in the form of an encounter between Proto Man and Mega Man which is built up and hinted at throughout the albums and pans out over the course of 4 really great tracks. I've always loved albums that tell stories and it really helps that this is building a story on top of content I already really liked (in Mega Man 3). Overall, regardless of your attachment to the games, the music is fantastic and I really recommend it. As a bonus, they are great live, sounding even better than they do on album (which I always use as a testament to the actual quality of a group, because it's harded to sound good live than on a produced album).

The Protomen were a different case. While I really enjoyed the tracks on the anniversary album (especially Built to Last, which is just great in every way), for whatever reason I didn't pick up the albums. They kind of remained on the fringe, though I can's say specifically why. Then, we went to MAGFest and saw them do two live shows, and I became completely enthralled with them. They have such an energy and devotion to their music and are all around amazing performers. Plus, the energy from the crowd just made their main show a shining moment in a great weekend at MAGFest. So I naturally picked up their main albums (The Protomen and Act 2: The Father of Death) and listened to them on the long car ride back to Indiana from Maryland.

This is where things get interesting. I don't have a ton of background on The Protomen, I only knew that I liked their music, and that they wrote original tracks inspired by Mega Man, instead of using the songs already in the games. Listening to the albums, it was clear that similar to The Megas, there is a story being told through the music and actions. Listening to both albums there was that same energy present that really made me interested to know more. I could tell the first album revolved around the city being taken over by Dr. Wily and Proto Man being sent to stop him, but that's about all I was able to pick up on my first listen. Act 2, meanwhile, focused on the fallout between Dr. Light and Dr. Wily that took place before the first album, and I got a bit more out of that one (it feels like Act 2 polished a lot of the musical elements from the first album and had a better overall sound to it.)

Then, I pulled out the booklets included in each album, which actually told the whole story (as well as gave the lyrics) for each album, and I suddenly found myself completely engrossed with these albums. There is a full, very interesting and very well told story to each album which flesh out the world in which The Protomen sing about (which is quite different from the world the actual Mega Man games take part in). Basically, The Protomen are making an epic rock opera, and it should be experienced by everyone. The story being told is deep, interesting, and very engaging, and it's accompanied by some fantastic music. Again, I can't recommend them enough.

I know it's been awhile since I blogged about anything, but this was something cool enough that I wanted to share it. Hopefully some other people will discover these bands through this.

-Justin

A Life of Crime

So last night I was cooking up some meth with some friends when I realized that trying to have a shootout with SWAT while maintaining a functional drug lab is a lot harder than it sounds.

Well, now that the NSA has added me to I'm sure several of their lists, I should probably say that I'm talking about Payday 2, which is currently in a beta stage, set to be release later this month. Here's a fun little trailer for you:

I didn't get to play a ton of the first Payday, mainly because not many of my friends actually owned it and the AI is so infuriatingly stupid that you'll want to shoot them in the head before taking out the police that are trying to stop your robbery. While the original game was basically built on the Left 4 Dead engine, this one has added several noticeable gameplay changes, which now include allowing for you to avoid getting into huge gunfights with the police and instead providing a stealth-like approach.

In addition, the gunplay and teamwork aspects of the game seem much tighter, offering plenty for each person to do. The new skill trees also allow everyone to customize their loadouts and characters to best suit specific tasks. I've been a big fan of the lumbering oaf that lugs bags of contraband around and carries a shotgun at all times, but I've seen everything from master lockpickers to guys who can engage in very effective fisticuffs.

The missions in the first game were pretty lackluster and felt like they lacked a lot of big heists, which seems odd considering the game was called PAYDAY: The Heist. This game, at least in the beta, offers a nice mixture of mission objectives ranging from hitting up a jewelry store and grabbing some nice watches all the way to cooking meth and trading it for intel on the location of a bunch of people trying to make off with someone else's money. Missions now can have several parts to them, and you need to complete all of them to get the big reward money.

Progression also feels much better, as you can spend money on upgrades to skills and weapons, which forces you to prioritize what will best help the build of your character. Gun attachments are unlocked randomly after successfully completing missions, which gives you incentive to keep playing even if you've hit the level cap. Also, the top level skills can completely change the way you approach missions, such as allowing you to take a portable saw which can break into saftey deposit boxes faster than lockpicking them, or even opening ATMs, which normally are inaccessable.

My beta experiences have been isolated to playing with 3 other humans that I actually know and interact with, so your mileage may vary if you play with randoms or with the AI, but I would definitely recommend checking the game out if you are a fan of co-operative gameplay, first person shooters, and/or illegal activity.  If you buy the special edition on Steam you'll get 2 beta keys with it. Otherwise it comes out on August 27, 2013.

The PS4 and Me

I planned on writing some in-depth E3 analysis of each conference and what I felt worked/didn't work, but between the actual conferences taking place while I was at work and my busy schedule, the plans fell apart. That's pretty common with my plans, I noticed. *stares at my idle YouTube channel sadly, a single tear slides down my face*

Anyhoo, I've instead decided it would be much more interesting for me to take a look at my original article I wrote back in February about the PS4 announcement and compare it to how I felt following Sony's E3 presentation. I'm going to come right out and say that after the conference (and still today) I feel that Sony won me over with everything they brought to the table. So, I'm going to go through this by first looking at the criticisms I levied against Sony during their initial console release and see how they responded at E3. Then, I'll discuss anything extra that happened at E3 and the impact it had with me, finishing up with my overall thoughts.


Criticisms from the Reveal

Emphesis on the Move
Fortunately, Sony decided to not talk about PS Move at all when it came time for E3. Most of the stuff they showed off during the reveal came across as overly gimicky, and they wisely went away from that kind of thing during the E3 conference. So, I no longer am concerned that the Move will be shoved down our throat.

Killzone looks generic and boring
By showing off a bit more of the game, I think this has improved quite a bit. It still doesn't look like the most amazing and innovative game, but I like how they're adopting a more Crysis-y style of gameplay, plus I really like the use of color shown in the demoes, as opposed to generic battlegrond grays and browns. I'm more interested than before, but this still isn't a system-selling exclusive.

Knack and Infamous showed no content
While Infamous didn't have a ton of new footage, the new trailer for the game included gameplay footage and actually looked really good. I loved the first game and this one seems to have the added advantage of a more interesting and entertaining protaganist, so good job there. Knack showed off some more gameplay and it looks like its by the designer of Crash Bandicoot and Spyro, which isn't a bad thing. Looks like a platformer action/adventure game, and I'm all for those, since outside of the big N, you just don't get any like that anymore.

Driveclub doesn't fundamentally look any different than other driving sims
This is still mostly true. Until they flesh out more about the "social challenges" they want to bring to the table, this looks like a very pretty Forza (not to say Forza isn't already pretty nice looking, of course.) However, this doesn't have the Top Gear guys, so it already is fighting with a handicap against it.

Re: Square-Enix announcing an announcement - "I remember when I gave a shit about this company."
Okay. Bear with me here. I have very little, if any at this point, faith in Square-Enix's ability to not fuck up anything Final Fantasy-related. I get that I come across as a geezer with my constant trumpeting of "the old games were better," but I'm just calling 'em like I see 'em. That having been said... Final Fantasy XV at least looks interesting, if for no other reason than their decision to go to what appears to be a fully real-time game engine. That could make a huge difference in the enjoyment of the game, especially after how boring the combat in XIII felt.

Then you have Kingdom Hearts III. I have very mixed feelings about Kingdom Hearts. The main issue I have is the fact that I'm pretty sure if I went straight to Kingdom Hearts III from II, I'd be completely lost, since the DS & PSP games that have come out continued to expand on the story. Not only that, but Kingdom Hearts II made the story so much more convoluted and frustrating then it had to be. I will probably end up playing this, but it's pretty hard to get excited for a game that drug its heels through an entire console generation to get to the next game.

PS4 isn't bringing anything truly groundbreaking to the table in their hardware
This was said after the PS4 reveal failed to show us much of anything in terms of the hardware actually in action. Now that I've seen actual gameplay that clearly shows the difference between the last generation and this one, I'm a bit more sold on the hardware. It is still comparable to the Xbox One also, so neither console would get an edge here.

The PS4 has no "killer app"
What exclusives are there on the PS4? Knack, Infamous: Second Sun, Driveclub, Killzone, The Order 1886. Also, Destiny and Diablo III will have exclusives to the PS3. The PS3 also allows independent companies to self publish, which in turn allows them to easily get onto the PSN and maintain support for the games without having to pay exhoberant fees. The PS4 also allows full range borrowing of games, does not add any DRM that didn't already exist in the previous console generation, and doesn't require a constant internet connection.

While no one of those by itself is an aforementioned "killer app" this would be a case where the sum of all the parts make it the clear best option available for me. Xbox One also has some console exclusives I'm interested in (especially Sunset Overdrive), but overall they don't have enough to get past all the other issues. I feel that Sony has effectively made the PS4 itself into a "killer app."


Other Notes from E3

I simply have to play a next-gen version of Watch_Dogs, because the game is absolutely amazing looking. Since it was revealed last year at E3 it has continued to be the most interesting and desired game shown. Although it is multiplatform, I just feel like this game is really going to take advantage of the next-gen graphics capabilities.

The way they took the simple tech demo of an old man's face from the reveal and used it at E3 was amazing. The emotion they showed didn't truly shine through though until they broke scene. That's when everything suddently felt so much more amazing. I've always been impressed with how good Playstation games handle emotion, especially in games like Uncharted and from what I've seen of the Last of Us so far. This continues that in spades.

The Order 1886 looks like a steampunk style team-based shooter just from the preview, but only time will tell. It had a very interesting and unique feel to the overall atomsphere and I'll be really interested to see more.

MMOs are taking over consoles this upcoming year. With Tom Clancey's the Divide, Destiny, DC Universe Online, Elder Scrolls Online, and Final Fantasy XIV all coming out to console, I may find myself more immersed in multiplayer games than ever before. I'll be really interested to see what they look like when they're all done.

I actually like the console design for the PS4 a little better than the Xbox One. I just feel that the PS4 has a bit more of a modern asthetic to it, which I really like. This absolutely isn't a system seller, but it sure is a nice touch.


Conclusion

What's ultimately driving my decision to side with the PS4 is probably the same as many gamers. Microsoft has come out looking like tyrants by dictating exactly who can use the system and how. By restricting regional access, limiting the ability for friends to borrow games, and requiring a constant internet connection, they've effectively told a portion of the buying populace to just stick with the 360 becaues the Xbox One isn't for them. Part of that portion is the military.

I have a huge issue with this approach. This essentially comes across as brute force DRM with nothing in return for the player. The system is more expensive than the PS4 but still loads you with restrictions on how to use the system. The fact that the system won't be available in several locations that have active gaming populations (Poland, Portugal, Japan, South Korea, and several active miliary zones) is baffling and a little insulting. While many of those things don't affect me directly, I'm going with the PS4 as a message to Microsoft that I, as a gamer, have an issue with this.

The other big issue is Microsoft's requirement that any game that they release on their marketplace has to have a publisher. This is astronomically idiotic, especially considering the rise in popularity of indie games in the last several years. Microsoft has effectively said they aren't interested in supporting independent gaming by maintaining this policy while both Nintendo and Sony have dropped it.

Don't mistake me as saying I'm buying a PS4 only because it's not an Xbox One, what I said are just some of the many reasons. The PS4 simply comes across as the better value option between its lack of restrictions and the number of games that it will launch with. The PS4 just feels like its bringing a lot more to the table that I'm personally interested in, while also allowing me to support what I believe in as a gamer.

So, I'm turning to Sony for the next console cycle. Anyone else have any thoughts?

DuckTales, Woo-Hoo!

So this week on the channel features more of the standard Let's Plays I've been doing up to this point, but we do have a special Versus game of Super Smash Bros Brawl mixed in for fun. I also up up Day 16, Day 17 and Day 18 of  Recettear for your viewing pleasure. In addition to this, I decided to make my next one-off video Ducktales on the NES. If you're wondering why, maybe you should check this out. Needless to say, I'm excited!

-Justin