EA's falling out with Nintendo seems oddly reminiscent of a scorned lover

Apparently EA has had a falling out with Nintendo, I can't honestly think of any reason why but how else do you explain EA's decision to no longer develop for the Wii U?.

One of the things that really gets on my nerves is people who enjoy spreading misinformation, so for EA's Bob Summerwill to say the Wii U is less powerful than the 360 is one of the most incredibly untrue and ludicrously stupid statements I've heard come out of EA, bear in mind this is the company who in recent months put Sim City out on shelves, a game literally unplayable at first due to EA's servers being down and then went on to try and pass off DRM as the game being an MMO!

So I guess the thing that struck me as even weirder than a company notorious for lying through their teeth continue to do so, is apparently not only do people believe what EA's Bob Summerwill said but they are in agreement, look I know it mite be fun to bash Nintendo for not being yet another console that you can play multiplats on but it's kinda grasping at straws when you have to circumvent reality.

Now before anyone cries (FANBOY) I don't at all have a problem with people hating on Nintendo but if you must do so then why not at least hate them for genuinely valid reasons?, like say for example re-releasing old franchises with barely altered gameplay or for indirectly breaking your TV screen because they used cheap plastic? it carries a bit more weight than "company I dislike makes weaker console I wouldn't have bought anyway because I prefer Sony/MS" but I digress.

I honestly can't believe that nonsense about the new Frostbite 3 engine not working well on the Wii U, I'm not saying their wouldn't be any graphical compromises and such but when has shoddy game design bothered EA in the past? I mean if you can believe that excuse then you're either very gullible or probably still stay up at night to catch a glimpse of Santa Clause.

The fact is EA could have optimised the frostbite 3 game engine but they are choosing not to and I'm very curious as to why that is, if I had to hazard a guess I'd say they are trying to appeal to the core gamer who are all currently taking it in turns to curb stomp Nintendo for you know, being Nintendo. It seems kind of unfair really, it's like hating a band for only knowing one genre and who just keep remixing their greatest hits every few years, yes they could play something new and different but once they try you'll only tell them they're crap compared to the bands you actually like so they mite as well not even bother and just keep appealing to their core fanbase.

I expect EA to pull a 180 on this whole anti Nintendo thing once the Wii U's install base increases over the next few years or whenever they remember that three consoles selling their games equates to more money, something EA couldn't be any more about even if they switched they're logo out for the $ sign.

Anyway I can't say I'm too surprised by all of this, the fact that even EA a company with about as much business ethics and positive morels as a Nazi German tank, could garner favour by tweeting a widely popular if not completely flawed opinion is nothing new.

So I guess I'd better end this on a positive note. When EA eventually releases their new Star Wars games for all 3 major console platforms this gen, I sincerely hope they make good use of the Wii U tablet screen.

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Survival Horror is making a come back.

It appears that Shinji Mikami, best known as the creative mind behind the Resident Evil franchise (par the bad ones) intends to use the T-virus in order to reanimate the practically dead Survival Horror franchise, so to finish this awkwardly phrased simile, will we get a brain dead Zombie or an unstoppable Tyrant? my bet is on a Tyrant right now, but as it stands it's anybody's guess.

Now to get to the point of this blog, recently we were all treated to an eerie trailer (and a few pics) of Shinji Mikami's latest contribution to the Survival Horror genre "The Evil Within" for those of you not in the know, Shinji Mikami is touted as being the father of the survival horror genre for having headed development of the hugely successful and critically acclaimed Resident Evil franchise, he also stated a while back that this new game will be his attempt at revitalising the Survival Horror genre.

So, if any of you have been wondering why people are practically loosing it with excitement in the comments section over the recent news and trailer, now you know.

Resident Evil may have fallen on hard time as of late, many fans attribute this fact to the franchise straying too far from its Survival horror roots, a decision made by Capcom themselves who believe survival horror to be too niche of a market, a view shared sadly by many other pubs/devs, however no one can deny the huge impact Resident Evil had on the industry when it debuted on the PSX (Sony Playstation) all those years back.

The truth is however, there have been many Survival horror games that came about well before Resident evil, some of the most notable of which are, "Haunted House" "Clock Tower" and "Alone in the dark" Resident Evil however is the franchise that ultimately popularised the Survival Horror genre, solidifying it as the definitive Survival horror franchise... Well up until Capcom ballsed it up, but we all know how that goes.

The success of Resident Evil sparked a wave of new Survival horror IP's coming from other devs hoping to get a piece of the scary pie, this led to some pretty crappy titles getting rolled out but also brought us many of the best survival horror franchises to date, such as "Parasite Eve" "Silent Hill" "Siren" "Project Zero" (AKA Fatal Frame for the US) and of course "Dead Space".

Apart from post RE4 Resident Evil dressing up every now and then, and masquerading as a "Survival Horror" game while we all point and laugh until it just stopped trying, and the American dev team who are now in charge of Silent Hill coming to terms with the fact that what actually made a Japanese survival horror game "scary" was the "Japanese" (seriously, if you can make grown men crap their pants at the mere sight of a little girl then let them handle the scares) Dead Space, is the only mainstream franchise that could legitimately be called a Survival horror game, but again sadly EA seems ever intent on doing away with the survival horror aspect all together and sought to make the sequels into action games with some jump scares thrown in... Much to Visceral Games dismay I would imagine (sigh)

Now I'm a huge fan of Project Zero (that's Fatal Frame for our American friends) but it's not everyone's "cup 'o tea" and that's fine, but I think it's pretty safe to say that it's becoming increasingly difficult now to find a satisfying fix for our survival horror itch, that's where The Evil Within comes... Well, in.

The moment news began to circulate that Shinji friggin Mikami of all people, was developing a Survival Horror game and that he hopes it will revitalise the genre that he practically established, people began to see his new game as a beacon of hope, hope that the genre so many of us grew up with that ended up falling by the way side to more "popular" genres may be coming back with avengeance, and the fact that the father of the Survival Horror genre mite be the man to do it, well my friends that is big news.

Thanks again for reading my blog, as always please feel free to post a comment.

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Do Nintendo need to change their business model?

A lot of debating (see bickering) has been going on around the interwebs these past months in regards to Nintendo's new console the Wii U, Im not about to "debate" whether or not their new console is next gen, but I will say that it is inarguably Nintendo's next generation console, if you get my meaning.

A great many gamers believe Nintendo to be in trouble and feel that they are inevitably doomed to obscurity if they are to continue down their current course, these people also feel that the only reasonable course of action is for Nintendo to take a more mainstream approach, and apply a more hardcore friendly business model similar to that of Microsoft and Sony, there is however one or two rather large if not gaping wholes in this way of thinking, Nintendo have never really been "hardcore" it's not their area and if they where to attempt it they would most likely be eaten alive by those who have already set up foundation and acheived great success for themsleves in the mainstream market, Sony and Microsoft.

Nintendo, in order to change their current business model and appeal to the hardcore market would need to take their current game franchises, rework them, alter their core gameplay, make them more accessible and appealing to hardcore gamers of today, the Legend of Zelda franchise would need to appear more mature and take on a more epic scale, imitating games such as God of war and Darksiders, Mario is not popular amongst hardcore gamers so he would no doubt fall into obscurity only making small cameos in popular games and being used as DLC character skins before being dropped completely, the Metroid franchise would most likely be turned into to some sort of scifi COD imitator with a heavy focus on Online multiplayer and coop, this just wouldn't work it's not Nintendo, they could try it but they would inevitably fail.

Even arguing that Nintendo could keep their 1st party games the way they are and just roll out a more powerful console (apart from the fact that's just not viable let alone sensible to do right now) that would allow them to acquire more 3rd party support, we've had two home consoles already that offered multiplat 3rd party games, do we really need three home consoles all offering the same 3rd party multiplat titles with only minor variations in graphics and gameplay? Even if that where to happen since most hardcore gamers dislike Nintendo's 1st party titles there would be no reason for them to choose Nintendo over Sony or Microsoft, it happened with the Ganecube.

Now Im not bashing Nintendo, not at all, but thinking about it Nintendo has founded the majority of their success on not even attempting to appeal to the mainstream or hardcore market (mostly because there technically wasn't a hardcore market in the past) but just producing/publishing fun and enjoyable games, gaming after all was widely regarded as immature, juvenile, childish even, especially back during the days of the NES, gamers at the time would have been playing Mario, Zelda and/or Metroid, and funnily enough enduring ridicule from the "cool kids" of the day for doing so (some things never change it seems) So then skip forwards about 10 years and we have our first official console for the mainstream in the form of the "Sony Playstation" (I won't go into detail regarding how Nintendo shot themselves in the foot when they asked Sony to produce a disc based console only to pull out last minuet leaving Sony with little choice but to launch the console themselves pretty much leading to the creation of what we now call the hardcore market, I won't mention that at all)

The Playstation brought a whole new breed of gamers to the games industry and offered them gaming experiences Nintendo wasn't, and that was fine Nintendo was doing their own thing appealing to their fans, why would they need to appeal to another fanbase that's already covered by another home console? The same goes for today, Nintendo is just doing their own thing like they have always done, Sony and Microsoft are taking care of the hardcore gamers, not only would it be completely unnecessary for Nintendo to attempt to compete, but it would mean financial suicide to drop their current fanbase and enter the mainstream market when they are clearly not equipped to appeal to hardcore gamers, I would rather Nintendo do what they do best than copy the success of another company only to fail.

The Wii's success during the last console generation can and should be attributed greatly to the casual market Nintendo themselves had a big hand in creating, they chose to grab the attention of an up and coming market because Nintendo know they are not equipped to appeal to the hardcore market, the vast majority of gamers suggesting that Nintendo should stop what they are doing and appeal to them are forgetting that Nintendo already have a large and very loyal fanbase, it may not be quite as large as Sony's or Microsoft but it's large enough to support them, Nintendo have also allowed a great many smaller gaming studios to develop IP's they simply could not have released on any other console for it just not being financially profitable and or the publishers weren't interested for lack of appeal from the mainstream, Xenoblade chronicles, The Last Story, the up and coming Bayonetta 2, Pandora's tower, those games that have been released in this list are great games, but simply would not find much of an audience anywhere else but on a Nintendo system.

We honestly don't need Nintendo to enter the mainstream, they have their place and they are doing just fine, all the articles and talk about the Wii U being "doomed" are missing the fact that no console sells well during January and/or Febuary, just look at at the PS Vita that's still selling poorly even with games like Assasins creed, Killzone and Ghost Recon.

The Wii U will most likely start picking up speed and selling better later on in the year, especially when Nintendo put their big guns out such as Zelda U, Metroid U, Pickmin U, Mario U and Monolith Soft's X, these may not appeal to many hardcore gamers but to Nintendo fans these are definitive console sellers.

Well I guess that's all I've got on this, I hope I made some good points or at least a bit of sense, I know Im bound to have a lot of gamers disagree with me but honestly, if you're happy with Sony or Microsoft then what do you need Nintendo for? If you're not already a fan of them then you probably never where or will be.

Anyway, thanks for reading my blog and please feel free to leave a comment but let's keep it clean, thanks.

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The games industry: Pushing consumers toward breaking point

I honestly believe as gamers we enjoy the best hobby available, video games.

Games, unlike most other forms of entertainment are capable of providing us with a combination of other great forms of entertainment, such as the cinematic experience of movies, the emotional depth and subtle sub text of music and the gripping plot lines, characters and unique worlds of classic story telling.

The classic games of the early 80's and the mid to late 90's where able to be fun and entertaining regardless of their technical limitations, creating great gaming experiences through original gameplay and memorable characters. Even to this day we experience incredible games that are able to push the boundaries of art and story telling, and immerse us in breathtaking and original worlds with memorable characters and original story lines.

With the help of advancing technology games have never looked better and with the next generation of games consoles currently on the horizon the possibilities for where gaming can take us next is near limitless.

That being said, as much as I love gaming there are some notable negatives, many of which have come about since gaming entered the main stream. Compared to 15 years ago games cost a ridiculous amount of money to produce/develop, mostly because of this many larger companies tend to shy away from developing mediocre titles that aren't practically guaranteed to be huge hits, and instead aim to create AAA games, a "AAA game" is a term used to describe a game with a huge production value, usually created in order to spark a franchise or as a continuation of one, the problem however is that when creating games with a huge budget developers tend to avoid taking risks and that can often lead to games becoming unoriginal and uninspired, the milking of popular franchises is a negative trend that all too many pubs/devs are responsible for, even just these two things alone are contributing greatly toward stunting the creativity in the games industry at large.

CoD, Gears of war, Assassins Creed and now even God of War, are amongst game franchises that many are saying are currently being put through the milking machine, in order for the pubs/devs to squeeze as much cash out of them as possible before the fanbase gets bored, now for a hardcore fan of a franchise it's all too easy to excuse this kind of behaviour especially while you're still enjoying the franchise, but that does beg the question, when should a game franchise be laid to rest? For example, GoW: Ascension, is it necessary? It's a question that is being thrown around quite a lot on the interwebs, and the fans of the franchise are almost unanimous in saying "yes, it is necessary" (usually along with some colourful uses of the English language) well, Im not about to argue with that, however I'll pose this question instead, how many more God of war games need to be made before a new game in the franchise isn't necessary? Before it becomes stale? Well, some would say that it's becoming stale now, I personally haven't played Ascension yet so I can't really comment either way, but having been gaming for over 20 years I've seen many games come and go and believe me the people in games industry will almost always milk a game franchise to death if you let them.

Remember Rockband and Guitar Hero from some years back? they where huge!, but EA and Activision milked them to death by applying crappy business practices (Like expansion packs sold at full retail price and by yearly sequels) that reap huge profits quickly but inevitably kill of a franchise due to over saturation, or better yet, to use the term Cevat Yerli of Crytek coined a week or two ago, it causes "Gamer Fatigue" ...Which Basically means gamers get bored of being fed the same thing over and over.

As if milking of popular franchises wasn't bad enough, gamers of today have to contend with, Online passes, locked on disc DLC, day one DLC, day one patches for broken games that absolutely should not have been on store shelves to begin with, microtransactions that exist to sell you content that was held back from the finished product just to be sold to you at a later date, coop modes being forced into franchises that don't require it isn't a negative in and of itself, but it becomes a negative when it starts to affect the main single player mode. Many could attribute Dead Space 3's rather lackluster single player campaign to that of probably being put to the side in favour of creating a more fun and enjoyable multiplayer/coop experience, is that a negative? Well if you're playing DS3 for the survival horror factor, yes it absolutely is a problem.

Just look at these recent examples of unacceptable business practices in the games industry, a few weeks ago we had Gearbox's absolutely appalling handling of the Aliens IP with Aliens: Colonial marines (we spent what was it? 6 years waiting for this game) The trailer looks great and the hype was at maximum, then the game gets released and it's broken and buggy, looks nothing like the trailer not to mention the graphics look 7 years old, (btw still waiting on that apology Geabox) and now we have Simcity 2013, DRM killed simcity, or at least pissed off a good portion of the fanbase, I may not be a huge sims fan but there are plenty out their, EA chose to limit the game to only being playable on their servers, the servers weren't up to it howerver which led to many people who bought the game being locked out of playing it, think about this for a moment, people spent their hard earned cash on a product that they couldn't even play because a company is forcing you to play on their serves, servers that we all knew where not up to the task, so you can prove to them that "you" purchased the game legally, what gull! that they should demand we prove ourselves to them when they can't even provide a service that actually allows us to play their game, it's absolutely unacceptable.

My point of this article is this, how much more are we willing to take? the games industry as it stands just keeps thinking up more ways to nickel and dime us, the consumers, we pay more now than ever, yet we also have more now getting in the way of us actually playing and enjoying games than we have ever had before, a lot of people who have gotten into gaming last gen probably don't mind so much since they are used to this crap and probably aren't even aware it's a problem, but mark my words it will only get worse if we let it and there is a breaking point, the games industry (the pubs/devs I mean) would do well to remember this and stop pushing the consumers until we hit breaking point and decide stop tolerating their mispractices and stop supporting them altogether.

Thanks for reading my blog, it's a bit of a rant I know but I feel I made some good points, or at least I hope so lol, anyway please feel free to leave a comment, thanks.

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Part 1. The greatest non lead female video game characters in supporting roles.

A fair warning, this blog is probably going to contain some heavy spoilers.

Again I am limiting my choices to female characters from games that I have personally played so as to ensure an accurate and personal examination.

First up. Princess Zelda from the critically acclaimed The Legend of Zelda franchise.

Oh, how I do love controversy. As most of you already know, Anita Sarkeesian has previously used Zelda in her example for Women in video games who are being wrongly misrepresented and/or are placed in submissive roles solely to be saved by a male hero, sadly it seems that some people simply want to over look and over think these things and imply negative connotations, however Zelda solely being a damsel in distress that needs rescuing by a hero is simply not the case and aim to prove it.

There is a lot to be said about Zelda, first of all the title of every game in the franchise bares the title, The legend of "Zelda" the fact that it contains Zelda's name and not Link's is a constant throughout the franchise, the title also implies that the story of each game is almost always about Zelda in one way or another.

Some of the best examples of Zelda in a supporting role (as far as Im concerned of course) are during such times in which she isn't even being referred to as "Zelda" but instead as either "Sheik of the sheikah tribe" or "Tetra a swashbuckling Pirate captain" yes, as well as being arguably two of the best Zelda games to date, Zelda also performs two of her best supporting roles in the LoZ: OoT aka "The legend of Zelda: Ocarina of time" and LoZ: WW aka The Legend of Zelda Wind Waker, however since I don't want this blog to turn out to be too long a read I'll be limiting this section to the Zelda from Ocarina of time. So, sorry Tetra fans...

I will try not to go into too much detail as there is a lot to work with.

During the events of Ocarina of time Link has a fateful meeting with Princess Zelda, where she informs him that she prophesied his arrival and that he will be the one to drive away the dark cloud that covered Hyrule when it appeared in her dream, and also that she believes the dark cloud represents the Gerudo Prince Gannondorf (Quite the shock for our young fairy boy I imagine, but he does have a giant spider under his belt so he's on a role).

Shortly after teaching Link "Zelda's lullaby" one of many songs Link will eventually learn from Zelda in the future, he heads off in search of the remaining Spirit stones that will enable them to enter the temple of time and retrieve the Triforce before Gannon can realise his evil plans. After securing the remaining Spirit stones Link returns to Hyrule castle, only to find that he is too late and that Gannondorf is making his move, Zelda manages to escapes on horseback with her bodyguard Impa but not before tossing her ocarina into the castle towns mote, after Link proves that he is currently no match at all for Gannondorf's dark magic the dark prince sets off in pursuit of Zelda, Link then retrieves Zelda's Ocarina, "the Ocarina of time" from the mote, once Link picks it up he envisions Princess Zelda, she then teaches him the Song of Time, to use in front of the alter in the Temple of Time.

After placing the Spirit stones in their proper places Link plays the song of time and the sealed doors open, inside the temple of time Link discovers the legendary master sword, the blade of evil's bain, however when he attempts to remove the sword from its pedestal he is cast into a 7 year long slumber, we learn here that Gannondorf secretly followed Link into the temple of time to steal the Triforce but was only able acquire the Triforce of Power, upon awaking Link meets the sage of Light who explains to him the events that have transpired during his slumber induced absence, he then sets Link off on a quest to awaken the remaining sages in order to stop Gannondorf, after exiting the previously sealed section of the temple of time Link encounters Sheik (a young man of the Sheikah tribe who is as wise as he is mysterious) for the first time, he then instructs Link to travel to the lost woods where Link will find the first Sage he must awaken.

Link encounters Sheik several times at key points during his adventure and is often taught by him an essential song he needs in order to make progress, as well as providing Link with wisdom, encouraging words and explanations to events that have transpired, Sheik continues to remain anonymous and avoids letting Link get too close, he proves time and time again to be a character that is integral to helping Link to overcome his obstacles and push on regardless of the challenges ahead.

After awakening all the remaining sages Link returns to the temple of time where Sheik appears to him yet again, however this time Sheik removes his disguise, informing Link that he, or rather she, was in fact Princess Zelda all along. Zelda then goes on to perform one of her most valuable roles in presenting to Link the Sacred Light arrows and informs him that their sacred light can pierce and destroy evil itself, shortly after this happy reunion however Ganondord traps Zelda in a magical crystal and spirits her away to his evil lair, Gannon's tower.

(Now some people have noted that Zelda being captured by Gannondorf here automatically labels her as being a typical "damsel in distress" I disagree, Gannondorf is trying to gain possession of the remaining pieces of the Triforce, the Triforce of Wisdom and the Triforce of Courage that Zelda and Link posses, it makes sense that he would use Zelda as bait to to draw link out and bring them all together so he can steal their pieces of the Triforce)

Anyway back to the events of the game.

So as most of us already know Link fights his way through the tower and defeats Gannondorf thanks to the sacred Light arrows bestowed upon him previously by Princess Zelda, they then both manage to escape the collapsing tower thanks in equal parts to Zelda's sorcery and Link's combat skills.

Gannondorf appears once again and makes one final attempt at destroying Link and Zelda by transforming into the huge hideous beast "Ganon" but in the end is finally defeated by a combination of Zelda's light magic and a finishing blow from Links Master Sword.

Zelda's final act is that of taking back the Ocarina of time from Link and sending him back in time to his original timeline where he is still a child, despite the fact Zelda obviously wants Link to stay by her side she decides to give him back the 7 years of his life that was taken from him, it's a very touching seen and helps highlight even more so the fact that Zelda does not allow personal feelings to cloud her judgement, she is strong and strong willed as well as wise, and this to me is why Princess Zelda is one of the best supporting female characters in gaming history.

Honourable mentions.

Tetra/Zelda, from The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker.

Zelda, from The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks.

Honestly I could have gone either way with Sheik & Tetra but as Ocarina was the first game I played and the first to show Zelda in such a great supporting role, I just had to pick Ocarina Zelda.

I'll follow up with Part 2 of this look at (The greatest non lead female video game characters in supporting roles) at a later date but for now thanks for reading my blog and if you like please feel free to leave a comment.

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My faith renewed in Sony.

I wish to confess now that some time ago, I committed one of gaming's cardinal sins, and for this I am truly sorry.

For I did dare bring up the lack of native BC (backwards compatibility) in regards to Sony's next generation console the PS4, as a negative.

Gaming's lord and saviour, the all mighty PS4, the 4th incarnation of our one and only true home gaming console, it is of course beyond criticism, for our great, powerful and wise lord Sony is love and by extension all that Sony produces and publishes is in fact love, and we must not question love but only openly and graciously accept it.

In my bout of madness the other day, I made accusations that the great and benevolent Sony's decision to neglect incorporating native BC into their new console was not due to the inevitable incredible pricing and/or superior advanced next generation architecture of PS4, but in fact was left out as an attempt to attack and eventually put an end to the vile tyrant that is 'the used games market' by making all previous games redundant, also seemingly making our investment in Sony's previous software near meaningless since any and all previous games in both their hard copy and digital forms will not be able to be carried over.

How blind I was to even consider this...

My eyes where opened to the truth however, in a dream, nay a vision, that I had only last night and now I will describe this vision and share a wondrous message with you all, from the great and all powerful Sony.

In my dreams last night a great and all encompassing light appeared to me, then in a voice that echoed to my very core it spoke "we are Sony" struck by awe and in my disbelief, I uttered "And what is it Sony would want with me?" The light suddenly began to shine brighter and brighter! Until the sheer sight of it was near blinding, then Sony spoke again "You dared to question our will, Sony's will, all previous software and hardware is inferior to PS4, PS4's software line up makes all previous software redundant " "But why?" why I asked " Why is BC not implemented into PS4 when both PS2 and PS3 supported it in the past?" "You still dare question us?!" Sony boomed in a near defending voice "Sony is absolute! Therefore PS4 is absolute!"suddenly a sea of fire appeared in front of me, the sound of screams and torture could be heard all around me "be you a non believer? Or heretic!?" asked Sony "do you wish to join those who follow Microsoft unto their eternal death mines of the Xbots and their cruel masters the mind corrupting, kineticans?!" "No!" I yelled "please save me from this pit of death and anguish" then the sea of fire disappeared only to be replaced by a white void of nothingness, eerily quiet, so quiet in fact I could hear my own breathing, my heart beating, the sounds of my stomach churning and my blood circulating through my body "This void is unbearable I cried "where is this?!", "pergintendo" answered Sony "where nothing fucking exists for true hard core gamers!".

"Oh great Sony" I screamed "please save me from this void of nothingness!" suddenly the void was replaced by the bright light once again. While I lay prostrated upon the floor basking in Sony's glorious light, Sony spoke once again "If you still require proof of our wisdom and benevolence then witness for yourself, gaze upon our creation in all Sony's glory, PS4!" Suddenly out of the light came a magnificent figure, wonderful, beautiful, breathtaking in it's majesty, and eerily familiar "Do you see now non believer?" "Look upon the fleshy lips of PS4's flesh disc tray, see for yourself PS4's pulsating cranium which houses it's built in next generation wifi and bare witness to the numerous fleshy tentacles! Each fitted with integrated mind melding technology capable of jacking into any human meat bags brain and projecting a gaming experience directly into the mind that is near indistinguishable from reality!" Sony proclaimed "look upon PS4! Look upon the form of my child, do you see? DO YOU SEE?! SEEEEEEEE!!!" "Yes! Yes I see!" I cried, my face drenched in tears of joy for I knew now my folly as I bared witness to Sony's true next generation games console, nay Sony's one and only augmented reality producing master pod, PS4!. "Go now" spoke Sony "tell all those who follow the word of Sony that they are soon to experience gaming like never before! There is no need for BC, for there will be no past nor future, but only the now! The Sony! The PS4!!!" Once our message was that of "it only does everything" but now with the advent of PS4 we have a new message to spread "PS4, it is everything!".

Then as if a bolt of lightning had shot through my body I awoke, in a cold sweat, tears streaming down my face, then I wondered "was it all a dream?" at that moment as if meant as an answer to my question, a voice echoed in my mind, go forth my disciple, join the likes of Kaz Hirai and spread word that the advent of a new world for gamers, nay for all, is coming and we will make even those who oppose us believe" at E3 2013 all will become clear...

And there you have it, Sony is all powerful and all knowing after all, and you would have to be complete idiot (or heretic) to even think of questioning them in even the slightest...

OK, this blog was going to be a rant on people just blindly accepting what publishers and developers do and even outright defending them based off of barely formed theories they've pulled out of thin air, but instead I went for a more satirical and humorous blog, it's just my way of poking fun at those of us who refuse to see or even question certain decision that any of the the big three make (Sony, Microsoft and/or Nintendo) the same goes for many publishers and developers for that matter (coff EA, Activision coff).

The satire ends here by the way. 

Thanks for reading.

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Two of the greatest female protagonists in the history of gaming.

A fair warning, this blog is probably going to contain some mild spoilers.

Since Anita Sarkeesian has yet again taken it upon herself to make all males who play games look bad, this time through a series of feminist videos apparently showing how women have been wrongly misrepresented over the years, I feel as a male gamer who has considerable knowledge of the medium that extends over 20 plus years, that I must set the record straight.

I've compiled here a list detailing two characters from games I have personally played and who I feel are very strong female leads.

First up. Samus Arran, from the critically acclaimed Metrod franchise.

Now, it is fair to say that Samus is pretty much always wearing her Chozo suit, except for in more recent games that for some reason over sexualise her, put her in a skin tight suit and have her looking like a blond barby doll... But I digress, throughout most of the games she stars in Samus is in the full body Chozo suit, that may seem to undermine the fact that she is in fact female, however (and stay with me on this) it actually does just the opposite and here's why, back when metroid was first released on the NES it was pretty much unheard of for a female character to be the main lead in any game and as far as metroid I can't personally remember a female lead character dating back as far as Samus Arran.

The things that are important to note here are that Samus is wearing full body armour, you can't see any of her feminine attributes, and the suit in no way try's to enhance or bring attention to, errm... Them, anyway the next thing we should all be completely aware of regarding Samus, is that she is in fact a total bad ass, disregarding her rather controversial portrayal in Metroid other M, she has for the most part been portrayed as a cool, calm and collected bounty hunter, she works alone (for the most part) and hunts one of the biggest known threats in the galaxy, Metroids.

Samus also has a long standing nemesis in the form of Ridley, a Space dragon, bird thingy... It breathes fire and it's cool so, anyway Ridley is arguably one of the best recurring bosses in any game franchise to date IMO, as well as a nemesis that simply refuses to die Samus also has to deal with the Space Pirates, who are trying to cultivate Metroids and turn them into bio weapons they can then use to gain dominance over the galaxy, and of course the Space pirates are lead by one of the all time best final bosses in video game history, Mother brain, which is a brain with legs, but not always, and that one time it was an android... But that's not important, what is important though is that "Mother" brain is also female, even if she is of an alien species she is the big baddy in control of everything, the two most important characters in Metroid are both female and for a game that was released all the way back on the NES that is a pretty big deal, and considering the popularity of the Metroid franchise it all goes to show that not only are strong, non submissive Women not absent in video games as far back as the NES they also have a very special place in gamers hearts male or female.

Next up. Lara Croft, from the critically acclaimed Tomb Raider franchise.

I'll get this out of the way first, I never really considered Lara Croft to be a sex object, at least not in my eyes, now you could probably attribute this to my age at the time of the 1st games release but even as I got older and Lara's chest became less triangular, the fact she had huge boobs and short shorts was never the reason I enjoyed playing Tomb Raider games.

When we first meet Lara she is a no nonsense, quick on the draw, bad ass archaeologist who is willing to do just about anything in order to explore tombs and get her hands on some rare artefacts, this is where Natla comes in, she makes Lara an offer she can't refuse by asking her to find a lost artefact known as the Scion, Natla inevitably turns out to be the villain and is after the Scion only to further her own evil schemes.

It is worth a mention that again both the main character and villain are of the female gender, maybe more research is needed to be done as to why this is such a common occurrence in video games with female leads, but not right now.

As well as being a great source of inspiration for many 3D action, adventure and/or platform games that followed on from its success, Tomb Raider may very well be the very first open world 3D action adventure platformer, it revolutionised level design, 3D platforming and set the standard for auto aim gun wielding mechanics which was quite a big deal back in the day, there are many other reasons why Tomb Raider was ground breaking back when it was originally released all those years ago, but for the sake of staying on topic, Lara Croft was and is still for many, the definitive video game heroine, whether or not Lara's sex appeal helped in solidifying her as (the) video game girl icon is debatable, what is not though is just how incredibly good many, if not most of the games she stared in where.

The original Tomb Raider had everything you could have asked for in a game, the fact that a strong female character like Lara Croft was the star truly made the whole game complete and sparked a love for an Icon that goes far beyond her physique.

I do plan to revisit this topic in the future as their are so many more great female characters to choose from, but for now I have rounded it down to the two I feel are most iconic and have really helped to usher in some truly great, strong female leads.

Im not really sure if I managed to get my point across, but what Im really trying to say here is regardless of all the negative tropes towards women in video games, many gamers have a lot of respect towards the opposite sex and we don't all see princesses and damsels in distress as an object that needs to be saved.

Considering how male dominated this medium tends to be and the sheer amount of sexist abuse some girl gamers tend to go through while playing online it's understandable why these issues of sexism and discrimination come up, but I would honestly like to believe those people offering only abuse are the vocal minority and I can tell you without a doubt they don't speak for everyone.

My next blog will probably be about great female characters who weren't necessarily the main characters but where just as integral to the plot of the games they are in if not more so.

Thanks for reading my blog and as always please feel free to leave a comment, thanks.

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