Welcome all

Hello all and welcome to my blog (this is one of the nicest things you will ever here me say), in which i will whine and be cynical about different things until you'll either want to put a bullet through your head or drown yourself in your own piss.


I am now Jooseman, the Artist formerly known as Jonith, and I have stopped using the name Jonith regularly (however do still have many accoun named Jonith, so go by both) as it got confusing, So call me Jooseman or Joose or whatever. Call me TwatBucket if it pleases you.

Our Youtube Channel
Rants up on this blog on Friday if I've done one, just too add a little bit of schedule here.

Anyway thats all from me, and also check out Rofling Officer Productions. He is a collaborater of mine.

Saturday 26 November 2011

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 Rant

Dan: Another year, another map pack. Except a bit bigger this time. Modern Warfare 3 is fucking fucking fucking awful, the worst game I have played this year. It took everything that Black Ops changed about the CoD formula (admittedly not much) and destroyed it, instead releasing Modern Warfare 2 again. The Multiplayer is identical, the campaign is barely interactive, too short, has a ridiculous and retarded story and is as boring as ever.

Without further ado:


Campaign!

Dan: I thought arcade rail-shooters were a thing of the past, but they make a full return here in Modern Warfare 3. Every move you make (every breath you take) is scrutinised by the game before you can do it, and 9/10 they'll refuse to let it happen. Say I want to scout ahead of my squad to check the enemy positions, if I go too far ahead of them, I'll fail the mission. I can't open doors, so I can't flank enemies and so on. Not to mention how the game falls ill to the Black Ops problem of being designed by a 5 year old playing with his toy soldiers. Everything on screen explodes at some point, and whenever something isn't exploding it's building up to something exploding. Every section I played (controlling a drone, manning a minigun) all started with an actor half-heartedly saying: "Yuri! Get on tha' minigun!", and ended with it exploding and blood splashing onto my eyes like I've got sunglasses on. The shooting hasn't changed at all, there are no good changes to note really, except maybe Strike Packages, but that's for the multiplayer segment.

The story is 69 kinds of oral sex, that is to say shit. It feels like they interviewed an 8 year old with what his perfect story would be with loads of explosions and deaths and things falling over (it'd be alright if people cared, but when the Eiffel Tower falls over no one gives a shit), then animated the notes. It's both ludicrous and incredibly basic. There are no plot twists at all, it'd be like building up to a titanic boss fight and then he just slips on a stone and dies (which is almost what happened in Fable 2). I could forgive almost all of this, all of it, IF THE GAME HADN'T RECYCLED SET PIECES FROM PAST GAMES. That's the unforgivable part. The favela level is copy and pasted here twice, and then theres Gulag 2: A Castle This Time.

I think Modern Warfare 3 is the unholy offspring of arrogance and laziness. Infinity Ward have become cocky... cocks. They think just releasing the identical game again and again, year in year out, is acceptable. Well it fucking isn't. Yet another thing that annoys me about this game is that it's selling millions upon millions of copies, encouraging Infinity Ward and Treyarch to just rinse and repeat with Call of Duty. Imagine if that spreads to Valve like an STD in a brothel, soon Team Fortress 3 will be released but is a cover shooter with realistic graphics and you have to pay £12 for a handful of maps ARRRGGGHGGHAG{ O@GAUEGUKGEFILYGAYG!YILG!O@!GHGAFO!

Now then, rage from me over, John's turn:

John: The story of Modern Warfare 3 appears to have been written by George Bush if he had ADD, it jumps around more than a frog with a stick up its arse, and there are more explosions than a firework factory run by Bomberman. The story starts in India before inexplicably jumping to America, and then back to India, and then to Russia and then to Sierra Leone and then to London and then to Germany and then to Somalia and then to Paris and then to Russia and then to Dubai... God that list is less tedious to read than playing the damn game and probably more interactive as well. The story is Russia invade the world (and by world I mean America), you stop them, then some Russian guy you hate because he refused to share sweets when you where kids tries to blow up the world... Explosion. That's the background of the whole story. Then you and Phileas Fogg go on a trip to kill him, who at this point is probably twirling his moustache and laughing manically

It's obvious their trying to give a "realistic" impression of war, but this is only realistic if war was a rollercoaster designed by Michael Bay. At one bit, the Eiffel Tower collapses, the characters are so nonchalant about it, I think if the world had blown up, they wouldn't bat an eyelid. It is at that point I decided the game had gone from shit to being a huge sign saying "FREE CHOCOLATE FROM LOOKING AT THESE EXPLOSIONS!!! BOOM, EXPLOSIONS ARE COOL!!" The game appears to have been created from levels trying to outdo the last for explosions and Magnostruction (a combination of Magnitude and destruction... Making up words is fun.) In all honesty, these explosions look shit anyway, especially considering that the engine was probably created from sticking a paperclip in some bluetack.

Then you have the points where it becomes a movie, and by those points I mean the whole game. The amount of times it takes control away from you is astonishing; I'm playing a game not watching Team America. But even if you do get control of your character, it doesn't stop the lack of control. I can't even open doors on my own for Christ sake. I only have 4 explanations for this, 1. My characters actually been lobotomised and forgotten how to use a door handle, 2. My character is so low in rank if he dares open a door he's be court-martialled and even probably shot due to treason and reasons of national security, 3.The developers are worried I would walk through a door and step into Narnia or the land of strippers and 4. The developers think we're retarded so want to hold our hands in case we get lost in their grey corridor of "fun" (and by fun I mean utter boredom.) If I was them I'd put signs over every door saying that through them are the "Chocolate Lands" or the "Unicorn and Puppy Sanctuary."

And on the subject of doors, why are they indestructible other than with the plot convenience explosive devices, which also seem to turn you into an X-Man for 10 seconds. Why aren't we making Tanks or Jets out of doors if they're so indestructible. Get on that US Military.

Now I think we should talk about "that level", you know the one where the kid dies. I don't know what the developers where trying to show at this point, but it seems more pointlessly added in than if they had a level where Captain Price is molested by a Silverback Gorilla. My reaction on that level was just to search it for anything generically British, just so Americans could actually recognise it was in London. Also this and the previous level also show how retarded the terrorists are, and how they only succeed in these attacks due to how even more Brain Dead the Special Forces are. Seriously who believes that a truck with the words "Charity International" on it are actual Charity Truck.

Now to round off my views on it. It's a boring round the world trip, with generic, guessable moments which were supposedly shocking, but failed at that due to my lack of caring about the characters, and how cliché and forced out the subsequent dialogue was.


Special Ops!

Dan: Special Ops, or Spops for short, was without doubt, the best part of Modern Warfare 2. And it was the part people took the least notice of. The missions were short and satisfying, especially playing them with a friend (which is unfortunate as I don't have any). Admittedly some missions were shit, an example being the ones with Ghillie snipers whose scopes flashed like the Paparazzi had just seen Lady Gaga's cock. But what are they like this time around?

Well, they're exactly the same. The difference between this and the situation with the Multiplayer and Campaign, is that they're still fresh enough to enjoy. The survival mode is also a step up from the incredibly monotonous Zombies mode when it takes about 15 rounds to get going and then you find out it's shit anyway. The Spops missions are pretty fun, with a nice variety of styles and objectives to complete. There are some I wanted to go stealth on but since the game is so scripted I wasn't allowed to, and every enemy in the current solar system homed in on me if I so much as blinked. So yeah, other than a few scripting issues (AGAIN!) the missions in Spec Ops are very good. Moving on...

Spec Ops survival. A better, more frantic Zombies mode to be honest. It is a good step, using Predator drones and stuff like that instead of listen to vaguely racist Russian stereotypes drink vodka while you barricade a window for the squillionth time. It still takes ages to get going, with the first five rounds basically sending about 5 men at you and patronising me to the level I wanted to play Multiplayer and get called a "n00b" by 12 year olds.

But this is all irrelevant. Even though this is the best part of the game, people don't give two yellow shits about it. It's all Multiplayer. Speaking of that...


Multiplayer!

John: The Modern Warfare 2 multiplayer is boring. All it involves is you running around, before being shot by some hacker from underneath the map while he shoves his metaphorical cock down your mouth.... Wait this is Modern Warfare 3, oh sorry, well easy mistake to make.

So other than a few changes, and by changes I mean the equivalent of somebody untying their shoelace to seem different, this is more similar to the online in (Insert any Call of Duty game here.) And as this is a Call of Duty multiplayer, it requires so little skill to play, a tree stump could do well... while blindfolded. Which to be honest is a good thing in a way, because requiring skill from the Call of Duty community would be like trying to have them explain to you what puberty is.

As this game is made using 7 year old technology, the game creaks like a lose floorboard in a haunted house, at times you feel like a lone hamster is just holding the graphics together. And then as most people will have bought this on console, you also have an aim assist helping you to kill somebody because 1. You're multiplayer character is probably augmented so can have his robot arms move the gun around, and 2. Playing shooters with a gamepad is like trying to play a racing game with your nob.

Modern Hackfest 3 has the 12 year olds that we all love, (groan) telling us that they fucked our mother last night. This seems to represent skill now a days, in the same way that Skill is also probably measured in how many times you can walk into a wall, or how many times you can stab yourself with a glass bottle.

These "highly skilled" players seem to believe that getting a high amount of kills, with a good kill to death is the ubër way of playing the game... Because you know, in team based games I always love the feeling of not being able to win due to a retarded team, it would be like having John Prescott on your football team for Christ sake. On a game mode like domination I would much rather have somebody who goes 5/10 but caps the control points often, rather than somebody who goes 20/1 but is sat at home shitting himself and crying to his mum while he does nothing for the team because he hasn't got the brain to comprehend anything other than himself.

It doesn't help that less is done to help this than is done to give Dust Mites the vote, and the support packages only helped a little, (Dan will talk about them) but the quickest way to level is to play these games in completely the wrong fashion, which is awful, it would be like the quickest way to cure an STI is to infect yourself with AIDS.

No matter what, this is still better than the Multiplayer of Black Ops, which was the equivalent of having my balls attacked by a rabid hamster. It was awful.

My rant is over now, Now Daniel can explain strike packages and other crap.


Dan: Let's get one thing clear from the start: this is NOT a new multiplayer. This is a patch for Modern Warfare 2 that gives some more maps. It's a £45 map pack. There are minimal gameplay improvements, literally identical interface to Modern Warfare 2. Death streaks are back. Fucking death streaks. The feature that rewards people for being dreadful at the game. The idea behind it is to "get someone who is shit back into the action", but 1) That is an awful idea, it gives no one the incentive to stop being 12 and awful and 2) The death streaks were things like "Run faster for 10 seconds... IT TAKES 10 SECONDS TO GET INTO THE FIGHT. Most are literally useless, and not to blow my own trumpet but I haven't used one yet. There is no need for them, they are awful.

The "new" game modes are either re-hashes of previous game modes crossed with another, and "Kill Confirmed", which would be a good idea if every FPS since the original Counter-Strike hadn't used it. You shoot someone and grab their dog tags to confirm the kill, at which point your announcer... announces "KILL CONFIRMED". Since he announces it with every single tag collected you'll be playing on mute within 2 minutes just to avoid the constant "Kil- kill con- kill confir- kill" like your listening to an awful remix in a montage, you wanker.

As you can tell, I hate montages. Why would you want to look up how other people play their game and record it because they're smug idiots, JUST PLAY THE DAMN GAME YOURSELF. You'll (probably) have more fun, and if you get a decent kill (I say you, but if your on console it'll be your auto-aim) you'll feel much more superior than those montage wankers like Zzirgrizz.

The Strike Packages seemed like a good idea to me, but they're awful in real life. The Assault package just let's you unlock overpowered rewards you can pelt at people to kill them, because skill is overrated, so just as shit as ever. The Support package's gimmick is that when you die, your killstreak doesn't reset. So it isn't a streak then. To balance this out, the rewards are dreadful. The Juggernaught springs to mind, which makes you nigh-on indestructable while you unfairly rack up kills. Specialist package is yet another way for the game to be imbalanced. People get more and more perks for getting kills, so you can have a guy charging around at double speed with double health and extra bullet damage. There's not even anything to balance this out, say taking their radar off. No, if you're up against this guy, your only viable tactic is camp or quit.


CONCLUSION, YAY!!!! (I wanted it to sound important)

John: So their finishes our rant on the annual Call of Duty game, which is more of a definite than me being Cynical. So next year, when they release more than likely Black Ops 2, (and make me pray that the end of the world in 2012 was real) you will more than likely watch a movie instead of a singleplayer, with the most interactive experience you will perform is having to press a button every 5 minutes asking if you're sure you don't want to play online. Also zombies will be back, which is pointless, I think they should have a mode where we fight wves of snowmen who just want to be friends. I'm also going to call on a Call of Duty MMO now, it's almost a definite, the charge could be you getting violently sodomised twice a month and millions would still play it. Goodbye for now, and expect a Skyrim review (As it would be more like a love letter than a rant) sometime in the next couple of weeks.

Sunday 20 November 2011

Welcome to-Indie Royale Bundle 1

Today, dear invisible people who I wish read this Ranting Page. This is me bringing back my Rant "series" named Welcome to... About different Indie Games, which I started longer ago than it took for a Kardashian Marriage to finish, about World of Tanks.

I support indie Games, I don't know why most are crapper than a man who raps about the letter C, but I believe, as a gamer, it is my duty to help out Indie Developers and hope that some of them become a success story. This is why regularly I buy them on Steam with as much greed as an overweight Koala. And occasionally I do come across a gem of a game that I believe a lot more people should play, especially as most cost less than a blowjob from a vacuum cleaner.

And I'm not just talking about games like Minecraft, which became a success in a more amazing story than an erotic fiction book written by J.R.R Tolkien. No I'm talking about the ones which haven't been as much of a success, for example Dwarfs!? (Starring Simon from the Yogscast) which is more about Dwarfs than a program about Warwick Davis. It is for this reason I believe people should buy these games more, instead of just the big releases which cause more inflation of Hype than a Hot Air Balloon being blown up by an American Blow Job Dispenser.

So step in first the Humble Indie Bundle, and now the Indie Royale Bundle. These are bundles of Indie games which you can pay your own price for, from the cheapskate cunts who are a bigger disgrace to gaming than the person who made Muslim Masscare, until you get to the people who pay a hundred or Thousands of pounds to support the companies more than Viagra. In the Indie Royale Bundle all the money also goes to the developers. Now lets beging with the first game A.R.E.S. (By the way, I paid £10 for the bundle.)

A.R.E.S

Oh god it's a weird form of anime... Like all anime then but without the tentacle sex. So welcome to, what at the moment, appears to be the worst game in this bundle, and if I was caught saying that in Japan I would probably be lynched, more than likely from being strangles by school girls' underwear (oh family racist stereotypes.) It involves Robots kidnapping some woman you care less about than you care about than a fallen banana. So it's up to you, a cunt in a generically bad ass suit to go and save her.

It's a sidescrolling game, with guns which feel worse to shoot than a water pistol filled with bricks, and it causes more boredom than a dead squirrel, so I will probably never play this game again. And neither should you, unless you want to give yourself serious brain damage.

Sanctum

I know less about this game than I do about quantum physics, because to get the most fun out of it you need to play co-op, and I have no friends because I consider them more infuriating than a back rub from a jellyfish.

If you want to know about the game though, it is a co-op, first person, Tower defence shooter, in which you have to defeat waves of enemies before they get to your core, which seems to attract more people than a brothel. That is all I know about this game.

Gemini Rue

This was supposedly the best game of the bundle, and from what I've read on Rockpapershotgun, is widely acclaimed. But I hate Point and Clicks, I may as well have been asked to animate the sex life of Glenn Beck for how much I hate these games, but I played it anyway.

First thing I noticed was the art style, which fit the game extremely well, and from what I saw of the storyline, it was extremely interesting, but then we got to the point and click parts.

Playing a point and click game is like seeing a PowerPoint presentation designed by Stephen Hawking just to piss people off. They involve you clicking on random things on the screen until you break your mouse and have a stroke. There is absolutely no immersion, and you eventually resort to having to interact stupid stuff with other stupid stuff, for example Can this Condom kill a rat holding a grenade while wearing a top hat.

I left this game feeling bored, annoyed and angry, why the hell do people like Point and Clicks, do you also like getting a back massage from Freddy Krueger?

Nimbus

And now we get to the best game of the Bundle by a long way. It is a strange Race/puzzle game, in which you have to get to the end of the level by just bouncing yourself off of the different objects. It is extremely fiddly to control, and can be infuriating at times, but that all adds to the appeal of the game,

The game has a great art style, which is extremely shiny and glossy, like a mirror covered in varnish, and is an easy game just to go into and play, so go get it, or don't, because to be honest even after all this i'd rather spend £5 on other better games.