Arkham Knight Fiasco and Warner Bros. Shadiness

So Arkham Knight isn't living up to the  hype that it promised. Now, I'm not going to talk about the gameplay but from what I've heard, it's quite mediocre. However, what I'm going to be talking about is the controversy. In fact, there was controversy even before the game released. At the last minute. Warner Bros. cancelled the $200 collectors edition (called the Batmobile Edition) of the game which included the game, a limited edition comic, a concept art book, a new 52 skin pack for Batman and Batmobile statuette that could actually transform. And guess what, no refunds. Warner Bros. said they cancelled it because the company they outsourced the project to didn't live up to their quality standards but this raises some interesting questions. For example, why did you cancel at the last minute? You've offered pre-orders for a long time now so why come out and say that the quality isn't good only a few days before release? I mean, you literally had almost an entire year to manufacture these things, that's probably enough time to see if the products meet your 'quality standards'. Also, DC comics make a lot of statuettes and comics and the such, so why did you outsource instead of just asking DC to make it? Don't tell me you couldn't because Warner Bros. OWNS DC. Anyway, they tried to apologise by allowing anyone who bought the Batmobile Edition to get the new 52 skins for free. But lets be honest here, what did you spend $200 for, the New 52 skins or the Batmobile. I mean, it's called the Batmobile Edition, not the New 52 Edition whatever, to the rest of us who learned that it's a horrible idea to pre-order, we don't care. We only care if the game itself is any good. And here's where the second controversy comes in, the PC port. While the game runs fine on consoles, it runs horribly on PC. So basically, one-third of your customers can't even play the game. I've seen videos of it on Youtube and let me tell you, games on my second hand mac run faster than that. Now, Warner Bros. has released some tips to get the game running properly (which basically result to turn it on and off again until it works) but it hasn't worked for a lot of people. In fact, some people complaint the game actually runs SLOWER after following the tips. So they took the most logical course of action, they removed the game from Steam, said they'd put it back when it runs better, and offered refunds to anyone who bought the game on Steam. Quite honestly, this is the best thing they could have done. If they just left it there, it would be seen as Warner Bros. not caring about their customers and if they offered release updates over time, people would have complained that it's either taking too long or not making a difference. However, this doesn't satisfy everyone. For example, people who bought physical copies of the game aren't allowed to get refunds. However, I have to say, Warner Bros. is really acting like the bigger man here. Most companies when put in this situation would just go "Well deal with it, we already have your money so we don't care" so I'm glad they decided to respond maturely. However I do have to ask, how did the PC version get past your 'quality standards' but not the Batmobile Edition? Now I have no evidence supporting this and it's just mere speculation but what if it's just one big money grab using the Batman Arkham licence. I mean, I'm pretty sure hardcore fans would definitely negate their common sense and pre-order the game despite previous examples telling us why thats a bad idea. So it's not that impossible to say that they managed to make up for development fees with the pre-orders and save money by not giving us the product while allowing the PC version to be released as to get more money and when people point out that it's not what they were promised, they play the refund card to seem like the bigger man. Now again this is just speculation but that's not to say it's impossible. In fact, it's happened before. When the company Creative Assembly announced they were making a new Total War game (one of the best strategy franchises of all time) people were excited. However, they put 2 factions everyone wanted to play as (Sparta and Athens) behind a pay wall and said that you can get them if you pre-ordered the game. Now fans of the franchise almost instantly pre-ordered the game and wouldn't you know it, they managed to cover development fees and then some before the game came out. So developers didn't really have any incentive to make the game any good for when it hit the shelves and when people saw the product they just went back to playing older Total War games. If nothing this just shows why you shouldn't pre-order games or get them day one. You never know if your pre-order gets cancelled or if your game is a buggy piece of trash. Let's just hope we the consumers learn this fast because as of now, these are practices that aren't going away.

Sword Art Online Review: Was it really that good?

  Now, we all know the show Attack on Titan right? If not then you obviously don't spend a lot of time on the internet. However, for us who DO know, we all know you have to fall into 2 separate camps of thought, you hate it or you love it, there's no middle ground. Now while this kind of separation is nothing new, it did remind me of an old anime my friends always wanted me to watch back in 2012. That anime, ladies and gentlemen, is Sword Art Online.  While this show was praised heavily by critics and viewers alike, it never really captivated me. Hell, at the time I only watched 3 or 4 episodes. But now, 3 whole years later, I decided to watch the show through the magical powers of the internet. So now, after 3 years, does this sow still hold up? Well let's get right into the review to see if this supposed classic of an anime stood the test of time.

THE SETTING

  Well, first let's talk about the setting of the show. Truth be told, this is where the show shines the most. The show takes place in Sword Art Online, a Virtual Reality MMORPG which is like every gamers wet dream. However, people soon realise that they cant log out. It turns out that Akihiko Kayaba, the game's developer, intentionally did that and the only way to get out of the game was to beat it. But here's the catch, if you die in the game, you die in real life. It's now a high stakes game of life or death.

THE CHARACTERS

  Now, you'd think that with a premise like that that this show would be awesome right? Well sadly, aside from the premise and another thing I'll mention later, this show manages to be surprisingly horrible. Let's start with the characters. First off is our male lead Kirito. Kirito is an obsessed male Japanese video gamer who plays video games to escape the real world and plays solo in an MMORPG, a game designed to be played multiplayer. Now, what really bugs me about this guy is how perfect he is. There seems to be no problem that can harm him because he gets all the best weapons, skills and is somehow a higher level than most people despite the fact he plays solo and without a party, something anyone who's ever played an MMO will tell you is impossible. He even manages to do things even the game's creator says should be impossible and throughout the series even develops a surprisingly large group of girls who are in love with him. Yeah I'm talking cat-girls, girls who I swear are 8 years old and even his own cousin. Let me say that again, his own cousin. What makes even less sense is how all these girls fall for the anti-social loner Kirito for no discernible reason what so ever. Overall, his character is too perfect to be interesting or enjoyable. I swear, this guy should be used in writing classes as an example of how NOT to write a character.

  Next up is Asuna, Kirito's main love interest in the show. She actually seem starts off as a pretty strong character. She's a new player of SAO but still manages to be a complete badass and even helps Kirito beat the first boss of the game. But after that, her character just goes downhill. She turns out to be just another generic tsundere who can't do anything meaningful or important without the help of her husband (and yes,they do get married in game despite they only being 17 years old). Her romance with Kirito in it's self is also pretty horrible. I could never see their chemistry and it was so forced it felt like it was written by an angsty teenage twilight fanfic writer. The romance itself progressed so fast it was actually painful too watch. Like, Kirito went from friend zone to husband in the span of 2 episodes. In the end, she was nothing more than a plot device. This is made no more apparent than in the second half of the series, where the main story arc is that she's a damsel in distress who needs to be saved by her husband.

THE STORY

 Another area Sword Art Online just drops the ball is story. While the ideas are good the way they're told is horrible. For example. the pacing of the story makes no sense. The first few episodes take place over the span of 2 years with several months left in between episodes. Also the focus is just all over the place. The first few episodes established that clearing the game would require a lot of sacrifice and hardship to do and were some of the actual good episodes of the series. Everything after that, however, never manages to expand the tone of the original episodes and instead focus on boring side stories that go nowhere and involve everything from fishing to even adoption (again, YOU'RE BOTH 17 YEARS-OLD!!!). Also, the main conflict of the story is solved with a deus ex machina that's never explained or mentioned ever again. I have to say though, the action scenes in this show are some of the best I've seen in a long time. You can really feel the impact of every hit and it never failed to amaze me. The music is also really great, boosting the urgency and awesomeness of each battle but the soundtrack itself isn't all that great. It only sounds good when theres an action scene going on. Otherwise, it's mostly forgettable.

However, no matter how you put it, the ending of the first half satisfied no one. Here we finally learn that Kayaba forgot his own motives. That's right ladies and gentlemen, our villain went through all that trouble to acomplish something he doesn't even remember. Overall though, I feel like the 1st half of the show was okay and if they ended it there, it would have been remembered as goofy but ultimately harmless. The writing and story were pretty bad but the action made it at least tolerable. The 2nd half however is where the show becomes completely unwatchable. First off, it takes place in another game, so it removes the whole life and death aspect which takes away all the tension that the 1st half had so it feels more like watching a bunch of really  intense role-players. Also, since the entire story of the second half is based on a love story which was never really interesting in the first place, it's hard to get invested in this story line. They even introduce a new villain who is even worse than Kayaba. He's a middle aged man with an interest in Asuna. That's it. That's his character. By the way, he's also only beaten by an unexplained deus ex machina.

FINAL THOUGHTS

This show is a prime example of wasted potential. It has good premise and ideas that sadly ultimately fall flat. It's riddled with awful writing and character and deus ex machinas that put the eagles from Lord of The Rings to shame. Despite this, is it really any wonder why this show got popular? Being a badass stuck in a video game with loads of woman in love with you is the not-so-secret fantasies of most gamers out there and Sword Art Online knows how to deliver.  However, if you don't have some sort of power fantasy, this shows really not for you. All the bad outweigh the good in this potentially good show. Seriously, what did we see in this show back in 2012?

Advanced Wars 2 Black Hole Rising Review: Best GBA game ever

Anyone who's ever called themselves a gamer  should know (and I mean should know) about the Nintendo Game Boy. The Nintendo Game Boy, for those who don't know, was one the first major hit portable game consoles. It sold millions and Nintendo quickly saw a new cash-cow on they're hands. Fast forward to 2001 (or 2004 if you're Chinese) and Nintendo has just released the Game Boy Advanced, the successor to the Game Boy Color, which was a successor to the original Game Boy. Growing up, the GBA was my only video game console. As such, it holds a special place in my heart (even if my GBA doesn't work anymore). Now, my favorite game on the GBA was a little game called Advanced War 2.  While Advanced Wars 2 was met with critical acclaim, the series never really got anywhere. I mean, sure they had sequels on the Nintendo DS but the Advanced Wars series as a whole never got any mainstream attention. And, that got me wondering, why? Why is it so overlooked and, more importantly, what can I do to change that? Well today, I'm going to review this game and show you why I hold it to such high regard.

Advanced Wars 2 is a turn-based strategy game, and what would a strategy game be without units. One of the most enjoyable aspects of this game is the unit variation. All units are special and balanced, so, even in the late game, you will still be using units that were available at the start of the game. However, units don't last forever. If they keep on fighting, they will run low on ammo, fuel or rations. This will make them sitting ducks for the enemy. This is where another one of the games strategic elements come in, logistics. You need to bring that unit to it's respective building (Airport for air units, harbor for ships, etc.). However, in the heat of battle, this is can become impossible. So you need to use a special units to refuel them. The problem is that these units can't fight so you need to strategise on how to get them to their target without dying.

Another great feature the game has are CO Powers. Each commanding officer (or CO) have their own special CO Power which have different effect. These effect can range from a healing effect to a damage increase. However, while you can just use the CO Power when the bar fills up, use can wait a few more turns for it to charge up even more.  This means you need to switch up your tactics depending which CO you play as. When you are 100% charged, you can use the Super CO Powers. The Super CO Powers are much more power than the normal CO Power, usually having the same effect but to a much higher degree. However, you can't always rely on your CO Powers as they take a while to charge up and it's not really a good idea to use it once it's ready. However, when executed correctly, the CO Powers can turn a near defeat to a victory.

Now, as much as I love this game, there is one glaring problem that can't go unnoticed, the AI. While it is anything but terrible, the AI makes some truly downright idiotic decisions. Sometimes, they make a soldier who had his entire squad killed go 1 on 1 with a tank. Sometimes, they attack my refuelling unit when they could have taken over my HQ. Sometimes, instead of being sneaky with their submarines, you know like keeping the underwater, they just send their subs at me completely out in the open like they were freaking boats. I could go on and on about the AI but honestly, most of the time, you wouldn't notice any problems with the AI. The reason I've encountered so many hilarious AI slip-ups is because I keep on playing the game over and over again so stuff like this has a higher chance of happening.

Now the final thing I'd like to talk about is length, and holy cow is this game long! Not only does it have a campaign, but it also has non-campaign missions and multiplayer. Oh, and don't worry if you don't have a GBA link cable, you can just pass one gameboy back and forth whenever your opponent finishes a turn. If you're anything like me, this game will be with you for years. In fact, while writing this review, I was playing Advance Wars 2. I probably still am by the time you're reading this review.

So there you have it, Advance Wars 2, a fun, criminally underrated game which was undoubtedly one of Nintendo's best sleeper hits. So, if you have a GBA laying around go buy this game. But, if you don't have a GBA, don't worry, it's on the WiiU virtual console for download. BUT, if you still don't have any of those, you can do it the old fashioned (*cough*Illegal*cough*) way, and download right of the internet. Heck, you can even do this with your iPad or iPhone if you jailbreak. So what are you waiting for? Go get Advance Wars 2 right now. Like, right now. I'm serious, get of your computer and go get it right now.