I will survive

Lately I have been playing multiplayer Project Zomboid with some friends. It's a zombie survival game and it is really good. But there is one problem. It's not finished yet.

The zombie apocalypse survival genre is currently extremely popular and there are dozens and dozens of games out there. From the accomplished like Dying Light (crap ending and all) to cheaply thrown together Unity asset “games”, there's no shortage of titles to choose from if the idea of running around and trying not to become fodder for the ever growing army of the undead sounds appealing to you.

Of course there are other games in the survival genre as well. Games like The Forest (run around a forest dodging cannibals) and Stranded Deep (run around tropical islands dodging sharks) and The Long Dark (run around in snow dodging wolves) run the high end of the genre, but there are currently seventeen pages of survival games on Steam alone. So if you want to test yourself against the elements and some kind of enemy trying to eat you that's not a necessarily a zombie, you can.

But before you do, there is one thing every survival game must have, and most currently don't, and that's an end game.

To be fair, games like Project Zomboid are usually indie developed and that often means that they lack money and manpower. This in turn means that it takes time to finish the game and the Zomboid guys have done an amazing job so far. The problem is that the game becomes pointless after a while if you can't win somehow.

Sure, it's fun to see how long you can survive and how many zombies you can stomp to death before succumbing, but how many times can you be bothered to restart again?

The crux of the matter lies in the core of survival:

1. Find shelter
2. Fortify said shelter
3. Stock up on rations
4. Wait

But if point number 4 never happens, you have ultimately nothing to do in the long run. So you start to take stupid risks in order to be entertained, which is why you play games to begin with.

I really like the survival genre, and if you find a game you think looks interesting, maybe support the developer, but playing an unfinished survival game is kinda nuts, because you can't ultimately survive it.

Until next time, have a great week!

Summer (sale) is over

The Steam Summer Sale is almost over for 2015. As I write this, the Encore Deals have seven hours left.

It's been a good sale though. I picked up a couple of games that I've been meaning to get in order to play with friends, like the Steampunk airship combat game; Guns of Icarus. I got to try it yesterday and it's really cool.

I also went totally retro with The Last Door, a horror point and click adventure game that makes the original Monkey Island look sophisticated graphically. But for having such incredibly simple graphics it really carries a potent punch when it comes to atmosphere and story. Very cool game.

Apart from rounding out my collection on a couple of points, the one event this sale that stood out was Grand Theft Auto V. Now I had the game already, but I decided to pick up a good deal on cash cards for GTA Online. However it didn't work. Annoying as this was, a quick email to Rockstar sorted it out in a couple of days. They apparently had a lot of trouble with this, since a cursory glance at their troubleshooting page found well over 600 people with the same problem I had. But it's all good now though.

All in all it was a good sale, but perhaps a bit underwhelming. This can of course be my own fault for being too picky and stingy. Who knows, but it's always fun to refresh the page and see what's on sale.

That's it for today. I'm pretty busy but hopefully I'll have something better next time.

So until then, have a great week!

Bethesda has really done it now!

When Bethesda announced that they would have a press conference at E3 this year the speculations started to buzz like flies.

At the forefront was Fallout 4 which has now been confirmed, it's even in the Steam store... Other speculations were Dishonored 2, the new Doom and Elder Scrolls 6.

It's not Elder Scrolls 6. But it's everything else!

I just sat down with a cup of coffee and had my mind blown. I'll link the videos down below due to work safety concerns, but wow...

OK, focus.

First off, the rumor that you wouldn't be able to play as a female in Fallout 4 is firmly squashed. You can indeed play female, and the character creation is perhaps the best I have seen so far. It is absolutely gorgeous. So just as I was coming down from that, I saw the building video. Yes, you can create your own houses, even an entire settlement complete with resources you can trade. Then you can set up turrets to defend it all from raiders. But if you don't want to build you don't have to. It's all up to you.

I'm very excited. And it seems like it'll be out in November, but I'm not 100% on that yet.

Now, Dishonored 2.

Oh yeah, this is going to be good. You play as either familiar Corvo or as Emily Kaldwin. Every one who played Dishonored 1 should know that name, right?

It seems that the Outsider has given her an entire new set of skills unlike what Corvo has. And it looks good. The game looks so gorgeous it belong in a museum. Not much to tell about the story yet, but damn it, I'm already hooked.

Finally Doom.

I was a huge Doom fan back in the day. The action, the demons, the setting. All of it spoke to me and I blew the ever-loving hell out of those levels both in Doom 1 and 2. Doom 3 didn't excite me that much, in fact I never finished it. Maybe I'm not really that into FPS's anymore or maybe it was the lack of light that made Doom 3 so uninspiring to me, but this new Doom does look good. It's slated for release in 2016, so plenty of time.

E3 has only just begun, but I'm having a hard time thinking about what the other companies are going to do to have even a chance against Bethesda this year. All I can say is:

Shut up and take my money already!

Here are the videos:

Fallout character creation:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jXzlkJEUPDs

Fallout Building:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oj06B-QQJTM

Dishonored 2:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UnsDyv-TtJg

Doom:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NteAPGprDJk

That's all for now, I need to take some deep breaths and calm down. So until next time, have a great week!

P.S. If you didn't know, the Steam Summer Sale is on as we speak.

Cya!

Titanic Thunder

Hello and welcome back to Eccentric Spheres.

We've been having a magnificent thunderstorm here, and since I'm not sure it won't be back, today's post will be very short.

Below you will find a video that postulates that the Titanic is not in fact the Titanic at all, but another ship entirely. Whether this is the case, you can decide for yourself.


So without further ado and until next week, enjoy this thought provoking documentary:

Movie Night

Last Friday my wife and I decided to watch a some movies. As every couple knows, agreeing on which movie to watch is rarely easy, but ultimately we decided on Lucy by Luc Besson.

My one big complaint about Lucy is the faulty premise it builds upon, namely that we only use 10% of our brains. We do in fact use a great deal more, just not all at once. Every part of our brains are necessary and we couldn't function if only 10% were in use.

Apart from this, Lucy is a really good film. I can't explain the plot without spoiling it, but it's beautifully shot, the acting is definitely there, particularly Scarlett Johansson who goes from convincingly terrified to absolutely dispassionate with style.

The effects were wonderful. There aren't as many action scenes as the trailer had led me to expect, but trailers usually lie, so no real surprise there. In fact, I was pleased that Mr. Besson didn't rely on explosions or gunfights to cover up slow parts. All in all Lucy is a very well crafted movie. Part action, part sci-fi - all good. But if the whole 10% thing is too much for you, maybe watch something else. I for one would warmly recommend Lucy.

The other film we watched I can't and won't recommend. Ever. DisasterWars: Earthquake vs. Tsunami... I know, I know you can't have any expectations with disaster movies, but they are a weakness of ours and sometimes one has to indulge. Films like The day after tomorrow and 2012 aren't good in any stretch of the imagination but they are technically well made and the disasters look awesome. But then there are the other sort of disaster movies like Super Cyclone and Into the storm that are extremely low budget and it shows.

The sad thing though is that a film doesn't have to be bad just because they don't have a lot of money, in fact there are hundreds of films that had tons of money and still reek to high heaven. But for some reason, people with barely any money and sometimes even less talent really want to make disaster movies, arguably one of the hardest genres to make if you have zero cash.

There are only two elements to a disaster flick. The people and the destruction. The people drama is necessary in order for the catastrophe to mean anything and the destruction is cool and we like to watch everything get torn to shreds. But with only two elements, at least one of them has to be good, and in Disaster Wars: Earthquake vs. Tsunami neither works. The FX is laughable at best and there are scenes where I'm convinced that the “actors” forgot their lines. To make it even worse, you have dumb mistakes like a Colonel with U.S. Army on his chest who has a Gunnery Sergeant as his second in command. The Gunnery Sergeant is a Marine Corps only rank. I'm not American and I know this. What excuse do the film makers have? I could go on, but that would be needlessly cruel to you. Just do yourself a favor and avoid this movie at all costs. Please.

That's it, so until next time have a great disaster wars free week!