aggrebee

[aggrebee]

In summer, the Hitokotonushi Shrine in Ibaraki sets up on oasis for bees where they can safely collect water

[aggrebee]

They're having fun! The bumblebees are having fun!

[aggrebee]

I made a separate blog to document my interactions with the Ultima PSOBB server. First post is already up.

[aggrebee]

so this morning i was playing with the slow-mo mode on my phone, hoping to get a majestic vid of a bumblebee taking off

but instead i found this dumbfuck

[aggrebee]

Here, let’s make this simple

What do you call it when a swear word is bleeped on TV? Censorship.

What do you call it when a cartoon scene is removed because it might offend parents? Censorship.

What do you call it when a game isn’t released in the US because it might offend insecure people? 

Localization. A business decision. The game industry “growing up.” Why do you even care? Nerd.

[aggrebee]

“Augment Your Pre-Order” is ostensibly shutting down

Last month, September 7th, 2015, I wrote about quite possibly one of the worst new anti-consumer inventions cooked up by Square Enix and Eidos-Montreal. I recommend reading that for context if you don’t already know what it is.

Anyways, since writing that, “Augment Your Pre-Order” has been cancelled. Yesterday, a statement was made about the shutdown on Deus Ex website. This is their message verbatim for posterity:

2015-10-01 12:53:50

At both Square Enix and Eidos-Montreal, we've been listening to everything you've had to say about the Augment Your Pre-Order program. When it was first conceived, we wanted the program to give you more choice about what you received in terms of pre-order incentives - because we've seen in the past that when we choose those packages ourselves, and split them across regions, it has caused frustration. We quickly noticed that this approach created even more frustration than before, resulting in a resounding amount of negative feedback.

We've spent a lot of time reading through all of your comments, working to understand how we can try to make things right for you. After much thought and reflection, we decided to close down the program and make all of the incentive content available to anyone who pre-orders Deus Ex: Mankind Divided or purchases a Day 1 edition of the game. Additionally, the release date will no longer be changed in accordance with pre-order numbers, and everyone will gain access to the game on February 23rd, 2016.

Your feedback and input is of the utmost importance to us-- as it's your loyalty and passion for our franchises that gives us the opportunity to continue providing you with great gaming experiences.

To our faithful fans who've already pre-ordered: we will take care of everything necessary to ensure that all of the changes to the program will be automatically applied to your purchase. Meanwhile, we'd like to thank everybody for their feedback - we know this wouldn't have happened with a game that nobody cared about, and we're just focusing now on delivering a game that lives up to your hopes and expectations.

Thanks for your support!

So they might not be going through with the program, but you still have to pre-order it or buy the “Day 1 Edition” of the game to get the incentives from the AYPO program. On top of that, the launch date is staying the same. They only give two options to buy Mankind Divided on their website, one being the Collector’s Edition and the other being the Day 1 Edition. It’s unclear whether or not the Day 1 Edition is the “normal” copy of the game, or if it’s actually a limited time/quantity thing that’s potentially only available now until DE:MD’s launch. I have sent an email to Square Enix’s customer support to clear this up.

The Day 1 Edition is presumably another special edition, or else Square and stores all over the world just ripped off everyone who pre-ordered the game just to get the AYPO bonuses.

In any case, the language used in their statement gives me doubt that they will live up to my hopes about this situation, which was to cancel the program and include all of the AYPO content in all copies of the game. I know that’s a lot to ask for in 2015 when it’s almost expected for the big publishers to try to fuck you financially, in any and all holes possible to bilk you out of as much money as they can. But I can dream, can’t I?

This looks like a band-aid solution to massive problem they made for themselves. But credit where credit is due, there are thanks to be given. But not to Squeenix or Eidos Montreal - no, thank all of you who bitched loud enough to get them to drop AYPO. Thank you everyone who is willing to call out a publisher and developer when they’re pulling this bullshit. It might not have persuaded them to be as consumer friendly as possible, but you have helped changed things for the better regardless.

[aggrebee]

LewdGamer Gets Banned From Hitbox For Being Too Edgy

It has come to my attention that Hitbox.tv, a video game streaming site, recently banned (archive) LewdGamer’s account there. LewdGamer.com (NSFW) is a website that specializes in news about adult games, among other things. Now, as you can gather from the screenshot above (source and archive), they got banned for rape jokes. Not that they were streaming anything that could be viewed as obscene, not safe for work, graphic, pornographic, etc-- NO. Rape jokes were the straw that broke the camel’s back.

“We have rules”, says MrKelso, self-proclaimed part time Hitbox employee and “Hitbox Exclusive partner”. Well frankly, MrKelso, your rules are fucking retarded and hypocritical. That is, if the “no rape jokes” rule ever existed in the first place (archive).

You would think Hitbox would clearly lay out bannable offenses in their rules, but I guess it’s far more effective to let its employees make shit up and ban streamers on a whim. Hitbox allows streaming of video game content that is infinitely more “offensive” than rape jokes up to and including rated M and AO games, where people are getting skinned alive and put into meat grinders, but for some reason a goddamned JOKE is too much for the delicate, arbitrary and insincere sensibilities of Hitbox to bear. Hell, I guarantee that at some point, if it hasn’t happened already, someone is going to stream a game that has a rape joke in it. It’s yet another indictment of the western gaming industry’s warped standards that to us, no amount of violence and gore is off limits, but GOD FORBID a female nipple is visible or someone says something edgy. 

It’s almost as if they were just looking for a reason to ban LewdGamer.

Now I do happen to have a Hitbox account, so this makes me unsure if I really want to use it again. Given how quick they are to ban someone over some black humor, they might end up vindictively banning me for this blog post out of spite. For all I know, they’ll make up some bullshit about criticizing them is against the rules. Time will tell.

Meanwhile, I’m going back to playing Path of Exile, which my toaster can hardly run on max with an acceptable framerate, much less stream.

[aggrebee]

Peak Pre-Order Greed, Courtesy of Squeenix

Just when you thought pre-order bonuses couldn’t get anymore ridiculous.

So Monday, August 31, 2015, this little pre-order video dropped on the Deus Ex youtube channel. In it, we are shown just how fucking greedy and unscrupulous the AAA videogame industry can really get. 

Plain old pre-orders and pre-order bonuses are a thing of the past. Behold, TIERED PRE-ORDER BONUSES. When you pre-order Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, you get to choose from a few different pre-order bonuses, and the more people who pre-order the game, the more “tiers” unlock, and you get to pick an additional bonus per tier. You need to have an “Augment Your Pre-Order” account on their website, as well.

TIER 1: Choose from 1 of 3 different pre-order bonuses. Each comes with a unique skin, a praxis point (essentially +1 level in RPG terms), one weapon that was in Deus Ex: Human Revolution (unclear whether or not these are obtainable in DE:MD, for all we know they can only be gotten through these bonuses), ammo and upgrades for that weapon, a couple grenades, and 1000 credits. To a veteran player of Deus Ex: Human Revolution, the Tier 1 bonuses sound like just a bunch of bullshit you could get from playing the game for 5 minutes barring the costumes. But it’s entirely possible these items are difficult/impossible to get without pre-ordering, so who knows.

TIER 2: 2 different bonuses, A digital artbook. AND-- a Digital OST.... “Sampler”? What the fuck? Do you not even get the actual soundtrack, you get a “sampler”? What the shit is that even?

TIER 3: Only 1 bonus. A mission! Yep, the game isn’t even out yet, but they’re cutting content out of the game and putting it as pre-order bonuses. Man, it sure would be nice if it was on-disc DLC too, just to really rub in how cynical and greedy Squeenix and/or Eidos Montreal really is.

TIER 4: 2 bonuses. A digital comic book! A novella! It’s not specified on the Deus Ex website whether or not it’s actually digital or physical, but it’s probably digital judging from everything else.

Tier 5: The game comes out 4 days early! WOWEE ZOWEE!

So hypothetically, even if all 5 tiers are obtained, you can’t get all of the pre-order bonuses unless you buy multiple copies of the game, since you can only pick one option from each tier. BUT DON’T FRET! For only one low price of $139.99, you can buy the Collector’s Edition!

It includes:

ALL of the pre-order bonuses.

A 9″ Adam Jensen figurine.

A 48 page artbook.

And a “limited edition” (the collector’s edition is limited edition in general, is this somehow more limited? wat) “steelbook”. From what I can infer from google, this is just a metal blu-ray case. 

So to do away with all of this disingenuous marketing speak, essentially they cut out several outfits, a mission, possibly multiple weapons out of the game, and they want to sell it back to you. Oh, and on top of that, they’re delaying the game for 4 days unless enough people pre-order. And even then, you’re STILL not going to get everything unless you’re willing to pay 80$ more for the collector’s edition.

Suffice to say, I sincerely hope they start refunding people and put all of this shit back in the game. I sincerely hope this doesn’t set a precedent for other publishers. And maybe lower the price on the collector’s edition, goddamn. Pre-ordering is inherently an anti-consumer practice. Bonuses for doing it is just incentivizing trying to get potential costumers to buy a game before anybody even knows how good the game is. For all we know it will be a completely broken unfinished fucking mess. But this? This is just a new low. Square Enix and Eidos Montreal should be fucking ashamed of themselves for sinking this low.

As someone who really liked Human Revolution, this is really disconcerting. DE:HR to me, was a game that suffered badly from balance issues (stealth was far and away the most effective gameplay option compared to combat or hacking), had an ending that was just about as bad if not worse than Mass Effect 3, but despite it’s problems was a fun and captivating game. By the end of it, I wanted more. And between this pre-order bullshit, and the botching of Thief 4 (another Square Enix published game), I’m worried how DE:MD will turn out.

[aggrebee]

Buyer Beware: The Summoner PC Release On Steam/GOG Is Broken

Known by most as a launch title for the PlayStation 2 in 2000, Summoner is an old nostalgic 3D RPG developed by Volition and published by the late THQ with a relatively obscure PC port that came out a year later in 2001. It’s an ambitious game for it’s time. It features a world that’s completely 3D, long singleplayer story, has a combat system that’s completely unique to it, a wide variety of spells and weapons, tons of sidequests, and even has a LAN/Online multiplayer mode. While it isn’t exactly a perfect game by any stretch of the imagination, it’s of phenomenal quality for a launch title. As someone who has played it before on the PS2, I enjoyed it more than enough to want to replay it all these years later.

Summoner is currently available on GOG for $5.99 and on Steam for $4.99 (at least for me living in the USA, prices vary depending on region). I got both to compare them.

Alas, this game is completely bogged down in issues. They did a pisspoor job of updating it to play in the year 20XX. It installs without a problem, but once you first launch it and look at the settings shit hits the fan. 1024x768 MAX RESOLUTION. No widescreen compatibility at all. No rebindable controls. No controller support. So I launch the game and check the options there, and while there’s options for textures, shadows, and sound, there’s nothing here to fix those issues. So I start a game anyways and see how that is.

The controls are less than stellar. The camera is controlled by the arrow keys or pointing the mouse at the very edges of the screen for a while. Alt-Tabbing, Ctrl-Alt-Del, and the windows button all do not work. The only way to see the desktop again is to close the game. And as it turns out, Ctrl, Alt, Shift, and Caps Lock are ALL bound to attack keys for the game’s signature combo system, chaining. Which, of course, doesn’t fucking work at all in manual mode. So these buttons have no use at all other to remind you how much effort that wasn’t put into this release.

On top of all of that, the game only seems to want to work after I start my computer. I went to save, quit, and didn’t pick up the game again until a few days later. NEW BUGS. My character’s walk animation doesn’t complete, so he lifts his leg and floats. Cutscenes are super fast, completely unwatchable, and this seems to be one of the most common bugs people have online. Torchlight 2 had a similar issue where the cutscenes were unwatchable during release, and it was so bad people would go to Youtube just to see them. I was one of those poor bastards, and I really don’t have the patience to relive the experience again with Summoner. 

I tried looking online for solutions. Oh, and boy did I try. I scoured every corner of the internet, delving through GOG, Steam, GameFaqs, you name it. I tried fiddling with all of the in game options, nGlide, Nvidia Inspector, custom settings in nVidia Control Panel, D3DOverrider, Timeslip's custom patch, etc and NONE of them fixed the issues I have.

So I pretty much gave up on this PC release. This game as it stands is completely broken. This might have been a cool PC game in 2001, but it sure isn’t now. To anybody who wants to (re)experience Summoner, get it on the PS2. I highly recommend NOT getting it on PC until you know these issues are hammered out. I can’t be sure how common my experience with it is however-- it seems many people have put in 40+ hour positive review of it on Steam. It’s doubtful these people find enormous entertainment idling at the title screen, so it seems SOMEBODY can actually get Summoner to work. 

Alas, I’m not one of them. I got a refund. 

[aggrebee]

Pokemon Trading Card Game 2 English Patch

It has come to my attention that there is an English patch to the Japan only Pokemon Trading Card Game 2 for the Gameboy Color. Here's a link to the patch:

http://www.romhacking.net/translations/1736/

How it works is you need that ips file, a clean (meaning unpatched) JP rom file, and a program to attach the patch to the rom. Also you need a program to play the rom too, but that goes without saying. You can get a good ips patcher here:

http://www.romhacking.net/utilities/240/

I use VirtualBoyAdvance-M as my emulator of choice, which you can find here:

http://sourceforge.net/projects/vbam/

Now I can't tell you where to get the actual rom file, since that's encouraging copyright violation (patches or programs to play the roms in question are perfectly legal though). But you'd be dumb as an EMU if you can't find a way to find a download from google searching. Surely a site like that would be a pirate's PARADISE.

Anyways, onto the game itself. As of writing this, I haven't touched the game itself but I'm planning on doing a stream on hitbox later on of it. I'm a huge fan of the original game, and I was deeply saddened by the fact the sequel never got localized. It's a goddamn shame it took almost 12 years for a full translation. Judging from a comment on romhacking.net's forum it might be a little rough around the edges, since it's a machine translation. It's better than nothing, though.

:EDIT:

I did a stream.