GTEN PLUS PODCAST!!!

Hey all!
so the podcast is officially live and hot on podbean!

http://www.gtenplus.podbean.com/

Check it out!!!


Basically it  is a show that talks about all of the same things that I chat about on this blog. Last week we had a couple of film makers on and we discussed imdb most anticipated films of 2017, the Nintendo switch, 3D, the Oculus rift, Chat bots, the new longevity drug rumors.

My Guests where Alex Cirillo from "The Game Changers" http://www.yourgamechangers.com/

and Peter Lyngso! They are both hard at work on a short film project that we will have more details on next month!

The Witcher 3 vs. Skyrim and well everybody else...

The Witcher 3 is the best Fantasy RPG I have every played.

All of the things that made me fall in love with RPG's (Final Fantasy 2, Dragon Warrior) way back when have finally come around again in a game that doesn't reek with elements of a K-POP Pastel looking gender confused kid with an over sized sword. The main character is complex and is an adult with actual problems crazy decisions to make that effect other parts of the game, cause and effect much like in real life. The choices are not black and white obvious which one is best and many times there is no "right" answer. The biggest thing that stood out to me besides the story was the grit, TW3 is dirty, honest, sexy, scary, sad, and worth every minute of it!!

THE STORY, (my favorite plus about the game)
it's fantastic. The main character Geralt is a Witcher (basically a magically created wolf eyed human battle mage who lives for a really long time and cuts of monsters heads). He is part of a dying sect of warriors who where created when magic entered the world through a dimensional rift of sorts thousands of years ago. (Cool!!) Geralt basically has to find his daughter Siri (no not the girl in your phone). Siri is being chased by this group of "Ring Wraith" looking guys who freeze everything just by showing up. Naturally your trying to save her. Along the way you meet up with new and old love interests, make new and old friends. The whole time, each adventure plays into the story so that the sub-stories play out like a "B story" in a film. All of the additional little questing options play very seamlessly into the main story. Like you can choose between multiple women to have relationships with. Which affect your father/daughter relationship with Ciri. You can also have sex with multiple different women.

Game Control,
The combat system is intuitive easy to learn but challenging to master. The horse is one of my favorite parts, although I wish it could kick as part of player combat options when mounted.

((only criticism of the game, to many candles places in places that conflict with picking up loot. Often you  will try to open a crate/barrel/sack by pressing "x" and it auto lights the random pile of candles on top of the crate or what ever. Additional if you are to close to the object your trying to open the "press x" prompt that must show up before you can open something is at the bottom of the screen and then cycles out of the players vision so you have to move in circle to get it to line up just right.))

Graphics,
Stellar, felt like I was walking through scenes in a film. Not to the level  of "Heavy Rain" but seldom ever distracting. I was not aware of the graphics unless I had some beautiful-crafted-sun-breaking-through-the clouds moment on a cliff that was not a cut scene but just happened to be where I was walking.


VS. Skyrim
Skyrim has a good story, but it doesn't pick up a easily as TW3 does. Characters are so very much more developed in TW3. Really it's no contest, TW3 is so far past Skyrim it's not a really fair comparison, that said no other game comes close enough to compare. Dragon Age(any of them) are just Jr. league by comparison, and Dark Souls 2 is more about being difficult and gimmicky than being a fully fleshed out experience.

One of the big things besides the story overall being more in depth and the characters having...well character. is the population. TW3 has a cities that seem full of people, when your in the main city you feel like the population is believable. In Skyrim to World of Warcraft (NPC's only) the populations always seem kind of sparse. The full population makes for a fuller more "Alive" feeling game. There is no way TW3 doesn't get looked at for adaptation into a film and or TV show.

GWENT!!!
The most fun game within a game I have ever even heard about. It's a card based game that involves a perfect blend of skill, luck, and pluck. The game is fully developed and I expect to see a real live version of the game in stores right along side "Magic the Gathering"(or whatever version they are on now).

Basically the Witcher 3 is on my list of must buys.

An exciting quick update.....

So this blog started out with it's very limited amount of content in response to G4 Tech TV's demise. It mostly because I couldn't stand something not being fixed that never should have been broken in the first place.

Now things have moved forward....

"G10+" will become a podcast, and

"The G10 Report" will become a show.

More info to come, all things considered, this show looks like it will be the thing that drives the blog.

Battle Royal...and why it's such an important movie

Battle Royal touches on a subject that I think will become more and more to the fore front of society. "Logan's Run" could be said to be a kind of inverse of BR. George Lucas's THX1138 is also a part of this world.  The subject that I am talking about is he next social paradigm shift.

Racism, sexism, Fascism, Marxism, basically pick an "ism". The next big "ism" may just be more about age than anything else. This is simply my belief given a number of things.

First off we are looking at the largest generation gap in history....period. The internet is the most important invention since writing and many people have their children explain how to use Internet tech to them.

Second is the perception of older generations currently in office in current government  in regards to the emerging web based technology. They keep trying to pass legislation to place the internet under the same constraints as television.
They don't get it. I am in a mall and no less than seven different things are connected to the internet for business purposes. Five years ago half of these devices did not exist. There are senators on record who can't use some if these things. If you don't know how too buy a Coke using a modern vending machine, how can you pass laws regulating how
I can?

Understanding the world in which we live and creating legislation that matches it has always been the point. When Congress fails to do this then you get a reactionary society like the one portrayed in Battle Royal.

Yeah maybe I am reaching but I simply couldn't shake the thought that this whole thing was precipitated by people not understanding how to confront change.

And the "Fresh Prince" song: "Parents Just Don't Understand", kept playing in my head.

Modern Warfare: Black Ops II A review of story mode...

Consider this an after action report from the battle.  WARNING: Spoilers

Link to the Official Game Site http://www.callofduty.com/blackops2

Basically this game is a 6 out of ten, but don't get me wrong I liked it. At least I liked the idea of a game that is done in FPS style with futuristic weapons and gear. The story was actually pretty good I was interested and I wanted to kill the head bad guy at every turn. I felt conflicted when I had to make certain choices in which characters lived or died as a result of my decisions. The look of the game was great the environments plush and to the standard I expect from any main title FPS.

Wins:
The Game Play way a lot of fun most of the time. I enjoyed the use of the various weapons, the use of drones. It took me two sessions of non-stop play over a two day period to finish the story mode on the Medium/Normal setting. The battles where intense and towards the end of the game I definitely had that urgent push to finish the game and was all in.

So to list:

1. Story was interesting enough to hold my attention
2. Weapons and upgrade where cool. Excited to unlock new gear.
3. Battles where smooth and I didn't have difficultly playing even though I have mostly only play the HALO series for FPS.
4. Voice Acting was awesome, seeing people I recognized as actors as characters in the game was amazing. 
5. I will totally Play the next gen version of this game with very high expectations. 

Fails:
The part that disappointed me the most about this game was how hard it was to follow what I needed to do next. There are side missions that are unlocked after you complete a mission. Those missions relevance to the main story is not obvious. Even after finishing the game I am not sure if I missed a cut scene or resource or what but that could have been done better. I had hoped that after completing the game I could go back and complete the other mission that where not part of the main story. Alas this could not be done. It seems as though a lot of energy was put into being dramatic and "Awesome" as opposed to being intuitive. It seems like a quality control issue that should have come up in Beta. Easy fix on the next one but kind of lame to have missed.

To List:

1. Replay ability, very poor. Nobody wants to play the whole game to get to one level.
2. Maps and Way Points, so many times not knowing where the hell I was supposed to go next. Way points or save points often waaaaay to close to a kill zone.
3. Also, Special Forces, JSOC, SEALS, JTF 1-7 all have briefings where they have maps. If you go into a hostile area you always always look at all the available intel before hand. In game a quick shot of the the map your about to hit before you get deployed as an option might be cool. Give me choice to look at it or not. Don't make have to hunt for it in the briefing room either!
4. Showing me weapons I can't use but giving me no clue how to unlock them. Weapon bonus's are great when I know what it takes to get the weapons. When I don't know I am not inclined to not even try because I know that in the past some game developers come up with truly boring-arbitrary-hard-to- figure-out ways of unlocking things.

Rate: 6 out of 10

Not bad but not great either. It's a borrow but probably not a buy the day of release. If you buy it wait till the price goes down. It's a good game that is really close to being a great game but you can totally wait to play it. I borrowed it played it and returned it. By contrast I will buy Battlefield 3 after having borrowed it.

Unless of course you want the PVP options then it's a whole different story. 

Global Internet Saturation, the early stages of the Internets next phase.

Social Media has only emerged with the proliferation of the internet. Which is of course in it's first real generation. What I mean by that is that both the technology, and the culture of social media have only been around really since the early 2000's. Social media is a term that will not be around in another 15 years the way it is today. The example of why this is true is the phrase "www",or "world wide web". It's on the front of every email I send and every page I look at on the internet. Yet, how often do you hear anyone in daily speech use this phrase. The language that we use to describe our Internet based experiences evolve as the environment in which the Internet evolves. The Internet is still in it's Larva stages. Egg(Computers), Larva, the Pupae, finally Adult. For those of you who don't remember biology, this is the same as the life cycle of an (insect, example) Ladybug. The reason I am using this example is that our current state of Internet technology and culture is developing in a way that is akin to a larva in that it is constantly growing, consuming, and growing.

Until global saturation of the internet is reached a definitive idea of what the Internet is and will move towards being cannot truly even begin to be discussed without the constant threat of being "outgrown" or "obsolete". An infant human child puts on weight at an very high rate to facilitate it's growth. Just like the Internet is expanding at a very high rate. Internet technology is expanding at a very high rate.

A caterpillar is a creature that has a very flexible skin and is on close examination kind of mushy to the touch. The mushy growth stage that the Internet is in is comparable. The pupa stage, the next thing to happen, the future. This is the stage where the Internet has a form, it's still growing and changing but there are things that give it shape and more of a base identity. It's not just a growing tube of mush moving down the stick of time. Now we see  inside the chrysalis, the edges of the more defined legs, we can see more of how the Internet will move and grow.

To step out of the analogy for a minute, to be clear. Global saturation of an Internet signal is a major defining parameter of the Internet. It could be said that saturation is the beginning of the pupae stage. To be able to be in any part of the world and have internet access with any mobile device. So basically your smart phone an Internet signal on Everest, the Gobi desert, and Easter Island. Make no mistake this will happen. The time is the only part of the equation that seems uncertain. It's inevitable.

Eventually the caterpillar forms a cocoon and changes into an adult. The insect analogy can only go so far, in that insects eventually die in the adult stage and many don't get much bigger. Arachnids especially, giant spiders molt and grow their whole life and are a better example at this point.  At the risk of grossing people out I will stop there. The main thing is to convey the very primal "early" stage of the life of the Internet that we are witness too. This is a beginning, so keep in mind that saturation is only one defining parameter of the the Internet. There will be others. When I figure those out I will share them. For now, contemplating Saturation is enough.

Microsoft Spying on Gamers, and Charging Money!!?

An article from Kotaku outlines some interesting things that have leaked about the new Microsoft gaming consul code named "Durango" like that Dodge Durango, or the animated movie "Durango". Either way it's a working title and hopefully they don't use it in real life.

The new xbox consul is supposedly going to have blu-ray(about time) and have all sorts of intuitive motion features in the controllers. Also able to connect with mobile devices in a given area and probably for a fee perform a lobotomy and fly a spaceship.  All great things, the article says that the new Kinect will be able to tell if your happy, or angry or-wait, wtf? Yeah I didn't believe it either, so here is the article (kotaku - Durango) read it and be afraid very afraid. The best part of this new Kinect is not the facial recognition tech, or how many people the Kinect can read in a room. The best part is the part where Microsoft is considering charging people based on how many bodies are in a room. Again, what the every-loving-foook.

If Microsoft initiates some system with xbox live or whatever that charges people for playing games, and people who are simply in the room watching people play games. Well, not only will I never buy anything related to xbox ever. I would have serious issues with how much information xbox has about my person. How is this new "Mandatory" Kinect device any different than the full body scanners in airports. Oh wait! TSA does not charge you a fee for how many of your friends watch you walk through the scanner!

The best part of this article is how the writer is super concerned with letting the readers know how cool it is that he has a "Secret Source". It's like he's got "Deep $#@&" on speed dial and he has all of the awesome secrets from Sony and Microsoft. Great! Now we are gonna get charged up the arse for a feature that a ton of people in the responses to the article where less that happy about. Way to pay f'n attention.

 MICROSOFT WANTS TO CHARGE US FOR THE NUMBER OF PEOPLE USING THE SYSTEM! AAAAAAAARRRGH!

Yeah, so maybe am to pissed about this, maybe it will be less than what it seams, maybe it will make sense. Too bad none of this is covered in the article, to bad who ever wrote this only gives a shite about specs that are likely to change a ton before the release. Oh wait, I am sure that "Deep Dish" will keep Kotaku totally in the loop. That, and their other "Reliable sources".  Which of course begs the question; why not just relay the reliable sources info?

The facial recognition stuff is kind of scary also. I guess it's just a matter of time till google+, and facebook have you log in with you face through your tv.....I am so sorry "Party Member" George Orwell just told me to shut the 1984 up.

Kotaku interesting article, but fail on paying attention to important shit.