GamingUnity RSS Feed

First Person Shooters Falling Short

Lil' Flicky — Tue, 26 Jun 2012 21:01:06 +0000

http://www.gamingunity.com/news.php?id=312

As you read this article, the trend in FPS (First Person Shooters) continues. The trend I am speaking of is game developers releasing games before they are complete because of budget and marketing deadlines. Most of the time these restrictions are not the fault of the developers.

We sit by, as game after game is released without being completed. Developers struggle to make their deadlines and things like Quality Control fall to the wayside because of it. Game developers spend their entire budgets on marketing. We watch these trailers that look just as good as a blockbuster film and we start to salivate. The games get their sales immediately. We run to Gamestop to preorder a copy ASAP.

Release day finally arrives. You peal off the plastic in anticipation. You insert the disk into your PC or console... You play the shortest campaign you have in a while... you are ok with that. You don't buy games for the SP anymore. Now it is time to find out what this game has! You click on the online mode.... you enter a lobby... you are the only one there... This can't be right, the game was just released. So you keep trying for other lobbies. Eventually you make it to a game.. your hopes are high again. You start to play your new game online... kind of. You start to rubber band (back and forth motions caused by lag) all over the screen and then you are booted.

Situations like this shouldn't be common place. We as video game consumers have allowed this to happen. We continue to preorder products without a beta test. We continue to buy these games and then defend the developers by saying, \"It is hard to make a video game.\" I am not saying that creating a game isn't difficult... but there are tons of services in the world that are just as difficult (if not more difficult). If these other services can put out quality products from day one... why can't video games?

I have read over and over again in multiple FPS forums... \"Just be patient... they will fix the game. This is how it always is. Stop crying about it.\" The people who post this trash are the issue. It isn't the developers... it isn't the marketing... it is the people who have come to accept this trend as just how it is.

We have allowed this to happen. I fear we will continue to allow this to happen.

Why PC Gaming Can Never Die

Lil' Flicky — Thu, 21 Jun 2012 19:07:07 +0000

http://www.gamingunity.com/news.php?id=307#

People have been saying that PC gaming is going to die for a long time. Ever since the rise of console gaming in everyone’s homes people have been calling an end to PC gaming. Since then we’ve seen a change and an explosion in the kind of gaming offered on PC. Services like Steam and Good Old Games offer fantastic experiences at low cost and we’ve seen an explosion in casual and social gaming on PC. I believe PC gaming never died and I think it never will.

When I asked my friends why they were PC gamers one answer stood out from the others as something they all thought. “Because I’m always on my computer anyway.” Computers have become such a huge part of our culture, in this age of information that almost everyone is on their computers for a huge portion of their day. So it’s easy for gamers to transition from the other things we do on our computers, like web browsing or work, to gaming and back again.

Because of that casual games have really exploded on PCs. We’ve all seen and played games on Facebook and kongregate but I think PC gaming is also great for a form of gaming that isn’t quite casual and not quite hardcore. Where players can take a break from working on their computers for a game of League of Legends or World of Tanks and then get back to work. It’s not always productive but it’s something you can do on a PCs that you can’t on a console.

PC gaming is extremely open to independent developers and gamers alike. If you want to get started making games there are plenty of tools available for the indie developer. Even tools like Scratch allow people with little to no programming experience to get started making a game. Perhaps above all else PC gaming is indie friendly. There are very few gatekeepers standing in your way to publish a game on the PC and companies like Valve have shown huge support for the indie community on PC.

I love how customizable PC gaming can be. It’s like driving a standard car versus driving an automatic one. You can have control over a lot in a PC game that you wouldn’t have over a console game. You also have control over the performance of your machine and for most of us gamers that means that you’ve built your own computer or at least spent quite a bit of time working on it. We all love that feeling of putting together a computer and starting it for the first time. It’s your own machine and nobody else in the world has one like it.

Lastly and probably most importantly I love the online gaming community on PC. It’s the kind of community that you just can’t get anywhere else. It’s born of years of online gaming experience and tempered with games like World of Warcraft. If you’ve ever played an MMO, MOBA or any other online game you probably know the community I’m talking about. There are a huge amount of forums, fan sites and blogs dedicated to online gaming. Conventions like Blizcon and EverQuest Con are totally dedicated to bringing together their online PC gaming community.

That’s why PC gaming can never die. It might have changed over the years to
accommodate a different demographic. It may have become a little more casual, a little bit more social or a little more online but it’s this adaptability that makes gaming on the PC so strong. We shouldn’t be thinking about whether or not PC gaming will die, we should be thinking about what it’s next big change will be. It may have changed a little but PC gaming will never die.

E3's Relevance on the wane?

Lil' Flicky — Mon, 18 Jun 2012 18:25:48 +0000

http://www.gamingunity.com/news.php?id=303

It was Saturday morning I woke up with giddy childish excitement. Hopping out of bed I raced to my computer to see the wonderful new titles I might have to look forward to over the next year. I scanned through all the trailers and news stories a look of horror mingling with boredom slowly overtaking my boyish grin. The truth was dawning on me, like finding out that santa and the easter bunny are not as real as you had been led to believe, my heart was broken. Perhaps, this is my fault, I justified, maybe I just read too much gaming news, but the truth was still there staring me in the face.

Today I have finally come to terms with the fact that nearly every title shown at E3 came as no surprise there was no thrilling reveal nothing left to give. This has led me to believe that perhaps in today’s age E3 has lost it’s relevance, with the internet the way it is today, and with the growing popularity of other gaming conventions, it would seem that E3 is Starting to become it’s own worst enemy.

The entertainment industry at one time was very secretive but with the advent of the internet it has become increasingly difficult to hide things from the public. Too many people who are far too interested are out their trying their best to tell everyone exactly what is coming out. This has made it increasingly difficult to hold an announcement in order to build anticipation, especially when you can find new and creative ways to announce it at any time of the year. Take for example Halo 4 , announced only a couple months ago, They had the option to wait build anticipation and then all at once announce the game and reveal footage at E3, so why not wait?

At one time E3 was also considered, if not the only, the major gaming convention in North America, a spot it must now share with not one but two different PAX’s. With PAX, a convention designed for the gamers, taking a large majority of the crowd, giving them a chance to get hands on and also have a weekend away immersed in gamer culture, it would seem that E3 has nothing left to offer.

It would appear that instead of evolving with the crowd, as gaming becomes more and more socially acceptable, E3 has allowed itself to become stagnant and stuck in the old ways. It is my honest belief that, unless E3 can find a way to evolve in this new era, they will begin to lose their crowd and quickly become a thing of the past.

Diablo III’s Real Money Auction House is Live

Lil' Flicky — Sat, 16 Jun 2012 17:08:09 +0000

http://www.gamingunity.com/news.php?id=299

Blizzard has activated the real-money version of its Auction House in the Americas region.
Using this system, you can put items found in-game up for sale with real-money price tags. If others purchase the items, you receive the profits after Blizzard takes its cut.

Blizzard has previously said it will not be listing items on the Auction House.
The idea is to let prices stabilize based solely on player supply and demand. Hopefully Blizzard is also able to ban all those who have so far been able to cheat Diablo III’s security and prevent them from taking over the market.

Even though the Real Money Auction House has gone live not everything is currently functional. While items are listed online, you can't yet sell commodities (gems, crafting tomes, and other stackable items) to others for real currency.

To be able to use the Real Money Auction House you’ll needto tie a Blizzard Authenticator to your account, as well as sign for Battle.net SMS Protect if you’re going to use PayPal.

In a forum post, Blizzard community manager Lylirra also notes, “Please keep in mind that players will be able to purchase items on the real-money auction house with other forms of payment, including major credit cards, that do not require the use of an Authenticator or Battle.net SMS Protect.”

The system of posting items for sale also appears to be unstable after reports of some users are unable to successfully post an item for sale even after taking all the necessary steps.

So far the current trend seems to be items priced around $30 to $40 with max buyouts of $250.

One player's screencap of his Battle.net transaction history shows he's already loaded his account with $2,000 in preparation.

Have you bought or sold anything yet? What do you think?

3 things we wanted to tell you

Lil' Flicky — Thu, 14 Jun 2012 18:11:49 +0000

http://www.gamingunity.com/news.php?id=294

We just wanted to update you on 3 things that have just changed on the site.

Writers Wanted
Two days ago we asked you to submit your articles to us via email... well, lets just say we were a little shocked at how many were sent in. We still plan to post them but we didn’t want to post everything in one go. So we will be drip feeding these over the new week.

To save us from getting another inbox bashing we have now added a “Submit Articles” page that you will see in the top right on the main page. From now on if you want to write an article please submit it via that. If you think we have missed your email then please just submit it again but via the online form, just so we can be sure not to post it twice, please mention that you've also emailed it in.

Anyone who provides constant good content will be given a writer's account so they can add Articles without waiting for us to approve them all. You will need to provide your own images for these though.

Games
We have been flooded with over 500 new game request but we noticed a lot of them were games like “Half Life”, but we already had “Half-Life” in our database and due to the way the site searched it wouldn't find you the correct results if you missed the “-” out in Half-life. So we have fixed this issue now and will be cross checking all the submitted games to double check we don't already have them in the database.

Steam
And last of all, the main reason we are all here is because we all like to play games. So NemisisX31 has kindly set up a steam group. If you're a PC user and want to play online then please join by click the link below

http://steamcommunity.com/groups/gamingunity

Thanks for everyone’s help so far, both McNandy and I are shocked (and incredibly pleased!) at how much content is now being created by you all. Keep up the good work and we will keep on building this community.