Grand Theft Audio

Something that I only realized this past week was the release date of Grand Theft Auto 5. For quite some time now I've been so busy with my work on YouTube, and trying to finish background projects, that this monolithic release nearly passed me by. I'm certainly glad I looked up from my work just in time to not miss anything.

The Grand Theft Auto series holds a special place for me for multiple reasons. I've been playing the games since the industry changing GTA3, and I subsequently played through the previous entries after discovering it back in 2001. Indeed I still follow the franchise because it plays well, and is all around a good game even with the quirks in each entry. The big reason I still come back to the series though has more to do with it's world design and the satirical media that fills the radio waves.

Ever since I first picked up the games something I fell in love with were the talk radio stations. Most of the content makes good and very humorous jabs at some of the dumbest things you see in society today. This stretches across the entire canvas with is each game too, all the advertising, brand names, venues, political banter, nothing is off limits but the radio is really where I find the best of the content lies. Between Chatterbox, VCPR, WCTR, WKTT, and a host of other stations and shows that play on the car radios across the GTA universe, there's just so much to listen to, and each bit of content is just so funny to me.

You see for me satire is some of the best comedy. Any day of the year I'll take persiflage that lampoons real events or principles over the purely fictional type you get in sitcoms and films. Never before have I seen any piece of entertainment that does this as well as GTA, after all they have to build their own word first and make it a fun and convincing place to run around before being able to properly use it to spoof anything.

The TLDR is that I love GTA for how Rockstar uses it to entertain you in ways other than shooting people and stealing cars.

And on that note maybe I'll make a few videos about the game after it comes out.
----Strife Out----

About the Yogscast...

Many of you no doubt know about my interest in the Yogscast, and how I've made an official bid to join their ranks (if not watch the video Below). Likewise I feel that it's very likely several of you want a more through explanation as to why I've chosen to walk down this path.

Everything started back in late June of 2012 when the the two lead Yogs member, Lewis and Simon, began a series using the Mincraft Tekkit modpack. I was already addicted to MIneCraft, and knew of the Yogs, but had no interest in them and their work. As I watched their Tekkit series I was mesmerized by they way it expanded Minecraft. I also loved the humour of how the rag tag, and sometimes incompetent, band of Yogs ineffectively went about building a corporation. For six months I joyfully watched their antics, and followed the exploits of many members, exploring content from the extended Yogscast family. I passively watched, entirely content to consume their content and only be a viewer. That all began to change when holiday 2012 happened.

Those of you who are unaware the Yogscast put in large a amount of time during the winter holidays in the name of charity. They live streamed every day of the week, and the entire reason was to encourage the viewers to donate for a charitable cause. This was a real shock to me, as up to this point I had only worked with Machinima who's only concern was their bottom line. It really meant something when I saw this small group of Youtube talents, with a far smaller profit margin, putting in so much extra work for such a redeemable cause. And that's what got the gears turning in my head.

For the next five months I began to view the Yogscast more seriously, not as simple entertainers but as genuinely good people who love what they do. At the same time I began to take my work on Youtube more seriously, and not too long before May 2013, I finally decided to do something I was previously to demoralized to do. I cut ties with Machinima in order to Join up with Maker Studio (aka The Game Station now known as Polaris). The major factor that fuelled this action was my decision to at least try to join the Yogs who are also a part of Maker Studios.

I made my initial bid to get their attention in late May, and made increasingly visible displays to catch their eye. These attempts came to a head when I published my original Application video (which I had kept unpublished for about two months). When I made the video public a few of my subscribers saw it and took it to the Yogscast Reddit. This served as a turning point, and is the most recent event in my Yogscast related exploits.

I'm not willing to tell the rest of the story yet, but what I will say is that the Yogscast contacted me not long after the application vid was posted to their subreddit. Weather the message was a warm welcome or a cool refusal I won't say, but for those of you who care, let it be known that I have spoken directly with the yogscast.

----Strife Out----

Kanji, Booker, Joel - Troy Baker

Wow has it really been so long since I last updated this blog? Sorry about that, I guess life has been much busier than I originally thought. Anyway on my subject of interest.

How many of you have played the games Persona 4, Final Fantasy XIII, Catherine, Batman Arkham City, Saint's Row 3, BioShock Infinite, The Last of Us, Arkham Origins, Metal Gear Solid 5, and Infamous Second Son? Ok, none of you could have played those last three at this time, but you may still see what all of these games have in common. Each one has a major character that's voiced by Troy Baker.

Troy Baker is what I would call an amazing voice actor for multiple reasons. The three largest though are one: He's been filling roles in mostly good games, two: No matter what role he's in he really fills it out with authentic and believable acting, and three: He can shift and change his voice with not only accurate accents, but also change pitch and tone to sound completely different.

Ever since I encountered his bang up job as playing Kanji Tatsumi in Persona 4, I was sold on his talents as an actor. What struck me so much about his portrayal of Kanji was how, despite the game's many slapstick scenarios and honestly melodramatic moments, he still managed to deliver his lines in a way that seemed believable and grounded given the character's background. However, I was ultimately surprised when I looked up his filmography and discovered that he voiced many recognizable characters I had already seen, and yet I never recognized him. Recently though he's landing bigger and bigger roles in high profile games including Booker DeWitt (BioShock Infinite), Joel (The Last of Us), the Joker (Arkham Origins), and Revolver Ocelot (Metal Gear Solid 5) to name a few.

I have to say I'm pretty happy to see his career taking off, as he certainly deserves it. I just hope he doesn’t end up doing the same thing as Steve Blum; Fill lots of extra roles and use one voice fore them all, so when I hear it I'm taken out of the experience.

That's enough for now. Hopefully I won't take so long to post on the blog again.
----Strife Out----

Something About Watch_Dogs

Not even a full year ago at E3 2012 Ubisoft did something unexpected, they completely stole the entire show by unveiling a game called Watch_Dogs. The title came entirely out of left field, no one really saw it coming and it was displayed so well that it even overshadowed the game I thought would be king of show, The last of Us.

Now today there's been another unexpected reveal, the release date for Watch_Dogs. As it turns out the game is due to land for everyone on November 19 this year. I've been completely caught off guard by this date, as I'm flat out surprised by the incredibly quick turnaround from reveal to release. Usually when this type of high fidelity, new IP game is shown off it takes some 2-3 years before you see it on store shelves. As a result I'm a little worried that Ubisoft might be rushing Watch_dogs to market.
The reason they would do this is clear though, the game received enormous positive reception at E3 last year and it's going to be a cross gen title. In other words it'll be on just about all available consoles (PS3, PS4, WiiU, 360, PC, and presumably the NextBox), meaning it has good chances to rake in cash better than many other titles out in the season.

I think the reason why so many people are attracted to Watch_Dogs is because it plays with some familiar concepts of both fiction and reality. The game deals with surveillance and how just about everyone has a digital footprint these days. Most important above everything are cellphones, just about everyone has one. Cellphones carry people's lives, being jam packed with loads of personal information, and many of them have GPS tracking features.

Now think about the traditional Cyber Punk story. In the future we live in a dystopia controlled by one or more conglomo-corp, we're heavily surveillance, and extensively controlled, yet we're lead to believe we still have freedom and make out own choices. Watch_Dogs is a combination of modern day technology and traditional story setup from you're typical dystopia cyberpunk.

I think that this is what makes it so appealing to so many people. Other than just looking like a really fucking fun game anyway!

----Strife Out----

Stealthy Confessions

I feel that one of my favourite play styles is, and has been, making a comeback.

I've been playing games that focus on remaining hidden for over a decade. It all started with the original Metal Gear Solid on the first Playstation. I played that game to exhaustion, and subsequently did the same with it's sequel MGS2. Moreover though if I'm ever given a choice of playstyle I always default to being a thief, rogue, or assassin. This was reinforced by my discovery of the game Oblivion back in 2006, where I was simply blown away by the game's levelling system, where I actually got better at being a thief by being a thief!

Now today the stealth genre seems to be coming back into the light, with games like DeusEx and Skyrim having major mechanics that allow stealth, and more recently Dishonoured focusing on it entirely.
Now with the advent reboot to the thief franchise I think it's time I make a small confession.

Despite my love for stealth play, I've never actually played any of the Thief games. This is even more surprising considering I prefer to be a non-lethal thief over a deadly assassin or combat ready rogue.

My experience with the Thief series is limited to playing through about a quarter of Deadly Shadows. The game had stability issues on my machine, and it's story didn't really grab my attention, which is why I dropped it. However, with thief being rebooted I feel like I'm finally going to get a chance to experience a quality stealth game that doesn't focus on killing people. Dishonored was good, but I was disappointed by it's lack of shadowy corners to hide in. I also wasn't to impressed with how I had to keep hiding under tables to avoid detection.
I liked Dishonored for what it was, but I was more disappointed by what is was not.
Now, with the return of thief, I can't help but feel it might be what I wanted out of Dishonored.

----Strife Out----

BioShock Infinite and Bill Bower

So there's something that I'm just having a hard time wrapping my head around when it comes to these Bill Bower reviews. Why do so many people not like them? Then there's the bigger question, why are people bothering to watch the video if they know they don't like Bill Bower?

Weather or not people actually want me to do these reviews has never been the question. I'm doing them for myself, and to stretch the boundaries of my writing skills. The people who come and ask me to do a "normal review" just aren't gong to get what they want. I did "normal" reviews for Fallout New Vegas and RAGE, and I hated doing those. They were just the same as guides, but stuffed full of opinion and no factual substance. If I'm going to be opinionated then I prefer to be loud about what my thoughts are.

Ultimately I think most people just don't like the idea of me being mean, even when I'm delivering comments under a completely different persona. If I was to drop Bill Bower but still do reviews, I wouldn't change my writing style; And I don't think any of us want an angry, snide, and sarcastic William Strife, and I right?

----Strife Out----

Infinite Amazement

It's almost 4am and I just finished BioShock Infinite.
I can barely type I'm so amazed, but I'm going to try and get my thoughts out on this game.

I kept myself in an almost complete media blackout of this game after it's original announcement trailer. The reason was simple, I didn't want to have any expectations. Seeing as how the original BioShock is (or now maybe was) my favourite game, I wanted to go into Infinite with the same blind organic experience I had with the original.
I'm happy to say that it was a resounding success.

I won't dwell on details, but as I started this game I earnestly thought Ken Levine would be unable to trump the plot twist and it's strong tie to interactive story telling from the the first BiosShock.
I was half right.
The original BioShock truly made me feel I was the reason the Plot twist happened. The story was scripted, but it was still interactive storytelling at it's best. Infinite however took that interactive feeling of 'you pushed the story forward' down several notches. In trade though it gave me so many plot twists, so quickly, that made so much sense; that as I played the game's culmination it was like being sucker punched across the room by a man who's both the worlds strongest and top martial arts master.

I had intentions of playing through this game again almost immediately, but now I know I need some time to let my head stop spinning from BioShock Infinite's sheer level of awesome.

----Strife Out----