Yogscast's 9/11 Joke: A Well Calculated bit of Stupid

I want to do something different today, so this is addressed to all the Yognauts out there. For perspective's sake, I am an American, and I love the Yogscast,. I've seen every of Simon and Lewis' videos, and I think they are brilliantly funny, and genuinely good people. I watched their “Minecraft - Remote Control Mod “ video a few days ago. Simon makes a joke at 00:51 seconds in... about 9/11, and I had to put my head down. I'm from New Jersey. I sat in a classroom as students called home to see if their parents had escaped the Twin Towers. I'm closer to this event than most Americans, and I am not offended. I'm not heartless, but listening to the joke, I knew that it hadn't been said with hate, or in a celebratory manner. It's just a racy joke, a tasteless one, but a joke nonetheless. I put my head down because I already knew the comments section was a mess, and against my better judgment, scrolled down. Some people were offended.
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Though not offended by the joke, I understand why people are. To me, hearing a Brittish man make a joke about an American tragedy, is like hearing a white guy make a “nigger joke”, it makes me cringe, but another racist guy might get a laugh out of it. But, remember who the largest demographic on youtube is. So in this case, it's like a white guy making that joke in a predominantly black comedy club. If you are not part of the group you're laughing about, and though you may be completely innocent in telling it, doesn't make it a good idea.
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It doesn't even matter there isn't something inherently wrong about the joke. This is Youtube, not a lecture. We aren't looking for facts, we are looking for entertainment. This isn't about right or wrong, it's just about doing something stupid, and pissing of a sizable percentage of your audience probably falls into that category.
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Thinking about the Joke a bit more critically, It's not so simple. Anyone who's a fan of Youtube's other gaming celebrity TotalBiscuit, has probably heard him note that trolls actually do more good than harm. A troll is adding to the uploader's view count by clicking on the video they want to attack, which in turn means more money for users with partnerships. I believe that the joke, and it's response, were both well calculated on the Yogscast's part, and I absolutely refuse to believe that the Yogscast did not realize how offensive the joke may be. Yogscast could have very easily edited that bit out, deliberately decided not to.
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That's not to say I think this is a bad thing. These videos are their livelihood, and though I don't necessarily like it. The reason for stirring up the viewers at least makes sense to me. I'm more concerned with how the commenters are so easily lead, and how a joke turned into political mudslinging. I don't know who started it. People who defend things on the internet tend to preempt complaints before they're made, so it's possible that either group could have been the first to attack the other. I don't think it matters. What's disappointing is that people from two civilized nations, would resort so quickly to such childishness over a joke. This paints neither side in a good light, and no matter how badly they want it to, mudslinging will never change anything, for the better, anywhere, ever.

The Pokémon TCG Online:Free

The Pokémon TCG is (arguably) the most well known TCG in the world, and If not for Magic: The Gathering that "arguably" would be "undeniably". The Game Boy Color iteration by Hudson Soft did surprisingly well both commercially and critically, and it's rather surprising that the sequel was never localized. I'd imagine they were worried the popularity of the video game version would hurt physical card sales, but that's just my guess. Anyway, when I found out there would be a Free-to-Play online version, I was more than a little excited. Unfortunately, Pokémon TCG Online has some serious issues that completely ruin the online aspect, but lets take a look at the things it does right first.

Pokémon TCG Online looks about a nice as one could hope. The cards are exactly like their printed counterparts, and clicking a card enlarges it, filling the entire flash window, a nice feature for admiring artwork of ones favorite Pokémon.

Hello, old friend.
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The in-game's presentation is also faithful to its physical counterpart, and is about as close as one can get to the real thing without sitting down for an actual match. I couldn't find any issue with the controls either. The game looks great and controls nicely, and is surprisingly well polished for a game aimed at a younger demographic.

Not a good start, beautiful table though...
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Pokémon TCG Online makes the smart choice of allowing players to skip tutorials. You can also click to skip animations, making the game far more fast paced than it's older iterations. The only real issue with skipping animations is that doing so affects the timer, making the feature of keeping each players time pointless in single player mode. An unlockable time attack mode forces the player to disable animations and click through enemy turns, which makes it a little sad time was spent to make such nice animations, just to have them I mostly ignored.

It's not all good news in the aesthetic category. The beautifully done in-game presentation makes the western low quality flash character avatars a complete mystery. One would assume an anime look, to match the aesthetic of the TV show, or even a pixelated look, to match the main game series, would be a given. Instead, Pokémon TCG Online goes with an cheap "Dress-up" flash look. I don't know why, maybe because simple vector characters are easier to scale for different window sizes.

This is not a person you want playing with your children online.
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The gameplay is a bit of a mixed bag. It is relatively easy to pick up, but every praise I want to give this game, is countered by equally glaring flaws. Pokémon TCG Online sports a lengthy single player mode with over fifty matches to keep you busy, but only allow you to use pre-built decks. That's three decks. the rest have to be purchased. The three basic decks (fire, water, and grass) are decently built, and require different strategies, but I can't understand why there is no support for decks built with the deck builder in single player. It's not a matter of AI, as you can test your own decks against a computer. This means AI has been programmed to be able to play against any possible deck build.

Pokémon TCG Online has four difficulty settings and a "dynamic' option, in which, the difficulty is adjusted as you play, but I really couldn't tell the difference between "easy" and "very hard", and thinking back, how often the coin flip lands in your favor may be the only difference.

There is also has an achievement system. I'm not a fan of achievements, but for a strategic card game, an achievement system makes sense. Unfortunately, Pokémon TCG Online's achievement system is poorly implemented, many of the achievements being impossible to get without buying decks. Most other achievements are pointless. I personally feel that achievements are supposed to be for when a player does something above-and-beyond the expected. Pokémon TCG Online thinks believes otherwise. Things like:"Win all the games in _______ league", or "Win 12 games with ________Deck" are considered achievements, despite not requiring any actual skill. There are a few real achievements mixed in, such as: "Deal 300 or more damage in a single attack", but most achievements require no real skill, just a monetary investment, and time.

Another issue I have with Pokémon TCG Online is a lack of supported cards. Older cards are not available, and though there are still a decent number of cards, It's still a little disappointing that we can't use cards from older generations.

The absolute worst aspect of Pokémon TCG Online is the business model. The only way to get cards for multiplayer is through the single player mode, and this only unlocks the cards from the three basic decks. So, though Free-to-Play, there is no way you can possibly compete with someone willing to put money into it. Even if one could compete online with the pre-built decks, or the variations you can make from them, the question becomes, would you want to? You just played through 50+ games with these three decks, and they feel boring.

Go get 'em... then do it again... 50 times.
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See, though the decks play differently, each deck is easy to figure out. Water is Balanced, focusing on support and attacking enemy support Pokémon , Fire is pure power for high energy cost, and Grass is heavily healing dependent. Once I realized this, it quickly got to the point where, barring type disadvantage or bad luck on the draw, I dominated the AI. But what really baffles me about how Pokémon TCG Online does business is that you are expected to pay for power, yet there is no way to do so. The gameplay is good enough that I jumped to the shop, thinking I'd pay $10, get two or three boosters, altering my deck into something usable online, but there is no way to do that. Pokémon TCG Online wants you buy the physical booster pack, then scan or type out a code to unlock digital booster credits. This is objectively stupid. I'm playing the online game because I have nobody else to play the actual card game with, making them utterly worthless to me. Pokémon TCG Online refuses to take my money without making me drive to a store and buy a product I don't want. I cannot see how this is a viable business choice for Pokémon TCG Online. It would cost absolutely nothing to allow players to pay for something already programmed into the site.

"No." ~Pokémon TCG Online
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Pokémon TCG Online's value is difficult to rate. It is free, and due to the luck of the draw, one could, theoretically, play against the AI repeatedly and never play the same match twice. On the other hand, online play is impossible without investing some money into it. Money the game won't take from you. You can definitely get a good 10-20 hours out of the single player in spite of it's flaws, but it's relatively worthless as an Online game.

Update:

I haven't abandoned this blog. I've just been having some problems playing anything. See, My monitor is actually a Toshiba TV, and it's terrible. Every game I try to install has some serious scaling issues. So far I've dealt with games that start so much larger than my display that I can't access any options, and I've dealt with games that for some reason display right but wont let me mouse over the bottom 1/5th of my display. I've tried drivers, display settings, and everything else I could, and nothing seems to work. The only thing on my list of upcoming games I've been able to play is the pokemon TCG online. I've beaten the championship mode, have played a few AI games, and a few online games as well. I've got a good list of complaints and praise down as well. Hopefully I'll have it up in the next few days. (as this is a writing experiment for me, the writing process is longer than it would be for a professional.)

Skip: Sideway: New York ($9.99)

a few days ago I found Sideway: New York, a 2.5D Brooklyn set platformer, in my steam recommendations. I was intrigued. I thought, I'm not sure I want to throw down $10 on a platformer boasting only 15 levels, but I knew from the screenshots that Sideway had some charm to it, and I'm a sucker for interesting aesthetic choices.

Sideway's look has something about it that makes it feel like the developers last visit to Brooklyn was at the height of "X-treme" era. You play as Nox, a hoodie wearing, goatee'd hipster looking guy, who has been turned into graffiti by a billboard, and has to find his crew and a way out of/off of the walls of Brooklyn. The Story never gets much deeper, and you should already know what kind of game it is as soon as you hear "graffiti". Everything is graffiti, Nox, your attacks, your enemies, and your collectibles, which seems like a pretty cool stylistic choice until you realize that there is no other unifying unifying element than "colorful". The enemies range from alien mucus with an eye, to these kind of zombie-ish black guys, and Sideway never tells you why. Ultimately, Sideway has style, in a retro, tongue-in-cheek way, and having Nox move around walls as a flat image on 3D surfaces works in a way that wouldn't be anywhere near as cool looking if the entire game was in 2D or 3D.

The music is not so nice, and 'd be more forgiving about it if not for the fact that the music is provided by an artist from Skullcandy, Mr. Lif. This strikes me as odd, as one would think a company that makes stylish music-related products would provide good music. No, this music is "generic" hip-hop at it's worst. I tried, but cannot think of another way to describe it. It's got a very plain rhythm, marked by a record record scratching sound I swear has been used in every bad game from the 90's trying to be "ghetto". The songs with voices all sound like when J-pop tracks try putting deep voiced rappers in the background, and It just ends up annoying mumbling. Honestly, the soundtrack isn't terrible, it's just not good either, and though it may not be fair, if you're old enough to have played the classic Jet Set Radio, you won't be able to avoid comparing them. Sideway never had a chance.

Lets talk about gameplay. I'd love to shower this game with praise, because the level design is really nice. Sideway really gets creative with how they use the 2D-3D hybrid look here. It uses the fact that Nox is a painting to make it so he can cross any wall not blocked by something,and if you go around the right wall the right way, you can revisit areas rotated on their side or upside-down to access things you couldn't earlier. This mechanic makes it so that you really have to be clever to get 100% of the games "coin"; circular graffiti on the walls. Because Sideway's has generous checkpoints, and no outdated lives system, the levels are well balanced. Easy to finish, but hard to complete.

I can't praise Sideway too much though, because as beautiful as the levels are, the controls are flawed. It seems Sideway has trouble when you hit two keys at once. I literally had to work on the same jumping section for over five minutes because there was a platform that had to be painted in while jumping. Nox, however, was more content with just killing himself, over-and-over again. It got the point where I actually quit the level so I could go to another similar platform and check to see if I was hitting the wrong key. I was not. I noticed the issue before this point, but since this is the first time missing a platform means instant death, I really noticed how much of an issue it is. The same sometimes happens when running as well. Nox will not register that you're pressing the jump button, and run straight into whatever pitfall or obstacle you're telling him to avoid. In a turn based game, this would be a minor flaw, maybe an annoyance at worst. In a platformer, it can break a game. It's also worth note that the health system is useless. finding life power-ups allow Nox an extra hit before he dies, but seeing as you never respawn more than a few seconds from where you died, it only has any impact in Sideway's very few the Boss fights.

No matter how much I want to, I just can't recommend this game. I purchased this game hoping that maybe the levels would be long enough to make up for the fact there are only 15 total, and that the platforming would be good enough to warrant replaying levels for completion's sake. Sideway: New York only fulfills the latter, and add in the control issues and you may not want to even replay the best levels. For $10, there really isn't enough value in Sideway to justify the price.. It's not a bad game, and if you have the disposable income to spend, then I can recommend it as a way to kill a few hours and be impressed by some great level design. If you're like me, and can maybe drop $20-$30 a month at most on games, Sideway is just not worth such a significant chunk of that budget.

Note: The control issues may be due to the fact it's a PS3 port, and it may work better with a controller. I don't take this into account because that is an extra investment that, as a gamer on a strict budget, I am not willing to invest in a controller, and I would rather not tell other people to pay for something I myself don't see as necessary.

Reccomended: Terraria ($9.99)

Terraria is a side scrolling 2-D sandbox action game with RPG elements. It is often compared to Minecraft, but is different enough that comparing them is a little unfair to both. Terraria has the same kind of gather materials, craft materials, and build, elements of Minecraft, but otherwise, it's an entirely different beast.

There is no real ultimate goal to Terraria. You explore the map to gather materials both on the surface, and through spelunking through the dark underground; which you use to build a fort, town, or home. There are bosses to test your mettle against, areas that require you to defeat said bosses or have special items to access, and you have to unlock NPCs like achievements, ranging from having enough money, to having a certain weapon, or just finding them on the map. This gives the player some clear goals to strive for, despite their being no real end to the game.

Heavily focusing on combat, Terraria offers plenty of weaponry, and in the accessories available really do let you customize your character to play the way you want. You can play all the traditional rpg roles like a tank, a ranged fighter, or a mage, or you can just equip a bunch of items that increase your jump length or height, buy a bunch of grenades, and rain fire-y death from above. This is a big part of why terraria is so enjoyable. It takes a good amount of time to get the materials to craft higher tier items, and many accessories have to found in map and dungeon chests. Just to make a single character strong enough to beat the games strongest boss, It took me well over 50 hours of play. And I still haven't found and crafted all the items I'd like to experiment with.

One of the biggest arguments I hear against Terraria is the graphics, and while I agree the game is graphically unimpressive, it is still very aesthetically appealing, having a feel similar to that of an old 16 bit game, but with much better fidelity (I've seen it looking crisp on a 32-in screen). The lighting and particle effects are also beautiful, as one would expect in a game where spelunking through underground passages plays a large role. The only criticism I will make of Terraria's looks is that mobs are repetitive, to the point where you feel like you're fighting the same mobs over and over again just slightly stronger, and even the Hard-mode bosses, are very similar to the normal bosses. It's not a deal breaker, but it would make the game much more interesting if mods were more varied.

The music in Terraria fits the 16 bit era look with some very catchy music. It's the kind of stuff you remember well after you've played it. It does loop constantly, and after a few hours of play you can mute it and not feel like you're missing out on anything, but the fact that it plays the entire time and doesn't get grating is more than you can say for most games.The sound effects are alright. Nothing phenomenal, but nothing to complain about.

As for quality of play, I can't find a complaint. It doesn't feel padded, and you'll never feel you're just wasting time. Traveling the map may take a few minutes, but mobs and interesting terrain keep it from getting stale. If there is one criticism I can kind of make, it's that Terraria feels really slow when you make a new character. The growth is paced well enough that you never really realize just how much faster it becomes to gather materials or move with top tier items until you start again. You can move your characters between worlds, allowing other characters access to your better items, but it does feel just a little bit like cheating.

The one comparison I really have to make with Minecraft is the modding community. Terraria is moddable, but their really isn't anywhere near the amount of mods out there as Minecraft, and that's a shame. Terraria is great, but still has potential, and I'd love to see some weapon mods, custom items, custom bosses, and custom maps, but there just aren't many. Theres nothing to do about it though, and one can't really blame the game for not having a larger modding community.

Now, let's talk value. I already said you can easily get 50 hours of play from it, and with a price tag of $10, the play to cost ratio is great, and that's just for offline play and one character. There is no cost for online play, and it really changes the game when you have a party, adding a lot more to do and a reason to specialize in ways that wouldn't be viable offline. To date, I have only made one better purchase than Terraria. It's the longest game I have ever played that didn't cost at least twice the price.

Reccomended: Minecraft ($26.95)

Okay, let me say right off the bat that, for a good while, Minecraft was my addiction. And as I'm sure anyone who reads this knows by now, I am not alone in this. I'll skip the details on this one, seeing as if you're a gamer on the Internet and haven't heard of minecraft you may as well close your browser, light your computer on fire, and slip back into non-existence because I'm fairly sure you don't actually exist. No, the real question here is, should you buy it? And you know what? I'm finding it a little hard to recommend.

Don't get me wrong, Minecraft is a great game. It's a utterly unique game in that, it has plenty to do, but nothing to do. There is no end, no ultimate goal, and because of this, you never really feel like the game is over. Admittedly, vanilla Minecraft will eventually get boring for most players. Once you build a super-awesome house/pimp cave, have a full suit of the strongest Armor, can beat the strongest mobs, and explore everything there is to explore, there's not much else to do. And that brings me to my biggest gripe with Minecraft, there is not much to show for your effort. The achievement system is kind of pointless, there aren't really any epic drops, no trophies, and there isn't really a boss either (well there is, but it's not really worth beating). Ultimately, in the end you'll end up just starting a new world, and repeating the entire process, perhaps making a more interesting home.

All is not lost though, thanks to the fact that Minecraft has an absolutely huge modding community, and you can extend the life of your purchase for months with mods, and years with custom maps. And if you can imagine it, odds are someone has, or will, eventually do it. It's also nice because, no matter what flaws you find in the game, someone else probably has thought the same, and has done something to fix it. In my case, I thought combat was bland and the weaponry was so limited I found myself bored of fighting monsters within a week of playing. I was not alone, and a quick search of the minecraft mod forum revealed a handful of weapon mods adding entirely new dynamics to battle, and many many more mods that just added a huge arsenal of weapons to the game, ranging from better swords, to WWII era firearms.

Knowing all this, I can't honestly call Minecraft a bad purchase. It's huge, and even though I don't play it much anymore, I can say that I've gotten my money's worth and then some.

No, what makes this hard to recommend is the price. It's about $27 at the moment, and while that's not a terrible price for the content by any stretch of the imagination, it does bother me that the price has risen so much. Having picked up the game in beta, It was $15, and to be honest, the improvements from beta to full game, aren't all that impressive, and certainly not enough to justify almost doubling in price. Not to mention, though I'm about to, that we were kind of promised more. There were talks of an adventure mode, giving the game more of a... game feel. Complete with NPCs and adventures, as the name would suggest. What we have at the moment, are silent NPCs that you can't interact with, and seem to wander around randomly generated, vastly underpopulated, towns that all look the same. What bothers me most about this though, is that there are free mods that make the game itself look bad. There's a mod called Millénaire that not only has talking NPCs, but also have varied societies that will expand depending on how you interact with them. Does this make Minecraft any worse? No, of course not. If anything, these mods make the purchase even better, it's more just a matter of principle. It's kind of disappointing that something I got for under $20 is now almost $30, and in all honesty, it's hard to recommend something that's price has jumped when the purpose of this blog is to save you money while satisfying your gaming needs.

Ultimately, I have to recommend Minecraft. It would be wrong not to, because you really wont find a game with a more to do, or a better modding community, out there for this price. And if it were $27 when I got it, I probably wouldn't have cared as much about the price.

My Mission

Hi. My Name is Keith. I'm an English Major, and a gamer. Now, though I think that being educated in writing, and fairly educated in gaming, or at least as far as one can be, it should be pretty much a given that I should flex my bulging literary muscles and write about video games. Unfortunately, I'm also poor, so very poor.
As you may be guessing at this point, being good with words, does not equate to being intelligent, and I spent quite a bit of time thinking that I simply could not write about games because, unlike most people who I know who write about games, I can't afford them. I mean, what's the point of writing if I can't be topical? Surely, nobody wants to read about games once they've been out long enough that every gamer with disposable income has already covered them in writing, video, and podcasts.

Then it hit me. I can't be the only person out there that can't afford to throw down $60 on new releases and play them from atop his golden throne while the servants feed him fine cheeses and polish his scepter. And here I am, starting a blog about budget gaming.

What does "budget gaming" mean exactly? well, I'm sure everyone would define "budget" in their own way. Some people consider themselves budgeting if they only buy one triple A title a month, and that's fine. I on the other hand, am lucky if I can afford a full priced triple A game once every two or three months. Now, sometimes that's okay. A lengthy RPG, or large sandbox game can last a few months. What is a problem though, is that sometimes you'll end up with a great game, that takes about eight hours to finish. And with focus shifting towards a multiplayer based experience, stories are getting shorter and shorter every year. Even worse yet, sometimes you'll end up shelling out half a weeks pay for a game that turns out to be either not your thing, or in the worst case, something outright unplayable.

So, In hopes of remedying that problem, I'm going to try to do the following for you:

- Try to find good games for reasonable prices. Hopefully within the $5-$10 range, maybe closer to $20 if the game is phenomenal in some respect, but never more than $30.

- Try to find the best value games. You know, most bang for your buck, to use a colloquialism I'm not particularly fond of because it makes me think of prostitution.

-Try to sort through the mountains of free to play games and pick out the ones that seem to be most worth the time.

I also have a few General Rules when finding games:

- No "Freemium" games. Aka, those games that are "free", but you can't possibly compete without paying for upgrades.

- Nothing subscription based. I don't know about everyone, but in my opinion, a game that bleeds away your money month by month until you've payed more than you ever would on a single game is worse than a $60 price tag.

- Generally, I wont recommend anything that I feel pads it's game time. I don't care if it takes fifty hours if half of that time is spent replaying levels or backtracking for things that are arbitrarily locked until you beat the game, or you spend ten hours of that just traveling.

Now, there will be exceptions. And sometimes, I'll probably write on other things, like my opinions on gaming trends, the good and bad going on in the industry, design pet peeves, etc. But the main focus will be on reviewing games based on just how much fun and time you get out of games.

That just about does it for introductions. Here's hoping you find something worth your time here, and feel free to recommend games, comment on my content, call me out if you think I'm wrong, or even comment on my writing style if you think I can do something to improve this project.