Tag Archives: video games

Blood Bowl 2 console players get shafted… (Warning: Profanity)

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Hey guys. Just a quick update in order to help work out some anger regarding some downloadable content for Blood Bowl 2. I’m still working on my review for The Ninja Crusade RPG 2nd Edition by Third Eye Games, just taking a bit longer than planned thanks to work and the fact that I’m currently having to read it on my phone, which makes for slow going.

Anyway, onto the rant, which I decided to do in the form of an open letter to Cyanide Studio (the developers) and Focus Interactive (the publishers). Fair warning, there’s profanity aplenty.

An open letter to Cyanide Studio and Focus Interactive RE: Blood Bowl 2 DLC

Hi to whoever ends up reading this at either of the above companies (I’m hoping against hope that it actually makes it to at least one of you),

I’m a long time fan of Blood Bowl. I’ve sunk a stupid amount of time into the first game, and I play at least a few matches a week in Blood Bowl 2, so long as work and other commitments allow it. I’ve been really looking forward to the new teams, especially once I’d heard that hey, if you already owned the game when they came out, they were meant to be free. So I was super excited when I decided to check in and saw that the Norse had finally been released. Right up until I actually read the update. To quote the bit that concerns me:

To respect the PC players of the first Blood Bowl game, which accumulated 23 races through 3 paying editions – we have heard their frustration – we decided to create the FOUNDERS INCENTIVE for PC players of Blood Bowl 2: players will receive the Norse, the Undead, the Necromantic and the Nurgle teams for free, as long as they purchased the game before the races release.

I’m sorry, but “to respect PC players of the first game”? Fuck that noise. I’m one of those players. I’ve paid for every goddamn edition of that game on PC, even after I bought the console version and realised what a shitty game it was, because I was willing to trust that the PC version was better (which it was, though that’s not a very fucking high bar to set). I was running leagues up until last year when the last of my players jumped ship to Blood Bowl 2. So I got it on PS4 for a few reasons:

  • My PC wouldn’t have run it at any reasonable quality
  • My setup here is awful for PC gaming (I don’t have a desk or anything I can sit my keyboard and mouse on, making it a real hassle to play)
  • I knew I’d have some guaranteed opponents amongst friends who bought it on PS4

But hey, to hell with my loyalty to the series, I’m a filthy console gamer, so instead of getting the same teams to the PC players get for free, I’m expected, along with all the other console players, to pay out the arse for the teams. They’re over $10 AUD each here. By the time the 4 new teams are out, I’ll have had to shell out nearly $65 for them and the original two DLC teams. That’s a goddamn joke. I mean for fucks sake, if they’d at least been priced reasonably, I wouldn’t be anywhere near this angry. But I can fucking well buy brand new AAA games on day of release for what I’d have to pay to get these teams that you’re just handing out to PC players. I’m not kidding, I bought Doom and Uncharted 4 (one of the most highly anticipated games of the year) for less than $70 AUD each.

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For a supposedly Final Fantasy, there sure are a lot of them…

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So, I’m currently working on a campaign journal for the Reign of Winter game, but it’s taking me longer than expected to get used to writing in character again. So, it’s going to be a little while on that one.

In the mean time, I thought I’d talk about one of my favourite RPG video game series of all time. From the title, I’m assuming you guessed what it is, but just in case you missed it, I’m talking about Final Fantasy. I know a lot of my friends have made the obvious “It’s not really a final fantasy if there’s so many of them” joke over the years. I don’t know how true it is, but what I heard about the name was that the original creator of Final Fantasy had intended for it to be the last game he made, his literal “Final Fantasy” game. When the game was unbelievably successful, he decided to continue on.

Anyway, let’s have a retrospective look at the Final Fantasy games (at least the ones I’ve played).

Final Fantasy VII:

The cast of Final Fantasy VII

The cast of Final Fantasy VII

I grew up playing these games. Sure, not from the very first one, since my first gaming console (if you don’t count a Commodore 64) was the original PlayStation, which I got in 1997. So my initial introduction to the series was, as I’m sure it was for many others, Final Fantasy VII… and man, it blew my mind. Here was a Science Fantasy story that rivalled the novels I’d been reading for how sheer bloody epic it was, except that this time I was in control of the action and pacing. Sure, to actually complete the story you had to take a set path, but I was free to explore the world and hunt for secrets and mini-games to my hearts desire. When you did decide to finally get back on track, the game was a rollercoaster of action and story. There were moments of victory, like stopping the train before it destroyed the town of Corel; and there were incredibly sad moments as well. The fate of Barrett’s childhood friend Dyne, after he realises that his daughter is still alive and he’s too much of a monster to ever be her father again, was a shocking moment for me. Even more shocking was the end of Disc One, where you catch up to Aeris again (yes, I’m going with the original mistranslation of the name, because that’s what I’m used to), only to have her killed in front of you by Sephiroth/Jenova. I’m going to be honest. That’s the first time a video game has ever made me shed a tear. It’s happened on occasion since then, but it’s a rare thing. Even movies can’t manage it all that often, though books do it surprisingly regularly.

Since then, there’s been a number of spin-offs from Final Fantasy VII, including movies, books and games. The ones I’ve seen and played have been pretty good, including Crisis Core, an action-RPG for the PSP; Dirge of Cerberus, a third person shooter featuring everyone’s favourite optional character, Vincent Valentine; and Advent Children, the direct sequel film. Little hint with Advent Children, unless you’re watching the Complete Edition, don’t bother. It makes much more sense with the huge amount of extra footage. Sadly, the one thing we haven’t seen, and that I doubt we’ll ever see (though I’d love for Square Enix to prove me wrong) is a HD remake of Final Fantasy VII.

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The Iron Kingdoms need you! – A Kickstarter Round-up

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NOTE: This is finally finished. I’ve added post project updates to the WARMACHINE: Tactics and Tesladyne project write-ups, and have added write-ups for The Agents and Primeval Thule.

Hey guys,

So I know I said I’d try to get this up on Monday last week, but unfortunately life has a tendency to get in the way. Not going into details, as it’s nothing major, just lots of little things. Anyway, I’m in Sydney for a training course at the moment and had a little while to work on this tonight.

Anyway, it’s time for the Kickstarter round-up that I promised when I did my update about Satellite Reign on Sunday the 28th of July. So, we’ll be talking about a few different projects here, some of which still have a significant amount of time remaining, others that are in their last ten days or so. I haven’t pledged to all of these yet. Some of them I may end up pledging for, others I may not. It all depends on funds and other commitments. However, with the exception of one (which has already finished), they’re all projects I feel deserve some attention and hopefully some significant support. We’ll get to the exception later though.

So, let’s get stuck into it. Welcome to The Grassy Gnoll’s second instalment of the Kickstarter Round-up!

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