Rocket League

Rocket League

Soccer meets driving once again in the long-awaited, physics-based multiplayer-focused sequel to Supersonic Acrobatic Rocket-Powered Battle-Cars! Choose a variety of high-flying vehicles equipped with huge rocket boosters to score amazing aerial goals and pull-off incredible game-changing saves!

I can't believe this even exists and could be so insanely good.
If you haven't seen this game yet, go look up some gameplay or pick it up already.
Hell even the multiplayer has virtually no lag for cross platform and that's saying a lot already when it comes to sony.

Rocket League on steam

MOBAS, coercive behavior and popular trends

MOBAS, coercive behavior and popular trends

There's nothing quite like playing for the first time a game of League of Legends or DOTA if you might. The objective of the game consists in taking down the enemy base part by part, in order to destroy the enemy core building. Teams are assembled out of 5 people, where collaboration between each other and positioning is key.



It's not particularly fun, or it stands out as other visually impressive games. It doesn't offers inmediatly complexity, variety to the objectives, the map, or even the characters (as most of them have inherently similar abilities at times). The large amount of time it takes a match to develop, as well as the fact it can not continue regularly without one of the 10 players involved would all seem to add as a detractor for newer players who'd want to get involved.

Yet it stands out as the most popular genre of today, with over 2 million concurrent players on LoL, and 500,000 on DOTA2. It doesn't seems evident for an outsider (or even an insider at times) how this could have happened. Games like Quake 3 have come and gone, without the repercusion and massivity that a game like League can offer. (Edward Zhao throws some info on the percentage of the userbase distributed among mobas that may be of use). So the question remains, why then, why this genre, why now.

"Well, they are free to play"

One of the focal point to the popularity of the genre seems to be a rather obvious one: anyone with an internet connection does can download the game and have at it. Most of the games of the genre (except SMITE) are optimized and targeted towards lower end computers, thus enabling people from all over the globe a smooth experience on the performance of the game.
The dynamics of the genre would also point to friend building and in the particular case of League of Legends, a grinding system that keeps the player working towards a goal (unlocking characters)

Machinæ Supremacy

Machinæ Supremacy

I came across the band while listening to No Life radio filed under chiptune and games. Anyhow apparently this band does a lot of renditions of old games based on 8 bit consoles and the sort.
As wikipedia reads:

Self-defined as "SID metal", many of their songs use a SidStation that features the SID chip of the Commodore 64. They have released a considerable number of songs for free download on their site, 32 original recordings, with approximately 100,000 downloads a month.

And if you go on their website you got almost every song by them for absolutely free, which is really not a strange move on the chiptune market considering the zeitgeist of people on sites such as 8bit collective.

Golden Sun : Dark Dawn

Golden Sun : Dark Dawn

Image taken from IGN

As I'm writing this, the title now is available for Europe, and has been for some time now, in the US. It's the third installment of the series, set 30 years after the events of the second one.

Much like your average Psi Fi sequel, the history of Dark Dawn takes on after the world has changed and some things went to hell with it. The children of those who had to do with it, are now dragged into bringing peace into the world yet-one-more-time.

Image originally taken from Nintendo Dojo

It doesn't sounds extremely original, but I'm not disturbed by it; I'm depositating (if that's a word) my confidence on the classic battle system, and world exploration along with the Djinn system of the first two ones.

If you haven't played the game, this system works much like any event-trigger action from RPGs such as Valkyrie Profile (Crystals), Wild Arms 5 (shooting mode), Tales of 'x' titles , etcera; with the addition of Summonings said Djinns, and when not doing so, they add bonuses to the different statistics of the characters (something like the Final Fantasy 8 Junction system).

Image taken from the GS:DD article from IGN

As I have checked, it's not for any emulation purposes thus far, but I'll be sure to keep checking. Interestingly enough though, there seems to be less expectative in emulation forums about this game than what it was on the previous ones.

Phoenix Wright and Japan's Conviction Rate

Phoenix Wright and Japan's Conviction Rate

Via The Escapist.com

This is a piece of the article written by Monaghan on the Escapist about the "Ace Attorney" games and the reflection of Japanese society.

While the widespread underhanded behavior among prosecutors is a little exaggerated, the idea of the prosecutor as a very powerful individual with a high social status has roots in the history of the Japanese legal system. Traditionally, prosecutors were considered part of the judiciary and regarded themselves on the same level, or higher, than judges. Conversely, attorneys were considered far lower on the totem pole due their inferior level of legal education and their lack of influence in the bureaucracy. (...) As in the games, high conviction rates are highly prized as a sign of prudence and professionalism among prosecutors. Given their intimate involvement throughout the process, a prosecutor will usually be extremely confident when they decide to take a case to trial. While not quite the crooked villains of the Ace Attorney courtrooms, the lofty stature and excessive power of Japan's prosecutors clearly provided inspiration for Phoenix Wright's egomaniacal nemeses

Said article can be found on the image at the very begginning of the entry, or in the following link: Phoenix Wright's Objection! (but I must point out I originally found it by Videojuegos y sociedad)

60% of the times, it works everytime.

60% of the times, it works everytime.

Symbolism and Mythology in Persona 3

Symbolism and Mythology in Persona 3

Warning: this may contain some spoilers about the game

I do admit there are several articles about the underlying mysticism behind both the saga and the personas game itself, but nevertheless, I had planned to rant about this for quite a while, without help of the wikipedia (only probably to link out for sources) because frankly, there are enough of those ...