Weekly Ramble — The Good That Comes From Gamers

The Jamster
Jul 10, 2017 · 7 min read

Summers out so guns out right! That could be showing off your fine figure at the beach but for me it’s usually tucking into a shooty bang bang game. So time to discuss another week in video game.

The Speedrunners Speed to Success

Briefly mentioned at the end of last weeks ramble the event Summer Games Done Quick (SDGQ) came and went this week. A charity event where speedrunners run through various video games as quickly as possibly running twenty four hours a day for a solid week. This year the gang successfully raised an impressive $1.7 million dollars for the charity Doctors Without Borders. I have personally been quite the fan of this event which occurs twice a year (the other usually being in January) for a long time. I remember several years ago when the event used to be streamed in what seemed to be somebodies living room. This event has grown to making thousands per event to making millions and that is a huge achievement. On reading an article on Destructoid of all places a writer made the interesting point that it’s surprising the mainstream media doesn’t report on this event considering it’s success. A reason suggested is the media has a tendency to report on video game violence and other negative stories linked to the medium. Though it may seem rare I have seen positive stories on video games. In fact many online outlets have technology section which features gaming such as BBC and The Guardian. I do agree it seems odd none of these are yet to report the success of SGDQ 2017. But I question if they really need it. Games Done Quick has proven they can successfully spread the word of these charity streams with word of mouth alone. I don’t doubt the event will continue to grow as the years pass. The entire event has been archived on the Games Done Quick YouTube channel. If you enjoy some speed runs and have time to burn some runs I would suggest include the Super Mario relay race where three teams speed through five Mario games back to back. The Final Fantasy 7 run where they literally speed through the entire jRPG in under eight hours. Multiple horror games including Silent Hill 2, Resident Evil and Onimusha were also great to watch. The best part is the commentary the guys provide where they discuss the game lore, the tricks they use and of course a few fun jokes. It will certainly keep you busy if you need something to watch on these hot sunny days.

A massive achievement as always

Castlevania on Netflix a Bat Out Of Hell

Castlevania landed silently on Netflix this week in four quick episodes. I watched the entire series in one sitting and was quite surprised it didn’t suck. It had a surprising adult tone featuring plenty of gore, sexual themes and testicle kicking. Maybe not a show to enjoy with your kids. Following the plot of Castlevania 3: Draculas Curse the best of the NES titles (in my humble opinion). The show moves pretty fast and without spoiling anything just sort of ends on a cliffhanger which seems to be quite common for Netflix when they test out new shows. It feels more like a feature length film as opposed the a TV series. The episodes end at odd moments and just carry on where they left off in the next episode. It reminds me of when they made the four feature length episodes for Futurama and then adapted them for TV. I’m not going to delve into the plot (maybe I will in a separate article) since if your a fan of Castlevania I think it is well worth watching. Definitely not the cute cuddly Simon Belmont from Captain N. But if you like the violence of Game of Thrones you’ll probably find plenty to like here. Folks have reported the series is far too short. To be honest I prefer the short series to be quick and leave me wanting more rather than do what most TV shows usually do which is just drag plot lines out over a long period. But as mentioned this feels more like feature length not a TV series. Maybe the second series which was announced this week will have that tone instead.

This show is batty……..crickets

Amazon, Ebay, Scalpers in a Boat and the SNES mini

The war of the SNES mini and scalpers in the UK continues but companies are taking steps to tackle this, sort of. Amazon has reduced all pre orders to one unit per customer. This could be out of fear they may not get enough units in to cover the massive amount of pre orders and less to stop scalpers. Ebay also took some steps and took down several listings of pre orders sold on Ebay. The main reason for this though is Ebays terms and conditions state you can’t sell a pre order item unless it is available within 30 days. So this may not delay the crazy high prices the unit will sell for later. Amazon and Ebay probably don’t really care about scalpers who are buying the system just to sell on for a high price it may possibly help some people get a pre order who were not sitting on the toilet looking at their phone in that one hour period when pre orders went up. If you live in the UK and really want the SNES mini ‘Game’ is apparently still taking taking pre orders but you have to put down £50 to reserve instore which seems a little crazy. I’m disappointed Nintendo doesn’t just address this issue and produce more units of the SNES and the NES mini but that’s Nintendos business strategy these days. Sad face.

The Future of Sonic is in the hands of Mania and Forces

Stories this week suggest Sega will be watching sales of Sonic Mania and Sonic Forces very closely to determine what happens to Sonic moving forward. I’m pretty sure this is what most game companies do with any release but I was appropriately corrected on this. Some game sequels e.g. Call of Duty, Fifa are already developing the sequel to the game after the game releases and unless the series does terribly they are unlikely to cancel the next game. Anyway Sonic, additional stories released this week suggest Mania is pretty good a carbon copy of Sonic 3 with a new lick of paint. Sonic Forces is supposedly rubbish and another game with another Sonic gimmick which just doesn’t work. I can’t confirm any of this since I haven’t played either of the games. Even if both of these game flop I think it is unlikely this is the last of Sonic. He is a huge brand name these days which sells a lot of merchandise alone. Maybe he’ll just live on in T shirts or under pants and not games but well see. I can’t help but feel both games might perform quite well I say that because both are releasing on the Nintendo Switch and if that platform sells games as well as it sells systems Sonic Forces might be a easy title to put into a console bundle later this year. Also kids seem to still love Sonic so it will probably perform well across all platforms. Sonic Mania will no doubt acquire a lot of success through nostalgia. As far as I’m aware it is only a download title though.

Mania looks to bring the nostalgia back in Sonic

And finally Halo got a lot of backwards compatible love this week as well as all Xbox 360 multiplayer maps becoming free to download. Sure the Master Chief collection is a thing but it’s cool to see Microsoft support backwards compatibility with as many games as possible. With the Xbox One selling quite cheap this is more of a incentive for people to pick up the system especially if you held on to your 360 games. Even if you didn’t go to CEX they are dead cheap there.

Brutal Kill

Thanks again for reading this weeks report. I’ve been quite busy behind the scenes with RL (Real Life stuff) but I still appreciate you taking time out of your day to read my rambles. As always,

Have a mad one.

JAM