Weekly Youtube roundup.

I'll be doing a short weekly bit about oddities and amazing stuff I've found around Youtube. This could be anything that I find interesting whether it is gaming related or just weird and funny.

Starting out with last weeks Wingmans Hangar. This is a weekly video series from Cloud Imperium Gaming describing what's going in the making of Star Citizen. They generally release something new every week, like concept art and information about new systems in the 'Verse and discuss a few forum posts while answering the questions of Citizens.

Having grown up in the 80's and 90's I have a natural fondness for the Street Fighter franchise. In my opinion you could not own a gaming system or PC without having Street Fighter II, it was in everyones collection during the time.

I came across this video on /r/gaming and loved it immediately. Chun-Li rocks!

Grand Theft Auto V may just have been released on the PS3 and Xbox 360, and is really the game that lets the console peasents shine for a bit. Considering the age of current consoles it is a quite impressive game, but it'll never look at good as this modded GTA IV on PC... until GTA V comes to the PC, of course.

Kinetic Sand... this is bloody witchcraft! I'd love to get my hands on this, it looks so weird.

Oculus Rift TV Spot removed from Youtube and general thoughts.

By now you've got to have heard about the Oculus Rift at least a couple of times. The extraordinary stereoscopic head mounted display unit that is said to revolutionise gaming and VR in general.
Well it seems their first TV spot got into some trouble, although truth be told I can't quite figure out whether this is actually from an official source or not. Either way it seems to be destined for the internet as I imagine this kind of thing would set America ablaze with Christians burning computers and whatnot should it air on cable TV.

Oculus Rift TV SPOT from Brian Redban on Vimeo.

I already made up my mind the other day about the Oculus Rift; I need this thing! More and more developers are becoming interested in the device and their games are getting built-in support for it, my next gaming heroin for example, Star Citizen, is being developed with the Rift in mind from the get go. Hawken is yet another great game just updated to support the Rift, Valve recently updated their Source Engine with Rift support (great video on TF2 btw).

At this point in time I'm pretty convinced that this will be the future of gaming. Having seen quite a bunch of first impression videos with people playing with the Oculus Rift, their reactions totally sell the product. Next month I'm either investing in the Saitek X-65F Combat Control System with accompanying Combat Rudder Pedals, or the amazing Oculus Rift Development Kit. Quite the difficult decision actually, but I've decided that I need both of these awesome peripherals to truly play Star Citizen the way I want. Epic times await in the 'verse.

Without any surprise taxes or whatever nonsense they might push down upon me for ordering something from outside the EU, the Rift will cost me roughly $370, which surprisingly is less than half of what my latest monitor costs. Not too shabby.

That's my thoughts for now.

Catch all you beautiful nerds later.

-Niv

Hearthstone closed beta finally available in Europe.

Yet another game I've been quite interested in getting my hands on is Hearthstone, a collectable card game (CCG) set in the Warcraft universe.

Oddly enough it's not simply a digital version of the World of Warcraft Trading Card Game made by Cryptozoic with the perverse subtitle "Take your addiction further", but rather a completely new game with, as far as I understand, somewhat simpler rules compared to the WoW TGC and other established card games such as Magic: The Gathering.

I've only ever dabbled in CCGs before; a bit of Magic on the PS3 and Scrolls by Mojang, which in their own rights are very entertaining and can suck the very life out of you and your wallet should you let the collector demon haunt you. But for me there's been something missing from these titles, nothing groundbreaking or unique to the genre or games, just something as simple as graphics, which I think Hearthstone does immensely well. No matter what you choose to do there's always some form of great graphics backing it up, from sending Leeroy Jenkins to attack to a simple generic task like opening a booster pack of cards, it feels and looks significant which is something I can appreciate and enjoy to a great extent.

Don't mistake these thoughts as me saying that graphics make the game, gameplay will always be first in line to a great game. But when the game itself is of a quite simple nature (throwing cards on a table, c'mon), having some great audiovisual effects makes it all that more exciting and "immersive", if that's even a term that applies to CCGs.

But maybe the number one thing that makes me excited for this, is the fact that it's a new Warcraft game. The last Warcraft game to be released is what... 9 years ago? I'd say it's about bloody time for another one! Even if it's not exactly Warcraft IV, which would be damn awesome, though, at least it's not yet another WoW expansion. I've always loved the rich lore of the Warcraft universe, just not enough to warrant me playing WoW ever again, six years or however long I played that is more than enough for as long as I live.

I'd gladly dispose of my pinky finger if it meant another actual Warcraft game, though. I'll never forgive Blizzard if they leave the franchise at WoW... or Gods forbid, WoW 2.

Seeing as I don't have access to the beta just yet, I'll leave you with TotalBiscuit's "WTF is" episode on Hearthstone.

Catch all you beautiful nerds later.

-Niv

My next gaming heroin.

Most people will in some form know the Wing Commander franchise and its creator, Chris Roberts. Unless you've been living under a rock or on the moon you are aware that Chris Roberts is currently developing a new game called Star Citizen, with which he truly aims to create the ultimate space faring universe, far beyond anything we've seen in the past.

Cloud Imperium Games started out with a Kickstarter goal of $500,000, but ended up raising a bit over $2.1 million in the thirty days the Kickstarter campaign ran. They've accepted pledges on their own site the whole time, and have just celebrated passing the $17 million mark on the 31st of August, a mere six days ago! At the time of writing this the $18 million mark is only some $15,000 away... the support for this game is nothing short of astounding.

This makes me so excited! Like the months leading up to the Planetside 2 beta, Star Citizen is always on my mind these days and almost all I can think about. The thought of having this massive universe with virtually endless possibilities and stuff to do, makes me tingly all over.

I'll be making a youtube video in the near future describing both my excitement for the game and explaining why I think this will succeed in making not just an amazing game, but an genuinely unique experience worthy of many years of gaming. First I have to figure out how to edit videos, as I really don't want to release a completely amateurish video (like my first ones =p).

Catch all you beautiful nerds later.

-Niv

Alrighty, time for something new.

I am Nivle the Great Dane of Gaming (pronounced Neville, if you please).

I've been writing down a bunch of stories that I've found interesting on a Facebook page up until now, but I've always wanted to expand to an actual blog where I would have more control about how everything looks and feel.
Having next to no knowledge of HTML and the like, this will most of all be a learning experience for me.

Having that out the way, let me tell you about what I hope to do with this.
I play a lot of games and have done so for almost a quarter of a century. So I believe I have something to contribute to the gaming community.
I tend to buy way to many games and never have the time nor patience to finish most of them, so I'll most likely be doing quite a bit of "first looks" and writing and making videos about my favourite games.

One of the games I've been playing a great amount lately is Planetside 2, so that'll definitely be something that I'll be concentrating a lot of blogs on.

Something I'm really excited about at the moment is Star Citizen by Chris Roberts, which I have backed via the Kickstarter campaign and will be spending a lot more money on in the near future. I'm hoping to follow this title closely and bringing updates as fast as I can, mostly in a futile attempt to grab the interest of some mates. I need a crew for my spaceship!


Quick first post and write up of my new endeavour.

Catch all you beautiful nerds later.

-Niv