Refraction Gaming

I'm contemplating reviewing the Uncharted series for this blog. I've played the 4th one recently, but because of the story nature of the games and the fact that they are highly acclaimed, what would I be adding by talking my opinions...? Then again...I've talked about other wildly popular games so far and they were games that had many people's opinions scribbled all over them, so what else would be new for the course? Expect a series of reviews to come out in a little while, depending on how inspired I feel to write them. I don't expect anyone to care, but...ya know.

No, I will not be comparing Metroid: Samus Returns to the well received fan-game "Another Metroid 2 Remake" [AM2R] here. I feel that enough is already going to be said, and I simply want to look at this game on its own for its own values and understanding of what makes Metroid 2 good to attempt to remake. With that out of the way, let's talk about my first impressions when I saw this air first. I was surprised, excited, and frustrated all at the same time. It had been way too long since we had seen any kind of 2D Metroid game, and the promise of this new one being a brand new 2D styled adventure had me excited. The fact that it was a Metroid 2 remake...had me both excited and frustrated. I love AM2R to pieces so to see this made me feel conflicted. However, I did push all of that aside, because in the end, I really just wanted another Metroid game from Nintendo, and so here we are with a brand new game that promised to be really, really fun with brand new, helpful abili...

With the arrival of Metroid: Samus Returns  for the 3DS handheld console, there has been a debate had on whether it achieves what it needs to be to excellently be a remake of Metroid II: Return of Samus  for the original Game Boy. Of course, to do this without quite understanding the roots of where this game comes from would be relatively simple, but I feel that it would be best to compare this to the source material to understand what was done and whether it translated well or not in coming out to become a remake of this classic Game Boy game. It is worth noting that outside of this game, the only major Metroid title released for quite some time with Nintendo would be Super Metroid , which demonstrated the possibility of a masterpiece for the series and embedded it as one of the flagships for Nintendo, especially among western audiences. It has also been said literally everywhere that this game is considered the "black sheep" of the Metroid series. I find this rather baff...

I find it funny that I intended to write my Sonic Mania review before this, and yet here I am writing a review for a totally unrelated game. At the time of writing this, I wasn't even 100% on Sonic Mania nor had I fought the final boss, yet this game, I had and I didn't want to play it quite as much as Sonic Mania. Irony? Or laziness? For a bit of background before we start, though: I have played all of the Pikmin games prior to this one. While I have not gotten far in Pikmin 3, I have completely finished Pikmin and Pikmin 2. I was rather surprised, then, to hear that the next Pikmin game would not only be on 3DS, but wasn't going to be an RTS. I don't really recall the reasons that were stated as to why this change was being put into effect. Perhaps it had something to do with the fear that it would be a "number managment" game or perhaps they were worried about the movement being constrained to feeling too much like the mouse + keyboard type of gaming th...

This is a two part blog. The first part is to reintroduce what I'm going to be doing with these blogs. I had lost interest in doing them, and I figure that a chance in perspective would do me some good. The second thing is: Sonic Mania finally came out on PC. Is it any good? Oh yes, it's amazing, but we'll get to that in a moment. Blog rules are as follows. No more angry rants, no more ranting in general, just talking about games, talking about game contents, specific guidelines for MMO and multiplayer play, and stuff like that. Calm, casual, good talks, and if I have something to profess that has been bothering me, I'll put out a warning that says that it might get a little bit salty. Sound good? Good. Let's get to work. On Sonic Mania and it being good? It is very, very good. I have only gotten five stages in, haven't experienced the rest that this game has to offer just yet so I can't exactly write a review. But my first impressions are very, very goo...

I get it, Windows 7 is now two operating systems behind everyone else. The major difference is that, where Vista was supported over XP, Windows 8 wasn't as supported as Windows 7 for the longest time. People strayed away due to the failing popularity of Windows 8 as a whole. So, when Windows 10 came around, people started supporting that, sure, but how come it's starting to become nearly impossible to get things for Windows 7? The latest of these, and the reason why I'm writing this, is because of Steam. I have, for no reason at all, started having troubles with Steam after it and Windows 7 both had nice, large updates that I left to run overnight. Steam just stopped working. A reinstall worked...somewhat. I still could not run Steam properly, had to fight with it every morning to get access to my games and play anything on it. Now, the ultimate "screw you" has happened. After attempting to reinstall Steam a second time to fix this issue, the bootstrapper simply...

Some would say that "being a jerk" is a bad thing, especially if you're intent on healing the group. Being a jerk promotes a team that isn't actively trying to work together, others would say. I, however, have this to say, concerning healers. If your tank is being an idiot or an elitist and is pulling more than you can chew? Let him know. Be blunt. Be a jerk. It'll get the point across. If he doesn't like it, stop healing him. If he kicks you, good, let someone else deal with his stupidity. If the group doesn't like you, you don't belong there anyway. If the DPS are pulling for the tank, be blunt and tell them to knock it off. If they talk back, or keep doing it, or both? Stop healing them. Remind them who is in control of their own ability to act like such pricks. YOU ARE THE HEALER! The healer is the one thing that is standing between everyone in the group and certain death to adds. Without the healer, no one can survive the dungeon adds. Witho...

It's a common opinion to be shared that "Metroid: Other M" sucks complete and utter everything in the world. It's just not a good game, from all accounts. If you were to believe the more radical of the Metroid fanbase, you would even believe that it played terrible and that it ruined everything we hold dear about Samus Aran and that it is the single thing that may well have killed the entire Metroid franchise. But, is it really all that bad? Before you start bringing out your DDoS guns on me, hear me out on this. I don't like Metroid: Other M. As a matter of fact, I think that there are far better games to be playing other than that game. It's something I enjoyed portions of, but the rest of it marred my experienced as a whole. Let me talk about what those are and maybe we can figure out whether Metroid: Other M is really as awful as everyone is claiming it is. I'm not going to defend the story. I am willing to say, here and now, that nothing about the...

Now that I am finally onboard with Final Fantasy XIV's Stormblood expansion and can, for once, actually experience it, I finally am able to put my thoughts down and my first impressions about the game. The first hour doesn't do it justice...the rest of the game has to be experienced, or at least some of the rest of the game has to be experienced, before judgment can be passed on whether it was a worthwhile expansion or not. And so far, the expansion has been more than worth the money, outside of the preorder going awry and some other technical difficulties. There are bugs, but that's not unheard of in a brand new launch. Things that were missed by the development team in a game of this scope isn't unheard of, just so long as the more bothersome ones get fixed. Flight returns, but is strangely limited to the expansion areas once again, meaning that flight around Eorzea is still not a thing. If Square Enix pulls a cataclysm, I'm going to be ticked, for the record. B...

I talked some time ago about the congestion problems that plagued the early access opening to Final Fantasy XIV, and with good cause. Of course, I come back today, and it is fine. I can easily skip to the rest of the story, behind those who managed to get through the "walls" that were presented, but there nonetheless. This problem, however, displays an alarming lack of preparation for how many people were going to preorder just to get in. This, in turn, brings me to an important question concerning how they should have been prepared in the first place. Square Enix would have had access to all of the preorder numbers, regardless of who they were selling it through. The codes had to be entered for the early access before the 16th of June in order for a person to gain access to the Stormblood content early. This, in turn, would mean that they would have a log in their databanks of every single entrant to the early access and should have had time to adequately prepare for the s...

Stormblood! The new expansion for Final Fantasy XIV has just launched and now it's live for early access members, with people who didn't bother paying the extra $20 for the game able to actually play the game on the 20th of June, 2017 when the game actually launches. However, small programming bugs seem to be the least of our issues today... After sorting through an issue with my gaming keyboard interfacing awkwardly with FFXIV and not allowing me to move correctly, I found yet another dilemma, one that is lasting for a very, VERY long time and continues to last despite being patient and waiting for it to come around. The main storyline quest instance not but maybe an hour into the game is deliberately bottlenecked to ensure server stability. This doesn't sound too bad, until you realize that maybe 1% of the population on any server has a small chance of getting into the instance at all. I have tried for a long time now to get into the instance, from spamming the "...

There are MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD! Do not read ahead unless you have already played Ori and the Blind Forest to completion, or simply just don't care. If you are either of these, then read ahead. Since I am waiting for Final Fantasy XIV to reinstall, along with all of my other games, I figure this is as good an opportunity as any to talk about the up and coming Ori and the Will of the Wisps, seeing as we have had an amazing reveal trailer. First, let's talk about who I think is going to be the main character of the story. Remember that Ori and the Blind Forest opened with a feather same as a feather is shown blowing through the breeze in the new trailer. However, that feather was Ori. Ori was the center of the story in his first game, being the last remaining spirit of the Spirit Tree, alongside Sein, who was the eyes and light of the Spirit Tree, the very essence of what made the Spirit Tree able to function, for the most part. Ori and the Blind Forest was primarily about Ori...

To be fair to other games, I am going to say that there were some titles worth examining or at least giving some attention to. Metro: Exodus looks to be something worth at least paying attention to, potentially trying out. I'm definitely picking up Dragon Ball Fighters Z, as I've always been a huge fan of Dragon Ball. Anthem looks decent, but since it's EA, it's doubtful whether or not I'll actually be bothering to pick it up. The new Assassin's Creed looks to be somewhat fun, but it's part of a series that I've long since abandoned. I only play them here and there, though I might start getting back into them soon here. And, of course, I'm getting Middle-Earth: Shadow of War. I really enjoy the first one, so this can only get better...I hope. The rest of the Microsoft E3 Conference, however, was pretty much lame. I spent most of it half-heartedly glancing at titles and kind of paying attention while playing Styx: Master of Shadows on my second moni...