Yes, folks, I know it’s a shock, but Konami still somehow continue to make EA seem like Blizzard with every action they take. It just blows my mind on so many levels – how is there not a SINGLE person there who has some kind of power and isn’t completely and utterly insane? It honestly seems like they’re deliberately trying to bury themselves, which is especially jarring considering the fact that for over 30 years Konami used to be one of gaming’s top tier companies. In case you have no idea what I’m talking about at all, let me try to summarize the situation the best I can. If you’ve been playing videogames at all, chances are you’ve at least heard of some of Konami’s franchises – they’re the powerhouses behind awesomeness like “Silent Hill”, “Castlevania”, “Metal Gear Solid”, “PES”, “Contra”, “Dance Dance Revolution” and many, many more! They’re the guys that originated the Konami code, which is the most famous cheat code in all of gaming, to the point where it was referenced in everything, from numerous non-Konami games to even Disney’s “Wreck-It Ralph”. They’re holding a treasury of licenses… And they have no idea what to do with them.

Let me ask you something – when’s the last time you played a new “Contra” game? I don’t know about you, but the last one I played was in 2007 (almost 10 years ago), and that was on the DS only. Anything else we’ve received from the “Contra” franchise has been remakes, the vast majority of which flew under the radar. What about “Silent Hill”, largely regarded as the best horror franchise in gaming? The last true game from that franchise, made by the original creators, was “Silent Hill 3”, with the next one, “Silent Hill 4: The Room” being essentially an entirely different game with the “Silent Hill” name slapped on top of it for marketing purposes even though it didn’t fit the series’ lore at ALL. Afterwards, the series has been given from developer to developer with moderate success, ranging from a pale imitation of the original (“Origins”) to a pretty damn good game in its own right even if it was a deviation of the series (“Shattered Memories”) to ‘what the hell am I even playing is that a friggin’ dungeon crawler’ (“Book of Memories”). Gaming genius Hideo Kojima, the mastermind behind “Metal Gear Solid” (more on that later) and cinematic genius Guillermo del Toro, the filmmaker behind abstract classics like “Pan’s Labyrinth”, were teamed up at one point to create a brand new entry in the series, with “The Walking Dead” star Norman Reedus set to play the main character, and if that sounds like a match made in Heaven then you’re not alone on this. The project was announced through a short, free demo known as “P.T.”, which many regarded as the best horror game in recent years. Soon after its announcements, the new “Silent Hill” game was cancelled and “P.T.” was made unavailable to download in what can only be described as an act of spite. Right now, the only way you can possibly play it is if you had downloaded it before it was removed and never deleted it.

“Castlevania” also had it pretty rough, considering just how revolutionary it was for gaming. Its early installments on the NES and SNES are largely considered to be among the best games of all time, and its PS1 offering, “Symphony of the Night”, alongside Nintendo’s “Metroid”, helped kick-start a brand new franchise that is still around to this day – the “Metroidvania”. Following “Symphony of the Night”, an unspoken rule was made – the handheld “Castlevania” games would follow the “Metroidvania” formula, while the console titles would push the envelope and tell their own grand stories. The entire premise of “Castlevania” was that it basically did “Assassin’s Creed” before “Assassin’s Creed” – every installment was set in a different historical era, moving gradually forward and telling their own story about the fight of several magical families against Dracula. We had the entire story leading up to the climactic fight in 1999 when Dracula was killed once and for all, we got the “Sorrow” games which basically serve as an epilogue to the entire franchise and deal with someone trying to bring back Dracula through reincarnation, so naturally, all eyes were set on the next big console game being set in 1999 so that the saga could be complete. But nope. Instead, the next game in the franchise, “Lords of Shadow”, was a complete reboot starting up a new universe and leaving the old one (which has been going continuously since the 80s) unfinished despite the fact that it lacked JUST ONE GAME TO BE COMPLETED. Okay, that’s all fine and good, maybe the new game will modernize the “Castlevania” series for a new audience, right? Nope! Instead, it throws out literally everything that people loved about it and replaces it with a “God of War” ripoff. Two more games followed, both set in the new universe (the second of which had you playing as Dracula in modern day and I don’t even know what’s going on anymore), and since neither of them was received all that well, one of the greatest franchises in gaming history was shelved for good.

But the greatest insult Konami had was reserved for “Metal Gear Solid” fans. I can’t think of many franchises that were as revolutionary as MGS – without it, I’m positive that stories in gaming wouldn’t have been nearly as good as they are today. You can actually start to see exactly when most videogames started to have a serious plot with complex characters and motivations – early 2000s, just a few years after the first “Metal Gear Solid” came out. With each new game, the envelope was pushed further and further. “Metal Gear Solid 2”, while controversial at the time, is today generally regarded as the first example of post-modernism in videogames. “Metal Gear Solid 3” is still universally beloved for its mature (and not in a “blood, guts and swearing” type of way) storyline about loyalty and patriotism. “Metal Gear Solid 4” introduced many, MANY elements that would become staples of the modern stealth genre. I could go on and on, but the point is that these games are amazing, revolutionary and beloved by many, and it’s in no small part thanks to the efforts of Hideo Kojima (remember him?), who has managed to build a very unique universe that deals with a whole lot of real world issues such as nuclear deterrence, a soldier’s worth, personal agency and more. Just like with “Castlevania”, we only really needed one game for the saga to be finished, but fortunately we were lucky enough to get it in the form of last year’s “Metal Gear Solid V”. Kojima always intended for it to be the final “Metal Gear Solid” title, and as such wanted it to be as ambitious as possible, taking a very long time to develop an engine from the ground up and to touch up the story and characters. Unfortunately, the people at Konami weren’t happy with the game going overbudget, or with the fact that “Metal Gear Solid” was their only successful franchise (well, maybe if they hadn’t executed every single one of their others, it wouldn’t be). Their solution? Fire Kojima in a MASSIVE debacle that I won’t get into now (basically, they denied the fact that he was fired even when it was blatantly obvious that he was, kept him on a non-compete contract and even prevented him from making public appearances and claiming an award purely out of spite) and absolutely butcher “Metal Gear Solid V”, cutting out at least a third of the planned content, though some sources put the number closer to 45-50%.

So Kojima – the guy who revolutionized gaming time and time again with “Metal Gear Solid” is no longer working at Konami and now has his own company, with funding from Sony. All is well for him at least, but what about the “Metal Gear Solid” series? Well, fans would receive slaps after slaps in the face after Kojima’s departure. It was highly publicized that a brand new studio was made in LA specifically to help out with “Metal Gear Solid V”’s production, and it was revealed following Kojima’s departure that the plan was to have a new “Metal Gear” series with the same engine which would release yearly – one year the entry would be made by the Tokyo studio, and the next year LA would have a turn. It’s a business model that has worked wonders for “Call of Duty”, and honestly, once you’ve got the assets and engine in place, I genuinely don’t see a reason why it wouldn’t have worked for “Metal Gear” either. But with Kojima being fired, the LA studio was dissolved, ending any and all hope that we would get yearly games in the series, for better or for worse. Next up, a brand new project was announced – a remake of “Metal Gear Solid 3” with beautiful updated graphics… as a slot machine. Indeed, Konami announced that they would lessen their focus on developing console games and instead lean more towards slot machines and mobile titles using their licenses, but still assured fans that a new console “Metal Gear” would come. And it came… In the form of “Metal Gear Survive”, which is a co-op zombie survival game set in an alternate universe. Suffice to say, it is not at ALL what fans were wanting on absolutely any level, and the trailer currently has over 45,000 dislikes on YouTube and counting.

Of course, even if we leave all gaming stuff aside for now (which is difficult, I know, but bear with me here) and just focus on the inner workings of Konami as a company, then they’re STILL terrible. If the fact that they fired one of gaming’s greatest visionaries, and the guy who pretty much presented them their biggest (and, as of the present, only viable) franchise on a silver platter doesn’t make you raise an eyebrow, or that they closed an entire studio just because plans were scrapped for them to work on a gaming franchise (you could have them working on OTHER games, you know), then the fact that they’re pretty much treating their staff like prisoners certainly should. I’m not going to go into a lot of details here because I’m already approaching 2000 words, but suffice to say, Konami just might be one of the worst employers I’ve ever seen in my life. Probably what takes the cake is that they take game developers who are not “productive” in their eyes (we’re talking creative types – designers, artists, programmers, etc) and force them to work on the slot machine assembly line. That is just beyond insulting.

In conclusion, you don’t really need to look far in order to find a plethora of evidence for the fact that Konami is literally the single worst gaming company currently in business. None of the others – not even EA – even comes CLOSE to the level of shadiness and disrespect for the fans that Konami has demonstrated in the last 10 years. And, from the looks of things, it won’t get any better. Don’t buy “Metal Gear Survive”, or any other Konami game. Let them fade into obscurity. It’s better for everyone that way.

Gaming and iGaming. As words, they’re so similar that they’re literally just a single letter apart, and yet as terms they couldn’t be any more different! The people who play videogames and the people who play things like online slots, roulette and blackjack tend to belong to very different social circles and demographics, as far as studies have shown us. And yet there is some overlap between them – clearly, or else I wouldn’t be here talking to you about it! Indeed, yours truly is a living example of someone who appreciates gaming in all of its forms, be it normal gaming or iGaming, and honestly, it’s not like I’m alone. Considering the fact that there are billions of people who play videogames worldwide, it’s not hard to imagine that at least a small percentage of them also likes to play slots occasionally, with even more gamers wanting to get into online gambling, but being unsure of how exactly to pull it off.

Well, that’s kind of why I’m here. I had this random idea a few days ago to do a series of articles dedicated specifically to giving advice to gamers who want to get into iGaming, but don’t know how. First of all, the most important advice I can give you, before I dive into any particular topic, is that there are TONS of newbie-friendly resources out there which will help you out tons! It’s not hard to learn all you need to know about real money online slots in a heartbeat if you only know where to look! But in case you’re just looking for some quick recommendations, look no further!

Now, it’s important to note that there’s actually plenty of slots that are based on videogames, like “Lara Croft” and “Hitman”, but honestly? I don’t think they’re that good. If you’re in Japan, you can enjoy Pachinko machines based on some of your favorite franchises like “Castlevania” and, more recently, “Metal Gear Solid”, but since we’re stuck in the good old west we need to get creative! My thought process was basically this – what do gamers really like? Games, of course! So I tried to pick out some slots with very good bonus games and features attached to them regardless of what they’re based on, and I think I managed to get some pretty good selections.

First and foremost is “Spider-Man”, which I had to mention in honor of that fantastic-looking Insomniac game they showed at E3. The slot, which is based on the comics and not on the movies, has a TON of fun bonus games in it which are all really fun to play! Then we’ve also got “Aliens”, which, while not particularly interactive, manages to be amazingly impressive and thrilling, certainly bringing games like “Colonial Marines” to shame. And last, but not least, there’s always “South Park”. Loved “The Stick of Truth” and that preview of “The Shattered But Whole”? You’re gonna adore “South Park”, which is a bit like a prototype for these games in slot form. Well, now that you’ve got your recommendations, what are you waiting for? Go play some slots!

Random chance has played a major part in games since games have existed. And I’m not just talking about videogames, I’m talking about games in general – practically every single game ever invented in the history of mankind has incorporated chance within its rules to some degree. While in some, like sports, chance is often a negligible part of the entire experience, in others, like gambling, understanding the probability of different events on the roulette table can mean the difference between a win and a loss. So naturally, when videogames first started to emerge in the 70s, chance and randomness were added to them in order to keep the experience fresh and interesting. Nobody wants to play a game that plays exactly the same every time, after all, and a certain degree of randomness in enemy behavior or even level generation often draws the players back in. But aside maybe from puzzle games, no other genre has embraced randomness the way that roleplaying games have. Hell, when played offline, roleplaying games like “Dungeons & Dragons” almost always require several different dice, and that’s no coincidence! So many things in RPGs rely on random number generators, but probably the most noticeable one are the so-called random encounters – a variable which determines when the player will encounter an enemy. Ever since their introduction, random encounters have become a staple of the genre, so I thought I’d pay them tribute by listing some of my favorite examples of their use throughout gaming:

Final Fantasy: While it’s generally accepted that “Dragon Quest” was the originator of the concept of random encounters, I’d have to say that “Final Fantasy” perfected it – for its time, at least. The first game actually had a complex algorithm to ensure that the number of squares a player would go through before triggering a random encounter wouldn’t be too small or too great, and that at the same time there would be enough distance between the random encounters and the fights that the designers intended. It’s pretty complex stuff for an 8-bit game, but then again, the first “Final Fantasy” was revolutionary in many ways!

Tales of Symphonia: The first 3D “Tales” game brought an innovation to the random encounters formula that many subsequent games, like the fan-favorite “Persona” series, would later copy – they made random encounters visible on the map. The monsters were walking around just as you were, and while sometimes they blocked your path or ran into you, often times you could avoid them with careful maneuvering or by stunning them. A fight only occurred if the monsters touched you, so as long as you stayed away from them, you could go through the entire dungeon without a single fight. Later “Tales” games would expand upon that mechanic by adding bonuses for attacking enemies from behind or stunning them before battle.

Bravely Default: In 2012, it didn’t seem like there was any more room for random encounters to evolve… And then we got “Bravely Default”, which completely flipped the RPG genre on its head by, uh, giving us the chance to turn them off. Indeed, within the options of the game was a slider which dictated how frequent random encounters were, from “very frequent” to “non-existent”, and honestly, that’s got to be one of the most brilliant ideas I’ve ever heard in my life. I don’t always play an RPG for the same reason. Sometimes I want to just do something with my hands for a couple of hours while in the middle of a Netflix marathon, and in that case a high random encounter rate is great, as it keeps me occupied and also helps me grind items, gold and experience. On the other hand, sometimes I want to focus on the story, in which case a low random encounter rate is the way to go.

Undertale: Toby Fox’s 2015 RPG is fondly regarded as one of the best games of all time, and with good reason. Among its many achievements was placing the player in a living, breathing world populated by many unique characters that you could befriend or kill for money and experience. While generally grinding (as in, the act of roaming around a dungeon and mindlessly slaughtering monsters to gain as much experience as possible) is considered a staple of the RPG genre, in “Undertale” this act puts you on the Genocide run, where you gradually decimate the population of the game’s world until there’s literally no one left. I mean, what did you expect would happen if you ran around in circles and just killed everyone? Brilliant!

I am sure you were as amazed and freaked out as everyone more or less when recently Google’s AlphaGo won at Go against the world champion Lee Se-dol (more than once, I have to point out!). This is the first time when an algorithm designed to mimic the human mind did manage to actually learn by experience – it didn’t win because that was a set program with a limited number of options. It won by learning whilst playing the games itself. Now Microsoft are on the path to take that even further. And you are probably asking yourself now what on earth does that have to do with gaming. I will explain.

Apparently, they have put a team together that is developing an AI, who is playing Minecraft (yep, you read it right) in order to train as a character. It is set to adapt and develop by the trial-error method. The idea is again, similar as with AlphaGo – surely they could’ve just programmed it to win but the point is to learn the process as opposed to completing a specific task.

Why Minecraft? Well, on top of being the favourite game of nerds like you and me, it is actually a very good platform to test AI systems. Just think about it – you don’t need to build a real robot at huge cost (not to mention repairing it every time something goes wrong). What is important in this case is collecting information from the experience of interacting with its surroundings – so a computer game is just perfect for that. Genius! Also, as you know, Minecraft has different modes and ways to set up things so the scientists (damn, that’s scientists! I wish I could have their job!) can create whatever obstacles or environment necessary in order for the “robot” to learn the required task. I don’t even know anymore whether I should’ve put “learn” in speech marks in this case. But yes, point being, it is easy to manipulate the level of difficulty of the tasks and increase it according to the performance of the AI.

In the core of the project lays AIX – a platform developed by Katja Hofmann and her team in Microsoft’s UK Cambridge centre. This summer, we are expecting the software to be launched open source – which is one of the most exciting things I can think of just now. Katja (eat your hearts out haters, it’s a woman in tech, yes) is aiming to have the system such that it can be used not only by Microsoft but by a wider community of AI developers worldwide. After all, working together has always been a catalyst to success, so I guess it was about time for Microsoft to get there too. Of course, there are already people opposing the idea – posts and blogs online have been released criticising the idea, saying that this is a way to develop machines more intelligent that humans. You know, Terminator and all that. Well, I am pretty optimistic by the future of it all but let’s wait and see!

That’s it from me for now, I hope you enjoyed it and will be glad to see you back soon!

Only a few days ago, the latest installment of the popular “Far Cry” franchise, “Far Cry Primal”, was released to critical and commercial success. The game holds a 77/100 “positive” rating on review aggregator Metacritic, and while sales numbers still haven’t been released, it’s a safe bet that it has made UbiSoft just a tad bit richer. But that’s not what we’re here to talk about today, as I’m fairly certain the overwhelming majority of you don’t really want to listen to sales figures and ratings and all that jazz. Oh, no, I’ve got something a lot more interesting in store for you, guys – the the UbiVerse!

Now, for those of you who don’t know, all modern (as in, featuring human characters in a somewhat realistic environment) games that Ubisoft has made in the last 10 years share the same universe. We’re talking more specifically about “Assassin’s Creed”, “Far Cry”, “Watch_Dogs” and maybe “Rainbow Six”. How does this connection work? Well, we know that all “Far Cry” games are connected despite being separate stories because characters keep showing up from one into the other (the main character of 1 is the main villain of 2, a character from 2 shows up in 4 and numerous characters from 4 show up in 3). At the same time, we know that “Far Cry” is connected to “Assassin’s Creed”, as an artifact from “Assassin’s Creed” and the logo of Abstergo (the villains of AC) show up in “Far Cry 3”. And best of all, “Watch_Dogs” and “Assassin’s Creed” have a literal crossover, with the CEO of “Abstergo Entertainment” (a subsidiary of Abstergo) showing up in “Watch_Dogs”, only to be assassinated by the main character.

But where does “Far Cry Primal” fit in? After all, the earliest that a ‘modern’ UbiSoft game has been set in is the 12th century, and “Primal” is set thousands of years before that! Well, as always, Game Theory has the answer. As it turns out, the main character of “Primal” is actually the ancestor of the Beastmaster-type enemy that appears in “Far Cry 4”, as they both have the same abilities. “So what”, you may be asking, “There’s plenty of people who can juggle, for instance, doesn’t mean they’re all related!” Ah, yes, but in the UbiVerse supernatural skills get transferred through genetic memory. That’s why all “Assassin’s Creed” protagonists have what’s known as the Eagle Vision – the ability to see everything more clearly and distinguish friend from foe. The overwhelming majority of all “Assassin’s Creed” characters belong to the same family tree, so if that can be true to them, why can’t the Beastmaster skill be transferred down the genetic lineage of the protagonist of “Primal”? I don’t know about you, but I find it really fascinating how UbiSoft have managed to make so many different games which still share the same world. It’s a feat that matches, or even surpasses, the Marvel Cinematic Universe!

Do video games make kids aggressive? Has violence increased overall with the rise of gaming? These are questions that everyone has asked themselves at some point, parent or not. There are a lot of opinions circulating, for and against, so let’s have a look at how plausible the statement is in reality and according to science.

I am a living example myself – I’ve played far more games of all kinds throughout my childhood and am not even remotely violent – I struggle to swat a fly! But I am aware that could be an accident. There have been many experiments and researches done on the topic. Recently, a study was conducted in Bath University, Bristol Uni and UCL with over 2900 kids. The results are yet again not very clear – there is none or very insignificant relation between kids exposed to games starting from the age of 8-9 and their behavior – violence, attention disorders and depressions at later age. This is by far not a first – there has been tens and tens of studies supporting each side of the argument, making it impossible to state for sure what the truth is. One thing is for sure – all this suggests that the issue is far more complex than a just yes/no answer.

To quote the research mentioned above results “A sensitivity analysis comparing those who play competitive games to those who play shoot-em-ups found weak evidence supporting the hypothesis that it is violence rather than competitiveness that is associated with conduct disorder. However, this analysis was underpowered, and we cannot rule out the possibility that increasing levels of competition in games may be just as likely to account for the observed associations as violent content. Overall game exposure as indicated by number of games in a household was not related to conduct disorder, nor was any association found between shoot-em-up video game use and depression.”

Another study on the topic that I found quite fascinating was published in the Journal of Communication. It was conducted by psychologist Christopher Ferguson and analysed the relation between the violent content of the most commonly popular games from 1996 to 2011 and the behaviour of youth. Much to the disappointment of many anti-gamers, the study found that during the time period in question not only there was no increase, but in fact “youth violence dropped precipitously”. The psychologist rightly concluded that there is simply more attention given to the issue in the media so this creates that misconception in the common opinion. He also states that people should in fact focus on more important and real issues – like poverty, education and mental health, instead of taking the focus away from those by creating scandals around something that has never been proven scientifically to be an issue.

While there is still no concrete evidence on one side of the argument nor another, I completely agree with Mr. Ferguson’s last statement, so play on and keep checking on me, I will be updating you on this and other gaming topics in due time!