Some Changes In My Life

Hello all,

It's been a while since I've published a blog post, but I'm trying to get back into making them. I have had some changes in my life that have caused me to be busier than I was when I was making them. I have been putting some work into our gaming/entertainment company's website and now I want to get back into my own blogging to share my views and opinions on various points in the gaming industry.

In August I started a new job and now work about 5 days a week and close to 40 hours every week doing a job with physical labor so if I'm not busy away from home I am more tired than usual causing me to put off doing these things. I will try to change that, but I can't make any promises. My schedule isn't a set one so it differs almost every week. It sucks, but I have to do what I have to do right now.

If you don't know already, the gaming/entertainment company that I am proud to be a part of is called The World's Empire and I help run it alongside two of my friends, J Skill and Jonlaw. J Skill was the creator of TWE in the beginning and then I joined when he told me about it and I offered to help with a website and whatnot. Jonlaw is a YouTube commentator/gamer that has helped promote TWE tremendously and does a lot of good work himself that, in turn, helps us all. All of us pitch in ideas although not all of them are used. We are a "community" first and foremost so we encourage others to act as one, too, and to join us if they'd want to be a part of TWE's.

If this is something you are at the least bit interested in, feel free to check out our website: http://www.theworldsempire.com

Keep in mind we are still working on it so it's not completely finished yet. We have an online bulletin board/forums for people to register and join in on the conversations whenever they want.

I was thinking if I should get back into recording gameplay/commentary and posting it on YouTube again and I think I will get back into that as well. I still have my El Gato HD Capture Card and the new Xbox One is coming out tomorrow, Friday 11/22, and I already have it pre-ordered so I'll try to do some videos with that. I don't even know what games I'm getting just yet, but there are a bunch I have on my mind. I have to spread them out so I can afford them all.

With the launch of so many games and the next generation of consoles I'll have a lot to talk about so hopefully I can find the time to blog and commentate on a lot of it. I'll try to get a launch day video/commentary posted when I get my Xbox One. Since it'll be completely paid off I should be able to get it at 12:01 AM on Friday so I'm going to store to grab it around that time. I might just record from the very beginning to capture my reactions and initial thoughts on everything, but we'll see how it goes.

Anyway, that's the update for now. To all of those who bought and have the PlayStation 4, I hope you're all enjoying everything it has to offer as well as the games so far. If you're getting an Xbox One, I hope you do the same when it launches. To everyone playing new games on current or next-gen consoles, you guessed it, enjoy the same.

I'll get some more stuff out soon. I'm going to try hard to do so.

Until then,

HAPPY GAMING!

-GeNiO

BF4 Beta

I mentioned I played a few matches of the Battlefield 4 beta so I wanted to give some thoughts on it so far. First off, the gameplay was fine for a beta. The graphics and sound were mostly fine as well. I was pretty impressed with how the game flowed for the most part. That map is a decent one and you're able to move around pretty quickly and freely. Sometimes I would spawn in a helicopter and then parachute out onto a target. Others I would spawn on squad mates, sometimes when they're on top of buildings and I can parachute off of there, too.

The map is called Siege of Shanghai and it's an area surrounding I believe 2 skyscrapers that you can utilize and a great feature of those skyscrapers is having multiple elevators available to go up and down. They had 2 game modes available: Conquest and Domination, both core. Conquest, if you don't know, is most comparable to CoD's "Domination." You need to acquire and hold multiple flags for the most time and kills to win. Vehicles are available in Conquest on this map and it gets pretty crazy and that's not even the craziest part. The other mode is "Domination," which is a fast-paced, infantry only mode that allows you to acquire and hold flags quicker and there are less "tickets," or lives, for each team. There were tanks, helicopters, and LAV's with 3 flags in Conquest. I didn't get to play Domination yet.

Parts of the map were sometimes "floating," but I didn't really see any other visual bugs. The sound was good, too, and I didn't have any issues hearing everything I expected to hear. If I remember correctly, BF4 changed the controls to have the melee by pressing the right analog stick as it is in CoD. RB on Xbox 360 and R1 on PS3 will now "spot" enemies instead of the Select button. I kept bringing up the Battlelog screen in the middle of the match before figuring it out. Everything else is pretty familiar, though.

Overall, I enjoyed the few matches that I played and will play some more tonight. It seems like it's going to be a really good multiplayer experience and that is why I pre-ordered a copy myself. I will probably do the upgrade and trade in my Xbox 360 version for the Xbox One version when it comes out. I'm not really sure what the single player is all about as the multiplayer is what's been keeping me interested. I remember seeing the trailer, but I don't recall much about the story, characters, and such. I'd like to know as I enjoy playing the single player parts of many games and play them usually before the multiplayer.

So before I end this, I want to give my "BF4 Beta Experience" like the videos the official Battlefield YouTube has about real player stories. My very first match for BF4 had an epic experience that I just had to look at. I was on the roof of a building looking one way not at the skyscraper when I heard and felt a loud rumbling sound so I turned to look. What I saw was pretty awesome. One of the skyscrapers was collapsing to the side right in front of me and I just sat and watched. This is something you see/hear in a movie or something or maybe in a really good single player part of a game. That was my first time seeing that and I was awestruck and impressed when I experienced it. I'd suggest playing the beta and experiencing that at least once.

In my second match I had something pretty epic happen to me and I wasn't even mad at it. It was insane and I loved it. There is a channel/river with water and on both sides are each teams base. There are a few bridges allowing entry to the other side, but you can also go the water route, which can sometimes be a lot safer/smarter. I happened to have jumped in the water and was swimming to an area I could climb up and start an attack. As I was a few feet away from steps out of the water I felt and heard that rumble again. Not sure where I was or where the skyscrapers were I just looked back and forth and then I looked forward and up. There it was, the skyscraper was beginning its descent right onto me. I wasn't even mad that I died; it was just a really crazy and awesome experience. I don't want it to happen too much, but it was cool to go through.

Anyway, those are my initial thoughts on the Battlefield 4 multiplayer beta. Remember to check out the open beta on October 4th. I look forward to this game so hopefully many of you do, too.

Until next time,

HAPPY GAMING!

GeNiO

It's Been A While...

Well, my last post was over a year ago as I pretty much put this on hold when I was working on other things. The World's Empire is still around, but the site has been put on hold for now as we figure out what we want to do with it. We wanted to add a front page that has a complete summary of everything we want TWE to include (the forums were a part of that plan), but we haven't worked much on it so it's still a template. It's unclear if we're going to do anything with it soon, though.

Anyway, this is kind of an update post. I know I've said I was going to review a few games that I played in my last post and since I never got around to doing that I think I'm just going to review the ones that I enjoyed instead of all of them. I might just skip those reviews altogether and move forward with previews or something. I haven't decided yet.

Right now, GTA V and FIFA 14 just came out within the past month and those are basically the only 2 games that I've been playing steadily. I've never really been into GTA's online so I'm not sure if I'm ever going to play it, but I love soccer and FIFA is a great game although it does have its cons like any game and there are a few things that weren't fixed from FIFA 13 that remained so maybe I'll go over those 2 games as well as some previews.

For this year, above all others, Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag is my most anticipated game so far. And, yes, I was more anticipating AC4 over GTA V or any other game this year. I'm really looking forward to the naval warfare as now we'll be able to just sail around whenever we want and do a bunch of stuff that looks awesome. I've been paying attention to any new information/content Ubisoft releases on the game it looks that good. I'll talk more in-depth about it in another post, though.

The exclusive multiplayer beta for Battlefield 4 was released yesterday to anyone who was a Premium member, pre-ordered BF4, and/or bought Medal of Honor: Warfighter. All three of those happen to apply to me. I downloaded and played a few matches last night of the beta and my initial thoughts were fairly positive for a beta. I discussed BF3's beta when it launched so I'll do another one for BF4, too.

I was pretty impressed by the improvements made in NHL 14 for this year's demo so I might go buy the game sometime soon. I'm not certain yet, though. Last year's game felt like a step backward to me so I'm on the fence with this year's.

Oh, I can't forget the next-gen consoles coming out soon. I've owned every PS to date, but I'm not getting the PS4 right away at least. I'm sticking with the Xbox 360 and I recently just pre-ordered the Xbox One. Most of my friends will be staying with XBL so I decided to stay, too. I may get the PS4 somewhere down the line, but I don't see myself doing so anytime soon. I also sold my PS3 a few months ago as I rarely even used it and it was collecting dust. I pre-ordered AC4 for the Xbox 360 for its release on 10/29, but I'm also going to be getting the Xbox One version when the console/game both come out. I pre-ordered it at GameStop so I'll be able to trade in the 360 version and buy the Xbox One version for $9.99, which is a pretty cool deal. I'll probably make another post about the next-gen consoles as well as I have a few things to say about all of that.

Most already know that Call of Duty: Ghosts will be released in November, but I'm really not interested in anymore CoD's at this point. I'll probably wind up buying it since most of my friends will have it and will continuously bother me to play. I usually enjoy running with friends online or co-op so I'll have to see what I think of Ghosts when it comes out. I doubt I'll pre-order it; I'll just buy it when it comes out.

The only other things I can think of to touch on now and maybe later are Watch Dogs, Ryse: Son of Rome, Destiny, Titanfall, Forza 5, and Dead Rising 3. Some of them are Xbox One releases and the rest are coming out after the Xbox one launches, I believe. Watch Dogs looks awesome, definitely. Ryse looks interesting, although I'm not sure if I'm going to enjoy all of the button actions or whatever they're called (I forget the name). We'll see how that plays out. Destiny looks pretty dope, but it's made by Bungie and I've never been a huge fan of Halo's gameplay. Titanfall is interesting, but I don't know how I'll like a multiplayer only game. Forza is always good, except I wasn't that big of a fan of the last installment. Finally, Dead Rising 3 looks pretty badass as well. I want to see how that game turns out.

OK, well, that's about all I can think of right now, but I'm going to post at least one more post today about something, I just don't know about what yet.

HAPPY GAMING!

GeNiO