The super mega ultimate exciting world of micro transaction funded gaming. yay._.

Lets face it the topic "micro-transaction funded gaming" sounds ridiculously boring. Like micro versus macro economics boring. Like how are we actually talking about video games boring. My eyes are glassed over boring. To circumvent the dull-drums, the industry calls it "free to play gaming". Wait i fucking love free, In fact that's my favorite price point.

Free to play mobile games are self explanatory in that you download the game to your desired device and start playing at no cost. The payment is to enrich your experience using an in game currency to buy little things in the game hence a micro transaction. The free to play games can be divided into two categories which are time and content.

The Time category gets your real life dollars by offering you the option of saving you time. These games often require you to build something or other and then you wait for that something to be built or stocked or grown or whatever time consuming method of acquiring an object the game has.

I'm going to use Tiny Tower as an example to conveniently bring up the factoid of it being the first mobile free to play game i played. TT has you construct floors in an apartment building. You gain points by building different business that are essentially a floor in your tower. You also have to make residence floors so you have customers to shop in your sky scraper. The more floors you build the longer you have to wait, in real time no less. This is where the in game currency comes in. You can get rid of the wait time of the floors being constructed.

Instead of closing the game and doing something productive you can get rid of the wait time so you can continue being active in the game while you finish your business call. Business call is code for pooping. I made the term up a few years ago while i was a shift leader at Blockbuster video. "You guys hold the fort i gotta make a business call." See it sounds much more classy than admitting you're going to go into the dank staff washroom to play tiny towers while you dump.

The game that has been occupying my time on the throne lately is Friendly Fire. You need to know about this game because redrobot finally perfected free to play. I say the game is perfect because you can play the full game for free just like Tiny tower the only thing you pay real money for is to skip wait times.

In FF you build an army base and over time you can upgrade your base, defenses and battle units. Your base operates in the same manner as a Real Time Strategy game. You mine for oil and metal to build the tanks and planes you need to attack other players bases. The unique twist is the fact that you pick where your base is set up by putting in your address. The game then uses the street layout in the area of your neighborhood as the layout for your base. This gives the game a nice personalized feel.

Of course the game is just a mobile experience so you can't expect an entirely indepth RTS experience. The game is simplified and streamlined. Instead of having full unit control you pick a drop off point for your tanks around the enemy base. Then your forces roll into the enemy base on auto pilot and wreak havok all the while you can drop bombs via airstrike with pin point accuracy. When you defeat an enemies base you take some of their dog tags but if you loose they take yours. There are leader boards for the world all the way down to your city. Another unique feature is when you are attacked by another player you can get revenge on them and you awarded bonus dog tags for your effort but then they can do the same to you. The more you attack each other the bigger the bonus.

Now that i've talked about two good games I'll tell you how free to play games can be terrible?

Content games make you feel like you are missing a part of the game that you can only experience if you buy additional content. This is either new areas of play, equipment for your characters or the game can be so dick headed that they even want you to buy characters so you aren't outmatched by your enemies. These extremely frustrating because they ramp up the difficulty in a ham fisted attempt to coax you into making a purchase. 

Blood brothers is a good example of this type of game. I rage quit that and then ended up playing multiple variations of the same formula. The formula is a team building battler. You get a starting team of a varying number of monsters. You can get more monsters by amassing in game points and then draw random monsters from an in game mechanic.

Problem is you never really get anything good without paying real money. Blood Brothers even limits the highest level of monsters to such rediculously high levels of in game currency you're basically left with no other option than to pay high amounts of money for a chance to draw for a powerful monster... Which means even if you do part with your hard earned money you can still get stuck with a shitty mage who has no real influence on your battles and you will end up getting ripped apart in all the PVP fights.

Eventually the frustration will be too much and you'll get sick of these games... all of them. Thanks but no thanks Blood brothers, Hell Fire, what ever that marvel game was called, that shitty transformers game and even Puzzle and Dragons. Yes Puzzle and Dragons is the top of the heap for these games but it's just a shitty stink heap anyway.

I live tweeted Final Fantasy XIII-2

I'm starting final fantasy XIII-2 Pretty slick opening video with some ambient music and a guy carrying a girl into water

shits going down in the opening fmv. Oh damn that's a big spell raining down on enemies. Why is the theme from love boat playing

I only played about an hour into the story of Final fantasy 13 so i hope this one makes sense

Oh great now that i started the game it's the same video with awesome narration "engage in battle and rejoice"

Ugg cinematic button que events are THE WORST they always seem so hamfisted into the gameplay. The battle tutorial is nice though

"Cinematic action. Press x repeatedly" how bout you go fuck yourself and get on with the fight

The bad guy caius is awesome. This game better pull the switch over where he becomes a playable character

Just got 5stars on the first battle. SUCK IT GAME. So if my name's lightnig and i'm in valhalla and i shoot bolts am i a sexy zeus?

Aaaand it doesn't matter because lightning is dead and now i'm controlling her sister serah

Noel has to find serah to change the future which doesn't make sense, lightning is dead in the present so won't she still be dead

This game's story better not get too complex because i'm drinking beers while playing and i'm already lost

Oh nice you get to pick how you control the camera that's big points

Oh if you haven't played ffxiii you can read the datalogue in the menu to catch up. Or not read and screw it i'll take option b

Wtf there's a jump button? I better not have to do any effin parkour while the buildings around me and underfoot crumble

"One more thing, don't ever lay down AND WAIT TO DIE" I fucking love cheesy final fantasy dialogue so much

nice there's a battle element called paradigm shift. You can focus on attacking one enemy with your party each memebr can take one

When your party attacks one enemy you get a chain and enough chains lowers the enemies defence. Shit just got real

Sweet there's a bestiary i can't wait to fight tonnes of enemies and fill it up and then nerd the fuck out

THERE'S DIFFERENT OUTFITS I CAN UNLOCK HELLS YES. i can't wait to get the whatever weird japanese emo one there is.

So your weapon is actually a moogle and when you're done a battle you cuddle it. Perfect victory celebration


I'm wandering around in the night screwing around and there's blaring up tempo viola jazz music wtf.

I'm not sure if it's just weird japanese mannerisms but i think the big tough guy character in the game just had a hissy fit

Great i'm barely an hour in and already i don't know how to get to the next area of the map... stupid jump mechanic

This fucking terrible music isn't helping the frustration any #cheesypianobreakdown

Using the paradigm shift repeatedly mid battle to go from a defensive formation to offensive is interesting but incredibly tedious

Noel's voice over sounds like an over articulated tom cruise

The music is great again sultry saxaphoneis just what I want in an RPG I just never knew it untill now

This game is gender confusion to the max. The guys look like girls and the girls look like 12 year old boys

I think playing this before XIII might spoil the plot of XIII

These conversation trees are just filing me with anxiety. What if I choose the wrong one and don't get a giant sword

I think life would be a lot more hilarious if we all adopted FFXIII-2 body language

Come on it's been over two hours where's my new outfit

The most impressive advancement is the design of the chocobos

And they sqwak like a peacock when you jump. That'll be 20 minutes of added gameplay

Now the dogs in my house are going apeshit because they think there is a peacock outside. Make that 40mins of extra gametime.

That's two cut scenes while I wait to leave the starting area RAAAAAAGE

There's a character named godot and his voice over sounds like a petulant Bruce Campbell AND HE'S NOT A PLAYABLE CHARACTER WTF

Sweet there's a new time travelling element where the more places you go the more places open up so i can literally get lost FOREVER

Turns out you can change which character you have as party leader in battle and exploration. Sorry girl with a bow and arrow I would rahter be the dude with two swords. Have fun questioning the meaning of EVERYTHING while I just smash it all

ARE YOU SERIOUS I CAN ADD MONSTERS TO MY PARTY?! THEY FIGHT FOR ME?! best thing EVAR

The monsters have a special ability that you can use once their battle bar builds up TOTALLY AWESOME the first monster i'm using is a cat and it's special ability does a tenth of the damage as a regular attack NOT COMPLETELY AWESOME

other than the one song i was complaining about earlier the sound track is totes rad. Except when you talk to characters in the game the music stays the same volume, which is off puting

Oh nice my cat monster, which looks like a cross between a grey alien and a mogwai, heals me which makes up for his completely wussyness

Oh nice i found a traveling merchant... who is dressed up in a super sluty chocobo outfit... it's weirdly very sexy... don't tell my mom

Holy crap you can infuse one monster with the skills of another by combining them. This game is going DEEEEEEEEEEP

How is this game still throwing new elements at me. Now i'm stuck inside the temporal paradox and i must solve a dissapearing floor puzzle *gilz*

So far I've gotten two battle achievements and both had vague descriptions. "defeated an army's worth of enemies" How many is that? "fought a significant amount of battles without using retry" Sweet what's the numerical equivalent of significant. I think i just wrote a rap lyric

The best feature of this game so far is the fact that if you don't want to fight a random encounter you can just run past the enemy and skip it

All the characters in this game look like gelflings from the dark crystal

Oh man two gates to choose from do i go for the one out in the open or the one off the main path. Which one will have better loot? For the record i could not read a choose your own adventure book without cheating. THIS IS KILLING ME

So i jump 295 years into the future and the loading screen is only half of thay HEY OOO

I'm in the woods fighting a giant tomato monster

I feel like this is one of those bosses i'm supposed to loose to since i've been fighting him for ten minutes and have only gotten him down about a sixth of his life bar he keeps healing himself and my cat monster keeps healing me. Lets do this i got allllllll night

Thank god for autobattle. Spamming 'a' button

(ten minutes later) I've got a quarter of his life bar down

(22 minutes into fight) Just over half way. If he has an epic attack at low health i'm effed

(26 minutes into fight) Tomatoe monster is down to a quarter health

I died... eff sakes i think i should have levelled up a bit more haha

If i get stuck fighting this bad guy a half hour each time just to repeatedly fail that'll be a game breaker

I levelled up my crystal skill tree thinger so maybe i can beat him this timI levelled up my crystal skill tree thinger so maybe i xan beat him this time


This is that effin tomatoe monster i'm fighting his or her name is royal ripeness which is kinda funny

I BEAT IT... but then i screwed up the button prompts because i was trying to take a picture


Look who brought his big dumb face to help fight the tomatoe. A toqueless snow

Well that wraps up the first six hpurs of my gameplay i should be done most of the tutorials by now right?... RIGHT?!

Ok i looked it up and in the american military a platoon is 26-64 which what i am guessing it would be since i got the achievement pretty early

Ok i found an achievement description it actually is 100 enemies. And the achievements that say a significant amount of ________ is 50 fiddy

I like loot

When I play an RPG my priorties are in descending order are: loot, fighting mechanics, character skills, level design, graphics and last and most certainly least, story.

Don't get me wrong I love a good story but I'm going to be honest I don't pay attention to said story. Really I only talk to NPCs so they can give me clues on where to find the treasure or who to shoot to get treasure. Sometimes they tell me how to advance the story but this is only an indirect tactic that leads me to more booty.

The reason I listed fighting mechanics as my number two priority is the game should be fun to play. After all getting my precious loot shouldn't be a chore... although if the price is right i will probably put up with some terrible mechanics just to get more shiny baubles. This would be the only reason I briefly put up with Kingdom Under Fire: Circle of Doom. Really the only reason any of you would have played that game is it was one of the first Action RPGs for the xbox 360 and when it came out we were starved for anything in that genre. 

The terrible combat basically came down to awkward button layout which meant you had to stand still to fire your ranged weapon. Which is fine if you have a powerful enough weapon that obliterates enemies before they get a chance to reach you. If however you are employing my go to shoot while running backwards away from the bad-guy-you-were-supposed-to-level-up-a-bunch-more-instead-of-fighting-and-dying-repeatedly then this "stop and pop" style of shooting breaks your brain with rage. 

If this nearly 6 year old game is so terrible why am i talking about it you might ask? Well loot, that's why. KUF: Circle of Doom had one unmistakably amazing thing about it: you could combine your weapons with each other in a form of alchemy to make new weapons. Basically grab a shit ton of crap weapons and you might make one good weapon. Really it combined my two favorite things about loot new shiny stuff and cleaning out my inventory of the old not so shiny anymore stuff.

There's two types of loot whores. 1. Hoarders who compulsively collect all the loot they can and then try to store as much of it as they can for what ever reason. 2. Destroyers who collect loot take what they want and get rid of the rest. I am a destroyer I collect everything, EVERYTHING but i sell anything I don't need so that I can buy stuff I do need. When my inventory is full and there is still stuff to collect i purge my inventory of the least valuable items and then pick up the stuff that is worth more. The best game that is currently tickling my treasure needing nubs is Borderlands 2.

Some of you might try to say that diablo 3 is better for loot than Borderlands 2 and you are wrong. Blizzard uses the tactic of a carrot on a really long stick but their stick is much to long and labor intensive. You can get a lot of good items but it takes forever and you have to beat hordes of epic bad guys to charge up your loot drop meter and then fight bosses on the games hardest difficulty in the hope that you won't have to play through the entire game again just to try find a new sword or piece of clothing. Once you get your new trinket it probably will look stupid so you want to do the whole process over again. Can't have your guy looking like a mish mash now can we. 

Borderlands 2 doesn't have swords or clothing drops, it has guns, a fuck ton of guns. So many guns that you can't even open a port a potty without four of those beauties showering down on your face and neck area. The game goes to such an extent to ensure your happiness and is so nice to you it even lets you check all the stats of the loot before you pick it up. 2K and gearbox are such kind game developers they don't even want you to bother filling up your item slots with trash. It's like their carrot is on such a short stick that you can smell it and rub it on your lips before you decide if you want to chase it. You see Blizzard, that is how a gentleman pilfers.

I choose you xbox one

Well it's that time again. Where fan boys and girls pick which of the big two systems they are going to not shut up about for the next six months.

Sometimes it seems like the quicker out of the gate your choice is made the more virulent you preachings will be as is the case with microsoft haters.

I call them haters because a lot of people made their choice in the never ending console war not because they favored one system but instead they decided who had their allegance by who they disliked less.

Sure the xbox one's "always connected" was a disasterous idea and even a common simpleton had to know it would be redacted. It has been redacted almostnimmediately after the xbox one's anouncement. Yes nerds your river of tears at e3 lubricated the decision your cries were heard and now you only have to log on to the internet once a day.

You know what the internet is right? That thing you've had the other end of your umbilical cord hooked up to for the past five years? The thing that only a terrorist would dare ask you to be forced to be in contact with. Those fucking monsters. They did fix it right so are we going to call xbox and say we're sorry?

You're still going to buy a playstation aren't you.

I don't want to pretend to be better than the internet policy alarmists because when it boils down to it i am a xbox fanboy. Have been since i fought the flood in the library of the original Halo and guess what i most likely always will be. In kind, right out of the gate i'm against the ps4.

I hate the dual shock controllers and have never understood how anyone's hands could possible hold those in any semblance of comfort. Sure they are a  servicible cintroller and could be worse. They could be made of barb wire.

Xbox has always had more comfortable ergonomic controllers. Even the first xbox giant controllers were at home in my hands. I like em big. I rest my hands in my lap so the weight of a turgid interface has never been a factor for me. You can talk up and down about games and performance and connectivity issues but if i don't like the controller my whole experience will be tainted by the figurative thorn in my paw.

Since i brought up games lets talk about platform exclusive titles. Actually lets talk about one game. My most anticipated next experience.

Dead rising is my favorite ongoing series. Better than halo, gta, uncharted, god of war, assasins creed, gran turismo, call of duty, battlefield and every other current cannon i haven't mentioned.

At this point i really shouldn't have to explain dead rising to you. If you haven't played it before it is a openworld hack and slash time sensitive action rpg made by Capcom.

The first game was set in a mall. The second installment was based in a vegas-like casino village. Dead rising 3 is set in an entire city that is probably L.A.-ish. Although the thought of trying to memorize an entire city is pretty intimidating the zombie massacre that awaits with a plethora of weapons makes it more than worth the hassle.

There are new combo weapons including A HAND GRENADE SLEDGEHAMMER.

How would that work you ask? Well it's simple you find an in game work bench and if you have a sledgehammer and hand grenades in your inventory YOU TAPE THE GRENADES TO THE SLEDGEHAMMER.

Is anyone else hard right now?

Really that's the reason i am going to buy an xbox one for a hundred extra dollars over the ps4. An exploding hammer. It's unrealistic, cheesy, immature and guaranteed fun as fuck.

When i play games i don't want realistic and evolved. I want rediculous over the top. I have no problem admitting i'm the lowest common denominator.

I want to feel like a little boy smashing dinky cars with a baseball bat. I will settle for smashing zombies with a grenade hammer.

secret of the magic crystal

Written in July 2012 (I forgot to publish this one)
Mike messaged me on twitter yesterday. @_Rades: @superdalebot Do you have Steam? (PC game thing, you buy/DL games through it) Go get it b/c I am going to gift you this bit.ly/a36k9C Free game? "alright I'll bite what's this about anyway" So i click on the link and i immediately know this is going to be one of the best presents I have ever received. You can grow and care for a UNICORN and then race it and run through obstacle courses to level up your unicorn. YOU CAN LEVEL UP YOUR UNICORN. We all know the only thing more totally awesome than a unicorn is that same unicorn but stronger, faster, my dexterous and full of even more spirit. I mean come on at this point it's taking everything i have to not just start fist pumping with one hand and slap my keyboard with the other while i make screaming chimpanzee noises. Once my unicorn fueled tumescence has finally subsided I decide to view the different options offered on the farm. Different buildings allow for different services.
At the blacksmith you can make magic horseshoes by using the anvil. You do this by picking three elements to combine and the smithing process is you hitting the arrow keys at the prompts either left right up or down (pretty much the same for all minigames). The ratings are boo, early, late, good and if you're lucky enough to be the unicorn whisperer like myself you get the occasional perfect.
Each new building is more magnificent than the last. My horse is tired from running through the forest jumping over logs and branches so i decided to check out the barn. Or should i say MAGICAL UNICORN HOSPITAL. "If your horse got ill, you would have to look for the stethoscope on the table to examine it." YES PLEASE. "You can cure it with an injection. If your horse is healthy, you might try to mix a magical potion by clicking on the mortar."
By now you can pretty much guess what all of the buildings contain. Either something you make by combining 3 different items or a way to train your magical steed to increase it's stats.
If you don't feel like doing anything productive you can actually just take your unicorn aside and brush it's mane or scrub it's feet... which can actually be quite addictive. You can even send your horse out to race and win money to buy better brushes and even a marble water trough.
As mind shattering as this game is initially there is a reason the price tag is so low and that is there's not much to the game. Once you do a couple of the training mini-games and build an item or two the game gets very repetitive. I actually only played the game a couple of times and that's why it took me so long to publish this post. I kept meaning on coming back to it and to play the game more thoroughly but then Diablo 3 came out, then Borderlands 2, then Call of Duty Black ops 2 and then i dabbled in Star Craft 2 and all the time my poor golden unicorn withered with neglect.