Food Reviews: FPS Gaming Supplement


Those of you who read MMO Fallout know that I’m a hardcore gamer with hardcore gamer needs. Coffee? Forget that casual nonsense, I mainline Red Bull and Mountain Dew via IV drip 24 hours a day. I’ve had six heart attacks in the last forty five seconds, but you wouldn’t know it while I’m 360 no-scope headshotting scrubs and getting those chicken dinners. Are chicken dinners still a thing? Time to floss dance.

Anyway, I had the opportunity to score a sample pack of FPS gaming supplement in devastated dew flavor. This isn’t a sponsored article, but it absolutely can be. First thing I want to say about this packet is that it tells me I am absolutely going blind. Maybe it’s just the small print but I can’t read the back of the package without a magnifying glass. Actually it might be the lack of focus from not having FPS in my body.

So you mix the package with 8-12 oz of water. Since I’m not a baby, I decided to use as little water as recommended. I also chose my toxic consumer advocacy mug to drink this out of, since I thought it would be funny that if FPS kills me that my death be somewhat related to a SidAlpha product. Some fuel for those Kotaku “the gaming industry just got a little better” articles that would no doubt follow.

This stuff doesn’t look great.

But how does it taste? FPS Devastated Dew tastes a bit like flat Mountain Dew that someone dropped battery acid into. It starts out on the sweet side but you quickly get kicked in the teeth with a very bitter aftertaste that digs deep into your throat and nestles in the back of your tonsils and refuses to go away. It has the same bitterness like chewing on the rind of an orange, and I’d hate to call it painful to drink, but it is. It really is.

I understand the bitterness since the ingredient list is just a ton of bitter components and no sugar, but it doesn’t change the fact that every time I burp I get the taste of stomach acid in my mouth. It probably doesn’t help that against my better judgment I forced myself to drink the entire cup.

So how well does it work? I will admit, pretty well. It does exactly what it says it does and I found myself more energetic, better focused, and video games. Also video games. Don’t judge me.

Video games.

Planetside Arena Virtually Unplayable; Pop Drops Under 50


Planetside Arena needs a miracle.

What started out as a bad launch has now turned into an unmitigated disaster, as Planetside Arena’s population numbers are starting to drift consistently below the 50 player line making the game effectively unplayable. Planetside Arena is a battle royale spinoff to Daybreak’s Planetside franchise (go figure) and promises matches with up to 300 players on squads of 12. Well, theoretically it does.

In reality the game is virtually unplayable at this point as populations have hit a level where it may be impossible to actually start a game due to a lack of people. Planetside Arena fills out squads by 12 which means that if you don’t have 24 people, you’re going to have one squad of 12 and probably one squad of five. It doesn’t make for a fun match, and that assumes you’ll even be able to cross the minimal threshold to get a match going.

This makes Planetside Arena Daybreak’s least popular product on Steam, considering Planetside 2 can still hit over two thousand at peak hours, even the Everquest games hit over 100, and Z1 Battle Royale can still occasionally break 1,000. And that’s not counting the people playing off-Steam.

Considering that Daybreak just laid off a bunch of people from the Planetside team and there is apparently almost nobody left, it might be a good idea to skip this one.

Google Gives Us Another Reason To Have No Faith In Stadia


Google Stadia is one of the few places where your money would be better invested in Enron stocks or Zimbabwe currencies.

Now, those of you who read MMO Fallout will know that I consider Google Stadia to be a multi-million dollar scam. Here you have a company selling you a service where you are forced to pay monthly in order to access games that you have to pay full price for as part of a service whose quality wholly depends on the reliability of Google’s servers as well as their connection to your home. What happens when Google decides to shut down Stadia? Product director and accessory to fraud Andrey Doronichev refuses to answer the question and has consistently dodged the question because we all know the answer: You lose access to your purchases for good.

“I hear you. Moving to the cloud is scary,” he said. “I felt the same way when music was transitioning from files to streaming. I still have all my old CDs in the garage… although it’s hard to find a CD player these days :)”

Maybe it is if you’re in the Google echo chamber, but I was able to find a CD player at just about every store I went to outside of the grocery store.

I tacitly endorse people avoiding Google Stadia at all cost, and for a simple reason: Google doesn’t care about its products. It doesn’t care about you as a customer. It treats its products as “experiments” and will readily abandon them and shut down services at a whim, because they no longer feel like doing that anymore. And the people who put money into that product? Google couldn’t care less about ripping them off, it just moves on to the next “experiment” funded off of eager customers.

Don’t believe me? In 2019, Google shut down or announced the shuttering of:

  • Chromecast audio
  • Google Realtime API
  • Youtube video annotations
  • Google notification widget
  • Google Allo
  • URL Shortener
  • Google+
  • Inbox by Google
  • Data Saver Extension
  • Cloud Messaging
  • Youtube Gaming
  • Areo
  • Blog Compass
  • Google Jump
  • Google Trips
  • Works with Nest
  • Youtube for 3DS
  • Youtube Messages
  • G-Suite Training
  • Google Daydream
  • Google Clips
  • Google Bulletin
  • Google Fusion Tables
  • Google translator toolkit
  • Google Correlate
  • Hangouts on Air
  • Fabric
  • Hire by Google
  • Google Hangouts
  • Daydream VR

And we’re supposed to have faith that Stadia will be run for years to come?

I don’t trust Google Stadia because I don’t trust Google. I don’t trust when they say they’re in it for the long haul because anything they could say to reassure me has already been used to lie about previous, now defunct products. I don’t trust that Google won’t suddenly lose interest in the product and then abandon it at a moment’s notice. And what good is the promise today that they are going to keep it going in two years when they sadly announce that it’s coming to an end?

It’s worthless. Google’s word in supporting its products is worthless.

[NM] Nintendo Snubs Blizzard, Ignores Overwatch Switch Launch


After the dismal week that Blizzard has had, it’s hard not to pile on to the company while they are down. In that vein, let’s talk about Nintendo snubbing Overwatch.

To set up this story, Nintendo had a big event planned for Overwatch’s launch on the Switch which was yesterday (October 15). The event in New York City was supposed to be massive, we’re talking hundreds of people showing up with the first 150 having an opportunity to meet and greet various Overwatch voice actors. Very cool. You actually had to RSVP to the event in order to get a chance at meeting the people behind the characters.

And then on October 14, Nintendo cancelled the event with no explanation other than that the event was cancelled by Blizzard with no explanation. Since then Overwatch launched. You wouldn’t know it from reading Nintendo’s social media accounts because the company has just completely ignored that one of the largest games in recent years has come to its system.

Obviously this conclusion takes some extra reading in order to come to, but it strikes us as weird that Nintendo who are insanely eager to showcase any big release on their systems (their Youtube page is covered in launch trailers) would completely ignore the launch of a game as big as Overwatch. No tweets, no trailers, no acknowledgement whatsoever. You’d think Overwatch was some Unity asset flip coming out on the system, but even those get some recognition by Nintendo.

Maybe someone at Blizzard should learn a lesson about hospitality.

 

[Video] Wasting Time #1: Beetle Hunter


Today’s Wasting Time piece is in the form of a video long play (as long as you consider nine minutes to be). It is a first person shooter that is completely free and the project of what appears to be just one guy.

Check it out, the only thing you have to waste is your time.

Mobility: Stellaris: Galaxy Command Stole Halo Assets


Stellaris: Galaxy Command is a mobile title outsourced to Chinese developers, so if you were expecting quality or not ripping off other IPs you’re in for a disappointment. Galaxy Command was ripped offline before the reviews hit double digits because as it turns out the game just flat out stole art from Halo 4 (as seen above).

An apology was released to Twitter and the game has been taken offline to sweep the content for further stolen art. Barely five hours after launch, which might be a new record for Chinese mobile games.

ArcheAge Unchained Is Here For You Pay To Win Haters


ArcheAge Unchained is here and the servers are already being pounded like a Salvation Army drum.

Unchained has been in the works for a couple of years now and aims to provide a different service for ArcheAge players who wish to avoid the pay to win aspects of the main game. As a buy to play game, Gamigo has promised that Unchained will not allow you to buy your way to power. Starter packs begin at $25.99, although you might be better off waiting for a couple of days until the initial rush dies down.

Source: ArcheAge

[Video] Not Massive: Postal 4: No Regerts Trailer (Press Copy)


Update: It’s out right now.

Would you please sign my petition? It looks like Postal is finally back for a full sequel.

MMO Fallout was sent a link by a guy to a currently unlisted trailer for Postal 4: No Regerts. The trailer showcases some random scenes from the game, but includes some information on the plot:

Several years have passed since the events that devastated the once proud town remembered as Paradise. The only two to walk away from the cataclysm unscathed, the hapless everyman known as the Postal Dude and his loyal companion Champ, drive aimlessly through the scorching deserts of Arizona looking for a new place to call home. After a fortuitous gas station rest stop ends with their car, trailer home, and the rest of their worldly possessions stolen, all the Dude’s seemingly got left to his name is his canine cohort and his bathrobe, and neither of them smells all that great. However, on the horizon, the duo glimpses an unfamiliar and dazzling town that beckons to them. What untold prospects lie within? Fame? Fortune? Maybe a bidet or two? Edensin awaits.

POSTAL 4: No Regerts is a satirical and outrageous comedic open world first person shooter and the long-awaited true sequel to what’s been fondly dubbed as “The Worst Game Ever™”, POSTAL 2! (No third game is known to exist.)

Postal 4: No Regerts follows the satirical violence that has been a theme of the series for the past twenty years. The first Postal released in 1997 as a top down shooter that inspired a lawsuit from the United States Postal Service. Postal 2 launched in 2003 as a first person shooter on the Unreal 2 engine, and later spawned a multiplayer expansion as well as a full single player expansion (Apocalypse Weekend). Postal III was built by Russian developer Trashmaster Studios and it wasn’t good. The game has been disowned by Running With Scissors who actively encourage gamers to not buy the title. Postal 2 received a second expansion in 2015 in the form of Paradise Lost.

The trailer appears to be set to coincide with the release of Postal 4 in Early Access, which means that release should be right around the corner. The trailer was uploaded on October 8, but since MMO Fallout was not included in the mailing list we have no idea when anyone in the press actually received it. Video description currently leads to a nonexistent store page.

Daybreak Game Company Registers Dimensional Ink Games


Daybreak Game Company looks like it’s getting closer to announcing a reverse Voltron move, splitting the business into multiple parts for one reason or another.

We’ve been following this for quite some time. Earlier this year, Daybreak began registering trademarks for new studio names that appear to be centered around its major IPs: Golden Age Studios, Darkpaw Games, Rogue Planet Games, Bronze Age Studios. Just this month, Daybreak filed for another trademark: Dimensional Ink Games. The purpose? Your guess is as good as ours, the filing just occurred three days ago.

Daybreak’s statement about the latest round of layoffs is even more telling:

“We are taking steps to improve our business and to support our long-term vision for the existing franchises and development of new games. This will include a realignment of the company into separate franchise teams, which will allow us to highlight their expertise, better showcase the games they work on, and ultimately provide tailored experiences for our players.”

The running theory with the trademarked studio names was that Daybreak would basically be splitting off their games into separate shell companies for some purpose (maybe to sell them). Daybreak’s latest comments seem to confirm that theory. Dimensional Ink has a Twitter account that was set up this month and has yet to post anything.

We will have to wait to see what this week’s news brings.

Blizzard Makes Statement Now That It’s Closing Time On Friday


It’s 8:30p.m. on Friday here in New York, which means the folks at Blizzard HQ in California are about to go home and most Youtubers are probably polishing off their nightly news videos. So much like Daybreak choosing to lay people off, Blizzard naturally picked this as the best time to release their response to the week’s controversy following the suspension of Hearthstone player Blitzchung.

For those who managed to avoid the news completely, Blizzard suspended Blitzchung from the Hearthstone Grandmaster tournament and forfeited his winnings after he made a pro Hong Kong statement during an interview. Both interviewers were fired as well. The firestorm on the internet has been massive with a Blizzard boycott trending on Twitter, players posting their account cancellations/deletion, and a social media campaign that inexplicably saw Mei becoming a front for the Hong Kong movement.

Blizzard President J. Allen Brack has officially commented and the response is exactly what you would expect out of a company hoping nobody will see their statement at 5:30 on a Friday. The statement naturally denies any influence from China or motivation to appease Chinese benefactors. Brack continuously cites the Blizzard mantra “every voice matters” in his statement defending silencing a person based on their political view, and claims that Blitzchung was punished not for his statement but for the “divisive and deliberate way” he expressed it.

Brack also notes that Blizzard will give Blitzchung his winnings and reduce his suspension to six months. The casters are also suspended for six moths. Brack provides absolutely no reason for why the casters were suspended. Activision head honcho Bobby Kotick has remained silent.

And remember; Every Voice Matters at Blizzard*.

Source: Blizzard

*Not every voice matters at Blizzard