Tag Archives: PS4

is Fortnite Leading the Way Into the Future?

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Today, February 2, 2019, an event took place in Fortnite. This time, though, it wasn’t one of their typical world and story events. This time it was, no joke, a live concert. But to me, it was so much more. What I witnessed when I witnessed this event was incredible potential. So incredible that I had to write about it, and believe me I never expected to write about Fortnite.

The concert was incredible. About 20 minutes beforehand, a mode called Showtime appeared in the game, wherein the circle stayed in Pleasant Park, the location of the concert stage, and gave everyone a countdown timer to get there, which was of course counting down to the concert itself. Marshmallow, the performing artist, even did a mic check beforehand. Sounds like such a small thing, but that clued me in to how epic this was going to be. Once that counter finally hit 0, everyone automatically became weaponless, and the show began.

Now you might think the show was nothing more than some piped in music, no kills, and people doing Fortnite dances, but you would be wrong. Yes, the music played, and everyone began to dance, but then it got crazier. Remember, this is all in a video game, so they can do more than just throw lasers at you. As the first beat dropped after the intro and the big pyro exploded, it bounced all the characters that were present up into the air. Later, just as the lyrics of the current song were “we can fly,” that’s exactly what happened to everyone. Suddenly everyone was flying, looking down at the spectacle beneath them. As the show went on, the DJ activated his mic, asking everyone to squad up and show off their favorite emotes. I see through this portion, as it’s highly unlikely he was watching anyone in particular in reality, since the concert was taking place in likely thousands of matches at once. Still, it’s the fact that the show was more than just music and light that I’m getting at here. I can’t even play Fortnite, but hearing the reaction of my fiancé as she experienced this event was truly an incredible moment.

That’s how we now get to the point of this blog. Now that I’ve witnessed it, I am boggled by the fact that technology like this isn’t being leveraged in tons of other ways. We are in a digital age, an internet age, and there are so many insane applications for this kind of thing! I understand that not everyone has amazing internet, but those who are playing a game that requires at least decent internet probably have the decent internet they need to play it. So how about leveraging this kind of tech to create things in MMO’s? Why must most games have precise, controlled world events that are always the same, just triggered by the developer at different times, when they could be doing just about anything? Why not use this technology to make the player feel even more a part of the game world than they already do?

Come on, devs! Wanna hype some big space military operation? Have your players head to a briefing location, and host a live briefing there like in Ernest Cline’s Armada. Live streamed dialog of some authority figure explaining what must be done, screens showing targets and operational concerns, all of it. I will no longer buy the idea that that cannot be done, because we have just witnessed it. And while you’re at it, devs, change your game world live like Fortnite does. Don’t just make a video and call it done, make actual changes. Don’t be scared, and don’t apologize for it. People might not like it, but they’ll be able to talk about how they were there for it.

Community is a powerful thing. Games recognize that to a certain extent, but how much more could emersion be increased if things like this are fully embraced? The craziest thing here is that Fortnite, of all games, appears to be the first. This game that started as such a small thing with a tacked on Battle Royale mode is now leading the way in interactive live events? Playstation Home tried to do things like this, true, but never took it to the level Fortnite has, and also never actually functioned all that well either. It’s incredible, and I hope people are taking notes. I’m certainly thinking other performers could find a way to use this, but like my previous Armada example, that’s really only the beginning here. Let me know what you guys think of all this, and where you think we’re going in the future. As always, thanks for reading, and continue to be awesome!

Listen to my Story: How I Came to Play and Love Final Fantasy X

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When I first heard the glorious music, sound effects, and yes, voice acting of Final Fantasy X, it was on my brother’s Playstation 2, which was most definitely his and not ours and we were not to even think about touching it without his permission. Anyway, I heard him begin the game, and at first was, believe it or not, unimpressed. The voice acting was cool, sure, but I knew from the second that first full motion video played that the game had to be ridiculously short. It just had to be. That was always the tradeoff with games that used FMV, right?

Obviously, I was very, very wrong. I was used to the way things used to be, and Final Fantasy X, though not a launch title, was fairly early in the PS2 era. I quickly learned that the game was actually quite long indeed, and get this, it had a bunch of those little FMV’s too! Now I was officially impressed, but I still kind of dismissed it. After all, I had never been able to play a full RPG before, so why should I be able to now? Even with voice acting, it just wouldn’t be enough, would it?

I remember that I actually tried the demo first. Back in the days of demo discs, I used to receive one per month, and would always mess around with them. I had success with the demo, but even then, I thought it was just a one off. The demo is fairly short, and mostly just demonstrates combat with very little to worry about otherwise. I wasn’t quite there yet.

It was actually my brother, the very person who got me into video games in the first place, who suggested that I try Final Fantasy X. “You should start your own game!” he said one day after a particularly difficult battle. I scoffed at the idea, but by this point in my life I had already done some pretty cool stuff in games, so I figured I’d at least try. And so, one fine morning, I started playing Final Fantasy X, and did not stop for many, many hours. Turns out it was pretty playable after all.

Make no mistake. Final Fantasy X requires a lot of patience if you’re blind. In the first many, many hour session I played, I didn’t get as far as a sighted person might in the same amount of hours. The facts are that the game isn’t designed with us in mind, so we have to take some things into account. We still can’t actually see where we’re going, so we have to be willing to wander a bit until we can find our destination. We also can’t see items or people in the world, so it behooves us to basically mash the X button as we wander in order to find people or items and interact with them. It’s kind of a silly system, but ultimately it works.

The good news for us is that there is no jumping of any sort. This means that there is never a platform we need to jump to, and thus we know that, wherever our destination is, it’s on the ground we’re standing on. It’s hard to explain why this is important, but consider this. If the option to jump even exists, it’s reasonable to expect that you have to use it in some circumstances. If, like us, you cannot see the platform you must jump to in order to proceed, how would you know when to jump? Even if you just jumped around the whole time, you may not even realize you’re on a new level than you were before, and may keep jumping right off of it. In short, with games that aren’t designed to be played by the blind, the less jumping the better.

Here’s another piece of good news. Combat menus in Final Fantasy X don’t wrap. This means they can be memorized, and even used to determine whose turn it currently is. For example, when the game begins, Tiad the main character only has 2 options in his combat menu: attack and item. Aurin, however, has 3 options, because he possesses a magical ability called armor break. Using this small difference, we can tell if it’s Tidas’s turn, or Aurin’s. The combat menus of all characters will grow as they level up and gain new abilities, but that just means we need to pay attention to when our party members learn new tricks. It’s pretty awesome, and enables us to use essentially the same strategies anyone else would in combat.

Speaking of leveling, though, that’s one of the problem areas of Final Fantasy X. Yes, the game can be played if you’re blind, but with 2 exceptions. One is the leveling system called the sphere grid, and the other is certain sections of the game called the cloisters of trials, which are unskippable and in some cases quite complex.

Back to leveling, though. The way the sphere grid works seems simple enough. As you fight, you gain sphere levels, which enable you to move an equal number of squares on the sphere grid. You also earn spheres, which are used to unlock sphere grid nodes, which ar what actually increase your stats. You might be thinking, “well, can’t you just muddle your way through it and level up a bunch of stuff?” And sadly, the answer is no. You see, as long as you have the sphere levels for it, you are not limited in movement. What I mean by this is that you’re just as able to move backwards as forward, and if you cross certain paths, you will end up in the abilities of your other party members. This latter can be useful in the late game, but is certainly not ideal when you’re just starting out. And, because the sphere grid is full of complex pathways, we couldn’t reliably know which way we’re going, which nodes we’re heading to, or whether we’re just going backwards.

The cloisters are trouble for a different reason. They are all puzzles involving the removal of certain spheres, (notice a theme?) from one spot, and placing them in the correct other spot. We can certainly remove and slot these spheres, but remember we don’t actually have a reference for where we’re going. We could remove a sphere, wander around for a bit, find an empty sphere slot and slap it in, only to then realize we placed it right back in the slot we took it from. And that’s only one problem. We also have no idea which sphere we removed, as there are several different types, some unique to the particular cloister you’re in. Think I’m done? Nope. You also sometimes have to push pedestals into very specific locations, or away from locations they’re blocking, and so on. It’s kind of a nightmare for a blind person.

Aside from that, though, the game is quite playable. We are even helped out by the roads in the game, which are essentially straight in most cases. Crazy, right? There’s another unplayable bit called Blitzball, but it is fortunately not necessary to succeed at Blitzball to complete the game. It is necessary to play it once, but you don’t actually have to win. Certainly I would like to be able to play Blitzball, but part of playing games like this, games that nobody expected a blind person to play in the first place, is acceptance of an inability to do certain things in those games. Always, always try hard, but be ready to accept that some things just might not work.

I’m sure there are some little things I forgot. The playability of that game is kind of like the playability of Diablo 3. So many little things combine to allow us to play it as much as we can. I am proud to say I have beaten the game, and I have my brother to thank once again for steering me toward something great. The funny thing about that particular incident, though, is that he never did that before or since. Aside from that and the practical joke that got me started, he has never tried to get me to try something. It sort of makes me wonder what inspired him that time. In any case, I hope this has enlightened some of you fine folks. I am of course willing to answer any questions I can, so please discuss and ask and share. Thanks for reading, and continue to be awesome!

PS4 is Best Ambition Capture

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This morning, I woke up inspired. “Alright,” I said to myself. “That’s it. It’s time. I’m giving the people what they want, and it starts today! Today, I say! No more capturing games from the PS4 itself! No! I’m gonna use that capture card we’ve had for a while now, and I’m gonna do it direct with OBS, and everything’s gonna work, and everyone will be so happy, and then I’ll get little sounds and/or animations set up for follows and tips, and then everyone’s gonna be even happier, and it’s all going to zoom into an endless spiral of happiness and joy!” That, ladies and gents, is what I thought. I was mentally ready. I thought I was completely prepared. But then, tragedy struck in the form of a hardware and software limitation of the PS4. A tragedy so profound, so shocking, that I have yet to recover from it. You must understand, the process of swiveling a mind from inspiration, all the way around to begrudging acceptance is a long one. I’m still on that swivel. Nevertheless, I wanted to talk about this in a blog, because when it all comes down to it, this particular limitation is kind of ridiculous and, just perhaps, may have even been intentional. Let’s deep dive, shall we?

When I play video games, I use the Playstation 4 Platinum Wireless Headset. Why wouldn’t I? There’s a whole blog about it on my site, but in summary, it is not only the best wireless surround sound solution I have ever encountered, it supports 3D audio in some games. I’ve thought about picking up the recent MLB games, for instance, specifically because of this 3D audio support. It is, in short, an amazing headset. Really, I genuinely mean that. I love it!

There’s just one teeny tiny little eensie weensie insignificant problem. If you use the Playstation 4 Platinum Wireless Headset, you cannot capture game audio using a capture card. Yep, no game audio at all. I’ve looked into it, there’s really no way. Bummer, huh? That alone was enough to shatter my plans for today into thousands of very small, but very well-crafted sound waves. And make no mistake, these were plans for today, and for my entire future as a streamer. So yeah, it was a blow.

Now don’t you worry. My commitment to my audience is as strong as ever. I still intend to switch to a capture card eventually, but it’s going to require some astonishing changes that I cannot currently afford to make. My research, and questioning of other streamers I know, reveals that I will need a completely different headset for this. One that does not rely on wireless via USB, but rather uses the PS4’s optical port. These headsets, especially the quality ones, are rather expensive, as I’m sure you can imagine. I won’t go into the technical details, but suffice it to say that I know what I need, and cannot yet get it.

The striking thing to me, though, and the reason I’m writing this blog, is the way the PS4 works. When you hook up a headset via USB, (which the platinum technically is as it uses a wireless USB dongle), the PS4 basically says, “OK then. This is the one and only audio source, and HDMI no longer matters. Bwahahahahaha!” This means a capture card, which connects to the PS4 via HDMI, cannot receive the audio, as it’s not even being transmitted that way anymore. The reason this struck me, though, is what this means for platinum headset users. It means that the only way, literally the only way, to capture game audio is to capture directly from the PS4. Only then will its video and audio streams be sent somewhere else along with your headset. As much as I love the headset, I see now what a trap this is.

The ability to capture from the PS4 is limited. You have, for instance, no control over game audio levels. Secondly, you cannot do some of the more fancy things streamers do today, greeting new followers, cheerers, and tippers with a cute little sound and/or animation. It is a set, controlled capturing environment, and it will always be that way. However, if you want that wireless surround sound, and especially if you want that 3D audio in the games which support it, you’ll just stick with it, right? Well, as of today, my answer is no.

More than I can’t afford the headset I’ll need to make this work, I cannot afford to compromise the integrity of my stream. I cannot afford to limit my potential. That, sadly, is exactly what the Platinum does. It hosts wonderful features that I love, but it keeps me where my PS4 puts me in terms of stream quality, and that’s not enough anymore. So my commitment to you, the reader and, hopefully, the viewer, is that I will get this sorted as soon as I can. I will do what I must do to bring you the stream quality you all want. It simply cannot happen right now, but it’s coming. I appreciate you guys, and I want you to know it. Thanks for supporting, and as always, thanks for reading. Continue to be awesome!

I Know Jack: My History with the You Don’t Know Jack Franchise

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Back in the 90’s, there was an online magazine for the blind called the Audyssey magazine. It was our gaming magazine, and talked about audio games, text games, and even what we called mainstream or commercial games as long as they were accessible. According to that magazine, a certain game series known to party gamers as You Don’t Know Jack, was the second most accessible commercial game in existence. This was, at the time, probably true. It’s a series I grew up loving, and it is likely part of the reason for my current appreciation of modern comedy. Today, I just want to talk about it, and about my history with this amazing game series.

You Don’t Know Jack was named the second most accessible game back in the day because it was about 98% accessible. It was and is a comedy trivia game. You could play alone, or against your friends, and the game had a host who would read aloud all of the questions and answers. They would even make jokes between questions, and sometimes question-specific jokes for choosing certain wrong answers. Features like this actually got more complex as the series went on, and hosts gained the ability to criticize an individual player for getting specific answers wrong throughout a game. For instance, “Man, Player 2, you must be tone deaf or something because you got the last 2 music questions wrong. Take note, other players, now’s your chance!” That’s not a word for word quote from the game, but it’s an example of what later games did.

Anyway, the only inaccessible part of the game is, sadly, at the end. A segment called the Jack Attack leaves you with a clue, and bunches of words scrolling across the screen that you must match up with that clue, hitting your buzzer at the correct time when the right answer is present. The problem here is that nothing but the primary clue is read aloud, leaving us virtually unable to play this portion unless we decided to randomly press our buzzers and hope for the best. It ultimately didn’t detract too much, as we could still win the game if we were far enough ahead or if the other players did poorly, but it was still kind of unfair.

Fair or not, I enjoy many many hours spent playing each and every version of the game, loving the ways in which the game changed, the new question types that were added, the occasional appearance of celebrities, all of it. The first 3 volumes contained what I would say were minor changes at most, but the fourth volume, officially called You Don’t Know Jack: The Ride, was something special. For the first time, each game session was a linear episode. No longer were you able to choose your own categories, but the upshot is that it allowed the developers to do creative things, like giving each episode its own little story. The language episode, where the host gets progressively more and more drunk as the game progresses, stands out as one of the best, as he can barely read the questions toward the end.

Best of all, the whole game had an overarching story as well. This was never done again in the world of You Don’t Know Jack, but I think it was great. The story wasn’t anything to write home about really, but it did contain a couple funny plot twists, and resulted in one particularly awesome game feature. As the story progressed, the hosts of your games would actually change between those who had hosted you Don’t Know Jack games previously. This even included the host of a You Don’t Know Jack spinoff game called Headrush. It was awesome, and made for a grand experience as each host had different attitudes and entirely different commentary on your gameplay than the others. It was a lot of fun.

Things continued to progress, and there were more spinoff games as well, such as You Don’t Know Jack: Louder Faster Funnier, which is for some reason not included in the collection available on Steam. You Don’t Know Jack 5th Dimentia, essentially Volume 5, allowed for online play, but for some reason sacrificed audio quality. The humor was there, the complex in-game responses were there, (you were criticized if you happened to be using AOL at the time), but all audio quality suffered a downgrade. The game was still quite fun, however, so I didn’t complain too much about that.

You Don’t Know Jack Volume 6: The Lost Gold was, I feared, the last outing for the game. It only had 300 questions when most other games in the series had 800 to 1200 questions, it had the same low audio quality as 5th dementia, and had an uninspired and weird story about reclaiming the lost gold for some ghost pirate. I still enjoyed the questions, and found humor in them, but the game was the most meh of the bunch.

Fortunately, You Don’t Know Jack saw a revival on last generation game consoles, including 4 awesome DLC packs. This brought back the episode format, and some new features, such as the Wrong Answer of the Game, which would give you a prize for choosing the sponsored wrong answer. All this was tremendous, and audio quality was back up to standard. This was the revival I had been waiting for.

The revival continued when the You Don’t Know Jack mobile game came out. The accessibility of the app wasn’t great, but once you worked it out, this was really cool. It brought us back to the days of what used to be called the Netshow, which had new episodes coming out on a regular basis. This was like that, with a new episode coming out every week, referencing modern pop culture, or real current events in that typical You Don’t Know Jack way. Personally I wish this had lasted longer. The inaccessibility troubles were worth suffering through, in my opinion.

Fortunately, the geniuses at Jellyvision weren’t done yet. You Don’t Know Jack came back again, episodes and all, in the first Jackbox Party Pack, which allowed you to play with up to 8 players for the first time. It retained the format of the previous console releases otherwise, including the wrong answer of the game, and was awesome. It didn’t stick around for Party Packs 2, 3, and 4, but I’m happy to say that it’s about to return again in the Jackbox Party Pack 5. You Don’t Know Jack will never die!

It has been over 2 decades since the YDKJ series began, and it remains one of my favorite game franchises to this day. I wish the devs would take a shot at making that last portion of the game accessible, but though it appears this may never happen, my love for the series lives on. If you’ve never tried it before, you can get 9 of the YDKJ games in a collection on Steam, which includes the amazing YDKJ: The Ride. Thanks for reading, and please feel free to provide feedback, or leave comments, or conversate with me about this. Continue to be awesome!

Madden NFL 18: I’m Not a Football Guy

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Well, folks, the subtitle says it all. I am not a Football guy. I’m not even really a sports guy except for Baseball, but hey, there’s already a blog about that. Today, though, we’re talking about the Madden franchise, specifically Madden 18 as I have not yet tried 19. There’s a lot to say, so let’s talk!

Electronic Arts did a great thing when they chose to allow Karen Stevens to work on accessibility for them. I’m not saying that just to get on her good side, it’s completely true. Not only does she do good work, but many, many other developers won’t even take the steps that EA has. For all the criticism EA gets, this is one thing they did absolutely right, and something they deserve notice for. Good on ya, EA.

Madden 18 introduced a few accessibility features that make it easier for the blind to play. These features are perhaps small to some, but they’re extremely helpful. Furthermore, these features were patched in. It’s worth pointing out that adding accessibility features becomes way more difficult and way more costly after the game has already been completed. This means that what EA did here was even more awesome. Maybe there were only a few additions, but this was still a huge step in the right direction for accessibility.

On the surface, what the additions for the blind amount to are differently-used controller rumbles which give us queues we need in order to play. Whether or not the play we’re executing is a passing or a running play is indicated by a long or short rumble respectively. When a receiver is open and the ball is thrown is indicated by a rumble as well. And the biggest one of all, the kick meter rumbles to indicate when it begins moving, then again for power, then for accuracy. It’s all pretty awesome.

But more than the features themselves, Karen Stevens took the time to write a complete accessibility guide for the game, which includes written descriptions of all menu layouts, explanations of how best to use the features that were added, and even a list of the quicktime events in the game’s Longshot story mode. It’s an extremely comprehensive guide, and is just as important a part of what was done as anything else. This guide, as well as guides for other EA games which have implemented accessibility features, can be found at www.ea.com/able

I think, though, that the most important thing to talk about here is how this game made me feel. This is actually the reason I mentioned not being a Football guy. This is the intangible stuff. Even this blog will likely not do it justice, but hey, I’m gonna try anyway.

There is a lot I don’t understand about Football. I don’t actually know what most of the play names mean. I don’t know much of the terminology. I would fail a quiz on Football basics. All these things are true. Nevertheless, the first time I took the ball and began to run, spun past 1 defender, then another, and zoomed into the end zone for a touchdown, I felt great. I felt like I had just done something awesome. Something that, before, I would have struggled mightily to do. That’s what accessibility can do for people, and that’s what Madden did for me.

It didn’t matter that I don’t typically play Football games, or watch Football, or follow Football. That wasn’t the point. I was playing a game which had been adapted to help those of us who are blind, and doing well at it. What I was feeling is the reason accessibility should be the norm, because it taught me that you don’t have to be a Football guy to experience that touchdown thrill.

I got that same feeling playing through the game’s well-crafted, well-acted story mode. I felt like I was the star of a really quite good sports movie. It wasn’t perfect, since I still didn’t really know what dialog choices I was making, but there were still plenty of moments when I resonated with the characters, who are portrayed as people, not generic Football robots. I felt good as the protagonist stole the show during his high school years, and I felt sad for him as he struggled to maintain friendships. This isn’t necessarily a review, though I guess I’ve made it clear that I think it’s pretty great. Again, though, we come back to accessibility. Remember, this story mode is riddled with quicktime events. It is thanks only to that accessibility guide I mentioned that I was able to enjoy this as well. An entire section of the game was opened to the blind just because someone took the time to write about it. Pretty awesome, if you ask me.

As I write this, I’m actually playing through the Madden 18 story a second time, making different choices and enjoying how the story unfolds all over again. I may never get the best ending, but I may indeed get a different one this time, which will be awesome. It’s just a wonderful thing to be able to do this in the first place. Ultimately I feel like what I’m saying is that Madden 18 is a great example of how a few accessibility additions can make a giant impact on our appreciation of a game. I hope that comes across, as jumbled as this blog seems to me. Now then, I’ve gotta go get drafted, hopefully a bit earlier than last time. Thanks as always for reading, and continue to be awesome!