Author: Daniel Heiser
Daniel Heiser has had the blood of a gamer since he could hold a controller. When he isn’t spending time studying for his Game Design Degree from Full Sail University he is gaming, writing, or streaming.
When we look back at this past year of war games, such as Battlefield 1 and the latest Call of Duty game, we see that of simulated war. But does it really simulate war? Don’t get me wrong, I have and still love Battlefield 1 since the release in October and have been playing it continuously, but it is not a strong depiction of World War 1. Yes, the story mode resembles World War 1, but more so as if it was a film. The online multiplayer is just a bunch of people running willy-nilly around the map collecting and…
We all saw the trailer for the Switch before its release day. The fact that it was easy to travel with as presented in the trailer made it a huge upgrade from any of Nintendo’s previous systems. Like I predicted in a much earlier article, the Switch indeed has replaced the 3DS for the most part. People I have spoken with haven’t touched their 3DS in weeks. This article however is not about what it has replaced this article is about how well does the Switch actually travel. For the most part the Switch actually travels relatively well. But depending…
Breath of the Wild has been out just over a week and without a doubt I can say this is the best Zelda game out there right now. There are a few flaws that make it from being out right perfect, but all games have their flaws. Whether you play it on the Wii U or the Switch (I recommend the later only because there is a slight difference in distance rendering and it makes the quality look amazing), but whichever system you play the game is still going to be the same. If you read my last article, you…
Nintendo and Legend of Zelda go together like peanut butter and jelly. We have been waiting so long for these two and we finally have them. The Switch is an incredible and smart and innovated piece of technology, while the Breath of the Wild is an all-around fantastic game. For those of you lucky enough to get your hands on this system yesterday, and believe me, it was nearly impossible to get ahold of one. But if you were you know exactly what this article is going to be about. For those of you still unsure whether to get it,…
In nine hours stores on the East Coast will be opening their doors to release the Nintendo Switch to the public. I do hope I can get my hands on one tonight. That way I can give you a full in depth review of the Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. But we know how well that is going to succeed. I don’t want to talk about the “what we know,” I want to talk about the “what we think.” With the release of the Switch we have been given an in-depth list of what games will be launched…
The answer to the title of this article is yes and some of the reasons are obvious. When looking at what is coming out this quarter, I can state proudly that this quarter is the strongest first quarter in the past five first quarters. This statement may be bold, but it’s true and I’ll give you a few reasons on why. Before I go into what is going to be released this quarter I want to explain what I mean by Quarter One, Two, and Three. I’ve stated Q1, 2, and 3 a few times in past articles, but not…
March 3rd is quickly approaching and with that date we have the highly-anticipated launch of the Nintendo Switch. Nintendo has done it again and gotten our hopes up with a new system, while some scream, “Stop, Nintendo! Stop!” I’m screaming, “Go Nintendo, GO!” After being one of the first persons to actually hold this system and play some of it at PAX, I am extremely excited for March 3rd. Here are some of the many reasons why you should buy yourself a Nintendo Switch on release day. First, the Switch has many amazing games releasing in Q1 and Q2. Most…
The day has come for us to return to our normal lives, back to our families, jobs, and school work. San Antonio is starting to quiet down and the airport is piling up. This is the saddest part of any convention. We’ve made our friends and we’ve gained new contacts. We’ve started to panic a little because we think the items we purchased at the convention won’t fit in our bags, but we make it work. Pro Tip: always bring a bigger bag, ALWAYS. With PAX now behind us and the return to regular life, the Post-con Depression begins to…
As of now, PAX South officially ended 32 minutes ago,. The realization and settling of Post Con Depression has still not kicked in, which is a good thing, however, tomorrow is another story, psst. I’ll tell you all about what happens after PAX and a little on the Post Con Depression tomorrow. So, let’s look at what PAX South 2017 gave us on the final day, which included one fantastic panel, many awesome indie, and some AAA titles – all of which were awesome.This morning we all lined up in the queue for the opening of PAX South’s Expo hall,…
With an hour-and-a-half left, PAX Day 2 is almost finished. Day 2 at PAX South was just as busy as last year considering it falls on a Saturday. The line for Nintendo Switch apparently started three hours prior to the opening of the convention, and had a three-hour wait when the expo hall officially opened. Nintendo Switch had a line for the line. The Expo Hall on Day 2 becomes a little overwhelming, you don’t know what you want to see and the crowd is a bit much. I attended two more panels’ today, one first thing in the morning,…
It is currently 11:48 PM on the 27th of January and PAX South 2017 Day 1 ends officially in twelve minutes. With the first day in the bag there are many amazing things that have happened, from an unexpected appearance to the meeting of many familiar faces, and some good panels. Many things have already happened at PAX South while there remain many more experiences to come over the next two days. The two panels that I have attended, it was the first one was the best. GeekNights, who has spoken at 21 PAX conventions around the world, presented a…
With less than twenty-four hours remaining until the opening of PAX South, the anticipation grows stronger. The flight is packed and the next four days will bring new and interesting components to the Game Industry and Tech community. A full line of panels is ready for tomorrow and the crowds have been coming in by the truckloads yesterday and today. While the first day falls on a workday, many attendees will be skipping school, work, or other obligations just to get the full experience. Tip: If you plan on ever going to a convention take advantage and do the entire…
With the release of Steep, we have seen some funny internet videos of people failing miserably, or achieving really amazing and impossible stunts. This is the life of a professional snow extremist, I would say snowboarder, but this game goes beyond snowboarding and skiing. With this game, you ski, snowboard, “squirrel fly” with a wing suit, and paraglide – you could say that it is adrenaline-junkie paradise. At the start of the game you are placed in the tutorial and cannot skip through it. This is an important factor to the game, not only does it teach you how to…
So, you have visited Twitch, Hitbox, and many of the other video game streaming websites. You’ve watched what others do, from the big-name streamers, to the small, and you think you can do it too. Here is what I say: you can do it, with the right equipment and the correct attitude, but most importantly, your attitude is the key ingredient. Let’s start with the basics which you should use and will make you stand out from the others. First, choose your equipment. Now you don’t need state of the art, top of the line PCs that can handle every…
Looking back at 2016, a lot of hits and misses happened in the Gaming Industry. Many games were released, many memorable others were forgotten. The beginning of the first quarter didn’t have too many new and exciting games except for Uncharted 4 for the PS4. E3 was a smashing success, and Twitch exploded throughout the summer and made some great changes toward the end of the year. Starting with the games that came out this year, we’ve had many, including: Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End, FIFA 17, Battlefield 1, No Man’s Sky, and Overwatch. Uncharted 4 extended the series once…
Through the years, Hollywood has been trying to reach out to gaming community. Although in the past they have not succeeded too well when converting video games into movies, most of the time they had been flops. Recently this past summer Warcraft was released and came out with mixed reviews from the gaming community and with the release of Assassin’s Creed we are potentially entering into the year of video game movies. Depending on the success of these two movies we may see more video game movies in the near future. Looking back at Warcraft the story was loosely adapted…
A game designer is the glue that holds the game industry together. This is a big statement but a very true statement. Within the game industry there are many branches, those that develop the games, those that finance the games, those that artistically design the game, and then there are those that speak to all departments and keep the projects moving at a good pace (the game designers). Let’s look at the business as a whole and those who work together to make the projects move in sync. The game industry works like a clock if one piece is not…
With the December update in Overwatch comes a verity of new features, special skins, and special sprays. The noticeable things are those such as Symmetra getting a slight overhaul and the new skins that come with holiday season. The minor fixes were a great addition, however there are some ideas and character, one in particular, that still needs to be patched in the game. Several of the characters have received new skins from holiday overload to simplistic mediocre-ness. Winston looks like a yeti, I don’t play much of Winston but this skin looks incredible. Mei received a Santa suit, as…
With the bumps, hills, and even successes of 2016 coming to an end, we look to next year to see what the gaming community has to offer. From what we can see, 2017 entails two new systems and a plethora of new games. Three of the most anticipated games are coming out in the first quarter, an Xbox exclusive still has no release date at the time of writing this article, which hopefully will soon, and lastly the two consoles will be released in the final quarter (Xbox Scorpio and the Nintendo Switch). In 2017, we see that The Legend of…
This article is not meant to scare you from ever streaming or making “Let’s Plays” on YouTube. If you are strong and will hearted, then take this article as a precaution to what your life will entail when stepping onto the field of streaming and gaming content creations. Of course, being on the Internet is always a dangerous situation and you need to be prepared at all costs to protect yourself from any form of slander or fraud. The first risks are minor risks when you stream and create content for sites like YouTube and Twitch. Such as the frequent trolls…
Console wars have been going on since the beginning of the introduction of the console home system. Everyone has there own preferences and rightly so. When I think of the video game industry today we have the predominant systems such as the Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Wii U, and although it is not a console the PC (I’ll come back to this one). Each person who games has their own interests and ideas when it comes to each of these consoles, and I am assure that most of you may have cringed when reading the name of the console you…
So, here’s the scenario, you’re playing Battlefield 1 you don’t have any friends to play and you’ve selected your class you’ve been playing as since you got the game. The game starts and you run off to do the objective running from place to place shooting, killing, dying. You respawn on a squad mate and run off to the last place you died to get your revenge. After twenty minutes of repeating this process your team is defeated and on the end result page your squad didn’t gain many points and you’re rather low on the list although you may…
Project Scorpio may be a year away but we do know some things about this system. Scorpio will not be replacing the Xbox One; in reality those that are working on this project have promised the consumer that they will continue to work on Xbox One next to the Scorpio. Scorpio is an upgrade indeed, the start of the new era coming to next gen, but those at Microsoft will not punish those who don’t upgrade. Those in fear that this is going to replace the Xbox One can now take a deep breath and sigh in relief. What Scorpio…
Battlefield 1 has been out on the market for twenty-seven days now and already we are seeing a massive update to both the online multiplayer and single player campaign modes. This article will be a watered down version of the update considering how massive this update is, and I highly recommend reading the update notes on the Battlefield forums. Now let’s take a look at the bigger and more helpful changes. Starting with operations multiplayer one of the best updates has happened. Electronic Arts has boosted the attackers significantly. This is a good move considering how difficult capturing objectives and…
After looking through the campaign of Battlefield 1, which can be found here, you must then journey into playing online. Usually games such as these are for the sole purpose of playing online. With the six game modes to choose from you will find yourself spending a lot of time playing online by yourself or with your friends. Battlefield 1 has the option of four game modes that have been with the franchise for years: Conquest, Domination, Rush, and Team DeathMatch (TDM). While it also has two brand new game modes that bring a new taste to the franchise: War…
When going into Battlefield 1 you may expect the same old Battlefield with a new coat of paint. That it is the same game Electronic Arts has been pushing out for the past couple of years just with new weapons and a few mechanics. What you can expect from Battlefield 1 is a new and interesting aspect of the franchise, especially the campaign. In the past Battlefield games have focused solely on a lukewarm campaign that often felt slapped together just to say there is a campaign in a game that is often focused toward online multiplayer. Usually the Battlefield…
Yesterday Nintendo finally released to the public the first commercial and first look at the Nintendo Switch. If you have been living under a rock since E3 this will be the first time you have heard of Nintendo Switch, previously only known to the public as Nintendo NX. Since the release of the commercial on October 20, 2016 Nintendo has received mostly positive feedback. Twitter was the first website to explode with news of the Nintendo Switch. There is not a whole lot we can share at the moment about the Nintendo Switch except for a few minor details. Let’s…
There are many of you out there who have been to a convention and there are many of you that have not. After reading this you’ll be ready to return to the convention seen or go to your very first one like a veteran. There are many things to do at the convention and honestly you won’t be able to get to it all, that’s why you need to plan to revisit the convention numerous times. Whether it be going to PAX to learn from your favorite developers, TwitchCon to meet your favorite streamer, or VidCon to meet your favorite…
Twitch was founded in June of 2011. The community grew and grew quickly. Last year alone there was a one hundred percent increase since 2012. With the way Twitch continues to grow I see no stopping any time soon. With the growth of live streaming comes the formation of individual stream communities that often tend to blend with bigger stream communities. In summation Twitch is practically a family that only grows bigger by the day. That being said there are streamers that would love to voice their opinions of what the community of Twitch means to them. KierzofWar, AvengersStark, and…
FIFA 17 has been out for a little over a week now and if you weren’t able to participate in the early access than you should be close to or halfway through The Journey. The Journey is a choice based career mode game within FIFA 17. Taking the traditional elements of FIFA and mixing it with a good story and choices that effect how you play. The Journey was a greatly needed add on to FIFA franchise. The minor changes made from FIFA 16 to FIFA 17 helped improve the game, but The Journey is a complete game changer. The…