Nyko Data bank thoughts

Back in January Nyko announced their PlayStation 4 hard drive extension data bank. When I first heard about it, I was like yaaay we have an easier way to upgrade the HDD on the PlayStation 4! One that makes it possible to connect a 3.5 inch drive to the PS4.  This alone should be amazing, people should be jumping up in the air screaming like they just don’t care, right? No while the data bank can be seen as good for some, it’s a pretty ugly extension that goes on the top of the PS4.

In my personal opinion the only good thing about it is that it allows consumers to put larger HDDs in (or “on”) their PS4s. a large capacity 2.5” HDD is hard to find and really freaking expensive. I’d personally rather get the extension and buy a 3TB HDD for $130 than a 2TB 2.5” HDD for $500 or more (darn Canadian economy making everything expensive). I do have a few problems with the device, the fact that the PS4 can only connect to one of the hard drives at a time meaning you can’t use the 500GB internal memory with the let’s say 3TB external storage.

It’s an interesting concept, I only wish that it was able to use both the internal and external storage & that it looked nicer when connected to the system.

What do you think?

Thoughts of Disgaea and its future.

It was many years ago when I experienced Disgaea for the first time. I had never played such a game in my young life, and I couldn’t understand why it took me so long to come across it! I first played Disgaea: Afternoon of Darkness shortly after hacking my PSP. The story was amazing and killing enemies while those many memorable songs played in the background were some of the best times I had during high school. Fast forward to now while I’m playing catch up in Disgaea 4 and eagerly waiting for Disgaea 5 to be released here in North America. I only have one question, how will it fair to its predecessors?

Disgaea 1 & 2 were amazing, nice & balanced with tons of replay ability, I never got the chance to play Disgaea 3 for myself but watched playthroughs of it on youtube. I had to get the PS TV to play Disgaea 4 and although I’m a bit disappointed with some of the mechanics when compared to the first two, I’m still loving the story presented in the game.  The good thing about Nippon Ichi is that they seemed to have listened to their fans and are streamlining some of the mechanics making Disgaea 5 more like Disgaea 1 & 2 and I guess D2 (which I also never got to play L )

Playing through Disgaea 4, for the first time I’ve played a Disgaea game without using any form of cheating or downloading a game save, I’ve started from the bottom and so far have put in around 180 hours in the game. I personally consider myself to still be a novice of the game considering I only just unlocked the LOC and am about to start my item world run of a legendary Arcadia! (somehow I managed to beat the 8 Pringer battle to get one) I’m excited to get my characters as strong as I can through hard work and determination.

I have high hopes for Disgaea 5, when I think about the power that the PS4 has, I’m excited to think about how great the game could be. (Disgaea 4 lags on PS TV) The technology that is present now should make for one hell of a game. There is one thing I would love to see from a Disgaea game in the future though, bringing all the protagonist from the Disgaea universe together in one games MAIN storyline with the final boss being like Baal or Pringer X or both threatening to destroy all the netherworlds & celestia, I suppose the human world as well just for the fun of it. It will probably never happen but a man can dream cant he?! 

Nvidia Shield Thoughts

Nvidia, a company that I hold in high regard has announced the Shield, the third and most likely final piece to the Shield family. Joining the Shield Portable and the Shield Tablet, the Shield set top box will be coming to living rooms near you! This new beast boasts a Tegra X1 Processor with a 256 core Maxwell GPU as well as 3GB of ram and 16GB of internal storage which can be upgraded via MicroSD. When it comes to set top boxes it easily beats out the likes of Apple TV, Roku, fire TV, etc, many have been going as far as saying that the Shield will be a competitor for the Xbox One & PS4 consoles.  I won’t bore you with flops, but the Shield is said to be 2x more powerful than the Xbox 360 & PS3 and is currently said to be able to put out half the power of the Xbone & PS4.

So what & what don’t I like about this promising new device? Well it runs on android so you know it will have a nice and open OS, with such powerful hardware to back it up it already has a list of console tier games ready to be released to stream on it. This brings me to the first point that I don’t like, streaming. In order to get the most out of it you must have internet capable of streaming the content to your device, if you want to be able to play games at 1080p 60FPS through the grid streaming service your internet is going to have to be able to handle it or else that feature will be out of the question for you.

The 3GB of RAM & 16GB of built in storage are also a point of complaint for me, I currently have the Samsung Galaxy Tab S which has those same specs. 3GB of RAM may be limiting for a device that is capable of so much and we all know that 16GB of storage is small in this day and age. I can’t complain too much as the Shield only costs $199 USD (so it will be a bit more for us Canadians *Sigh*) but at that price point if it can keep up with this generation of consoles, well let’s just say Microsoft and Sony might be in a bit of trouble. (To be honest, I don’t think they have much to worry about)

Now something I haven’t seen people talking about, later this year the Steam machines will be rolling out & considering the integration the Shield will have with Steam, individuals should be considering if this will put a damper on the sales of those devices, or maybe people will hold out on buying this and opt for the more powerful Steam machines? I guess we’ll have to wait and see what will happen. Even though this device intrigues me, I will be opting to buy a PS4 (for the exclusives of course) and the newly announced Steam Link streaming box for my room so that I can finally put my gaming rig to use without people staring at what I’m doing in my living room. 

JUST LOOK HOW THIN IT IS!

Dragon Ball Xenoverse Review!

After beating the main story and reaching level 80 within 2 days, putting hours of my life into a game created from one my favorite series in existence, It’s time for my review of Dragon Ball Xenoverse!

So for those of you who may not know, in Xenoverse you can create your own character based on one of the races from the series (Saiyan, Human, Namekian, Majin & Frieza clan). You can go through the iconic story of Dragon Ball Z with a few twists that keep the story mode fresh unlike most Dragon Ball games in the past. The story mode can be completed within a few hours if you’re somehow really good at the game and never stop to grind on parallel quest! To complete all the parallel quests is gonna take some time, with their being over 50 of them in the game and most likely more to come with the 3 DLC packs that are going to be released this year, you’re going to have a lot to do in the game. In my opinion it’s a fantastic game and I definitely recommend it if you’re a Dragon Ball fan.

For the most part gameplay is smooth, playing on PC with an Xbox 360 controller feels nice, its visually stunning and runs at 60FPS @ 1080P. There are a few instances where the game feels slow & clunky especially in TokiToki city, considering that the combat is mostly smooth I wished they had put a bit more effort into the hub world allowing people to fly around or even run around, hopefully those will be options if they decide to make a sequel to the game which would be nice but I honestly can’t think about where they would be able to take the story mode.

Certain parallel quests bring time patrol officers who sometimes drop Dragon Balls, the Dragon Balls can be used for a variety of things like wishing for money, characters, rare armor, the power pole, techniques or stuff like changing your characters looks, resetting attributes, etc.

Now for what I didn’t like, the fact that there is content already in the game that is being pushed as DLC, and the fact that we’re having DLC in the first place. I don’t want to have to pay an extra $30 for DLC when the game already costs $50. Also there are a few voice syncing inssues  for the english dub, sometimes the characters lips dont move at all and other times there sync is as a bad as an old godzilla movie

If you’re a Dragon Ball Z fan, I’m sure you’re excited for the upcoming Fukatsu No F movie. Stay up to date on here to check out my review of the movie when it comes out.

Check out some screens from the game & my characters below!

The future of torrents?!

The future of technology can be an interesting thing when thought about, when I was in high school and 3-d printers were all the rage my friends and I started to wonder about torrenting might become a tool used to obtain physical things illegally.

Now those of you who follow news on technology might recall a time when a few people were using 3-d printers to print guns, granted at that time the guns could only be fired once before they fell a part, more recently I’ve heard that people have become closer to printing fully functional weapons.

So if we could print guns at home now, it should be possible to also print things like cars or kitchen appliances right? No, we aren’t that advanced. No yet at least, 50 – 100 years from now not many of us will still be around but I’m assuming that at that time people will have found a way to use 3-d printing for a more mischievous purpose.

Remember that torrenting is tormenting, you may not think that you are contributing to the downfall of the music or film industry, but you are. It's all your fault. Stop. 

MSI GT80: The future of mobile gaming?!

Have you ever dreamed of a laptop that you could easily upgrade or easily swap out parts you don’t care for?! Well then this is for you, the MSI GT80 Titan!

So, what exactly is the Titan? Well it is one of the most interesting beasts I’ve personally seen in a long time. A laptop sporting a full mechanical keyboard, running two GTX 980M in sli, an I7 processor and up to 32GB of RAM, all with you having the ability to upgrade parts just by sliding off a panel (just like a desktop!).  The innovation that this beast presents is great for the future of mobile computing. Unfortunately the titan itself isn’t the most portable machine, it’s bulky and is heavier than what you may want to carry around, but it is still portable. Coming in at just over $3000.00 it will most likely be over most people’s price point but I suspect it is for a very specific crowd.

But what does this machine mean for the future? Well technology has been advancing at an alarming rate, I bet 10 years ago only a select number of people would have guessed we would have a machine like this today, not to mention the power its packing! So imagine in another 10 years, a machine with this much capabilities could be down to the size of a regular laptop, granted we will probably still need additional room for the mechanical keyboard.

I am personally excited for what future of technology holds, it’s been a passion of mine for years now. Everytime there’s such an innovative product like this or a huge advancement in the technological world I end up squealing like a little kid! Let me know what you think about this beast and how you envision the tech world looking in 10 to 15. 

Putting together my Future rig.

Computer Build project	Current Pc Specs:	Future Portable Pc Build
CPU	I7-3770K	I5-4690K
Motherboard	Gigabyte GA-Z77x-UD3H	Gigabyte GA-H97N-Wifi
Memory	16GB GDDR3	8GB GDDR3
SSD/HDD	120GB Samsung SSD 3TB Seagate Barracuda	1TB Seagate Barracuda 500GB HDD
GPU	MSI GTX 770 TwinFrozr Gaming	EVGA GTX 960
PSU	750W Semi Modular Corsair	550W Fully Modular Corsair
Case	NZXT Phantom 410 Mid tower	BitFenix Prodigy Mini ITX Tower

As you have probably already guessed, I’m a PC enthusiast. I built my first computer a few years back, at the time I was so excited to be joining the “PC Master race”. Playing all the newest games on high or ultra at 60 FPS on 1080P was the dream, although at the time I wasn't completely aware at how unnecessarily demanding some games could be, after all I was basically a computer noob.

Now I wish for a more portable build, hence the mini ATX form factor.

I go for the I5-4690K since its slightly faster than the 4670 and almost the same price, it may not have hyper threading like the 3770k in my current build but for gaming, web browsing and watching movies, it can even be considered over kill for what intend to use it for.

The motherboard I opted for is still up for debate, I may go with the Z97 version of it even though I have no plans for overclocking or using a GPU in SLI. I hear the build quality on the Z97 platform may be better than the H97 version.

For what I will be using it for, 8GB of ram will be more than enough, if I run into any problems I can easily stick another stick of ram in to make it 16GB. For now I go with 8 due to the insane prices that RAM is currently going for.

I opted for an additional 1TB HDD, I already have a 500GB HDD from my laptop that no longer works, it has Windows 8 already installed on it so it saves me money from buying an OS key.

The GTX 960 is a pretty good mid-range GPU, which is why I went for it. I don’t need anything overly powerful for this build, the TV in my room is only 720P unfortunately so the 960 should kill at what I’ll be using it for.

The BitFenix prodigy case is one I’ve wanted for a while now, it’s nice & small which is what I want in a case! In orange of course because it looks really sexy in that color. 

Finally I opted for a small 550W PSU since that’s about all I need.

Now I won’t be getting rid of my current rig or anything, but I started sharing it with people in my household so I don’t get as much time to use it. The next build I make will be more portable to go in my room & use it as something I can bring over to my friends’ houses when I get together with them! 

What is going on with Sony?!

Sony, once one of my favorite brand due to their PlayStation division. When I was younger, the first console I ever received was the PS One of course that was succeeded by the PlayStation 2. Unfortunately I opted to get the Xbox 360 instead of the PlayStation 3, but this time around I plan on getting the PlayStation 4!

Over the past few years it’s been abundantly clear that Sony has been losing its ground, selling off divisions, getting hacked, Sony isn't in its prime anymore. With regards to selling off divisions, this may not be a bad thing, by cutting the fat, instead of supporting what’s bringing them down they might as well get rid of it. They've done a good job of that by selling of their Vaio computers and most recently selling their online gaming, they analysed the market and found that due to a change in the way consumers are gaming now, it was simply not profitable enough for them to continue running it.

My question? What will Sony inevitably cut lose next? Now there are still many divisions left at Sony from their TVs to their mobile, there are rumors circulating around the web right now about their TV division being sold off next, if that comes to fruition it may be safe to assume that Sony is planning on shrinking until they reach a point that they can turn around their current financial situation.

In my opinion it may be a smart idea to do so, as long as they don’t sell the PlayStation brand or any of the other divisions that are keeping it afloat.  I wouldn't mind if they sold Columbia studios, so Marvel studios could potentially gain the rights to put the Spider-man character into their movies.

One thing that would be interesting, if down the line Sony just became PlayStation, do you believe that the company would be profitable, would the PlayStation name suffer due to the other divisions under Sony being gone, or would the PlayStation go back to the glory days it enjoyed during the reign of the PlayStation 2? 

Quick Recap: Windows 10 Event!

Microsoft recently held their Windows 10 event, we learned quite a few things about the future of windows and its effects on the Xbox one console. I won’t go into full detail, but give a brief recap on some of the things I found interesting from the event.

So first off, the best piece of news is the fact that those who have Win 7, Win 8 & 8.1 will be given a year to upgrade to Win 10 for free! In an effort to defragment the windows user base, Microsoft has decided to give a temporary upgrade path. With Direct X12 coming, games and other programs will be able to run smoother if they don’t have to be optimized for previous iterations of windows.

It was announced that people will be able to play their Xbox one games on their PCs that run Win 10, they also showed off their new holo lens which is essentially similar to google glass, except better. Holo lens will allow integration with the world around you via augmented reality.

I would recommend reading up on these a bit more as well as upgrading to Win 10 when it comes out (wait a month or two to see if there are issues).

Are the PC requirements for GTA V too high?!

As many of you know GTA V on PC has been pushed back once again, with it came screen shots and the min + rec specs that will be needed to run it.  Click here to check out the official Rockstar article.

I’ll be taking a look at if the specs for the game are too high. Since news of its specifications were released I've heard a lot of complaints about it being too demanding.  On the minimum side of things the specs aren't actually that high, the cpus listed came out before 2010 and were currently in 2015. It only asks for 4GB of ram when computers are currently coming with 6 – 8 GB standard! Let’s not even get started with the GPUs that they list as they also came out around 7 years ago.

Think about it this way, during the early days of the 7^th generation console wars, people potentially had PCs capable enough to run GTA V. But looking back, what was once considered high or even excessive is now being looked at from a minimum spec perspective, we all know those aren't reliable so let’s look at the recommended specs. Just know a lot of people will be able to run the game, even if it’s not in glorious 1080P or native 4K resolutions. (Not like many people care for 4K at the moment anyway!)

So when we look at the recommended specs…. Well on Intel side we’re seeing Rockstar say the your PC should have an ivy bridge processor in it (I5 3470), now that’s a pretty new processor, even though it was released in late 2012, Ivy bridge and its predecessor Sandy bridge are what a lot of  gaming enthusiasts have in their computers today (myself included). The recommended ram is 8GB. When it comes to the recommended GPUs we got a GTX 660 or AMD HD7870, considered as mid-tier graphics and considering that  more powerful & efficient cards are out today, most people looking to play GTA V on their PCs shouldn't have a problem getting it to run, that is unless Rockstar does a poor job in optimization… But let us hope that with the long wait us PC gamers have had to endure, that we get a GTA truly worthy of being played by GLORIOUS PC MASTER RACE.

Also Rockstar is trying to to get on peoples good side by offering more ingame money and a free game if you preorder so if you’re in to that sort of thing you should get on it before the offer expires!