Uncharted 4 Apparently Contains Hint at New Crash Bandicoot Game

A post by shortsFortallpeople on NeoGaf seems to imply that Naughty Dog might be planning something with the Crash Bandicoot series soon. The image, now deleted but described by NeoGaf users, shows a copy of an old PS1 Crash Bandicoot game in the upcoming Naughty Dog game Uncharted 4. Naughty Dog, during the PS1 generation, was the developers of the Crash series, but the franchise would end up being sold to Activision by Sony. This isn't the only instance of a hint at a new Crash game, however -- Naughty Dog's corporate profile on social media was recently changed to a new model of the character, as well as Playstation executive Shawn Layden wearing a Crash Bandicoot t-shirt at the latest Playstation Experience event. It seems that if there's plans for a new Crash game, it will likely be announced at this coming E3.

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Twitter: @CodexofAegis
Facebook: facebook.com/CodexofAegis 

Codex of Aegis State of the Union -- 2016 edition

Okay, yeah. I get it. It's still like, the very end of November of 2015. Well guess what, buddy -- that means its two months until 2016, which, if its good enough for EA Sports, its good enough for me as well.

Basically, for those of you unacquainted, the State of the Union is basically the "New Years Resolutions" of the Codex of Aegis group, except it never actually happens on New Years. This is basically the details on everything Codex of Aegis related, and what to look forward to in the future about it. Think of it like Christmas but for some shitty series of blogs and youtube channels you don't care about as much.

However, before we continue into the future, you must always look to the past. Or something. Let's look at last years(?) State of the Union to see what we made and what we didn't:
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"Codex of Aegis

First off, in the last post I hinted at the idea of a Codex of Aegis compilation ebook, with extra features, commentary, and the rest of the works. It was originally slated for Winter 2014, but it never came out -- and that was purposeful on my part. To make sure I would have enough content to work with in making the book, I decided to set a point in which I finally start making it after I upload X amount of stories. Well, as of today, the X amount has been reached -- so I'm now announcing that Codex of Aegis will go on hiatus while I'm busy compiling it. I plan to add the following:

• All stories from the blog's inception up until today's
• Commentary/critique on each one
• A special "Astuka Looks Back" section
• A few chapters to a book that was originally going to be released in 2014 but will now be later

As for price and release date, I'm still working on it -- though I hope to finish by at least Summer 2015."

----

Besides the Summer 2015 release window, everything about this part is *relatively* still correct. I'm not going to spend much time on this because the big book update/preview post is still up and updated as far as possible.  Well, except the whole Summer 2015 part. But I promise guys, it's coming Winter 2016. Probably. Maybe Spring 2016. Promise.

----

"

The Blogs

As Codex of Aegis will be busy hibernating, I intend to start updating this a lot more. I already have 2 posts planned for next week with some ideas for more. I also plan on starting another blog for more dumb clickbait stuff, since apparently that's "in". So that means there would be 3 blogs: one for stories, one for nonfiction kind of stuff (this one), and finally the new blog (which might end up being monetized, but I don't know)."

----

So what ended up happening was that Codex of Aegis was hibernating with the occasional progress post,  but Astuka's Blog isn't really as active as I intended it to be. Whoops. Still, I feel like enough content is put on here to justify an occasional visit, and from what I've seen of analytics it seems that the view count is pretty constant. As for the clickbait site, that was put off fairly soon after The Best of the Youtube died out. The idea of putting on someone else's stuff just isn't what I wanted to do, anymore at least. I found that the most fun I really had doing Best of the Youtube was doing my own commentary over what I thought was dumb, and the community's reaction to it. Not just rereleasing dumb videos for a bunch of views. But yeah, no more clickbait. Sorry.

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"AstukaGaming

Recently there has been some talk internally on making AG season 2. I can't say yet that we're dedicated to making it, but I have made the AstukaGaming channel an "official Codex of Aegis" channel, and plan to do the same with Best of the Youtube tomorrow. As always, the podcast will keep going, and I'm thinking of legitimately doing some "casual streaming" on astukari as time goes on."

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 Interesting enough, AstukaGaming is the only part that has gone beyond its goals (though I guess now the whole thing would be called "astukari.". Though there has been no AG season 2 and Best of the Youtube is, of course, dead, astukari is expanded a great deal. There was the short astukari show, the details of which will be described later -- the podcast continued and added in the Link to the Past, which hopefully more of will be made soon, and many more hopeful additions to the channel. 

Well, that's all for the past. Let's look toward the future:

Codex of Aegis

As the compilation book is still being worked on, it's likely that Codex of Aegis will stay dormant for some time, mostly because if I add anything I feel like it would ruin the value of the book itself (hopefully I'll figure out some way to fix this problem in the future). Instead, I'll try my best to work on the only real thing I can work on on that site, which is the Guardians of Enthia stuff. I plan on making a page on there that's dedicated to the series -- it will have chronological links to all the chapters as well as some stuff for the wiki, as well as any additional stuff I've done for it (including the Astuka Looks Back stuff).

Astuka's Blog

This blog will... well, it will probably stay exactly the same as it is now. Whenever I have something I plan on writing that doesn't fit on Codex of Aegis or Astukari, I'll probably just put here.

Astukari

Astukari, as a channel, will continue its normal functions. Astukari as a mini-podcast, however, will likely stop functioning due to the fears I had for it going in, which was content. Since the podcast was biweekly, I feel like making Astukari weekly would be the only way to give it enough merit to exist while still having time to generate content for it, but unfortunately the content side didn't really work out.

AstukaGaming

Like I've mentioned previously,  AstukaGaming is, and still will be, the gaming stuff between me and Vaughan as well as anyone else we decide to bring along, assuming we do bring anyone else along. Anything that's not gaming -- or does not have more than 2 people -- aren't considered to be apart of AstukaGaming. This may change in the future, however, depending on how convoluted/confusing it gets.

AG Podcast

The AstukaGaming podcast is the AstukaGaming podcast. Seriously. It will keep continuing as normal far towards the foreseeable future, giving you the best in week-old gaming news in fairly biweekly intervals.

Link to the Past 

Though its been some time since our Battlefront 2 LttP,  we have no plans to stop or cancel the series and once we find another game that is common between the both of us we'll probably make another LttP episode -- however, until then, nothing is planned.

Endurance Run

Those of you who occasionally view the youtube channel may notice a new series is up called "Morrowind Endurance Run". This was my way of finding an excuse to frequently and casually do twitch streams as well as regular uploads -- Morrowind is a fairly laid back game that takes a lot of time to beat. If I stream the game fairly regularly for, say relatively 45 minutes every few days, it would ideally increase my activity on Twitch and Youtube. Plus, its fun to do and in my opinion actually entertaining in these first few parts. I would recommend!

Videologica Obscura

Though just a simple concept for now, Videologica Obscura is the name of a show that I've been brainstorming for quite some time now. It's, at its core, a kind of review show -- only for the most obscure, weird, or just plain dumb shit possible. Basically the commentary works a lot like it did in BotYT, where I'll either record gameplay myself and then record some commentary in post or, if the game is too obscure, find some gameplay video and commentate over that. I do plan on editing this a lot more than I did for BotYT, however.

The Best of the Youtube

F

Extra Life

In case you didn't know, early this November we did our third annual Extra Life. Honestly, it wasn't as good as the others, and I think its due to this that I'm going to change the formula in the future. More updates on the changes will be discussed in the future.

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Twitter: @CodexofAegis
Facebook: facebook.com/CodexofAegis 

The National Academy of Future Scientists and Technologists is a Scam.

As this is going around and not apparently there isn’t a lot of coverage on it, so I figured I would make this so people know exactly what’s going on.

To preface, I got a message in the mail addressed from some NASA guy named Buzz Aldrin. At first I thought it was just a regular friendly letter, as me and Buzz go way back and he hasn’t really gotten used to the whole “internet” thing yet. However, upon closer inspection, this wasn’t a friendly hello at all -- it was actually an invitation.

I was pretty confused at first, as I’m pretty stupid when it comes to school smarts, but as I read it through I came under the realization that what I was reading was entirely genuine, and I myself was reading to take my first steps in joining this prestigious group.

Haha, just kidding. It’s a fucking scam. Here’s why:

First, let’s start with the name. Sure, there’s a lot of pretty well known Academies. There’s the Academy of Arts and Sciences, Academy of, uh -- Well the point is that there’s plenty. However, the name “National Academy of Future Scientists and Technologists” doesn’t really ring a bell, which it feels like it really should speaking of its apparent importance and my accumulated knowledge via various college/scholarship searching. Not only that, but -- and like I said, I’m stupid -- I’m pretty sure “technologists” isn’t even a word.

But look! Right there lay the signature of Buzz Aldrin himself, and his message that he decided to personally recommend me. Certainly they wouldn’t put THAT much work into a fake?

It’s true, they wouldn’t -- and its not a real signature. Upon closer inspection of it, you can see that it is made up of individual sets of squares; not very common for natural human brushstrokes, but very common for a printer. Hey, at least they paid for the color!

Another pretty egregious detail on here is the requirements. Normally for high quality scientist/engineer academies, the GPA requirement is around 3.7-3.8. However, for this, it’s only 3.5 -- something you know is bad when its the minimum requirement to join ASU’s engineering school. No, seriously, if something is set at ASU standards, you know something is up.

Taking down these major points, you start to find little problems between the lines. The ridiculous price, the various grammar mistakes, and my personal favorite, the News Release section:

“You will be able to create your own news release using an easy to follow program the Academy has developed. Included are instructions on how to distribute this release to local newspapers and television stations so you can get the maximum recognition for your achievements.”

Wow, I never knew getting on TV was so easy! Unfortunately, this easy media guide was in fact not included with the rest of the papers -- must have been cut out of the final product at the last minute.

So, these are our ways of seeing through the fraud on paper, but what’s the proof outside of it? Well, it turns out these are the same people behind the National Academy of Future Physicians and Medical Scientists, who had this nice little message written for them by NY Times writer Diana Schemo.

Now, I’m going to embarrass myself a little here, but its for the good of all of us -- for a short time, I genuinely believed this message was true. Now, if I thought it was real, how many other students and parents think it is, and for longer than just a few minutes? How many families could this end up preying upon? I’m writing this in hopes that we can minimize these numbers as small as possible.

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Twitter: @CodexofAegis
Facebook: facebook.com/CodexofAegis 

GamerGate -- A Trilogy Ends

Part 1
Part 2

This post is special for a multitude of reasons.

Number one: we're getting closer and closer to 10k! I'll probably do another roundup like I did for 1k, except this time not make all the images puush so they don't get deleted after like a week.

Number two: this is our 100th post! Pretty interesting, speaking that when we hit 1k we were at 50. I'm just going to assume this means exponential growth for eternity and it never actually plateaus.

And lastly, number three: as you can tell by the title of this post, this is my last address to GamerGate as a whole. If something else happens in GamerGate, I'll talk about the event in specific -- but as for generally, this is the last one.

This movement has slowly degraded into a cat-fight, mostly due to the help of trolls (yes, I used the word trolls) who think sending death threats to people are absolutely hilarious. This has turned both sides spinning out of control: anti-GamerGaters have used it as an excuse that "Look, they really are trying to attack us! See!" whereas GamerGaters have gone ahead and shut their ears, automatically assuming that they are actually just alts made by the anti party in an effort to make the pro party look bad and not thinking anything else of it again. Of course, both of these are wrong, but both sides seem eager in staying with their side of the story.

I take from the wise words of TotalBiscuit when I say that it makes no sense to stereotype a group of people as one person, and that also applies to both parties. There are people in pro party who believe in journalistic ethics, however there may also be a few who are just radical anti-feminists. There are people anti-GamerGate who believe all games that come even close to their definition of sexism should be panned, but there are also some who just want to have a few of their own games that promote diversity on the side that aren't panned. However, people like to stereotype and therefore both sides are often mislead about the other side, Most people on the side of the pro-party who just came probably think all anti-GamerGaters are crazy feminist bitches. Most people on the side of the anti-party who just came probably think GamerGate is a purely misogynistic movement created by that hacker 4chan. You see how this doesn't work?

So, with my last address to this is a notion of truce, by accepting both the sins and the saints that have happened on both sides. The reason I gave the introduction above is, to make things more simple, I may make it seem like the entire group has done it, but as all you smart folks now know the truth, and I can make things less complicated while still telling things clearly. So, here we go.

• GamerGate started over a blogpost made by an ex-boyfriend of Zoe Quinn (the creator of Depression Quest). He stated that Zoe had relations with five other men besides him at the time, all people in the gaming journalism. This created the movements first name (the Quinnspiracy), however it was not that great of an idea from the get go to trust some guy on the internet. As far as I know to this day there has never been any proof that the man even knew Zoe Quinn. 
• In response to the mass amounts of talk of the Quinnspiracy, various websites decided to censor any content about it as well as complete radio silence over it. Didn't really help them much at all, did it?
• Time had past, and the movement had changed from Quinnspiracy to GamerGate. In an effort to prove their worth, the pro-party funded a game done by a group of women who were also pro-GamerGate
• ...and in response, the group was harrassed and their fundraiser not given any media attention. Brilliant move, once again.
• The website to Polytron Corporation, Phil Fish's game studio, was apparently hacked shortly after this. The pro-party dismissed this as the first of many "false flags", or fakes done by the opposite party, and was probably not the best decision.
• However, the anti-party used this as traction, as well as the first time GamerGate news actually showed up on the media. This made it seem the connection to the anti-party and the media was closer than it seemed, and multiple independent journalists took at this moment to side with the pro-party.
• And with the increasing size of the pro-party, the games media took this as a clear disruption and the end of morality and humanity in the gaming community, creating the infamous "Gamers are dead" articles that alienated the viewers of these websites. This caused a mass boycott, taking down viewcounts by the thousands, most notably gamasutra whose total viewcount went down by almost 80%
• Independent journalist Milo Yiannopoulos (spelling my memory, give me a break) revealed during his snooping that there was a secret emailing group among both game journalists and game developers called "GamingJournoPros", a name I try will refrain from making any more jokes about. The group seemed reminiscent of a big conspiracy in the political journalism community which resulted in the firing of multiple members of the group. But this is game journalism, so that didn't happen.
• To add even more salt on the wound, a member of Kotaku made a comment on his twitter insulting members of the GamerGate movement. GamerGaters used this to their advantage, messaging multiple advertisers on Gawker media about this attack. Multiple advertisers, including Mercedes-Benz and Adobe, dropped their advertising due to these claims. Despite even THIS, the CEO of Gawker Media refused to fire the person who did it.
• After a long standstill in the conflict, a group of trolls sent death threats to multiple members of the anti-GamerGate party, including Anita Sarkeesian, who by this point had actually surprisingly been on the sidelines. For the first time ever GamerGate would hit national news, and it was not on the side of the pro-party.

By this point both groups have done bad, and I'm eager to just avoid this discussion now entirely and wait to see if anything actually comes of it besides some trifle between the journalists and the people who view their content. But as of now, this blog will no longer showcase it. 

So, what can YOU do in the meantime? Well, wonderful question! First, you can check out my twitter, which is essentially a feed that provides updates for both this and Codex of Aegis, my fiction-writing blog you should probably check out next. Right now, I should probably get back to writing my b- I mean, more stories for the Codex of Aegis!

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Twitter: @CodexofAegis
Facebook: facebook.com/CodexofAegis 

GamerGate Part II: The Quest for the Uncensored News Site

A few weeks ago I made a blog post here discussing the Quinnspiracy. In it I apologized for being late to the party.

Boy, could I have been more wrong.

A lot has happened in these few weeks, and since then it has gone to expand beyond Zoe Quinn herself and even gaming in general. However, for the sake of being careful I'll use this next paragraph to summarize what has developed since then, assuming that the last Quinnspiracy/GamerGate article was the one I made.

It turns out that the alleged internet censorship is real, and it is worse than we thought. This brilliant article by Milo Yiannopoulos shows exposes an emailing list used by many top ranking game journalists, website founders, and indie developers called “GameJournoPros”; a name which leads me to believe that my backseat journalism may be more professional than I give it credit for.

Here is a list of these emails, with important information in highlight, courtesy of Breitbart.com. (images need to be opened in separate tab to be read)

Ah, yes, Journalism ethics sure are bullshit. Besides, I've been meaning to review her game... *wink wink*

People are using your platform to harass a developer. Though more of these people are concerned with censorship, we should really just make that our excuse.

No. This is simply not true. I don't believe it. Shut up.

If we censor their thread about internet censorship, it plays DIRECTLY into their narrative! God, why does making responsible decisions on community content have to be such a pain in the ass!

It's not just popular tech and gaming websites, however. The following image is a screenshot from a reddit AMA with Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks. In it he's asked his opinion on GamerGate.

And on this, the Darwin Award committee struck gold.

Think it's fake? Here's the permalink. In other news, Reddit's moderation team braving through worst intelligence drought in decades.

And I'm not even done. The bastion of anonymity on the internet, 4chan, has been revealed as to be censoring it's threads as well. 

Now this may be not as bad like the last time, however also like last time that's only in proportion to the other current events. We know have feasible proof that censorship is going on in most major discussion areas of the web.

The main defense game journalism has given up to this point is that the GamerGate movement is a thinly veiled misogynistic scheme that insists it's about censorship, but is really just trying to remove women from the industry. What we have proof is that that allegation is the farthest thing from true.

Sworn opponents of censorship and active members of GamerGate, this is your fuel. Use it to create a wildfire so wide that not even major websites can control it. The two greatest inventions in humankind were writing and the internet, because they allowed the common man to speak his mind. Use these gifts. There have been entire country-wide revolts by use of social media alone. Utilize it, and there will be change.

But before we change others, we must change ourselves. Recently I have watched the InternetArtistocrat's GamerGate stream in which he discusses current events and inspires people to raise their flags for better, unbiased journalism. I have decided that if there is interest, I'll use this site – small though it is – to give the unbiased gaming news people have asked for. And that means not just in GamerGate discussion, but all of gaming in general, whether it be reviews or announcements. If I stir up even the slightest interest in this, I will heavily consider trying to do this.

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Twitter: @CodexofAegis
Facebook: facebook.com/CodexofAegis 

The Quinnspiracy, also known as generic internet drama

I was really hoping I'd not have to make something about this, but seeing that it's the only thing I've been able to see on the internet recently I figured I might as well chime in.

For those of you who are uninformed on what exactly armchair internet sleuths are dubbing "The Quinnspiracy", the story goes as follows:

Recently, a game by the name of Depression Quest was greenlit on Steam, made by a Zoe Quinn. This game was, as it turns out, not a game at all -- rather a shitty visual novel. This is a fact.

Where things tend to get a bit shady is where the conspiracy part of this quinnspiracy lies. Apparently, the creator of the aforementioned game, aforementioned herself, allegedly was having "special relationships" with five men, some of which were married, and even more shockingly some of which worked for the games journalism industry.

Now, AS FAR AS I KNOW, there is no SOLID proof that Zoe Quinn was sleeping with any of the alleged five guys, besides a large blog post made by her ex-boyfriend. If anyone has any information on this part that is TRUE and SOLID, please send it to me at the email or twitter that I'll provide at the end of this post. As for now, I'm not going to bother getting into this part, but rather a section with a considerable amount of proof which seems to trouble me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Equc1QnQ9rw

What I've linked above is a video made by a man with the charming internet mask "Mundane Matt". The content of this video however, is not important. What is important is the story behind it.

Figure A -- MM video claim

A few days ago, when this conspiracy first began (also forgive me for bringing this up on this event's wind down; as you know with me I tend to think late and write later) Mundane Matt released this video, only to have it removed via copyright claim by "Zoe Quinn". I put that in quotes because, as we all know, anyone can take down content with practically any reason. This "no reason" is the fact that the Quinnmystery claimed that the video contained screenshots from the game that were not available "for public use" -- a thing that turned out to be absolute bullshit, as it was later shown that the screenshots were directly from the game's store page on Steam. However, there is one more thing we shouldn't overlook, and its the "anyone". Just because this person is Zoe Quinn, doesn't mean she's actually Zoe Quinn right? Right?

Figure B -- Censorship on Steam Discussion Boards

Figure C -- Extremely probable censorship by /r/gaming moderator (may need to open in separate window to see)

Figure D -- Deletion of correct content on Wikipedia

Figure E -- Censorship by 4chan moderator (though some may say it is irrelevant)

Figure F -- Censorship on the website GamesNosh, likely by Zoe Quinn herself.

Figure G -- Censorship on 4chan -- content posted features information related to video game journalism, a subsidiary of video game discussion.

What I have posted above are 6 images that I believe are the closest to resembling actual censorship by Zoe Quinn and her compatriots. I got all these images from a compilation made by an anonymous /v/ user, and it is available here. Feel free to check all the content in it at your own pace.

Now as a writer I have a soft spot for censorship of any kind, because I believe it is more destructive than it can ever be creative. The censorship revolving Zoe Quinn is an excellent example of that; in the end, it doesn't even MATTER if the rumors surrounding her are true. At the end of the day, what we do have is exemplary evidence of wide censorship.  Surely, you'd say, you shouldn't send death threats to her, and you're right -- but deleting ALL of the negative content associated with a person is without a doubt censorship, and there's no way to retort against that fact besides sugarcoating it yourself. The internet gives us, all of us, one basic right -- to start discussion about whatever topics we want as long as they follow a set of country laws. You can't say video game journalism discussion isn't relevant to 4chan's /v/ board. You can't say discussion of a video game personality's view of an active video game related event isn't relevant to reddit's /r/gaming. And you certainly can't say that an entire website deserves to be taken down for it's non-threatening opinions on another person, no matter if its negative or positive.

If you wish to discuss this article with me directly, or have any content that can help bolster the quality of this article, please contact me at my email  or at my twitter, @JohnMcGroover. And no, I'm not taking it down. Ever.

- Jacob Robinson, writer of the Codex of Aegis

Edit 8/20/14 8:31 PM
An anonymous emailer sent me a link to this Kotaku article. In short, the editor in chief of Kotaku Stephen Totilo states that "he [Nathan Grayson] was in a romantic relationship" with Zoe Quinn, but that during his time at Kotaku had not written anything about Zoe Quinn during there relationship with the exception about an article concerning the Game Jam situation. While this is true, it also explains the fact that Zoe Quinn did indeed cheat with at least one of the five men rumors have explained, and it does leave the additionals up for some more serious consideration. I continue to encourage all of you to send me any solid information you may have on this, as well as critique on any factual errors I may have made in the article.

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Twitter: @CodexofAegis
Facebook: facebook.com/CodexofAegis 

My reaction to Twitch's new Content ID system and the Google merge

(Posting on the Codex of Aegis meta-blog and the AstukaGaming Steam Community)

I know streaming has become a side-thing for me, but I'd figure I'd take the time to address this anyway.

Today, in preparation for the Google purchase, Twitch added two new “features” – a content ID system and the end of permanent archiving (at least for the foreseeable future). Both of these have obviously caused quite a stir, and although I doubt very many of you are wondering how this is going to effect my stream, I'll tell it anyway.

So far none of my previous highlights or broadcasts have been effected by this update, but its likely that once they do I might make a switch to somewhere else. This is simply because I don't condone either of this updates, and I don't like using services with major features I don't like. It's exactly the same for when I stopped buying EA games and stopped using Youtube as a viewer.

Will Twitch lose its fame once it becomes a more widened livestreaming service? It's highly doubtful. Just like Youtube, when something stays at the top for so long with such a gap between all other competitors, it's likely it will stay that way no matter what the criticism is. So, you may ask, why would I go away from Twitch if Youtube does the same and I still upload things there?

Three things.

One, there are no good substitutes for Youtube. Dailymotion is the Yahoo of streaming services. Vimeo, although it does have good video support and content, has a lack of competent browsing and search features. All the others, well, its safe to say they're far below.

Two, publicity. With Youtube, even if you don't advertise your video in anyway, you're guaranteed to get at least 20-30 views eventually. Even more if it's interesting material. You simply don't get that with Twitch – you HAVE to advertise with Twitch or else you won't get any newcomers. If that's the case, why bother hosting it on the popular website if it's the same for everything?

Three, the streaming brand isn't as important. Simple as that. I don't really have to get into how AstukaGaming is all fun and no gain because I already talked about it in my previous post. It's important for things that do have gain involved to be on the popular site, because people are more happy in clicking. This is a fact, because just recently (names voided) someone I know actually declined to see a video not because of its length or subject matter, but because of the website it was hosted on. That's right, if you're out there reading this, fuck you. I still haven't forgotten.

With these things in mind, you can hopefully see that it wouldn't be near as big of a blow in switching from Twitch to another website than it would be in switching from Youtube to somewhere else. That's the reason for change.

The next thing that comes up is the alternate streaming website in question. It's quite obvious, really. Some might have even thought I mentioned it previously, even though I have not – Hitbox.tv. It's a indie streaming service with the most modest of upbringings, and unlike other streaming services that have ended up being complete disasters (coughown3dcough) it doesn't try to strike a contract and its admin community seems friendly. Though, like twitch, I'm sure that will be eventually subject to change.

I'll be honest, I actually have zero experience with Hitbox.tv. All that I am aware is that many believe it is actually a better streaming website than Twitch, which is entirely possible. So here's the plan: Over the course of time I'll go and try out Hitbox.tv. If it really is more both streamer AND viewer friendly than Twitch, I'll make the switch (heh) otherwise I'll likely just stay on Twitch and endure.

Anyway, that's all for now. Remember to follow my Twitter @JohnMcGroover (the only thing that will be staying the same despite any moving) and check out the main website, Codex of Aegis (The “main website” link up top if you're viewing on the blog; http://landofeternallife.blogspot.com if anywhere else.)

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Twitter: @CodexofAegis
Facebook: facebook.com/CodexofAegis 

ASTUKA'S GAMING PALOOZA GAME AWARDS 2013

Yes, it's that time again. The time I've been waiting for for about a year now. Once a year it comes and goes and all children are filled in absolute amazement only to brag or argue to their friends the next day about it. You know what I'm talking about.



AWARD SEAASSOONNN

Ah, yes. The one time where all the fanboy factions come together to stage all out war, the winner normally being whoever wins IAA or VGX. Now, here in the AstukaGaming household the tradition of holding a massive game awards ceremony has been in existence since 2010, but this is the first year that we're recording it for the internet to see. So before we start, let's take a look at some of the past overall winners.

2010
Game of the Year: Mass Effect 2
Studio of the Year: Rockstar Games

2011
Game of the Year: The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Studio of the Year: Bethesda Game Studios

2012
Game of the Year: Journey
Studio of the Year: Telltale Games

Now normally there's about 16+ award categories but I can't even remember what I had for breakfast yesterday much less what I rated the best mobile game in 2011 was so for the most part I'm going to skip the rest of that. Well, that's enough of the intro -- let's get to the awards!

MMO OF THE YEAR

The recent years of gaming have seen a massive uptrend in highly anticipated MMORPGs being released, only to fail about two days after launch. While we haven't found a WoWkiller yet, it seems as though the MMO community is just going to keep throwing out shitty MMOs until it finally does. Or WoW goes free-to-play and adds another 10+ years to it's lifetime. Whatever works.

Nominations

Eve Online: Odyssey

World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria

Firefall

Defiance

Guild Wars 2

The Old Republic

The Secret World

Neverwinter

Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn

Rift

And the winner is...

Out of all the ideas for an Action MMORPG, a full 3D, diablo-esque game seemed about as good as it could get. Yet for some reason, none of the attempted "WoWmurderers" even attempted to try that -- until Neverwinter came along.

Neverwinter does something no other MMO has done yet; feel like it's not a grind. A heavy action/gameplay oriented F2P MMO with a fair cash shop and Blizzard-focus on both PvE and PvP, Neverwinter seems like a gamers dream come true -- and despite a few hiccups along the way, that's exactly what it is.

MOBA OF THE YEAR

Despite being highly unpopular with some of the gaming community, MOBA's are one of the largest mainstream gaming trends since World of Warcraft and Call of Duty. Now with a previously one-game genre spurting out new games left and right, it's only fair to crown a winner.

Nominations

League of Legends

DotA 2

Smite

Rise of the Immortals

Guardians of Middle Earth

And the winner is...

Even with the MOBA industry now being chockful of games, the one real winner as always is the (slightly) original League of Legends. True, it may have a shit community, but the category that helps this one succeed is without a doubt the gameplay.

Well, that's all for now. Stay tuned for more posts, with will lead up to our game (and studio) of the year!

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Twitter: @CodexofAegis
Facebook: facebook.com/CodexofAegis 

Royal Fisticuffs -- The Battle between Twitch and its users

Note: The following events took place the week of November 20th - November 21st, whenever that was.
Twitch is a place that works a lot like Imgur -- people go to it all the time since there's no real better place, yet everyone would agree the management really isn't the best (Seriously? "jif"? Are you fucking kidding me?). This is one of those times where Twitch once again proves it.

In case your not exactly following internet drama (don't worry, I don't either), the story starts with one of the lead admins named Horror. Horror is non-closeted homosexual furry (no, that's not an insult -- that's what he actually is) who has been around roughly since the ye olde Justin.tv years. Now, normally he isn't known for much around the community, with the exception of his own barely ever used emote, BionicBunion . However, in the recent days, he's caused quite a stir.

Apparently, Dr. Furry Love decided to make an emote for his newest furry partner (who remains unnamed, and the actual emote in question cannot be found), AKA his "fursona" (which to this day I have no idea why someone decided to make that a word). Now that only made people SLIGHTLY annoyed -- the hammer truly came down on Twitch once they removed streamer Cyghfer's emotes for, and I quote, "looking kind of sort of like Hello Kitty which is copyright." Okay, that's paraphrasing; but you get the idea.

But the true catalyst, the Franz Ferdinand of this conflict, was when a streamer by the name of Duke_Bilgewater made an innocent joke regarding the issue to which he ended up being permanently banned. Perfectly reasonable solution, I would say.

Seems reasonable.

This caught on to end up being a shitstorm, with bans on famous streamers left and right and the rest of the streaming community trying to fight back like some pitiful internet drama. Oh, wait.

One of the biggest public outcrys came from twitter, where people virtually shouted "REMOVE HORROR" over and over again like they were apart of some great political movement. Twitch proceeded to completely ignore all responses and instead make some shitty pun/joke tweet that made everyone in the vicinity immediately cringe in agony.

Please, @TwitchTVSupport. Never try to be funny again.

But that wasn't even the major brouhaha -- the battle moved to Reddit when one of the admins apparently suggested legitimately bribing the /r/gaming mods to keep the fight under wraps.

The immaturity level has skyrocketed!

At this point the maturity of both sides had reached that of some Minecraft server made by a bunch of prepubescent children, but they train wouldn't stop there. The fighting would continue to go on for what seemed like years to the Twitch.tv community but what ended up being about five minutes for everyone else, the two sides finally "truced" and most people who were banned in the incident ended up getting unbanned.

But has the fighting really stopped? Has the battle between one of the most popular streaming websites in the world and it's mostly 20+ year old users really ended? I sure hope so, because anymore autism and I might die from a hernia.

Sources:

Source1

Source2

Source3

(All from Reddit, it seems. Who is really to blame?)

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Twitter: @CodexofAegis
Facebook: facebook.com/CodexofAegis 

Dark Matter ends after abrupt ending

Dark Matter, a game recently released on Steam for $15 has been flagged for a completely abrupt ending. According to the developers, the game originally was supposed to last around 14 hours, but was cut to around 4 due to the Kickstarter for the game failing, as well as a complete lack of funding in general. While the game was praised, the shortcomings with the ending may effect its lifetime on Steam.




It's likely that the developers had their best intentions, but they could have easily did one of two things:

A) Label the game as Early Access on Steam

or

B) Make another Kickstarter

They, however, did neither. If they said the game was a work in progress all would be good, but unfortunately they didn't, and there's going to be one hell of a backlash.

(In completely unrelated news, we're 53 away from 1k views! Better make that special edition soon...)

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Twitter: @CodexofAegis
Facebook: facebook.com/CodexofAegis