Best (and Worst) Games of 2014, Part Trois

Part 1
Part 2

As our GOTY coverage winds down, we end with some of the more important awards.

Best (and Worst) Games of 2014, Part Deux

Click here for part 1

With the bulk of the boring awards out of the way, we get to some more interesting ones as well as the first inductees to the Arbitrary Hall of Fame.

Best (and Worst) Games of 2014, Parte Un

With every year, there comes more games. No shit. However, at the end of these years, there comes a perfect opportunity to act like we know more than we actually do by deciding the best and worst of the year.

The Legend of Funny Pizza Land

Over the years, video games (just like any other form of media) has had its series of myths and legends. From the obviously false Tails Doll, and the recently confirmed ET dump, or perhaps the ever mysterious Polybius -- people tend to continue to tell their own stories about these oddities, real or imaginary. Funny Pizza Land may be just like these, but is unique in its own way.

What's going to be at the Playstation Experience?

Next week, Playstation will be unveiling apparently a "boatload of new games" at the Playstation Experience at Las Vegas, Nevada. Using some rumors and some of our own hypotheses, we've decided to set our shitty predictions to see if we at least get one right. Hopefully we do.

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The Last Guardian

Though we're likely STILL far from a release date (let alone anything playable) it can be assumed through recent visible frustration by both members of the Sony 1st party publishing and Team Ico that we'll have at least some closure on where The Last Guardian currently is. This could be anything from a small mention to an official new announcement, as well as potentially them coming out and saying it's not happening.

Guerrilla Games' New IP

The first among many rumors is the idea that the studio famous for the Killzone series will be coming out with a new title. Though that may be true, I'm stumped as to what it is (mostly because new IP can pretty much mean anything). My best guess is that it may utilize one of the studio's biggest strengths -- its art, graphics, and world design.

New Square, Capcom, and Jaffe game

Among this apparent mound of new titles comes from the publishers Square Enix and Capcom, as well as God of War creator David Jaffe. Since these are likely not new IPs, they are a bit easier to guess.

It's hard to see Square Enix making any big announcements at this time besides more info on the upcoming Final Fantasy XV and Kingdom Hearts 3. It's also possible that something from its western counterpart, Eidos, maybe coming, but this could also just be more on the new Tomb Raider. I'm crossing my fingers for more information on Deus Ex Universe, but the chances are slim.

As for Capcom, I'm going to pull my bold prediction and say a new Street Fighter. As we've entered a new generation, its clear that the hype and buzz around IV will slowly but surely subside. It would make sense to take this time to continue it's popularity, as well as compete with the other new-gen fighting games such as Mortal Kombat X and Smash Bros. Oh, also Dragon's Dogma 2. Because fuck you I want Dragon's Dogma 2.

As for David Jaffe, well, fuck if I know. It's David Jaffe -- it could really be anything.

Blizzard Announcement

This was a rumor that surprised me, especially since Blizzcon just happened not that long ago. It would likely be something that they've already announced that is simply coming to Playstation. Maybe Overwatch? As of now, it's hard to think of anything.

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So, how much of this will be true? Probably none of it, mostly because we're horrible at guessing anything. But we can pretend.

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Twitter: @CodexofAegis
Facebook: facebook.com/CodexofAegis 

The 10k Extravaganza -- Hell, its about time.

This blog had its start as a simple experiment. A test of how large a blog could grow without any ads or discussion backing it. Just a simple blog, nothing fancy. How far could it reach?

Sure, we're still no Perez Hilton, but it was never meant to be that way. To this day the blog beats out The Codex of Aegis in daily views, and although it may have about a year's head start, its still impressive for a blog that for the most part has been put in the shadows behind its younger, prophetic brother.

Originally the play was to drop the blog after Codex of Aegis was released, but by that time it had already accumulated 6 thousand views and I figured it would be a horrible waste to throw it all away. So, though I stopped posting on it daily, I continued to update it once and a while. Sometimes its a little frustrating that the blog is so much more highly regarded in internet terms than the main site, but by now I've come to accept its place in the world wide web. But enough of the introduction -- the hour of festivities is at hand.

A battle of two towers

Before we get into Astuka's Blog specific achievements, let's talk about the two heavyweights: Codex of Aegis and Astuka's Blog.

I have plenty of other places on the internet: AstukaGaming is where we have biweekly podcasts, and it has its own steam group. My tumblr is filled with non-gaming stuff, mostly in the music world, and I have other shadow projects and experiments that shall remain unknown. However, not even the highest of these can compete with these two giants. 

Total Views

Codex of Aegis - 1,886 views

Astuka's Blog - 10,000 views

Average Monthly Views

Codex of Aegis - 188.1 views

Astuka's Blog - 666.7 views

A more detailed view

Its clear that Astuka's Blog has quite the lead on CoA, and although the two may still be increasing at a steady rate, let's continue with a more closer overview on Astuka's Blog in particular.

Top 5 most viewed posts

1."Meeting God" by Anonymous - 1,860

From what I've seen, the original copy of this story has since been taken down, and if you do search "Meeting God" or any sort of combination of that into Google, this blog is the first thing that's come up. I've thought about deleting it a lot, mostly because its really overshadowing everything that I've actually done, but I've figured the viewcount hit would be way too much to recover from. Still, there is hope for an original article to one day overtake this pile of copied garbage.

2. Meet the GTA V characters... in real life - 330

Back when GTA V was still in its craze stages, and I was still into it, I made a lot of articles around the same time about the game. Now that hype has gone down, but one article in particular stands atop all of the others -- the GTA V real life counterparts, all of which are actually all coincidences and have no proof to back them up. Sorry kids, Christmas isn't coming this year.

3. The Quinnspiracy, also known as generic internet drama - 210

The first original piece of legitimate content comes at (no surprise) 3 on this list. The first part in the trifecta that is the GamerGate Trilogy, it details some of the very first events of the happening, despite stating it's near the end. 

4. GUYS I THINK I JUST FIGURED OUT P.T - 162

I'm happy this is in the top 5, mostly because in a midnight haze this theory made perfect since to me. Months later it still holds promise, but I suppose we'll have to keep waiting until when it drops to find out the truth.

5. Splatoon HYPE! - 133

Oh, thank god. More non-content. You know, I was started to feel worried for a second. In case your wondering what it is, it's a bunch of unformatted fan art of Splatoon. Why.

The demographics

Top 5 pageviews by Country

1. United States - 8,008

2. France - 151

3. United Kingdom - 149

4. Canada - 124

5. Germany - 119

No surprise here -- all of the content is in English exclusively (because besides kindergarten levels of Spanish, that's all I know) so it makes sense for 3 of the top 5 countries to be English speaking countries while the other 2 have a large amount of people who tend to speak English as well.

Top 5 pageviews by Browser

1. Chrome - 6,529

2. Firefox - 1,132

3. Internet Explorer - 927

4. Safari - 845

5. Opera - 274

Disregarding the 6,529 views that are mine, this seems to be just like a "Top 5 most used browsers" list. Though shoutouts to the last place browser, CriOS, for its badass name (though looks like its just short for Chrome for iOS. Lame.)

Top 5 pageviews by Operating Systems

1. Linux - 4,478

2. Windows - 3,505

3. Macintosh - 738

4. iPhone - 591

5. Android - 418

This statistic was always interesting -- I always figured the mass amount of Linux users was due to the blog formerly being a self proclaimed programming blog, but now that those days are over and the stat is still high up, its interesting.

The Future

It's safe to say that this blog will continue for quite some time, as well as its safe to say that another one of these updates won't be for awhile (at 25,000? 100,000?) so fortunately you won't have to worry about me spouting out boring site statistics for another few years. Well, better get back to making stuff.

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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 

A Cup of Pseudo-Philosophy -- 3 Theories of Death

Hey, remember 3 or so weeks ago when I said I would be making this and it would be released that Sunday? No? Good, because it never happened! Not at all!

Anyway, in this new attempt at being overly pretentious, I'm going to step into the shoes of Aristotle or whoever that old kook was and pretend I know more about a completely unknown topic more than anyone else: Death!

Most of the popular death theories either revolve around highly convoluted god stories that requires all of the prerequisites to be true before the death theory itself to be true, or just an extremely lazy explanation because fuck it, we don't know. For this, I am setting myself in a position where I apply no religions (at least of which I am aware of) but also try to explain it while using as many known facts as possible. That being, probably none once so ever. As you've read the title by now you probably know that there's not one, not two, but THREE original theories on death I have created, and although I am almost certain you may have heard something like these before due to the unoriginality constant, take in mind that I am using very little outside information and can ascertain that these are original, and probably because of that going to be pretty damn nonsensical. So with our first one, let us start with the most nonsensical of all!

Number one: The Multiverse Theory

What is the multiverse theory? Good question: the term "multiverse" is a borrowed term that I stole from somebody somewhere, but I don't remember what it was actually used for. So this could be either probably the exact same thing or a little different, but just remember my introduction.

This theory revolves around the idea that there are a near infinitely many universes, all in which every available situation to every action or event has its own universe. Let me give an example: right now, I'm going to assume you're reading this on a desktop (if not, just bare with me -- I'm not here because I can read minds...) Now, you'll probably read this normally, but what if you stopped reading to go get something to eat from the fridge? What if you closed this out to watch epic meme videos on youtube? What if you just all of a sudden started throwing up all over the damn place?

All four of these actions -- normal, fridge, meme, and vomit -- are just a few of the many things that could happen to you, even if they are highly unlikely. However, even the most unlikely ones have its own universe, where that specific point did indeed happen.

So, what decides that you are in the universe you are now? Well, quite obviously its the one where you are conscious of what's happening, but what happens when you die in this universe?

Simple, you don't. Right now, you are inside the universe in which, due to all luck, you just happen to live for an infinity amount of years. Yes, you can still feel pain, you can still get diseases, etc. etc., but you cannot actually die from any of these. The reasons other people have died is because this is not the universe in which they are conscious, and they are instead really in another universe. So basically, you're talking to someone who has no conscious. Sound familiar?

"B-b-but, I am conscious, but I am reading your blogpost right now! How does that work?" you might ask. Well, let us remember that there are near infinite universes with different possibilities, and so that makes a lot in which this blogpost is still made. Basically: if this theory is true, we're communicating through DIFFERENT DIMENSIONS! Pretty crazy, right?

Now, I'm not going to lie: This theory does take a few liberties, so let's get a little more down to earth, but perhaps not entirely scientifically accurate.

Number two: It's all a dream, Michael!

Alright, let's say you do die. Well, it's likely you probably won't be looking at a black screen for eternity, because that requires you to be conscious, while the whole idea of death is that you're probably not. So, what point are you not conscious in your everyday life? That's right -- when you're asleep!

The dream theory states that, when you die, a part of your brain stays awake, and brings you into a dream state. This dream state lasts for the rest of eternity, however once you realize you are dreaming, you will be able to take full control of your dreams to the point where you can make your dreams whatever you want. For most of us, that may seem kind of hard -- but don't worry, you have plenty of time to do it! And if you already know, then I guess you could say you're ahead of the curb!

This is the oldest theory I've made (sometime at age 12 or so) and with it there are some major inconsistencies, one of which is the definition of death itself, which states that death is when the brain shuts down entirely. Could it be that we've overlooked something, even in the realm of modern science? Not impossible, but unlikely. There's also the idea that the brain is an organ, and it decomposes over time with the rest of the body -- so even if there was a part still active, it would eventually die out.

Fortunately, this all leads to our 3rd and final conclusion.

Number three: The Spirits Within

After realizing these two had flaws when I gathered them for this post originally, I decided to lay down a try and find one last one that had the least amount of flaws as possible. And so, we lead into part 3.

I came under the impression that trying to discover death is impossible without assuming that there is something greater that we don't know -- not necessarily a god, but a vehicle of both creation and destruction that exists and governs the universe. And so I came under the impression that the most reasonable way to explain with there still being this vehicle, is ghosts.

Your conscious is what makes you. It decides personality, actions, everything -- and its safe to say that, like matter, there's no way it can actually die. So let's assume this conscious, when released after the body has passed, becomes an undetectable force. You are still conscious, but you are no longer limited to a body and can move around the world, galaxy, and universe freely. You can also inhabit beings that, there bodies are living, but they do not have a conscious (assuming those exist). So, in the end, yes I said it: spirits are actually the most reasonable way to explain death.

Then again, there is a lot we don't know, that leads to infinite interpretations. The only way we can figure out what death is, is when we go into death itself -- but in the case death fucks us over, let's enjoy life first. 

Have a theory you'd like to share? Why make your own blog post when you can simply write in the comments below? Also, don't forget to check out Codex of Aegis for my stories, and follow @JohnMcGroover for updates on both sites.

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Twitter: @CodexofAegis
Facebook: facebook.com/CodexofAegis 

Extra-Life 2014 Round-up

Our second annual Extra-Life stream is now over, and although our numbers are small I'm honestly proud of them enough speaking that the stream itself was pretty close just to not happening, unadvertised, and kind of just thrown together at the last minute. Before I start my real review, let's give ourselves some stats on the Astuka Extra-life 2014:

• We donated exactly $1, tying ourselves for last year. Hey, we aren't big time!
• We gained 1 follower and 34 views, with a highest concurrent viewer count of 7.
• We streamed for 10 hours, with only 1 stream hiccup in between.
• We played 3 games: Roblox, DotA 2, and Lego Minifigures Online (kek)
• We had 9 people come on in total, excluding myself.

It was interesting in the way that the stream went practically the complete opposite of what it was supposed to be. Like I said before, the stream wasn't going to be the whole 24 hours, but I wanted to go from morning to night. The only problem with this was that the day before the stream I was informed that I had to go to a party in the literal middle of the schedule, and so that brought down my enthusiasm by a lot. Another plan was to make up for the lost time by also streaming on Sunday, but by the end we decided just to wing it and do it all on one day.

Funnily enough, the 3 people who were said to have been confirmed for the show weren't even on it in the first place, due to one reason or another. Instead, the stream consisted of a ton of people who at the beginning only had the faintest clue what was happening but stayed through the very end regardless. There was some people who wanted to get in but never did, and I apologize to them. 

For next year: we'll probably do it about the same way. I feel like at this point in my life I don't have enough free time needed to go out and organize something crazy like last year. I'll probably try to prepare some viewers, mostly as an attempt to remind myself, but beyond that I think winging it is the perfect strategy for something like this. I still like streaming, and I like doing the themed events such as Extra-Life or Week of Streams or Halloween of Spooks. But as for making it a big deal, it's probably impossible by this point. I'm also behind on a lot of posts because of this, so I should probably get to work on that.

They'll be no podcast this week, but expect a lot of extra-life highlights coming soon to the channel. I'll try to get a story up on Codex of Aegis on time, Also, expect another blogpost later in the day, this time about pseudo-philosophy. Probably.

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Twitter: @CodexofAegis
Facebook: facebook.com/CodexofAegis 

Patch Notes 10/11/14 + New Info on Extra Life 2014!

Hello, my friends!  It's been almost a year in which Astuka's Blog has been in existence (actually probably longer) and we're just about to hit 10k views! Internet stardom, here we come!

If you're a long-time regular, you probably remember something about an Extra Life 2013. Well we plan on doing it again, only this time, with a bit of a twist!

And that twist consists of me being too lazy to ask people individually if they want to join, so we might as well use this time to excersive (excersive? exercise? fuck its early) the social media muscle!

First, on this week's AstukaGaming podcast, I'll be spurting on about the details of what I mean, as well as some more general info. Then, after that, I'll be posting on all of my virtual internet soapboxes (including this one!) the details of what it takes to both watch and join! And I really hope you do come, because... uh... we only have 3 people right now. But also because you'll be helping childrens hospitals! If you donate. Jesus, I need to not write like right after I woke up.

In other important news however, I have this week's Patch Notes!

• A new, more understandable logo for Codex of Aegis is near finishing construction, and should be on the site soon.
• Newsletter? What?
• I'll be setting up, not posting, but setting up my new youtube channel come eventually. Take in mind that AstukaGaming Podcast will always be posted on AstukaGaming. 
• Stencyl and Unity games are being worked on, but at a snail's pace. Like I've said before, I'd rather take these as practice than to just release them because I can't guarantee their quality yet unlike my writing.
• I'm pretty sure I've never mentioned almost all of the above things. This is also a horrible example of my writing.
• General CoA updates (formatting, tagging, etc.)

Well, that's all for now. I hope y

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Twitter: @CodexofAegis
Facebook: facebook.com/CodexofAegis