Minecraft Might be Banned in Turkey

 

 

Minecraft might be banned in Turkey, as it has been deemed violent due to the fact that players are rewarded for killing enemies. Minecraft came under fire after citizens realised that a major part of the game is killing enemies; and as such in their minds it promotes violence due to the potential for "loot" from killing enemies.

 

Turkey's Family and Social Policies Minister launched an investigation into Mojang's title and as of today the investigation has concluded that Minecraft encourages violence and should therefore be banned in the country. The report says:

 

"Although the game can be seen as encouraging creativity in children by letting them build houses farmlands and bridges, mobs [hostile creatures] must be killed in order to protect these structures. In short, the game is based on violence."

 

- Minecraft Report

 

The report also states that children might confuse the real world with the game world and then begin to think that killing animals is okay and doesn't actually harm them. A court is expected to take place soon and then the courts will decide whether to ban the game on a country-wide scale. If the game does get banned; Turkey will be the first country in the world to have banned Minecraft.

 

I cannot believe how silly these investigators are being, Minecraft is based on creativity. It has been used in schools to give children a better grasp on geometry and to bring out the creativity in them through a game. A lot of education systems are looking towards games and seeing how they can adapt techniques used in games into their own education systems. As people who enjoy a game have no problem learning the mechanics of the game because the learning process is enjoyable in itself.

 

If Minecraft gets banned, this will only be a step-back in the direction that education is going. Education will eventually be a game in itself; with great learning results as an intended side-effect.







Source 2 Has Been Announced

 

Source 2 has been announced by Valve; a successor to the aging Source Engine that powered Counter-Strike: Source and Half-Life 2 in 2004. Source 2 will be "available for free to content developers", according to Valve's Jay Stelly. He continued to say:

 

"This combined with recent announcements by Epic and Unity will help continue the PCs dominance as the premiere content authoring platform."

 

- Jay Stelly, Valve

 

I would assume however that when they say "free" they mean free for the modding community. If you are a developer then you will most likely have to pay royalties to Valve for using and selling a product that utilizes their engine, which is only fair to be honest.

 

"With Source 2, our focus is increasing creator productivity, given how important user generated content is becoming, Source 2 is designed not just for the professional developer, but enabling gamers themselves to participate in the creation and development of their favourite games."

 

- Jay Stelly, Valve

 

Valve also announced a Vulkan-compatible version of the engine; formerly known as Next Generation OpenGL. Vulkan is a cross-platform graphics API. Support for Vulkan is a priority for Valve as they want PC Gaming to come away from Microsoft's DirectX and onto Linux. Vulkan will also greatly increase performance by removing existing overhead problems.

 

The original Source Engine also uses Havok as it's physics engine. With Source 2, Valve have developed their own physics engine known as Rubikon. Exciting as it is, it may affect one of their leading games: Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. The reason being is that if the physics change in any way, it could take a sidestep in how the game plays. For example, players may have to relearn how to throw grenades so that they can execute tactics that include the use of a smoke grenade or frag grenade.

 

No release date or explicit details about how the financing works have been released as of yet. But it does tell for an exciting future for PC Gaming.

 

 

 

 



Rock Band 4 Has Been Confirmed for Xbox One and PS4

 

 

Rock Band 4 has been confirmed by Harmonix for Xbox One and PS4, due to be released sometime in 2015. In a behind the scenes video on their YouTube channel, Harmonix shared a load of details about the game; including that they hope fans can use their old instruments with the new game to save them from buying new gear as well as allowing them to keep last-gen DLC.

 

They will be partnering with Mad Catz to produce all the new instruments so that new players can buy the equipment and play the game.

 

Daniel Sussman, a Product Manager at Harmonix explained how the studio will be approaching the game's development:

 

"We feel very strongly that making Rock Band 4 should be fun for us, and we had to think a lot about what's the game we would want to work on and that we would want to play. And where we arrived is what we want to build on and evolve the Rock Band experience that people."

 

- Daniel Sussman, Harmonix

 

He went on to say that although they will be developing and changing the game to fit the current-generation of consoles, fans of the series needn't worry to much saying:

 

"On the one hand we don't want to tinker with a core mechanic that has been very successful, on the other hand we want to push the envelope with regards to what people expect. We have a lot of really cool things up our sleeves, things that we're excited to show in the E3 timeframe."

 

- Daniel Sussman, Harmonix

 

Again, there is currently no release date other than it will be released sometime during 2015. I covered all of the leaks and details in an earlier blog post; New Rock Band Game Potentially in the Works.

 

 

 



Metal Gear Solid 5: Phantom Pain - The Last Metal Gear Game?

Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain has a release date, and it will be the last Metal Gear Solid game to be released according to Hideo Kojima. The release date given by Konami is September 1st, 2015. It's pretty crazy when you think about it; this series has been going on for about 28 years. The series started in 1987 and has been a solid game series since then up until September 1st, 2015 where the story will be brought to an end.

Hideo has made claims like this before. However, in an interview with IGN, Hideo takes on that notorious reputation head on.

"Kojima has made claims like this before, but in a video interview with IGN, he tackles that reputation head on."

- IGN

Kojima commented saying:

"I always say 'this will be my last Metal Gear,'" Kojima said, "but the games in the series that I've personally designed and produced -- Metal Gear on MSX, MG2, MGS1, 2, 3, 4, Peace Walker, and now MGSV -- are what constitute a single 'Metal Gear Saga.' With MGSV, I'm finally closing the loop on that saga. In that sense, this will be the final Metal Gear Solid,'" Kojima continued. "Even if the 'Metal Gear' franchise continues, this is the last 'Metal Gear.'"

- Hideo Kojima

Hideo Kojima has been working on the series for almost 3 decades, it is surprising that he has not stopped earlier because he must feel very neutered. He does have other projects in mind as a producer, so he is not leaving the video games industry.

Konami however has not been the best at releasing triple A games. They have slowly abandoned their franchises such as Castlevania and have solely worked on the Metal Gear Franchise. Now that Hideo is leaving it begs the question as to what they will release next. Hopefully they do not stoop to remastering everything they have. It would be nice for them to breathe life into either an existing IP or a new IP.

The Division - Early Alpha Build Leak

Fans anticipating Ubisoft's The Division finally got a sneak peak of the game in the form of a leak. Ubisoft however has said that the leak is well out of date and is not representative of the game's final quality; gameplay nor graphic wise. Not only has Ubisoft made comments about the leaked footage, but has also issued numerous take-down notices of any and all footage. Currently all that remains are a couple of screenshots and a GIF file of the gameplay.

Looks a lot less finished than what we saw at E3 2013. Graphically it looks worse and the gameplay looks a lot  more "janky" in comparison as well. Ubisoft commented on the leak with:

"These low resolution images come from a pre-alpha version organized by developers to test the infrastructure. A large portion of the game has been removed and is not in any way the current quality of the game."

- Ubisoft

The leaker did say that the footage he acquired was of a very early Xbox One Alpha Build. He also said that the gameplay is much faster and "arcade" like than he anticipated from promotional materials seen so far. Hopefully this leaked footage is in no way a representation of the game. Most likely an animation or similar test they had implemented; then recorded footage for logging purposes.

Ubisoft's The Division is expected to be released on Xbox One, PS4 and PC later this year.

Ubisoft's Prescription Video Game

Ubisoft has released a game in collaboration with Amblyotech Inc, of which the latter specializes in electronic treatments to deal with the disorder known as Amblyopia which causes lazy eye in children and if left unchecked can cause blindness in adults.

The game is known as Dig Rush, and it requires a prescription to play. The game is played on a tablet whilst wearing red and blue 3D glasses. The environment is black and white whilst the enemies, player and obstacles are red and blue which means you need both eyes to play the game and successfully complete the level. 

Apparently there is a similar treatment, with another game, of which amazingly, 90% of patients who played an hour per day said that there was an improvement in their condition after six(6) weeks. The problem is that the game had only one(1) level, and playing one(1) level for an hour straight, or even for six(6) weeks can get very boring and as a result patients would quit the treatment purely out of boredom.

Hopefully Dig Rush can fix this issue by implementing more than one level and having replay-ability so as to keep people on track with their treatment; as this method of treatment has proven to be very effective. 

Senior Producer Mathieu Ferland of Ubisoft said:

"The development of Dig Rush was a great opportunity for us to contribute our knowledge and skills in video-game development to help materialize a breakthrough novel medical treatment."

- Mathie Ferland, Ubisoft

There was never actually proof of video-games ruining your eyesight, but there is now definitely evidence if there is a 90% positive feedback rate on a video-game used for treating eyesight related disorders.

Robots are better at Video Games than you

Robots have apparently become better at video games than Humans. A group of researchers at Google's Deepmind Artificial Intelligence Research group have developed self-learning computers that is able to teach itself to play video games as well learn advanced strategies to destroy all humans in computer games. Deepmind uses classic arcade games such as Breakout in which you have to break down a wall by bouncing a ball against the blocks to break them. The AI figured out by itself that it can break a hole in the wall and then bounce the ball behind it to score more points.

Deepmind uses a system they developed known as "DeepQ Network" or "DeepQN" which combines neural networking and acute learning. The Deep Neural Network is a perception tool that has been created with animal vision in mind which helps the DQN see and interact more like humans do. While the Q learning is a reinforcement learning system that is based on math.

In the case of the AI the points are the reward and the directive is that the AI wants to maximize the reward. Other Researchers have tried directing AI to get max points but what the AI fails at is making short-term sacrifices for long-term gains, a fail in logic.

Breakout and Space Invaders are two games that are easy to learn but hard to master; a complex strategy is needed to really maximize your points. The AI is currently only able to play classic games like those listed above, so it hasn't quite gotten to current-gen game level. So far it has taken on 49 different Atari 2600 games. It's successes have not been mind boggling by average; scoring an average of 20% - 30% more than Humans have in Space Invaders. However, in Breakout the AI scored x10 more points than the best Human has. The next step is to transfer strategic knowledge gained from playing games, to other games.