Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes Review

Hey Guys, Drake here again. Kept you waiting huh? Let me start by saying that I miss David Hayter as Snake's voice actor, although Kiefer Sutherland is not bad you can tell the difference in Snake's voice easily. Now let's get on to the review. I remember the price tag for this game being $60 when I first asked about it, a couple of months later it dropped down to $40, then finally it settled at $30. A lot of people called it a glorified demo. I think Revengeance was a middle finger for MGS fans as it was only a 5 hour game with a $60 price tag and not much innovation. Why do I say this about ground zeroes, well let's do some math. MGS is half the price of Revengeance, but you can actually finish the game in 10 MINUTES! No I am not kidding, this is one of the reasons I did not put a video up because I do not want to spoil the game for anyone. Now beating it in 10 minutes does require you to do nothing but the main mission, but come on, there are other games out there that give you at least 10 hours of content if you forgo side mission and things like that. Sure when you finish the game you get some SIDE-OPS which are basically mini missions. Before I continue down this route lets move to the good parts of the game. The controls are awesome, then again MGS in my humble opinion has always had good controls. The weapon selection is quite limited but you have to understand that this is a stealth game, weapons are rarely a factor in this game, I think the most important part of the game were explosives to take care of some armored vehicles and Anti-Air weapons. Of course the Sleeping Dart gun plays a part if you want to get a good score in the game. The CQC makes a return in MGS V and it is way better than in previous games, it doesn't take much to knock out an enemy if you hit him just right, it's hard to explain here but for those of you who choose to play the game you will understand. There is innovation in Ground Zeroes but it falls really short of being a game, there are absolutely no boss fights, nothing is really explained of the story besides the fact that you have to rescue two people, and honestly it felt more like DLC than a game. I am a big fan of the Batman Arkham series but was never a fan of the challenge maps that were constantly released as DLC, MGS V feels exactly like that, like a DLC challenge map that I made the mistake of paying $30 for. I say it was a mistake because when Phantom Pain comes out in EARLY 2015 if the leaks are to be believed it will probably be bundled with GROUND ZEROES to make it one complete game. Yes readers they gave us a demo, the actual good game will not release for about a year if not more. Do I think Ground Zeroes brings something new to the table for the MGS series, yes, yes it does. Do I think Kojima could've just had this in the main game instead of making an extra $30 off of us fans, most definitely. Do I recommend you go out and buy this game? HELL NO! I think it is important to send a message to all video game companies that we are not money mills for them. I won't lie I didn't exactly pay the $30 I simply traded in a game I was not playing and got it free, technically I got $5 back since my game was worth more. I will however encourage you guys to borrow it if a friend already bought it, or rent it, believe me you won't spend more than a day playing this.

Drake's Reviews Rating... JUST A GLORIFIED DEMO, they keep telling us it's a prologue to the game, but if I can finish it in 10 minutes it's just a $30 demo, and no I don't care that it will give me extra items for Phantom Pain, it is not so much giving as it is paying $30 to have some extra stuff in a game I will pay $60 for later on. Steer clear of this one unless you really must absolutely have it.

A clothing line inspired by videogame characters and superheroes?

Yes indeed, we have decided that we want clothes inspired by Video games and superheroes, wanna help us make it a reality? You can check out our Kickstarter page and share the link with your friends or pledge into our clothing line! This is going to be awesome.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/961937552/drakes-empire-clothing

Movie Review GI Joe: Retaliation

 WATCH THE TRAILER IN THE LINK BELOW

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rwS3jafO_9s

If you enjoyed the first GI JOE movie and are more than ready to give Retaliation a try then let me bring you some bad news. Sorry but as a GI JOE fan I expected more from this sequel. First of all the only returning characters from the first film are Duke, Snake Eyes, Storm Shadow and Cobra Commander, and Zartan. This would not be a problem if we got an explanation as to why the other characters are missing but we get no such thing in this sequel. The premise of GI JOE: Retaliation is that Zartan now disguised as the US President is looking to free Cobra Commander and help him use a satellite weapon called ZEUS to force every other country in the world to submit to Cobra as this weapon is 10 times more powerful than any nuke on earth and it has none of the drawbacks like nuclear fallout. In order to do this, Zartan as the president orders the GI JOE team to be terminated, and here is where the movie really deviates from what GI JOE is. In the first movie we saw that the GI JOE's had an awesome base, with highly advanced technological equipment. This time around GI JOE is pretty much guns, guns and more guns with none of the gadgets or characters that GI JOE is really known for. SPOILERS ALERT SPOILER ALERT!

This movie was supposed to be released last year, but when test audiences found out that Duke the leader of the JOE's played by Channing Tatum died in the movie they did not like that, so the studio set the movie back a year in order to change that. Duke doesn't die in the first 5 minutes of the movie, instead he dies about 10 minutes in, effectively reducing the GI JOE team to 3 members, none of which where in the last movie, of course they get joined by Snake Eyes later on who adds one more to their team in the form of Jinx, but by then the movie has pretty much everything that made the last one great. I saw the movie in 3D and I have to say that it doesn't exactly make it better but the scenes that are done in 3D are very well done in my opinion. The addition of Bruce Willis is welcome as he actually adds to the mood of the movie, and if you're a fan of the GI JOE comics you will recognize him as the original GI JOE. Unfortunately this also turns the GI JOE movie into a movie that is more alike to DIE HARD than to the original GI JOE.

Although the plot is a good one, it is very poorly executed and not as fun as the original. It feels as if the movie was thrown together quickly in order to cash in, and has very little redeeming qualities even with the new characters, the movie could pretty much be called Snake Eyes and friends, because the only real good action scenes are his.

If you have a choice I would avoid this movie for now unless you want to watch it in 3D, but overall it left me and other viewers desiring for much more and it never delivered much on anything. The characters are poorly developed, even the ones from the previous movies, the fact that most of the originals do not return and the fact that the de facto leader of the JOE's Duke dies really destroys the GI JOE franchise for me, not to mention they went ahead and turned it into an action movie with some GI JOE characters thrown in there.

Drake's Reviews Score 6 out of 10

Is the Future of Nintendo at Stake?

I have previously reported on the fact that Nintendo was not making much progress in the console wars due to their focus on kids games and the fact that for every ONE good game they made they allowed about 50 really bad ones to come out that are considered trash ware in order to get parents to buy games for their kids. Now as you can see by this video Nintendo is now losing the console war badly as their new console is still behind consoles that have been out for years. Do you guys think that this means that pretty soon Nintendo will definitely die out? Will they end up just making games and handhelds?

Playstation 4 Announcement In February 20th Conference

While the picture above is just for illustrative purposes and is in no way the actual look of the PS4, the February 20th PS4 announcement date is very real. Sony is holding a press conference in New York on this date and it is to announce their new console which rumors say is slated for an October 2013 release! While not much information is available there are a lot of rumors circulating and here is a list of some of them.

PS4 Specs: 

CPU: 4x Dual-Core AMD64 "Bulldozer"

Storage: 2.5 inch SATA HDD (160 GB) hard drive (in Developer Console, not likely for the retail version)


Memory: 8GB DDR5 RAM


Graphics: AMD R10xx with 2.2GB of VRAM


HDMI: 480p, 576p, 720p, 1080i, 1080p


Game Media: 8x Blu-ray BD-ROM (54-128GB of data) at 36MB/s


Primary Media: Blu-ray 8x, DVD, Compact Disc, Download


Backward Compatibility: Unlikely, maybe for PSN purchases


I/O Ports: 4x USB 3.0, 2x Ethernet; Audio Output: HDMI & Optical, 2.0, 5.1 & 7.1 channels

Rumors also speculate that the controller will have a sort of touch pad, and that the PS4 will be CLOUD integrated. While all these things seem to be fine and dandy it is still being said that the system will not be backwards compatible and not only that but you will not be able to play used games on it or lend your games to your friends. Apparently they will be registered to your system and will not play in others. I have voiced my disagreement with this policy as video game companies tend to produce big piles of crap every once in a while and expect us to pay full price for them with no hope for a refund. A good example of this is Duke Nukem which was $10 about 2 months after it was released because it was a seriously bad game, now add to that the fact that there are some gamers out there (myself included) that play a game and finish them quickly and want to resell so they can buy another title or just make their money back for a relatively short game like "Dishonored" we wont be able to do that now, it's going to be $60 every time you want a game. Check stores like Wal-Mart, Gamestop and BestBuy for older games and then find that same game in the PSN you'll see it's actually more expensive in the PSN about 99% of the time and they want to go digital with games. In other words there wont be a reason to purchase a hard copy because it will still have no monetary value like it does now when we resell it to other people or stores. The PS4 is also expected to have an initial price of $400 no word on the GB of the system yet.

I would like to remind you all that these are rumors so far, but I am looking forward to February the 20th to confirm or dispel these rumors. What are your thoughts on this? Would you buy a PS4 under these conditions?

Fast & Furious 6 - First Look

The video game industry seems to be in a dry spell at the moment, but that is about to change. While we wait though lets take a first look at the upcoming Fast & The Furious film simply titled Fast & The Furious 6. As you can see by the trailer a lot of familiar faces are coming back, Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, Tyrese Gibson and Ludacris to name a few. It seems this time around the crew is hired by DSS agent Luke Hobbs from the previous film to help him take down a gang of drivers led my a former special ops soldier Owen Shaw, played in this film by Luke Evans who you may remember from the film "Immortals"where he portrayed Zeus. The trailer also shows that somehow Letty Ortiz is alive after having been killed in Fast & Furious something that was also shown in the last film but only through a picture. What caught my attention the most though was that the trailer shows the crew struggling against the Shaw's gang and they admit that this is not what they do and that this may be beyond them to accomplish, yet they did exactly this in the last two films in a way. The trailer also shows what seems to be Letty shooting Dominic which is an awesome plot twist but if you analyze the scene he first arrives wearing a black jacket and when Letty shoots him in what seems to be the same scene he's wearing a baby blue polo shirt so maybe they did it just to catch your attention. Dom's girlfriend Elena Neves seems to be making a return in this film, let's see what Letty thinks about that. I have to admit that I am a fan of the series, and the action in the trailer seems to be on a superior level than in the last films so I am actually excited for this movie, guess we'll have to wait a bit longer for it but not too long. If you have any thoughts our comments be sure to write them below or on our Facebook page.

Drake's Reviews Pre-Release Score 8 out of 10

How much do retailers pay for video games? Are video games worth a pre-order? How is this OUR problem? Part: 3

In the last two part of our article, we learned about prices that retailers pay for games and about the worth of pre-ordering a game. Today in the last part of our 3 part article we will learn how the price retailers pay and the fact that we pre-order games have actually created a problem for gamers.

Think about the last time you pre-ordered a game. Now think about the extras you got for pre-ordering the game. Now think about how those extras had a significant role in the way you played the game. While some of you may be thinking, hey I got an extra map for Black Ops 2 or an extra character for Borderlands 2, others are saying, I got weapons with the same if not less power than the ones currently in the game. I got an item that doesn't really help me out much, or other things that do not really make the game any better or worst than it already is. See, just recently I went out and bought a copy of Battlefield 3 Premium Edition. I owned Battlefield 3 in the past through a trade I made with a friend, but I never bought any of the maps or the extras because I found them to be expensive. The Premium edition was $25 on Black Friday and it includes all the maps and weapons from the past DLC as well as the future DLC upon release date. That for me was getting more than my money's worth of game. When I pre-ordered borderlands I got some starting weapons that I used maybe twice, an extra character that would be $10 had I not pre-ordered the game, a character I may add that did not change the game at all for me. A vault hunter's relic that gave you a 5% chance to loot better items, the creature slaughter dome which wasn't all that great and a key to open up a treasure chest that would give you some awesome items according to your level but that were totally random and what you currently had on you may be 10 times better than anything you got from the chest. How about those pre-orders that give you a skin for your character? Or how about having to buy the game NEW to get a complete game  like Batman Arkham City did with the Catwoman story? This is how the prices retailers pay for games and pre-orders have affected us gamers. Retailers are sort of forced into these game deals and honestly I believe the price for a retailer is kind of high for the amount of games they buy to sell to the public specially when the price has been standardized across all consoles. Then we have the promise of DLC of extra weapons or skins when we pre-order a game, but these items rarely make gameplay better and most of the time the item in question is negligible. Now we're back to the fact that we give these companies a free loan and they give us items or DLC that is uninspired and has little to no value. Have you guys noticed that lately EVERY game has some sort of extra if you pre-order it. It's how they lure us into buying and we have to stop this practice. The reason why we must stop this practice is because we must send a message to developers that we wont buy whatever crap they throw at us. DLC should never be something that completes a game like what happened with Asura's Wrath, the game did not have a TRUE ENDING, you had to buy it. Seriously? WTF Capcom? And the Mass Effect 3 fiasco was not any better, the game felt, no actually it was incomplete in it's ending. Uninspired, lazy and of course a lot of people felt it was not worth the $60 they paid for it, and many others were even angrier when they had pre-ordered the N7 edition, paying $80 for what would turn out to be an incomplete game, with extras that really did not make the experience better.

As you can see not only are these companies getting our money early, but in return we are getting NOTHING from them. The N7 edition costs $30 right now at Best Buy, how does that make you feel? I think the price now is about what the game is really worth. We have to stop falling for clever advertisement and we have to show these companies that we keep them in business and we want our money's worth and yes I must admit some of them give us even more than our money's worth for some games. I have to be honest, games like ZELDA, METROID PRIME, HALO, INFAMOUS, RESIDENT EVIL 4 have given us awesome stories and gameplay that will be memorable for years to come. The plot twists the powers, the weapons, everything was awesome. We didn't need any extras, we just wanted a good game didn't we? And we were fine. We have stopped looking for good games and instead we now pay to get an extra skin, or a medal in the game or a weapon that gets replaced immediately by other in game weapons, we traded awesome story telling, plot twists and great gameplay for useless items, useless skins and bad story lines. This is exactly why we must stop caring so much about putting down our money to get items that are just not worth it, and instead allow those over hyped games to be released and await reviews or some rentals, because with the games we have gotten lately we've been really disappointed. AC III wasn't as good as the ads made it look, RE 6 left much to be desired, Medal of Honor War Fighter was horrible, Ghost Recon Future Soldier was short and boring, but all of them offered some extras with your pre-order, and all of them delivered a broken game. And now they want to move us to digital downloads and make used games unplayable. I hope digital doesn't go through, simply because it has no real value. You pay $60 and get nothing in return, you can't resell a game you got on PSN or XBOX LIVE. Physical items have a value, don't let companies fool you, they make money of digital because they do not have to produce a box or transport the item anywhere, but in turn you get nothing. I tend to sell my used games, I make some money back so in reality I am not exactly paying $60 every new game, and as a reviewer that is important because I play a lot to bring you guys reviews. As a consumer however it is just as important, because we can not return these items, we are not allowed to do so even if we are displeased when the product fails to deliver what its ads promise. We have to fight back and show companies that what really is important to us is a good game and getting our money's worth. Who cares about useless DLC. Sell us multiplayer maps that's ok but make it worth our time and money too. Do not sell us incomplete games and then post apologies saying you will complete it but it will cost us $10, Screw You. I'll be happy if you give me what I paid for, I'll be happier if you deliver more than what I paid for and it will make me want to buy your next game, but don't ride on the popularity of the first one or second one and make crap on the next one and give me that, because that will be the last time I will buy from you. I don't know abot you guys, but I will not be buying anymore Call of Duty games, and I am one of those that bought the maps and paid for elite on past games. I am a customer that spends his money on a franchise and I was one of those who used to pre-order. I see now how this has become a problem and companies are taking advantage of me and are taking my money and returning next to nothing for it. If we continue like this, soon we will have nothing but downloadable games, which didn't exactly work for the PSP GO so maybe they should learn a lesson from that, so yeah we will have nothing but downloadable games or new consoles will be made so they cannot play used games and the industry start dying out like it did in the past. Don't buy digital, get that physical disc that has real value, don't pre-order unless it's a game that really contains valuable or collector's items worth the $150-$200 you're paying for it. Don't let this problem escalate because soon games will cost more and deliver less, and we do not want that... do we?