Bungie's Big Mistake by making Legendary weapons obsolete

The upcoming DLC for Destiny, The Taken King does not allow you to upgrade existing Legendary weapons and that sucks. It demonstrates developer Bungie's contempt for gamers. (See Game Informer report, August 4, 2015.) Along with the nerfing of favorite weapons like the Gjallarhorn, this last disrespect could be the "nail in the coffin" for Destiny's projected ten year run.

To demonstrate Bungie's contempt for you the gamer, I pose this question in the spirit of the late President Ronald Reagan to the fans of Destiny.

"ARE YOU BETTER OFF BY HAVING YOUR FAVORITE WEAPON MADE OBSOLETE THAN WHEN YOU OBTAINED IT?"

Of course, the answer is "no." Let me explain. Let's say you obtain that hard to get hand cannon Fatebringer from the difficult raid, "Vault of Glass." It is possibly the best hand cannon and one of the best weapons in the game because it has explosive rounds, the perk Firefly and Arc damage. You ascend it in late May to the maximum attack rating of 365 due to that month's DLC, "The House of Wolves." You begin to use it and start to rock your enemies. Your Destiny gaming is easier and more fun. That's assuming you like your gun to do damage and not be a BB gun.

Flash forward to September's release of the DLC "The Taken King." Just four months or even less, your beloved Fatebringer is now obsolete. All that hard work to obtain this magnificent weapon is now wasted. And I mean hard work. You must reach level 20 to use it, must obtain the weapon as a RNG drop, level it up AND obtain the difficult to get Etheric Light to get this gun to the maximum level.

All of these changes to weaken favorite weapons are designed to get you to try the new weapons from the upcoming DLC.

“I definitely feel like some of our players are ready to play with some new toys,” says (Bungie) creative director Luke Smith. “And we’ve built a whole bunch of new toys. There are definitely some weapons that you are going to find better versions of – there’s going to be something that replaces that sniper rifle that you love.” Game Informer article, August 4, 2015.

And how do you get to those new weapons? Buy the DLC for a whopping forty bucks or more depending on what version of the game you get. Look, I get the idea to make a buck but it's way too early to make favorite weapons obsolete. At this time, the game is not even a year old. We're a long way from Destiny Two so why weaken Destiny One weapons roughly every three months? Yeah, it's a way to milk every last buck from the gamer but it does not benefit them. And let me respond to Luke Smith. Those great weapons he talks about in The Taken King will probably not be available right away. I'm guessing from older DLCs, you will have to get those from complicated Raids and difficult tasks such as playing The Prison of Elders on harder levels I also question whether the new primary weapons will have elemental damage right away. If not, the Destiny player is in a weaker position at the start of The Taken King because his powerful gun from the Destiny One is now obsolete. It's going to be more pain and suffering.

Finally let me answer those who support the changes. If you read articles about the obsolescence of Destiny year one weapons, you get this feeling that some of them are for it. Here's David Thier of Forbes writing if is for the best. Okay, my fellow gamers, those that support it are usually the guys who write for the organizations that support big business, the gaming industry or depend on their survival to the success of Destiny. I, my fellow gamers, do none of that. I'm a gamer. So, I've got no financial motive for supporting Bungie's decision to weaken or nerf favorite weapons or criticizing it. Let me make this clear. I do not support Bungie's garbage. And as I have demonstrated, making your favorite Legendary Destiny wepons obsolete stinks.

Fantastic Four review

Sometimes a commercial premise for a story will "doom" a movie. And unfortunately, the latest reboot of the superhero team , Fantastic Four, suffers from such treatment.The big problem with film is that it is inspired by the Ultimate Fantastic Four comic book series. (Comics Alliance, "Fox's Fantastic Four reboot: What the FF?" February 20, 2014) That series re-imagined the Fantastic Four as much younger people.

I can imagine how the suits at Fox wanted to reboot the Fantastic Four. "Well we have this Marvel franchise. Got to reach the young kids who go to the movies. Hey, check out the box office for The Hunger Games. Can we make the Four younger? Wait. Check out the Ultimate Fantastic Four comics. Voila, we got box office gold." Well, going for the bucks sometimes dumbs down the story.

You see the big problem with this reboot of the 2005 movie is that it's unbelievable. I'm supposed to believe that a bunch of kids, Reed Richards (Miles Teller) and Ben Grimm (Jamie Bell), at a science fair have developed a way to transport matter to an another dimension. Reed is recruited by Dr. Franklin Storm (Reg Cathey) to work at his lab to work on a transporter being developed by Victor von Doom (Toby Kebbell) and his daughter, Sue Storm. (Kate Mara) Look, I know brilliant high school kids. But to believe a bunch of kids can build a matter teleportation device that can warp people to another dimension is ridiculous. Kids don't have the scientific, and life experience to do something like this. Imagine high school kids building the first nuclear bomb. You get the picture. In the older version of the Fantastic Four, Richards has a doctorate and white hair.

Anyway, the government tells Dr. Storm and the kids that they are going to use real astronauts to send them to the other dimension which has a planet they call Zero. Richards, Grimm, Doom and Johnny Storm (Michael B. Jordan) who is Sue's brother believe they won't get credit for their work and decide to go to the planet. Okay, the first thing that does feel real. High school kids doing stupid things. You can guess what happens. The kids transport to the planet and things go bad. Doom gets stranded. Sue Storm tries to get them back. The machine explodes on the trip back altering Richards, Grimm and both Storms. Richards can stretch to extraordinary lengths, Grimm is a rock monster called the Thing has super strength, Sue Storm can turn invisible and create force fields and Johnny can turn into a human torch who can fly.

The government whisks them away to Area 57. Ha. Ha. It's Area 51, guys. But I digress. Richards escapes. But they use Grimm for military operations. The Storms are also being groomed for service. Of course, if you know anything about the Fantastic Four, you know Doom is coming back. And he's not bringing flowers.

Rebooting the Four as kids has created problems with the casting. You must find young actors who can act. Miles Teller is not mature enough to exhibit much emotion. He's like the rock that encases The Thing. And yes, I will say it. Casting an African American to play Johnny Storm who's white in the comic books is wrong. First, he's the sister of Sue Storm, a blonde white woman. You're going to have to explain how they can be siblings. Well, the movie does, but it's wasted energy by the audience trying to see the sibling relationship. Second, imagine if Johnny were originally black. And if they cast a white man to play him. Yes, there would be an uproar by the pc police. To be fair, it must go both ways. Third, Michael Jordan who plays Johnny is just as bad as Teller. He's also a talking rock. The only actors who do well are Kate Mara, Toby Kebbell, and Jamie Bell. Mara as Sue Storm is smart, resourceful and sexy. Bell's "The Thing" which is created by CGI works because he gets the pain he feels after being transformed into something that doesn't look human anymore. Toby Kebbell's Doom is the best Doom ever. He's vicious, evil and downright scary.

Director Josh Trank is not a bad director but he's let down by very bad script. Simon Kinberg
Jeremy Slater and Trank wrote this mess. As stated above, using kids as the Four just strains credibility. Second, Planet Zero which has much of the action is not very interesting which makes a large chunk of the movie uninteresting. Third, it takes more than half the movie to get to the point where the Four use their powers for good. While it's good to show how they got their powers, it shouldn't take more than an hour to get to the "Fantastic Four." Finally, I know there's a trend for superhero movies to be grittier, and more realistic. But that can drain the fun and joy out of them. This Fantastic Four movie is just hapless. There's very little humor that the franchise had. And the only time I laughed was when they got Area 51's name wrong. I got no joy watching Johnny Storm fly, Sue Storm turn invisible, or Reed Richards stretch. There was no heroism until the final act of the movie.

Fox should think twice about a sequel to this movie. Rebooting again would also be a problem as you would be asking audiences to watch another reboot within about three years. They should just recast and do an original Fantastic Four movie set within the original Marvel universe. In that case, you'll need a short exposition to reintroduce the characters. Until then if you want to see a good Fantastic Four movie, go watch "The Incredibles." (2004) The grade is C.

Donald Trump wins debate

Let me start with this caveat. I'm a politically incorrect liberal so you may be suspicious of my opinion of Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump. But I'm going to try to be objective as possible. Here's my view of who won the first Republican Presidential Debate on Fox News last night.

Donald Trump won the debate.

First right off the bat, it was clear Fox News was after him. The first question asked the candidates to raise their hands if any would not pledge to support the Republican nominee and forgo an independent run. Trump raised his hand. While this question was of great interest to Republicans and its media wing, Fox News, it's hardly what the country is worried about. It was a question that one would ask of Trump as the Republicans are scared that Trump may run as an independent if he does not get the nomination. There was some boos. After the question, Kentucky Senator Rand Paul accused Trump of hedging his bets and buying politicians. Trumps retorted back. "Well, I've given him (Paul) plenty of money." Touche Trump.

And on it went. They peppered him about campaign contributions. Questioned whether he was a Republican. Went after his sexist remarks. Grilled him on his businesses' bankruptcies.

The result? Trump brushed them all off like a tough, rich New York businessman that he is. If I can describe his demeanor, his answer would be "Whatever. Sue me. I don't care. I'm rich." He didn't care if he pleased every Republican in the audience. He didn't want to. He took the hits and did not fall down.

And since he's leading in the Republican polls, he won the debate. The others had to bring him down and outshine him. Forget about it. He was a giant and they were mice. A whopping twenty four million people watched this political circus. And they didn't tune in to see Jeb Bush or Scott Walker talk about defunding Planned Parenthood.

By nerfing Destiny's popular weapons, Bungie shows contempt for gamers

The weakening or nerfing of videogame Destiny's favorite weapons by Bungie stinks. It's a middle finger to the fans of the game. I'll discuss some of the nerfs to some of the weapons below. Here's a link to Bungie's future changes. And let me quickly define a couple of terms for you non-gamers. PvP means player versus player. PvE means player versus environment, i.e. fighting against computer controlled enemies.

1. The Thorn

The Thorn is an exotic hand cannon. It's obtained as a special exotic bounty and the process to get it is onerous. The worse part of this seven part bounty is killing fellow Guardians in the Crucible with Void damage for 500 points. Five points per kill but minus two for getting killed. I must have screamed at the television multiple times when I got set back doing the Crucible.

The reward for your hard work is a hand canon with a great perk. It's called the Mark of the Devourer. What happens is when you hit a target, it will suffer damage over time. It's kind of like poisoning it. Think Dark Channel from Mass Effect 3. In the Crucible, it is the dominant weapon because you got cheap kills with it. Hit a guy, run away and he dies from the poison. I got cheap kills with it.

But did it need nerfing? Yes. Too many cheap kills and way too many people using them in the Crucible. Okay, here's where I agree with Bungie but only for PvP, i.e. the Crucible. But you should get a special weapon for your trouble. Instead of weakening it for all phases of the game, Bungie should have made it stronger In PvE. How about making it cut through all elemental shields? Yeah, fat chance. Now, the Thorn will probably sit in everybody's vault.

2. Pulse rifles

If you read Bungie's post, you are going to see a pattern. They are going after weapons that are popular in the Crucible. And when it comes to pulse rifles, we're talking about The Red Death. I use it because it's accurate, got great range, and has nice damage. It's a cross between a scout rifle and auto rifle. That being said, you still need skill to use it.

Bungie's nerf here is to make then less accurate. Base stability is being reduced. They admit it will require more skill to land head shots. Good bye Red Death. Looks like the Oversoul Edict will collect dust.

3. The Gjallarhorn.

The Gjallarhorn is the best rocket launcher in the game. It is because of one thing. The perk called Wolfpack rounds. First, the rocket fired homes in on the target. Then after initial detonation, there is a second round of cluster bombs that track the target and hit it again. Yes, it's a superweapon. However, it is not easy to get. It's obtained as a random drop in Raids, and Nightfall strikes.

Bungie wants to weaken it by reducing the damage of the Wolfpack rounds. I'm going to print their rationale because it demonstrates the ridiculous logic of all the nerfing.


"We definitely intended to have a high damage Heavy Weapon that was ideal for PvE destruction. What we did not intend, and what we unfortunately saw, was pick up Raid and Nightfall groups gating participation based on whether or not players had this weapon. Gjallarhorn was so strong that for many people it had become the only answer to getting through tough encounters, and therefore they were less willing to spend time with other players that didn’t have it. We strive for Destiny to be a place where a single weapon or strategy does not dictate how, or with whom, you spend your time. In the new world Gjallarhorn is still worthy of its legacy as an exotic Heavy Weapon, but we hope it promotes inclusive behavior rather than exclusivity."

Okay, this is just spurious. I've played over a hundred or so Raids and Nightfall strikes. And yes, I've seen people demand Gjllarhorns. However, it was about two times! And all my Destiny friends will say you don't need Gjallarhons to bring down Crota's shields. Now, does it make bringing down bosses easier? Of course. But do we require our Raid or Nightfall squad members to all have the Gjallarhorn? No. That's type of thinking comes from noobs. (rookie players)

4. Ice Breaker.

The Ice Breaker is a fantastic sniper rifle. Easy to use. Quick target acquisition. High impact damage. Solar damage but so powerful it does a pretty good job cutting through Void and Arc shields. But here's the great perk. Does not require ammo drops. Every five seconds or so the magazine adds one bullet for up to six shots. Well, now Bungie wants to make the time for each bullet to eight seconds. And the rationale is absolutely ludicrous. Jon Weisnewski of Bungie who wrote the post should stop working for them and go into comedy. Here's what he says about the nerfing of the Ice Breaker.

"We’ve all done it. Hunker down in the back of the map with your lunch box, picnic table, a sci-fi paperback, and Ice Breaker. Kill all the enemies, wait for more to show up, kill those ones too, put a few shots on the boss, make a sandwich, finish the strike, and then collect your reward-that-isn’t-Hawkmoon and move on. The recharging ammo of Ice Breaker has become a staple for the PvE game. We don’t want to completely destroy that, because a really great thing happens when all of a sudden you need Ice Breaker and you’re still waiting on that next round to show up. In that moment there is an interesting tension at play; you need to think about how you spend your next few seconds while it recharges. We are going to amplify that tension by increasing the recharge duration by a few seconds."

WTF? He's actually saying you're going to have more fun when the game is harder. Yeah, I'm sure we're going to be saying after failing a Prion of Elders game, that was fun waiting for my Ice Breaker to replenish its ammo.

5. Conclusion

There are more nerfs. but it's not all bad. Auto rifles, the Hard Light, and No Land Beyond receive buffs. But the nerfs are plenty bad. Still, it begs the question, "Why weaken so many popular and hard to get weapons?"

Here's my opinion. Destiny is planned to last for ten years. We don't know when Destiny 2 comes out. So, Bungie has to stretch out Destiny 1. What other way to do so but to slow the progress of players trying to get Etheric Light to level up their gear. Make the game harder. Instead of succeeding at Prison of Elders, level 35, you fail. Try again next time. Sorry, you can't get a squad together because there's no matchmaking for that level. It might take days, weeks. Are you having fun yet?

Destiny gamers should answer the following question.

ARE YOU BETTER OFF WITH THE NERFS OF WEAPONS THAN YOU WERE AT THE LAUNCH OF THE GAME?

And the answer should be obvious. It is "no." Bungie's plan to weaken guns does not make the gamer's life easier. It makes Destiny harder and more stressful. Look we can't help it if Bungie made an uninteresting game but don't take it out on the gamers. Next time, don't dumb it down. Don't phone it in when it comes to game design. Because of Bungie's disrespect, I will wait for what the critics say about Destiny 2 before buying it. This fall, I can only hope for Master Chief to save us.

Donald Trump is running for President!!!

Super rich guy, Donald Trump, is running for President. Great comic fodder for Jon Stewart and The Daily Show. Here's his super hilarious video from Tuesday.

The Daily Show
Daily Show Full Episodes,  More Daily Show Videos,  Comedy Central Full Episodes

Bill Maher destroys the politically correct

In Friday's last New Rule, Bill Maher criticizes politically correct liberals who are too sensitive to comedy. Look, I'm a liberal but a politically incorrect Asian American. So, I agree much here with Bill except I'm not a bad driver. Okay, I'm not good at backing up. Anyway, here's Bill's funny piece and be warned there's cussing in it.

Jurassic World 3D review

I got a feeling of deja vu watching Jurassic World. I've seen the first three Jurassic Park movies in the franchise and there is a formula to making these films. Jurassic World has the um... DNA of the earlier movies. It goes something like this. One, precocious children in danger. Check. Two, stupid humans who believe they can control dinosaurs. Check. Three, A really big bad dinosaur. Check. And of course, dinosaurs chomping on people. Check.

The movie starts out with two brothers, Zach (Nick Robinson) and Gray (Ty Simpkins) Mitchell being sent to spend time with their aunt, Claire Dearing (Bryce Dallas Howard) who runs Jurassic World. The park is the descendant of Jurassic Park, which was designed to be a theme park where people could see dinosaurs brought to life through cloning. Okay, I have to stop here. In the first film, Jurassic Park (1993), it was clearly a bad idea to finish the park since the dinosaurs ate some of the employees. So why is it still a good idea?

Claire is too busy trying to make the park a success. You see she supports InGen, the corporation that owns the park and their idea to develop a super predator created originally from the DNA of various dinosaurs and animals. The purpose was that since people had gotten use to seeing the dinosaurs, they needed to see something new which is bigger and more spectacular. Is this plot point a metaphor for this sequel? But I digress. The new dinosaur is called Indominus Rex. You didn't think they would call it Barney, did you?

Owen Grady, (Chris Pratt) the park's velociraptor trainer, is brought in to evaluate the Indominus Rex' s security situation. He's also a love interest for Claire because we have to have a romance in here somewhere. Owen's got his own problems with an InGen executive Vic Hoskins, (Vincent D'Onofrio) who wants to militarize the velociraptors. Well during Owen's visit to Indominus Rex's enclosure, it tricks the humans and escapes. It then proceeds to murder all the people in the park, thus ending the movie in five minutes. Okay, that doesn't happen.

The acting performances are very good. Nick Robinson and Ty Simpkins are believable as two brothers who have family issues back at home. Bryce Dallas Howard makes her Claire, a cold executive evolve into a caring aunt. It's kind of difficult given the limited exposition she's got to work with. And no, I did not get the feeling she needed a man to become more human as some critics have pointed out as sexist. Unfortunately, Chris Pratt comes off as sort of a stereotype. He's a macho GI Joe model. But it's Vincent D' Onofrio who turns in the best performance of the movie. He's driven, result based, greedy villain. And with any good villain, D'Onofrio shows the motivation behind his character. It's part patriotism and capitalism.

It's the screenplay that holds back Jurassic World from being a great film. Written by Rick Jaffa, Amanda Silver, Derek Connolly and director Colin Trevorrow. There are gaps in character development. This could be due to editing and a desire to keep the movie under two hours. It comes in at 2 hours and ten minutes. But it's still a problem. I mean we get a hint that the boys love their aunt but don't know why. It would only take a few lines to develop this. Second, the movie is basically the first one. It's only bigger. Dinosaurs are developed for the theme park. The big monster escapes and eats people. Been there and done that. The militarization of the dinosaurs might be a better movie and perhaps should be in the next one.

However, Jurassic World is not bad movie. It's a good one. Director Trevorrow handles actions sequences beautifully. In all of his shots, you know what is happening. It's also a well lit film. His direction has no confusion and you will sit there being entertained by the exciting action. While the dinosaurs are still rendered as CGI creatures, the're still good enough to make you believe they exist. It would be impractical to build robots. But perhaps the best special effect is the ability of Bryce Dallas Howard to run in high heels. I mean that's got to hurt the poor woman.

As for seeing this movie in 3D, I've got to note that it's a conversion from 2D. So it's not shot with a 3D camera rig. That means you don't get all the nooks and crannies of a shot in 3D. It will be more like a pop up book. First, the movie does not suffer from light issues, i.e., it's not too dark. However, there's no popping effect and very little depth. Nothing in this movie made me think I was watching it in 3D. It's not special in 3D. Save your money and see this movie in 2D.

Jurassic World is a well made but cliched movie. You've got to suspend your disbelief that a company would open a park with predator dinosaurs but it's a good movie for the summer. The grade is B.