One of my favorite games to play is Rocket League . The game consists of controlling a high speed car with rocket boosters attached, flying around, blowing up other cars all the while trying to hit a large ball into a goal. Just imagine playing soccer with rocket propelled cars and that’s the game. Rocket League has servers spanning most of the world in order to maintain consistency with multiplayer connectivity. It is fun and addictive with each match being an action packed five minutes. Since multiplayer games are competitive, anger and rage among players is not far behind. Matches can quickly turn into an exchange of toxic slander, bigotry and bullying. I do not have a problem with this because I believe anybody can say what they want, and trash talking and competition go hand in hand. What does bother me is how often it happens when playing in American servers compared to European ones. If I took the time to record how many times I have seen or been on the receiving end of abu...

Before the release of PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, I was considering purchasing a gaming PC. It made sense, a larger selection of games, upgradable hardware and free online competitive multiplayer. But old habits die hard so I caved and purchased a PS4. I would have been happy with this decision if the current generation of consoles adhered to the old rules of the previous generation by remaining current for close to a decade. But both Sony and Microsoft have decided that in order to remain competitive they needed to release upgrades nearly at the beginning of the current console lifecycle. Essentially anyone who purchased an early generation PS4 and Xbox One have wasted their money. The Xbox One Scorpio and the PS4 Neo promise to bring upgraded hardware to improve the overall experience. The PS4 Neo will support 4k televisions, have better graphics, better processing power and cost more . While a new system is nice, there are multiple problems that arise from this. Firstly, wh...

The upcoming release of Battlefield 1 will signal the franchises return to its historical roots, and the first time a triple-A gaming franchise has used World War 1 as its setting. The Battlefield series got its start with the highly successful Battlefield: 1942 . Taking place during World War II, the game allowed players to fight against each other in a recreation of the D-Day invasion at Normandy and many other historically based scenarios. The game also utilized weaponry and vehicles from the war to give players a more authentic feeling. The Medal of Honor series mastered this and the highly successful, and critically acclaimed Call of Duty franchise also got its claim to fame using World War II as the foundation of its first games. As Battlefield and Call of Duty have battled one another for sales and players, they pretty much exhausted every major narrative from World War II in the process. To continue their success, both have taken their games from the modern battlefie...

The explosive success of Pokémon GO is more than a bright spot for the future of mobile gaming, it is also helping to create a more social gaming community that has started to cross generational barriers. Even though the initial release server crashes have hindered my quest to catch ‘em all, it has not stopped me from finding new Pokémon to catch and PokeStops to raid for items. The town I live in has a lot of PokeStops and I have created a “farming” system to hit them all in one walk. Before Pokémon GO I used the path for walking/jogging, it takes me along a river and through a small park. The river has moderate pedestrian traffic but the park is usually always vacant. I was shocked when I entered the park and found upwards of 30 people looking down at their phone. Some were walking together in groups, some were riding bikes, others were talking and some were by themselves. But what they all had in common was Pokémon GO . Now I can’t say for certain that every singl...