CyberPunk 2077 Blows Away the Competition, Epic Win at E3 2018!

Without question, the big winner of E3 2018 was CD Project Red's upcoming epic game 'Cyberpunk 2077'.  We got a first look at their trailer early on in the E3 process, and it looked fantastic, with the voiceover narrated by a guy who sounds like Triple H, making it that much cooler.  But then, a few days or so later, they began showing a select group of people a highly classified, and much longer, Demo video.  This video wasn't just much longer, more like 45 minutes to an hour in length instead of a minute and a half or so trailer, but it revealed things that simply couldn't be shown in a trailer.  The response to this much longer, and much more detailed, Demo video, has been overwhelmingly positive.  While your friend and mine, Sir Gladiator, has not yet viewed this Demo (although he is hoping to do so in the not too distant future), so he cannot yet give a first hand account, from what he has heard from others who have viewed it, it is an absolutely mind blowing experience.  And it's really not that hard to imagine why, just by looking at the original trailer that we first saw a week or so ago. 

Before I go into more detail about what we know and why that makes this game so potentially incredible, I'd like to address a topic that a lot of fans have been discussing, and I would be remiss if I didn't address it as it is very important, and particularly important to many fans.  I'm referring, of course, to the 'First Person vs Third Person' debate, and how Cyberpunk 2077 is going to be a First Person Game.  First, just to make things super clear and accurate, there 'will' be some third person in the game, as when you're driving a car you will have the choice of doing so in first or third person view, so the entire game will not be first person if you don't want it to be.  But yes, it is disappointing, in theory, that the game doesn't have a third person option, I'm someone who always uses that option, even if it makes it harder to play the game, such as making it harder to aim and such.  I just prefer playing in third person, that's my thing, and I know it's many of yours as well.  However, there is something important to keep in mind, and that is that this is a highly, highly unique game, and if the Developers of that game feel that it absolutely must be experienced in First Person, then it's worth not just considering, but also noting that there really is no evidence that they're wrong.  We've never played a game like this before, we have no way of knowing that in fact third person would be our preferred way of playing this particular game.  So certainly for now, I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt, and let them continue to demonstrate why their judgement, which has been proven to be very strong in the past, is correct in this particular case.  To be clear, I would welcome their adding some kind of third person option, and an idea that I had would be to enable third person viewing when paused.  For example, you pause the game, then select the third person option, allowing you to look around the area in third person view, then once you resume the game it goes back to first person mode.  This would allow you to view your character whenever you like, as well as giving you a unique extra view of the various beautiful areas of the game, while still maintaining the full First Person experience within the game play itself.  It's an idea that I am hopeful that the Developers will consider, and add if they are so inclined, as I feel it would be a 360 win.

Now to discuss the many, many amazing aspects of the game, I'd like to start with the graphics.  They aren't simply lifelike and incredible, you can see that for yourself, and it is indeed very self-evident.  One thing I heard is that there are an absolutely massive number of unique looking 'random' city dwellers in the game.  That is, characters that don't give you quests or really interact with you in any way, they're just sort of there to make the city that much more realistic and lively, it's easy to have characters look like each other, but I'm hearing that there is absolutely massive uniqueness with these characters, which is a lot cooler than it might sound when you first hear about it.  Once you think about it, and certainly once you see it, you'll realize that while this might sound like a small thing, it really could make a huge difference, making the game that much more awesome.

One thing you probably already know, certainly it was always reasonable to assume it, and it has now been confirmed, is that you have the ability to fully customize your character, including the ability to play as either gender.  It has been confirmed, you choose whether your want to play as a Male or Female character, and either way your name in the game will be V.  I believe they've stated that you can give your character a unique name in addition to that, but everyone will call you V, much like Piper would call you 'Blue' in Fallout 4, folks would call you 'Hearld' in DA3, 'Shepard' in Mass Effect, etc.  So you will be playing as V, and V is something of a Mercenary.  You will of course have the option of playing as a good or bad character, lots of choices can be made, so many powerful choices that have real meaning and consequences, and as we learned in The Witcher 3, sometimes our choices can not only have huge impact, but that impact can show up not just immediately, but much further down the line than you might expect, which is extremely cool.

Another aspect of the game that has been Declassified, we have it with absolute confirmation that there are Romances in the game.  Without any question, Romances can be some of the coolest aspects of many games.  Certainly the best part of Fallout 4, a game with lots of fun and cool aspects to it, was the romance with Piper, Dragon Age 3 was surely made a lot better with the Sera and Cassandra romances, go all the way back to Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic and what would it have been without the Bastilla romance?  A good game, sure, but not the legendary one that it still is today.  In The Witcher 3, of course, you had the option to romance Triss and/or Yennifer in deep, meaningful romance storylines, as well as have something like a 'one night stand' with various women.  Both types of romances are, it appears, returning in Cyberpunk 2077.

The combat in Cyberpunk 2077 is another aspect of the game that is highly futuristic, and unique.  One aspect, which ties in with your character directly, is the fact that you can augment your character's body itself with certain 'upgrades', technological breakthroughs that enable you to improve your body in certain ways, that allow you to do things that normal humans cannot do at this particular moment in time.  For example, an implant placed into your eye, that allows you to zoom in, like a camera.  Pretty neat, eh?  Of course what futuristic game's combat system could be complete without cool weapons, and we have a wide range of weapons, including a pretty wide range of guns, as well as other up close, melee type weapons.  This of course isn't all that surprising, but it's confirmation is of course yet another very cool addition to the already impressive arsenal of awesomeness.

For a more in-depth description of the Character Creation system, from the gameplay standpoint, another important Declassified aspect of the game is its Stats system.  Your character will have the following stats:  Intelligence, Strength, Constitution, Reflexes, Tech, and something called 'Cool'.  At Character Creation, you will put points into whichever categories you like.  I'm sure we'll learn more about these categories in the days, weeks, and months to come.  Certainly while some of them are standard to RPGs, others, in particular that last one, definitely are a new and really cool addition to the list, and I'm especially interested in hearing more about it and how it works!

There's so much more to discuss, but this has already been a pretty long post, and choc full of details.  So stay tuned for even more Cyberpunk 2077 info, as well as all sorts of cool Gaming info, from your friend and mine, Sir Gladiator, right here on the Gladiator Blog!

Gladiator Reporting on Fallout 76 CONFIRMED, Major Details.

This is breaking news, and I didn't want it to be true, but it is.  Today, after Sir Gladiator first reported on this breaking information, other, more famous gaming reporters took it up also, and eventually it made its way to one of the heads at Bethesda, who live, on camera, admitted that what your friend and mine, Sir Gladiator, first reported was in fact true.  There will be NO human NPCs in Fallout 76.  None.  Let that sink in.  It's hard to wrap your mind around it, but think about it this way.  For all the people saying 'we want a single player mode for Fallout 76', just imagine for a moment that there were no Multiplayer in Fallout 76.  That it was only Single Player.  What would such a game look like?  There are no humans on the map, anywhere.  No teammates.  No allies.  No factions to join.  No quests for them to give you.  No Love Interests.  No Trading.  No Settlers.  No nothing.  There's a big huge map, filled with lots of monsters, presumably there's weapons out there that you use to shoot them with, and that's about it.  Basically, without Multiplayer, there would be no game.  The whole game is Multiplayer, it's joining with other players to fight monsters and other players.  The 'base building' isn't to help defend your settlers, it isn't to support your allies, or your factions, because you don't have any of those things.  Base building, near as I can tell, is simply a way to defend against monsters and other people when they inevitably attack you.  Which no doubt would make for a fairly cool PvP idea in a multiplayer game.  But it has nothing to do with a single player experience.  At all.

So essentially, Fallout 76 is a great big, empty world, filled only with monsters to kill and other players to fight, or ally with.  There are no interesting characters.  There are no cool places to explore filled with interesting people, quests, storylines, etc.  Nothing.  If that sounds like something you'd enjoy, then that's good for you, but if you're looking for anything remotely like a traditional Fallout experience, and I mean anything 'remotely' like a Fallout experience, you're not going to find it in Fallout 76.  It's honestly hard to imagine how anyone could've thought creating a huge, empty world was a good idea for a Fallout game.  I think Bethesda is likely to lose a whole, whole lot of fans over this one, and it's a shame because they had a really great thing going, high quality games, tremendous franchise, just super fun stuff, to make a game like this, so intentionally devoid of fun and coolness, it's going to make a lot of fans angry, and they're going to have to work twice as hard in the future to make things right for them.

On a more positive note, there are some really cool new games being displayed at E3, games I didn't see coming, really cool stuff, and your friend and mine will be reporting on those, so stay tuned for that, as well as more details on Fallout 76 if and when that is warranted as well, I sure hope they deliver some good news that I can bring to you the fans in the near future, along with all the other cool positive news out there that you'll be getting from your friend and mine, as his coverage of E3 2018 continues!

Shocking New Fallout 76 Info on Bethesda Website, This Changes Everything!

As I was reading the Bethesda Website, specifically the Fallout 76 portion of the website, I came across a piece of information that was actually featured fairly prominently, and I'd like to provide an exact quite right here, it's a quote that may seem innocuous at first:  "Bethesda Game Studios, the award-winning creators of Skyrim and Fallout 4, welcome you to Fallout 76, the online prequel where every surviving human is a real person."

That is the exact quote from their website.  Think about what that means though, that doesn't just mean multiplayer, that means that there are NO human NPCs in the game.  Every surviving human is a real person, that means there's no human NPCs to talk to, to get a Quest from, to trade with, etc.  The only humans you'll run across in Fallout 76 are other people, playing the game online.  If that is true, and it's the exact quote from their own website, then this is nothing like any previous Fallout game, there are pretty much no storylines, no interesting characters, it's just you and your Online allies, against other Online players, and random monsters.  I certainly hope that this is some kind of terrible mistake, because if it's true, then this isn't a game that very many people are going to want to play.  For their sake, for our sake, for everyone's sake, I hope this is wrong, but it's on their website as of this writing.  Hopefully someone will ask them about it and get them to clarify whether this is accurate or not, and if they do, and I hear the answer, I'll report on it right here for you the fans.  Stay tuned!

Massive Fallout 76 News CONFIRMED!

This is it, the moment you've all been waiting for.  The Bethesda Press Conference has happened, and massive amounts of information have been Declassified and made available to the general public!  So now I, your friend and mine, Sir Gladiator, will now share what he has learned with you the fans!  Sit back, get ready, because here...we....go!

First, Fallout 76 is FOUR TIMES the size of Fallout 4!  It takes place in West Virginia, something we pretty much already knew.  They mentioned there being 6 major areas of West Virginia that we'll be travelling to along the course of the Main Quest, a quest which is given to us by our Vault Overseer.  It seems we do begin the game inside of Vault 76, which no doubt will be very cool.  One thing you'll notice from the trailer, is that one of the robots in the vault with us is the same, both in looks and more importantly in voice, as our robot friend at the start of Fallout 4, Codsworth.

To answer the major question that most folks had, a question I wanted an answer to, a question no doubt most, if not all, of you very much wanted to be answered, the question of will the game be Single Player or will it be Online, the answer is...yes.  To both questions, in a way.  It will be Online, but at the same time you can play it entirely Single Player if you so prefer.  They made an important, and interesting, comment that there will not be a huge number of players in your individual world, they said Dozens.  Dozens of other players may be in your particular Fallout 76 world, you'll share the world with them and you can team up with them if you so desire, or you can simply play the game Single Player style like you have every other Fallout game.  Which sounds like a pretty reasonable compromise, they get to add a Multi Player aspect, and players who like that can use it, and have fun with the other folks in their particular world, and those that don't can just play Single Player like always.

There were a lot of new monsters to be seen in the new reveal trailer, never before seen in the Fallout Universe.  They also mentioned that Players will be able to launch Nuclear Missiles, that apparently will be one of the Multi-Player aspects of the game, you get a piece of the launch code, others get a piece of the launch code, and once you've all got enough Launch Code pieces, you together can launch a nuclear missile, which will have actual consequences in the game, one aspect they mentioned is that rare minerals will be available in the newly destroyed area, and new dangers as well.  So that sounds like a new and potentially interesting aspect of the game as well.

Another major development regarding Fallout 76, is that they've announced they're doing a Beta!  You can sign up for the Beta on their website, although at the time of this writing their website seems to be having serious issues, likely from massive numbers of folks trying to log in and sign up for the Beta.

The Release Date for the game was revealed to be November 14th, which is less than half a year away.  No doubt they wanted to give plenty of time for the Beta to give them feedback, and make the game as great, and bug-free, as possible.  Which of course is a 360 win, for both Bethesda and we the Players.

It's also worth noting that Bethesda also gave us some video of an upcoming Elder Scrolls game for Mobile (and PC as well), which will be entirely free.  They also revealed a very short trailer for Elder Scrolls 6, which they said would be coming after another newly revealed game, Starfield, which also had a very short trailer.  No actual release dates for either game, though I think it's a safe bet that neither will debut this year, this year's big Bethesda game clearly is Fallout 76.

Stay Tuned to the Gladiator Blog for more details on Fallout 76, other Bethesda Games, and other games as well such as Cyberpunk 2077, Anthem,  and more, as E3 2018 Continues!

Major Fallout 76 News Coming Soon!

Here at the Gladiator Blog, we're going to be providing you with all the details, and providing them very quickly, once the news is revealed about exactly what kind of game Fallout 76, the newest installation in the epic Fallout series of games, will be.  As you probably know, many people are concerned due to rumors that it may be overly focused on multi-player, as opposed to the traditional Single Player aspects that the game series is known for.  At the time of this writing, there simply isn't enough information to determine whether the game will be primarily Single Player, like every other Fallout game, or whether it will be heavily multi-player, as some are afraid of.  The Gladiator Blog will be providing you with hard facts, information you can trust to be 100% accurate, not speculation.  The details are expected to be revealed some time during the evening of Sunday, June 10th, 2018, in a Press Conference being given by Bethesda, the company who makes the game.  Once the news comes out, we will be providing you the readers an immediate news update, possibly a brief update depending on the exact nature of the information, but either way an immediate update that same evening so you, the readers of the Gladiator Blog, will be among the first people in the world to know the answer, that same night.  After that, we will be providing a very in-depth report on all the details that we are given about Fallout 76, not just the single/multi player nature of the game.  So thank you for reading the Gladiator Blog, and stay tuned in the days to come because we'll be giving you all the details from the Press Conference, and if hard news comes out before then we'll be providing you that news quickly and accurately as well!

Return of Sir Gladiator!

Thanks to all my friends out there, and let me say that FINALLY, your friend and mine, Sir Gladiator, is BACK, at Blogger!  And do we have a lot to talk about!  Way too much to cover in one post, so look forward to lots of commentary and content from your friend and mine in the days and weeks to come!  As you know, E3 is looming, lots of interesting and exciting news and rumors already going on, it looks like we're going to be hearing some major information about the latest games from CDPR (the folks who make The Witcher series), Bethesda, Bioware and EA, so much excitement!

In the world of sports, the MLB Season is in full swing, we're less than a month from the NBA Draft, the NFL Draft has come and gone and the Panthers look to be stronger than they have been in a pretty long time, a lot of excitement in the world of sports!

In the world of TV, I'd like to encourage everyone who hasn't already done so to check out the hit new show 'Cobra Kai' on YouTube, it's amazingly cool, it's got a lot of the original stars from the original Karate Kid movie (in particular, the main rivals Daniel and Johnny, who are the stars of the show) , and unlike most of the rest of the world of TV, they don't push a far-left agenda, quite the opposite, they make fun of the far-left throughout the entire season!  The show is just fantastic, it's easily the best TV show of 2018, and it's already been renewed for a Second Season!  So go to YouTube, find Cobra Kai, and enjoy the first season of what will be your new favorite show, maybe of all time!

There's so much more to cover, stay tuned to the Gladiator Blog for more exciting news and information from your friend and mine, Sir Gladiator!