The DiZeeZ'D Humor, Video Game, and Videogame Streaming Blog

Mutazione by Akupara Games I'm vaguely reminded of Gabriel Garcia Marquez and his wacky tales with  Mutazione , an interesting adventure game from Akupara Games and developer Die Gute Fabrik. I recently  livestreamed it on twitch  for a few nights and had some remarks about it.    Marquez's largest narrative device was magical realism, and that's what you'll see in a lot of  Mutazione.  Magical realism is a concept where supernatural events happen in the natural world. A lot of that happens in this game, which tells the story of a girl (Kai) that visits a strange island in response to a sick relative's request. That's about as realistic as the game is because once Kai arrives on the island, she's greeted by friendly mutants, humanoid beings, and plants that do a lot more than just decorate the island. The backstory is that a giant meteor hit the island and affected the lives of everyone, changing humans into mutants over the course of many years. Most of the

Alien Isolation Jumpscares Yep, that's the alien. If you know me well, you know that I am an incredibly jumpy person. Even a host on my Twitch channel often makes me jump and rear my arm back in defense against...a sound. But that unfortunate disposition hasn't been abundantly public until I played Alien Isolation. JFC, I nearly punched my equipment several times avoiding the alien in that game. As much as the game makes me jump like a 5-year old, I enjoy every minute of it and regret that I hadn't purchased it sooner. I actually downloaded it from the Xbox Game Pass. I think it's a fantastic deal for 15 dollars a month since a lot of titles are swapped in and out. Regardless, my absolute horrid sensitivity to in-game sounds (even non-jumpscare moments make me jump) often serves as a point of entertainment for people on the Twitch channel. In the very beginning moments of AI, I rarely could relax. Puckered butthole? Indeed. Streaming Alien Isolation has been a

Amazon's Answer to Stadia: Project Tempo, Their Cloud Gaming Service It wasn't even a week ago that I thought about how Amazon might respond to Google's foray into gaming. The videogame livestreaming giant doesn't really hold a candle to the likes of Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo, or (now) Google when it comes to video games. There was Breakaway, a project that was abandoned , and on the horizon, there's New World and Crucible. If that's the launch lineup for Amazon in the coming years, it pales in comparison to Google's cloud gaming service and the current library it has to offer. But recently, Amazon announced its Project Tempo , a gaming service that seeks to rival against Google Stadia. In the age where dopamine and serotonin are linked to instant gratification, this is a welcome announcement from Amazon, a company that has dominated livestreaming since its acquisition of Twitch TV in August of 2014. And it's pretty obvious why Amazon could easi

Livestreaming Doom Eternal: This is Some Fun Shit I haven't had this much fun with a videogame in a long time .  Doom Eternal works a little differently than what you'd expect from a standard first-person shooter--which is what makes it incredibly difficult to livestream it.  It's a bit more like a resource management game, where you're constantly using either health, armor, or ammunition. I'm sure there are other resources because I've barely tapped into the game, but with initial looks, this frag-fest is unbelievably fun—and badass. But Doom Eternal takes this constant resource management and wraps it into an absolute gorefest. I honestly regret at this point not picking up Doom 2016 simply because this title likely speaks volumes about how the previous game was. And I'm sure with Doom Eternal's popularity right now, this is a sign that the latest release is definitely better. Even watching a twitch livestream of the game is

I'm kind of in awe. About two years ago, I attended a Twitch Los Angeles Meetup in Burbank. Back then it was still named Twitch Hollywood. But I knew I wanted to be a part of this because it was all about Twitch, video game livestreaming , and enjoying ourselves as gamers. Our last event, Saturday February 8th, was one of the best events I've ever been a part of. Small enough that plenty of folks knew each other, but large enough that we got deserved attention. Red Bull , Voodoo Ranger Beer , Need for Kneading , Twickle , artists, all sorts of companies came out. It was a fantastic night. We had a wonderful venue, the Hungarian Cultural Arts Center in Los Angeles. There were a few mishaps with moving in, but thankfully we were able to clear out whatever the previous guests were doing. Which strangely had to do with setting a bathtub on fire. People lined up around the block after parking about a mile away. We didn't think we'd get the attention

There's an aspect of livestreaming video games that gets under my skin a bit. Viewbotting. A lot of streamers have done it in the past. In fact, I once caught someone viewbotting and looked at who the bots were "following." A laundry list of very familiar names showed up, many partnered accounts on Twitch with millions of followers. Well-known streamers making a living. It's definitely abused a lot on streaming platforms, sort of the "black hat" method of livestreaming. Thankfully, nobody I saw listed from those bot accounts was any streamer that I was supporting. I don't bother supporting anyone trying to find "get partnership quick" methods. If you want to build a business out of streaming video games , then please don't bother viewbotting. You'll eventually find you wasted your money and your community will likely abandon you. However, if you feel that someone is viewbotting, here's a few ways you can tell someone is

An In-Depth Look into ROI on Videogame Streaming I'm certain a lot of people ask this question. S treaming video games is a weird thing--suddenly anyone can see you on camera, into your living room, while you're playing a video game. It's always important to figure out why you do what you do. If you're streaming for a business , best of luck to you. But there's a lot you need to consider if you're considering streaming for the money, because at this point in time it's become a heavily-saturated market--not just Twitch alone. In short, is streaming worth the money? No . The longer answer is a little more complicated, so if you'd like to learn some details, stick around. I'll preface this: this is not meant to discourage anyone from developing their business. Instead, this reveals the necessary work, efforts, and sacrifices you need to make.  Streaming for the Money Let me preface this: I will never stop streaming. The thought has cros

The Livestreaming Service Keeps Itself at #1 Twitch has demonstrated again that they're the king of livestreaming video games. In the wake of a lot of negativity surrounding the platform, especially when it comes to upholding their Terms of Service, Amazon has the capability of pulling their platform out of infamy to revival. TwitchCon 2019 was the best convention yet, even better than the first time the livestreaming service was in San Diego. And what's better is they're returning to San Diego again, likely to step their game up. Here are some highlights that happened to me and others. I had the extremely lucky chance to meet Pokimane , a hugely popular streamer (and unbelievably gorgeous woman) that gave an entire crowd of people pizza and some select few (including myself) her own branded jackets. That was probably one of the greatest moments of TwitchCon yet, although I felt a little bad because a lot of people wanted to get pictures with her and she didn'

I really didn't know what I was getting into in 2013. I wanted to practice some video editing skills and see what I was capable of, but building a video editing machine turned out to be one of the most positive mistakes I've made in a long time. My very first stream was of Heavy Rain, and I remember messaging a friend at work to check my stream page. Sure enough, Heavy Rain was on his phone at the time. I nearly dropped the phone because I was so happy with the result. Over the course of the next few days, I cobbled together my stream setup with all my resources. I remember getting Final Fantasy XIV (an early copy under NDA) and started streaming it...I even tagged SqaureSoft in my "going live" tweet. It turns out the game was still under NDA at the time, and I received messages on twitter from other streamers to turn off my stream. Not that many people saw it to begin with, but it was a fantastic learning lesson--read and understand NDAs. All of them. Nearly 6

Phil Spencer recently admitted that the E3 show for 2019 was weaker specifically because Activision and Sony weren't at the con. I couldn't disagree more with his opinion, as I thought this latest con was probably the best--at least for me. And I'll tell you why. Why E3 2019 Was Impressive For Me So, my first foray into E3 was through AOL. I had a very strong misconception that I would be trying the latest games, meeting awesome folks, and partying a ton. The latter part was somewhat true as I got some pretty decent party invites, but the former aspects weren't. Attending E3 under media, especially controlled  media, is a lot more work than you might think. It's quite literally going to an interview, record interview, sit down, write the interview, and go to the next interview. That's about it. You're there to work, and that's what they make you do. Or, of course, you lose your job, and while I can think of many jobs I wouldn't want over