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

CyberPunk 2077: Meeting My Expectations I avoided the hype. Stuck to what I understood about CD Projekt Red. Recognized that this was an 8.5 year development. Didn't stick to the lore. And admittedly, Cyberpunk 2077 met my expectations which, to be transparent, weren't all that high. The first demo I saw at E3 was arguably the worst demo I've ever seen—unresponsive AI, a crash mid-demo, and a poorly-matched pair of people representing the game—and so I felt a lot of problems might carry forth into the finished game. Whether or not I could stream the game on Twitch was also a concern, because if a game is going to launch poorly, you won't be getting much of an audience either. Sure enough, Cyberpunk 2077 launched unfinished. 8.5 years is a long time for a single release, and at that point, you have to wonder what's cooking in the kitchen. But I'll approach the most important question about the game that's on a lot of peoples'

 A lot of you who follow my content are familiar with how I'm an absolute geek over cloud-based game streaming services like Stadia, and so Amazon's Luna was a welcome competitive answer to it. I've been trying the service over the past few days and I have some initial impressions about it. Initial Impressions of Amazon Luna Positives Right off the bat, I think that Luna has a much stronger user interface than Stadia. Google's streaming service was originally marred by very large game icons that seemed to compensate for the lack of titles on the platform's launch. That's not to say Luna is much better; it's still an image grid, but it seems a little more aesthetic because the images are more panoramic  than card-like . It's a small gripe, but we're dealing with entertainment here and some people get extremely picky about UI. Card-like images don't do well for the games on Stadia. I'd expect Luna to soon have a search bar just like Stadia does

Before Warzone, the last Call of Duty videogame I played was Call of Duty 3, the WWII version released in 2006. I probably played it for 5 minutes until I decided I had better videogames to play. This was well before streaming on twitch was a thing , and so I didn't bother making content from it.  Well, 14 years later, after several CoD reiterations, sequels, versions, and other additions to the IP, I was reluctant to try out Warzone, even though the game was free.   After basically giving up on CoD, I was pleasantly surprised with Warzone. One game, entirely free, that I enjoy playing with friends.  That doesn't suggest the game is inexpensive if you decide to purchase battle packs. I'm not well-versed on all the extras you can purchase with the packs available in Warzone, but it's clear you can spend much more than the price of a standard video game.   However, my understanding is that you won't suffer a bad gameplay experience if you don't spend money on the

It's hard sometimes to say the right words when so much turmoil happens around us. The vast majority of people today haven't lived through a global pandemic. And even though in the middle of the day I can walk outside and recognize the beauty of my neighborhood and how clear the skies are, it's painful to know that we're just barely getting by with what we have. I guess you could say I'm one of the lucky ones. 95 percent of my work is online, so I can take it home with me. Most of what I enjoy doing is indoors, so the worst of what I've seen with this year amounts to a vitamin D deficiency. I've enjoyed more time streaming on twitch lately, mainly because gaming during a pandemic is kind of the default.  In this post, I'm going to explore my thoughts on 2020, and see if I can make sense of the madness going on around me. What Gaming Means During a Pandemic The absolute best outlook I can glean from gaming during this time is that I have more time to do

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