2020 | A Great Year For Technology & Gaming – Max Lang-Orsini

2020 may not have been the greatest year for many, but despite the restrictions humanity has gone through like; social distancing, working from home, isolating etc, we have managed to pull off arguably one of the most productive years for technology and gaming.

In this article, I will dive deep into the top discussions of the year, the Playstation 5, Xbox Series X, Nvidia RTX & AMD’s Radeon and what this means for gaming.

Gaming Just Got a Whole Lot Better

With the launch of all this new tech, there is no arguing that gaming just got ten times better than it was before. From Augmented Reality to Virtual Reality, to extreme realistic real time Ray Tracing, there is no surprise that there is this much hype around it all.

Nvidia’s New RTX

For the PC gaming specialists out there, seeing the release of the new Nvidia graphics card series has got the buzz going. The statistics for the card outweighs their previous generations by a huge margin, and what makes it even better, it’s so much cheaper!

Nvidia’s New RTX Series Performance Chart — Nvidia RTX 30 Series Comparison To Previous Series

Looking at the statistics, it’s no surprise there is this much talk about it. The best card beforehand was the 2080Ti which went for over $1,000, but for half the price, you can get DOUBLE the speed.

The RTX 3070 compares with the previous generations best for half of it’s price, let alone the 3080 & 90’s frame rate and resolution performance.

AMD’s New Radeon

Following up after the Nvidia RTX, AMD’s big comeback sparked much hype at the possibility of Nvidia having competition again. The statistics of the Radeon blew the internet into oblivion when they saw the AMD could beat Nvidia.

AMD Radeon Big Navi Performance Chart — AMD’s Radeon RX 6900 XT Vs Nvidia’s RTX 3090

Looking at this graph is truly phenomenal. AMD finally can compete with Nvidia on the big stage and in some games actually beat them in performance. The only downside to AMD is they don’t have as full proof ray tracing as nvidia does, but if you just game, AMD, Team Red is the way to go.

AMD’s New Ryzen Zen 3

On top of all of this for the PC gamers, they get more with AMD’s new 5th generation Ryzen CPUs for a reasonable price. AMD without question had no competition with Intel this launch and with the performance it delivers combined with either the RTX or Radeon, you can have a gaming rig no one would have ever thought would have existed.

AMD Ryzen 5000 Series Performance Chart — AMD’s Ryzen 5000 Generation Series vs Intel

As you can see by the graph above, the 5000 series demolishes intel on all versions.

Xbox Series

Competing with Playstation, the fridge Xbox Series X closely compared to the PS5 gaming console in specifications. Personally speaking, I would say go for the console you prefer, or the console with the best video gaming exclusives.

Playstation 5

The Playstation 5, arguably out of all of those above has the biggest popularity. Out of all of them, the PS5 is something I cannot escape a day without hearing how good this product is. I have to mention that the look of the PS5 is incredible, it’s just a shame you struggle to get one.

The Playstation 5 & Xbox Series X brings console gaming to another level, providing high quality gameplay that now is slowly reaching PC standards of potential quality.

PS5 & Xbox Series Specifications Side By Side — PS5 V Xbox Series X

Since I could not find any statistics out there on comparing the two consoles and comparing them to the newly constructed graphics cards, here are the specifications for those nerds out there.

The Stock Problem

Regardless of how good the year was for technology and gaming and regardless of how good performance wise the products are, the fact of the matter is that the COVID-19 Coronavirus Pandemic has really taken a toll on the stock.

At first, people criticised Nvidia for rushing the launch of their cards until AMD, PS5 and Xbox launched theres. This is proof that the pandemic has taken a huge hit on the production of these consoles and graphics cards.

You can also argue the demand for this is something that no one has ever seen before. Scan mentioned that on the release days of the consoles or cards they saw over 5 times their standard website traffic rate.

Many are having to Pre-Order, (which is never a good sign as you never know when you will get it) as no one knows when it will properly stock, leading to many angry customers.

For those out there trying their hardest to get their hands on a new card or console, just remember to not give in to the scalpers and buy someone reselling it overpriced. Stick with it and follow trackers online so you get alerted the moment they restock. It’ll be awhile before they have stock for the demand, but staying with it is the hardest part.

Good luck on your future shopping endeavours – Max Lang-Orsini

How Are Simplistic Games Running The Industry In 2020?

Gaming has advanced significantly over the past few decades. Playing games has become a common and cultural thing, however, the video game industry this year has been dominated by the simple type of online games.

How have the games ‘Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout’ and ‘Among Us’ managed to influence and gain control over the gaming market?

2020: The Simplistic Gaming Experience

We all play video games as a way to relax, but recently the emergence of the simple games have taken over, and with a fair few reasons. In this article, we will explain how these popular games exploded in popularity, and I’m sure this is obvious, but both games require an internet connection!

Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout

Released in February of this year, the game developers ‘Mediatonic’ published Fall Guys through Devolver Digital. Instantly, the game was a success, reminding players of how the basics of games at times can be a lot of fun. Fall guys is available on Windows and Playstation and are extremely popular for console gaming.

Building up to the release of Fall Guys, they caught a lot of their attention through social media. Their social media manager, @OliverAge24, has brought a lot of attention to their games by cracking jokes on the Fall Guys accounts making their followers laugh whilst interacting with them constantly.

Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout is sort of like a Mario party crossover, but instead vs in 60 players. There is a maximum of 5 rounds and only a certain number of people each round can qualify until one guy is the last one standing and wins. From winning, you earn a crown, and you can spend these crowns on cosmetics in the game, making winning worth it.

Among Us

An older game that has recently blown up was released all the way back in June of 2018. The Among Us game concept is all about you and your crewmates in space having to do day to day tasks, but, there is an impost among you. It’s your job to suss out and eliminate the imposter, or eliminate everyone if you are the imposter! It’s significantly more fun with friends, especially how it’s become ‘the norm’ to mute your mic at certain parts of the gameplay to be more immersed.

Arguably, Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout could have been an influence for the rise of Among Us since people began having an interest in the basic style games. To say the characters look fairly similar, this could also be another reason for finding out about the game.

If you didn’t know, you play Among Us through mobile gaming on IOS and Android.

Looking At The Statistics

To show you how big these games have gotten, let’s look at the statistics to get a better perspective.

If we look at steampowered statistics, Fall Guys had it’s an all-time peak in August of 172,000 concurrent players at once on Steam alone. It is estimated that Fall Guys have an active player count of 15.6 million players in their first-month launch.

Among us had an extremely low player count with an average of ~25 players until the boom this year. Its concurrent player peak hit 306,000 with an estimation of over 2.7 million players.

Typically it’s gaming companies that own the bigger and higher quality games, but as a fun fact, Among Us is run by a small team of 3 and they’ve been taken by surprise with this popularity boom! They’re working many hours to keep the servers stable and generally keeping the game a happy place, bless them.

Battle Royales

Almost everyone is aware of the battle royale craze that lasted from 2017 to 2020. Whilst battle royales are still fairly popular today, I would argue that the complexity of such a genre has exhausted games that require a lot of skill, like Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, Call Of Duty and Fortnite.

I’m not in any way downplaying the value of these skilful games as they take years to master, but in terms of the casual market, they seem to be looking for simpler games to pass the time. These types of games that have blown up prove to have been explicitly made to have a laugh with your friends, something that has over time slowly been forgotten about.

Live Streaming Services & Video Content Creation

One of the biggest reasons for the popularity boom is high-quality live streamers broadcasting this hilarious game to the world. This is no surprise, the majority of smaller games that gain popularity is through video creation content and gaming live streams.

Fan content is one of the leading carriers to the rise of both games. Both have managed to respond to their communities in a great manner, keeping their players entertained through their social media. This is showing other games how you should handle your social media, even though it appears as ‘less business-like’.

Both of these games have done tremendously well and deserve the top spots they have, I’m excited to see what Among Us 2 brings us next year!

Written By: Max Lang-Orsini

Tekken Tag Tournament 2

With the ever encroaching release of the series newest instalment of Tekken 7 into the home market, now seems like a golden opportunity to talk about one of the series most recent instalments, Tekken Tag Tournament 2. Once the poster child of the Playstation brand, the series has since branched out to reach all corners of the home console market, Tekken 7 represents the series first foray into PC gaming.

Story

Tekken screenshot 1.jpg

Much like the game it’s a direct sequel to, Tekken Tag Tournament 2’s story, represented in the game’s Arcade mode, allowing you to play through 9 stages of battles with its rich character roster, followed by a small cut scene. Though a number of these cut scenes are fun, it’s exceedingly difficult not to see this mode as lacking, especially for fans of a series as renowned for its complex (and arguably ridiculous) plots as Tekken. However, being only a “non-canon” spin off of the main series, I can understand the purpose of these cut scenes are only as a small reward, with the Game play being the absolute focus of the game.

Gameplay and Mechanics

It is therefore, understandably, through the game play that TTT2 really shines, boasting an enormous 59 unique playable characters. TTT2 never fails to be an exciting, intense and varied experience from start to finish. Making use of both “pick up and playability” and a rich, intricate combo system the developers were clearly aiming to capture both the casual and the serious, competitive players alike. At this, they succeed tremendously; while playing Tekken Tag Tournament 2 you will never for a moment feel like you have nowhere to improve or like you are absolutely finished with the game.

Tekken screenshot 2.jpg

The tag team mechanic, for which it is made, also adds new depths to the game play above that of the main series; allowing for a player to gain the upper hand on their opponent. This adds an overall aura of unpredictability, keeping the player on their toes knowing they can never be sure they’ve won a round even at the very last second.

Art Style

The games bright, vivid art style also goes along well with the huge variety in stages to create an absolutely stunning visual experience.

Overall, with a huge variety of modes, playable characters and move combinations, Tekken Tag Tournament 2 is truly an experience to be had, though fans of the series may find the lack of much story disappointing, the game more than makes up for it with its tremendous game play and breathtaking visuals. I recommend anyone, new or old to the series, play this game if they want a real understanding of the heights that fighting games can reach before the release of Tekken 7.

Written by: Max Lang-Orsini