Category Archives: Games

It’s A Busy October

We’re heading through the last half of October already. New seasons of TV are well underway, The MLB World Series kicks off tomorrow, the NBA season has started, and the NHL is chugging along with the Rangers struggling to compete (I’d write more on this but it’s too depressing).

South Park, It’s Always Sunny, and Mayans M.C. have all been very good so far. Mayans, the spin-off of Sons of Anarchy is a welcome addition to my Always Watch list.

I’ve been bouncing around Netflix watching too many things at once. I’m almost done with the always jolly Great British Baking Show and for the first time in ages, two animes! A new batch of Seven Deadly Sins just went up and I just found Dragon Pilot which I’ve found to be pretty endearing.

On the movie front, I’m going to watch as much horror as I can fit in as Halloween is getting ever closer. I’ll probably do quick hits on my selected titles so those will likely be the next things you read here for the rest of the month.

On the game front. Forza Horizon 4 is brilliant, as expected. The monster of the year comes out of Friday: Red Dead Redemption 2. Seven years in the making and 5 or 6 years since Grand Theft Auto 5 was released, I’m ready to bathe in Rockstar juices.  The hype is real and all 107GB of the game is already on my Xbox waiting for the switch to flip.

NHL Playoffs Round 1

Gad zooks is there anything more intense than playoff hockey?

The New York Rangers took down the Montreal Canadians 4-2 in the first round of the playoffs. Every game was riveting except for the third when the Rangers laid down and died on the ice for no good reason.

Coming in as a wild card, the Rangers’ got the ideal matchup in the East division. They struggled to win against Montreal in the regular season but they’d be a challenge and not a wall like Pittsburg and Washington.

With this challenge met, the next match will be against Ottowa or Boston. Both teams are ripe for the Rangers to knockout so there are some good vibes going into Round 2 which may not start until the 27th.

The big surprise in the first round has been Nashville sweeping Chicago. No one saw that happening. Chicago has been a monster team for years so going out like that is stunning. Nashville v St. Louis is the next matchup and that should be an absolute war.

Nintendo Switch

It’s about time they showed this thing. Looks like all the rumors were true for it. Main concerns: if the battery life is garbage this thing is dead in the water. The slide off controllers look are tiny! I hated how the Wii remote felt and this looks like it could be just as bad (at least it’s not an awful rectangle anymore).

Red Dead Redemption 2 Trailer

Rumored for ages, it’s finally official. A tease to be sure, this looks to be what everyone expected. Holding off this long to show anything and giving a year out release must mean they are confident they can finish it by then. It takes Rockstar forever to make a game, but no one makes open world games like them.

Xbox

It’s E3 this week so that means the video game industry is walking the catwalk with their most expensive clothing on. Show us all what the next 18 months are shaping up to be. Microsoft went earlier today and Sony is tonight.

Microsoft showed me a bunch of games I want to play and they talked about new hardware. I’m going to focus on the hardware as that’s the biggest news. A little context from the rumor mill first.

A few weeks ago, leaks about Sony’s Playstation 4 came out. Basically, it was getting a pinch on the bum to goose the specs. A kick in processor speed and a GPU bump being the main features. This to offer 4k support (read: 4k upscaling for games and 4k display capabilities for video streaming and blu-ray movies) and better performance for Playstation VR. The VR headset is due out in October and about a week ago someone was quoted as saying that the bump is greatly needed for VR performance that isn’t terrible (any dips in frame and refresh rates makes it bad). The name PS4k got tossed around until the codename, Neo, came out.

A little while after that, leaks out of MS said they were doing the same thing…but more. First, a redesigned Xbox One “Slim” which isn’t anything shocking. Smaller console, lower price, lower power consumption, and comes out this August.

Second, they were also working on more powerful hardware much like “Neo”. Xbox lead Phil Spencer went on record (around the time the Neo rumors started) that he didn’t believe in doing an incremental update. Effort into a Xbox One.5 would be a waste of time and effort.  He also ruminated that it was possible that the time for distinct console generations was coming to a close. PS4 is more powerful hardware than XO and no one lets them forget that…which was the header of the follow-up MS rumor. Along with the codename Scorpio, this bump was intended to leapfrog whatever Sony was planning. This hardware would be the most powerful console on the market when released.

Fast forward to now. A few days ago, Sony announced Neo was real, didn’t mention any specs and said they wouldn’t be discussing it at E3.

This morning (after the info leaked on Saturday or Sunday) MS showed us the Xbox One S right away. That smaller redesign was true. It’s white, it’s got a new-ish controller and supports 4k streaming (a rumor awhile ago said that Netflix had asked MS and Sony about getting support for 4k) and blu-ray. Also, some HDR tech to help with lighting in games and video. Starts at $300 for 500GB, then $350 for 1TB and $400 for 2TB of storage.

The show goes ahead we’re told about Xbox Anywhere where basically every MS published game will be on Windows 10 with crossbuy and crossplay. Then they show a video confirming Project Scorpio at the very end. No concrete details but some numbers are thrown around and essentially it’s a major jump in hardware meant to push 4k video games and VR.  It’s coming Holiday 2017. MS is doubling down on Xbox as their gaming platform. Their PC games are Xbox games, you don’t have to have the Xbox box to play Xbox games anymore.

Valve messed around with their “Steam Machine” initiative to try and push Linux as a PC gaming platform. By the sounds of it, their idea has hit the dirt like a dead trout. So Microsoft has basically said, We Are PC Gaming. You want to game on the PC, get Windows 10 and spend as much money as you want on it.

You’ll see a lot of “Xbox is dead” talk now. It’s not Microsoft’s intention and that statement is from someone that isn’t paying attention. They’re taking Valve’s idea of tiered PC price points and making a real go of it. The Xbox One is the entry point for their games. $300 and you’re in. Eventually,they’ll sell through all the original One designs and the S will be the baseline. The PC platform is now whatever level of Xbox you want. Put as much money into it as you want. Want to play Gears 4, Forza Horizon 3, Killer Instinct and all sorts of other games in 4k when they release this year? You can.

Scorpio will be the console jump up when you’re ready for a big step up at a decent price. You won’t have to deal with a PC, just a plug and play box that will be ready to rock VR if you want as well (I’d be shocked if they made their own hardware, I’d expect Vive and Oculus Rift support, it makes so much more sense as you could do crossbuy and crossplay with those games and just move the headset around). VR will be much bigger and more mature next year so it’ll be great timing.

All the One accessories and games will work on whatever hardware you choose to use. The new controllers have BlueTooth support so you won’t have to get a One wireless dongle for your PC. The Xbox Live software solution for Windows 10 for both platforms to talk to each other has been up and running for almost a year already and the Killer Instinct release in March was a major proof of concept win (and Rocket League too). You buy these games once for either platform and you have it on both. The multiplayer player base expands significantly.

MS is aiming to get everyone on the same platform (ecosystem is probably a better word) regardless of hardware. The price of entry is low and if you want to chase the bleeding edge of performance you can do that (or get to specs somewhere in the middle) with Windows 10. They got their store with movies, TV shows and Music you can purchase/rent and you can watch your own media on Windows 10 and/or One. That’s the Apple angle with Apple TV (albeit more expensive).

It’s a daring move really. Completely changing the gaming console generation timeline that we’ve been following for about 40 years. There’s some stuff to work out, like will a jacked Win10 rig give a massive advantage to crossplay competitive games? FPSs with keyboard and mouse vs controller is the most obvious one too. Will Gears 4 Win10 gamers be forced to use controllers with no kb/m support to keep it fair?

You better believe those Playstation 4 Neo specs are changing as we speak.

 

Easy Allies

In early February, Gametrailers was closed down. My go to video game site was open one day and gone the next. You can ready my eulogy at that link.

I just found them on YouTube as Easy Allies! A “recommended video” showed up on my YT homepage of Kyle Bosman, who I haven’t seen since GT shut down. That pointed me to Easy Allies and I couldn’t be happier. They’re making four shows lead by individuals of the team along with a podcast and video game reviews that continue the GT legacy under a new roof.  About a month in they are generating a lot of content and have a Patreon set up to help keep the bus on the road. Being a big fan of these guys, I feel it’s my duty to spread the good word that they’re back.

Amazing March

There is a tidal wave of potential amazing entertainment coming our way in March.

Major content releases for Mortal Kombat X (out now) and Killer Instinct (29th).

Netflix swings for the fences!

  • Season 2 of DareDevil (18th)
  • Season 4 of House of Cards (4th)
  • Season 2 of Happy Valley (16th)
  • Pee Wee’s Big Holiday (18th)

Finally in theatres!

  • Batman vs Superman: Dawn of Justice (25th)

On FX!

  • Archer (31st)
  • The Americans (16th)

Gametrailers.com is done

For as long as I’ve used the internet, I’ve pretty much had one favorite gaming site that I’d check out everyday. When the website goes, I’m forced to move on. The first one I can remember is N64HQ.com. That was in the early internet days. Had great content run by a cool guy and it went under around the time the Nintendo 64 was put out to pasture. This was when IGN (probably my #2 spot) and gamespot.com hit the scene as well and got massive. I stopped going to IGN along time ago because it got too big and diluted.

Then there was 1up.com. Loved that place because I felt like I knew the entire staff that worked there. They had similar tastes to me, I liked the content they put out and it was updated all the time with great written and video content. Then, around 2011 (iirc) they were closed and the band split up. From there, I moved to Gametrailers.

Until yesterday, everything about 1up.com can be applied to GT. Great staff whose personality made the site. Updated all the time with a lot of funny and original content. While I didn’t personally know the crew, I felt like I Internet Knew them. That counts for a lot.

Half way through 2014 GT was bought by Defy Media and a huge chunk of GT was laid off. The remaining group held on and kept things going strong. Brandon Jones started GT in 2002 and has seen it to the end. Defy closed the site yesterday. Brandon had to tell his friends that they were all fired.

If you followed the site for any amount of time, you could tell the site was struggling (the video player was garbage which is ridiculous for a video site) and viewership was down, but the guys (and girl) made due.  The shuttering still feels very abrupt and shocking to me. I’m sorry to see these guys lose their jobs, GT closing down is a loss to the industry.

Brandon and Ian are great editors and a testament to the craft. Thank you to both of them as well as Daniel, Kyle, Brad, Ben, Don, Michael and Elise (she got out early to join The Know on YouTube) for all of your hard work. It’s been greatly appreciated.

I’m hoping Jones can rally the troops and get something going on YouTube.

Good News Everyone!

PFW

It’s April! The greatest month of them all! Lots to look forward to for everyone!

The weather has been brutal, but April is the turn around month. It hit 50 today after snowing yesterday. Looks like we’ll be bopping around the 50’s for the next few days which means we are going in the right direction.

Tons of entertainment this month.

Fast and Furious 7 kicks it off on the 3rd. Avengers 2 on May 1 (close enough to April, the hype is going to be unreal).

Mortal Kombat X drop kicks the world on the 15th. Beta test for Starcraft 2: Legacy of the Void.

Season premieres of Game of Thrones, Silicon Valley, Orphan Black, and Inside Amy Schumer. Gotham is finally returning from break and Daredevil kicks off on Netflix!

Season finales for Face Off, Helix, The Americans and Better Call Saul.

SERIES finale of Justified and the final 8 episodes of Mad Men!

And my birthday. Just saying.

Xbox One does a snap kick

I was right, the only thing that MS could do about its DRM plans for the One, that raised absolute hell, would be to reverse their stance. They did it today. It’s going to work just like the 360 does now. Internet connection needed at set up and that’s it. No 24 hour check in. It now sounds like the Family Share plan is out the window which is a real shame as that’s a real game changer for the industry, a real progressive step (which is what I thought the 24 hour check in was mostly for). Now it sounds like Valve is working on just such a program for Steam, so we’ll see how that goes. I’m hoping they end up putting that feature on the back burner and introduce it sometime later in the consoles life. Maybe wait and see how it works and is received on Steam? Could be good to have in the back pocket to bust out to add another bullet point feature to the box. I think it should be there at the start, but I can at least hope it comes to fruition in the future.

http://www.polygon.com/2013/6/19/4446060/xbox-one-drm-used-games-online-restrictions-180

First day of E3: Fisticuffs

There’s no other way to say it, Sony just drop kicked MS into next week. That’s with MS having a good show earlier today. They showed a lot of games that I’d like to play and that’s a good thing. But there was complete silence about anything else. The fears that gamers have about XBONE DRM are still high and mighty.

Sony shows it’s games and then says, we have none of that DRM that our competition has and the system is $100 less. That’s insane. I don’t know how MS spins this. Each guy has a few exclusives so that’s kind of a wash really. But the draw to everything else Sony just dropped can’t be understated. They’ve learned from the PS3 launch, they are completely in the good graces of gamers. I really, really, don’t know how MS can combat this. There has to be people in MS HQ sweating bullets. Billions of dollars are on the line here and it looks like Sony just stole a huge portion of xbox fans. Nintendo can just be Nintendo and wiggle their toes in 2nd place
happily. I’m legitimately shocked. The PS4 is pretty ugly though. I think I just want a XBONE controller for my PC.

The only thing MS can do is scrap their DRM plans. Say, “we were just thinking about this stuff, we didn’t really lock it in…” Tomorrow should be interesting. I’m sure MS will say the price is more for the One because of Kinect, which is understandable for the hardware. But the rest? Nope.

Electronic Entertainment Expo 2013 prelude

E3 is next week and nothing positive has changed on Microsoft’s Xbox One. It’s kinda gross to be honest. 24 hour online “check in”, weird used games policy…it’s a mess. They might have some good ideas somewhere in there, but the message is pretty lost and being overlooked by everyone. It’s a terrible place to be in for MS, it’s a really shocking image of a man in a suit with his black loafers jammed into his mouth. So this E3 is super important for everyone. Here’s my take a few says ahead of E3.

Nintendo
With hardware that many consider an overpriced joke with an anemic software line up, things have looked dicey for good old Nintendo. In recent weeks, Microsoft has pretty much been selling how honest and simple the Wii U is to people. It plays games, it can do a few other side things but it’s really straight forward now. No weird rules, no one watching you, it’s just a game system. Now they just need to release games for it. That is of course coming. The Nintendo stable is being worked now, Mario is in the works, Mario Kart, probably a Smash Bros. game, Animal Crossing. Nintendo is doing direct videos to it’s fan this year and all they need to do is give dates for the games that their fans are waiting for. It’s been a rough 8 starting months, but I think Nintendo is going to right the ship. A nice little price drop wouldn’t hurt either.

Sony
Smart move letting MS take egg on the face. Let their biggest thorn in their side twist in the wind while you get your ducks a row for the show. Now I think Sony is going to have some online DRM too, but it’s hard to really know how much. There’s been no real word on what Sony is up to, it’s all been doom and gloom rumors about Xbox One. Now, if they tell people they aren’t going to be strangling games like Microsoft, they will have a leg up. Sony has some serious talent in it’s software studios, they got the best console indie support so Sony is really in a place to pounce. Show games we haven’t seen, show the hardware, give a date and price (I’m thinking $400 is the likely sweet spot). The PS4 is poised to be the good guy of the Next Gen.

Microsoft
They have to climb out of the hole they dug and I don’t this company is capable of doing it. Their PR has been a complete disaster. It’s these new policies that have gotten them there and I don’t really see them changing them much. Sony must have had these same conversations with publishers and developers so that makes me wonder what Sony’s stance on online DRM is going to be. Now, if Microsoft adopts the way Steam prices and puts stuff on sale, it’ll win a lot of people back. They’ve announced that all games will be able to download or buy in stores at retail on the same day. Now if they keep ridiculous pricing for downloading games over time, it’ll be a dead service. Steam does 2 or 3 big sales a year with a lot of great titles for insanely low prices. Group buys, bonus material out the wazoo. Plus all the sales sprinkled about over the year. People love Steam for the value and convenience. The XBOne [i[could[i/] be the Steambox of the living room before Valve can get their Steambox out. A lot of the XBOne new policies are similar to how Steam currently works, but the value looks completely in MS’s favor. That’s mostly conjecture at this point, but MS has not been one one value these days. MS has to make the right moves and this is one of them. So that leaves us with this: They have to show a ton of games. Exclusives will be pretty important. You gotta give reasons for gamers to want to go anywhere near this hardware, because right now it looks like they are losing a large portion of good will and fandom that they’ve been striving for these passed 13 years.

It’s an uphill climb. They have to show new games to get attention and pricing that makes sense software and hardware wise (it cannot be sold for a penny more than the PS4 does. It’ll be killed if that happens). It’s a hard sell.

Good luck next week fellas.