It’s not just the NSA and the United States government that are monitoring your data. Ahead of this week’s wireless airwave license auction, the Canadian government has required all phone companies bidding to agree to allow the government access to data transmitted on their networks, including the monitoring of phone calls.
AMC’s got a fever and the only cure is more spin-offs. Looking for new high-quality, and highly viewed, programming led to AMC ordering the Breaking Bad spin-off, Better Call Saul. Now, AMC is going to another of their big series for a new show. This time, they’re working on a new spin-off series for The Walking Dead.
This week is a tricky one to give recommendations for because there aren’t a lot of new comics. Most of this week’s notable comics are continuing series with Image and Dark Horse as the only two major publishers launching new series this week. Image has Zero #1 which is about a spy who likes to shoot first and ask questions later. Dark Horse, meanwhile, launches Kiss Me Satan, a new series about supernatural creatures in New Orleans, including the werewolf mafia.
The big two have their universe-wide story arcs continuing this week. Infinity #3 comes out this week which brings us to the halfway point of Marvel’s big six issue summer event.
Over on the DC side of things, Batman and Superman have some villain comics that you might be interested in. This week’s Batman series feature The Penguin in Batman #23.3, The Scarecrow in Detective Comics #23.3 and Ra’s al Ghul in Batman and Robin #23.3. As for Supes, Lex Luthor gets his moment to shine in Action Comics #23.3.
Since I’ve looked at a bunch of GTA5 related stuff to start the day, let’s segue to something a bit more comical.
The Saints Row series was originally considered to be a GTA clone though SR4 certainly distanced itself from Grand Theft Auto. That doesn’t mean that they can’t still have a little fun at GTA’s expense.
Today, Saints Row is getting the GATV DLC pack which is a Johnny Gat themed customization pack. If you missed it the first time, re-read that DLC’s name slowly, though, if you’re like me, you probably did a double-take to make sure you read the DLC’s name correctly. I thought this was worth a bit of a chuckle.
It’s currently available for free on Steam for a very limited time. If you have SR4, get on that now.
Source: CVG
Given how much we all focus on the scores that games get in their reviews, it’s generally a good idea to know how outlets come up with their scores. Sure, you could look that up yourself but where’s the fun in that when you can get industry insiders to tell you how it works. During Rev3 Games’ PAX panel, Anthony Carboni explained the agreed upon industry-wide methodology behind review scores.
Because we can’t embed with a specified starting time, click forward to 37:56.
Bill Nye is on Dancing with the Stars. While I don’t encourage you to watch it, I do encourage you to vote for Bill Nye. For science!
I don’t know if you heard but there’s a game coming out today. Not at all important. Nobody is really interested in it. But I suppose there’s probably one, just one, reader of this blog who might be interested in reading more about Grand Theft Auto V. Let’s be honest, though. I think that the smallest of minorities are actually waiting on reviews to determine whether or not they buy this game. Me? I’m waiting for the PC release. I’d reckon that it’ll be out around the time the next-gen editions of GTA5 are out.
As expected, the reviews are overwhelmingly positive but we don’t expect anything less for Rockstar’s flagship franchise. In fact, as of writing, only The Escapist had a review lower than 90%. While they loved the gameplay, they had major issues with the three main characters and the script. GameSpot had similar script issues but still gave the game a 90%. Before you start spamming the reviewers, remember that reviews are subjective. Here we have two people with the same issues and very different scores. As long as they’re legitimately reviewing a game and not trolling for page views, their opinion is entirely fair. Like I said at the top, if you have issues with GTA’s content, you’ve already decided not to buy the game.
An anonymous survey of developers by Edge Magazine shows that the performance difference expected based on their specs turns out to be a reality. Developers told Edge that the PlayStation 4 is up to 50 percent faster than the Xbox One and the recent GPU boost hasn’t done much to fix that.
Did you know that despite the fact that the show is filmed in Nova Scotia and funded in part by a Canadian cable company and the Nova Scotian and Canadian governments, the fourth season of Haven won’t start airing in Canada until December? (Sunday, December 1st at 9 PM for those keeping score at home.) I’m not waiting that long. Since I’m watching the show early, I thought that I’d also review them.
Last Friday, Haven returned for its fourth season with many questions left unanswered from the third season finale. Fortunately, my questions have been answered in the season premiere with a few more asked for the next thirteen episodes.
Verizon is going to court to kill Net Neutrality in the United States. If they’re successful, you might have to pay your ISP to access certain sites just like you do with your cable package. It would be the end of the internet. [InfoWorld]
Apple’s original design guru, Hartmut Esslinger, says that Apple has lost its soul and no longer innovates but it driven by money. [The Atlantic White]
Most of us haven’t worked retail jobs at a games store so we just assume that people have some idea of what they’re doing when they walk into a GameStop or the game section of Wal-Mart. However, that assumption would be entirely wrong. The average consumer has no idea about such concepts as console names, game reviews and ESRB ratings. [Destructoid]
Remember when Rock Band was the biggest game in the world. It seemed like everybody played it or wanted to play it. It certainly has disappeared, hasn’t it? [Gameological]
Microsoft has bought the xbone.com domain. Just thought that you might want to know. [Fusible]
et geekera 