Monthly Archives: September 2013
Microsoft to Buy Nokia for $7.2 Billion
Microsoft and Nokia have been fairly reliant on each other in the smartphone market for a while now with Microsoft trying to make a dent with their Windows Phone OS and Nokia trying to differentiate itself from the scads of Android running competition. It only made sense that their alliance was made a bit more formal.
Yesterday, Microsoft announced that it is buying most of Nokia, including the devices and services division of the company and a licensing deal for the company’s patents and mapping service, for just under $7.2 billion.
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Comic Book Pull List for September 4, 2013
There are some big things for comic fans this week. I hope you have been saving up because this could be a painful week for your wallet. If your a big DC Comics fan, you should change that to “painful month.”
This week begins Villains Month in the DC-verse. The big series will have four issues this month with each about a villain from that series. That’s anchored by the Forever Evil miniseries in which the villains of DC have taken control of the world.
Elsewhere, Marvel fans have Infinity #2 for our reading pleasure. Dynamite has a new four-issue miniseries for us with zombie comedy Mocking Dead #1.
And Dark Horse launches what should be a massive series this week. It’s the debut of The Star Wars. The latest Star Wars comic series isn’t an expanded universe tale but an adaptation of George Lucas’ original Star Wars script. I’m definitely looking forward to this one.
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Building (Critical) Consensus: Rayman Legends
When you think of side-scrolling platformer games, the conversation tends to begin and end with Mario. However, Ubisoft has quietly turned the Rayman franchise into the standard-bearer for the genre while Nintendo stagnates with Mario (and their other first-party franchises).
The latest entry in the franchise, Rayman Legends, has racked up massive critical acclaim. While Rayman Origins was considered a very good game, most critics find Legends to be an improvement over Rayman Origins. Perhaps more exciting is that the game has new ideas which is pretty impressive considering that the genre is one of the oldest in gaming.
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Hype Train: Dragon Age: Inquisition
I generally don’t preview games based off of PR snippets, trailers and hands-off demos but I think I’ve come up with a way to do it. So, welcome to the Hype Train in which I sift through all the hype behind a game to give an early preview of what is being promised and what to expect.
After the disappointment with their last three products, Dragon Age II, Star Wars: The Old Republic and Mass Effect 3, BioWare was suffering from a lack of consumer confidence. With the move to next-gen BioWare is hoping to regain its crown as the king of Western RPGs, starting with the next Dragon Age game, Dragon Age: Inquisition.
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Star Trek Into Darkness Blu-Ray Limits Bonus Features to Certain Retailers
With video games frequently having retailer or console exclusive content, it was only a matter of time before other products borrowed that model. The first one to do that in movies will be next week’s release of Star Trek Into Darkness on Blu-Ray which will spread features across three different retailers.
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Video Game Violence, Ratings and Your Children
It’s just one of those things that we gamers have come to expect. Any time that video games are even tangentially related to a violent crime, the mainstream media will jump on that as a reason for the commission of that crime, regardless of the numerous studies that show no causative relationship between video game violence and real violence.
The latest case of the persecution of video games and gamers comes from Louisiana where an 8-year-old boy shot his grandmother in the head. The East Feliciana Parish Sheriff’s Department have strongly implied that the boy playing Grand Theft Auto IV led to the shooting.
et geekera 