Monthly Archives: November 2013
Hype Train: Xbox One
Another week, another console launch and another trip aboard the hype train to look at the final of the three next-gen home consoles. This time, it’s Microsoft’s effort at a new console with the Xbox One.
Unlike Sony whose PlayStation 4 is trying to be a thoroughbred gaming machine, the Xbox One is aiming to be an all-in-one box for the living room thanks to TV integration, apps, Smart Glass, Kinect, a Blu-Ray player and the occasional ability to play a game.
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Snapchat Snaps Outnumber Facebook Photo Uploads
A couple of weeks back, Facebook made a $3 billion offer to purchase Snapchat. The mobile phone app’s founders/owners rejected the offer from the social media giant feeling that their service was worth more despite not having any real revenue.
Well, it turns out that Snapchat may have had a good reason for turning down Facebook. Recently released statistics show that there are more Snaps uploaded daily on Snapchat than photos uploaded on Facebook.
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Selfie is Oxford Dictionaries’ Word of the Year
I’m not sure whether the latest news out of Oxford is a good thing for technophiles or a sign of the downfall of society and the English language as a whole.
Oxford Dictionaries has named “selfie” as their word of the year for 2013.
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Comic Book Pull List for November 20, 2013
Two popular Marvel and DC characters are getting their own series starting this week and they get top billing in the pull list. Nick Fury lays his vengeance upon thee in his new three issue miniseries Cataclysm: The Ultimates. Over at DC, Harley Quinn gets her own monthly series starting with Harley Quinn #0.
At the slightly smaller but still sizable publisher level, IDW brings Cartoon Network’s Ben 10 to print with Ben 10 #1. And Image has my favourite looking new series of the week. Zoey tries to get a fresh start after killing someone when she moves away to college. However, trouble seems to be lurking with anonymous calls to her late night campus radio show in A Voice In The Dark #1. Did I ever tell you guys the story of a guy who interrupted one of my talk show tapings to tell us about his ex-girlfriend’s life of crime and we weren’t sure if we were safe to be in the same room as him? Good times…
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Need For Speed: Rivals Locked to 30 FPS on PC
Are you looking forward to playing EA’s latest Need for Speed game, Rivals, in 1080p at 30 FPS? Settle down, PS4 users. I wasn’t talking to you. I was talking to the folks who are picking up the game on PC. Reports suggest that not only will the console version of NFS:Rivals run at 30 FPS but the PC version will be locked to 30 FPS too.
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Building (Critical) Consensus: Killzone: Shadow Fall
It’s time to do our first roundup of critics reviews for next-gen games. Since the PlayStation 4 came out first, I thought that it would be a good idea to start with the PS4’s big first-party exclusive. While Xbox One fans aren’t getting an exclusive FPS at launch, PlayStation fans are getting Killzone: Shadow Fall to kick off the new generation. It’s not what I’d call a PlayStation trademark franchise but it’s what Sony are leading with.
Reviews of KSF are mixed. While some critics really enjoyed it, there are many complaints that Killzone: Shadow Fall doesn’t match its pretty next-gen visuals with next-gen gameplay. However, there aren’t any suggestions as to what next-gen gameplay is. I’m not saying that devs should be allowed to retread the same old gameplay without updating it but if you can’t quantify what improved gameplay is, can you mark a game down for it?
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Batkid Saves San Francisco
While a good number of us were focused on the PlayStation 4 launch last Friday, in San Francisco, there was a little bit of good news to cheer us all up. The folks at the Make-a-Wish Foundation turned downtown San Francisco into Gotham City so five-year-old leukemia survivor Miles Scott could live out his dream of being Batkid.
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Haven: The Trouble with Troubles Review
If you’re a fan of both Haven and the original Star Trek, you might have been in your glory watching this week’s episode. There was the allusion to the classic The Trouble with Tribbles with the episode’s title and a classic Star Trek-style alternate universe story which was also a trick from last season of Haven. So what trouble can there be if there aren’t any Troubles.
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Geek Links of the Week
Video games are growing in popularity in Iraq. While they may have previously been frowned upon, they’re seen as a social activity and a safe activity given the dangers in the country now. [The New Yorker]
A lot has been made out of corporate-sponsored review events being held for next-gen consoles and games. Here’s how they really work. [/r/Games]
Tom, of personal favourite gaming blog CalmDownTom.com, explains why he and his site didn’t review Call of Duty: Ghosts. [Calm Down Tom]
Skipped out on an early next-gen console for a new PC like me? Well, you’ll be glad to know that your DDR3 RAM is almost out-of-date tech. DDR4 RAM is coming down the pipe in the next month or so. [Hardware Pal]
By the way, if you’re worried about the early reliability of the PlayStation 4, reports indicate that less than 1% of units aren’t working right now. This article reports a failure rate of under 0.2%. Sony’s official line is 0.4%. It’s not perfect but at least it’s not red ring of death bad. Nothing could be that bad. [ARGD]
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7 Best Games of the 7th Generation: Uncharted 2: Among Theives
As the current console generation went on, games increasingly tried to be like interactive movies. The goal seemed to be to recreate the Hollywood experience but with you playing the starring role using a controller. While one could argue that Heavy Rain may have gotten the closest, no game captured the fun of the summer blockbuster while releasing a solid game quite like Naughty Dog.
Since today marks both the launch of the PlayStation 4 and our 7 For 7 series, I thought that it was only appropriate to kick off with the epic PlayStation 3 exclusive Uncharted 2: Among Thieves.
et geekera 