Monthly Archives: December 2013

Geek Links of the Week

Was your country a late cut from the Xbox One launch territory list? Well, you might be waiting until Q3 of 2014 for an official console launch. The same sources who first leaked the changed launch territories say you’re in for a long wait for your Xbox One. [Gamereactor]

4chan did it again. Their latest prank tricked people into bricking their brand new Xbox Ones with promises of 360 backwards compatibility. [Daily Dot]

The managing director of GOG talks about the next generation of consoles forgoing backwards and the fight to preserve games for an industry where the publishers don’t want to look back. [PCGamesN]

“There’s a uncomfortable irony in the Call of Duty series’ twin fascinations with the destruction of the United States and brainwashing.” Richard Woodsworth on the message of Call of Duty. [Edge Magazine]

Cliff Blezinsky, formerly of Epic Game, has been making the rounds on the podcast circuit. This week, he was on both the Joe Rogan Experience and Pointless with Kevin Pereira. [Joe Rogan Experience / Pointless]

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7 Best Games of the 7th Generation: Super Mario Galaxy

Dec 13

Posted by Steve Murray

There are few series in gaming that are as iconic and as loved as Nintendo’s Super Mario series. Despite the fact that Mario has been around for over 30 years, Nintendo has this way of reinventing Mario and the Super Mario series with each new console generation. The result is games that bring new gamers into Nintendo and Mario while still giving fans who have played Mario games for their whole lives something to love.

For the industry shaking Wii console, Nintendo took Mario to the one place he’d never been before: The final frontier. Not only did Mario’s first adventure in outer space prove to be a smash hit, at release, it was considered one of the best Wii and platformer games of all-time.

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Posted in Games, Long Read

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Tags: 7 For 7, Nintendo, Super Mario Galaxy, Wii, WPLongForm

Valve Ships Steam Machine and Controller Prototypes Today

Dec 13

Posted by Steve Murray

Christmas is coming early for 300 Steam users who were notified Wednesday that they are among the lucky chosen few to get their hands on prototype versions of the Steam Machine consoles and the Steam Controller. Valve announced that the Steam Machines and Controllers were heading out the door today and they’d be releasing an early version of SteamOS to the public.

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Posted in Games, Tech

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Tags: Steam, Steam Controller, SteamOS, Valve

How Much Does a Kingdom Under the Mountain Cost?

Dec 12

Posted by Steve Murray

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug (which I’ve heard pronounced no less than a dozen different ways) comes out in theatres tomorrow. Unless you’re my sister who somehow managed to score tickets to an early showing tonight…

Anyway, the second part of The Hobbit trilogy will introduce us to the dragon Smaug and his lair, the the Kingdom Under the Mountain, Erebor. To celebrate the release of the new movie, our friends at Movoto valued Erebor which is priced to move seeing as it’s the perfect size for numerous dwarf families (or one dragon).

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Posted in TV/Movies

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Tags: Infographic, J.R.R. Tolkien, Peter Jackson, The Hobbit, The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug

YouTube’s Content ID System is Also Hurting Your Favourite Channels

Not only are YouTube content creators having to deal with a massive change to the networking system that will affect their ability to make money, but YouTube made a massive sweep of videos in a content matching check that caused a lot of YouTubers to lose the monetization rights to many videos.

YouTube’s content ID system is fairly indiscriminate. If it finds content that matches copyrighted content in their data base, the monetization rights revert to the original creator. The problem is that it makes no provisions for fair use and the dispute system is often considered as non-existent.

But rather than rehash this week’s column about YouTube on monetization, this detailed explanation of YouTube content matching, monetization and the implications of the current system by Force of Force Strategy Gaming does a much better job than I ever could.

Posted on December 12, 2013 | Video

Gaming Needs a Second Showcase Event

Dec 12

Posted by Steve Murray

Having taken some time to think about it, while the awards portion of VGX might be unsalvageable without a major overhaul, the concept, in its current form, still has some merit. The emphasis the former Video Game Awards put on unveiling new games and new game footage and trailers were a major draw for gamers.

Inadvertently, the format of the VGAs/VGX shows that there is demand for more big showcase events that publishers and developers can use to show off their next big thing to an audience always willing to get excited over the next great game.

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Posted in Games, Long Read

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Tags: Conventions, E3, VGX

Dreamhack Winter in Numbers

It’ll be a while before eSports ever gets the credit it deserves from the mainstream establishment but that doesn’t mean that it already isn’t a massive industry. The recently held Dreamhack Winter 2013 had over 20,000 visitors on-site, almost 8 million unique views of the live streams, a near half-a-million dollar prize pool and a live performance by Darude.

For this and more neat info about Dreamhack Winter 2013, we have a handy infographic for your perusal.
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Posted on December 11, 2013 | Image

Speedball 2 HD Review: He Shoots… Off the Post!

Dec 11

Posted by Steve Murray

With all the retro remakes of classic games have been coming out, it was only a matter of time before I reviewed one of them here. I had never played the original Speedball games when they were released on the Atari ST (and the dozen or so other platforms it was also available on) but given the lack of sports games on PC, I thought I’d give it a try.

All that ended up happening was me questioning the need for HD remakes of classic games.

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Tags: Indie, PC, Review, Speedball 2 HD, The Bitmap Brothers, Tower Studios, Vivid Games

GOG Introduces a Refund Policy for Games You Can’t Run

Dec 11

Posted by Steve Murray

Slowly but surely, refunds are becoming more common in the games retail business. First, EA announced the refund policy for their digital games on Origin. Now, GOG is getting in on the action with a new policy that allows for refunds of games that won’t work on your PC.

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Tags: Business of Gaming, Gamers' Rights, GOG

Comic Book Pull List for December 11, 2013

Dec 10

Posted by Steve Murray

When this week’s set of new comics hits the shelves, we’ll be only two weeks away from Christmas. I hope you’ve been doing your shopping. Personal experience tells me that shopping is nearly impossible beyond this point. I know because I very nearly botched Christmas shopping the last two years.

Anyway, this is a comic book release post so maybe I should talk about that. Marvel’s new Inhumanity series continues with spin-off Inhumanity: Awakening #1. Over at DC, the heroes of the Justice League travel to the year 3,000 or were they taken there in Justice League 3000 #1.

Elsewhere, Professor Moriarty has survived his plummeting down the Reichenbach Falls but he encounters a new foe before he can resume command of his criminal network in Sherlock Holmes: Moriarty Lives #1. Dark Horse continues their video game and sci-fi tendencies with Halo: Escalation #1. I won’t pretend to know what it’s about because I really don’t care for Halo. And the WWE gets a new series written by Mick Foley starting with WWE #1.

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