Monthly Archives: October 2014
Doctor Who: In the Forest of the Night Review
You can’t expect a run of great episodes to continue forever. You would hope that it wouldn’t end right before the season finale of one of the best seasons of Doctor Who since the show’s revival in 2005. However, asking for 12-for-12 great episodes would be asking too much so maybe a flat episode was better this week than in the next two.
Share this:
Geek Links of the Week
How popular is Game of Thrones? About 86,000 people applied for 600 extras roles for the upcoming season. [Entertainment Weekly]
A new Pew survey suggests that over a quarter of internet users have been harassed online. On the one hand, I thought people were better than that. On the other, I’m shocked that number isn’t much higher. [Pew Research]
YouTube is changing their monetization policy by adding six-month ad revenue suspensions for channels that aren’t in good enough standing. Hope you weren’t planning on making a living on YouTube. [FullScreen]
Tesla Motors might be leading us toward the future of the automobile but it’s tough to make waves when protectionist actions is keeping Tesla out of various states in the American union. The funny thing is that this action is being pushed through in mostly Republican states. [Washington Post]
Share this:
PSA: Extra Life 2014 is This Weekend
The annual game streaming marathon fundraiser Extra Life. Every year, gamers come together to do 24-hour live streams of them playing games to raise money for the Children’s Miracle Network Hospital. Streams start at about 8:00 AM local time and run for the next 24 hours. Donations and presumably stream ad revenue go to charity.
You can find out more about Extra Life and make donations at extra-life.org. You can find streamers on the Extra Life website or on the Twitch Extra Life directory.
Share this:
Former EA CEO John Riccitiello Joins Unity as CEO
The man who led powerhouse Electronic Arts to two consecutive Consumerist Worst Company in America awards in 2012 and 2013 and whose influence resulted in tainting the public perception of two legendary developers in BioWare and Maxis is now in charge of popular indie game engine Unity. This week, Unity announced that John Riccitiello would take the reigns of the company as its new CEO.
Share this:
Marvel Releases Teaser for Avengers: Age of Ultron
After the trailer leaked early online before a scheduled exclusive premiere during next week’s Agents of SHIELD, Marvel released the first teaser trailer for the second Avengers movie, Avengers: Age of Ultron. We don’t learn too much about the movie but you can certainly piece together an outline of the premise (I think they’ve changed the Ultron origin story slightly but that’s just a deduction on my part). At the very least, we get our first look at Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver.
Avengers: Age of Ultron is scheduled for release on May 1st, 2015. Six months isn’t too long to wait, right?
Share this:
eSports Weekend Calendar: October 24 – 26, 2014
We’re another weekend before Blizzard starts with its various World Championship tournaments so we’re in a bit of a holding pattern this week. I guess that’s unless you’re a CS:GO fan, in which case you’ll be interested in HITBOX Arena Championship Grand Final on Sunday afternoon. Otherwise, Dota 2 and StarCraft II have the group stages of some smaller tournaments to keep your attention this weekend.
Share this:
Jade Raymond Leaves Ubisoft
One of the most powerful and prominent women in gaming is leaving her leadership post at one of the biggest publishers in gaming. Jade Raymond announced that she is leaving her post as Managing Director of Ubisoft’s Toronto studio in order to pursue other future opportunities in the industry.
Share this:
Ubisoft Massive Planning to Take “Full Advantage” of PS4 for The Division
I’d give up writing about Ubisoft but their constant corporate about-faces about graphics and framerates and the console wars is just an absolute gold mine of laughs and punditry and page views. After three different explanations for the framerate and resolution of Assassin’s Creed Unity being 900p and 30 FPS from Ubisoft Montreal, Ubisoft Massive is singing a completely different tune when it comes to Tom Clancy’s The Division.
Share this:
Paranautical Activity Pulled From Steam After Dev Threatens Gabe Newell
With all the focus on death threats as part of the ongoing #GamerGate drama, the most prominent death threat we’ll be talking about this week isn’t part of that saga but from an indie dev who was unhappy with Steam. Mike Maulbeck, one of the developers behind the procedurally-generated FPS Paranautical Activity, tweeted what he called a sarcastic death threat towards Valve boss Gabe Newell on Monday night.
This resulted in Steam pulling Paranautical Activity from Steam and ending their relationship with Code Avarice.
Share this:
Comic Book Pull List for October 22, 2014
Is it just me or does this week seem pretty quiet in terms of new comic releases. Maybe everyone’s waiting until the week before Halloween and I just didn’t pay attention to that being a popular time for comic releases. Anyway, I have a couple of recommendations for the week. After a five decade absence (in the story), Edward Scissorhands is back and getting a comic book sequel (until the inevitable far too late cash-in revival [because I’m not a cynic or anything like that]) in Edward Scissorhands #1.
And I’ve never heard of the self-obsessed Earth-16 in the DC multiverse (there are 52 worlds in it so I can’t know it all) but it seems like something that would be oddly appropriate as a substitute for our Earth-0. Anyway, The Multiversity: The Just #1 sees the children of Earth-16 unprepared for the threat that faces them because they’re too interested in themselves to be at the ready for action. See, take out superheroes and it’s our actual Earth-0.
et geekera 