Well, I dropped the ball on this week’s pull list. I’ve been so busy writing other columns, setting up for some video content in the near future and even doing (gasp!) game reviews that the pull list slipped my mind until 5:00 last night. I couldn’t for the life of me figure out why the pull list wasn’t being posted until I realized that I completely forgot to do it.
Anyway, let’s feature a triple bill of debuting series in this week’s pull list. First, She-Hulk breaks off from the FF to get her own solo series in She-Hulk #1. Over at DC, the British Royals are going to use their superpowers to run the tide of World War II in Royals: Masters of War #1. And Image has a new series about life working on an orbital energy platform where murder is afoot in Fuse #1.
The saga of Lightning and Final Fantasy XIII comes together in the third installment of the FF13 trilogy. Square Enix billed it as a story that needed three games to be told in its entirety. When I dropped $70 on the first Final Fantasy XIII back in 2010, it seemed so dull and generic with combat that only required you to hold down X until the battle was over that I made about an hour before I put it at the bottom of a drawer and haven’t touched it for the last four years. I spent hundreds of hours playing the FFX games. I even loved X-2 and I’m pretty sure that everyone hates that game and the J-pop therein.
Somehow, the game managed to get a franchise-record two sequels. If the critics scores are to be believed, the games have been getting worse as the FFXIII trilogy has gone along with Lightning Returns hitting the bottom. Oddly enough, that’s how I feel about the franchise now too. I’ll be quite happy to get back into the series with Final Fantasy XV but, for now, good riddance to FF13.
Anyway, enough of what I think. Here’s what the critics think about Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII.
The resolution, graphic quality and framerate differences between the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 games released on both platforms has been a big story since both consoles launched last November. It was expected that the PS4’s use of GDDR5 RAM would allow it to dance circles around the DDR3 RAM of the Xbox One.
However, one developer says that it isn’t that the PS4’s hardware is so much superior but that the Xbox One’s architecture is the issue. The small 32 MB of high-bandwidth eSRAM isn’t conducive to getting games to render at 1080p.
Facebook has outlawed the use of clickfarms to increase the number of likes on a Facebook page. They’ve banned a number of fake accounts designed solely to like pages that pay for it. However, it’s these fake accounts that are generating millions of dollars in advertising revenue for Facebook.
Veritasium shows how Facebook advertising is based on a lie and how that actually hurts your page as a result.
Warner Bros. has stuck a fork in the Batman: Arkham franchise. Some would argue that they already did that when they took control of the series from Rocksteady and handed it to rookie developers WB Games Montreal.
A community manager took to the game’s official forum to announce that WB Montreal had suspended work on patching the game and had devoted itself to working on the game’s DLC.
Activision has announced a major change to how they make their trademark Call of Duty franchise starting with this year’s edition of CoD. Starting with this fall’s release of Call of Duty, all games will be made on a three-year development cycle. To keep the games coming out annually, Activision has announced that Sledgehammer Games will join Infinity Ward and Treyarch as developers.
Just when you thought that the pre-order bonus wars had reached their crescendo, Sony and GameStop Italy have taken pre-order bonuses to new heights.
If you pre-order the inFamous: Second Son at GameStop Italy, you get a pre-order kit that includes a copy of the game, two cans of Red Bull energy drink and glow-in-the-dark condoms. No, that’s not a typo. Glow-in-the-dark condoms.
There was seldom a moment during the London Olympics that I was tuned away from live broadcasts, especially during handball. I was one of the two-thirds of Canadians who watched Sidney Crosby end the Vancouver Olympics with an overtime goal to win the men’s hockey gold medal.
This time, I won’t be watching. I don’t care if Patrick Chan sets another world record in figure skating or Canada plays Russia for the gold medal in a game that goes to overtime. I won’t be watching my Winter X-Games favourites, slopestyle and halfpipe, or the curlers from my hometown battle for gold.
While the Olympics are supposed to be about coming together, the spirit of unity, and a celebration of sport and national pride, none of that is on display in Sochi. The Russian government, Sochi Olympic organizing committee and the International Olympic Committee have created an Olympic games that does none of that and I want no part of these Olympics.
After becoming one of the biggest app creators in the mobile gaming world in the span of about two weeks, Flappy Bird creator, Dong Nguyen, says that he’s done with his famous creation. Over the weekend, Nguyen pulled the game from the iTunes and Google Play stores.
Mass Effect fans will remember the Quantum Entanglement Communicator used in ME2 and ME3. Well, that’s based on a real thing that’s called Quantum Teleportation. European physicists have found a way to use quantum teleportation through standard fibre optic cables that could for them basis of Quantum Internet. [Technology Review]
I know we’ve gone on a bit about Dungeon Keeper this week but don’t forget that EA drops the ball with both mobile versions of classic titles and their flagship triple-A titles like Battlefield 4. [Eurogamer]
I’ve probably already run a link about it but here’s an in-depth look at the latest EVE Online mega-fight that result in the real-world equivalent of hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of ships destroyed. [Giant Bomb]
Don’t look now but the longest-reigning champion of eSports is making a comeback. I don’t mean that a player is making a comeback. StarCraft: Brood War is quickly regaining popularity among fans of competitive gaming. [The Daily Dot]
Not only are the X-Men movies not following the continuity of the comic books, they’re contradicting their own continuity repeatedly. [Comic Book Movie]
et geekera 