Monthly Archives: January 2015
Formula E Buenos Aires ePrix: A Race No One Wants to Win
The following post was originally written for The Lowdown and is geared towards a motorsport audience. Most of the analysis is written for that audience rather than a tech crowd so it may not necessarily be for you. That being said, an all-electric motorsports world championship is kind of a big deal so we’re continuing our coverage of Formula E.
When Formula E was announced and the race format detailed, everyone thought that the series’ biggest challenge would be the battery life of the cars. After the championship’s fourth round in Buenos Aires, it looks like the longevity of the suspensions will be the biggest curveball thrown at teams and drivers.
What started as a fairly straight forward race quite quickly degenerated into chaos when the safety car came out after the race’s first suspension failure. After that point, there were four leaders who ascended to the top in a cloud of debris with the final one being Antonio Felix da Costa who scored his first Formula E race win.
Comic Book Pull List for January 14, 2015
After yesterday’s return of the Game Trailers Roundup, it’s time to bring back another etg. regular post from it’s holiday hiatus. It’s our first look at comics in the new year. Also like the trailers roundup, it’s a bit of a slow week outside the big two.
If adaptations are your thing, this week has lots in store for you. The six-issue Q event comes to an end in Star Trek #40 as the new Enterprise crew joins forces with Captain Sisko against Dukat. Did I mention how much of a DS9 fan I am? Marvel takes its first crack at Star Wars with a new series that bridges Episodes IV and V in Star Wars #1. Yes, I’m almost sure that’s Marvel and not Dark Horse. And DC gives us a couple of video game adaptations with Mortal Kombat X #1 and Fables: The Wolf Among Us #1.
AGDQ Raises Over $1.5 Million for Charity
A lot of people love gamers who do YouTube let’s plays and Twitch live streaming for a living. Eventually, I’d like to add that stuff to the offerings I do online (under the etg banner or a different pseudonym). For now, though, I’m leaving it to the experts.
The great things about those experts is that they often put their talents to good use. A group of speedrunners joined forces to raise money for the Prevent Cancer Foundation with a week-long speedrunning marathon streamed on Twitch.
Game Trailers Roundup: January 12, 2015
After a little Christmas and New Year’s break, we’re back with the first game trailers roundup of 2015. Of course, I could have pushed this back another week because new trailers haven’t exactly been plentiful over the last few weeks. However, we have five trailers for some pretty popular games for you to watch today.
Nintendo Pulls Out of the Brazilian Market
Back in October, we covered complaints over the price of the PlayStation Four and Xbox One in Brazil. As a result of the country’s high import duties and taxes, the PS4, which is priced at $400 in America, costs the equivalent of $1,800 USD in Brazil while the Xbox One jumped in price from $500 to $1,000.
Sony and Microsoft are continuing in the Brazilian market despite very nearly being priced out of it because of the local taxes. On the other hand, Nintendo has decided that the prices caused by high taxes are too much so they are pulling their products from Brazil.
Doctor Who: Last Christmas Review
Like the last couple of Doctor Who Christmas specials, this year’s Doctor Who Christmas special come with some intrigue for the series going forward. Last year’s saw the denouement of the Eleventh Doctor and the introduction of Peter Capaldi’s Twelfth Doctor.
This year, the intrigue was all about Clara. Lead actors and actresses on Doctor Who haven’t been particularly long-lived on the show with Amy and Rory being the longest tenured at two-and-a-half season. So while we were all hoping for a happy Christmas story, the whole episode would be about the mystery contract status of Jenna Coleman.
Steam Holiday Sale: January 1, 2015
As promised, I’ve updated the Encore Sale post with some of the hidden encore deals. I added 37 sales to the list today and I’m pretty sure that a little bit of digging will reveal a whole pile of additional deals. And I compiled some of the cool hidden deals found by the folks at /r/GameDealsMeta. That means there are even 50 more deals on the list today that yesterday. See? I promised more and I can deliver.
One little omission from the hidden encore deals that I should note. I didn’t list the discount for The Elder Scrolls Online even though it’s apparently an all-time low price on Steam. Word is that Bethesda has dropped the six-month subscription option which many people are taking as a sign that a switch to a free-to-play model is imminent. Take that rumour for what you will. I wasn’t inclined to buy it before and I’m probably going to hold out even longer now.



