Monthly Archives: December 2015
eSports Weekend Calendar: December 18 – 20, 2015
There are a few events happening this weekend to give some of your favourite eSports stars a couple of extra dollars in spending money right before Christmas. The stars of League of Legends are split between China and Germany. The big teams are in Cologne for a stop on the Intel Extreme Masters tour while China plays host to World Cyber Arena. Also at WCA are Hearthstone and Dota 2 which isn’t listed below because I can’t find times for anything beyond the group stage.
My focus will be on StarCraft II this weekend. The semi-annual HomeStory Cup is taking place this weekend. I believe that this one will be the first HSC from Take’s new studio rather than his apartment. Hopefully this won’t change the atmosphere of the event. HomeStory Cup is my favourite tournament series in SC2.
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Movie Trailers Roundup for December 16, 2015
I’ve been looking for a way to have a full five days of 5:00 PM weekly posts for et geekera. We do game trailers on Monday, comic book releases on Tuesday, eSports events on Thursday and links on Friday. If you’ve read the title of this post, I think it’s time for us to do movie trailers on Wednesdays. It may not stay here for long as I’ve been considering switching the eSports Weekend Calendar to Wednesday but let’s see how this goes for now.
For the first movie trailers roundup, we have eight trailers for you to watch. Four of them are for some of next summer’s blockbuster releases, including the new Star Trek movie that seems to borrow from The Search for Spock and the Independence Day sequel that likely won’t include the line “welcome to Earf.” There is also a teaser trailer for a Steven Spielberg children’s movie which is the first time in forever that we’ve been able to say that.
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Kojima Has Left Konami, Starting a New Studio with Sony
In the worst kept secret in gaming, Hideo Kojima’s contract with Konami has come to an end. The legendary developer had been in an ongoing dispute with Konami which saw Konami remove Kojima’s name and that of Kojima Productions from Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain.
Kojima’s apparent unemployment didn’t last long, though. Within about 24 hours of a report by Japanese business publication Nikkei stating the Kojima was no longer employed by Konami, Sony Computer Entertainment announced a partnership with a newly founded version of Kojima Productions to produce a new franchise.
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Game Trailers Roundup for December 14, 2015
You would think that between The Game Awards and PlayStation Experience that we’d be completely out of game trailers for the roundup but I would be wrong. Last week, we had 11 trailers for the roundup. This week’s pickings are a little more slim at only eight trailers for you to watch.
Most of the trailers are for upcoming games like XCOM 2, Lego Marvel’s Avengers or Dying Light: Enhanced Edition. However, Nintendo has a couple of launch trailers from last week’s releases of Devil’s Third and FAST Racing Neo. We might be too close to Christmas for me to have sufficient shopping time but there are still games that you can buy coming out in the home stretch.
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eSports Weekend Calendar: December 11 – 13, 2015
If you’re looking something to watch on Twitch this weekend and are in the Americas, this is a good weekend for you. Dota 2’s The Summit 4 wraps up this weekend with the eight-team playoff. ESL and ESEA conclude their CS:GO pro league. And StarCraft II’s Nation Wars continue this weekend. Canada is in action on Thursday and Friday so I’ll be watching to see if Scarlett, HuK and desRow can bring Canada to the Round of 8.
For those on the West Coast or those up late elsewhere, Riot is holding the 2015 All-Star Event featuring the international regional all-star teams and the 1v1 tournament. Put a pot of coffee on if you want to see the finish of those.
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Overwatch to Release Future Heroes and Maps for Free
Just one month ago, Blizzard was causing concern at BlizzCon when they announced that they hadn’t finalized what the business plan would be for Overwatch with only seven months to go until release. Prior to BlizzCon, the only thing that was officially announced was that the game would be available for purchase at either $40 or $60 for the Origins Edition.
In a community update video, game director Jeff Kaplan talked about what Blizzard’s plan was for future hero additions to Overwatch. In the best piece of news to come out about the game, Kaplan announced that new heroes would be patched into the game for free.
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Comic Book Pull List for December 9, 2015
Another week, another edition of the comic book releases. This week, I want to look at the crossovers between DC Comics and IDW. This week, they have one crossover ending and a new one beginning. Concluding on the IDW side of the ledger is Star Trek / Green Lantern #6 as the heroes of Starfleet and the Lantern Corp team up for one final battle. Over at DC, Batman faces a new foe in the Foot Clan but four heroes in a half-shell are there to help him out in Batman / Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #1.
I’m sure that there will be a lot of purists of these franchises who might not be happy with these crossovers (except as a TMNT fan, I’m looking forward to reading that one) but it’s all in good fun. It’s not like any of these stories will be canon for anyone involved. It’s a little diversion that matches with all the crossover stuff that we all did with action figures growing up. The only difference is that this is in print and will cost us $4 an issue.
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Final Fantasy VII Remake to be Released Episodically and Why That’s Dangerous
I felt a great disturbance in gaming, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror, and were suddenly silenced. I fear something terrible has happened.
Over the weekend, Square Enix released the first look at gameplay from their upcoming remake of Final Fantasy VII. This included a look at part of Midgar as well as the opening assault on a Mako reactor. Not surprisingly, the whole of the internet was excited about it though there were some concerned with some of the changes that SquEnix has already shown off for FF7 Remake.
What didn’t sit well with gamers were some of the quieter announcements that Square Enix made about the game in a press release that seems to have gone to selected outlets. Square Enix quietly announced that Final Fantasy VII Remake will be a “multi-part series.”
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Game Trailers Roundup for December 7, 2015
Didn’t we just do a trailers roundup? I thought that the special TGA videos and trailers from this weekend’s PlayStation Experience should be put on the blog separately of the rest of the trailers that have been released over the last seven days. Eleven of those trailers are in today’s Game Trailers Roundup.
We have launch trailers for Xenoblade Chronicles X, Just Cause 3 and Dreamfall Chapters: Revelations. There is also a trailers for Rooster Teeth’s first game, RWBY: Grimm Eclipse. And there’s now a launch date for Life is Strange: Limited Edition which I would consider getting because it was an awesome game. By the way, etg’s Top 15 of 2015 is coming December 24th. I thought that was worth mentioning. I should probably start writing it.
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The PlayStation Experience 2015 Game Trailer Roundup
There’s not one but two video game trailer roundups today. The first one comes from this year’s PlayStation Experience event that Sony held over the weekend to celebrate all things PlayStation and generate a little bit of hype as we cross the halfway point between this year’s and next year’s E3.
The PlayStation Experience had a lot of new footage and new games unveiled at the show this year. I’m thinking that it might worth saving up for a press trip there instead of E3. Anyway, we have 18 trailers from PSX to show you including a story trailer for Uncharted 4, the first look at gameplay of the Final Fantasy VII remake and the unveiled Ni No Kuni II.
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