Author Archives: Steve Murray

Geek Links of the Week

More GameJournoPros emails have been leaked. This time, the group talks mocks paid reviews, Phil Fish and Marcus Beer. [Breitbart]

Star Citizen is still basically in pre-alpha but it still has a pretty big and profitable real-money market outside the game’s economy. [Eurogamer]

NBA 2K15 can use Kinect or PS Camera to scan your face to put in the game. There’s just one problem: The results can be terrifying. [The Independent]

I didn’t realize that the Star Wars: Rebels animated series was already on TV but the TV movie premiere of the show will get a special broadcast on ABC and include a special scene that features James Earl Jones as Darth Vader. [CNET]

Google is bringing Street View to the desert. Since their cars can’t make the trip, they’ve hired a camel. [CNN]

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Ubisoft Changes Tune on AC:Unity Again. Now They’re Targeting 30 FPS.

Oct 10

Posted by Steve Murray

Not only is Ubisoft getting really good at putting their foot in their mouth but they only open their mouth to change feet. After saying that Assassin’s Creed Unity was going to be locked to 30 FPS to not favour one console over the other and then correcting that statement to say that it’s a CPU limitation, Ubisoft has come up with a third official explanation of why their next Assassin’s Creed game is going to run at only 30 FPS.

This week’s third explanation is that the team is targeting 30 frames per second because that is a more cinematic looking framerate than 60 FPS.

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Tags: Assassin's Creed, Assassin's Creed Unity, Lie Me a River, Ubisoft

eSports Weekend Calendar: October 10 – 12, 2014

Oct 9

Posted by Steve Murray

There are two world championship playoffs this weekend that fans of those games will want to keep their eyes on. League of Legends has the two World Championship semi-finals this weekend ahead of next Sunday’s World Championship Final. Meanwhile, StarCraft II has the final regional WCS playoff for WCS America which will set the field for the World Championship at BlizzCon.

Elsewhere, a couple of tournaments for Hearthstone and CS:GO will have their playoffs this weekend, complete with finals. And if you’re looking for Dota 2 league action, ESL One New York in the Madison Square Garden Theatre is this weekend.

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Tags: Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, Dota 2, Hearthstone, League of Legends, Starcraft II

PlayStation Now Coming to PS Vita and TV on October 14th

Oct 9

Posted by Steve Murray

The PlayStation Vita family of hardware is getting a bit content boost next week. Alongside the October 14th launch of the PlayStation TV device that acts as an equivalent to the PlayStation Vita that you can plug into your TV, the PS Vita and PlayStation TV will get the launch of the PlayStation Now beta on those devices.

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Tags: PlayStation Now, PlayStation TV, PS Now, PS Vita, Sony Computer Entertainment

Steam Converts Canadian Gamers to Canadian Dollar Pricing

Oct 9

Posted by Steve Murray

With a couple of week’s notice, Valve has added local currency pricing for Canadians. This past Tuesday, October 7th, Canadians found the Steam Store showing prices in Canadian dollars rather than US dollars. This resulted in a price increase on the face of the store but this may actually be working to the benefit of the Canadian consumer.

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Tags: Business of Gaming, Canada, Steam, Valve

Assassin’s Creed Unity Runs at 900p and 30 FPS on Both Consoles

Oct 8

Posted by Steve Murray

There have been a lot of complaints about the graphical fidelity and the smoothness of video of games on next-gen consoles. However, Ubisoft’s treatment of Assassin’s Creed Unity isn’t just upsetting one console’s user base but the whole of gaming.

In an interview with VideoGamer, AC Unity senior producer Vincent Pontbriand said that the resolution of ACU would be set at 900p and framerate locked to 30 FPS on both the Xbox One and PlayStation 4. The reasoning behind that is so baffling that everyone has turned against Ubisoft.

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Tags: Assassin's Creed, Assassin's Creed Unity, PS4, Ubisoft, Ubisoft Montreal, Xbox One

Twin Peaks Returns in 2016

Oct 8

Posted by Steve Murray

Oh mairzy doats and dozy doats and liddle lamzy divey. A kiddley divey too, wouldn’t you? Put on a pot of damn good coffee and slice some cherry pie. David Lynch and Mark Frost are teaming up to bring back the iconic cult hit supernatural murder mystery Twin Peaks for a nine episode third season to air on Showtime in 2016.

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Tags: David Lynch, Showtime, Twin Peaks

Comic Book Pull List for October 8, 2014

Oct 7

Posted by Steve Murray

I’ve left it until the last-minute so here’s a quick, thrown together comic book pull list for this week.

Injustice started as a comic book prequel to the video game but it seems as though the comic has more staying power than the game. It’s time for Injustice: Gods Among Us – Year Three #1. With war engulfing the Earth and a great evil threatening mankind, can the Avengers and X-Men co-exist long enough to help? The answer lies in the nine-part miniseries Avengers and X-Men: Axis. And George R.R. Martin’s Meathouse Man short story gets its own one-shot comic book treatment from Jet City Comics.

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Tags: Pull List, Release List

A Look at Steam Discoverability with Indie Devs, Writers and PR

With the recent Steam Store overhaul to improve discoverability of games and customization of the store, Popular YouTuber and common sense advocate John Bain, better known by his nom de plume, TotalBiscuit, held a panel discussion to look at the effects of the changes to Steam and the advertising of video games.

As part of his three-hour roundtable, he is joined by indie developers Howard Tsao (Guns of Icarus), Mike Bithell (Thomas Was Alone) and Andrew Spearin (Insurgency), writer Mike Rose (Gamasutra) and PR rep Tom Ohle (Evolve PR) for the discussion.

Posted on October 7, 2014 | Video

Haven: Much Ado About Mara Review

Oct 7

Posted by Steve Murray

Not to start all of my reviews this week with a question but how do you follow-up on an episode where nothing happens and all your protagonists are spinning their wheels? You make everything happen this week and start pushing this season forward. Sure, it hits reset on a couple of characters but it’s for the best.

This week, The Guard have Mara and it looks like Dwight is about to assume the throne of this season’s Big Bad much like Jordan did last season. Fortunately, that was a red herring and the season is progressing along its logical path.

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