Category Archives: Games

Microsoft Buys Mojang for $2.5 Billion

The rumours are true. The biggest little indie studio in the world is being bought by the biggest evil empire in gaming (except for maybe EA… and Ubisoft). The earlier reports about Microsoft buying Minecraft developer Mojang was just a little off the mark. The US tech giant bought the Swedish indie studio for a whopping $2.5 billion.

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Tags: Business of Gaming, Microsoft, Microsoft Studios, Minecraft, Mojang, Xbox

Game Trailers Roundup for September 15, 2014

Sep 15

Posted by Steve Murray

It’s been far, far too long since I’ve done a roundup of recently released game trailers. When they come out, I add them to my watch later list on YouTube and that list has gotten embarrassingly long. Between triple-As, double-As and indie titles, there are scads of trailers that we need to catch you up on.

This week, we’ve got some upcoming releases including Forza Horizon 2 and Crimes and Punishments to help you put together an end of the month shopping list. If Pokemon is more your speed, we have a couple of trailers for that too. Maybe you’re a horror fan? There are trailers for Alien: Isolation and Resident Evil: Revelations 2. And that’s just some of the trailers we have for you.

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Tags: Trailers

YouTuber Recreates Guardians of the Galaxy Opening in Destiny

It took me until Labour Day weekend but I finally saw Guardians of the Galaxy. There really isn’t a whole lot else to do when you’re a tourist in Sudbury once you get Science North out of the way. I don’t really do movie reviews but I think I can sum it up as being absolutely awesome.

One thing that I really loved was the soundtrack of oldies hits. I wasn’t expecting it when Redbone’s Come And Get Your Love came on at the start of the movie but it made for a great opener. And one thing that everyone seems to like about Bungie’s Destiny is the ability to bust a move on a whim. Naturally, that leads to the epic mashup of epic mashups as Guardians of the Galaxy meets Destiny in this video by Somewhat Awesome Games.

Posted on September 15, 2014 | Video

Critics Corner: NHL 15

Sep 12

Posted by Steve Murray

In America, the big EA Sports title is Madden 15. Every football fan that’s also a gamer buys Madden every year. We have a similar thing here in Canada. Since most of our sports fans are hockey fans, it’s EA’s NHL series that gets the buys. If you’re buying this year’s NHL 15 on the PS3 or 360, you played it last year. It’s just NHL 14 with a roster update as EA Sports is wont to do with its legacy-gen titles that aren’t big in America (see also: FIFA). Their focus is on developing the current/next-gen title. Well, that’s what they want you to think.

While NHL 15 is a huge step up in presentation with far better graphics and TV style presentation that looks ripped from NBC, a bunch of the features that gamers enjoyed on the PS3 and 360 aren’t here this year. Like the Madden games at the start of the last generation, fan-favourite features were left out of the next-gen launch title and will be reintroduced later so they can be heavily touted by the marketing people. The actual on-ice gameplay is supposed to still be great. Whether you’re going to want NHL 15 depends on whether you really care about all the off-ice features that are missing or trimmed this year.

Well, there’s always next year. Right, Leafs fans?

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Tags: EA, EA Sports, NHL 15, PS4, Xbox One

Microsoft Trying to Buy Minecraft Dev Mojang

Sep 11

Posted by Steve Murray

The biggest little indie studio in gaming might soon become part of the current evil empire of gaming. The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Microsoft is strongly pursuing Minecraft developer Mojang and has a deal worth more than $2 billion on the table for the company.

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Tags: Business of Gaming, Microsoft, Microsoft Studios, Minecraft, Mojang, Xbox

The Walking Dead: Season Two – Episode Five (Spoiler-Free) Review: My Only Friend, The End

Sep 11

Posted by Steve Murray

Coming into the second season of Telltale’s The Walking Dead, one of the big things people were talking about is how the game would be able to continue with Clementine as the protagonist. After all, she’s just a little girl. She couldn’t fill the shoes of Lee.

Well, literally, Clem couldn’t fill his shoes. Figuratively, once we got all the character introductions out of the way and got into character and plot development, this season took The Walking Dead to heights surpassing Season One. Sure, the episodes are shorter and maybe the illusion of choice isn’t quite as strong as the first season but amazing story and character writing made this game one of the highlights of 2014.

Now we reach the end of Season Two and boy, does Telltale give this season a spectacular send off.

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Tags: PC, Review, Telltale Games, The Walking Dead, The Walking Dead: Season Two, TWD

EA Sports UFC Still Has Some Amazing Glitches

I can’t imagine that it’s easy to make a video game and especially one that has to recreate such a varied and technical sport as mixed martial arts. But when you’re the biggest sports game developer in the world that is simultaneously the most hated dev/publisher and you’ve acquired the license to the biggest MMA organization in the world, expectations are high. So when your UFC game is full of hilarious glitches, it’s going to be fodder for hilarious videos.

So as a follow-up to the original video, here are more awesome EA Sports UFC glitches as called by “Mike Goldberg” and “Joe Rogan.”

Posted on September 10, 2014 | Video

Square Enix Announces “Dive In” Mobile Cloud Gaming Service

Sep 10

Posted by Steve Murray

Move over, Sony. You’re not the only ones who want a piece of the cloud gaming market. Square Enix is getting into cloud gaming but is cutting out the pesky console middle man. This fall, Square Enix will be launching a service in Japan that will let you stream games to your Android or iOS device called Dive In.

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Tags: Business of Gaming, Dive In, Mobile, Square Enix

“GamerGate”: Gamers Aren’t Bad People; Misogynists, Harassers and Troglodytes Are

Sep 9

Posted by Steve Murray

A couple of weeks back, I stopped posting on here unannounced. That was in the midst of the Zoe Quinn controversy, since redubbed by unimaginative people as “GamerGate,” and there was no other news being reported by the gaming media. Normally, I would find something from the tech world or some videos to fill in the Friday (August 29th, if you’re keeping score at home) but I was absolutely defeated.

Not only had the Zoe Quinn story not died after the couple of weeks it had been alive but the discourse had gotten worse. It wasn’t just all the slut shaming, harassment, threats and other general misogyny that was directed at Zoe and anyone who spoke in support of her or against slut shaming, misogyny and the like. The gaming media, having spent the entire Zoe Quinn scandal not talking about the accusations of members of the gaming media compromising their professional ethics and integrity in dealings with Quinn, came out swinging and condemned gamers for being terrible people. They declared gamers dead.

They wildly missed the mark. Gaming isn’t dead. Gamers aren’t dead nor are they the worst people in the world. It’s the people who are spewing hate that are the real terrible people but they don’t represent all gamers.

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Posted in Games, Long Read

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Tags: GamerGate, Gamers, Games Journalism, WPLongForm

Is Warner Bros. Working on a Steam Competitor?

Sep 9

Posted by Steve Murray

Just when you thought that we were up to the saturation level for online gaming clients and distributors, another publisher wants in on the action. While it was logical for heavyweights like EA and Ubisoft to launch their own stores to make a few extra dollars off of their and other publishers’ games, it may surprise you that Warner Bros. has recently filed a number of trademark filings that they’re looking to launch a Steam/Origin/Uplay competitor.