Another week, another edition of the pull list. You know, I write this post every week and every week, I let myself get farther behind on my comics. I just need to set aside a couple of hours to just read comics. My only concern is letting everything else fall behind on the blog. I really could use a second hand to get things posted.
Anyway, I’ve got four comics that might interest you this week. It’s not a new series but I’ve heard nothing but good things about DC’s Wonder Woman series which releases its 28th issue this week. Marvel brings back an old series in the Marvel Now universe with New Warriors #1. If you’re looking for a weird cross-over comic, The Lone Gunmen and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cross paths in The X-Files: Conspiracy – Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #1. And Larime Taylor is back with A Voice in the Dark #4.
Well, we can criticize games with microtransactions all we want for being cash grabs but we can’t complain too much when they are very good games and very successful at grabbing cash.
Based on their recent third-quarter financial earnings report and an interview with MCV, it looks as though Grand Theft Auto Online’s microtransactions has brought in upwards of $66 million for publisher Rockstar Games and owners Take-Two Interactive.
Given the epic story of The Last of Us, expectations for the game’s first were through the roof. Very seldom are DLCs better than the main campaign and I think the reviews indicate that for the Left Behind DLC. Many critics say that it’s as good as the main campaign but not better.
However, could you really get better than the story in The Last of Us in a DLC? I guess you would have to be able to define what could have been better and how to make it better to improve upon the original in a DLC. The story was just about perfect, in my opinion, so all that was left to improve on was the gameplay. The Last of Us isn’t a gameplay driven game so it wouldn’t make much sense to overhaul gameplay for a DLC that people are playing for the story.
Let’s face it, DLC is a tricky thing to get right. Very seldom is there a DLC that stands up to the main campaign. So rare is a DLC considered worth the money that it becomes noteworthy in the gaming news cycle. Most just feel like something that was pulled from the main game and padded a bit to make a bit more money. The great ones are those that actually have time, effort and care put into their development.
Anyway, enough waxing poetic about DLCs. How good was Naughty Dog’s first-ever single-player DLC? Here’s what the critics think.
This probably doesn’t fall under the usual list of things that we cover on etg but I thought that this was too neat not to post. I’m a big Friday Night Lights fan so when we get a reunion of Landry Clarke’s (played by FNL/Breaking Bad/Battleship alum Jesse Plemons) band Crucificorious, I’m going to post that video.
Clear eyes, full hearts…
On Saturday, popular crowdfunding website Kickstarter announced that they had been hacked and the hackers has made off with a whole host of user data including email addresses, usernames and encrypted passwords.
Back in October, popular YouTube personality John Bain, AKA TotalBiscuit, was embroiled in a brief brouhaha with the developers of a poorly received indie game called Day One: Garry’s Incident. The devs of that game, Wild Games Studio, filed a copyright claim against TB’s video to get it pulled down and it hit the fan. News spread quickly about what happened in a classic case of the Streisand Effect and the game and studio were shown in a bad light as a result.
It seems as though people forget things quickly because TotalBiscuit is in a similar kerfuffle with the developers of another game. Guise of the Wolf is another poorly received indie game, this time by FUN Creators. They also used a DMCA claim to remove TB’s video and had the story blow up to Streisandian proportions.
The funny thing is that FUN Creators didn’t stop at the DMCA claim and strike on the YouTube channel. When TB fought back, things got really weird.
What do some scientists think humans will look like in 100,000 years? Like characters out of manga books. [Mother Nature Network]
Some important Microsoft investors are telling Microsoft’s new CEO that he should drop Bing, Surface and Xbox from the company’s portfolio. [Washington Post]
Developer Jeff Vogel explains why Dong Nguyen pulled down his wildly popular Flappy Bird and how the vitriol from both random folks on the internet and the gaming media can get to you. [The Bottom Feeder]
EA’s Chief Creative Officer doesn’t see the problem with the SimCity and Battlefield 4 launches because the games sold well. It looks like EA is trying hard to win a third-straight Worst Company in America award from The Consumerist. [Rock, Paper, Shotgun]
If they go with a more Olympic-style model, could the World Cyber Games be revived and thrive? [eSportsMax]
It’s only appropriate that a game whose review on Valentine’s Day has a love story. Okay, that’s probably a bit of a stretch when it comes to Contrast seeing as the game is a puzzle platformer where a man trying to win back his family is only really of minimal importance to the game. However, it’s there so I’m calling Contrast an appropriate game to review today.
When Contrast was released, it certainly carried some big expectations. While Compulsion Games was a rookie developer, the game had been selected as one of two free games on PlayStation 4 at launch for PlayStation Plus members. Was Contrast worthy of such a distinction as being on of Sony’s featured launch titles?
Last month, it came to light that King, the makers behind the wildly popular Candy Crush Saga mobile game, had filed trademark applications on the words “candy” and “saga.” Not only are they trying to trademark common as dirt words, they were trying to enforce their trademarks by going after other games, including the not at all similar The Banner Saga game by Stoic Studio.
At the end of January, King CEO Riccardo Zacconi issued an open letter saying that King wasn’t intent on eliminating any and all competition using their trademarks. Instead, King said that their trademark policy “is to protect our IP and to also respect the IP of others.”
Unfortunately, that isn’t how it’s actually working in real life. King is using loopholes in trademark law as part of a legal battle with CandySwipe, a game that preceded Candy Crush Saga by two years, and outspend developer Albert Ransom out of the mobile app business.
It’s only the start of February and we haven’t seen the likes of The Witcher 3, Titanfall or inFamous: Second Son but I think that the 2014 GOTY (or is that GOATY?) has just been announced.
Goat Simulator is a little indie game by Coffee Stain Studios that puts you in the hoofs of a goat. The developers describe the game thusly:
“Goat Simulator is a small, broken and stupid game. It was made in a couple of weeks so don’t expect a game in the size and scope of GTA with goats. In fact, you’re better off not expecting anything at all actually. To be completely honest, it would be best if you’d spend your $10 on a hula hoop, a pile of bricks, or maybe a real-life goat.”
et geekera 