Milestone’s WRC series and I have a long history. I’ve played each of the four games and reviewed the last three. The series has evolved from TV presentation to arcade presentation. It’s tried to be rally sim and tried to be a WRC-licensed Dirt game. Every time it makes a change, they take two steps forward and at least one step back.
With WRC Powerslide, Milestone has completely gotten away from proper rallying. Instead, Powerslide is a WRC karting game. While I’ve been looking for the proper WRC series to embrace being a proper rally sim, Powerslide proves that you don’t actually know what you want from gaming until you get it.
I honestly don’t understand the ESRB’s games rating system. I’m sure that they have a very particular set of criteria that triggers a specific rating slapped on the box.
However, I really don’t understand why Dark Souls II is getting a T rating after its precursor, Dark Souls, was rated M. The confusing thing is that the ESRB’s descriptions of the two games have almost no differences.
Well, I dropped the ball on this week’s pull list. I’ve been so busy writing other columns, setting up for some video content in the near future and even doing (gasp!) game reviews that the pull list slipped my mind until 5:00 last night. I couldn’t for the life of me figure out why the pull list wasn’t being posted until I realized that I completely forgot to do it.
Anyway, let’s feature a triple bill of debuting series in this week’s pull list. First, She-Hulk breaks off from the FF to get her own solo series in She-Hulk #1. Over at DC, the British Royals are going to use their superpowers to run the tide of World War II in Royals: Masters of War #1. And Image has a new series about life working on an orbital energy platform where murder is afoot in Fuse #1.
The saga of Lightning and Final Fantasy XIII comes together in the third installment of the FF13 trilogy. Square Enix billed it as a story that needed three games to be told in its entirety. When I dropped $70 on the first Final Fantasy XIII back in 2010, it seemed so dull and generic with combat that only required you to hold down X until the battle was over that I made about an hour before I put it at the bottom of a drawer and haven’t touched it for the last four years. I spent hundreds of hours playing the FFX games. I even loved X-2 and I’m pretty sure that everyone hates that game and the J-pop therein.
Somehow, the game managed to get a franchise-record two sequels. If the critics scores are to be believed, the games have been getting worse as the FFXIII trilogy has gone along with Lightning Returns hitting the bottom. Oddly enough, that’s how I feel about the franchise now too. I’ll be quite happy to get back into the series with Final Fantasy XV but, for now, good riddance to FF13.
Anyway, enough of what I think. Here’s what the critics think about Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII.
The resolution, graphic quality and framerate differences between the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 games released on both platforms has been a big story since both consoles launched last November. It was expected that the PS4’s use of GDDR5 RAM would allow it to dance circles around the DDR3 RAM of the Xbox One.
However, one developer says that it isn’t that the PS4’s hardware is so much superior but that the Xbox One’s architecture is the issue. The small 32 MB of high-bandwidth eSRAM isn’t conducive to getting games to render at 1080p.
Facebook has outlawed the use of clickfarms to increase the number of likes on a Facebook page. They’ve banned a number of fake accounts designed solely to like pages that pay for it. However, it’s these fake accounts that are generating millions of dollars in advertising revenue for Facebook.
Veritasium shows how Facebook advertising is based on a lie and how that actually hurts your page as a result.
Warner Bros. has stuck a fork in the Batman: Arkham franchise. Some would argue that they already did that when they took control of the series from Rocksteady and handed it to rookie developers WB Games Montreal.
A community manager took to the game’s official forum to announce that WB Montreal had suspended work on patching the game and had devoted itself to working on the game’s DLC.
Activision has announced a major change to how they make their trademark Call of Duty franchise starting with this year’s edition of CoD. Starting with this fall’s release of Call of Duty, all games will be made on a three-year development cycle. To keep the games coming out annually, Activision has announced that Sledgehammer Games will join Infinity Ward and Treyarch as developers.
Just when you thought that the pre-order bonus wars had reached their crescendo, Sony and GameStop Italy have taken pre-order bonuses to new heights.
If you pre-order the inFamous: Second Son at GameStop Italy, you get a pre-order kit that includes a copy of the game, two cans of Red Bull energy drink and glow-in-the-dark condoms. No, that’s not a typo. Glow-in-the-dark condoms.
There was seldom a moment during the London Olympics that I was tuned away from live broadcasts, especially during handball. I was one of the two-thirds of Canadians who watched Sidney Crosby end the Vancouver Olympics with an overtime goal to win the men’s hockey gold medal.
This time, I won’t be watching. I don’t care if Patrick Chan sets another world record in figure skating or Canada plays Russia for the gold medal in a game that goes to overtime. I won’t be watching my Winter X-Games favourites, slopestyle and halfpipe, or the curlers from my hometown battle for gold.
While the Olympics are supposed to be about coming together, the spirit of unity, and a celebration of sport and national pride, none of that is on display in Sochi. The Russian government, Sochi Olympic organizing committee and the International Olympic Committee have created an Olympic games that does none of that and I want no part of these Olympics.
et geekera 