The pencil drawn animation style of the music video for A-Ha’s Take on Me is iconic. Every knows it. So what would it look like if someone did a Take on Me video using eleven Doctors, some iconic moments in Doctor Who history and a lot of running? A little like that video below.
Building (Critical) Consensus: Gran Turismo 6
Did you know that Gran Turismo 6 came out a week-and-a-half ago? I slightly forgot that it was coming out this year. I was going to get in touch with SCE PR about getting a review copy but it completely slipped my mind. And I find that kind of funny because I’m a big fan of the series. My biggest problem with GT is that GT5 had terrible load times and took up an obscenely large chunk of my PS3’s hard drive space.
As a game, the Gran Turismo series is a bit niche in its focus. If you’re looking for a driving simulator, you won’t do any better than Gran Turismo. The driving physics and the attention to detail are second to none. However, the focus on the driving experience tends to come at the expense of the actual gaminess of the GT series. The menus are a little hard to navigate. The career mode is a little grindy. But pushing for the extra tenth each lap is just one of those great feelings in gaming and I’ve never found a game that’s captured that like Gran Turismo.
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38 Studios Auction Brings in $320,000 But Not for 38’s IPs
We’ve been following the story of the failed 38 Studios on and off for the last year or so and it doesn’t look like the drama surrounding the bankrupted Kingdoms of Amalur developer is going to end any time soon.
In last week’s intellectual property focused auction, the court-appointed received didn’t receive sufficient offers for the rights to the Amalur MMO and sequel to KoA: Reckoning. While the 38 Studios IPs didn’t sell, the major IPs held by 38’s subsidiary, Big Huge Games, were sold for $320,000.
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Haven: The Lighthouse Review
This season of Haven has been a bit up and down. The first half of the season was ever improving as the cast of characters came into their own without Audrey to hold their hands through every potentially catastrophic situation. Then, Poochie arrives. And by Poochie, I mean William. The character sideswiped all the progress made in the first half of the season as everyone spent the final half of the season talking about William.
Would this season finale make bring an end to Poochie or does more William await us after this?
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Geek Links of the Week
Was your country a late cut from the Xbox One launch territory list? Well, you might be waiting until Q3 of 2014 for an official console launch. The same sources who first leaked the changed launch territories say you’re in for a long wait for your Xbox One. [Gamereactor]
4chan did it again. Their latest prank tricked people into bricking their brand new Xbox Ones with promises of 360 backwards compatibility. [Daily Dot]
The managing director of GOG talks about the next generation of consoles forgoing backwards and the fight to preserve games for an industry where the publishers don’t want to look back. [PCGamesN]
“There’s a uncomfortable irony in the Call of Duty series’ twin fascinations with the destruction of the United States and brainwashing.” Richard Woodsworth on the message of Call of Duty. [Edge Magazine]
Cliff Blezinsky, formerly of Epic Game, has been making the rounds on the podcast circuit. This week, he was on both the Joe Rogan Experience and Pointless with Kevin Pereira. [Joe Rogan Experience / Pointless]
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7 Best Games of the 7th Generation: Super Mario Galaxy
There are few series in gaming that are as iconic and as loved as Nintendo’s Super Mario series. Despite the fact that Mario has been around for over 30 years, Nintendo has this way of reinventing Mario and the Super Mario series with each new console generation. The result is games that bring new gamers into Nintendo and Mario while still giving fans who have played Mario games for their whole lives something to love.
For the industry shaking Wii console, Nintendo took Mario to the one place he’d never been before: The final frontier. Not only did Mario’s first adventure in outer space prove to be a smash hit, at release, it was considered one of the best Wii and platformer games of all-time.
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Valve Ships Steam Machine and Controller Prototypes Today
Christmas is coming early for 300 Steam users who were notified Wednesday that they are among the lucky chosen few to get their hands on prototype versions of the Steam Machine consoles and the Steam Controller. Valve announced that the Steam Machines and Controllers were heading out the door today and they’d be releasing an early version of SteamOS to the public.
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How Much Does a Kingdom Under the Mountain Cost?
The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug (which I’ve heard pronounced no less than a dozen different ways) comes out in theatres tomorrow. Unless you’re my sister who somehow managed to score tickets to an early showing tonight…
Anyway, the second part of The Hobbit trilogy will introduce us to the dragon Smaug and his lair, the the Kingdom Under the Mountain, Erebor. To celebrate the release of the new movie, our friends at Movoto valued Erebor which is priced to move seeing as it’s the perfect size for numerous dwarf families (or one dragon).
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YouTube’s Content ID System is Also Hurting Your Favourite Channels
Not only are YouTube content creators having to deal with a massive change to the networking system that will affect their ability to make money, but YouTube made a massive sweep of videos in a content matching check that caused a lot of YouTubers to lose the monetization rights to many videos.
YouTube’s content ID system is fairly indiscriminate. If it finds content that matches copyrighted content in their data base, the monetization rights revert to the original creator. The problem is that it makes no provisions for fair use and the dispute system is often considered as non-existent.
But rather than rehash this week’s column about YouTube on monetization, this detailed explanation of YouTube content matching, monetization and the implications of the current system by Force of Force Strategy Gaming does a much better job than I ever could.
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Gaming Needs a Second Showcase Event
Having taken some time to think about it, while the awards portion of VGX might be unsalvageable without a major overhaul, the concept, in its current form, still has some merit. The emphasis the former Video Game Awards put on unveiling new games and new game footage and trailers were a major draw for gamers.
Inadvertently, the format of the VGAs/VGX shows that there is demand for more big showcase events that publishers and developers can use to show off their next big thing to an audience always willing to get excited over the next great game.
et geekera 