Author: Scott

We’re watching 2015 with a skeptic’s eye at the following link.

So, did it feel a little bit like a winter E3 over the weekend? Cause it felt a little bit like a winter E3 to us. Game reveals left and right, more footage of previously announced titles. All of it pretty much pointing to a fantastic 2015. And, of course, let’s hope the delay fest of 2014 doesn’t strike again next year (already has for Witcher 3, but it’s still releasing in 2015…so far).

Given the recent issues with games being released broken or needing patch after patch, it was hard for me to get excited about what I was seeing. I mean, I want to see more, no doubt, and I look forward to the release of all these great things, but I’m doing so while keeping it in the back of my mind that things aren’t always as they seem when being presented in such a way. Save for maybe that Uncharted 4 live demo. Nothing says this is live real working code like a death during an onstage performance with a glitch included.

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We’re still disappointed in Ubisoft at the following link.

Again, to be the fly on the wall during conversations with corporate would be a wonderful superpower to have. Ubisoft seems to dig a hole with one hand and then fill it with the other, only to dig it back out again. In case it wasn’t clear in the show I’ll try to timeline it a little for you:

Ubisoft sets a review embargo on Assassin’s Creed: Unity for 12 hours after release of the game. Game releases and 12 hours later everyone know how big a bug-filled, unoptimized mess the game turns out to be. Maybe 24 or 48 hours later, the embargo for FarCry 4 ends and mostly positive reviews flood the internet. Why end embargo so late for one but not the other? Or the reverse of that. Then we come to last week and news about The Crew. A game that has NO embargo but won’t be shipped early to reviewers. They give an excuse as to why but it’s falling on deaf ears for myself.

At least we got a Star Wars teaser (for Matt) to talk about.

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We’re not matching Amazon’s prices at the following link.

Sometimes there isn’t one single topic to dominate the conversation. A segment spent here and another segment spent there. Maybe a call, maybe an email. Whatever the case, when something doesn’t dominate the show, you get a grab back of topics thrown around. Such as the case with this episode. We talk about the games we’ve played, as we always do, but we somehow manage to make that last an hour. I don’t exactly remember how, but I had something to do with, I know. Then we talk about getting deals on games and consoles that aren’t…illegal, really, but may have a bit of moral weight to them.

Whatever the topic and whenever the week, we’ll be here live each Saturday night to talk about them with you. As always, thanks for listening.

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We’re under review embargo at the following link.

We often talk about being a fly on the wall during certain conversations, though the one that must have taken place at Ubisoft wasn’t likely as interesting as we might make it out to be in our heads. There likely wasn’t any push back saying that Assassin’s Creed Unity wasn’t ready for release. Probably just questions about if a day one patch would fix it or something along those lines. Hell, it may not have been any question at all. Pre-order numbers were probably enough to justify release. Told PR to make sure the review embargoes were far enough out to make any cancellations negligible and then ship it.

Whatever the case may be, the problems with Ubisoft as well as the matchmaking issues and day one patch needed for Microsoft’s big Halo collection on Xbox One made for a pretty depressing week to enjoy this hobby. Nothing works when you pay for it anymore and there’s a chance even after you pay for it, it may still not work.

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We’re not as excited about Overwatch as you might be at the following link.

Blizzard did a thing and announced some stuff. But no manner of flash, pomp and circumstance could rile the excitement of most of us on the show. Particularly that of Nate and James, the two people on the show with the most experience of what it is Blizzard does.

The rest of us had no real opinion either way, but speaking for myself and what Overwatch showed off didn’t seem like anything new to me, and, in fact, it seemed VERY familiar what with the banging of wrenches to make a thing and setting up portal stuffs. I’ve done that before. I can do it now, in fact. There’s more to be said for Overwatch, particularly after more is revealed and known, but for now…we’ll probably just be watching over it for something to strike our collective fancy to draw us in. Also, we’re keeping an eye on how they’ll want us to spend our money with it as well.

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We’re spending too long on a topic we shouldn’t at the following link.

I suppose it’s my fault for opening the door to the conversation, but at the time I was very uninformed with the goings on of Phil Fish, Zoe Quinn, and that whole situation happening for the past week. What I realize now, after the fact, is that I, personally, have very little to say on the matter that hasn’t already been said. Someone on the CoG forums said it best, I think, “Just treat people like people.” Thinking back on the situation, it was a topic we shouldn’t have brought up. It didn’t go anywhere on the show and only led to us trying to get off the topic onto other things. It also makes writing a summary of the episode even more difficult. Even now I’m ready to move on to some other topic to tell you about from the show.

So, moving on, Firefall seems to come highly recommended by a regular listener of ours, even to the point of calling into the show to give it his praise. Speaking of praise, James returns to the show this episode and we give Wolfenstein: The New Order its due (by that we mean, hey…you should probably play this, it’s good). On the other side of that coin, his opinion of Destiny has changed since playing the beta but it opened the doors to our discussion of space combat games – something we seem to possibly seeing a revival of in the very near future.

Show Note: While I will be at PAX, the show will be LIVE this weekend!

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There’s 30 minutes of more show for iTunes pre-orders at the following link.

We’ve done bonus content for our show before and if we ever did it again we’d never hide it behind a paywall or make it exclusive to iTunes or YouTube or something like that. We’d like everyone to be able to enjoy it with the least amount of hoops to jump through as possible. Which is why it sometimes comes as a head scratcher when a previous game becomes exclusive to a system. Even when DLC becomes exclusive to certain retailers. I mean, we know WHY it happens, we’re just not fans of it.

Money makes the world go round, as it were, and that seems to be the case for games as well with the recently revealed Rise Of The Tomb Raider being exclusive to Xbox consoles for “holiday 2015”. We know it’s a timed exclusive, but that doesn’t make it any better for us to come to terms with. Then again, it seems like something we should since there’s no sign of this ever stopping.

Money: now you’re playing with power.

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We’re kickstarting our patreon for paypal donations at the following link.

First things first, if you aren’t reading or haven’t yet read Console Wars about the Nintendo Vs. Sega battle in the 90s, you really should check it out. We won’t have the author on for another week or so, but it worth bringing up now because I’m enjoying the hell out of it.

I don’t know the statistic of successful Kickstarters versus those that failed, but in the 20 or so that I’ve backed, 2 of them didn’t meet their goal, and there’s a few left that are still in development (one of those gets a trailer at Comic Con this week). My personal experience hasn’t been a bad one and there’s probably a lot of people who’ve experienced the same. One bad Kickstarter doesn’t make them all bad. Just…be careful where you put your money and, just as important, understand the rules of Kickstarter….and “early access” for that matter.

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We’re saving Marvel at the following link.

Actually, we’re not doing anything of the sort, but most of us watched EVO all weekend and would have during the show had we not had to do…a show. I can imagine ArJay shares the sentiment, but for me, personally, EVO is fascinating to watch and no matter the game being played, I am transfixed with the competition and skill being displayed during the fights. It really has everything you could want in almost any kind of competition. I’m not really a sports guy. I can watch a game and get the point and empathize with fans of a team, but there’s still a disconnect of some sort. That isn’t something I have while watching EVO – in fact, I know from how it feels watching these matches what sports fans feel and can easily understand their passion to something I was so dismissive of before.

Oh yeah, I’m also building a virtual pinball machine – and don’t worry, we DO NOT talk about Wolf Among Us in this episode.

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We’re patiently sniping but valiant in our efforts at the following link.

We’re still in the middle of what feels like a wasteland of game releases and gaming things to talk about, but, for some reason, I don’t actually feel that to be true. I’ve got two playthroughs of Valiant Hearts out of the way in one week’s time and have made good progress in Sniper Elite 3, but something still feels lacking. Maybe it’s just this time of year that has set in for me (or all of us) to experience a slowing down of releases and news. Regardless, this episode only seems to enforce that kind of thinking. We do hit on the two games I’ve spent time with this week, but we also distract ourselves in going over our history of gaming – where it started for us and the different turns it took along the way. It was fun, interesting, and something I really wish James, Nathan, and Matt could have also shared with us by being on the show.

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Now we’re playing with power at the following link.

Topics for the episode start out with Nintendo and how things seem to be going for what has really become the “granddaddy” of console gaming, portable or otherwise. None of us want bad things to happen to Nintendo and most all of us say that while hardly owning ANY of their current product, be it 3DS or WiiU. They are relevant, to be sure, but what is unsure is how relevant they are in the discussion of the new, current gen systems. The numbers, as it were, don’t lie.

I’m writing this on a Wednesday and trying to keep the description as close to the discussion in the show as possible, but this week, even before this was posted or written, has been a busy one when it comes to numbers, sales, charts, and SKU’s. None of us are oblivious to it, and you can easily guess how this post will be written next week.

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