Monthly Archives: November 2013

Here’s what I learned from CheckPoint S3E24.

  • Sports games that aren’t FIFA can go die in a fire. That said, I hope they rip this non-FIFA sports game a new one.
  • Black Friday jokes? Neato. “Celebrate family by murdering family” is a bit too violent of a thought to be funny, in my view. I’d have gone with “Celebrate family by lining up outside a retail establishment for days on end without them.”
  • A new free-to-play Soul Calibur game? Now this could be a real step forward for fighting games. Their previous titles had weak stories to combine with a campaign-style mode that made playing a fighting game alone a reasonable notion. The depth of the character creation tools in previous titles in the series would allow players to completely customize the move set. If anything like this is on the horizon for the next Soul Calibur, I think it’s time for CAPCOM and other fighting game publishers to take notice.
  • With the cameras being shipped (or promoted) with the next-gen consoles, Sony’s approach to outsourcing photo content verification to Facebook seems like a pretty good call. Not only does the third-party integration strengthen how connected the Sony service feels, but it adds more and more value to having a Facebook account (along with a real name which is verified by the Facebook account) associated with your gaming profile. For consoles, the trend of moving away from anonymity doesn’t seem to be slowing down.
  • The football management genre of simulation games has finally come to American sports simulations in such a way as to finally be noticed. It’s not groundbreaking. It’s not even newsworthy to explain how it works further than “it’s fantasy basketball in your fantasy basketball based on how fantasy basketball works with other meta bullshit”.
  • “I hope senpai makes it to the Final Four.” OH DEAR GOD GRAHAM PLEASE LET’S NOT MIX COLLEGE BASKETBALL REFERENCES WITH JAPANESE DATING SIM-SPEAK.
  • A “recursive Xbox setup” is exactly how I’ll be using my systems when I decide to pull the trigger on the Xbox One purchase, provided the display lag isn’t terribly game-shattering.
  • A short reference to Sony’s “WE OWN YOUR X” clause in relation to communication over the Playstation network stuff. But it does kind of make sense, don’t use a gaming console to facilitate drug deals. Do it on the street corner like everybody else.

XCOM: Enemy Within is intense.

The campaign is going well, in my estimation. We’ve been consistently pushing the alien advances, once thought to be insurmountable, back steadily. I am constantly juggling the whole operation.

I mentally review the calendar as my operations and control center use the satellites I put into orbit survey for alien attacks. My mind computes the medical reports, preliminary research timetables, and the days since the last encounter and returns a result I wanted to avoid: the probability of an attack during the next week seemed certain.

Will there be enough time to put this research into laser weaponry through its paces and into the hands of my operatives before the next attack? Will my veteran sniper, whom I just gave a commendation to for her clutch reflexes in saving a comrade, recover from her injuries in time to lead the counter-attack for the next incursion? If not, can my untested reserve soldiers survive their first encounter?

I’m not even factoring in the terrorist network of alien sympathizers I have a sinking suspicion are trying to ascertain the location of the XCOM base of operations or the near constant teeter-tottering of a relationship I have with some of the more unfortunate member-nations of the Council. When I only have one team to send out on a mission during simultaneous attacks in France for the fourth time, China for the fifth time and Nigeria for the first time–is it wrong to spurn the French over the Chinese and not even give Nigeria’s first encounter a second thought? Do I dispatch aid in the form of valuable resources to Brazil so they can strengthen their response against the aliens, or do I spend those same resources courting intelligence on the EXALT cells that might be seeking to end the human struggle against the aliens?

I might be over-dramatizing the meta of XCOM: Enemy Within, but that’s really the meta a player will consider within the span of a couple of minutes explained in a nutshell. This game is intense.

Here’s what I learned from CheckPoint S3E23.

  • A bash Sony episode? They just released the PlayStation 4, why not jump on them a bit? There must be balance, right?
  • OH FUCK, DESERT BUS, I FORGOT ABOUT YOU. 125k USD RAISED IS PRETTY FUCKING COOL o7m8
  • Everquest Next: Yeah, We Lifted The Next Thing from Dungeons and Dragons, So Get Bent has pre-purchase packages to allow players to get early access to the game as it’s being developed, on top of buffs for new characters in this presently non-existent game. I’m sure Sony will sell a few packages to diehard Everquest fans, but I don’t think that they’re seriously considering taking on bigger MMOs like WoW or EVE Online with “deals” like these.
  • Warcraft movie? SNORE.
  • Business programs at schools are pretty important… for the schools they are connected to. While the prestige one gets from attending and graduating from these schools is certainly noteworthy, I’m not sure that getting a bunch of video game executives together and planning a curriculum around making a video game company really cuts it as an innovative program.
  • Desert Bus plug again!
  • The Xbox One probably is the only console that could handle Minecraft. Except for the PS4. Annnd of course, nearly any modern gaming PC.
  • Short a story so you have to film in front of your production crew? BUT WHERE IS PAUL, DAMMIT?!?