Tag Archives: CheckPoint

Here’s what I learned from CheckPoint S3E28 and S3E29.

Yeah, double post. Because holidays.

  • TV integration is half of the point of the Xbox One, isn’t it? This joke is trying to be funny. Eh.
  • Goth Kathleen on this episode? I don’t even.
  • Another DragonBall Z game that’s better than most of the television series? Standard.
  • Nintendo’s naming schemes for their first-party games reeks of some sort of Engrish that was corrected by native-English speakers for the sake of trying to save what’s left of Nintendo’s honor as a great gaming company. The only two titles holding that honor as close as possible are the latest Fire Emblem and Zelda titles for their 3DS handheld as far as I can tell.
  • I fully support CheckPoint being included in MSFT’s Xbox Live content plan for the upcoming year. They used to have Major Nelson and those two Brits do stuff on nearly a weekly basis. Why not bring those guys back? Oh wait–because Larry Hyrb is nothing more than a corporate mouthpiece and the two gamer tag show people weren’t funny at all.
  • More Nintendo news? STOP IT.
  • EA is just stealthily trying to rip off new IP to blow them up into the annual sequel plan, as most of their studios seem to be actually trying to make great new games for the latest generation, with this hackathon business.
  • Baww. But they’re Canadian, right? DEM JOKES, FOLKS.
  • Zach Galifinakis as Sonic? Comedy and game-to-film adaptations must be the two worst genre of movies that exist. Combining them surely creates a black hole of cinema, right?

  • A console commentary! Yaaay~!
  • Shin Megami Tensai 4 and Saints’ Row 4 as their games of the year? Boo.
  • ShiftyLook has some pretty funny stuff. The latest Scott & Kris creation is published there. And now a dating sim based on classic Namco properties’ characters? And the ship from Galaga is a romantic option? Is this the new CandyBox? It could be the new CandyBox.
  • A Tomb Raider card game for iOS? PASS.
  • A tie at retail but a clear win for the PS4 when you consider the second-hand market. Although the same number of systems have been sold overall… so maybe it’s still more of a tie, with the stipulation that PS4 owners are more likely to throw obscene amounts of money away in marked up prices.
  • Zoo… what?
  • A best-of-season sequence masqueraded as a finale review. Pretty good stuff.
  • DANCIN’

And the ultimate sad news: I’m not going to cover this anymore if it means having to watch Twitch videos-on-demand. Having to watch unskippable pre-roll commercials longer than 10 seconds is not acceptable. I hope they continue posting these episodes to YouTube.

Here’s what I learned from CheckPoint S3E8.

  • Aussies being screwed about video games is nothing new.
  • Ghost-free is the best free.
  • I’ve never played any of the Saints Row games before, but I wonder how many folks will actually buy a pre-order collectors edition of the upcoming title.
  • Globacore creates a VR-enhanced version of Paperboy. Good on them.
  • The Aussie government doesn’t really care about the reasons that software is generally more expensive to buy in-country than to buy out-of-country. All they really care about is the substancial increase in tax revenues that they get from selling these games in addition to the prices’ discouraging effect on consumers to purchase them. That last bit has to have the uber-moralistically-imposing government feeling happy as can be, I’d imagine. The invocation of price-gouging, a well-time pause, and the accompanying rolling headline of ‘literally what is happening’ is awesome. It’s like Graham knows exactly what’s going on, here.
  • Gift a Game to an Aussie Day is fucking brilliant. So much so, in fact, that it deserves its own bullet point. Which it now has.
  • Another borderline-perverted Japanese dating-sim-meets-actual-sim? Don’t they have any more ideas about how robots can be giant suits for humans to ride in and save the world or something? Actually, now that I think about it, SQUARE ENIX, LOCALIZE MORE FRONT MISSION GAMES YOU WHORE OF A VIDEO GAMES COMPANY.
  • Kathleen wants to pile on the ongoing feminism-in-video-games conversation by rating fictional Japanese characters. #standard
  • Whoa, this segment from Kathleen is definitely on point. Pretty damn hilarious.
  • Graham’s face at the end. I know that feel, bro.
  • Oh god, Kathleen is right. By buying itself out, Activision Blizzard is essentially an indie game developer. THE SKY IS FALLING.

Here’s what I learned from CheckPoint S3E4.

I’m a little late with this post, as I’ve been busy trying to relearn everything I forgot about Linux server administration.

  • Graham and Kathleen are rightfully smug for the US-in-general forgetting Canada Day. Now, moving on…
  • Square Enix continues its string of out-of-touch decisions by deciding that, instead of developing a Final Fantasy VII remake with modern 3D technologies, its time would be better spent by making Cloud’s SOLDIER uniform a pre-order bonus for Lighting Returns: Final Fantasy XIII. But Graham has a point, nostalgia can make up for a lot of sales.
  • MSFT announced an algorithm for match-making that takes into account the ratings and reviews that other players leave about you using the Xbox Live match-making system. The more negative ratings you receive, the more likely you are to be paired up with players with negative ratings like yours. It sounds like a decent way to split up griefing and trolling users from those wanting to just play the game and do so without feeling the need to use racial slurs and so on. Graham’s remarks are right on; if the system works as intended, perhaps there’ll be a bit more self-reflection among the Xbox Live players.
  • Dwarf Fortress hitting version 1.0 in 2033? Half-Life 3 confirmed.
  • Ars Technica comes up with some great information about the prices of console systems at release versus prices adjusted for inflation. While the Xbox One’s launch price is roughly half a gas tank more expensive than the Xbox 360’s launch price adjusted for inflation, it’s important to note that it’s still a difference of half a gas tank. I don’t really consider myself a social being that drives errywhere all the time, but that’s still something to think about.
  • Douche AsstrickDon Mattrick left MSFT and joined Zynga. Going from being the boss of the division that believed that the Xbox 360 was the offline version of the Xbox One to being the boss of a company that preys on consumers’ wallets with pay-to-win games that are borderline addictive. But oh wait, that was Xbox news. And Kathleen got a Dwarf Fortress joke in that needles the Xbox brand again! HEYOOOOO
  • The way to get a game that glorifies drugs classified in Australia: find/replace drugs to vitamins.