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?!?

Here’s what I learned from CheckPoint S3E22.

  • Another iOS game that’s ruining the sacred history of a certain comic book hero failing miserably at getting reinvented? What a tease.
  • Well, the intro doesn’t really need spicing, but I wonder if Loading Ready Run have heard about Hot Pepper Game Reviews. That sounds like it could be a kick-ass way of making the intro spicier.
  • 1197 vehicles in the latest Gran Turismo game? Sweet. Looks like Graham is sold on the Lunar Rover being included in the game. That’s fine, but I’m sure that the break-neck speeds of 10 miles per hour will really make it a viable choice in the various races the game provides.
  • A Japanese game developer in the mid-90s overvaluing art over gameplay? I’m sure Street Fighter 2 wasn’t the first game released where that was the case, but I can’t say that I’m terribly surprised that it is.
  • Sports games hit a plateau this past year with the iterations released in the final months of the present generation of consoles. Sure the graphics could always be improved, but the performance and the control that players had over athletes in these simulations have it a high point. With many of these titles borrowing multiplayer game cues from buying packs of trading cards to build out a roster in the fairest way possible, it really is something where increasing the number of unique models in the audience has become a tentpole issue for the various franchises of sports titles. Realistic crowds were more of a selling point than multiple players contesting a ball in mid-air in the FIFA ’14 trailer. Do sports game fans really care about the simulated audience?
  • Mobile gaming embracing pay-to-win isn’t a new phenomenon, but it being new to DC Comics characters and universes seem to be. Injustice: Gods Among Us features in-game purchases that allow you to unlock late-game characters early, making the whole game a bit more of an exercise in patience more than skill. The other titles have in-game purchases that are locked to game progress, and suffer for the lack of exploitability. It’s a shame that these games are just money sinks instead of decently fun titles in their own right.
  • The Ellen Page Simulator just seems to be more of a derivation of Heavy Rain for the sake of the game developer doing something that’s weird and paradigm shifting instead of a game that actually seems unique enough to warrant praise. The actors are actors and they do their jobs pretty well, but as Graham points out, the limits that the game presents to the player on relatively simplistic sequences, such as walking down a hallway, break the whole point of the game as the developer sees it. Beyond: Two Souls was supposed to have so many decision trees and capacity for variance that it was supposed to blow most other games out of the water. Instead, it barely holds up thanks to the performance of the actors involved.
  • Desert Bus time this weekend? Desert Bus time this weekend.
  • COD: Ghosts runs at 720p on the Xbox One while it runs at 1080p on the Playstation 4. It’s still a bad game because fake Infinity Ward made it. No need to have a discussion about which system is better using COD as the framework.