Gaming Thread 11/02/2014

Apparently one can bruise their kidneys when spraining enough muscles in the lower back. And don't be a goober, if you fall, get up as soon right after unless you want to be living on the floor for a few days till you say to hell with it and call the paramedics. Final parting piece of advice before I get on with the show, sometimes it just better to let plants rot through the cold as when you get older, anything can pop anytime, anywhere.

I'm putting these two tidbits up top just because they're awesome.

GOG had a countdown for a new publisher being added and it ended up being LucasArts. Contract is for 30 games with the initial offerings being:

Indiana Jones And the Fate of Atlantis (been on Steam for awhile now but nice to see a no DRM option)
The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition (another that's been on Steam for quite awhile)
Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic (eh)
Sam & Max Hit The Road (far and away one of the best SCUMM games of all-time)

And really, the stars of the show:
TIE Fighter
X-Wing

Hot damn. So good

Well, it's been 6 years since it's PS3 release but SEGA is releasing the first Valkyria Chronicles on the PC for $20 (includes the DLC). If you've never played this on the PS3, shame on you and frankly I prefer you not read the gaming posts anymore for you are a bad man. But now you can play one of the best SRPGs of all-time on the PC so you're cool. Maybe if we're lucky and this sells well enough, we'll get the second game and finally an English version of the third game.

• Ubisoft beat projections and pulled in about $156 million for the second quarter but it's an over 40% drop compared to last year ($278 million).

• EA continues to roll in cash pulling a whopping $1.22 billion. And EA Access has been better than their internal projections (though they gave no numbers) so expect for Ubi and maybe Activision hopping on that bandwagon before E3 next year and Sony will quickly change their tune in allowing it on the PS4 (they're retarded not to go back on their "we're protecting our bottom line the gamers" rhetoric).

• Capcom continues to be on the downward slope in a serious need to being bought with just under a 40% drop in revenue YoY. Revelations 2 or not, I don't see them not being acquired in the next year or so (you can already pick them up for the bargain price of about a bil). Now, who would be in the market if it's not a random hedge fund or what not? Well, GungHo has the cash and the IP catalog is worth it for mobile and a avenue to take a bit of the console/handheld pie. There is always Nintendo who is really dependent on the Monster Hunter series and they have the cash. Microsoft always have the cash, the IP catalog would be a nice feather in the cap if they get sold/spun off and being the exclusive home for Monster Hunter would get them in the door of Japan in the only sector that isn't crap there. Sony could very much use them but they don't have the cash really and health status is fleeting.

• On one hand, the Playstation brand is doing okay with shipping 3.3 million PS4s last quarter (total is 13.5 million). On the other hand, after a few months of being upgraded out of being junk status, Sony is back to that level with every avenue of growth being worse for wear as their death spiral continues it's 10 year plan. Once again I find myself waiting for them to either be bailed out by the Japanese government (which wouldn't be surprising as Abe has taken Obama's recovery plan and super sized it) or the fire sale finally kicks off before my stocks are worth more than wiping my ass with.

• Like the last few years, Microsoft continues being obtuse when it comes to the Xbox brand with all the things in it (the Surface and phones are also part of the Xbox section). Only things we really know is that MS has shipped 2.4 million Xbox One and 360 units. And the division made $2.4 billion in revenues the past quarter. Low end estimates would put the Xbox One around 6.8 million units, high end would be about 7.5 million. Once again Nadella said that they're fully behind the Xbox and it's their testing bed for future tech. I dunno, it's Microsoft, they've never really been upfront with the brand when they're not winning.

• Nintendo actually made a profit this last quarter, $85.7 million. It's not a big profit and it doesn't wipe out the loss of Q1 but it's still a profit. Even though it's all based on the Yen being worthless (Abenomics at work). Nintendo always has an insane attach ratio for their games but the 48% attach rate for Mario Kart 8 is quite remarkable for the Wii U. Sadly the system is dead with only moving 660K units the last quarter but nice for Mario Kart. They also finally sorta unveiled the first Quality of Life device which I'm pulling out of the financial section and throwing it into the news section

• So Nintendo showed off their first QoL device, it's a sleeping sensor connected to the Wii U and 3DS. Now, I really like this type of tech and there is potential growth in this area but it flies in the face of where sleeping monitors are going with it being something sitting on your night stand and not on your wrist. Throw in that it won't be out till 2016 and I'm leery of what kind of support it can pull, at least at this moment, I can't say this is what is going to save Nintendo.

• A Sharp, the people behind the woefully under-rated King of Dragon Pass, announced that they've broken ground on creating a new game set once again in Greg Stafford's Glorantha (HeroQuest, RuneQuest and King of Dragon Pass). I'm so hard right now.

• Bethesda finally gives a non-crap look at the upcoming Battlecry

• Apparently someone still trusts Denis Dyack enough to give him money. Only question I have is: WHY?

• After three weeks, Sony finally acknowledges the state of DriveClub's online. Not much new in it other than Sony is taking a page of Obama's bus by throwing Evolution under it and then backing up and over it repeatedly.

• Bungie confirmed what the data miners found, the first expansion pack for Destiny, The Dark Below is 3 story missions, 1 dungeon (2 for PS4), 1 raid and three MP maps. Run ya $20 or $35 if you buy the season pass.

• Twitch steps up their battle against females streaming as they've implemented rules against titties, yo. Of course this brought out the drooling retards saying there should be no cams during streams and gaming should be the only focus on Twitch and not people trying to eek out a living while getting themselves over.

As I laid on my bedroom floor for a few days, the two games that got me through it were Sentinels (which I've found works better digitally) and this year's release of Pro Strategy Football.

With Sentinels, I've found that just the general gameflow meshes better with the computer taking care of everything for me (and the card game is pretty obtuse on it's rules and just the amount of cards). That being said, the presentation really leaves a bit desired. I'm still not a fan of the game's art and any sort of videogame effects could really push the game forward. And I've personally never noticed in how needed the expansions are to this game as it's a bit lacking in variety. If you like the physical game, buy this and hope they release the expansions. If you haven't, eh...there are worse games out there but I'd wait for a sale.

I really liked last year's game and Pro Strategy Football 2014 starts off the same. The game is just good wholesome stratergy fun wrapped in American Football. I like that he added casual difficulty mode for who wants to get their feet wet before they play the game for real. The bump from Tecmo Bowl to to a 16-bit version of Tecmo Bowl is actually quite nice. That being said, the UI is still atrocious and seriously hurts the game and it's appeal. If he could get that squared away, you would have a serious contender with mainstream appeal on his hands. And I also wish it shipped with the career mode as playing the season is a lot of fun but being able to keep a team and seeing them stay together. Of course this would also hopefully lead down to robust GM options. Just one of those games that is great but it needs more polish and a bigger budget. I very much recommend it if you want a turn based football game that borrows from Tom Landry Strategy Football.

It's Call of Duty week, you're not getting much in new releases.

Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare (PC, PS3, PS4, XBO, 360) - They've finally done it, they've added zombies into the campaign with Zombie Spacey. Considering this is tracking 70% worse than Black Ops 2, this should be interesting. So shaken Activision are with this, they've added a new mechanic with the limited use jet packs. Game looks good IMO and I'm really not a fan of COD so this game is gonna bomb so hard. Be curious on the deals on this during the Christmas season.

Depth (PC) - After years of talking about it and showing off the alpha and beta, this divers vs shark multiplayer game is finally coming out. It's strictly all death match. Hope this game is good

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posted by Gang of Gaming Morons! at 03:05 PM

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