Not much to complain about this week. Unfortunately there isn’t much to celebrate either.
The Amiga was 30 years old this week! What’s an Amiga? No idea, but apparently it’s an old-school console by Commodore. It allegedly had great graphic and audio output but compared to Sony’s PS4 the games look shit – and in the year 2045 I hope some dickhead says the same thing about PS4.
eSports have reached a new level of authenticity. A gaming athlete has admitted to using performance-enhancing drugs during tournaments and this admission has shown a spotlight on the rest of the sport. Now eSport organisations want to enforce drug tests. It’s only a matter of time before we have our gaming equivalent of Lance Armstrong.
Patrice Désilets is the guy you can blame for the huge Assassin’s Creed saga but since departing Ubisoft on unfriendly terms (Ubisoft was the villain) he has started his own studio called Penache Digital Games. Their first game is called Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey and it will be an episodic game that chronicles the journey of man, from caveman all the way to modern day. It’s definitely a game we should all be excited for, maybe more so than No Man’s Sky.
Hear me moan,
Supergiant Games are one of those indie developers who you can put your trust in. They gave us Transistor and Bastion. Whatever they’re working on next will no doubt be incredible but it better be radically different to Transistor and Bastion because, quite frankly, the games are far too similar.
I played Transistor before Bastion. I thought Transistor had an interesting fighting mechanic and I really liked the narrating sword. I wasn’t entirely pleased by the story as it was too ambiguous for me. When you create an interesting world I want it padded out and force-fed to me; don’t litter the world with clues that never lead to a concrete answer. Overall, it’s a magnificent game with a great combat system and an epic soundtrack.
I’m so glad I played Transistor before Bastion because if it was the other way around I would have been so disappointed because they have so much in common they’re almost identical! I’m only half way through Bastion but so far I’ve seen a lot of what made Transistor great; the weapon trials, the perk to summon a comrade to aid you in battle, the loadout menus – all the same.
They are all great features that make both games fun but I still feel like I’ve been tricked. Bastion has actually lowered my opinion of Transistor.
Nokia haven’t made a decent phone since the Nokia 3310 but rumours are circulating that they’re getting back into the mobile market. There are also rumours that Nokia are developing some type of VR so it’s not unrealistic to assume the virtual reality will share a bed with the new mobile phones. This is awkward because Nokia sold their mobile division to Microsoft – who is working on their AR-device Hololens – and are consumers going to jump back onto Nokia’s ship when we’re all sailing on Apple and Samsung yachts?
All I’m seeing is a desperate company jumping on a trend. One day we will live in a world where VR and AR are as common as televisions but as of right now it looks like a fossilised dinosaur trying to compete with a bigger, better, genetically-engineered, camouflaging dinosaur.
Fuck me, there’s going to be a Minecraft movie. I shouldn’t care because I’m not the demographic. I grew up on the superior real deal – Lego – but for some reason I do care. Maybe it’s because I’ve never played Minecraft and now that it’s a franchise reaching other mediums besides stationary perhaps I’m missing out. This is a game that has spawned another version of itself in a completely different genre and now it’s taking over Hollywood? What’s next, a Minecraft petting zoo?
I’m sceptical for two reasons. Minecraft is a videogame and videogames haven’t had a fortunate run of feature-length adaptations. Telltale will probably be able to tell an interesting story in Minecraft: Story Mode but it’s still a game first and foremost – a successful interactive virtual novel doesn’t mean it will translate to 120 minutes of screen time.
The director is also a concern. I haven’t seen It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia and I doubt I ever will considering it’s on season 10 and it’s been renewed for another two seasons. I hear good things about it so I shouldn’t be worried that the creator of the hit show, Rob McElhenney, will be at the helm but because I can’t vouch for the guy I’m not going to get my hopes up. This is an opinion purely built on ignorance and I’m going to do nothing about it. I’ll probably never see the Minecraft movie so unless Rob McElhenney directs the next Lego movie he’ll remain off my radar.
In other news, a squirrel has been arrested for stalking a woman in Germany. A police press release stated that, “Officers took the pursuer into custody and brought him to the police station where it showed signs of exhaustion.” Of course he’s exhausted; he probably busted his nut in her underwear drawer.
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Lee the Lamentor
