The news that Sony has got a 4K update to the PS4 is indeed surprising, as it shows a worrying degree of hubris that I thought would have been excised during the PS3 era. After all, what will the already 40 million strong install base think by having their PS4’s made redundant like this?
In the weirdest form of a company competing with an almost imaginary foe, Sony has decided to keep up with the likes of the PC market and update their PS4 to support 4K, among other improvements, as well as hoping they will also supersede the Xbox One even further.
The reality is that the PC and console market have always been entirely separate. PC has always been in ahead of what consoles could do and that didn’t stop the likes of the PS2 selling 150 million units in its lifetime. In addition, the Xbox One fell behind the PS4 not down to its technical faults but due to its overall focus as a system.
In that, consoles offer convenience not convergence, having a standardized platform means that developers can focus on game mechanics rather than pushing technical boundaries. This results in a convenient plug and play system that is built around one major thing, playing games.
The Xbox One tried to follow the outdated ideology from the 90’s where you would have one black box to rule the living room. Its inclusion of TV based functionality diluted the appeal of the system and allowed Sony to gain crucial ground by focusing on being a system purely for games.
This is why the actual announcement of a 4K capable PS4 is so maddening. It feels disconnected from reality and the lessons that Sony should have learned on the PS3. They are moving away from the PS4 is meant to be doing and competing in areas that aren’t a threat.
The real danger here is also what the 40 million people that already own the standard PS4 will feel. That’s a big install base and this is not like buying an updated 3DS, portable hardware is cheaper and self-contained. Buying a new console is a big deal, as most people only buy one in each generation. So offering a new and technically improved PS4 just alienates all those that have already bought the standard edition.
Both the standard and new PS4 will be supported throughout this cycle though. With both being able to play the games released for the system. However, it still leaves those that already purchased a PS4 feeling left out and maybe even somewhat betrayed.
Back when Sony seemed less skittish, they used to do smart things like release the same console but streamlined and cheaper. This was because manufacturing costs for the chipsets reduced over time, meaning Sony could improve their margins with streamlined updates.
It was smart because everybody won, Sony improved their margins on the hardware, undecided buyers took the plunge on cooler and cheaper looking hardware and above all those that already bought a console didn’t feel their purchase hadn’t been made redundant.
Naturally, I’ll be keeping a close eye on this but as someone that has already bought a PS4 (as well as pretty much every console ever) this decision by Sony is both disappointing and more than a little mystifying.
In the last two years, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has made huge strides in how the world looks at the company.
Once viewed as an imperialist tech superpower, Microsoft is now considered a gentle giant willing to partner up with anyone and everyone.
From releasing more Android and iPhone apps, to making its flagship technologies available on competing platforms like Linux, Microsoft is much more open than it used to be.
But this week at the annual E3 video-game expo, Nadella’s peace-and-love philosophy is going to get its biggest test to date, as the company will get up in front of the notoriously finicky gamer community to share the latest on the ongoing merger between the Microsoft Xbox One video-game console and the Windows 10 PC.
Some of the strongest Microsoft-at-E3 rumors on the table include an expanded partnership with recent bestie Facebook to bring the Oculus Rift virtual-reality headset to the Xbox One console, and the opening up of the digital Xbox Store to let players on both Xbox and Windows 10 buy games for the other platform.
Those rumors dovetail nicely with Nadella’s broader ambitions. Microsoft sees Windows 10, which came to the Xbox One console in late 2015, as a single platform for every kind of device — PCs, tablets, phones, virtual reality, and, yes, video-game consoles — so your apps and data can follow you everywhere and anywhere.
“Microsoft holds a unique platform role and is strongly positioned to bridge the community divide between core PC and console gamers,” IHS analyst Piers Harding-Rolls told GamesIndustry.biz.
It’s a now-or-never moment for Microsoft: The rival Sony PlayStation 4 has sold 40 million consoles, while estimates place the Xbox One in the neighborhood of 20 million. (Microsoft no longer reports Xbox sales figures.) Meanwhile, Windows 10 has over 300 million users — giving Xbox games a vast, untapped audience.
Given that Microsoft’s smartphone ambitions never took hold, the Xbox One is the first non-PC, consumer device where the company’s multidevice, one-store-to-rule-them-all approach will really get put to the test.
The problem is that by bringing the Xbox and the PC closer together, Microsoft also risks alienating its most passionate, and most demanding, customers: gamers.
Now or never
In 2013, the Xbox One console had a disastrous launch. It was originally pitched as an all-in-one multimedia device, combining movies and TV with video games — an idea that was met with disdain by its core gamer demographic, who demanded a more dedicated video-games machine.
Microsoft compounded the error with unclear communication on whether the Xbox One would function without an internet connection, which was meant as an antipiracy measure. The final nail in the coffin was a price tag that was $100 higher than the PlayStation 4, thanks to a mandatory Xbox Kinect body-tracking sensor that few games actually took advantage of.
The ensuing backlash hobbled sales of the Xbox One out of the gate, a wound from which it never totally recovered. Meanwhile, sales of the PlayStation 4 exploded.
Microsoft has made several improvements and course-corrections to the system since, but Xbox One sales never properly accelerated, and the company has been living in the shadow of that disaster ever since.
Now Microsoft is throwing itself right back into harm’s way. The PC has a certain stigma, often well deserved, as being a more complicated way to play games. Where a video-game console is designed to just work with the titles designed for it, PC gaming requires ensuring that your hardware and software meet certain minimum specs.
So there’s a concern as to whether putting Windows on the Xbox might overcomplicate what’s been a very straightforward, plug-and-play way to game.
Worse, gamers are wary that the Xbox One could just become more like a generic PC, drifting away from its focus on gaming to fulfill Microsoft’s relentless push to put Windows 10 everywhere.
The bigger picture
To preemptively deflect charges of getting away from gaming, expect Microsoft to keep hammering its message of more-games-everywhere.
With an expanded digital store, and an Oculus Rift virtual-reality integration, it means that the Xbox One will one day have access to Windows games, Xbox games, and Oculus VR games. It’s a potentially more vast games library than Sony could ever muster with the PlayStation 4, even with its forthcoming PlayStation VR headset.
After all, even when Sony releases a new, more powerful version of the PlayStation 4 later this year, it’s still limited to PlayStation 4 games, and PlayStation 4 developers, and PlayStation 4 owners. Microsoft has access to Windows developers, and all of the more than 300 million Windows 10 users.
In so doing, Microsoft stands to increase overall adoption of Windows 10: Whether you’re playing on an Xbox or a PC, it’s all just Windows. With the growth of Windows 10, Microsoft stands to make money from stuff like transactions in the Windows Store or the premium Xbox Live gaming service.
Still, melding the Xbox One and Windows 10 also fulfills another strategic imperative for Microsoft. Nadella has long said that he sees the Xbox One as the company’s play for the living room and connected home, competing with the likes of the Amazon Echo and Apple TV.
That means the real test for Microsoft will be to choose its words, and its announcements, carefully. Microsoft may be newer and friendlier nowadays, but it’s walking a tightrope with an audience that could make or break its next big bet.
In a few days, Bethesda kicks off the annual E3 expo with its second-ever press conference, and the pressure is on. The company made an impressive debut last year with the official reveal for Fallout 4 as well as the surprise launch of Fallout Shelter, and rumors are beginning to swirl about what we’ll be seeing this year. We know we’ll be getting a look at Dishonored 2, and it’s reasonable to assume we’ll see the next major expansion for Fallout 4 as well. rumor has it we’ll also be getting Wolfenstein 2,The Evil Within 2, Prey 2, and, most interestingly, a remaster of The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim for current-gen consoles.
That’s what Eurogamer and always talkative industry insider Shinobi602 are saying, at least. The remaster would come with updated visuals, all DLC and, crucially, mod support ala Fallout 4. That last one is probably the biggest deal, and the one thing that might rope in Skyrim players that devoured the thing first time around but might not might come back just for better visuals. After all, Skyrim already has a mature and developed modding scene, and I’d be interested in showing up for some new weapons, armor, enemies and the like.
It’s an exciting prospect on a certain level: I’m a sucker for Elder Scrolls and Fallout games, and I’ll play them wherever I can find them. Part pf me, however, wishes that the team wasn’t putting the effort into Skyrim. It was a great game, but we all played it not too long ago, and it wasn’t the best game in the series anyway. Some readers will already know where I’m going next: I’d sell my soul for a modern console remaster of Morrowind, but something tells me I’m not going to get it. It wouldn’t come with the same mod excitement: Morrowind has mods, of course, but they wouldn’t be up to par with modern visual expectations.
We’ll see, however. Bethesda has kept secrets before, and it’s entirely possible that the company has something up its sleeve for this press conference that hasn’t been leaked to death already. Check it out on Sunday.
It’s as official as possible without being officially official: According to numerous sources speaking with Kotaku, Microsoft will release a new, more powerful version of the Xbox One (code named Scorpio) in 2017. This doesn’t come as a big surprise, seeing as Xbox heaD Phil Spencer strongly hinted at an upgraded Xbox One several months ago. And with all the rumors we’ve been hearing lately about a PlayStation 4.5, it seems inevitable that we’ll be getting new gaming hardware from all of the major console makers much quicker than anyone expected.
This signals a major shift in the video game industry, which has always progressed through “console generations,” periods of five or more years between new, better hardware. The Xbox One Scorpio and PlayStation 4.5 would be “half-step” consoles that extend the current console generation indefinitely. Microsoft’s Phil Spencer envisions a future for Xbox that looks like the iPhone. New models are introduced over the years, but they maintain compatibility with the games and apps that came before.All of this begs the question: Are frequent console upgrades a good thing? Here are some pros and cons about the rumored Xbox One Scorpio.
Pro: Potentially endless backwards compatibility
If you like playing old games, you know how much of a pain it is to keep all of your video game consoles plugged into a TV. According to Phil Spencer, if the future of Xbox plays out how he outlined earlier this year, all Xbox One games will still be playable on all Xbox consoles going forward. That means, in theory, that your copy of Halo 5 will be compatible with whatever an Xbox is in 2035.
Con: You’ll probably spend more money
No one has to buy a super-charged Xbox One Scorpio, of course, but if you want to stay current on video games, you’ll need to get one eventually. That’s too bad, because most Xbox One owners bought their console with the expectation that they’d have a system capable of playing state-of-the-art Xbox games for a good five to 10 years. More frequent hardware refreshes means more money for gamers who want to stay current.
Pro: Better graphics
Obviously, a more powerful new console allows for better looking games. Standard Xbox One games already look pretty fantastic as they are now, but with hardware powerful enough to pump out 4K graphics and power an Oculus Rift — as the rumors suggest — the Xbox One Scorpio could run games that look even more incredible.
Con: Xbox gaming would be more complicated
One great thing about console gaming is that if you own the console, you know you can play any game made for that console. That’s not the case with PC gaming, where games have required hardware specs and occasional compatibility issues with certain PC parts. With a new, more powerful Xbox One coming out, the Xbox One market will be split. Some people will have the original Xbox One, while others will have the newer, more powerful Xbox One Scorpio. It seems likely that games in the future will drop compatibility with the original Xbox One.
Pro: The Oculus Rift could come to Xbox One Scorpio
With Sony set to launch PlayStation VR in October, Microsoft’s virtual reality future looks bleak, seeing as it hasn’t announced anything at all for Xbox gamers (HoloLens doesn’t count). If the rumors are true and Microsoft is looking to partner with Oculus to bring the VR headset to Xbox One Scorpio, it would be a major boon for Microsoft and Xbox fans.
If Microsoft does launch a new and improved Xbox One in 2017, it will shake up much of what gamers have come to expect from consoles. It’s pretty exciting, even if I’m not looking forward to dropping several hundred dollars on a new console that’s only marginally better than the one I already own.
Disclaimer: This is a very personal story, one I’ve been meaning to write for a while. Given my career path and retro-gaming area of expertise, this is just the best way I could tell it creatively. Please don’t mistake my tone for trivializing a serious issue. This is a very important topic to me.
I write to you today a survivor from the seventh layer of my own personal hell. If you’ve ever been unfortunate enough to live through one of the most excruciating painful experiences known to man, then you’re about to get a fresh reminder of those long sleepless nights and dreary days spawned by powerful painkillers.
I’m, of course, talking about kidney stones. Over the course of my 30 years of existence, I’ve unfortunately suffered through about a dozen of these calcified demons, and I work hard everyday to drink enough water and manage my diet to make sure it does not happen again.
I’m roughly three years kidney stone free since starting this management, and I’m grateful every single day that I wake up pain-free. However, the slightest lingering pain in my lower-left back can still send chills down my spine for days on end until I feel it’s safe enough to relax.
Yes, kidney stones are among the absolute worst, and I’m here to help with the aid of video games. More specifically, NES classics that are bound to help you better understand exactly what kidney stones are and how to react to them.
These are five NES classics that you should play when your kidney has literally stabbed you in the back and sent torturous, jagged rocks through the most sensitive area of your body.
Life Force
Konami’s excellent NES SHMUP Life Force is actually a spin-off of its better known SHMUP series, Gradius. This classic improves the established formula in a few ways, but what’s even more unique about it is that it takes place entirely inside of a living organism.
Levels design themselves based on different areas within an alien body, and both common enemies and boss fights tend to be a twisted combination of mechanical and biological in design. Who could ever scrub from their memories that horrific brain boss at the end of level 1?
Players take control of a little white jet that navigates these thin tunnels, and one bullet or wayward enemy is all it takes to wreck your mission. Crashing into the ground also causes your ship to explode, and it is here that we find our similarities to kidney stones.
Some who have lived through kidney stones might think that the most overrated part of the experience is when it actually leaves your body. The image of passing a stone while going to the bathroom is enough to make anyone shudder, but it’s actually the easiest part, in my experience at least. Mine have been relatively small compared to what others have seen, though. A pinch of pain, a sudden spurt, and poof, it’s over.
Even so, I think most would agree that the hard part is actually the journey from the kidney into the bladder through the ureter. Kidney stones only hurt when they are in motion. They are sharp, jagged little beasts that literally slice you every single millimeter along the way. Could be two months, could be half a week, but you’ll know exactly when that thing is moving every inch of its journey.
I hope the imagery is catching on here. A small, sharp white object navigating through thin tunnels surrounded by living tissue. Just like a kidney stone, the jets in Life Force are of no risk if one can successfully guide its way through each level. Skilled players try with all their concentration to navigate, shoot, and dodge in tight quarters to make sure the worst doesn’t happen.
But when that jet steers the wrong way and crashes it jagged edges into a fleshy corridor… game over, man.
Little Nemo: The Dream Master
Capcom’s 8-bit interpretation of the 1989 remake of Winsor McCay’s classic comic. Little Nemo: The Dream Master is an excellent Mega Man clone that oozes personality. It sets itself apart from others using a unique mechanic that allows our hero to overtake the bodies of animals, contriving their powers to aid in traversing this brutal game’s torturous levels.
Nemo can take the form of a frog, mole, or gorilla and ride on the backs of lizards or hornets. And the way he can whip these animal buddies into obedience is to lull them to sleep by feeding them candy. Sweet, sweet, lovely candy that puts them right to sleep before he pounces.
Now, obviously the image of wonderful candy that puts monsters to sleep is every kidney stone sufferer’s personal savior. Delicious, wonderful goodness that not only tastes like your favorite arranged flavor but also sends you off to dreamland after a quick dose or two? Absolutely!
Kidney stones can be rough enough to deny anybody sleep, and even then, sleep is the only relief from the constant pain that these horned abominations can delve out. I remember waking up some mornings during my trials and just praying, hoping to everything that the day would not come and that I could just magically be whisked away to an unconscious state.
Luckily, drugs do allow that, and in North America, it’s not much of a problem.Take your pill, go to sleep or at least walk around in a relatively pain-free, barely aware state. In Japan, where I have had several stones erupt, it’s not quite so simple in that the medicine doctors prescribe aren’t exactly taken… “orally.”
I don’t think I need to spell it out any further, but I would definitely prefer Little Nemo’s dream candy to what the official solution is.
Popeye
Nintendo doesn’t dive into licensed properties very often, but did you know that one of its original arcade games and NES launch titles was actually a Popeye game? Don’t get too excited. There’s not much to it, and this second-thought projects feels more like a bad Donkey Kong knock-off than anything else.
Still, Nintendo working with a popular character that is not one of its own? That’s enough to churn anyone’s curiosity! How exactly does the spinach-swilling sailor tie into kidney stones? Well, pretty easily, actually.18
So, you’ve done it! You’ve passed the stone and you’re back at the hospital for a follow-up appointment. Like a good patient, you caught the devious cretin in a filter provided by your doctor, and his lab assistants have had ample time to study it and tell you exactly what caused it.
What was it? What did I put into my body that could have possibly caused me such ill-fortune? I mean, I hear a lot of french fries and get a real sweet-tooth for chocolate this time of year. Could that be it?
“No,” the doctor says. “Those certainly don’t help, but this stone was actually caused by calcium oxalate.”
And what is the most common food that contains calcium oxalates? You guessed it… spinach! I’ve improved my diet a lot over the last few years, mostly thanks to this thing called “marriage,” but back when I was suffering through kidney stones, I ate a lot of junk food.
One of the few healthy foods I genuinely loved was just that… spinach.
And it was also the cause of all my pain and sorrow in the world. The doctor instructed me to eat it with a special Japanese fish to cancel out the oxalate reaction or try a substitute like Japanese “komatsuna” which doesn’t have calcium oxalate, but it’s just not the same.
I love spinach, so much, and being banned from it just makes me crave it more. After playing this horrible Popeye game for hours on end, though, that should be enough to kill any love for the leafy vegetable. Ugh, what was Nintendo thinking?
Sorry, no spinach. Still, that’s the sacrifice one must make if they want to remain healthy. Management and balance. It’s not always junk food that must be cut.
Super Mario Bros. 2
Needs no introduction. Super Mario Bros. 2 is not the realSuper Mario Bros. 2, but anyone who says that we should have gotten the actual one back in the day is just plain wrong. This is an excellent game, and it is aging just fine alongside its NES brothers.
Now, kidney stones generally occur within older people or those who are overweight. During the peak of my kidney stone era, when I had three in a single year, I maxed out at about 195 lbs, the heaviest I have ever been in my life. Not severely overweight, given that I’m a pretty tall guy, but definitely not an ideal weight either.
However, the doctors said that it was not enough to garner such frequent kidney stones in a mid-twenties year old man, and one figured that there must be an underlying problem besides my diet. Turns out, he was correct.
Unknown to both my parents and me, my left kidney is actually a “double pelvic/double ureter” kidney. This means that it operates as two separate kidneys and both have ureters that connect to the bladder.
It’s not exactly a dangerous situation, but it can lead to an increase in kidney stones. Water is important for a kidney to function properly as it keeps them hydrated, and flushed kidneys means less chance of calcified chunks to take form. However, with a split kidney, water will usually travel to the larger, healthier, and more “normal” half, meaning that the weaker, smaller half tends to be drier unless the body is constantly hydrated.
This smaller half was the reason for my kidney stones. Fine, I keep myself hydrated, and if things get too serious, the doctors say I’ll still have the larger half working properly if the lower half ever needs to come out. Surgery is “unlikely” if I treat my body properly, but “unlikely” is not a word hypochondriacs, like myself, want to hear.
“I have a defective kidney.” The psychological impact of something being “wrong” inside your body is a heavy burden on anybody’s soul. Even if the situation is not immediately dangerous and problems can be picked up from a mile away now that I know about it, the idea of something “wrong” inside took a lot to get over.
But hey, it’s okay! Super Mario Bros. 2 has a lot of elements inside of it too that other Super Mario Bros. games don’t have. Lifting enemies above Mario’s head, POW blocks, an entirely new army of enemies to battle, Princess Toadstool and Toad as playable characters. Super Mario Bros. 2 might be “defective” and “wrong” on the inside, but it’s still a beloved game that hangs with the best of its legendary siblings.
Likewise, my kidney might be strange and weird, but it still functions. The doctor also graciously reminded me that it has kept me going for 30 years, so it can’t be that useless. Hopefully, it has many more years of health now that I know how to properly treat it.
If you can’t tell by the length of this section, coming to terms with this was actually harder than passing the kidney stones themselves. Getting the bloody thing out is only half the battle. The rest is figuring out how to stop them from forming.
No fifth game. Why is that? Because when you have a kidney stone, video games are the last thing on your mind!
You can’t sit and enjoy your hobby because a sharp piece of waste is constantly tearing your insides. You’re constantly exhausted because you can’t sleep at night, and when you can sleep, it’s because you’ve taken drugs that knock you out through chemical induced “fake” sleep.
Constantly lingering on the verge of consciousness, constantly fighting back tears of pain, constantly drinking water to keep the flow moving and ureters flushed, constantly releasing that water. Sitting on heating pads, family members propping you up if you need to walk outside or even to the john.
Seriously, who has time for videos games when your body is in such a ragged condition like this? Who can concentrate and dedicate the grueling attention required by this brutal era of level design? If you play anything on your NES, it might as well be Wheel of Fortune or something that doesn’t require quick reactions or a whole lot of focus. Because attention is something you have very little give when the horrible bits of evil are traveling through your body.
Take care, drink a lot of water, stay in shape, and treat your kidneys nicely. They are two of the most important organs in your body, and if you respect them, they’ll do their job and keep you alive. Mistreat them… they will stab you in the back.
The Uncharted Series came to an end last week. We’ve been with Nathan Drake through thick and thin, through witty and morose. And with Uncharted 4 comes a moment to reflect on those adventures, their high points, and their low points. In many ways, Uncharted 4 is a reflection of where the industry stood in 2007, refined, polished and perfected for nearly a decade. But was it the best the series had to offer? There were five Uncharted games in total, all of them excellent, but not all of them equally so. And because ranking is a thing that one does from time to time, I’ve done so:
Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception: This one was sort of a mess. The game was a trip through giant set pieces, some of which were built before the developers had any idea how they would fit into the story, and it shows. Not quite sure if it wanted to end close a trilogy or not, and not quite sure if it wanted to delve into Drake’s darker side or not, it ended up lacking both focus and drive. Uncharted 3 made some important gameplay strides forward, but I found myself more irritated with Drake than ever while playing it. A bad Uncharted game is still an excellent game, but for me Uncharted 3 just failed to capture that swashbuckling magic that defines this series. It felt stuck, and it felt, at times, like filler. And while the Atlantis of the Sands is certainly a thing, it felt like a odd attempt to toe the “lost city” line. Does it always have to be a lost city?
Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune: I debated the bottom two of this list for a while, because there are a lot of things we need to forgive about the first entry in this particular series. Naughty Dog hadn’t really figured the whole thing out yet, and neither the gunplay nor the navigation were quite there yet, and the pacing was all wrong. But it had that kernel to it that would later grow into Uncharted 2, and for all its faults, I had a better time with this game than I did with Uncharted 3. It was fun! It was flawed, but it was fun. Fun is important, and that’s why I’m giving it no. 4.
Uncharted: Golden Abyss — Some will be surprised to see a Vita port quite so high on this list. Uncharted: Gold Abyss was meant to be a selling point for Sony’s quixotic portable, showing us a future where we all played “console-quality (whatever that means)” games on the go, on the toilet, or on the couch when we didn’t feel like turning on the console. We all know how that panned out, but the Vita did leave us with this one. Golden Abyss was stacked with odd vita-specific features showcasing motion controls, a light sensitive camera, the touchscreen, and more, and that whole rigamarole could get pretty tiring. But at the heart of that game was Drake’s purest adventure in the entire series. There was none of his troubled relationship with Elena, none of the broader emotional arcs that define the main series, just a good old fashioned adventure. Golden Abyss told a self-contained, satisfying story, and for that I give it number 3. The Uncharted series is a love letter to 30′s pulp adventure stories, and no game captured that better than Golden Abyss.
Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End — This game was a true accomplishment. It takes that emotional weight that bogged down Uncharted 3 and commits wholeheartedly, wrapping up Nathan Drake’s adventure with grace, charm and a a surprising maturity. It helps that the combat is the best in the series, it helps that the visuals are the best I’ve seen in any video game, ever, and it helps that Naughty Dog experimented with opening up the corridor shooter just enough to give us a hint of player agency. Uncharted 4 was a rough game to get through sometimes — knowing that you’re coming to the end of the adventure will do that to you. But Naughty Dog pulled it off in the most emotionally affecting game of the series. The treasure of Henry Avery, too, was the only goal in the series that felt like it had a story to tell every bit as interesting as the one in the present day.
Uncharted 2: Among Thieves — As you can see from my love of Golden Abyss, I prefer it when Uncharted sticks to the breezy pulp that inspired it, and we see that in spades with Uncharted 2. This the game that came to define the series, and for good reason: we were not yet weighed down with the broader character arcs that gave us such trouble in Uncharted 3, nor were we tasked with introducing the characters like we were in Uncharted. There are parts of this game that haven’t aged quite as well — the shooting could be improved, the stealth could seriously be improved, and you spend too much time crouched behind cover mowing down legions of enemies. But damn, was this an adventure. Grand, funny, exciting and quick, Naughty Dog managed to tell a story that didn’t lag for a single moment, from the opening moments on the train to a striking, quiet moment in a Tibetan village. This game, always, will be the masterpiece of the Uncharted series.
Rumors are picking up once again for Batman: Return To Arkham HD Collection after some ads and retailer postings for the HD remaster packs leaked online. Apparently the game will release on June 10th for the Xbox One and the PS4 for $40, assuming the ads are to be trusted.
Game Informer covered the story after it originally broke on Gaming Tree House, where they managed to capture an image from a retailer listing on the Italian version of GameStop. The listing has no box art or images but stated that the game would be available for around $40 and would launch on June 10th for only the Xbox One and PS4.
The listing on the Italian version of GameStop was pulled shortly after being discovered. Gaming Tree House later discovered an ad in an Italian magazine that also showed a listing for Batman: Return To Arkham HD Collection, indicating that the package would be available with both Batman: Arkham Asylum and Batman: Arkham City packed inside.
Both games will be the full versions and will also come jam packed with all of the DLC that released over their respective lifespans.
I’m sure the most obvious thing about this collection is the fact that it’s not listed for PC. Following the absolutely atrocious debacle last year involving Warner Bros Interactive Entertainment and the PC release of Batman: Arkham Knight on PC, it was made pretty clear that the publisher would be stepping back from their PC support. They did so by completely forgoing the release of Mortal Kombat XL on PC and opted not to release any balance patches or additional season 2 DLC for Mortal Kombat X on PC.
It’s kind of unfortunate that PC gamers are being punished because Warner Bros rushed out Batman: Arkham Knight and caused a lot of heartache to paying customers on PC.
However, it’s entirely possible that Warner Bros could later announce a digital PC release of Batman: Return to Arkham HD Collection. It’s not entirely impossible that maybe they’re just waiting closer to June to make the announcement official for console and PC gamers… or at least, one can hope.
As for the HD collection containing Arkham Asylum and Arkham City, it has been rumored for quite some time that Warner Bros would attempt to re-release the games in HD. I’m a little shocked that they didn’t include Arkham Origins, though. Maybe they’ll wait it out until the PlayStation Neo and whatever the mid-gen Xbox One refresh is to re-release Arkham Origins and Arkham Knight. If the PS4K or PS Neo is going to tout 4K upscaling then I can easily see a bunch of publishers re-releasing games as 4K renditions, such as Batman: Arkham Knight 4K or what have you.
Anyway, right now the HD collection for the first two Arkham games is still a rumor, but if the June 10th date has any weight to it then we can expect an official announcement from Warner Bros soon enough to verify the claims and make an official announcement for Batman: Return To Arkham HD Collection.
Oculus Rift turned out to be an unintentionally ideal name for a gadget dedicated to carving ruptures between people. They also could have called it the “Digital Chasm” or the “Interaction Canyon.”
The virtual-reality headsets, available at 48 Best Buy stores beginning May 7, promise to widen further what is already an alarming, tech-induced gap among couples, friends and families. Smartphones have already whipped up a wasteland of blankness — the real-life equivalent of dead air on the radio.
We’re living in “Um, honey?” time. As in, “Um, honey, how was your day at school?” (No answer. Lots of tapping.)
“Um, honey, have you seen my glasses?” (No answer. “Memes” are being considered.)
“Um, honey? I need your attention, please. Please? We have an infestation of gila monsters. The house is burning down. I’m leaving you for another family.” (No answer. Snapchat being checked.)
The Oculus Rift? It’s basically a smartphone you wrap around your face. Put it on; reality can’t get in. This is the appeal of drugs, too.
As with drugs, easily bored young people are particularly susceptible. Think your kids are hard to connect with now? Wait till they get themselves an Oculus Rift and begin to expend all their attention, instead of just most of it, on the Great Elsewhere. They’ll be off in a world of their own imagining: hiking up Everest. Having a light-saber duel with Kylo Ren. Joining the Kardashian family.
Considering the porn implications of the gadgets, we’re now within half a step of the Orgasmatron, the Woody Allen-invented virtual-reality capsule (from the 1973 film “Sleeper,” which also accurately predicted the resurgence of fatty food and the surprising endurance of the Volkswagen Beetle), which couples short on time would use for a brisk, machine-made sexual experience. What Woody got wrong (in the scene in which Miles Monroe mistakenly enters the Orgasmatron alone) was that tech would assume the existence of couples.
No, tech is turning out to be the great atomizer, wrenching people apart. I well remember the first time (maybe eight years ago) I saw a couple in a restaurant, clearly on a date, yet each of them gazing longingly into a smartphone instead of addressing the facing person. I thought: Here. It. Comes.
Smartphones today are zapping dates, dinners, conversations and spontaneous meetings so everyone can disappear into his own independent iFog. Another filmmaker, Wim Wenders, foresaw this as far back as 1991, in his unappreciated but brilliant film “Until the End of the World.” In a post-apocalyptic climax, a tech gadget that can record your dreams takes the form of a wraparound virtual-reality headset exactly like the Oculus Rift. Users become addicted to their own interiors, and they begin to wander the land in the headsets, blind to one another, in a lonely daze.
Maybe we’re smarter than that. Maybe people will see the Rift forming and take a step back. Maybe Oculus Rift will be the next Google Glass.
Or maybe people will soon be using the gadget to watch videos of “Sleeper” and “Until the End of the World,” thinking: Given those prophecies, why couldn’t we have had our Oculus Rift sooner?
Activision and Infinity Ward’s latest entry in the Call of Duty series is called Infinite Warfare, and gamers are not too happy about it. Infinity Ward’s design director ran to the game’s defense following a less-than-stellar reception to the game’s announcement.
Speaking with Gamespot, design director Jacob Minkoff explained,
The approach that we’ve been taking with this game… the inspirations don’t come from sci-fi or space in any way, […] The inspirations come from war stories. This is Call of Duty. We are talking about warfare and in this case Infinite Warfare… what we feel is that classically told narratives can take place in any setting.
While Jacob Minkoff may be trying to run damage control for the poor reception of Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare’s debut trailer, that doesn’t really change how gamers feel about it.
The YouTube announcement trailer has 4.6 million views after debuting yesterday, and it has a near equal amount of downvotes as it does upvotes; 132,000 upvotes versus 126,000 downvotes, as of the writing of this article.
The general sentiment is that a lot of gamers joke that they must have accidentally clicked on a Halo trailer instead of a Call of Duty trailer.
While Jacob Minkoff’s point is that this next entry in the long-running shooter series will be grounded in some kind of military drama and tension, the reality is that gamers are still seeing another derivative sci-fi shooter on the horizon. It’s also hard to deny that the inspirations don’t come from sci-fi when we get an entire third of the trailer dedicated to players flying around in space in a spaceship firing lasers and fighting robots big enough to flip over tanks.
If Jacob Minkoff was trying to convince gamers that there’s a serious story to be told in this upcoming outing of Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare, it was utterly lost in all of the actual sci-fi elements on display in the trailer itself. And really, when gamers have to go by what Minkoff is saying or what Activision is showing, it appears most people are reacting to what they’ve been shown.
Now this isn’t to say that Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare will be bad. Just because people aren’t keen on the trailer and have become fatigued on sci-fi shooters as of late – we’ve had Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare, Halo 5, Call of Duty: Black Ops 3, Destiny, Titanfall, Evolve, Ghost In The Shell and Star Wars: Battlefront all released in the last two years. This doesn’t necessarily mean that this upcoming game will be bad. In fact, it might be the opposite.
Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 really took me by surprise, having one of the most mature and thought-provoking stories in movies and games that I’ve seen in quite some time. The writers really knocked it out of the park with that one, in spite of the heavy reliance on a science fiction theme.
Ultimately Infinity Ward will have to prove that Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare doesn’t deserve the ire its currently getting by showcasing some gameplay and some of those story elements to make gamers care. We’ll likely get to see some real-time footage at this year’s E3 during Sony’s press conference.
Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare is due out on November 4th, 2016 later this year along with a remastered version of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare for the PS4, Xbox One and PC.
As reported by Nintendolife, Nintendo president Tatsumi Kimishima recently spoke to Nintendo investors at one of the company’s periodic briefings and they grilled him pretty hard once he announced that the Nintendo NX and Zelda Wii U were both missing the holiday season this year. But he had an explanation (translation by Cheesemeister3k, again via Nintendolife): “Having a full software lineup when the hardware launches is one reason for the NX launch timing. Also, we must be in a state to release titles not just at launch, but continually afterwards. We are planning for it to be a platform that will be played for a long time.” What’s more, the console will be profitable from launch, and won’t be a loss leader the way the Wii U was.
If what Kimishima says is true, then Nintendo may not be in such trouble after all. If the system really does have a strong launch lineup, and a strong ramp-up after that, along with a respectable amount of third-party support, Nintendo may still be able to make the Nintendo NX into a success. Let’s just hope that new hardware from Sony and Microsoft isn’t too compelling.
A weak launch lineup killed the Wii U. The console had just a few games at launch, and no major titles for the better part of a year thereafter. By the time enough titles were out to drive some real sales momentum, third parties had given up on the console, and a lot of consumers had too. The Wii U GamePad itself never really got as exciting as it could have been either. Nintendo didn’t push its own innovation as hard as it should have. And it all stemmed from the weak launch lineup.
If Nintendo NX can avoid that, the future could be entirely different—even if the system is weaker than the upgraded hardware Sony and Microsoft have been hinting at lately. Let’s hope the lineup is really as strong as Kimishima is saying.
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