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Month: May 2016

WaPo Writer Criticizes Uncharted 4, Metacritic Misrepresents It, Gamer Freaks Out With Poorly Written Petition

Uncharted 4: A Thief's EndIt is a story as old as time. A game critic criticizes a highly anticipated and fan loved game. Metacritic attempts to aggregate the review and messes up. Then angry gamers freak out in the worst possible manner.

So let’s lay out some details. Michael Thompson wrote a critical review of Uncharted 4. In this he writes that U4 is an inevitable but unneeded fourth installment in a game trilogy. He criticizes it further by stating, “The games have always struck me as garish more than gorgeous, more interested in overwhelming the senses than communicating with them.” Overall, this is nothing more than someone who is not a fan of the series writing up his thoughts. Something that is ultimately harmless. Sadly, some people don’t see it that way.

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‘Don’t Breathe’ trailer reveals a bit too much

Spoiler Warning! This post contains spoilers for the movie trailer posted to the left of this very sentence!

To the left you’ll find the trailer for Don’t Breathe, a movie about three no-goodniks who break into a blind guy’s house to steal his money so that they can move out of town and pursue lives of prosperity and happiness.

Unfortunately, this blind guy is a super-capable, curmudgeonly bad ass and doesn’t take kindly to strangers trying to take advantage of him.  He traps them in his house, turns out the lights, and hunts them down.

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Microsoft Gives Back Some Of What It Took From Gamers

What UWP Taketh Away, UWP Partially Gives BackWhen Microsoft announced its Universal Windows Platform, it was met with considerable skepticism. Most of the skepticism is centered around the locked down nature of the platform. Tim Sweeney of Epic Games was one such high profile objector.

But what really should have been getting the attention is just how much Microsoft limits the games that use the platform. Because the service requires all apps be usable across a range of devices, developers cannot take advantage of more powerful PC hardware. Now Microsoft is throwing game developers a bone by giving them something they should have had all along. 

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Disney decides to stop ripping off gamers, cancels Disney Infinity

Disney-Infinity-Amazon-Bundle1Disney announced today in its second quarter earnings report that it has discontinued Disney Infinity and has closed Utah’s Avalanche Studios, the series’ principle developer.

Disney Infinity, like Skylanders before it and LEGO Dimensions after it, is a toys-to-life video game series that requires gamers to buy a bunch of expensive toys in order to unlock content in a game they already paid full price for (which can sometimes be as high as $100).  It’s a garbage practice and while the title of this article makes it seem like Disney had a crisis of conscience, it really just comes down to the fact that ripping off gamers in this manner just isn’t as profitable as it once was.

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This Podcast Has No Name

Kind of an odd show this week with EZK and Andrew foregoing their list of topics and just discussing whatever came to mind.  While the first half hour is pretty scattershot, two major topics do emerge: Dungeons & Dragons and other tabletop dice games (28:26) and a hefty political discussion with a focus on Libertarians and other political parties that are not Republicans or Democrats (46:07).  This episode may be more political than any of the shows we did under the GamePolitics banner!

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YouTube COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT appears!  SEGA used TACT! It’s super effective!

Sonic BoomRemember when Sega was yanking gameplay videos of Shining Force off of YouTube?  Even videos where fans were merely discussing the game were getting flagged for copyright violations.

Yeah, bad times.

Well, it seems like Sega has come a long way in the last few years regarding YouTube copyright claims as it has decided to exercise an amazing amount of tact while simultaneously making entirely reasonable claims.

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‘Essential Facts About the Video Game Industry’ are ESSENTIAL!!!

Essential Facts 2016Another year, another Essential Facts About the Computer and Video Game Industry report released by the Entertainment Software Association, the org that represents the interests of video game publishers but not necessarily gamers.  You’d think those interests would be one and the same but perhaps that’s a rant for another time.

The demographic data in the annual report is compiled from a survey of over 4000 American households conducted by market research company Ipsos MediaCT for the ESA.  You can read the report and devour all of its numbery goodness at your leisure but here’s the data I found most interesting:

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Lonely Andrew Yaks About Video Games and Stuff

Andrew is all by his lonesome on this week’s podcast.  Topics discussed include the recent Nintendo NX and Zelda news (2:45), removing content from western localizations and how it affects games like Yakuza 3(22:49), what to do about prostitutes in Grand Theft Auto games (41:02), and Sony’s continued failure at marketing the new Ghostbusters movie (1:07:35).

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