The Sims once again comes to mobile devices, this time under the freemium banner. Yeah. “Free to play, pay to win”, right?
In all honesty, it’s not nearly as bad as The Sims Social was. At least it has some more traditional Sims-style gameplay. But it still has a very similar mentality, so yeah.
My review of the Crimson Edition of the EverDrive-MD flash memory cartridge, by Stone Age Gamer and KRIKzz.
Every Mega Drive, Master System, and 32x game playable through one cart? Pinch me, my geeky self must be dreaming! In all seriousness, this thing is freaking great. While I still prefer to have the the real cartridges, they’re just so darned costly and I’m running out of space. That and my focus is PC gaming, so the disposable income goes toward IBM-compatibles. I love cartridge-based retro gaming though, and these EverDrive options are great for someone who doesn’t want emulation but still wants to play tons of great games!
So I saw this was released today on Steam, decided to watch the above trailer… and immediately bought it for the cheap nine bucks and change.
Wow.
The most melancholy, chilling, awesome experience I’ve had in a while. Not really a game (all you do is roam this island off the coast of Scotland for an hour) so much as it is a bizarre story that you sort of live through. But that in itself is so well-done and amazing if you let yourself “feel” it. This trailer captures the mood near-perfectly. Very artsy and ambiguous, so if you’re not into such things you might wanna give this a pass. But if you enjoy a great narrative with deep undertones in a fantastically made game world (not to mention amazing strings-heavy soundtracks) check this out!
Someone else interviewing LGR! This time it’s my friend, Vincent Price, aka Slag Voss. Covers all sorts of random topics, from gaming, to collecting, to favorites, to geek dating, to hacktivism.
Quite possibly the best combat remote-controlled car racing game yet made. Seriously, Re-Volt was fantastic in 1999, and its gameplay formula remains timeless. Think R.C. Pro-Am meets Mario Kart. Pure win!
One of those I’ve wanted to review ever since I started LGR, so this was way overdue. Yet another classic marked off the classic list.
An “Oddware” overview of all sorts of monochrome graphical greatness: The IBM 5151 monochrome CRT monitor, PC MDA graphics, Hercules graphics, emulated CGA programs, green/amber/white phosphor, text modes vs. graphics, etc. Mmm, gotta love 80′s computing and obsolete graphics hardware!
Whoa, I’ve been interviewed! Watch the video above to find out things about me and LGR that you never knew you wanted to know… we talk about Maxis games, vintage computers, the new Commodore 64x, the origins of LGR, Duke Nukem, Skyrim, console ports, my collection, and lots more.
Seriously, this was a lot of fun to do. Although this was my first time in contact with him, Raven Rage seems like a cool dude and interviewing his YouTubers is a fun idea. So yeah, check it out and all that, it’s enlightening or something.
So, there’s this rumor going around about the next Xbox console not being able to play used games. Naturally, there are a lot of pissed off console gamers as a result. But you know what? All I’ve gotta say is…
Welcome to PC gaming for the past however many years.
The used game market has been a part of console gaming since the beginning, but to a long-time PC gamer like myself this news isn’t that shocking at all. Sure, I think it’s lame and I’d rather them not restrict consoles even more than ever, but if this were to happen I wouldn’t “give up gaming” as many are declaring they’ll do. Ever heard of used games on the PC? Yeah, unless you’re talking about collecting vintage floppies and Windows 9x-era games, the market’s just not there. Frick, even that market barely exists.
How might Microsoft pull this off with the NextBox? Let’s look at the PC.
With PC games, those annoying keys, serials, and product codes have been a way of life for years. This mainly pertains to multiplayer games, but single player games are using them more and more. They tie a game to your PC and/or account so you can’t just go and install a bunch of copies on all your friends’ computers. This is done via a service like Steam or Origin, or with a publisher’s server. If the game is installed from optical media, it will generally check the disc each time you start the game to make sure that one copy is present. While I do have my issues with this, it’s become a generally accepted way of life. (One could argue this complacency in itself is a problem, but let’s stay on topic.)
Let’s assume the next Xbox has some kind of similar system in place. You buy a game from Xbox Live or a store, type in a code, and it’s tied to your gamertag and/or console. Is this really so insane? They’re already testing this with things like EA Online Pass. Sure, I can make those arguments about punishing the paying customer, end-user rights, and the problems with DRM. Those are all valid, but do you hear an uproar about Steam? It sounds very freaking similar to me.
Of course, this all depends on the kind of system Microsoft might put in place. A big reason Steam is so popular is it lets you access your games from anywhere, there are tons of games to choose from that STAY accessible, it lets you download as many times as you want, and there are frequently amazing sales on new and old games alike. If Microsoft were to limit any of these, I can see the uproar being a bit more valid. But there is no evidence of this one way or the other, and mostly what I see so far are gamers crying foul about things changing.
People hate change, I get it. But this is the way things are heading for a variety of reasons. Look at the console market’s choices over the past generation. Heck, just look at the portable market! Do you see an iOS or Android used games market? No, it’s a ridiculous concept. I agree with the idea that people should have full rights to their software, and I support the DRM-free movement, but I think we should get the whole story before crying that gaming is dead and you’re “done with the industry”. Seriously. I don’t want this system, but if it happens it’s not the end of gaming by any means. If this is implemented fairly to the consumer, I don’t see it as a very surprising occurrence. Unfortunate for console gamers who are used to the present way of doing things, and probably bad for the health of some publishers in the long run, but not surprising.
My brother, Luke, who has appeared in a video or two of mine (like this one here) plays Agent James Miller in this short film, Cross Country. Yeah, he’s the first dude you see, with the Braves hat, glasses, and who turns into Jack Bauer’s cousin halfway in.
I didn’t have anything to do with the film, just a shameless plug for my bro’s work, and the rest of the University of North Carolina at Greensboro crew who worked on this awesome short. Seriously, I think this is pretty rad stuff, check it out!
Herman & the Falling Rocks review is online
Thursday, February 23rd, 2012It may be a Boulderdash clone, but Herman doesn’t let that get in the way of collecting flowers and avoiding rocky death. Frockin’ sweet.
Also, did anyone else delve into a local library or friends’ bookshelves in hopes of finding “shareware books” like Windows After Hours? Some of my fondest, randomest gaming memories come from such occasions.
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