One Word Review
We spoke on the second episode of the OWR Games Podcast about Nintendo’s recent financial news. On that podcast, I challenged the listeners to not take the doom-and-gloom news that most websites shove down our throats to heart when it comes to Nintendo. Once again I will show you that Nintendo knows what they are doing.
This week Paul and Rodrigo are joined by Sam Contreras to talk about some games. Rodrigo talks about his new Xbox One and having fun with the new Killer Instinct. We also reminisce about our trip to Akihabara and getting our asses kicked by effeminate Japanese Street Fighter players. Rodrigo and I talk about Spec Ops: The Line and how hard it is to not hear Nathan Drake. Once Rodrigo finishes up we hear from our longtime friend Sam.
Gamespot reported that the Playstation 4 enjoyed extremely lucrative sales in January, quoting the VP of PlayStation marketing John Koller who said, “PS4 was #1 in sales for next-gen consoles in January, nearly doubling the nearest next-gen competitor.” NPD does not post sales numbers for consoles publicly; only the publishers are privy to that information. But, it shouldn’t be too difficult to suss out the name of that mysterious company. Sony has been taking these little jabs at that company every chance they get. (It’s Microsoft.)
According to Gamespot.com, in a post-earnings financial call yesterday, two Activision Blizzard CEOs claimed that Bungie’s Destiny will become the “best-selling new video game IP in history.”
What does that even mean?
Nothing. It means that Activision Blizzard is letting it’s investors know that this basket that they have put a lot of their eggs into is a sturdy piece of equipment. When consumers get a load of what’s in Blizzact’s basket, the basket that was dipped in the same gold as Bobby Kotick’s balls, they are going to want to buy some of those badass eggs that the fucking Halo dudes made.
It means that Blizzact’s CEOs are convincing their investors that even if Call of Duty’s sales start to slip there is another property waiting in the ass of some golden chicken that is gonna crap out Blazzact’s next golden egg.
Like many of you, I have finally gotten into the Hearthstone beta. I waited for months to finally get my invite to the beta. The wait was that much more excruciating because my nephew already had his invite and was well on his way to Hearthstone supremacy. In the last few weeks I have played 15 – 20 hours of Hearthstone, I have most of it’s quirks under my belt. I usually make a couple of stupid mistakes every session that I play. Some of those mistakes end up causing me the match, but sometimes I am so far ahead that it would be near impossible to lose.
The beginning of a Hearthstone match is so much slower than the beginning of a match of Magic: The Gathering. I think that the tit-for-tat gameplay of Hearthstone does not mesh well with my more defensive play style.
Hearthstone seems like a game where you must always kill off the other character because once you don’t have any creatures on the table and your opponent has two or more; it is over.
M:TG seems, to me, to have more chances to come back from a deficit. I like that kind of game play. I love having a game where I am down 3 to 20 and I get a couple of good spells and a good creature and I come back to take the win with my piddly three point still holding strong.
Yesterday, I had one of the most frustrating games of Hearthstone, ever. I pulled three cards at the beginning costing; 5, 6, and 5 gems. Of course, I threw them back into the pile, only to have the same fucking cards come back out of the deck into my hand.
I really think that Hearthstone needs a system like M:TG has in videogame form; get a couple of chances to pull cards from the deck if you keep on getting shitty cards. M:TG even has a penalty system where if you pull too many times you can’t pull as many cards each following chance.
I also like the mana system that M:TG has instead of the generic gem system that Hearthstone implements. I like to be able to control my cards to more of an extent than Hearthstone has allowed.
Now, I will be the first to admit that many of my problems could be caused by the scarce number of cards that I have unlocked; none of my characters are over level 16. I am sure that I will unlock unique cards that will help my end game and I know that I will also unlock more of my favorite cards to help my chances of picking up those cards that I have become attached to.
Hearthstone is still a young game and Magic has been around for 20 years or so. I have all the confidence that Blizzard will continue tweaking the gameplay to suit it’s style of game. I know that a lot of people are in love with Hearthstone and I may have a minority opinion of the game. I would like to like Hearthstone, but I will always have Magic to keep me satiated in case Hearthstone never captures me.
Microsoft came out this generation with it’s head held high from it’s successes last generation. They held it high enough that the public could smell the fetid air of superiority wafting off of every news report leading up to the launch of the Xbox One. The stench caused the community to explode over DRM issues, Kinect connections, and the ‘Gamestop dilemma’ of used games. All of these issues led to Giantbomb naming Xbox One the Hottest Mess of 2013.
They garnered that title for continually planting their feet and soon after go back on their unpopular decisions concerning the new direction for console gaming. Sony was able to sit back and watch. Microsoft seems like a ditsy high schooler and Sony takes the persona of the unaffected kid sitting in the corner of the lunch room brooding knowingly that high school life is bullshit and it is all gonna end one day.
According to rumors from gamespot.com and VG247, Microsoft might release a newer version of the XBONE at a $399 price tag sans Blu-ray drive and add a Bluetooth adapter.
This seems like another adolescent move for Redmond. If they lose the Blu-ray drive, what are the discs going to come on? DVD? Are they going to try to resurrect HD-DVD? Are they going to try to go all digital?
The anonymous “secret source” in the story could not confirm some of the specifics that came out earlier this week, but s/he did confirm that they were working on a new console for less than the current price tag.
I, for one, hope that they do try to get a more competitively priced console on the market, but I don’t see how dropping the Blu-ray drive could even be on the table without making more of a mess of what they have done.
