A Tale of Two SteamBoxen: Episode 2
Matt - wrote on 02/23/13 at 02:26 PM CT
Months ago MeltedJoystick Editor Nelson and I determined to build our own SteamBoxes. We had discovered the joys of Steam and had been playing games like “Dungeon Defenders” for countless hours, Nelson on his aging laptop and me on my 2010 Mac Pro, obviously with Windows installed. Steam made us feel like it had the potential to be a hit in the living room connected to a large HDTV. Playing from my couch has always been my natural place for gaming, so the lure of a SteamBox was appealing. Also there were many rumors at the time, which have now been confirmed, that Steam was prepping their own SteamBox to break into the living room and take on the traditional console giants. For all of these reasons Nelson and I took the plunge and built our very own SteamBoxen. Nelson assembled his in August of last year and you can read about in part one of this tale, and I finally built my system in January of 2013.
After much consideration I wanted my system to have two functions: 1) …
A Tale of Two Steamboxen: Episode 1
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 02/22/13 at 05:56 PM CT
After being lured in by the wonders of Steam back in February of 2012, it soon became obvious that the laptop I use for most things computing-related just didn’t cut it as a dedicated gaming PC. Indeed, the entire concept of a ‘dedicated gaming PC’ seemed alien to me as someone who had long tried – and failed – to maintain a PC that was capable of doing a variety of things, gaming included.
It was around this same time that the first rumblings of Valve’s upcoming attempt at entering the game console market began to shake the foundations of the industry. A PC that acts like a game console? Madness! Of course, after thinking about it for a short time, I concluded that, no, Valve’s idea is far from madness, as gaming PCs and gaming consoles abruptly became one-and-the-same during the 7th Generation.
With this idea in mind, erstwhile MeltedJoystick guest-blogger and my friend from grad school, Matt, and I made a pact: We would each build a ‘SteamBox’ – that is, …
The PS4 Debuts... Without the Actual PS4
Chris Kavan - wrote on 02/21/13 at 07:20 PM CT
So Sony had been hyping their big Feb. 20th meeting for some time. Granted, most everyone knew it was going to be about their next generation system - but what would they show? The big tease is finally over and what we got was.... a controller - some game trailers - some specs and a promise that at E3 they were really going to show us the goods.
The good news is that, despite early rumors, the PS4 (as it is now officially known) will not have to be connected to the Internet to run and it will be able to play used games. Granted, they're pushing the social aspect (much like Microsoft) but people still living in the Internet stone age (often not by any choice of their own) can at least know they'll be able to play games offline. Of course my main gripe - the lack of backwards compatibility - isn't going to change - so I'm still going to be a late adopter to the next system.
Although the PS4 was nowhere to be seen, they did debut a new Dual Shock 4 controller. While it's not a …
Windows 8 on Atom Tablets: How Microsoft Entered the Handheld Market
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 02/16/13 at 04:46 PM CT
Back in July, I lamented the sorry state of the tablet PC and listed the three reasons I didn’t own one. As of a month ago, those reasons no longer apply. While initially I planned to buy the Microsoft Surface Pro, I was turned off on that hardware for one reason. No, not the egregious price, as I don’t foresee Windows tablets dropping below $600 as a minimum anytime soon. Instead, what changed my thoughts about an official Microsoft x86 tablet from excitement to apathy was the fact that the Surface Pro runs on an Intel Core i5 processor. My laptop runs on an Intel Core i5 processor, and the product description when I bought it said it was supposed to get up to 4.5 hours of battery life, the same as the Surface Pro… yet in actuality my laptop has a difficult time hitting 2 hours of battery life, leaving me with a similar expectation from Microsoft’s tablet. If tablets are meant to do one thing well, it’s to last a long time on a full battery, and a current-generation i5 …
The Razer Hydra: Beyond Futility, the Journey’s End
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 02/09/13 at 05:35 PM CT
A month ago, I began a quest in search of a motion-control solution for the PC that was comparable to Nintendo’s Wiimote and Nunchuck combo for playing FPSes. While initially it seemed my quest was one of pure futility, fraught with a confusing mixture of terrible PC controllers, big price tags, and questionable hacks, fate, it seems, was on my side. While on my Amazon.com account page processing the return of the god-awful Splitfish SFX Evolution that I bought on a whim, something on my Wish List caught my eye: Someone on Amazon Marketplace was selling the Razer Hydra for $65.
While I had initially dismissed the Razer Hydra as out of the question based on the fact that Steam, the leader in impossibly cheap software sales, is STILL selling the thing for $140; the current Razer Hydra model is not wireless; and self-proclaimed fat-faced reviewer, Aaron Steinmetz, said the controller is not good for playing “Borderlands,” the game that specifically started me on this quest; I …
Backlog: The Embiggening - February, 2013
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 02/02/13 at 01:20 PM CT
Welcome to another look into the near future. February may be the shortest month of the year, and may immediately follow a somber month of mourning for the past holiday season, but it looks like this February there are plenty of new games being released. Will any of them be worthwhile? I doubt it!
February looks to be a light month for shovelware and licensed trash. Across all consoles and handhelds, there are only two multi-platform licensed games, an “Aliens” tie-in (I guess trying to cash-in on last year’s “Prometheus”? The timing seems off…) and a game based on Cartoon Network’s “Young Justice” series. Other than that, the 3DS is getting an exclusive “Monster High” tie-in, the corpse of the Wii is getting yet another crappy singing game, and the Xbox 360 is getting a “Fist of the North Star” game, based on an obscure anime that Xbox fanboys have probably never even heard of (talk about not knowing your audience).
In the land of non-shovelware …
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