Backlog: The Embiggening - June, 2014
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 05/26/14 at 12:10 PM CT
Welcome to another look into the near future. Every year, gamers everywhere suffer through an annual occurrence known colloquially as the Summer Game Drought. It is ever ironic that the time during which publishers should be pushing out the most gaming products – Summer Vacation, when kids (the biggest buyers of licensed crap and samey FPSes) have plenty of free time and extra spending money from Summer jobs – is actually the time when the fewest new gaming products see the light of day. In 2014, it’s looking like the beginning of the Summer Game Drought might be a bit on the mild side, based on numbers alone. However, a closer look reveals that the stuff being released in June is being sent out to die based on tie-in deadlines or perhaps a feeling that less crappy crap might be perceived as ‘okay’ when placed side-by-side with really awful stuff.
Licensed games and shovelware are making a strong showing after all but disappearing recently. There are movie tie-ins for …
Dis-Kinect-ed
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 05/18/14 at 02:00 PM CT
Half a year after its launch, and the Xbox One will be losing a limb. Specifically, Microsoft has decided to release a version of their latest unnecessary console without its only differentiating gimmick: the Kinect 2.0. On June 9th, those wanting to get XBONE’d will be able to purchase the console for $100 less and with 100% less paranoia about being watched and wiretapped by the Kinect’s always-on camera and microphone.
But what is Microsoft really accomplishing with such a move? In the 7th Generation, the original Kinect was the Xbox 360’s only truly novel feature, and it never really had a chance to show what it was capable of in the hands of a development team interested in creating a better experience than a “WiiSports” knock-off or an endless stream of inane dance games. The Kinect had the potential to open up a whole new type of interface – “Minority Report” style – to enhance the capabilities of an existing controller instead of supplanting the …
5 Wii Games to Play with your Mom on Mothers’ Day
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 05/11/14 at 03:39 PM CT
When Nintendo targeted the “Blue Ocean” demographic of non-gamers with the Wii, not only did they enforce the stigma of Nintendo consoles not being for “real gamers” (who only play “Call of Duty” and “Halo” all day while shotgunning 40s and even lifting) that they’ve been dealing with since the N64, but they also became associated with old ladies and fad followers. Be that as it may, the Wii actually DID succeed at engaging non-gamers in a way no hardware had before, and Nintendo produced plenty of games (of wildly varying quality) to target their new audience.
I don’t know about most of the younger crowd coming up nowadays, but when I was a kid, my Mom knew NOTHING about games. Perhaps younger women who grew up with 8-bit and 16-bit games are a bit more literate about the subject? Regardless, it seems that gender doesn’t really matter when it comes to being baffled by the stupid things kids like, and my Mom didn’t understand why I enjoyed videogames so …
Backlog: The Embiggening - May, 2014
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 05/04/14 at 01:03 PM CT
Welcome to another look into the near future. May is bringing the tumultuous post-holiday period to a fitting end by returning game releases to something resembling a status quo. While, miraculously, there are ZERO shovelware releases to report this month, there is one overwhelming multi-platform game that will dominate headlines and capture the rapt attention of every mainstream “AAA” whore, along with a handful of M-rated dreck… Let’s get right to it.
So, what is this overwhelming May release everyone is destined to be talking about for a month before its luster fades and it drops into obscurity? None other than “Watch Dogs,” a new sandbox title that looks to be an attempt at combining gaming’s ‘Grand Theft Auto’ franchise with TV’s “Person of Interest.” Meh. Among the other mainstream multi-platform games, we have a FPS sequel to ‘Wolfenstein’ (which I’m sure will be as amazing a sequel as the latest ‘Duke Nukem’ game), some sort of fake RPG by …
View Archive
