Archive for June 2016
Podcast: Emulation, Version 2.0
When Fred first started Gaming History 101, he was quite opposed to emulation and of course the piracy that comes with it. Now, five years later, things are a bit different for a several reasons. Since Jam got stuck trying to get home from holiday, Fred flies solo to discuss his new take on emulation, why he feels this way, and most importantly his list of the best emulators to use when playing almost any game from your past.
The referenced GDC 2016 talk that Frank Cifaldi gave can be found here.
Podcast: E3 Franchise Legacies
Lots of games were announced at E3 this year and many of them come from long running franchises. With Jam on holiday, Fred brings in guests Vos and Shawn (from the Horribly Awkward podcast) to discuss the lineage of what was announced. Some franchises are stronger than you may remember, whereas others…not so much.
Hard Reset Redux Review
There’s this constant complaint heard all too often by the PC gaming crowd: why don’t more PC games come to consoles? The reality is some combination between controls, marketability, and code development, but I always like to say, “it’s just more of a PC game.” That wasn’t always the case though, as we’ve seen in the past with the original first person shooters like Doom and Duke Nukem 3D that seemed to have mass appeal beyond the keyboard and mouse. Hard Reset felt like it was airlifted out of that time period in the way it played and handled game design and it made more sense that developer Flying Wild Hog’s first effort come to console gamers. Now the updated Hard Reset Redux seeks to ask how interested console gamers really are. It has updated controls for gamepads, it has seemingly enhanced graphics (although PC players may disagree), and it has a re-balanced campaign all for the sake of the console gamer. This is a tailor-made conversion from the world of PC and if you’re wondering if it was all worth it the answer is a resounding, absolutely.
Fantastic Indie Gaming Shorts (All Free)
When you think of video game movies there are probably a glut of mostly bad films that come to mind. Whether or not you like the big budget stuff, there’s no denying that the secret best work is done in the independent scene, for free. My favorite three examples can be found below and each are short and worth watching instead of me writing about them. Hopefully you enjoy them as much as I did. And yes, I’m aware the free indie film Pixels was turned into the high budget divisive film of the same name.
Player Two by Zachary Antell (This suggestion was submitted by community member Blake aka JediSlurpee)
Pixels by Patrick Jean
Portal: No Escape by Dan Trachtenberg
Dishonored Play Diary
Trying something new here. Dishonored is a game I (Fred) have not been able to play properly and the first video in this series shows why. As a result, I’m trying to be more laid back and complete the title without worrying about perfect stealth and perfect pacifism. Instead of a “Let’s Play” I’ve decided to do a new type of series called a “Play Diary” and here’s what these will be. This video series currently only has one video, but will update as it grows. No new posting will be created for each video. If you want updates, I recommend subscribing to Fred’s channel.
Let’s Play videos are tough because the person playing them has to constantly be speaking to an audience, it stifles gameplay, and it’s a bunch of work to get live. A longplay is easy because you just capture and upload, but only a handful of people watch it. We’ve noticed that the commentary gets more views, but that people watch them for short periods, whereas a longplay is only seen by a smaller group but they watch often to entirety. The Play Diary starts with a full length “quick look” of an hour or two with commentary followed by update videos that are about 5-15 minutes that cover several hours of gameplay and commentary. In addition, the entire longplay is uploaded as a playlist for those that want to see the full playthrough. Hopefully this is a more user friendly way for everyone to see what they want. This will not completely replace my “Let’s Play” videos because certain rare games will want to be viewed from start to finish. The video below is the playlist for the diary and the longplay playlist can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLlLaoX7aLm9_32Aqpog3OgW2ZenWg_mV8
E3 2016: All Games Zelda Treehouse Impressions
Nintendo has finally broken its silence and after a whole year of waiting, we now have good idea of what to expect from the next title in The Legend of Zelda. For starters, a name: Breath of the Wild. In this podcast the All Games team takes in the many demos coming out of Nintendo’s Treehouse streams and discusses what we can expect when the game finally lands next year.
E3 2016: All Games PC Press Conference Impressions
There was a nice long presentation on PC gaming, thanks once again to PC Gamer and AMD. Like last year it was pretty long, there was a Radeon reveal, and the games were hit or miss. Still, there’s plenty to talk about and it did stay focused as a PC gaming show so the All Games crew rallies together to tackle it.
E3 2016: All Games Playstation Press Conference Impressions
Sony came out of the gates swinging with a barrage of new games, sequels, trailers, and plenty of hints at what VR will be like with Playstation this October. While it was a dazzling display, the obvious fact that it was very impersonable struck a cord with some of our commentators. The All Games team assembles again to give its mixed take on the future of Playstation.
E3 2016: All Games Ubisoft Press Conference Impressions
Ubisoft came out to show off their next year’s releases including Ghost Recon Wildlands, South Park: Fractured But Whole, For Honor, Watch Dogs 2, and more. The All Games crew wraps up the announcements and compares to the other publishers of E3.
E3 2016: All Games Xbox Press Conference Impressions
Microsoft comes out swinging with big plans for the Xbox both this year and next. The All Games crew breaks down all of the games, known and previously unknown, as well as hardware and back end announcements from the press conference. #YearOfTheFist
Gaming History 101 