A place for things and stuff
The bomb that Fallout 4 is coming out this fall! November 10th to be exact. They have been working on this game for six years, so I guess it is possible, but to go from announcing a game to releasing it in less than six months? Especially a game of this magnitude. That is crazy! Crazy amazing though! The future of my 2015 is sure to be full of Super Mutants.
Well Game of Thrones season five has come and gone. It was a very controversial season, and one that will not be soon forgotten. Like the seasons before it was boring until it was exhilarating, and then it was shocking. They have their formula down pat. They have a problem now though. Small spoilers here, so watch out. There are almost no heroes left. They have actively punished or killed them all. While it makes sense that perhaps the show is winding down, so they need to trim up the cast a bit, but it is going to be hard to watch when there is almost no one worth rooting for.
We will see if season six can give us someone to get behind, but pretty much the Mother of Dragons is the Seven Kingdom’s and the show’s last hope. There is no one else left that we care about. True they could bring some people back to life, but that would cheapen the deaths of other characters and make us wonder why they aren’t walking around.
The writing staff at HBO is going to have to take a long hard look at what they have left, and write something amazing for the next season, or they may start to loose viewers as well as characters. If all the fans have left is the villains than that is not a show many people really want to watch. Not one that I would want to watch anyway. There is plenty of other TV to keep me busy.
It is clear Microsoft is unsure about the possibilities of true virtual reality gaming. On one hand VR has been dreamed of for years as the ultimate immersive gaming experience, and on the other hand everything that has come out up to now has been pretty gimmicky. Sony is all in with Project Morpheus as is Valve with Vive, but Microsoft’s approach has been wait and see. Their headset HoloLens is augmented reality not virtual reality, so announcing a partnership with Oculus Rift makes a lot of sense. It means they get to do nothing while appearing to be in the game.
Facebook will get a major partner, and Microsoft will be able to say, “hey we got a VR headset too!” True the integration is just streaming of current Xbox games, so they will still be 2D, but just on what seems to be a massive screen. It will be a nice option if you pick up an Oculus Rift and have an Xbox One, and if it becomes super popular they can always further the integration and start to develop games specifically for it.
It looks like 1.6% stake Microsoft bought of Facebook is paying off. It got them on Facebook’s board, and it lets them play with Facebook’s toys. Still if VR takes off it looks like Sony is the best setup to take advantage since everyone with a PS4 has compatible hardware. Vive and Oculus Rift have some pretty steep computer requirements spec wise, so only the hardcore end of the computer gaming population will be able to run them. Though if Microsoft makes the Oculus Rift work natively with Xbox One that could level the playing field a bit.
The VR game is shaping up to be an interesting fight. It has a lot of major players involved, but there still hasn’t been a proven demand for the product. This is one of those fights that no matter who wins, everyone looses. Which given Microsoft’s limited investment would probably be alright with them.
Let’s start off with some casting news shall we? (Thanks to Hypersonic55 for the image by the way)
Netflix Casts The Punisher!
Jon Bernthal formally known as Shane from AMC’s The Walking Dead will now be Frank Castle in Netflix’s Daredevil. After two failed Punisher movies I guess the Disney execs think maybe TV is the right place for the man who wants to kill the mob. I liked Tom Jane as The Punisher, but his movie was terrible, and I think Jon will do a good job. He should be an excellent counterpoint to the anti-killing hero Daredevil. We will also get to see some good bullets versus ninja action!
DC/Warner Brother Drops The Batman V Superman Synopsis!
With Batman V Superman about nine months away DC thought the time was right to drop the plot synopsis for the flick. It is pretty much what we thought, but here you go anyway!
Fearing the actions of a god-like super hero left unchecked, Gotham City’s own formidable, forceful vigilante takes on Metropolis’s most revered, modern-day savior, while the world wrestles with what sort of hero it really needs. And with Batman and Superman at war with one another, a new threat quickly arises, putting mankind in greater danger than it’s ever known before.
Like I said, it is pretty much what everyone was expecting. The question is how long will they fight each other before teaming up?
First Justice League: Gods and Monsters Short Released!
Bruce Timm said Justice League: Gods and Monsters was going to be dark, but I wasn’t prepared for how dark. This is quite the trip down the rabbit hole, but it is interesting, and it does live up to its title: Twisted. Have a look for yourself:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tpu6yPAFHrs
It is not the cartoon we are used to that is for sure, but it is kind of a fun take. We will see how it pans out over the next few episodes before the movie launches.
That is my comic book media roundup. Is there anything you think I should have talked about? Let me know!
Splash Damage, the creators of one of the classic multiplayer games Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory, has been looking for its next big hit for what seems like forever. Quake Wars was fun, but it never ran quite right and it was a little too big if that is possible. Brink was flat out broken even if it did introduce free running to multiplayer games, but because Enemy Territory was so good I decided to give their new free-to-play game Dirty Bomb a chance. Splash Damage may have their next hit on their hands.
Dirty Bomb is set in future London after a bomb has gone off, but don’t let that grim scenario throw you. This is a pretty whimsical game. You play as a mercenary carrying out missions for random corporations scavenging old London for the treasures people left behind. In practice this means you are going to shoot people in front of you, but also do your best to work with your team to complete objectives, or conversely try and stop people from completing their objectives. Kind of like every other Splash Damage game.
You will also pick a character class like a medic, mechanic, sniper, and so on. This is were Splash Damage wants to make its money. Everyone will get two characters from the start. A basic soldier and a medic. They will also give you free limited time mercenaries to play with as well. You can either play Dirty Bomb a lot (I mean a lot), and unlock all the mercs, or you can just pay a little real world cash to save yourself some time. You can also buy cases which give your mercs different gear. You don’t know what each case contains, so you may be buying the same loadout you have got three times before for that character you never play, but it is fun, and they are reasonably cheap, so you don’t have to play a lot to unlock them, or, you know, really buy them.
That being said, I never felt limited by not paying any money. I was able to hold my own with the mercenaries available, and the cases that I had unlocked by just playing a few rounds. So while Dirty Bomb is free-to-play it definitely is not pay-to-win. I do wish that instead of waiting for the free mercs to rotate that you could play them once for free to see if they are worth paying for. Though that is just me being impatient.
Dirty Bomb is really just a prettier version of Enemy Territory with a more light hearted feel, but honestly that should be a selling point. It runs on the Unreal 3 engine, so you don’t need a monster rig to play it, and the entry price is right. It is not a giant leap for first person shooters, but it is fun, free, and runs well on a lot of computers, so what I am saying is that you should give it a try.