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It Might Be Good For Radeon To Get Away From AMD…

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I am an AMD/ATI fanboy from way back, so in 2006 when AMD bought ATI, I was pretty excited.  I thought that they would work well together, and that together they would bring us some incredible technology.  While they still do produce good stuff, they just can’t seem to keep up with Intel or NVidia.  Now due to declining revenue and continual financial losses AMD is starting the process of spinning off ATI, or the now named Radeon graphics division.

It is kind of sad that they were never able really compete with the big boys, but now that Radeon is on its own (and I am sure up for sale), maybe we will see some cool new video cards come out that really put NVidia to task.  Good competition helps us all.  AMD on the other hand will probably continue to decline.  In a world that doesn’t need desktop computers it hard to be the guys making the slower less efficient chips, even if they are a really good dollar/performance value.

It is kind of hard to be the fanboy on the loosing side, but I will get over it.  I just hope the new Radeon group will be able make me proud.

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AMC Is Getting Ready To Launch Preacher!

https://twitter.com/Sethrogen/status/641693712796545024/photo/1

So executive producer Seth Rogen released the first poster for his new comic book based show Preacher.  I have to admit when I first heard about this project I was excited about it.  I fondly remember reading some of the comics at a friend’s house.  Now thanks to the Hoopla app I was able to read the first two collections of the books, and I have to say Preacher does not hold up.  It is very 90’s, but not in a retro way, in a going all out trying offend you kind of way.  Which it then makes sense why I liked it when I was younger, but not so much now.  Oh to be thirteen again!

I will probably still give this show a shot when it debut’s next summer, but my excitement level has dropped.  Who knows, since they will have to tone down the comics quite a bit (as in I am not sure if they can use much of the source material) to get it on TV, Preacher may be better for it.  If nothing else the look of the comic is good, so if they copy the art style we may at least be in for a visual treat if nothing else.

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The Holiday Game Release Cycle Needs To End!

fallout-4-logoFall is here so you know what that means: every game company will try and release their games in the next three months.  I mean what the heck.  Just this month we started off with Mad Max and Metal Gear Solid 5.  Then a week later Forza 6 arrived, and then next month is Halo 5.  After that my life ends when Fallout 4 comes out.  Sorry Rise of the Tomb Raider or COD: Black Ops 3, you will have to wait three months for me to come out of my Vault.

That doesn’t even take in to account top shelf expansions for big games like Destiny or The Witcher 3.  Speaking of The Witcher, do we really need more stuff to do this soon?  The game has 200 hours of content.  I bet there are only like five guys saying, “hey I needs more Witcha’ ova’ here!”  I am happy for those guys, but me?  I am just trying to finish the game as quickly as possible (I am like 65 hours in) so that I will be ready for Halo 5.

That is the problem with this season.  There isn’t enough time to play all these games, and when one or two of them fail whole game studios will get wiped out.  It isn’t fair to me the consumer, and it isn’t fair to the people making the games.  We need to break out of this cycle.  Movies have shown in the last few years that good movies can launch any time and be successful, and I think games are now starting to be the same way.  The Witcher 3 which I mentioned earlier came out in May, but it still sold 6 million copies.  As matter of fact the May release probably helped it because there were less games to choose from.

This Holiday I will only be buying two games for myself, and with all the great games to choose from that is a shame.  If only more companies would take Microsoft’s lead like they did with Quantum Break and move some of their major games to Spring.  My wallet and I would appreciate it!

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Hands On Shadowrun: Hong Kong!

Shadowrun-Hong-Kong-Logo

I am a pretty big fan of the Shadowrun IP (intellectual property), so when Hairbrained Schemes started making their Shadowrun turn based RPGs I was all in (in for $15 on Kickstarter anyway).  Well they are not done making them, and they have just released Shadowrun: Hong Kong.  This game was also Kickstarted, but just for the polish phase of the game, and the polish paid off, this is their best Shadowrun game yet.

If you have played Returns or Dragonfall, you will know what to expect here.  The game hasn’t changed that much.  You still have the same basic isometric turned based combat, and fun branching text based dialog system, but everything has been tweaked just a little to make it better: the interface is easier to understand, the story is more interesting, you can level up your crew, cooler hacking levels, and like Dragonfall you can save anywhere you want, even in combat!  These small changes all make for an even better game.

I am not sure that I would call Shadowrun: Hong Kong a true sequel, but more like another chapter, or better yet as we say in the table-top RPG world, “a new campaign”, and of the three campaigns they have made Hong Kong is the best.  That being said, now that they have three Shadowrun games under their belt using this system, once they finish the DLC for this game, I do hope they change things up a bit for their next run in the shadows.  It would be great to get a bigger and deeper Shadowrun experience.

For now we get to look forward to Hairbrained Scheme’s take on BattleTech, and their upcoming roguelike Necropolis (and I am looking forward to those games especially BattleTech).  It is nice to see a small indie developer keep proving themselves with good IP, and by good IP I mean stuff that I like.  As a matter of fact everyone should just make more stuff that I like!