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The Savior Of The LAN: Rune Classic!

When I was getting ready for my annual LAN party this year I researched which games were LAN favorites, and the game that kept coming up over and over again was Rune by Human Head Studios.  I remember hearing about Rune when it came out in 2000, but I totally missed it.  Which is a shame because it is hilarious fun, well at least the multiplayer is.

The game features hand to hand combat, and it is all about trying to out flank your opponent.  There are shields you can pick up, but if the other players find some of the bigger weapons the game has to offer, the shield will get chopped in two just before you do.  Really what happens in this game is people run around each other swinging big weapons with reckless abandon trying to turn the other player in to goo, or just dismember them.  It is very simple, but it wonderfully executed.  I think we played this game for three hours.  Besides death match there is a game mode called Head Ball where you have to chop off each other’s heads and then throw them in your own goal.  Not as fun as the straight up death match, but a good change of pace.

Everything about this game is as ‘Metal’ as possible. Oceans of blood, Vikings, skeletons, and rivers of acid.  Unfortunately the graphics have not held up well, but that just means it will run on any computer out there.  The gameplay on the other hand is still in top form, and you can find keys for Rune Classic (as it is titled now) for under a $1, so there is no reason not to pick it up for your next PC based get together.  Rune Classic got my LAN off to a great start, and there is no way it will not be on this list for next year.

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Star Wars: Knights Of The Old Republic Reboot?

So according to “sources“, BioWare Austin was going to remake the RPG classic Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, but they have now moved on to creating a prototype for a full series reboot.  While I would hate to see all of the old stories go, this would fit in to Disney’s “lets change all the canon to fit together better” model.  BioWare Austin has been busy keeping the Star Wars: Old Republic MMO going for over five years, so continued development of that title is probably winding down.  Which means it is probably time to return to the series’ single player roots.  Since I have been enjoying Mass Effect: Andromeda so much, I am pretty pumped for another Knights of the Old Republic game.  We will see if anything comes of this, or if it is yet another internet rumor set to dash my hopes with it lies.

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Check Out The First Trailer For Thor: Ragnarok!

This trailer makes the third Thor movie look a little like Guardians of the Galaxy: Thor Edition, but I am okay with that.  It is a Thor movie that looks as crazy as it should, and it has Jeff Goldblum in all his Goldblum-iness, so that is pretty sweet.  Plus I am always up for a good reason to listen to some Led Zeppelin!  It is a long time until November, but I am sure we will see plenty more from this movie leading up to its launch.

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Xbox Scorpio Is Beast!

It is clear that Microsoft doesn’t like being the less powerful than the PS4 Pro, so they went all out to beat it.  12GB of DDR5 memory, 4GB more than the PS4 Pro, and it bests PS4 Pro’s memory bandwidth by more than a 100GB/s at 326GB/s.  They boosted the core CPU clock speed by almost a full 1GHz.  Then on top of that they went up from 12 compute units on the standard Xbox One GPU to 40 on the Scorpio, so that is 28 more graphics threads, and 4 more than the PS4 Pro.  What does that mean to us?  It is pretty dang fast.  Fast enough to compete with the PC fanboys that is for sure.

Microsoft has also said that all games will get a boost, not just ones that program for it, so that will be interesting to see.  It will also be interesting to see if they can hit their native 4K resolution promise.  With this kind of power I am sure that they can, but will games’ FPS be able to keep up?  Now all we need know is how much all this power will cost?  I am guessing it will have to launch somewhere around $500, but any more than that and it could be DOA.  Especially since there are no Scorpio exclusive games.  All games should work on both the Scorpio and the Xbox One.  Microsoft should have an interesting E3.  I will be watching that is for sure.  Until then I am going to dream about compute units!

Watch the full reveal below!

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Hopefully The Walking Dead Season 7 Will Be Known As The Lost Season!

Hey do you like shows where things happen, people grow, and mysteries form?  Well then you shouldn’t watch The Walking Dead Season 7.  It was sooo booooring.  We all knew the whole season that Rick’s gang would get all the settlements together to battle the Saviors, but they managed to do it in the slowest and least interesting way possible.

It starts out with Rick lost and unsure.  Only knowing that if he gets stuff for Negan that his people will live.  It turns out his people hate that idea, so they keep getting killed anyway, or at the very least talked to by Negan for long amounts of time.  Which is like getting killed.  We did loose a few people we didn’t care about.  This goes on for the first half of the season.  It is slow and dumb.  Then the second half is about Rick finding guns and people to fight Negan.  This is also slow and dumb.

Finally in the last episode they fight Negan, kind of, but of course Negan gets away, so I am guessing they are going to build up for a full season again until the ‘war’ happens.  Sure the last episode was fun because something actually happened, and it showed what this series is capable of, but it was terrible that we had to wait through the entire season to get there.

I am hopping that the producers are listening to their fans and their dwindling viewer numbers and start doing something interesting.  That way we can all just forget that season seven ever happened.  It was bad, and worse still, bad in the most boring way possible.  Please get interesting again The Walking Dead!