Cant believe its fucking May already, for poor old Malcom time might have been the fire in which he burns but for me time is more like a slip and slide I glide lazily across. Also still not happy with that title. Relatively short this week, I was online fuck all and was oddly busy doing nothing so I didnt really catch too much news.
Silent Hills officially cancelled
The fallout for whatever is going on with Kojima and Konami continues as Silent Hills gets officially cancelled. It’s a series I’m not particularly invested in but the tech demo they put out for this was awesome. Seems like the curse of del Toro strikes again, clearly don’t get him involved in a game you’re making. It strikes me as a bit odd that there are very few games out there that match quite the same niche as the Silent Hill games. Siren probably comes the closest (and is pretty good)
FINAL FANTASY XIV: HEAVENSWARD benchmark released
Have to say, along with the imminent release of the Witcher 3 running this benchmark really gave me a strong urge to upgrade my PC. “Luckily” being flat broke squashed that notion. Still it only took a bit of tweaking to get it running near max with a table 60+ FPS so I’m happy enough with that. I was very excited about Heavensward but that faded pretty quickly. I’ll still be picking it up of course. I think I am actually going to change my current character, a female Miqo’te, into the new Au’ra race. Just for a change more than anything else. I do wish there were a few more costume options in the new character creator so I could test out what they’d look like with my current gear (even more than that I wish long hair didnt clip through costumes necessitating me going with a short hair cut).
Skyrim mod sales stopped
I was surprised by this, Valve’s usual response to the internet setting itself on fire over what they do is generally to arrogantly persevere so the turn around here was unusual. I have to imagine Bethesda had a hand in it as they have more to worry about, specifically the brand being damaged, than Valve and their virtual monopoly (boggles the mind that people don’t object more to that) do. On paper I can see why Skryim might have seemed like a good choice as the flagship game for this, large established modding community, etc. But really they are the reasons why it shouldnt have been chosen. People who have been making and using mods for a series for literally over a decade are clearly heavily invested, it’s going to work up some real emotion. A new game with a new mod community seems like a much better test bed for something like this.
Dragon+ launched
The successor to the long running Dragon magazine…is rather unimpressive. While it looks fairly slick I’m not a big fan of the actual navigation and the first issues is very light on non-marketing material. It’s clearly, and in fairness its explicitly stated to be, tied into WotC’s approach to marketing the D&D brand not necessarily the RPG. Still, its free and only the first issue so no need to decide one way or another.
Sound of crinkling tin foil can cause seizures in cats
If you really hate cats here’s your chance for revenge. This gives me hope they discover something similar for dogs, if you ever see me coming out of the supermarket with a trolley full of tinfoil you know its going to be a bad day for some dogs (or a Tuesday, gotta protect ma brain waves)
30K plastics, Harlequins, Genestealer Cults and Mechanicus, oh my
I really havent been keeping up with Warhammer in either its Fantasy Battle or 40K incarnations. But I was always a fan of harlequins so its nice to see them back. I never got why people had the horn for genestealer cults and I never liked the adeptus mechanicus but more options are also good. Apart from Harlequins the most interesting news to me is the prospect of Horus Hersey era plastics to serve as a base for the Forgeworld stuff. Hoping for all new sculpts as some of the old Mk III & IV armour looks a bit shite.
Go fuck yourself Duracell
A 175 year old battery that’s still working, there’s something just so enjoyably inexplicable about it
New Dragonball Z series announced
DBZ was a series I initially mocked and then grew to love. I wasnt a fan of “filler” post DBZ GT stuff but picking up Xenoverse a month or so ago really got me back in the DBZ mood so I have to say I’m definitely interested in seeing a new series, especially as Toriyama himself is involved.
Assassinorum Execution Force released
This game was just released and while initially excited my interest dropped of a cliff almost instantly when I realised that Games Workshop were directly involved. The reason being that it meant the (lovely looking) playing pieces would need to be assembled and, worst of all, painted. I can’t paint for shit so the value of a really nice miniature I can either leave unpainted or ruin with a shitty paint job is basically a negative value. It also feels so backwards compared to other boardgames these days. A basic but solid pre-paint is the way to go, if you can paint then you can repaint and touch it up, if you can’t you have something at least decent to look at and don’t feel like the games advertisement pictures lied to you. I imagine some people might buy it for the exclusive assassin sculpts, which do look more dynamic than the standard ones.
“here’s a fox in Chernobyl making a bacon sandwich”
I dare you not to watch it
X-Men Mutant Revolution released
Like the entry above this is a newly released game I’m feeling rather ambivalent about. On the one hand its a re-skin and partial enhancement of the Spartacus Blood & Sand boardgame, which I really enjoyed the one time I got to play it and which I feel is really under-rated. Some of the new theme clearly works better with the rules, though some of it already looks like it doesn’t quite fit. Then we have Wizkid’s involvement. Wizkid’s record for quality and support is mixed to say the least. I don’t think I’ll be picking this up as I still havent got enough play out of Spartacus, and the new theme doesn’t particularly appeal (even in the comics the differing mutant schools felt stupid and poorly differentiated).