Quarter-Life : How Gaming Habits Have Evolved in My 20's

As I speed through my 25th year of life on this planet, I've started reflecting on a lot of things. Most recently, my gaming habits and how they've changed over the years. From the pixelated platformers that helped occupy my free time as a child, to my parentally regimented gaming hours in my adolescent stage, to my high school obsession and dedicating entire weekends to JRPGs, it all seems so long ago. These days, I'm lucky if I can get in an hour or two a day without interruption, and that's not to mention other, self-imposed deadlines like this one. Instead of long, plot-filled, story-driven titles like Final Fantasy, Persona or The Elder Scrolls, I often find myself content to play through a few matches of Titanfall or Street Fighter, or bang out a couple quick levels of an indie title like Bastion or Octodad. I started wondering if it was my taste that had changed over the years, or if something else about me had.

This Week in Gaming - March 31st - April 5th

Tsaikotyk and myself have talked regularly about doing news wrap-ups in the past, and I figured it was about time that we do one.  There's not much from March that we haven't covered (besides D3: Reaper of Souls), so it's a pretty good time to get a jump on what's going on in April.

ANNOUNCED
Divekick Addition Edition hits tomorrow, April 4th, and has in store a BOATLOAD of changes. Not one character went untouched in this revision, and The Baz even got completely redesigned. In addition to this, the menus have been redesigned to work with directional pads, bugs have been fixed, and the style gem has been updated. For a complete list of changes, check out this list on Shoryuken.


RELEASED
Ashly Burch, famous for the webseries "Hey Ash Whatcha Playin" and her voice role as Tiny Tina from Borderlands 2, has just landed herself as the host in a new Geek and Sundry web-series.  Titled "Unplugged", the series takes two YouTubers and pits them against each other both in-game and the real world.  Contestants will have to battle it out in a predetermined game, but that's not the fun part.  After competing on the digital scale, players will then go head-to-head in a real-world competition that is as closely-related as safety allows to the game that they just completed.

Always glad to see the Burch family getting things done outside of HAWP, and I'm sure having Ashly as the host of Unplugged will do great things for both Geek & Sundry and Ashly herself.

PATCHED
Titanfall got its first major patch this week. After about a week of beta testing, Respawn has initiated changes in the way the matchmaking works.  The change is currently only in effect for Attrition and Hardpoint game modes, but is designed to put skill-matching above speed and level-matching.  After a few rounds, if the computer notices a clear difference in skill, it will make an attempt at remixing and re-balancing the teams. This should make games far more enjoyable and remove the frustration of being repeatedly dominated with no hope for new opponents.

The Big Releases of March 11th, 2014: Titanfall Review, Dark Souls II First Impressions

Having played as much of Titanfall and Dark Souls II as my tight schedule allows, I figured it was time to post my thoughts. Titanfall, being the bigger release, has gotten the bulk of this time, so a full review follows, whereas the sadly neglected Dark Souls II only gets a brief look at my first impressions with the few hours I've spent with it.

Review: Titanfall - Rock 'em Sock 'em Robots

Last week I had the (dis)pleasure of being available for the midnight release of Titanfall on PC (via EA's Origin).  Now I know what you're thinking: "But Latency!  You told us you weren't going to be caught dead anywhere near that bug-ridden, server-crashing, lag-inducing piece of filth for the first week!"  Well, you'd be right except that money talks, and so when Tsaikotyk threw $80 at my PayPal and told me to go pre-order the digital deluxe edition, who was I to argue?

I probably should have though, because the launch was about everything I expected.  I spent roughly five hours in the game client and about one and a half actually playing.  The developers publicly acknowledged on launch night that there was a 'glitch' that caused the game to 'initialize' when searching for a server connection.  This didn't mean anything except that the client was now stuck diddling itself and didn't care much for connecting you.  Fucking called it.

All Aboard! - Has Sony Gone Off the Rails?

This post was supposed to be a Titanfall review.  However, Call of Mechwarrior has spent the vast majority of my play-time "initializing" (whatever that means), and so I'm left writing you a news post instead.

I'm here to pose a question: What do Amy Hennig, Jack Tretton, and Santa Monica Studios all have in common?  Answer: they were all once much larger parts of the machine that is Sony Computer Entertainment America (SCEA) than they are now.  Something very serious is going down at the gaming giant and one has to wonder: "is Sony going off the rails?"

Arc System Works US - Good for the Bottom Line, Bad for Consumers

Latency's got the week off, so I'll be filling in for him, instead of the usual "attempt to get new site up between work days" routine.

I spent a while trying to figure out what to talk about tonight, and there's really only one thing that comes to mind. Arc System Works US.

First Impressions: Titanfall Beta (PC)

The new title from developers Respawn Entertainment (better known as "formerly Infinity Ward") dropped the beta for their upcoming sci-fi shooter, with giant fucking robots, this past weekend, and wrapped it up on February 19th.  It goes without saying that the good people working on this title have more than their fair share of experience in the first-person shooter genre.  The question that seems to be on most fans (or haters) minds is: how will Titanfall stack up to Call of Duty?  Lucky for you guys, I'm here to help answer that question with my limited experience in the PC beta for the game.