Early this year, I wrote a piece on the state of broken game launches and the mentality of fixing a title after release. Not much has changed since that was published, especially in regards to PC games. While the PC platform was finally starting to get consistently strong ports from console-focused developers toward the end of the last console generation, now that the PS4 and Xbox One have launched, many developers are again focusing their efforts on console games and then offloading half-assed ports to PC. We saw it earlier this year with Warner Bros.’ Mortal Kombat X, which frequently crashed on users and, when a patch was released to fix the problem, ended up erasing their saved games.

Just this month, yet another disastrous PC launch occurred with a different Warner Bros. title. Batman: Arkham Knight is abysmal on PC, requiring absolutely top-of-the-line PC components to even maintain 30 fps without major stuttering. The game forces a 30 fps framerate lock on users as well, frustrating people with high-end machines, and is missing several visual effects present in the console versions of the game. Even worse, most computers that can handle the game’s specs slow to a crawl during many of the batmobile segments. The game requires a $1000+ machine to get visuals and performance that is still inferior to the $350 Xbox One.

Continue reading Steam Refunds and the Importance of Culpability In Game Sales →

Yet another E3 has come and gone, and once again the gaming world is treading water in a sea of information. After hours of conferences and several more hours of demonstrations, there is almost too much information to even parse, but that doesn’t mean that I won’t try. If you want to check out the Twitch coverage I did with Unknown Hosts, go here to watch our past broadcasts from this week! Or, if you’d like to jump to our pre and post show coverage, just use the links provided below the company headings to see themc where available!

But for a concise, written version of events, read on! Continue reading E3 Wrap-Up →

(The following article contains some spoilers from Telltale Games’s Game of Thrones series)

Ever since their first season of The Walking Dead, Telltale Games has been primarily known as the company that specializes in narrative-heavy, choice-driven games. While familiarity with their formula has led to slightly diminishing returns, and none of their recent titles have packed the emotional punch that the first season of their Walking Dead series did, they have been consistently entertaining and unique. The Wolf Among Us was a cool comic-based neo-noir fantasy piece, tied to the existing “Fables” property but also perfectly suited to the uninitiated. Tales from the Borderlands has nailed its parent series’ style and sense of humor, while crafting a story and cast of characters with a lot more complexity than its shooter-siblings would allow. Even the second season of The Walking Dead, while paling in comparison to the first, did a generally strong job of balancing player choice with a pre-ordained story.

However, four episodes in, their Game of Thrones series appears to be their first major misstep. This is for several reasons, but two stand out in particular. First is that, on a conceptual level, Game of Thrones was destined to run into trouble. Unlike The Walking Dead and Tales from the Borderlands, which utilize different sets of characters than their source material, and The Wolf Among Us, which is a prequel to the main series, Game of Thrones takes place during the same time period as the fourth season of the show. It also utilizes many of the same characters. The central families involved, the Forresters and the Whitehills, are inventions for the game, but are frequently interacting with characters whose fates are set in stone.

Continue reading Telltale’s Game of Thrones: Choice vs Narrative →

Just last week, one of Sony’s most high-profile exclusives, The Order: 1886, launched on the Playstation 4. However, before most people could get their hands on it or even read a review, a Youtube user leaked a video of the entire game, from start to finish. This in and of itself isn’t especially uncommon these days, but the video stirred up a lot of controversy by only clocking in at a little over 5 hours. For a $60 game, this seemed outrageous to many gamers, and a full-blown controversy emerged online.

Continue reading The Importance of Longevity and the Plague of the Dotted Map →