The Playlist – 9/1/2012

The last time I sat down and talked about what I was playing was about a month ago. Instead of listing the reasons why I haven’t been able to write a Playlist since, I’d rather just dive into what I played over the last month. There is a lot to talk about.

The Playlist - 7/28/2012

The summer of RPGs

The temperature reached 98 degrees yesterday, giving way to the start of the summer season. This means two things: Game releases will quickly slow down, as evidenced by this week’s release of Quantum Conundrum and Spec Ops: The Line next week, until they pick back up in late August, and I have a ton of games to write about from E3.

Welcome to the Future (Present?)

You may have wondered where I’ve been lately. Maybe you haven’t. In either case, I can tell you it’s been enjoying the hell out of Star Wars: The Old Republic (as evidenced by my Ratpr page). But before that, during beta, it was a different story.

After receiving my beta key in late October and downloading the client, I fired up the game to see how well it would work on my system. The game promptly greeted me with a critical error. It confirmed my fears; the computer I built in 2005 would not run this game I planned on playing for the next several years.

2011 VGA Picks

The Spike Video Game Awards will air tomorrow on Spike TV, and while they may not be as prestigious as the Oscars, they do hold a certain weight to the game industry. Last year I wrote up my picks for the awards, and here are my picks for 2011. This year was an amazing year for games, especially in the latter half. I’m excited to see what 2012 holds in addition to the great titles releasing in the early part of next year.

Below is a list of nomination for each category. I will put my pick in bold with a small description of why I think so below it, along with any omissions I think should have been included. These aren’t predictions of who I think will win, but whom I would vote to win.

GameStop pulling OnLive coupons from new boxes of Deus Ex: Human Revolution

As a special surprise for purchasers of the PC version of Deus Ex: Human Revolution, the game’s publisher Square Enix included a coupon for a free version of the game on OnLive, a cloud-based game platform that doesn’t have any hardware requirements, all you need is an internet connection.

A commenter on Joystiq warned potential customers not to buy the game from GameStop, as they instructed their employees to pull the coupon from new retail copies.

The PC returns to the spotlight

It’s fair to say that in the last decade or so, consoles have been the top dog. For consumers, their relative low entry cost, guarantee to play games tailored for the system, and easy-to-use online multi-player functionality gave confidence for those looking for a dedicated gaming machine. But the rise of consoles left the PC behind in the dust. Games that begun as PC exclusives eventually became console exclusive, leaving anticipating PC gamers feeling betrayed and neglected. Even PC games that were developed along their console counter-parts often suffered from what is referred to as consolification, or designing the game in a way to meet the limitations of a console. However, games releasing this year are beginning to lean more towards accepting the PC as a viable platform instead of an after-thought.

Weekend Edition - What I'm Playing

The year-long video game release schedule is one that is constantly in flux and confusing to me. Not all of it is so alien. Games released during the months leading up to Christmas are logical. This year’s holiday schedule is so jam-packed that it’s a wonder if we’ll have enough time to play the same game for more than a week. This year we’ll see Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, Battlefield 3, Twisted Metal, Batman: Arkham City, and Assassin’s Creed: Revelations, all in this year’s fourth quarter. That's a lot of heavy hitters in a short amount of time. The months after the holiday make sense as well. People that received money as a gift want to go out and spend it.