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July 2011 - Posts
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Amazon is back again with another All Video Games Gold Box Event Today!
The Gold Box Events kicks off today, Tuesday, July 26, 2011 and features one deal of the day, in addition to lightning deals every few hours...
It looks like the selection will be very good based on the lightning deal clues below, but be quick with the mouse as the good ones can go quick (especially as the word spreads)!
Check it out: Amazon - All Video Games Gold Box Event
Deal of the Day:
- Brink (Xbox 360/PS3/PC) - $19.99 (Reg. $59.99) Still in Stock!
Hourly Lightning Deals:
9:00 AM EST: This deal is more than meets the eye
12:00 PM EST: Play the role of a US Marine sniper tasked with aiding in the liberation of a Latin American island nation from oppression
2:00 PM EST: The highly anticipated sequel to the fastest selling Star Wars game ever created
5:00 PM EST: Have fun and get fit!
7:00 PM EST: Jazz Jackrabbit's (fairly) distant cousin
8:00 PM EST: Arcade style fighting on your Xbox 360
9:00 PM EST: Latest iteration of the storied fighter franchise11
10:00 PM EST: The bugs are back
Check it out: Amazon All Video Game Gold Box Event
About Brink:
Brink is an immersive first-person shooter that blends single-player, co-op, and multiplayer gameplay into one seamless experience, allowing you to develop your character whether playing alone, with your friends, or against others online. You decide the combat role you want to assume in the world of Brink as you fight to save yourself and mankind's last refuge. Brink offers a compelling mix of dynamic battlefields, extensive customization options, and an innovative control system that will keep you coming back for more. 
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Welcome to the New Video Game Releases List for the Week!
The video game release highlights on Xbox 360, Playstation 3, Nintendo Wii, Sony PSP, Nintendo DS and PC/Mac include Catherine, The Sims 3: Town Life Stuff, plus a few more gems...
Current Amazon Pre-order Deals:
Our recommended new release of the week will go to:
Players will enter the life of Vincent Brooks, a 32-year-old man who finds himself caught by the irresistible attraction of the game's titular diversion. Vincent wakes up, hungover, next to a stunningly beautiful woman who isn't his girlfriend. This lands him in a predicament that occupies most men's dreams and nightmares. Did anything happen? Does he tell his longtime girlfriend, who's pressuring him to commit to her? Can he get away with stringing both women along? What will you choose to have Vincent do? Who will you choose to hurt? In life, cheating can ruin everything, but in the world of Catherine, it can also kill you.
Check out the full list of new video game releases (USA) for the week of July 25, 2011 on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Nintendo Wii, Sony PSP, Nintendo DS, and PC! As always, release dates are subject to change, slip, slide, and be fairly unpredictable.
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Amazon is back again with another All Video Game Gold Box Event!
The Gold Box Events kicks off Tuesday, July 26th, 2011 and features one deal of the day, in addition to lightning deals every few hours...
We were greeted with the following email from message:
As someone who has shopped video games at Amazon.com, you might like to know that on Tuesday, July 26th, 2011, the Amazon.com Gold Box will feature video game products for gamers all day long.
The video game deals will start flowing promptly at Midnight and features one deal of the day, in addition to lightning deals every few hours...
Hopefully the selection will be very good based on previous Amazon video game deal events, but be quick with the mouse as the good ones can go quick (especially as the word spreads)! Perhaps some deals on this week's release of Catherine will be in the cards...
Check it out: Amazon All Day Video Game Gold Box Event
About Catherine:
Players will enter the life of Vincent Brooks, a 32-year-old man who finds himself caught by the irresistible attraction of the game's titular diversion. Vincent wakes up, hungover, next to a stunningly beautiful woman who isn't his girlfriend. This lands him in a predicament that occupies most men's dreams and nightmares. Did anything happen? Does he tell his longtime girlfriend, who's pressuring him to commit to her? Can he get away with stringing both women along? What will you choose to have Vincent do? Who will you choose to hurt? In life, cheating can ruin everything, but in the world of Catherine, it can also kill you.
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| Price: |
$149.95 & this item ships for FREE with Super Saver Shipping. |
The Massive Multiplayer Online PC Game Star Wars: The Old Republic Standard and Collector's Edition Bundles are available for pre-order at Amazon!
Explore an age thousands of years before the rise of Darth Vader when war between the Galactic Republic and the Sith Empire divides the galaxy. Choose your class from a variety of classic Star Wars roles including Jedi Knight, Bounty Hunter, and Smuggler. Make decisions which define your personal story and determine your path down the light or dark side of the Force. Along the way you will befriend courageous companions who will fight at your side. Together, you will battle enemies in dynamic Star Wars combat, team up with other players to overcome incredible challenges and discover the wonders of the Star Wars galaxy in a fully-featured Massively Multiplayer Online Game.
The collector's edition includes:
Exclusive Gentle Giant Darth Malgus statue
Star Wars: The Old Republic game disks in collectible metal case
The Journal of Master Gnost-Dural annotated by Satele Shan
Star Wars: The Old Republic galaxy map
Custom Security Authentication Key
Music of Star Wars: The Old Republic CD
High-quality Collector's Edition box
In addition, the limited edition includes the following digital items:
- Flare Gun: Fire flares into the air
- Training Droid: Hovers at your side for combat assistance
- HoloDancer: Project your own holographic dancer
- HoloCam: Keep visual records of in-game adventures
- STAP: Sleek and unique in-game vehicle
- Exclusive Mouse Droid: Spunky Droid to join your adventure
- Exclusive Collector's Edition Store: Unique in-game vendor with an assortment of items
Currently, the release date is fuzzy at December 31, 2011, but will likely firm up in the next few months...
Check it out:
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Welcome to the New Video Game Releases List for the Week!
The video game release highlights on Xbox 360, Playstation 3, Nintendo Wii, Sony PSP, Nintendo DS and PC/Mac include Call of Juarez: The Cartel, Just Dance Summer Party, Captain America: Super Soldier, The Smurfs Dance Party, plus a few more gems...
Current Amazon Pre-order Deals:
Our recommended new release of the week will go to:
Call of Juarez: The Cartel is the third installment of the Western action shooter video game franchise, Call of Juarez. Call of Juarez: The Cartel includes the same attributes of a great Western shooter, upgraded to reflect modern times. For instance, instead of outlaws and brothels, you'll find cartel kingpins and strip clubs. But make no mistake, the spirit of the Wild West is still very much alive. You'll experience the lawlessness of the old country as you fight to take down a powerful drug cartel in a world where every man is out for himself.
Check out the full list of new video game releases (USA) for the week of July 18, 2011 on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Nintendo Wii, Sony PSP, Nintendo DS, and PC! As always, release dates are subject to change, slip, slide, and be fairly unpredictable.
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 I'm one of the few people not getting a check from Microsoft that actually believes in Kinect. I'm not insane; I realize that Kinect is not as conducive to gaming as the PR folks want us to believe--I mean let's be honest, trying to change game controls from digital controller input to motion control is almost literally like abandoning instant messaging in lieu of semaphore. But what I do see in Kinect is the future of home entertainment system. Kinect is a chance to throw away the stack of remote controls you can't keep track of, as well as create a system more intuitive and faster to control than traditional home entertainment setups, and the video linking has the potential to be the first commercially viable stab at a cheap video-phone setup.
In truth, Microsoft would have been better served releasing Kinect as a stand alone device instead of tying it to Xbox, but I'm guessing some marketing genius somewhere (I picture him wearing a wizard hat) decided that the company's best move would to be to try to ride the large installed user base from their gaming console. But since Kinect IS tied to Xbox, and I want to see the system survive and evolve, I compiled a list of things that Kinect SHOULD be doing if it wants to keep relevant. VOICE MACROS
EA showed at the Microsoft E3 press event that they clearly get which part of the Kinect is most useful to where gaming currently is--voice commands. High action games already require you to keep your fingers reflexively close to up to two analog sticks and 18 function buttons to stay ahead of the game, so the early hypothetical “making a tossing motion to toss a grenade in game” Kinect application is nearly useless, especially if there’s already a button on the controller that doesn’t require you to remove one hand from it.
Taking one hand off the sticks can cost you big time, but voice commands get around that problem. Shouting “Grenade!” doesn’t require much shift of concentration in the middle of a intense action sequence, and is a whole hell of a lot more player friendly than taking a hand off the controller.
So if voice actions are such a boon, why can’t we program our own? A simple voice-driven macro program would be next to nothing to piece together, and ‘forgivable flaws’, like only recognizing the command if given by the person who programmed the macro, would simplify the process exponentially. As the Dashboard becomes a more Kinect friendly experience, I expect we’ll see more functionality in this realm applied to menu navigation, but how handy would it be to be able to preset a game with a command like “Xbox: Map” or “Xbox: Save Game”. Microsoft even offers Touchstudio for WP7 Phones, a “build-your-own-touch-screen-macro” program, so wouldn’t a “build-your-own-voice-macro” system for Kinect just make sense?
Until some joker figures out how to macro “Xbox: Ultra Combo” during a MVC3 match, I suppose... VOICE COMMAND GAMES
Beyond programmable and supplemental macros, why haven’t we delved into the realm of voice-driven games? There seems to be little hesitation to make a segment of titles solely Kinect motion driven, so why hasn’t voice driven been explored yet?
Strategy games seem like an obvious place for this. I’m not going to pretend that pro-level Starcraft players are going to want to shout out “Zerg Rush” (alright, who are we kidding, they do that anyway), but how righteous and investing would it be to issue commands to your units from the role of a Civil War or medieval army commander? “Archers, forward!” “Men! Shore up that left flank!” “Take the North Wall!”
Similarly, adventure games would be great for voice commands. I know, you’re hesitant to follow me on this one, but stay with me. Voice commands are limited by the number of commands you can include in the game’s programming. This is why games with a militaristic background work best for voice commands, because issued commands can be expressed with a minimum of vocabulary.
Now think back to the birth of adventure games, the text based adventure. The number of commands that actually worked were limited, usually far below what people attempted. I have faith that modern game designers would be able to apply adventure game tropes to a limited command vocabulary in a way that is both intuitive and largely unfrustrating.
And, for the love of God, make me a Star Trek voice based command game where I can issue orders to the bridge like Picard. “Engineering, report!” “Open hailing frequencies.” “ENGAGE!” 
GAME SHOWS
This one is so obvious that Microsoft put it on their own target videos--Kinect based multiplayer game show styled games. With voice and face recognition, and the ability to update question packs online, games show-styled games seem like the most obvious choice around, but still nothing has shown up on the market…or even in previews.
Gamers are largely geeks, and geeks love proving that they’re smarter or more knowledgeable than others. How is this not yet a thing? The all-too-short lived 1 vs 100 venture proved that there is a market for competitive online trivia gaming, including pooling thousands of players to go up against each other; basing these ideas in a Kinect environment just makes sense.
COCKPIT VIDEO
This has always been an obvious use to me, since Playstation 2’s Eye Toy, that I have just never been able to understand why the makers of the console-based cameras haven’t played with more. These cameras (Eye Toy, PS3 Eye, Kinect) have the capacity to do what I call “poor-man’s green screening”, where they take an image of the backdrop of the room and wipe out anything that stays static. So the walls, furniture, items on screen that are inanimate/stay put can be ignored by the camera and replaced with any backdrop desired, while animate objects (like you) appear to be moving in front of the new backdrop. The obvious application to me has always been placing the player of the game in a cockpit environment, particularly for driving and mech combat games. You're playing a mech game, online with a buddy. They open a video link to communicate with you. A small thumbnail video of them appears in the corner of the HUD, and you see a live video of them, but instead of sitting in their living room, you see them embedded in the cockpit of their mech, which could be unique to the model, or even customized by the user. This concept works outside of gameplay, as well. You call your friend up over video communication, and they're in the background of their choosing. I'd be a lot more likely to drop Microsoft Points on a background my friends can see, like a WWI foxhole or lollipop island or even licensed Castle Grayskull backdrop behind me while I chat with them, than I would the current Theme system where Microsoft wants me to pay three-to-four bucks for a dashboard background only I can see.  KINECT/WP7 CONNECTIVITY
So, I know this flies in the face of the whole “controller-free” company line, but between the Kinect’s motion tracking and the WP7’s gadget list (accelerometer, touch screen, camera, et al), the WP7 could be set up to link to the Xbox’s Wi-Fi to accomplish the kind of preciseness of control that is turning off the majority of Kinect’s dejectors. Microsoft is already trying to sell the WP7 dashboard style to Xbox users, so why not?
And not just precise controls, a WP7 platform with Kinect and Xbox doing the processing for it could handle all level of Alternate Reality camera games, and even simpler, let you use the WP7 touch screen as a low-function controller or a video remote control. I have a hard time believing that Microsoft isn’t forward-thinking or future-proofing enough to already have these features in the works, but I do worry that they might want to wait until market permeation on the Kinect and WP7 Phone becomes high enough to make such features cost effective, which in my eyes is the wrong business strategy. A better strategy would be to pull the trigger on Kinect-WP7 connectivity as soon as possible and use it as a marketing point to encourage consumers to buy into which ever half of the program they haven’t yet adopted. Face it, all you need is a link between the two, and you already have
the WiiU ready to go for nothing more than a firmware update... VISUAL CODE/BARCODE SCANNING
Smartphones have all manner of one- and two-dimensional barcode scanners, and if you’ve ever had to input a Microsoft code you know how frustrating it can be to input the code, only to realize you typed it in wrong and now have to scrutinize the code for the error (not to mention the frustration of trying to input a 25-digit code on the soft keyboard). And as “online passes” become more common with new retail games, wouldn’t it be so much easier to just hold up the included card in front of the Kinect and let it scan and input the code for you? Microsoft even has it's own proprietary code system, and no one's sure why, but they could lend themselves a lot of legitimacy by giving the Kinect the ability to read a code and then add content to your game or Avatar, or instantly pull up a movie trailer or music download. The idea begs for the cross-merchandising and marketing that will make-or-break new technology. The "do-everything" concept has already been deep in the marketing strategies of both Microsoft and Sony, to not apply it to their peripherals could be a dangerous mistake.
I suppose there is always the danger of folks hacking the codes to give themselves free downloads, but realistically there’s not any more danger than already exists in trying to decipher a 25-digit code. 
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Like a lot of you, I spent the past week-and-a-half Achievement whoring, thanks largely in part to Steam’s Summer Camp promotion. Now that the promotion is over, I was glad to be able to go through my library, wipe out the games that I only had installed for the Achievement hunting, and get ready to spend some quality time with some of the choice selections I grabbed from the sale.
The problem though is that now, I seem to have lost the motivation. I can’t figure out where to begin because frankly none of the games seem all that intriguing. And I blame the Achievements.
I just spent ten days playing games like it was a task: play this game and push my way through to Achievement X, repeating sections should need be to pin down the Achievement. That’s not fun, that’s not leisure; that’s a job. That’s what I do at work--locate a task that needs done and work at making sure it’s done properly.
Taskmastering has become a modern standard in gaming. MMO’s like World of Warcraft pretty much base to whole game play around giving the players a checklist of tasks to perform and let them hammer away at the list. For gamers that have made themselves slaves to Achievements, Trophies, and Gamerscores, a game isn’t a leisure media, it’s a list of challenges the developers have made to force the players to accomplish before they give them a seal of gaming approval.
But that’s the problem for me. The root word for ‘gaming’ is ‘game’. A game is supposed to be fun. I realize that, for some people, accomplishing a series of tasks is fun (I tend to worry about those people and a psychological need to prove themselves, but to each their own), but for someone like me, that uses games to relax and decompress, the idea of throwing myself at another series of tasks on my own time is a bit abhorrent.
I assume that, in time, this burning out on games that Steam’s Summer Camp laid on me will fade, but in the meantime it has given me further appreciation for largely ignoring games’ Achievement lists
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Welcome to the New Video Game Releases List for the Week!
The video game release highlights on Xbox 360, Playstation 3, Nintendo Wii, Sony PSP, Nintendo DS and PC/Mac include NCAA Football 12, Oblivion 5th Anniversary Edition, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2, Tiger Woods Move Bundle, plus a few more gems...
Current Amazon Pre-order Deals:
Our recommended new release of the week will go to:
NCAA Football 12 lets you experience the rise to dominance of a young, up-and-coming gridiron star hoping to make his way to a college superpower of choice and eventually a national championship. Experience the pride and pageantry of gameday Saturday like never before as you go from high school superstar, to top college player, to head coach in Road to Glory and Dynasty modes. With an enhanced in-game presentation, new traditions, and an all-new collision system, make an impact by leading your team to the National Championship with NCAA Football 12.
Check out the full list of new video game releases (USA) for the week of July 11, 2011 on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Nintendo Wii, Sony PSP, Nintendo DS, and PC! As always, release dates are subject to change, slip, slide, and be fairly unpredictable.
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Just a gentle reminder to all those PS3 and PSP owners out there that Sony's 'Welcome Back' program is set to end this Sunday, July 3, 2011.
All PSN members who had signed up before the outage (April 20, 2011) will be able to select two games for the PS3 system and two games for the PSP system.
For PS3 owners, go to the ‘Welcome Back’ section in the PlayStation Store, and select 2 titles from the following list:
- Dead Nation
- inFAMOUS
- LittleBigPlanet
- Super Stardust HD
- Wipeout HD + Fury
For PSP owners, go to the ‘Welcome Back’ section of PlayStation Store on your PSP system and select 2 titles from the following list:
- LittleBigPlanet (PSP)
- ModNation Racers
- Pursuit Force
- Killzone Liberation
Also available are free, limited subscriptions to the PlayStation Plus service, free movie rentals in addition to virtual items for PlayStation Home.
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