Vladimir gluten-free
I learned a little about quarks this week. Quarks are small constituents of matter that make up the things that make up atoms and they’re acted upon by all four important forces. Did you know there are six types of quarks, known as flavors: up, down, strange, charm, bottom, and top?
I didn’t. I learned this because I wanted to make a joke: “hahaha trying to argue for a constituent of matter model w/ elementary particle being acted upon by FIVE forces? talk about jumping the quark.”
It wasn’t well received, but I enjoyed it, and I learned. What efforts of yours went unnoticed this week? What did you learn?
Here’s last week’s post. Let’s begin anew.
[We post a lot of articles here at Destructoid. The endless, ouroboros news cycle has us burning the snake at both ends, which will ultimately push big news, thoughtful original pieces, and all sorts of other great content off of the front page. Check here every Saturday for my attempt to rectify that.]
ORIGINAL CONTENT
Sony making use of indies to give console gaming its identity back – Steven Hansen
Accomplished anime-hater Steven “Hates Anime” Hansen wrote about how Sony’s aggressive acquisition of indie games is helping to bring living room consoles back to their past identities as local co-op machines. He probably snuck in a jab at Senran Kagura in there, too.
Sportsfriends, which includes the local multiplayer Barabariball, Johann Sebastian Joust, Super Pole Riders, and Hokra, just hit PS4 and PS3. It perfectly encapsulates the feel Sony seems to be trying to bring more of. Johann Sebastian Joust doesn’t even require you to look at the TV, let alone try to impress with polygons. It impresses and impacts with fun.
Advance Wars is better than CoD: Advanced Warfare – Jonathan Holmes
Jonathan “Must Love Dogs” Holmes is not impressed with Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare. Why? Advance Wars has already done it better. #sixgamesandamovie
Advanced Warfare‘s boss is a creepy Ken-doll version of Kevin Spacey. Just like the real Kevin Spacey, he’s over dramatic, anti-heroic, full of himself, and known for making sadistic sexual advances on production assistants on the sets of his films. Unlike the real Kevin Spacey, he’s entirely made from plastic. If you were to rub him really fast, you would generate very little heat, as plastic Spacey is too smooth for friction. If regular Kevin Spacey is like a banana, Advanced Warfare’s Kevin Spacey is like a banana wearing a condom, except the banana also is a condom.
Don’t eat that banana.
Musings on the Dota 2 6.81 patch – Patrick Hancock
Patrick “Huckster” Hancock understands Dota so you (or I) don’t have to. There are a lot of pictures and details I dota-nderstand.
A new update just hit Dota 2, and it brought with it another slew of balance changes in the form of the 6.81 patch. Buffs and nerfs abound, and the future of the game has changed once again. Many have claimed that the 6.80 version of the game was really damn good, and I would certainly agree. Changes had to be made to certain Heroes though, and Icefrog is not one to keep us waiting for long.
Here’s why I think you should get the new slim PS Vita – Dale North
Dale “Virginia Slims” North makes my Vita-apologist self look like a downright Vita-hater. He (and I) already thinks you should get a Vita, but he says that if you’re buying one, the slim model is the way to go. He makes a compelling case. I’m still going to lord my OLED screen over ya’ll that do.
I don’t even count the screen change as a tick in the negative box. It’s not as nice as the original screen, but it’s still great. The rest, though? Come on! The new Vita is lighter, sleeker, easier to hold, more comfortable to play, has better buttons, a better charger port, and looks great to boot.
Amplitude is the best thing Harmonix has ever done – Chris Carter
Chris “Probably a Cylon” Carter has this weird condition wherein he doesn’t like music, but I guess if you digest that music through a videogame bird mama and throw it back up, he digs it, because he’s all kinds of excited for Amplitude. I’m hoping for at least three Cibo Matto songs. Did I use “cylon” right? I’ve never watched Battle Star Galactica.
But Amplitude didn’t just influence my musical tastes, it also scratched that hardcore rhythm game itch that I get from time to time. On higher difficulties, the game was tough — so tough that I’d sit there for hours mastering one song. Before the era of plastic instruments, sitting there hitting buttons like a DJ was more than enough for me. To top things off, it had a remix mode, as well as local and online multiplayer — in 2003!
MLB 14 looks great on PS4, but comes with load times slower than baseball – Steven Hansen
Steven “Anime Racist” Hansen mused weirdly on MLB 14 The Show in its PS4 debut, talking about elbow fetishes, $11 beer, and Hunter Pence’s terrifying eyes (see Featured Comment).
With these updated visuals comes a trek into the uncanny valley, but you can’t fault some misses when you are trying to faithfully model hundreds of real people. And why spend days modelling George Kontos when he’ll get optioned back down to the minors anyway? I wonder if there’s some sort of priority list the team goes through and then hopes someone at the bottom doesn’t explode onto the scene. What’s the return on investment for nailing Giancarlo Stanton’s chin stubble? I guess when the base game is good, you run out of things to change year over year, barring Blernsball additions (multiball, multiball!).
Reviews in Review: Child of Light, Daylight, Kirby Triple Deluxe – Ben Pack
It’s the end of the week which means that it’s time for another episode of Reviews in Review. This week a TON of games came out, so if you missed any of our reviews just check out the video for a quick recap. Seriously, what else are you going to do for four minutes? This week I use some really bad accents.
Dumb Idiot Ideas: Shooting a Plastic Owl with a Potato Gun – Bill Zoeker, Max Scoville
Dumb Idiot Ideas: Reading comments from our Call of Duty video – Bill Zoeker, Max Scoville
Max and I were having a laugh at all of the stupid garbage comments on our recent breakout Call of Duty video, and thought it would be a good idea to share the laughter with our not stupid garbage viewers (you).
Farts ‘N’ Crafts: Super Mustard-oid – Max Scoville
Because you demanded it, dear viewers, this week Max is doing some amazing Samus Aran fan-art using condiments and macaroni. My god this show is idiotic.
Hardline 017: Destiny, Mario Kart 8, and a Bunch of Dirty Old Games – Jordan Devore, Steven Hansen, Dale North, Hamza Aziz, Brett Makedonski
Hardline 018: Sunset Overdrive shreds, new old Pokemon, and more Call of Duty – Jordan Devore, Steven Hansen, Hamza Aziz, Brett Makedonski
HOTTEST, SLIMIEST NEWS OF THE WEEK
Call of Duty: Advanced Manfare, Halo with Boobs?, and a Lot of Beverages – Tuesday Newsday – Max Scoville
Lots of things happened in the game-o-sphere this week. Kevin Spacey scored the manliest name for his character in Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare. We found out the Halo TV series may be produced in conjunction with Showtime, so there has to be boobs in it, right? Sunset Overdrive launched a fake beverage campaign, while Mountain Dew decided to bottle Baja Blast for some reason. We’ve also had a lot of rumblings out of the world of the Oculus Rift, and seen a whole new side of Disney Infinity.
Harmonix is bringing Amplitude back, Kickstarter is live – Dale North
Surely you remember PS2 beat-matching games Frequency and Amplitude. Classics, right? Harmonix told us that they’ve been waiting to create a new title in the series, and they’re announcing a Kickstarter today to do just that. They’re hoping to fund a new version of Amplitude for PS3 and PS4.
Nintendo plans to develop new consoles for emerging markets – Dale North
Nintendo boss Satoru Iwata told Bloomberg that they plan to develop new game consoles for emerging markets. Instead of discounting existing Nintendo systems, they will “make new things, with a new thinking.” Iwata told Bloomberg in an interview, “The product and price balance must be made from scratch.”
Pokémon Omega Ruby and Pokémon Alpha Sapphire coming this fall – Nale Dorth
Oh my damn. Pokémon Omega Ruby and Pokémon Alpha Sapphire will launch worldwide in November 2014, Nintendo announced this morning. For your 3DS (or 2DS). For your soul. For your spirit.
Epic Games is developing a new Unreal Tournament starting today – Jordan Devore
Epic Games made its “future of Unreal Tournament” announcement and it’s actually promising. There is, in fact, a new game in the works — starting today with “a small team of UT veterans” — that’ll be developed in open collaboration with series fans and Unreal Engine 4 developers. It’s going to be free when it’s released for Windows/Mac/Linux, although that won’t be anytime soon.
Ciao, amiche.
