Saturday, June 1, 2013

Back on the Grid, GTx 780 and Ouya's got competition



The Midaged Gamer Report for 5-31-2013

This Week:

Back on the Grid...2, GTX 780, Ouya's got competition, and Sony says nothing

I've been literally waiting for years.  Through Dirt, Dirt 2, Dirt 3 and two versions of F1 the question that came to mind with every release was, Where's Grid 2?

It's not that the other games were bad, to the contrary, they were pretty good.  In fact after spending a considerable amount of time with Dirt I began noticing the similarities between it and Grid.  It's a lot like how Jimmy Paige's rifts are unmistakable no matter what band he's playing with.

But it still wasn't Gird, that was, until Tuesday. 

That was when the anticipation was over and Steam let us revisit an old friend.  Grid 2 is immediately recognizable to a fan of the original.  From the opening race sequence to your first car rolling into the garage the game feels like a comfortable pair of shoes.  What's different is also familiar to anyone who's played Dirt. 
The World Series of racing is basically the single player mode similar to the first game.  What's different about it is the story.  Just like Dirt, somebody was impressed by your antics in the opening race sequence and wants to throw money at you so you can do it some more.  That's not a bad thing but I'm hopeful that the game doesn't spend more time on the story than the racing.  That's a big reason Test Drive: Unlimited  2 was such a flop.  More on that later.

Online mode exposes the new Racenet platform where you can play against your friends.  I haven't found a LAN mode so just like its Need For Speed competition you have to go online to race someone in the same room. 

So far I'm impressed, graphics are good, car control is better than Need For Speed and I look forward to many hours of gameplay.  Unlike Test Drive Unlimited 2 which I uninstalled in 30 minutes...

If you were lucky enough to pre-order the game on Steam you got it for $44.99 plus 3 DLC unlocks.  I've yet to use any of them but fear not, like every triple-A title that's come out for the past 3 years there's a "DLC Store" available in game if you want them later on.  I'm sure there'll eventually be a Steam sale to make them affordable as well.


Nvidia's released a new video card based on the GK110 GPU and its list price is $649, that's the good news.  Before you go running off thinking you're going to get a rebranded Titan, however,  you may want to hold your horses a bit. 

See, it is a GK 110 but unlike the Titan it's only got 3GB of memory, 2 fewer streaming processors (12), 32 less texture units and  384 fewer streaming processors.  In effect, it's a gimped Titan as all other specs are the same.  That includes the power draw by the way.  Nvidia's tried to compensate by upping the core and boost clocks  but it's still lower than the GTX680's 1Ghz plus clocks. 

Here's my take.  If you're still running with an old 5 series Nvidia card it's not a bad deal although the price point is still a bit high.  The Titan would be perfectly priced  at the 780's price point but that's not going to happen any time soon. 

In short, it's a decent card, still a bit overpriced but then what video card isn't these days.  TWIT has a show called Before you Buy.  It's a tech products review show where they give ratings of Try, Buy or Don't buy.  In my opinion, this one's only a Buy if you're a few generations behind and can get a rebate.  Otherwise it's just filler till Nvidia has something to challenge AMD in the fall.


It was bound to happen.  Do something different and the imitators will line up.   Especially true if your backers feel left out when something interesting is happening in their market space.

So here comes another Android (Jellybean 4.2)  based alternative to the XBOX and PS4 consoles.  It's called BlueStacks Gamepop and unlike Ouya it's backed by hardware heavyweights like Qualcomm, AMD, Intel Capital and Korean game developer Com2US. 

If the name sounds familiar, BlueStacks is the same company that makes an app player that lets you play Android games on your desktop.   With mixed results I might add.   BlueStacks assures us that the technology is separate from its app player.  So why am I having flashbacks to Jon Lovitz's "Pathological Liar" character?

Unlike Ouya, the BlueStacks Gamepop promises paid games with its $129 purchase price.  Coincidentally the games that come with the Bluestacks console are worth $30.  Ouya comes with no paid games with its $99 price point.  In effect, it's a wash.

This looks more like an also ran than a real competitor to me.  For one thing, Ouya's backed by gamers, Game industry execs and developers.  Otherwise known as people who know gaming.  Bluestacks is primarily backed by hardware makers.  The fact that AMD is involved isn't lost on me either.  It seems like just another petty Nvidia versus AMD battle.

In short, I don't believe BlueStacks has its heart in the right place and will likely be forgotten a year from now. 


Finally,

With last week's Xbox 1 announcement and Microsoft's subsequent answer of "kinda" to the used games question, anyone who cares was asking, what about the PS4?

The resounding silence was deafening.  Sony has not released any official statement and instead leaves the pundits hoping for more than ambiguous scraps of news at the upcoming E3.  All we know at this point is that Sony itself won't enforce any requirement for online game registration but game publishers are free to do as they please.

Slow news week in gaming, guess everyone's waiting for E3.


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