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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