The Midagedgamer Monthly Wrapup for June 2013
This week:
Let's start off with a little Steam News...
If you can remember what you were doing in 1995 (assuming of
course that you weren't in diapers) then there should be at least some small
memory of a game that was groundbreaking yet overshadowed by its contemporaries.
Around the time Doom was driving the office network guys
nuts and 3D gaming still looked like a first person version of Donkey Kong
there was Apogee's "Rise of the Triad. " Known for, the then
new, level- on-level design (that made Unreal Tournament possible), dynamic lighting and destructible in-game
objects it foreshadowed features we now take for granted in an FPS.
But it was never as popular as its rivals Doom, Quake and
eventually Unreal. Ironically, all of
them benefitted from Triad's many firsts.
So who cares, it's an old game but wait. Due out July 31st on Steam, Rise of the Triad
is back and it's been updated. Mind you,
the screenshots and game videos aren't exactly ground breaking and look like
something from a decade ago. Still, if
you enjoyed the original and wish you could play it in Windows 7 your wish may
have been granted. Both Single and
Multiplayer (but no co-op) game modes are available.
Steam is offering a pre-order of the game for $14.99 with a
4-pack available for $44.99. Both of
those offers include the Apogee Throwback pack consisting of 4 classic games in
addition to Triad.
So Steam's Summer Sale hasn't happened yet but you know it's
coming. It usually follows the latest
installment of Killing Floor's Summer Sideshow.
This year's installment is entitled "Pier of Pain" and the
entire game can be played for free till July 11th. But at 3,99 why not just pick it up. It's good old zombie blasting fun without any
of the commitment. Well aside from the
new "Objective mode" but this is Killing Floor not Battlefield
3. So try it out, pick it up and start
shootin' and scootin'.
Seems Steam has all the news this week especially if you're
into retro gaming. Is Final Fantasy your
thing? Then the release of Final Fantasy 7 for $11.99 may be right up your alley. It's available now and that's all that's
worth saying about it.
Now let's take a look at the month behind us...
June was actually a fairly quiet month except for E3. We finally got concrete details on the next
generation of consoles from Sony and Microsoft and a few surprises as well.
E3 finally gave us the price for the Xbox 1, $499 and in a
surprise move $399 for the PS4. It also
showed us the power of public opinion when Microsoft reversed its official position
on DRM for the XBOX 1 but only after Sony touted its much more relaxed DRM and
secondary game market position.
That move and the $100 price drop at the last minute before
E3 made the PS4 the apple of the console gamers' eye, for now.
The price, however, may be more than they planned for when
the PS4 finally hits the retail outlets.
Seems Sony's price cut came at the expense of the camera bundle. Roughly the equivalent of the Microsoft
Kinect Sony may have thrown a wrench into its developer network and its
customers. If most PS4 titles end up requiring
the camera, consumers will end up having to pay the extra $100 anyway. At least the games won't be any more
expensive. Both companies committed to
the current consoles $60 price point.
If the gaming news was a little slow the hardware news
wasn't.
June saw the release of two new discrete and one mobile GPU
from Nvidia (the 780, 760 and 780M respectively)
Intel finally released the first Haswell CPUs . With better power efficiency and performance
Haswell PGA designs are the new darlings of the enthusiast market even if the
processors are actually very much in the mainstream. Unfortunately Intel has decided to continue
the practice of limiting features of K series processors that started with Ivy
Bridge. Related posts below...
Finally in the department of "Why???"
Nvidia released Shield and priced it at $299. The new android based game device/controller
may be the greatest product in search of a market to show up in the last
decade. Time will tell if Nvidia's read
the tea leaves correctly.
So pretty much E3 and hardware dominated the news in
June. So far, July seems to be focused on retro
games and an impending Steam sale.
Should be fun.
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