Friday, July 26, 2013

Xbox Live Where art thou? BF4 gets social, A friendly game of poker...



The Midagedgamer Report for July 26, 2013

This Week:

Xbox Live goes dead, Battlefield 4's biggest feature, Indie win on Xbox 1 and more!

So, aren't you glad that Microsoft didn't listen to all those nervous Nellie's who petitioned to have the original Xbox 1 DRM put back?  The XBox Live outage apparently took a lot of subscribers by surprise on July 23rd around noon Pacific time.  The outage  affected everything that had anything to do with gaming and Windows.  That means Xbox live logons, Games for Windows (as if it wasn't bad enough when it did work) and Windows Phone not to mention Windows 8.

This follows previous outages  on June 20th, July 3rd and July 8th.  Other outages weren't as long as this most recent event which spanned the better part of 24 hours by some reports.  While no specific details about the cause of the outage were  mentioned,  Microsoft returned its Xbox status page to all green status on Early Thursday morning. 

So much for the cloud eh?  All those people that dismiss these kinds of events as trivial forget how much turmoil they cause when they do happen.  Cloud services are convenient but not a given. 

I've got a feeling Battlefield 4 is going to suck.  The story isn't all that original for one thing.   I mean c'mon now, the Chinese teaming up with the Russians were the best bad guys Dice could come up with?  Now they're touting their updated Battlelog service for its statistical and social features.  I wouldn't buy a car based on the ability to integrate with social networks and I wouldn't buy a game based on it either.

Focus Dice, focus!

Seems Microsoft is showing a little love to independent game developers who don't have a publisher for its upcoming Xbox 1 console.  In what's been described as a reversal of policy, Microsoft's Corporate Vice President for Xbox has promised Independent game developers access to the Xbox marketplace and an equal footing with major game publishers.

"Our vision is that every person can be a creator. That every Xbox One can be used for development. That every game and experience can take advantage of all of the features of Xbox One and Xbox Live. This means self-publishing. This means Kinect, the cloud, achievements. This means great discoverability on Xbox Live. We'll have more details on the program and the timeline at Gamescom in August.”

Reaction has ranged from cautiously optimistic to suspicious.  Sony and Nintendo currently have similar indie friendly policies for game development on their respective platforms.  That means Microsoft would be the odd man out if they didn't do likewise.   

It was around this time last year that news broke that Vivendi, the majority stakeholder in Activision/Blizzard, was looking to dump the software publisher to shore up its own portfolio.  This week Activision announced that it was buying back $5.83 billion in shares (429 million) from then majority stakeholder Vivendi.  The move averted a potential Vivendi raid on Activision's cash reserves of 3 Billion USD in what would have been described as a "special dividend."

 That could have left Activision cash poor and in the worst case, potentially in a similar position to the now defunct game publisher THQ.  Activision CEO Bobby Kotick and co-chairman Brian Kelly plan to purchase another 172 million shares for another$ 2.34 billion.  When it's all said and done Vivendi will only hold a 12% stake in the company and no longer retain a controlling interest.

As much as I hate the antics of the huge game publishers, I hate corporate leeches even more so this move is a very good thing indeed in my book.

Finally,

About a week ago I picked up a really good deal during the Steam Summer Sale.  Poker Night 2 which launched in April this year from Telltale games is unlike any video poker game you've ever played.  With characters from Borderlands, Sam and Max, Evil Dead and the Venture Brothers it's like sitting down to a friendly game with a few pop culture friends. 

I don't even like poker and I'm loving this game.  Oh, did I forget to mention GlaDos or Portal fame is your dealer.  The game is full of one-liners, snappy wisecracks and hilarious cutscenes.  The graphics are presented in a more anime fashion similar to Borderlands 1.  Elements of the world of each of your opponents come into play with every win earning you chips to change the look of the cards, table and chips.  There's also 18 Steam achievements available and after 2 hours of play I've already managed to rack up 8 of them. 

There's two variations of play available; Texas Hold 'em and Omaha.  Side bets occur automatically as do blind bets.  Don't count on the antics of any of the characters giving you a "tell" either.  I've lost enough hands to learn that the hard way. 


I may not last 30 seconds in Vegas at a game of Texas Hold 'em but I'm sure I'll be spending many hours with Poker Night 2.  

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