June 22nd, 2014 
Hello again! It’s day four of Steam’s annual Summer Sale! Want to see what’s worth or not worth buying today? Simply click “read more” to see all our suggestions.
‘Editorial’
Steam Summer Sale 2014: Day 4 Recommendations
Steam Summer Sale 2014: Day 3 Recommendations
Hey folks, it’s day three of Steam’s annual Summer Sale! In case you missed it, yesterday we began a series of posts that will share our opinions as to whether or not the Daily Deals are worth buying. Here’s a recap.
Steam Summer Sale Groups are an Ingenious Tactic to Increase Revenue
When Valve first introduced Steam Trading Cards I was uninterested. There seemed no point other than increasing one’s bragging rights and nabbing some digital doodads (emoticons, profile backgrounds). As the beta got underway I found something seriously intriguing about the cards – you could make money off them. Yes, it was only a pittance, and only for users who have purchased something on their accounts, but it was neat to me. The fact that Valve ended up getting tons of its user base to fork up money for, well, effectively nothing amazed me.
Steam Summer Sale 2014: Day 2 Recommendations
If you play video games via PC then chances are you’re well aware that the annual Steam Summer Sale is already underway. I’ve covered this sales event for the past few years on other sites. While that’s well and good, sometimes I want to change up the formula and offer my own opinion. More than that, I want to answer the questions of whether or not you “should” purchase now or wait. Obviously at the end of the day it’s your decision what to spend your money on but if you want help that’s what I’m here to give! Each day I’ll blab a bit about the Daily Deals and offer suggestions and whatnot.
2013 Reviews in Review
So this was a pretty intense year for me. A whole lot happened both inside and outside of the gaming realm. While not everything was good, there was certainly a lot of exciting events that occurred this year. In regards to gaming, I was able to attend both E3 (again) and IndieCade for the first time. These were experiences I hope to continue in the following years! But if not, I’m glad to have had them at all.
Ruminating On The Novelist
The Novelist is a video game which was recently released by Orthogonal Games on Steam. To simply look at it from this perspective is incredibly short-sighted, though.
I wasn’t sure what to expect when starting up the game for the first time. My thoughts conjured up some sort of pretentious experience with overwrought storytelling. What I ended up with was an experience that really struck me in ways that made me feel uncomfortable. It’s not as if I attempt to hide emotions, but having them well up in response to a game was hardly anticipated. Somehow, as silly as the tagline on the official site “telling you something about yourself” seemed, I think it turned out to be true.
Ghosts in the Machine Review
Author(s): Rollin Bishop, Andrew Vanden Bossche, Ian Miles Cheong, Shelley Du, Denis Farr, Ryan Morning, Maddy Myers, Lana Polansky, Ashton Raze, Matt Riche, Dylan Sabin, Alan Williamson, Alois Wittwer
Editor(s): Lana Polansky, Brendan Keogh
Purchase: Amazon, Gumroad, Lulu
Ghosts in the Machine is an intriguing anthology of short stories by a cast of well-known people in the games writing scene and artists. At least, they appear as figureheads of the communities I follow on Twitter. It’s likely the gaming “majority”, whatever that consists of, is less aware of those invested in critically discussing video games.
In any case, the stories aren’t necessarily all about games, but use them as the starting point. Game glitches, the things we all laugh at or get angry about, are what each story shares – although in very different ways. Because Ghosts in the Machine is a special sort of book, I’m going to try to give the review a conversational tone, responding to the short stories with my own thoughts rather than necessarily dissecting them.
Of course, a standard review will also be provided. Take a look at that if you don’t want to see my ramblings. Or read both! With that said, here is the review.
3DS, Wii U, or Vita: Which System Has the Most Ports?
If you’ve participated in any conversations about the latest consoles and handhelds, then you’ve likely run into people suggesting that one system has “no games”. If nothing else, these systems in question are nothing but bringing out port after port instead of new titles. But all of these assumptions are reliant upon personal observation. If you don’t really care for the Vita, for example, then you’ll only notice things which agree with your previously held ideas.
But what if someone were to actually look at three of the latest systems right now in a means to either validate or invalidate these common complaints? Well, of course, that’s just what I did. Some may not consider the 3DS, Wii U, or Vita as “next gen” devices, but they will likely be classified as part of that generation broadly alongside PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. It’s not about power, but the time frame in which they launch.
With that said, my goal was to create lists of all North American retail game releases between the devices. Then, I went through and looked up each title to determine whether or not it was a port or enhanced port or a brand new game developed for that system. The term “port” is not best used for handheld consoles sometimes when a portable version is a completely different game, but we seem to mostly be beyond that point technologically for it not to be a massive consideration. Basically, by “port” I am suggesting that the game in question is available on multiple systems. I was looking to see how many titles are not exclusive to their systems!
Finally, I decided to also check out Metacritic scores (where available) to see if any system is batting out continuous amounts of excellent titles, shovelware, or are basically average. As it turns out, it seems that most consoles probably fall somewhere in the 60s for scores, but we’ll get to that later.
