I'm definitely the one with the hoodie and the wine and the wine bottle.

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Top Image: Wikimedia Commons (CC 3.0) Read the rest

Bird just hit the edge of the map pic.twitter.com/U9ruDPwJBZ

— Nature is Lit🔥 (@NaturelsLit) April 2, 2020

Don't let the Flat-Earthers find out that our world is just an unrendered level in a video game.

Image via NeedPix / Public Domain

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As anyone that's been kicking around here for the past few years knows, I love the Nintendo Switch—not so much for its new games, although I do dig a number of those too. For me, the Switch is the ultimate port machine. As I do the majority of my work on a slowly dying early 2015 13" MacBook Pro Retina laptop, it's reasonable to say that I haven't been set up to play the majority of PC, PS4 and Xbox titles that have come down the pike, these past five years. Happily, My Switch is allowing me to catch up. I'm in the middle of The Witcher III right now. I've been playing a bit of the Metro series (which is great in handheld mode) on and off and, Good lord: Mario Kart. Yes, it's a Nintendo original, but I never had a pal who owned a Nintendo U to play it with. Now's my chance.

Over the past week, I've heard some fabulous news about a number of ports that I'll be thrilled to play when I'm not busy with work check this out:

The Outer Worlds, which is essentially Fallout: New Vegas in space, will be released for the Switch in June XCOM 2, one of the best strategy games I've ever had the chance to play and not finish, will be released for the Switch on May 29th The Borderlands Legendary Collection, which includes Borderlands, Borderlands 2, and Borderlands: The Pre-Seque, comes out on the same day BioShock Remastered, BioShock 2 Remastered, and BioShock Infinite: The Complete Edition are all dropping at the end of May as well

There's no good time to be quarantined or sheltering in place (although we're currently doing so for a very good reason). Read the rest

I have been enjoying Killer Queen Black.

I started playing KQB in beta, on the recommendation of some friends who played the arcade version regularly in a bar. This game is a hoot!

In addition to a 'Military' win where you beat up the other team with flying creatures that operate a heck of a lot like the awesome ostrich riders in Joust, you can also win by collecting berries ("Economic") or racing a snail across a finish line ("Badass".)

Three-player teams take on three-player teams, or you can just play vs the AI.

Available for Xbox One, Switch and PC via Steam. Read the rest

I have been loving Shieldwall, a strategy game where you and your Roman legion attempt to kick the crap out of other Roman legions!

This game reminds me of a 3D Starcraft, with (thus far) a lot less complexity. You start with one base and attempt to take others from other CG teams!

More bases result in more resources for you to spend, so get to work!

I bought it on Steam for less than $10.

Shieldwall on Steam Read the rest

As a game design hobbyist, Mark Yohalem has worked both on his own projects and as an offsite senior or lead writer for BioWare, inXile Entertainment, TimeGate Studios, S2 Games, Nikitova Games, and Affinix Software. As co-founder of Wormwood Studios with two friends (artist Victor Pflug and programmer James Spanos) in 2010, he developed Primordia, a classical point-and-click adventure game that has sold about a quarter million copies and was, for years, the highest-rated adventure game on Steam. The same trio is currently working on Strangeland, another adventure game. Mark is also developing Fallen Gods, a role-playing game inspired by the Icelandic sagas and folklore, the board game Barbarian Prince, and game books like Lone Wolf. By profession, Mark is an attorney. In 2018, he was recognized in the Daily Journal as one of the top 40 lawyers under the age of 40 in California.

This interview features conversation about the aesthetics of point-and-click adventure games, classic and modern adventure games, game writing and design, and ways in which stories connect with both learning and play.

Jeffery Klaehn: [Imagine] you’re addressing an audience comprised primarily of non-gamers, and your talk is entitled, “The aesthetics of classic point-and-click adventure games.”  You begin …

Mark Yohalem: The wonder of the classics is that they don’t just let us hear the voice of the past, they also allow us to listen with the ears of the past. We commune not only with those who created the art but also those who consumed it -- not just Beethoven but Beethoven’s audience. Read the rest

This cat sure appears to be having a fun time. Read the rest

Kazuhisa Hashimoto, who created the famous ‘Konami Code,’ has died.

He was 79. Read the rest

https://youtu.be/KcsiD3nNzA4

Learn about "Nook Inc.’s Deserted Island Getaway Package" in Animal Crossing: New Horizons  for Nintendo Switch, which is coming out on March 20, 2020.

Image: Nintendo Read the rest

This is a really cool homebuilt arcade game project. Read the rest

This Redragon 10-keyless mechanical gaming keyboard has increased my gaming enjoyment.

I moved from controller to KB+M gameplay and things are better! I mostly wanted the insane update that moving to a modern graphics chipset, ram and storage would bring but the increased control of playing games with a keyboard and mouse are a huge bonus.

I settled on this Logitech gaming mouse.

The Redragon keyboard is a tactile delight. Solid and well made it is pleasing to rest my hand upon. The keys offer good resistance and click. Keys also are firmly in place and I do not feel any wiggle or give under my fingers, there is no side-to-side torsion to worry about.

The keyboard itself sits firmly on my desk and doesn't want to slide around as I am pushing W and constantly driving my character forward.

For less than $40 this keyboard is a winner, and helps me be one.

Redragon K552 Mechanical Gaming Keyboard, RGB Rainbow Backlit, 87 Keys, Tenkeyless, Compact Steel Construction with Cherry MX Blue Switches for Windows PC Gamer (Black)by Redragon via Amazon Read the rest

In the game Speaking Simulator (Steam and Switch) you play a robot disguised as a human that tries to fit in the real world. Your job it to control its mouth to make it talk in a way that passes muster. If you aren't good at your job, the robot's head will explode. [via Waxy]

Image: YouTube Read the rest

In 2002 Nintendo released Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker for GameCube. One of the great things about the title (which was not well received when it first came out but is now rated highly in the Zelda pantheon) it its pioneering use of cel shading - a stylistic technique to add shading to 3D graphics to make them look less realistic (in a bad way) and more cartoony (in a good way). Even Breath of the Wild puts the cel shading aesthetic to good use.

In the 14-minute video, "How The Wind Waker Defined Cel Shading," Michael "Jasper" Ashworth goes into interesting detail about how Nintendo "was able to pull off cel shading at a time when nobody else was able to."

If you are at all interested in 3D graphics, and the history of video games and how they were made, Jasper's video channel is a must-watch. My 16-year-old daughter told me about him a while back. He only has about 30k subscribers, and he deserves 100 times that number, given the quality of his work. Read the rest

I use this Logitech G502 Hero SE. It is wonderful.

I recently switched from controller to Keyboard + Mouse for my video gaming. This mouse is just great.

The shape of the mouse and the button placement just feels right in my hand. The adjustable weight system let me fine-tune the devices gravitas as I wing it around, trying to headshot some 13-year-old before they shoot me.

While the 'Hero' sensor reads upto 16000 dpi, I usually set it way down to 800 in Fortnite. This lets me turn in a more controlled manner and doesn't have the mouse zipping all over the place.

I don't really care much about the ever-changing colors that light the mouse up, but it seems all my PC gaming gear likes to do this rainbow display... and it is kinda pleasing.

I have no idea why this SPECIAL EDITION of the mouse is cheaper than the regular one, but it is and I like it!

I am gonna admit right now that moving back to KB+M over controller may screw my carpal tunnel right to hell, but I'll be super sensitive to it, and try to stop before I feel any pain. I am already playing less, but enjoying the games I play more. Sacrifices we make, right?

Logitech G502 SE Hero High Performance RGB Gaming Mouse with 11 Programmable Buttons via Amazon Read the rest

A guy who was waiting for his flight at the airport in Portland wanted more screen display space for his Playstation video game session, so he plugged his PS4 into a public computer screen that was displaying a map of the airport. Read the rest

Don't Read The Comments is the newest book by Eric Smith, a literary agent and author of The Geek's Guide To Dating and other books, as well as the owner of many adorable pets. (Full disclosure: Eric was also my editor many, many years ago on the Quirk Books blog, and we've remained friends since then.) It tells the story of two teens who meet and fall in love pretty much entirely online, with the help of a video massive multiplayer game called "Reclaim The Sun." Divya Sharma has managed to turn her love of the game into a popular streaming channel that brings in a little bit of revenue for her and her recently-divorced mother. Aaron Jericho is an aspiring video game writer whose parents want nothing more than for him to follow in their footsteps and go to medical school. A chance encounter in "Reclaim The Sun" helps these two isolated brown kids find solace in each other—but a well-orchestrated doxxing campaign from a group of racist, sexist trolls threatens to tear it all down.

On the surface, this is a perfect nerdy setup of star-crossed lovers coming together against all odds, with a touch of hyper-relevant social commentary. In execution, it pulls that off with plenty of delight. It's certainly not the most high-stakes story I've read—the only doomed kingdoms exist in a video game—but Smith manages to keep the characters' internal stakes on the edge the whole time. And that's realistic, because these are teenagers, for whom everything does feel the end of the world, even when it's not. Read the rest

Do not be afraid to take a chance on peace, to teach peace, to live peace…Peace will be the last word of history. --Pope John Paul II

This may be the ONLY reason I've heard to consider buying Star Wars Battlefront II.

The excellent mod by xD0IT turns Kylo Ren into a buffed out Pope John Paul II who is one with the Force... or Jesus, I'm not really sure how that stuff expresses in a religion not my own.

During his time as pontiff, JPII was clearly a man of peace and love. As a Jedi decked out with a cruciform lightsaber? Try he will not.

Alternatively, Star Wars: Fallen Order is a great game. Read the rest