Experience Director. Mobile Dev. Sports Dork.
Was already super excited for whenever I get my Steam Deck, but LTT got hands on with it and now I can’t wait until I get it in Q1 (whenever that turns out to be.)
The Games UI Database is a collection of screenshots of the user interfaces of various video games, filterable by a number of different categories. Definitely interesting to look through and possibly useful reference as well.
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Ok, I was already starting getting the itch to buy a gaming PC and then (thanks to watching a lot of LTT) and then today Valve announced the portable PC Steam Deck console.
It looks extremely cool and the price (compared to desktop PCs or even just graphics cards) is surprisingly affordable at $400 for the cheapest model. It looks like a big ass Nintendo Switch with a bit of a kitchen sink approach to control inputs. The claims of power/performance look solid for the tradeoffs of portable hardware and battery life.
As someone who has trouble finding time to sit and game in front of TV, the Steam Deck may be the thing that finally lets me catch up on a huge backlog of games I’ve been missing out on as a console gamer. We’ll see if I pull the trigger tomorrow when preorders open up.
For the last few months Sony and Microsoft have slowly been revealing more and more information about their next gen consoles, but we hadn’t seen anything at all yet on what the PlayStation 5 would look like once you booted it up. Last week, Sony released a brief video detailing the new experience and some of the new features coming with the PS5 in November.
A prominent feature of the new user experience is a cards-based interface that appears when you press the PS button. The cards allow quick access to recent and suggested content and features and leverage a new concept called “Activities” that Sony hopes will help gamers discover new gameplay features. Some of the activities shown off include party features, social sharing, and highlighting particular in game objectives complete with tasks list, percentage complete, and (for PlayStation Plus users only) in game video hints.
While the cards UI looks great, the success of the feature will be heavily dependent on developers to come up with creative and useful ways to utilize the game-specific activities. I’m not sure yet whether it’ll take off beyond Sony first party titles or if it will be useful for all game genres. If it doesn’t take off within games, the cards could still turn out to be good ways to provide quick contextual options for access system features but only time will tell.
For me personally, as long as the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X allow me to get in and out of the games I want to play quickly I am happy to see them experiment with what “next gen” could mean for the rest of the user experience.
Great (and long) YouTube video about the creation of Super Mario Bros. 3, the excitement around it’s release, and how it made so many of us fall in love with video games.
Awesome. Frisco looks like it’ll be the home of the video game museum with “the most comprehensive collection of video game memorabilia in the world.” Once it opens, I’ll be definitely trekking out there to take a look.
∞The game isn’t out for nearly another month but IGN has already posted their reviews of the upcoming PS3 blockbuster Uncharted 2: Among Thieves. I just finished the first game and now it’s going to be tough to resist buying the second one right when it comes out. Check out the Uncharted 2 video review below:
Licensed games are usually terrible. Superhero games are usually terrible. Somehow the new Batman: Arkham Asylum game coming this week is supposed to be awesome. Some sites are even going as far to call it the game of the year. Watch the video review from IGN below:
Amazon actually has the game available for preorder for only $52 instead of $60. Great deal.
Fantastic, difficult downloadable game ‘Splosion Man (from the makers of The Maw) is out for Xbox Live Arcade and it’s tons of fun. Watch the video review:
