Hello again! Bit of an eclectic post for you this evening, so I’ll jump right in!
Extra Life 2017 Quickly Approaches
Extra Life is next weekend! If you haven’t donated yet, there’s still plenty of time. This is a really great cause and since 100% of your donations go to the kids, every little bit does truly help. You haven’t heard the last of this just yet, but if you’re able, please consider giving a little. It is greatly appreciated. We’ll try to have a segment at the end of the stream/evening shouting out our donors. Big thank you to everyone who has donated so far, I’m about 1/3 of the way to my goal. I’ve done better with each successive year and think we can continue that trend!
https://www.extra-life.org/participant/mark-goings
Now, on to more fun things!
Streaming Weekly!
I’ve been working on streaming a bit, so please check me out on Twitch and be sure to give me follow while you’re over there! If you catch me online, say hello and let me know what you think of my content so far or if there’s anything specific you’d like to see from me, either here or on Twitch. My current plan is to stream Wednesday nights, starting at 8pm ET. Any other streams outside of that will be random for the time being. Mostly, I’m streaming Destiny 2 and I haven’t been playing it outside of the stream, so you can monitor my progress. Seeing as I don’t play a lot of FPS games, feel free to come and mock me for being a n00b!
Target Buy Two, Get One Free Sale!
So, this week only (10/29 through 11/4), Target is having a buy two, get one free sale on video games and board games. You can mix-and-match and the lowest priced item is free. However, Switch titles are not eligible and neither are any of the Cards Against Humanity sets. While that’s disappointing, there’s still plenty of other options here, especially with the plethora of fantastic titles released recently or releasing soon. South Park: Fractured But Whole, Assassin’s Creed Origins, Wolfenstein: The New Colossus, Middle Earth: Shadow of War, Destiny 2 PC, Call of Duty WWII, etc. If you order online, it works with preorders, too! Good news for people still interested in toys-to-life (Amiibo, LEGO Dimensions, Skylanders, etc), these are included in the sale too! All around, it’s a great deal if you have some games you’ve been thinking about grabbing or a few you missed. Head over to Target’s home page and you can’t miss it!
Nintendo Switch: A New Home For Indies
The Nintendo Switch has been hugely for the indie scene. If you go and log in to the eShop, 8 of the top 10 sellers are not Nintendo titles (maybe 7 out of 10 with the release of Super Mario Odyssey). Many of the titles have been released on other systems before but are receiving new life on Nintendo’s successful new console. Stardew Valley has been fantastic so far on the system and only promises to get better once the multiplayer update is released (on consoles first)! Axiom Verge, Golf Story, Overcooked, SteamWorld Dig 2, and The Flame in the Flood to name a few. The ability to take your titles on the go as well as play on the big screen is also an enticing proposition. Especially with the limited release of actual Nintendo titles, there’s plenty of room for indies to fill in the release gaps and be successful on the platform. We’ll see if that continues to be the case. While the indies won’t have the benefit of something like the Steam Sales, Nintendo did just add a sale section to the eShop. Time will tell how good/frequent the discounts are in that section, but it’s definitely worth keeping an eye on!
Ding Dong, Kinect Is Dead!
I just thought this was kinda funny. Microsoft announced earlier this week that production of the Kinect peripheral is dead. In an interview with Co.Design, Alex Kipman, the original creator of the Kinect, and Matthew Lapsen, Xbox Devices Marketing general manager, announced it was given the axe. After doubling down on the device and including it with all launch bundles of the Xbox One, Microsoft took a step back and decided the extra processing power reserved for the Kinect would be better served being opened up to developers to help close the gap in performance between their console and the PS4. Very few games in recent years have taken advantage of the device, so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that it’s being allowed to die. If you’re so inclined, give Kinect Sports a dust-off to send it off in style!
That’s all for my random weekend post. Thanks for stopping by if you made it this far!