QCF: Rare Replay

hen you’ve been in the business of developing games for over thirty years, the work and charm you put into your games gets more and more noticeable. In the case of Rare though, this sort of quality that truly defined them, and pushed them to get where they are today.

A brand that was once synonymous with a certain gaming giant, and responsible for vast majority of the gems available on their hardware nearly two decades before, has since found a new home, and been quietly established a new identity with the big M ever since.

Granted, it is fourteen years late, but the giant has finally decided to host one best celebrations to be found on a commemorative game collection called Rare Replay; an assortment of classics to bear the Rare name (well, most of them anyway) in a value priced package priced at just thirty dollars.

While the deal alone makes the trip down memory lane worth all the hype, the attention to detail and care put into this title, makes it one of the best love letters to video games that I’ve seen in years.

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QCF: Halo: The Master Chief Collection

efore military shooting affairs were all the rage, Microsoft penned all of its hopes on a series, one that  eventually become the flagship brand that defined it—a space marine fantasy filled with as many guns, aliens, and bits of action that could fit on to the disc; Halo set the first-person shooting genre on fire.

That was then though, and like it or not, the shooter landscape has long moved on from the prime of Bungie’s galactic odyssey, and even in spite of 343’s development of Halo 5; the relevance of the franchise is arguably still up in the air as far as mainstream shooting appeal is concerned.

Enter the Master Chief Collection, an ambitious collection that containing upgraded revisions of the four main titles, complete with online integration that allows for a combination of the various elements and nuances of from each entry to experiment and customize with.

Indeed, questioning the value offered within this arrangement of games itself, is a hard-pressed argument to counter; but considering the jump to better hardware and age of these particular games being hyped here—the expectations are respectively loftier the second time around.

So it’s sad to say that when it comes down to it—The Master Chief Collection barely justifies it’s worth beyond being anything more than a budget bundle with a savvy price tag—the reality is that it’s simply a glorified revision of games that scantly improve upon the originals that we’ve all played to death years ago.

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PPR 58

With E3 in full swing and conferences from the Big Three already in the books, everyone is buzzing with excitement about all the new games and technology that will be in store for the next year. On Sunday evening before the conference was underway, the crew sat down to discuss their predictions for this year's expo. How close were their predictions to what has actually happened at the convention so far? And will there still be some news to follow in the days to come? We will discuss this and much more on this week's episode of Press Pause Radio. Join in on the E3 conversation on our Facebook and Twitter page, as well as on the site and in our forums. Be sure to come back in a few days as we recap all the happenings from E3 2012!

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E3 2012: Microsoft Keynote Live Blog

Video Games and Contractual Business Models

The video game industry used to be very flexible. You bought a game, popped it into your console, and let the magic begin. If you wanted to, you could invite a friend over for some two-player action. No restrictions, no subscriptions, and no DRM since it was unneeded. The internet, however, changed how we play, purchase, and pay for our games -- for better or worse.

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GDC 12: Microsoft Developers day Live blog

PPR 9

So I think I should also mention that our blog, and all other major updates, are pretty late as well, and we apologize, as with all the other shit that we mentioned that went down with the last couple of weeks, but we have been on the up and up, so thank you all for bearing with us!

We'll soon be on Zune, and with some other big changes in the works; first off, we'll be having a new segment on the show, Quarter Circle Forward, which will be our Review segment to where we'll all take turns every other episode to review any number of games. We'll be starting off with Toast as he will be reviewing Brutal Legend, released by EA, and the latest and greatest software developed by Double Fine. The Quarter Circle Forward segment, or QCF as we will be calling it, and debuting it in this episode, as Andrew will be reviewing Brutal Legend. In future episodes, he will be reviewing all current Console and PC releases for the Xbox 360, Wii, PC, and, hopefully, soon, the PlayStation 3 when he picks one up hahaha. Paco's QCF will be focused on all portable gaming for the Nintendo DS, Sony PSP, and the Apple iPhone, and as for George, he'll be doing the QCF for everything and anything retro. So Quarter Circle Forward aside, we feel it's time we get down to the nitty gritty of the topic on hand for this week's episode—Oh, and we'll also be updating the Top 5 as well with it's own small blurb being as it was Paco's choice this Episode hahaha.

With the release of the Microsoft Xbox 360, among all of the new features that came with it, like built-in wireless connectivity, cutting-edge graphics, and a whole new interface and experience with Xbox Live, the new feature that stood out as the silliest bell and whistle in the list was the new "Achievement" system.

Every game released on the Xbox 360 would have hidden objectives related to direct gameplay of the game that could span a number of different categories, whether it would be time invested, a specific action performed, or a set number of collected objects, and when completed, would prompt an Achievement to unlock for your Gamer tag. These “cheevos” could be unlocked for any number of reasons the developer intended, with a skill level that would be inferred by the score attached to them, and prominently display on your Xbox live user name and account for pure bragging rights.

The new craze caught on so well with the gaming public that Sony introduced Trophies for the PS3, and Steam would also offer their own achievement system that would be implemented with all of its games available in their service for PC gamers. With Achievements and Trophies being at the core of all major online gaming communities, has it helped strengthen the relationships that we produce with other gamers online, or has it negatively affected the overall experience with unnecessary aggression and animosity in a rate race for fake awards from a contest meant for fun? Also, another point that we briefly touched upon is that with Valve including achievements on Steam after Microsoft and Sony have fueled the fire, how long is it going to be before we see a similar system done with Nintendo? We'll dive into the topic with much more intensity.

So please take the time to give the new episode a listen, and also if you were interested about the results of the Press Pause Radio Sega Dreamcast Giveaway, also give the new episode a listen, hell, we think you guys should give us a listen anyway. So we want to thank everyone who reads our posts and listens to our podcasts, and humbly ask that they also take the time to review us on iTunes so we can spread the word of Press Pause Radio! Thank you all again, and here's the episode!

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