VGBC Episode 27: Fanboyism and You /// Also, Borderlands: The Presequel, Silent Hills, Gamescom News, Day Z coming to PS4, and MORE!

In this episode, we talk about some of the latest news from this past week’s Gamescom Show in Germany including initial thought on “P.T.”, the Silent Hills playable teaser from Hideo Kojima and Guillermo del Toro (which is also said to start The Walking Dead’s Norman Reedus). Also, we get into an interesting discussion on fanboyism.

Thanks for listening and please make sure to connect with our social networks:

Twitter: @VGBCpodcast
Facebook: facebook.com/videogamebookclub
Email: mail@videogamebookclub.com

Subscribe to Video Game Book Club on iTunes by scanning the QR code below:

And as always- iTunes ratings and reviews are always hugely helpful!

Community Post: Why You Should Still Play The Last of US at 30FPS on PS4

This post was written by our good friend Adam Redding, AKA @burywite and I took forever to post it. 😦 Sorry buddy! Better late than never, right?!

The Last of Us comes to PS4 today in the form of a remastered 1080p / “targeting” 60fps edition of the massively successful PS3 exclusive. And while certain friends, blogs and countrymen may do nothing all day but extol the virtues of 60fps, I’d like to plead the case for playing The Last of Us locked at 30fps, at least for the single player components. First, I’ll back up and clarify. Out of the gate, the game runs at native 1080p with a framerate that sits around 60fps. But this number will dip down occasionally as the complexity of certain scenes fluctuate. However, Naughty Dog has seen fit to grant the option to lock the framerate at 30fps, an option for which I am very grateful. Let me explain…

Typically, 60 frames per second in a shooter is a glorious thing. Quickness, responsive aiming, clarity in scenes with tons of movement. I definitely get it. And don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of guns in TLOU which you would be wise to shoot. But I wouldn’t really consider this game a “shooter” in the broad sense. The reason is that due to various factors like ammo scarcity, much more of its gameplay is stealth, melee and exploration based. So while 60fps will help you quickly nab a headshot a bit more easily here and there, this comes at the expense of the great cinematic feel, and the (slightly) higher graphical fidelity of the 30fps mode. Not to mention the crux of the 30fps argument: The Cutscenes.

What makes The Last of Us special is not how many P’s it has, or how many F’s per S. It’s the directing, the story, the characters and acting that make this game one of the most engaging cinematic games ever. So the story cutscenes are vital to this equation for obvious reasons. Now take these finely crafted filmic touches and blast them with a ton of extra frames in 60fps mode, making them look like a digital behind the scenes featurette instead of the film itself. What you get is distraction in place of immersion. Now we’re sitting here thinking about how it doesn’t look quite like a film, instead of focusing on the characters and the story as it plays out. And it’s just not right.

Don’t do this to Joel and Ellie.

All that to say, the interwebs are abuzz with graphics comparison videos (both PS3/PS4 and 30/60fps) and once you secure your 50GB (!) install/download of The Last of Us: Remastered on PS4, you’ll be able to see for yourself. By all means, use 60fps to your heart’s content in multiplayer, or in especially chaotic segments of gunplay. But as for me and my house, we’ll be playing The Last of Us: Remastered with fewer frames. In my day, 30 frames was plenty! You kids with your frames…

VGBC Episode 26: BATTLEBORN, Borderlands 2, Dishonored, FEZ, Indie Game Movie, and MORE!

In this episode, we’re talking about Battleborn, Gearbox Software’s upcoming first-person title that borrows from the worlds of MOBAs and RPGs. While we’re on the subject of Gearbox, we go ahead and get into some Borderlands 2 talk too. Why not?!

Also, Dishonored is (at least at the time of us recording this) on XBL’s Games with Gold, so if it’s still there go download it NOW! If you haven’t seen “Indie Game” we touch on that too as well as some talk about “FEZ” which is available to PS+ members all month.

Thanks for listening and please make sure to connect with our social networks:

Twitter: @VGBCpodcast
Facebook: facebook.com/videogamebookclub
Email: mail@videogamebookclub.com

Subscribe to Video Game Book Club on iTunes by scanning the QR code below:

And as always- iTunes ratings and reviews are always hugely helpful!

VGBC Episode 25: The Last of Us Remastered, Game Difficulty, Competitive gaming tips, Mass Effect 3, Borderlands 2, Battleborn, Hearthstone (shocker!!!), and Oprah references!!!

Oh wow. This episode is just… yea. You want callbacks? WE GOT CALLBACKS. We’re referencing a few of our favorite episodes from “the archives”, but mainly it’s all about games (well, once we get started). We’re chatting up The Last of Us Remastered for PS4, Mass Effect 3 MP, Hearthstone (shocker!!!), as well as Borderlands 2, Battleborn, and much much more!

Doogie’s birthday bash was last night (as we post this), so if you haven’t yet, check out our Twitter feed (@vgbcpodcast) for a couple photos from #DoogBash2014.

Finally, as we mentioned on our social networks this past week, we had a HUGE month in July for downloads. Like, seriously, we are blown away. We can’t thank you guys enough. Please keep doing what you’re doing and helping us spread the good word!

Thanks for listening and please make sure to connect with our social networks:

Twitter: @VGBCpodcast
Facebook: facebook.com/videogamebookclub
Email: mail@videogamebookclub.com

Subscribe to Video Game Book Club on iTunes by scanning the QR code below:

And as always- iTunes ratings and reviews are always hugely helpful!

VGBC Episode 24: Destiny Beta, Battlefield 4, Injustice: Gods Among Us, Resogun, Day-Z, and Yoloing your amazeballs off w/ Ryan Clark

In this episode I chat with our old buddy Ryan Clark. What’s his deal? What’s he been playing? Where’d he learn his use of super cutting edge lingo? Also, big Destiny beta talk and talk about Battlefield 4, Injustice: Gods Among Us, and is Day-Z coming to console?

Thanks for listening and please make sure to connect with our social networks:

Twitter: @VGBCpodcast
Facebook: facebook.com/videogamebookclub
Email: mail@videogamebookclub.com

Subscribe to Video Game Book Club on iTunes by scanning the QR code below:

And as always- iTunes ratings and reviews are always hugely helpful!

First Person Review: Don’t Starve

Submitted by listener Ryan Clark:

This is a review of sorts for Don’t Starve, an indie action-adventure survival game developed and published by Klei Entertainment. Each play-through begins with your character being unceremoniously dumped into a mysterious land. The following is a retelling of one of my more memorable adventures. Available on PC, Mac, and PS4.

I had been living in the forest for weeks.

Food had become scarce. The berry bushes had been picked clean and the rabbits seemed to have learned to avoid my traps. I began to see the futility of my ambition to survive. That is, until I discovered a village of peaceful pigs just a day’s trek from my campsite. Through the cunning and unmitigated use of science, I soon found that I was able to use their droppings as fertilizer. Hope was not lost after all. I would grow my own food. For the moment, I was relieved. It seemed my luck had turned for the better.

But that was soon to change.

The day was drawing to an end. In the fading dusk, I was out in the forest chopping down trees for firewood, when suddenly a great pine sprang up from the earth, its branches twisting into claws. I stepped back in shock. Before me towered an enormous tree monster, and, to my horror, it uprooted itself and began to move towards me in deliberate, menacing stomps. Despite its great size, its movement was slow and ponderous. I felt my courage begin to push back the fear crawling up my spine. Perhaps this creature would be easy enough to outrun.

But I soon discovered that no matter how far I ran, it followed. Nothing would deter the murderous mission of this vengeful juggernaut. When I understood that retreat could only delay the inevitable, I began to plan my offensive.

In a moment of brilliance, I quickly lit a torch to set the monster on fire. I charged forward and soon a bright blaze had flowered up its titanic form. To my dismay, the flames set my farm alight into a quickly spreading wildfire as it lumbered after me in relentless pursuit.

So I ran.

Days passed and yet still the beast followed. The last of my supplies were beginning to run short. In desperation, I had formed a new plan in my mad mind. I turned towards the south, and led the beast through the dark forest to the spider swamps.

I usually avoided the spiders. Earlier I learned that stepping foot upon the outstretched webbing of a spider-hive would draw out a swarm of furious, eight-legged monsters. Though I was just as ill-equipped to deal with them now as I was then, I thought perhaps I could trick the beast into its own arachni-cidic demise. Let the monsters kill each other, I grimly hoped.

For a moment, the plan seemed as if it would work. When the giant stepped upon the webbing, the spiders poured out of the hive and attacked, but my joy soured only moments later. The great tree monster swatted them away easily with its terrible claws. Hope drained out of me. In despair, I ran through the night all the way back to my camp. I stood amidst the ashes of my garden, eating the last of my supplies, waiting for my death.

But a day passed, and I had not yet heard the beast’s lumbering steps in the darkness. I breathed easy for the night.

In the morning, I collected my few belongings and travelled to the village of pigs to collect fertilizer for my crops. Perhaps there was still hope after all. Perhaps I could rebuild. Perhaps everything had returned to normal. But when I arrived to the village, it was just in time to see the great devil tree deliver the killing blow to the last living pig. In my night escape, I had led the monster’s deadly path straight to the pigs. Now my friends were dead.

And soon, so too would I.

VGBC Episode 23: I… am a dumbass

In this episode, I regale Doogie with a story about what a dumbass I am. I thought I bricked my PS4 but did I??? Oh the suspense! Also, we chat about what we’ve been playing and Doogie gives us a little explanation of Rogue Legacy.

Thanks for listening and please make sure to connect with our social networks:

Twitter: @VGBCpodcast
Facebook: facebook.com/videogamebookclub
Email: mail@videogamebookclub.com

Subscribe to Video Game Book Club on iTunes by scanning the QR code below:

We’re growing up…

Well, here I am up too late again. Last night it was Hearthstone and tonight it’s the blog. It’s hard to sleep though, when I’m so excited about the state of the union here at Book Club. It once occurred to me that we have this here fine piece of web real estate and it seemed to be wasted with nothing but podcast episodes and show notes. Now, don’t get me wrong- the podcast is my and Doogie’s baby, but the idea that we weren’t offering more up to you guys, our community, always kind of left a bad taste in my mouth. You guys are really great (to say the bare fucking minimum) and as the podcast is continuing to evolve, we’re getting killer feedback from many of you that really is invaluable. You guys deserve our best and while we are constantly trying to get better I finally realized recently that we were falling short in a very important area- the website.

For all the “bragging” we’ve done about our fancy big boy domain and there’s not shit on here (well, other than the podcasts, which I GUESS is something), right? Well, that’s changing. As I announced on Twitter yesterday, we’ve brought on our friend Derek Wilkinson as, what will essentially be, our Head Writer for videogamebookclub.com. Don’t worry, I’ll assure you guys just like I assured Derek that I will think of a title for him that’s more befitting than “Head Writer”. Maybe something like “Word-arranging-typey-pants-guy”? I dunno. We’ll figure it out. Derek has been a listener and vocal Book Cluber almost since day one. We have always been able to count on him (and many like him) to get involved by helping us spread the word for every episode, so when I happened to notice that he was an aspiring game journalist, I immediately hit him up to see if he’d be interested in joining forces. He was excited to come on board and we’re happy to have him to say the least.

In the coming days, you’ll begin seeing all kinds of articles, reviews, and just general musings on games and gaming. Derek also had the idea to include written companions to the podcast episodes, which I think is a ridiculously cool idea. I’ll be contributing some writing here and there as will other contributors- both guest bloggers/writers and also our community- you guys. Effective immediately, we’ll begin accepting community submissions from you guys too. If you’d like to write a review of a game, an article, or just an “op-ed” style blog post, send it to us at mail@videogamebookclub.com and we’ll fit it in. It should of course be gaming centric, but I think that goes with saying. If you don’t feel the need to submit anything, that’s totally cool. Just visit the site, read some of the awesome content that will be here, and then get involved in the comments and on our social networks (especially Twitter). We’re going to be looking really hard from here on out for more of you that are interested in taking a similar role with us. If there’s something that you’re super passionate about that you think can benefit both us AND you, let us know. We’d love to talk with you about it.

In the meantime, thank you guys again for the continued support and thanks for helping us spread the word. Make sure you follow Derek on Twitter: @derek_403 and shoot him a tweet saying hey!

NOTE: it’s late. I’m tired. I wouldn’t normally leave a post unfinished, but I’m gonna come back and add links, etc. tomorrow.

JK

VGBC Episode 22: Abbie Heppe of Respawn Entertainment talks TITANFALL

In this episode, we sit down with Abbie Heppe, Community Manager for Respawn Entertainment and their first person shooter mega-franchise, Titanfall. You may remember Abbie from her days at G4, but she’s been pretty busy since then. Abbie chats with us about Titanfall, gives us the inside track on her most secret and guarded tips, and even lets us pitch her some game ideas that we feel pretty good about.

Abbie and Respawn Entertainment Linkage:

Abbie on Twitter: @AbbieHeppe
Respawn Entertainment: Respawn.com
Respawn on Twitter: @Respawn
Titanfall on Twitter: @TitanfallGame

Thanks for listening and please make sure to connect with our social networks:

Twitter: @VGBCpodcast
Facebook: facebook.com/videogamebookclub
Email: mail@videogamebookclub.com

VGBC Episode 21: Chelsea Alden of The Online Gamer

In this episode we chat with Los Angeles based actress and my good friend, Chelsea Alden. Chelsea is one of the stars of “The Online Gamer”, a web series now headed into it’s final season, and many other projects too.

Chelsea & Reckless Tortuga Linkage:
Chelsea on Twitter: @ChelseaAlden
Chelsea of Facebook: Chelsea Alden Official
Reckless Tortuga on Twitter: @RecklessTortuga
Reckless Tortuga YouTube Channel

Thanks for listening and please make sure to connect with our social networks:

Twitter: @VGBCpodcast
Facebook: facebook.com/videogamebookclub
Email: mail@videogamebookclub.com

Subscribe to Video Game Book Club on iTunes by scanning the QR code below:

And as always- iTunes ratings and reviews are always hugely helpful!