Tokyo Game Show 2014 looks like a return to form. Lots of quality gameplay trailers and announcements from the likes of Square Enix, Capcom and Sony. And to think I was about to head over to the land or the rising sun as well.
Be warned. Most of the trailers are in Japanese but you don’t need to understand the language to appreciate the quality of their productions.
Welcome back, Tokyo Game Show.
Announcements
Final Fantasy XIII trilogy coming to Steam. FFXIII on Oct. 9th. Entire trilogy by Spring 2015 (via Press Release)
Tetsuya Nomura no longer directing Final Fantasy XV (via Press Release)
Another year and another Steam Summer Sale. This year’s was especially special because I didn’t buy a single game throughout the entire sale. In fact, I’ve made a dollar or so selling all those silly Steam cards that pop out from voting.
It’s not too late for me to spend some money though. At the time of writing, there is one more round of refreshes to be posted and I just remembered that I haven’t played id Software’s latest game, R.A.G.E., yet. If it ends up being $5, I’ll pick it up.
This year was a very light on the wallet because all the titles that I am interested are too new and come with shallow discounts.
—
I’ve been playing Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker and balancing it out with Battlefield 4’s multiplayer. I need the two because I cannot stomach heavy doses of Peace Walker. I understand why it’s such a compartmentalized campaign but that doesn’t make it a tough game to wade through.
I have no idea how long it will take for me to get through this game at this rate. Thankfully there’s not much to play this summer.
This Steam in-home streaming feature is finally out of beta. I haven’t tried it myself but all the impressions I’ve read made it sound like a viable solution. The only other Steam compatible computer that I own is my Macbook Air. It’s a nice laptop but what I would ideally like is a tiny set top box like the Roku 3.
I will be extremely happy if it works just as well as the Wii U’s Remote Play but something tells me it will lean closer towards the PlayStation 4’s Remote Play functionality which would be satisfactory but not ideal.
iBuyPower, a boutique builder of PCs, unveiled their $500 Steam Machine today.
I’m not fan of the case but I am fan of the price. Apparently $500 will net you the following specs:
Processor: a multicore AMD CPU Graphics: AMD Radeon R9 270 Communications: Wi-Fi & Bluetooth Storage: 500GB hard drive Operating System: Steam OS
Peripheral: Valve controller
The Radeon R9 270 can run Battlefield 4 at 1080p 60FPS and is easily the most costly component of this build at $180 MSRP.
At first I was pleasantly surprised by this revelation but then I took a closer look at these parts. Building a competitive build like this for under $500 is certainly possible if you sacrifice performance and choose lower tier motherboards, memory and storage. They didn’t mention which CPU they’re including in this box which should be an indication of something cheap.
This iBuyPower Steam Machine is a step in the right direction but I can’t help but think people would be better off building a $700 – $900 machine that’s far more powerful and capable. How about something with and Intel CPU, more sizeable hard disk and solid state drive?
It’s fantastic to know you could play Battlefield 4 at 1080p 60FPS with this but how long will that last? How long before this box is outdated by unoptimized console ports? At least with a console, you’re guaranteed performant games for half a decade.
This 