Mass Effect 2 Playthrough Commencing

After finishing Mass Effect One today (finally), Station 1621 will continue Commander Shepard's story in the next installment, Mass Effect 2.  Check out it around 9 or so tonight over at the Station 1621's Official Twitch channel.

See you starside.

-1621

Halo: Spartan Assault - - A Hands On Review

343's Halo: Spartan Assault for Windows 8 Devices

As stated a couple days ago in the station operations post, I know many of you have been expecting the "Everything We Know - - Destiny" post.  While it is nearly complete, I must confess my time has been absorbed by a newly released game.  As many of you know, Station 1621 and its contributors are huge Halo fans.  Thus myself and other station operators deemed it necessary to take a couple days off to absorb 343's newly released game, Halo: Spartan Assault.  While I was quite eager to begin playing the game, I know many other station attendees felt a Halo mobile game couldn't live up to the grand precedents set forth by the multiple Halo console game titles.  These sentiments were similarly echoed on various forums with popular statements being: "It won't feel like Halo to me," "343 is selling out to get me to buy Windows 8!" and (my favorite) "This isn't a true Halo game and I will not play it!"

In addition to these non-factual gripes from Halo fans, a few game reviewers wrote some harsh reviews about the game after testing it out at E3 (I don't really care to link them here, you can Google them if you wish).  The most glaring that I read was that the touch controls were poorly designed and that the game was difficult to play on Microsoft's Surface.  In addition, the game had many inherent flaws/bugs that detracted from the overall experience.  These were initial red flags to myself and many of my friends that 343's first mobile game could be a huge bust.

As many fans and gamers have pointed out, Halo: Spartan Assault is only available for Windows 8.  Quoting fellow Station 1621 contributor Zero21, "Why would 343 intentionally cut off Halo fans who don't own a Windows 8 device from enjoying this new Halo game?"  A valid question that, I believe, can be answered with simple economic and developmental principles.  I'm also a Windows 8 PC and Surface owner so I can't really share these concerns/complaints anyway.  Either way, the lack of support for the Apple/Android mobile communities was taken personally by some Halo fans.  With a smattering of complaining fans, a few poor reviews and platform restrictions, many at Station 1621 and the gaming community were left skeptical and not excited for the Halo universe's jump to mobile platform gaming.

After sitting down with the game on my own Surface RT, I am here to give a station observance report on how the game plays, looks but, most importantly how it feels.  All Station 1621 contributors agreed that Halo was Halo because of the way each game feels.  Whether it be thematic story telling or feeling invincible as a Spartan super soldier, the feel of a Halo game is the most important attribute when sizing up whether the game is worthy to be included in such a historic franchise.  This doesn't mean however that each game has the exact same feel.  In fact, each and every Halo game has contributed a new "feel" to the universe as a whole.  With the Halo universe's entrance into the mobile gaming community, it was important for us to recognize that the game had a correct but distinct Halo feel.  Here are Station 1621's findings:

Observational Report: Halo: Spartan Assault

Platform: Windows 8 Devices, observations were studied on a Microsoft Surface RT

Developer(s): 343 Industries and Vanguard Games

Price: $6.99 USD on the Windows App Store

Gameplay and Graphics: 


Taken using my GoPro Hero 3.  Shout out to my dog Annie relaxing in the chair.

As you can see, the touch screen controls require some practice but, in my experience, work rather seamlessly.  I didn't find any of the reviews stating that the controls were poorly designed to be truthful.  As with any Halo game, mastering the controls requires skill but any casual player could pick up the game and have fun blasting covenant. The game offers a tutorial which helps you gain some familiarity with the controls which I suggest everyone to try before diving into the missions. While controlling your Spartan, there is an aim assist, especially with grenades and vehicles, that helps pinpoint those perfect tosses and shots.  The vehicle driving controls will probably take the most time for players to master but after a couple minutes you will have it down perfectly.  The combination of driving around with one thumb and steering/firing with the other makes for a genuine Halo vehicle experience as you mow down the plethora of enemies in front you.  Your field of vision expands when entering and exit vehicles/turrets in order to help you survey those incoming enemies you normally couldn't see.  I will say it does feel weird at first playing a Halo game without a controller (or keyboard and mouse for the Halo CE PC community) but my anxiety was quickly lifted once the action began.  As renegade covenant fell at my feet, I began to feel more and more comfortable with the game.

The graphics, as many have speculated, appear to come from the Halo Wars engine outfitted for Windows 8 devices.  As seen in the video above, the cut scenes played at the beginning of each set of five missions (think Spartan Ops) use a similar art style to the videos created for the terminals found in Halo 4.  The cut scenes are well put together and should be applauded for accompanying a mobile game.  While one could certainly argue there are more graphically inclined mobile games, the graphics in Halo: Spartan Assault serve the game well and look very good.  The colors are amazing and incredibly vibrant, some of the best on the market to be sure. The details of the environments from the barricades, plants, UNSC structures and more are Halo franchise worthy.  In addition, the environmental features going on in the background such as banshees flying around or other troops fighting each other are well done and compare favorably to the Halo 4 multiplayer environments (see "Environmental Story telling")  343 and Certain Affinity of course do a better job than any on making beautiful environments (note the various multiplayer mapacks) and Halo: Spartan Assault is no different.

The sound and music in Spartan Assault are on par with the other Halo games.  The weapon sounds seem to come straight from Halo 4 and the music accompanying the menus, cut scenes and more is great.  The sound of a game is often overlooked and, especially with Halo games, enhances the gaming experience.  This is by far the most well put together, in terms of sound, mobile game I have seen.  You can definitely tell this was an important component for the game.  Great sound and music is just a staple of the Halo franchise now.

I was pleasantly surprised at how helpful the friendly AI are in the game.  We all know in the console Halo titles that sometimes marines don't do what you want them to do as its difficult to implement non-player controlled units that act like players in a first-person shooter.  In Halo: Spartan Assault, your computer controlled marines are rather effective at downing that rogue grunt outside your vision range and help you take down the tougher elites when needed.  I haven't encountered any glitches with the AI units so far.  Expect good help from your computer friends when playing through the campaign missions.

Overall, the controls and graphics make Spartan Assault an incredibly fun and beautiful game to play.  After just owning it for a couple of days, I can already tell you the replay value is high.  The $6.99 price tag is well worth the experience so far.  Obviously, my experience is limited to the tablet version and I would be curious to see the game on a mobile phone.  That said, the experience on a computer should be top notch and even better than a tablet.

The "Halo" Feel: 

As we discussed earlier, each Halo game has a distinct feel that distinguishes itself and yet makes it apart of the Halo universe.  For Spartan Assault, fellow station operators were concerned that this experience and feel wouldn't translate over to the mobile gaming platform.  After a full play through, we feel as if Spartan Assault has succeeded in bringing a Halo experience to mobile platforms.  The twin-stick top-down shooter style fits Halo well (better than even I expected) and creates a new experience that you need to try.  Playing through the missions gives me a similar feeling to the firefight modes of Halo 3: ODST and Halo: Reach.  The scoring system resembles firefight and with the constant kill combos displayed on your screen, the firefight/arcade feel is very prevalent. Since many Halo fans were upset firefight wasn't included in Halo 4, Spartan Assault could give you a little relief to your firefight craving.  The game feels distinctly like a Halo game even though it is not of the FPS variety.  Many complained before Halo Wars was released that it wasn't a true Halo game because it wasn't a first-person shooter.  However, the game turned out to be a fan favorite and still has a thriving community to this day (Note to 343: please make a Halo Wars 2).  I imagine Halo: Spartan Assault will be no different.  Over time, the game will develop a following and, if 343 sends the game some updates, fans will be playing it for a long while.

Conclusions: 

Halo: Spartan Assault has far surpassed my expectations.  I know the game would be good and worth the $6.99 price tag but I didn't expect the replay ability to be this high.  The arcade scoring, good gameplay/controls and beautiful graphics keep me playing the game.  I understand some of the frustration with the game only being available on Windows 8.  That said, this gives those who own Windows devices something that finally separates them from the Android/Apple communities.  I also imagine that the game was much easier to develop for Windows 8 than any other OS.  That's the beauty of developing games on Windows and Xbox, the ease between which you can platform between the two. I would like to suggest to our readers that if you have a PC go ahead and make the upgrade to Windows 8.  Now that the Halo universe has made it to the mobile gaming platform, Station 1621 does not expect this to be the last Halo mobile game (not mention the future for Windows 8 connectivity on the Xbox One but that's another discussion entirely).

Spartan Assault is fun, addicting and delves fans further into the Halo universe.  So far, Station 1621 has zero complaints with the game other than grumblings from Zero21 that it isn't available on Android.  Hopefully a multiplayer component could be possible one day for the game but the single player alone is worth playing over and over again.  Station 1621 also wishes you could spend the in-game currency on something other than weapon upgrades.  Maybe cool color combos for Spartan Davis and Palmer? The possibilities are endless.

To close our hands-on review and observational report, Station 1621 would like to officially give Halo: Spartan Assault a 10 out of 10.  343 and Vanguard have done an amazing job bringing the Halo experience to mobile devices and deserve a ton of praise for their newest game.  We would even go as far to say that this is one of the best mobile games available on any OS today.  We hope to see many of you climbing the Spartan Assault leaderboards soon.  Check back tomorrow as our Mass Effect live stream continues.

As always,

See you starside.

-1621

Station Operational Status: Green

The Traveler

After a brief dark period due to solar flares from the adjacent star shutting down communication (you know, got to leave video gaming and enjoy outside some time this summer!), Station 1621 is returning to full operational status with communication to the home system being placed as the number one priority.  On our mission progress and communication reports, Station 1621 will continue looking at some of the biggest games coming out this Fall as well as delve into the past to explore some games forgotten in time but that should share a unique place in your gaming knowledge and repertoire.

I'm really excited about starting a new piece, along with our on-going Mass Effect tribute, that will take me back to one of my favorite games of all time.  More details to come soon.  I am very excited and hope you will be too!  Still working on a way to stream it on Twitch.  Hopefully that will come to fruition very soon.

The next game slated to be previewed, as given away by the picture above, is Bungie's newest franchise Destiny.  This game has been so hyped that much of the public knows and understands details about the game.  Therefore for this report of "Everything We Know," Station 1621 will provide more opinions about the game as opposed to just facts.  Possibly we can meld minds together and come to even greater conclusions about the massive blockbuster arriving on next-gen consoles this Fall.

Some updates the station would like to bring to your immediate attention:

343 announced that a new map pack will becoming to Halo 4 on August 20th.  Details can be seen here.  As you can probably tell, Halo is one of our favorite gaming franchises and we are always interested in Halo news.  The "Champions Bundle," as it is being called, will have 2 new maps including Pitfall and Vertigo, new armor, new skins and even a new game type.  We are excited that some new armor configurations are coming to game and the new game type looks promising as an alternative to Grifball.

The people over at Gearbox have been giving away free Shift codes for Borderlands 2 to accompany their newest DLC.  If you haven't jumped on the Borderlands bandwagon I highly suggest you go pick up the game which most likely can be bought at discount now.  The game is great fun and the developers have shown a consistent devotion to providing new content and FREE rewards.  Check it out.

There has been a ton of hoopla over Square Enix announcing that the Final Fantasy MMO or whatever you want to call it won't be coming to Xbox One due to Microsoft's policy to not allow cross platform connectivity.  I have a suspicion that Microsoft simply doesn't want to pay to implement this practice on future Xbox One games.  Its been prove that Microsoft is more developer friendly than Sony (I will debate you if you like) so I don't believe this stems from some notion that Microsoft doesn't want to share its games with other platforms.  That said, its possible there might be a reversal from the company in order soon, you never know.  Honestly I'm skeptical about this Final Fantasy multiplayer anyway.  I wish Square Enix would stick to what they know (single player campaign) except make them better than the last Final Fantasy.

And with that the station is signing off for now.  Check back soon and often.

See you starside,
-1621

Watch Dogs - - Everything We Know

You are Aiden Pierce, genius, badass computer hacker.

Although first shown at E3 2012, Ubisoft's next-generation title Watch Dogs still remains hidden behind a veil of secrecy.  While many gameplay details have been released, much of the game's more intricate storyline are unknown.  For good reason, Ubisoft has kept this information under wraps in order to hype up, what appears to be, one of the more original video game storylines to date.  Let's go over some of the details of this computer hacking, open-world game coming out for Xbox One, PS4, 360 and PS3 this Fall.

Taking place in an open world environment of Chicago, you play as computer hacker extraordinaire Aiden Pierce.  Aiden can hack into anything.  This ranges from computers to phones to streetlights to anything he deems useful as he struggles against the police and the criminal underworld of Chicago.  You might ask, how on earth could an ordinary man hack into anything within a city? The answer lies in the fact that the city of Chicago operates from one central computer system entitled (cleverly) The Central Operating System.  Everything within the city relies on this system functioning and running day to day operations.  The ability to hack into a vast network such as the CtOS could provide a person within an incredible amount of dangerous information.

While hacking into a city's network sounds fun, the true genius of the system can be seen within the gameplay of Watch Dogs.  Using your elite hacking skills, Aiden Pierce can manipulate the environment around him to aid him in his quest to take down (or support) criminals in Chicago.  Are you surrounded by bad guys or the police and need a getaway? Don't worry.  By hacking into the street lights around you, Aiden can provide himself with the cover of darkness to escape.  In addition, in many missions/quests, Aiden will be forced to move environmental objects around in order to complete the appropriate task.  Most of the hacking while on the run is done through Aiden's high tech cell phone.  This is perfectly illustrated in the gameplay featured at this year's E3 below.

As you can see, the game plays like a mix between Grand Theft Auto and Assassin's Creed (I suspect the AC engine was used in development of the game).  The open world environment is extremely realistic, even down to the police blotter as they call out APB's and search parties for our hero.  Details from developers reveal that in order to access parts of the city's vast network, you are required to hack into CtOS terminals which enable to hack systems within a certain area.  To get a better framework of this, think of the viewpoint towers in Assassin's Creed.  Climbing a tower and then diving into a bail of hay (Someone please explain to me how that's possible??) reveals the area within the city around you, opening quests, stores and more.  The CtOS hubs will work very similarly and will enable Aiden to up his computer hacking arsenal around the city.

An interesting and unique feature of Watch Dogs is how the multiplayer component of the game is fused together with the single player storyline.  Station 1621 discussed in detail about the multiplayer driven campaign of Respawn Entertainment's Titanfall.  Watch Dogs, on the other hand, takes a different direction with their vision of multiplayer interactions.  As my Aiden Pierce progresses through his single player game, player's will, if they are connected to online, be able to enter my game with their Aiden Pierce.  They will appear, in my game, as a random looking ordinary person and not Aiden Pierce.  From this point, the player will be able to choose to either help or hinder my progression in the single player experience.  You see in the video above, a person on a tablet hacking into the lights to help the player escape sight from the light of a helicopter.  This would obviously be a circumstance where another player helps your Aiden Pierce in his vigilante actions.  On the other hand, developers have stated that a player entering my game certainly has the ability to set off alarms and trigger events that could get my player captured by the police.  This sounds like it could end in disaster as kids all over the world enter my single player story and troll me incredibly hard by hacking into systems to expose my plans.  While most of this information is still under wraps, it is an interesting feature that will need to be watched as the game inches closer and closer to release.

More fun features provided by the game include an array of mini games that can be played by hacking into people's cell phones.  Gameplay videos have revealed that NPC's (non-player controlled units) will be emphatically glued to their cell phone as they walk down the street to indicate that they are playing a game.  While details are sketchy, one mini game that is confirmed is an alien invasion game type that let's you shoot incoming aliens.  These types of games are a great way to spend time if you don't want to complete quests at the moment.  Its also worth touching on the companion app that was seen above in the gameplay video.  Tablet and phone interaction with the game your playing is a key part of the next-gen experience and it appears Watch Dogs is taking full advantage.  Mobile players being able to interact within the multiplayer component of the game is really cool (but also possibly terrible as players can troll me anywhere they go!).

Overall, Watch Dogs is still being tightly kept under wraps by Ubisoft.  This is most of the new information Station 1621 could scrap up about the game.  This open world, computer hacking game is on the horizon and represents one of the first few next-gen titles that will be available at release for both the Xbox One and the PS4.  When or if more details come available, Station 1621 will certainly post them to keep you updated!

One last thought... As I think about the devastating impact other players could have on my single player story, my mind drifts to thoughts of my friends' and their single player games.  I could single handily ensure that they never complete the game or at least make it ten times more difficult.  *Evil thoughts*

"With great power comes great responsibility."

And with providing you with your quote of the day, this is station operator Boneill1621 signing off.  Check out the Twitch Channel as live streams will be happening tonight.

See you starside.

-1621

Titanfall - - Everything We Know

The Pilot and his Titan

Coming out "exclusively" for the Xbox One, Xbox 360 and Windows 8 in Spring 2014, Titanfall is a first person shooter, mech battling, multiplayer game.  Created by the masterminds behind the original Call of Duty Modern Warfare, the guys at Respawn Entertainment (former employees of Infinity Ward) are changing their focus from a realistic shooter to creating an entirely new futuristic universe.  With Titanfall taking center stage at Microsoft's E3 showcase, there is plenty of information, gameplay footage and more to examine as we try to sieve through the details about the game.

When trying to describe Respawn Entertainment's Titanfall, executive producer Drew McCoy states that the main focus of the game will blur the lines between single and multiplayer gaming: "taking the hand-crafted cinematic nature of a single player game and wrapping it up in super-fast, smooth, awesome multiplayer game."  From the gameplay and cinematic shots shown at E3, Titanfall boasts that the traditional campaign experience will entirely rely on multiplayer battles.  While this sounds intriguing, I can hear the collective groan from the many gamers who value the solo-campaign experience.  Respawn Entertainment's answer to why they decided to blur the single and multiplayer experience is explained as such: "People spend hundreds of hours in the multiplayer experience versus ‘as little time as possible rushing to the end’ [in single-player]. So why do all the resources go there? To us it made sense to put it here. Now everybody sees all those resources, and multiplayer is better. For us it made sense.”  The resources the quote refers to are how the studio would allocate resources between a single player campaign and online multiplayer system.  The argument here is that by devoting all resources into a multiplayer-campaign experience, those playing the game will have a more polished and better overall experience.  If you think of a game such as Mass Effect 3 (while I find the multiplayer incredibly fun) it definitely is not as well done as the single player game itself.  This is clearly because the single-player campaign received a vast amount of resources while the multiplayer was a mere extension of the campaign itself. With Respawn Entertainment's multiplayer-campaign, gamers will be able to see a story unfold through competitive online multiplayer, something very new in the first person shooter world.

The gameplay for Titanfall was, in my opinion, one of the more eye catching videos at all of E3.  Check out the video to see the game in action as displayed at Microsoft's E3 conference.  Its interesting to watch the fighting dynamics between the titan mechs and the pilots themselves.  The pilot appears to play much like a Call of Duty soldier with a jet pack and extreme parkour abilities.  Using your jet/thruster pack to traverse buildings and running alongside walls looks rather seamless and reminds me of all the crazy acrobatics you can do in the Assassin's Creed games.  The titans appear like your standard mech, much like what was seen in James Cameron's Avatar and the Lost Planet games.  The sequence where the pilot jettisons from his titan and falls directly onto an enemy titan is a cool gameplay dynamic.  Respawn Entertainment states that the pilot vs. mech combat is balanced so that players can choose between two distinct fighting styles.  Basically it comes down to the speed and agility of the pilots versus the brute force abilities of the titans, which hopefully will provide endless different scenarios and encounters in the multiplayer-campaign experience.

The gameplay shown appears filled with visually stunning environments as ships overhead go in and out of hyperspace/warp/slipspace.  The building texture and appearance looks well done and presents forth a war torn setting as you traverse the streets and buildings.  From the gameplay above, you also get a sense of the multiplayer-campaign playing out as its your objective to take and hold locations for your faction within the war.  I still don't get a sense of how this progresses the main story but I know those details will become available soon.  I will say I was disappointed with how some of the characters looked for a supposed next-gen game.  Granted, with a Spring 2014 release, I'm sure graphical enhancements will be made.  I'm also not positive if this was being shown on the Xbox One or 360.  I assume the Xbox One but you never know.

Pilot free-running across a wall with jet-pack

Speaking of next-gen, Respawn Entertainment has stated that Titanfall will take advantage of many of the next-gen features incorporated within the Xbox One.  Most notably is that the game will utilize cloud computing for the game's environments and will have dedicated servers.  It appears to me that every next-gen game will have dedicated servers which puts a huge smile on my face (for those who read this and don't know, dedicated servers mean there won't be any lag while playing the game).  With processing power placed in the cloud and dedicated servers, hopefully Respawn can turn up the appearance of the game even more.

While details are scarce, I can't say for how you outfit your pilot/titan but its safe to say it will mirror the typical FPS experience.  Hopefully you will be able to change the look of your pilot or titan to make the game more unique and colorful to the specific player.  Also, with a Spring 2014 release date, Respawn Entertainment is shying away from going head to head with Battlefield 4 and Call of Duty: Ghosts.  It will be interesting to see when the next Halo installment will be released and if it will be anywhere near the release date for Titanfall.  I'd say not considering they both are Xbox exclusives.

Overall, Station 1621 is incredibly excited for Titanfall.  With the masterminds behind the first Modern Warfare at the helm, the station recommends that you not worry about their newest installment being a bust.  Its sad that Playstation players won't get to experience, what it appears to be, a fun and fresh first person shooter.  If anymore details drop about Titanfall, Station 1621 will keep you up to date with all the information.  Next time we will be profiling Ubisoft's Watch-Dogs so keep checking back.  Events will be streaming this weekend over at the Twitch channel so check it out as well.

See you starside,

-1621

Post E3 Thoughts - - The Console War and More

E3 has come and gone.  The console war is now upon us again.  The future landscape of the video game industry has been in constant flux the past couple weeks and its worth recaping some important information on where each console stands and what its offering the consumer.

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The Playstation 4, the prohibitive internet console favorite so far, comes with $399 price tag and no digital rights management concerns.  The next-gen Playstation represents a conservative approach to the future of console gaming as the features offered differ very little from the Playstation 3.  The Playstation network now requires a subscription fee that promises to give gamers access to exclusive content such as game DLC's, indie games and more.  Also on the horizon is a streaming service from Sony Pictures that will provide another alternative to Netflix.  The Playstation 4 does not require an internet connection and can play used games.

The Xbox One, on the other hand, presents a radical approach to the future of console gaming. With a day one price of $499, the Xbox One is a bit pricier than the PS4 but includes the Kinect device in all console packages.  Microsoft is banking on the fact that console gamers want an all-in-one entertainment device as opposed to just a device to play video games on.  This is evidenced by the HDMI port to connect your Xbox One to your cable or satellite box to enhance your TV viewing experience.  More so than the PS4, Microsoft is stressing the future of cloud computing and how it will change the way games are developed and played.  Continuing its Xbox Live subscription service in conjunction with Windows 8 compatibility, Microsoft hopes to fuse the experience between its gaming console and operating system even more.

Update: Microsoft has decided to lift the DRM and online requirement policies of the Xbox One through a day-one patch.  This changes the landscape of the console war as most of the qualms over the Xbox One stemmed from the consumer dissatisfaction of digital rights management and the online connection.  Gamers have complained and Microsoft has responded.  Microsoft, however, will not adjust their $499 price tag.

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With this quick overview, let's discuss the implications of the most recent updates on each console.  The Playstation 4 is steaming along, riding a huge way of public positivity in which the company has handled well.  After their vicious corporate throwdown against Microsoft at E3, Sony has profited greatly from Microsoft's misstep in having DRM and online requirements for the Xbox One.  Several separate PS4 package bundles are leading Amazon's best selling devices list.  We will wait and see if Sony can continue this profitable surge.  History has shown Sony to be prone to making mistakes regarding their console.  One worry I have is that the PS4 is too conservative in its approach.  While it no doubt will be profitable now, will PS4 feel a down surge two years from now? It remains to be seen.

The Xbox One has had a horrendous start, at least on the internet.  Microsoft has been the constant punchline for many jokes and, for a moment, it seemed the Xbox One would be left behind in the console war.  That has changed since Microsoft's reversal of the Xbox One's DRM and online requirement policies.  These changes come at a cost of losing some features like being able to access your digital game library anywhere and being able to share it with up to ten friends.  The removal of the online requirement has made some Xbox fans question whether games will be able to take advantage of  cloud computing if developers have to account for offline players.  IAs of now, the Day One edition of the Xbox One is the highest selling device on Amazon.  Pretty impressive turn around in just a matter of days for Microsoft.  We will continue to monitor pre-order sales of each console to give you up to date information on how consumers are responding to news about each console.

Overall, I am glad the consoles are placed on a more even playing field.  While I understand (and even accepted) Microsoft's DRM and online requirements, I am glad I won't have to lose gaming friends over differing policies on each console.  I really hope these changes don't affect such things like buying games directly from Xbox Live, cloud computing in games and other such features.  The Playstation multiplayer subscription fee was entirely necessary and people who complain about it need to understand that Sony can no longer offer similar services to Microsoft without charging a price to play games online.  As of today, I would say the Playstation 4 is leading the console war; however, Microsoft's reversal of hindering policies pushes the Xbox One closer to the Playstation 4.  Two weeks from now the landscape could be entirely different and Station 1621 will be right their giving you up to date information on each console.

Station 1621 would also like to announce that, starting tomorrow, we will be profiling all the big games displayed at E3 this year.  The first game the station will give a rundown on is Respawn Entertainment's Titanfall.  So staty tuned as system operations turn a focus to the exclusive games each console will be offering.  As always check out our Twitch Channel for live streaming events.

See you starside.

-1621

Happy Father's Day!

Happy Father's Day to all my readers! Thanks for supporting Station 1621 thus far.  I've been quite busy the past couple days spending time with my dad which is why there has been a lack of posts.  I promise, now that E3 has come and gone, a couple posts regarding the console war, next generation games and more are coming.  So please check back each day for more news.

With that said, Station 1621 will be living streaming Mass Effect today at around 2 o'clock eastern.  My father might make a special appearance and commentate gameplay.  That could only lead to internet gold so please check it out.  In addition, at 5 eastern, I will be live streaming Forerunner Conflict custom games on Halo 4.  These games are in celebration of the community's 7th birthday and therefore should be fun and even more entertaining to watch, so stick around and check those out as well.

As always, here is a link to Station 1621's Twitch live stream.

See you starside.

-1621