Evening, pilgrim! Take a load off, stay a while. This is the Sunday News Round-up, the weekly feature that takes the big posts of the week, and adds some colorful insight. It’s the news you know and love, with the personality you didn’t ask for!
Easily the biggest news of the week is that Microsoft’s plans for the next generation may have just leaked. Not only will there be a stupidly powerful new console to pine after, but there may also be a lower end streaming box for those so inclined by a proposition. Now, I’m a PC guy through and through, so seeing Microsoft tout 8GBs of RAM, a Blu-Ray drive, and next generation Kinect doesn’t do a whole lot for me. But it does make me a bit more hopeful for the next generation of high-end consoles. Let’s just hope the earlier rumors of the new console not being able to play used games don’t come to fruition. That could easily render the new console useless to a good majority of folks.
Speaking of console manufacturers, Nintendo has gone on record saying that third party titles will look better on the Wii U. And not just better, but dramatically better. Not only does this confirm that the Wii U has the most graphics of all time, it also serves as a nice rebuttal to 4A Games’ claim that the Wii U’s CPU is garbage. What both fail to realize is that these claims are meaningless. You’ll only get as much as you put in on a game. So if you manage to work with the “garbage” CPU and the GPU, you’ll probably get a pretty great looking game. Then again, I can’t really tell the difference between a Wii U screenshot and a PS3/360 screenshot.
Over in Borderlands… land… a new DLC campaign has launched entitled “Mr. Torgue’s Campaign of Carnage,” which sees you trying to become the manliest man (or womanliest woman) in all of Pandora. Great! More ways to suck my productivity away from me. Thanks for that Gearbox. It’s nice to see the campaigns have been generally well received, meaning that folks who spent $30 on the season pass will at least get two great new campaigns to play around with.
Last but not least, DICE recently kinda-sorta-not-really announced a sequel to its beloved Mirror’s Edge. Good, maybe now people on Reddit will stop posting images of the first game with titles like “DEAR EA ANOTHER ONE OF THESE THANKS.” In all seriousness, a sequel to such an original game would make for a great console launch title. Hint, hint. Maybe DICE could even fix the problems of the first game, and focus on a game of platforming and escaping conflict, as opposed to clunky parkour and sometimes shooting dudes.
Have an opinion about one of these stories? Let me know what you think here in the comments, or over in our forums. You buncha yella bellies.