Webmaster Reaction: 1Up.com Out of Lives

All good things must come to an end.  We heard it first from our parents, and we’ve likely all experienced it in one way or another through our personal and/or professional lives as we’ve grown up and experienced the real world.  Although my primary professional career currently resides in the oil and gas industry, with the previous five years consisting of a four year tour in the Marine Corps, and a quick 7-month stop in wind energy manufacturing, my side business is this: the web.  I started building and running websites in the mid-90’s as a freshman in high school, and have been obsessed ever since.  Outside of the Marine Corps, which I absolutely loved, but voluntarily walked away from, the web is my true passion.  It has never felt like work to me, and I see myself building websites and running web ventures until I’m buried six feet underground.  Late last night however, I stopped in at 1Up.com, which is one of the largest video game online publications around, only to notice that no new content had been posted since March.  Then I came across this bomb of a post: a “this is it/farewell to 1UP” letter from the now-former editor in chief, Jeremy Parish.  Seeing this news, even four months late (the closure announcement was published in late Feb), really hit home: not because I was a fan of 1UP per say, but because as an online business owner, I experienced that exact, painful process in the Summer of 2007.

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Shadowrun Returns: The Name Of The Sequel and What I Screamed In My Head

Every gamer has those few handpicked games that are as heliocentric to their own world as the sun is to our solar system. Those few games that we take personally. And I don’t mean “your momma” seriously, I’m talking “back…the…fuck…off…” seriously. Slapping a PS Vita out of a 10 year old hands’ seriously. For me, Shadowrun for SNES was one of those games. Continue reading “Shadowrun Returns: The Name Of The Sequel and What I Screamed In My Head”

Breathe Easy: PS4 Game Pricing Announced

Remember this rumor?  We can finally put the $70 video game chatter to rest, at least for a few years for both the PS4 and Xbox One, so go ahead and turn off the oxygen machine, and relax.  Although Microsoft released the much needed good news after their recent media firestorm due to the “always online” fiasco, Sony just recently announced the news through the highly-reputable, PC Gaming-heavy website, ShackNews.  Although Sony only mentions first party launch titles as part of the $60 pricing model, I would wager it is safe to expect all third party and future software to follow suit, at least for the first few years of the PS4’s existence.  If you’ve been gaming enough to remember when the last price hike occurred, then high five; well, you probably just Googled it, but whatever – the last hike from $50 to $60 hit our respective wallets in the late days of the long-lasting PS2.  Can we expect the same towards the end of the PS3’s existence, or will $60 hold true until next-next-gen?  Hit the link below for more thoughts as well as the exact quotes from Sony’s mouth.

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The Last of Us Reviews Look Good (Really Good)

The Last of Us Reviews - SlightlyQualified.com

We, like most folks throughout the gaming world, are excited for The Last of Us.  If you are new to SQ Nation, welcome; those of you who have been hanging out with us for our first few epic months in the Internet’s backwoods have likely seen the slew of trailers we’ve posted about and drooled over, and four days ago, the long-awaited “Uncharted-on-Steroids” title has finally arrived.  Have we picked it up yet?  No.  I blame my 9-5 job, as I’m constantly traveling, but as soon as I’m back home I plan on picking myself up a copy and giving it the attention it most definitely deserves.  Speaking of attention, the reviews from the major gaming media outlets have all thrown up synonymous scores, and they all rhyme with perfection: 10.

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iOS Games We Like: Nimble Quest

Nimble Quest Logo - SlightlyQualified.com

Out of the four of you that read this site, who remembers the old school cell phone and TI-83 calculator game, “Snake”?  Remember that pixelated game of addiction, or am I alone on this?  Well since my high school math days in Algebra I, video games, and calculators have come along way.  Now kids are playing on iPhone 5’s and Samsung  Galaxies in junior high math class, when I didn’t even have my first cell phone until I was a sophomore in college, but I digress.  Fast forward to just a few weeks ago, when I dropped a measly $.99 cents on an intriguing little iOS/Android game called, “Nimble Quest”.  If you couldn’t guess by the post title, we like this one – a lot.  Hit the link below for more on this awesome electronic addiction.

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It’s Science: Majority of Gamers Could Be Women By End of 2013

British Gamer Girls - SlightlyQualified.com

With the American media dominated by CNN and Fox News, many of us turn to other country’s news outlets for a more objective approach to not only what goes on over in our hemisphere, but throughout the entire world.  So like many Yankees (or White Sox fans; no offense, New York), I have news sites like BBC in my regular web rotation; it is through their recent technology news archives that I come across this incredibly interesting news story: gaming experts in the UK are predicting that by the end of the 2013 calendar year, the majority of British gamers will be female.  Shocking?  Yeah, I would say so.  Hit the link below for the full report!

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Shadow of the Eternals Effectively On Pause

Shadow of the Eternals On Pause - SlightlyQualified.com

Approximately 31 days ago, well I guess that would be “exactly”, but whatever; a month ago Precursor Games dropped the video gaming bomb that they were resuscitating the long-awaited Eternal Darkness GameCube sequel under the name, Shadow of the Eternals, which followed with this stellar game trailer.  Precursor went the route of a Kickstarter campaign in a courageous attempt to crowdfund $1.5M to get the sequel out of a financial hope and into developmental reality.  Today, Precursor CEO Paul Caporicci released a disappointing statement that the Kickstarter campaign would be pulled since they only raised 1/5 of the funds needed.  But hold up: there may still be hope for the Eternal Darkness sequel.  You just have to hit the link for the details, because we’re cool like that.

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Gordon Freeman and Chell Go on a (Mute) Date

First off, how about a high five to a Mr. MikeNGary?  Or wait, is it two gentlemen: Mike and Gary?  Either way, he/they have put together a pretty awesome, live action Half-Life/Portal dating redux that highlights one of the oddest elements of gaming still around today: mute characters.  As a huge Half-Life fan, I have to get my obligatory, “WHERE IS HALF-LIFE 3?”, post out of the way, so there you go Valve.  Make it happen.  Where were we?  Oh yeah, mute video game characters.  Gordon Freeman and Chell are two of many, many video game main characters that were programmed without a voice, maybe to save disc space, possibly out of boredom, or maybe just as a proverbial middle finger to all of our imaginations; who knows outside of the developers?  I think the starkest example I can think of from my recent gaming memory is Dragon Age: Origins; I usually don’t have an issue with mute main characters, but that was just super weird. I know I’m not alone with that one.

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5 Video Games That Destroyed My GPA

5 Games That Destroyed My GPA - SlightlyQualified.com

I have been a gamer since my grandmother bought us an NES for Christmas back in the late 80’s, and it’s been a passionate hobby ever since.  Sure I don’t get to play nearly as much as I did when I was a kid growing up (I miss summer break), but that’s life, and I couldn’t be happier right now.  That being said, it’s always fun to get a little nostalgic, especially when we’re talking about retro gaming.  Now that I’m pursuing my MBA, and taking school seriously (thank you Marine Corps!), it makes me laugh pretty hard at how much gaming took priority over my grades, whether I was in eight grade or a senior in college.  Narrowing my list down to the most influentially, GPA-degrading games from my past was hard; my initial brainstorm list totaled 12 pretty prominent games from my school days, so it was pretty tough to pick a Top 5.  But enough with the intro; let’s check out the games!

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Awesome Original EverQuest Ad

Now I really feel old.  Is the original EverQuest really that old?  Released in 1999, before Y2K scared the shit out of just about everyone, and just before this guy was even a junior in high school, EverQuest, and MMORPG’s for that matter, has really come a long way.  Years later EQ fans were introduced to a bland, but still addicting EverQuest 2, and then of course we all know what happened next: WoW.  And in fact, EQ is not quite done as a series, as Sony Online Entertainment has the third main installment in the works, which is tentatively slotted for a late 2013/early 2014 PC release.  But let’s get back to the point here which is the original EverQuest, in which killing rats became many young teenager’s first real job, and where you prayed to your favorite deity that your Aunt Nancy didn’t call to interrupt your 14.4 modem’s blazingly fast, AOL connection.  Yes, let’s jump back to 1999.

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