March 15, 2016

Archie Comics Celebrates 25 Years of Sonic the Hedgehog with SONIC: MEGA DRIVE

Posted on March 15, 2016 by Jason Nason

Archie Comics has lifted the curtain on a special commemorative one-shot comic celebrating 25 year’s of SEGA’s blue blur! The issue speeds back to the early days of Sonic the Hedgehog and follows Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, and Amy Rose on a brand new adventure taking on the villainous Dr. Eggman and his new nefarious tool of destruction — the MEGADRIVE.

“Not only is Archie Comics celebrating its 75th anniversary this year, the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise is also commemorating a milestone anniversary. With 25 years under the Blue Blur’s belt, we wanted to start the celebrations with something truly special,” said Editor Vincent Lovallo.

“The goal was to produce a story that hardcore fans would love, but also feel fresh and new for anyone looking to read a Sonic comic for the first time. The result is Sonic: Mega Drive #1.”

Archie Comics Sega Sonic the Hedgehog Sonic: Mega Drive

Comics

Cross-Platform Gameplay Is Finally A Reality On Xbox One, PS4/Xbox Cross-Play A Possibility

Posted on March 15, 2016 by Rae Michelle Richards

Yesterday at GDC 2016 Microsoft announced that Xbox One players will finally be able to play online with their friends on other platforms starting this year. Developers will be able to bridge the platform gap between Windows 10 and Xbox One and the first game to support this new functionality is none other than last years’ surprise hit Rocket League.

Potentially the most shocking news is that Microsoft appears open to allowing players on longtime rival Sony’s PlayStation Network to play against one another at some point in the future. In the official blog post on the Xbox.com News Wire, Chris Charles the Director of ID @ Xbox, described the possibility of cross-console online gameplay as an “open invitation”.

Here’s his full section regarding the possibility of cross-platform play:

Cross-Network Play
First, in addition to natively supporting cross-platform play between Xbox One and Windows 10 games that use Xbox Live, we’re enabling developers to support cross-network play as well. This means players on Xbox One and Windows 10 using Xbox Live will be able to play with players on different online multiplayer networks – including other console and PC networks.
Of course, it’s up to game developers to support this feature, and Xbox Live players will always have the option of choosing to play only with other Xbox Live players. We’re thrilled to confirm that Psyonix’s Rocket League will be one of the first games to take advantage of this new capability by enabling cross-network play between Xbox One and PC players, with an open invitation for other networks to participate as well.

Rocket League launched on PlayStation 4 in July of 2015, the Xbox One version went live last month on February 17th. The game across all three platforms (PS4, Xbox One, Windows PC) has sold over 4 million units and earned developer Psyonix over $70 million.

Cross Platform Play Microsoft PlayStation Network PS4 Rocket League Windows PC Xbox One

Microsoft News

GDC 2016 Editorial: We Are The Underdogs

Posted on March 15, 2016 by Rae Michelle Richards

It is undeniable that the annual Games Developer Conference (or GDC) is a spectacular event. Once a year sharp & inquisitive minds involved in various facets of game development, marketing, business, and journalism converge on the Moscone Center in San Francisco California for a week of hands-on demos, networking and panel discussions. Broken Joysticks is by no means a large player in the games journalism space, so just how did a small scrappy site like ours become the journalism underdogs at this year’s conference?Read More

Broken Joysticks Editorial GDC GDC 2016 GDC16 Staff Perspective

Opinions/Editorials

Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes sells over 200,000 copies

Posted on March 15, 2016 by Fionna Schweit

Wildly popular bomb diffusal game Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes, was released in October of last year. Since then it has sold over 200,000 copies on Steam. The game’s popularity has been boosted by several factors including its integration of VR. Plus its just a dam fun game. Ben Kane gave a talk yesterday at GDC (attended by our very own Rae and Renee team!) where he discussed the sucess of the game, and announced it had sold over 200,000 copies on Steam. So what made the game such a sucess?

The game was first brought to my attention when I saw it floating around on Youtube, with Reddit backing. As for unexpectedly wide appeal of the game, Kane attributed it’s stellar sales, to the widespread appeal the game has, despite its niche intended audience. The game started out as a VR demo, but found widespread popularity on Steam with non-vr players. The true fun of this game, is the edge that you ride one. Playing with friends and feeling the creeping panic as your timer counts down, trying to communicate with the person who has the manual.

As for the Games core principals, Kane referred to their convention demos as the place they really figured out what they were making, “demoing was going to fundamentally shape what our game would be. the cat was out of the bag” said Kane. Since not many people had access to VR to try it at home. The game was able to find its popularity in spite of that.

Bomb diffusal Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes VR

News

AMD releases new dual GPU, GPU Radeon Pro Duo

Posted on March 15, 2016 by Fionna Schweit

AMD is coming out swinging this year. Their latest line of Radeon cards, the Fiji line, have put up a serious competitor to NVidia that hasnt been seen in the last 4 or 5 years. Now they have entered the double card package market, previously occupied by the lone NVida Titan card. If the specs released today are true, this is in fact not a competitor, but rather a Titan killer. AMD has started this card off with two Fiji chips, which means we’re still looking at two GPUs with 4GB of HBM RAM each. Which does feel a little odd since AMD already has an 8GB card in the R9 390 and its pretty much the lowest cost 8gb card that exists at just over 300$.

To set it apart from the 390, the Pro Duo has a closed loop water cooling solution built right in. It required three separate power connectors, as you can see in this image below, and its a hefty beast of a thing. Some back of envelope math, and a little googling tells me that if this GPU actaully needs all three of those PEG connectors, its pulling close to 450 watts of power. Say good night to your wallet, and hello to hi power bills.

AMD Gaming Hardware

News