The annual ConnectiCon convention in Hartford, Connecticut is a show I’ve attended for years. My Secret Identity podcast partner Matt Herring and I were the this year, doing panels on podcasting, selling books and covering the show for Secret Identity.
One of the coolest aspects of ConnectiCon is that it’s a huge show for cosplay, and because the show is a multi-genre one, you’ll see everything from anime cosplays to mainstream comic superheroes to gaming-related cosplays. Many of the gaming cosplayers were cool enough to let me take some photos this weekend so that I could showcase their fantastic costumes here on the blog. So, without further ado, here are some of the coolest gaming cosplays I saw this past weekend at ConnectiCon.READ MORE
You can thank him for the new and improved, completely awesome website that you see before you today. Not only is it more organized and functional than our previous site, but it’s a much better representation of how far we’ve come, and what Co-Op Critics is today.READ MORE
One of the most pleasant surprises of E3 for me this year was the announcement of Trackmania Turbo for consoles.
The series has been huge on PC for years, and has made a few forays into the console space, yielding mixed results. I’ve played a good amount of TrackmaniaForever on PC, and Trackmania DS is still one of my favorite games to come out on Nintendo’s handheld.READ MORE
We’re giving away a copy of The Elder Scrolls Online: Tamriel Unlimited to one lucky winner! All you have to do to enter is follow us on Twitter, tweet about the contest, and Subscribe to our YouTube channel (click the subscribe button in the sidebar). You can come back and tweet about the contest once a day to continue earning more entries! Follow the instructions in the contest widget below to enter.
The winner will be announced at the on June 2nd. To be considered, you must be currently subscribed to our YouTube channel and following us on Twitter. Winner will choose between a copy of Elder Scrolls Online for Xbox One or PS4.
You probably have a few gaming sites you visit at least three or four times a week to keep up on what’s happening in the industry, check out reviews and hopefully look for some interesting games discussion. I bounce between several, but I usually start my morning checking IGN and Polygon, as I know the latest press releases will be there. This is mainly out of habit, and if you visit those two sites regularly, then you may have noticed a couple of things. First, there’s a lot of the same stuff on both of them (although this is par for the course with regard to industry news). And second, there seems to be less and less gaming-related items on those sites than ever before.READ MORE
Today Warner Brothers and LEGO and TT Games unveiled their next big thing–LEGO Dimensions, a “toys to life” game like Skylanders and Disney Infinity, where players will be able to play through all of the different licensed LEGO worlds using a portal, toys and figures they assemble themselves. Here’s the reveal trailer:
Now you might be thinking that since the addition of Nintendo’s Amiibo, the toys to life genre is a bit over-saturated right now. And that might be true, but LEGO is about to completely transform this genre, because they are adding an element that the other have not and cannot (at least to the same degree).
Building.
As you see in the trailer, Joel McHale actually builds the portal that is then used to activate figures and vehicles. He also uses pieces of the Batmobile to create an entirely new type of vehicle. And while we really don’t see much in the way of gameplay in this trailer, I believe those things are shown for a reason. With that in mind, imagine an expansion set for the game where you’re building the vehicles, weapons and structures yourself, and then porting them into the game. I’m sure there will be limitations as to what you can actually do, but even just building the Batmobile and porting it in is pretty darn sweet.
I have an eight year old son, and I can tell you he is going to lose his mind over this. We already have Skylanders and Disney Infinity, which we both play together. He is also a huge LEGO fan, as evidenced by the thousands of LEGOs we have and his LEGO Club membership. This game will be a day one purchase for us.
The potential of LEGO Dimensions is endless. And I’m sure everyone has their ideas of what sets they want to see in the future, so allow me to make a suggestion. If Microsoft is smart, they will find a way to make a LEGO Minecraft XBox exclusive set happen. Not only would it make the Xbox One the lead platform for LEGO Dimensions, it would sell gangbusters. I cannot wait to get my hands on this game.
Two weeks ago today, Bloodborne was released. And while the last couple weeks have been busy for me outside of gaming, I’ve managed to beat the first two bosses and die a whole heck of a lot. In short, I am having a blast.
And for the first time with the Souls series, I’m streaming and recording a good deal of my gameplay, which has been a really interesting experience as well. Like a baseball player watching videos of his at-bats, I’ve been able to go back and learn from some of my encounters, particularly with the bosses.
This has made Bloodborne a bit of a different experience for me, as I have previously relied quite a bit on guides and let’s play videos to navigate parts of the Souls games that I was struggling with. My previous strategy was to keep chipping away at a particular part of the game until I wasn’t progressing at all, and then seek out a guide or video to give me another perspective.
With Bloodborne so far, I’ve been revisiting my own gameplay videos to see where my strategy is breaking down, particularly with the bosses. Many times I’m just confirming where I thought I went wrong, but a few times I’ve seen things that I was able to go back and do differently the next time around.
Make no mistake, I’ll still be visiting my favorite wikis and let’s players during the course of my playthrough, and I have the hardcover Bloodborne guide on its way to me (if Amazon ever decides to ship it). But, being able to watch pieces of my own playthrough is a new tool that I’m really getting a lot out of. And since learning from death is a core theme with the Souls games, having another way to learn just adds to the fun.
