I talked about the Lost Lands podcast yesterday and I wanted to point you towards it again today in case you missed it. This is a podcast featuring Tycho, Scott Kurtz and myself all sitting down to play the tabletop game my son Gabe created. He’s 9 years old and I think his game has some really cool mechanics. It’s interesting to see what a kid comes up with when they don’t have all the baggage that we adults carry around. He doesn’t know how things are “supposed” to work he just makes up his own rules. The results are pretty amazing sometimes. It’s free and you can listen to it right here.
I’ll be posting the winning Dickerdoodle entries next week sometime. If you submitted a Dickerdoodle this year I have not forgotten about you. I’ve got some incredible stuff this year and I’m having a hard time picking my top three. I’ll have the gallery and the winners posted soon though I promise.
The latest patch for Killzone Shadow Fall included some new button mapping for the Vita’s remote play feature. I gave it a shot last night and played a few rounds of multiplayer. The new button layout makes a lot of sense and the game is totally playable. Since the Vita is lacking some of the button options of the PS4 controller they have to get smart with the touch pads.
They have moved run and melee from stick clicks on the PS4 to the touchpad on the back of the Vita. Running feels pretty natural as you just sort of squeeze the right side of the Vita to run. Melee isn’t quite as intuitive and has you doing the same thing on the left side. They have moved the grenade toss to the lower right corner of the front touch pad. All of this stuff works and like I said you can play it and have fun but I’m not sure how competitive you could be.
One of my favorite features of the WIiU was playing Call of Duty on the gamepad while my kids watched cartoons. I called it "Dad mode" at the time and it was awesome. Being able to play a game like COD or Killzone on the couch with your family while they are watching something on the TV is great. I’ve played a lot of stuff via remote play now with varying levels of success. Need For Speed: Rivals and Skylanders Swap Force are great. Assassin’s Creed single player doesn’t map too well to the Vita while the Multi works decently. I’d say thanks to the new patch Killzone Shadow Fall is one of the best.
Speaking of Killzone they are running a special free multiplayer weekend. If Santa brought you a PS4 you can download the multiplayer client from the PSN store and play for free all weekend. It is only for PS Plus members but the PS4 comes with 30 days free so you can jump in this weekend and give it a shot!
-Gabe out
