It’s time to once again take a look back at the past month here on the blog with Lowdown Monthly. Considering the amount of content we’ve pushed out over the 30 days in April, I thought now would be a good time to bring it back. So here’s our look back at our favourite and the most popular posts of March. Continue reading
Month: April 2013
How Much Does Yoda’s Hut Cost? (Infographic)
It’s been a while since we’ve done an infographic post so let’s put one together now. Have you ever wanted to live like Yoda? I don’t mean being a force-using alien who swings a mean lightsaber. I mean in a mud hut next to a swamp. Well, someone has actually priced out the cost of building Yoda’s hut.
Sunday Link-Off: Taking Control
It’s the end of the week. It’s been a busy one at Lowdown HQ too with all the work we did for Canadian Gaming Week. Maybe we’ll do that again in the future but for now we’ll resume normal programming. So let’s start today’s links with Nina Agdal.
The week before last was about two things: Terrorism and gun control. At first, those were two separate issues. Now, you can actually link the two as bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev was on an FBI watch list but was still able to buy high-powered firearms. (Bloomberg)
Midterm elections in the US Congress is still a ways away but gun control could be the biggest issue in 2014. (The New Republic)
Australia banned all semi-automatic and automatic firearms despite concerns over the effect it might have over people’s safety. Almost 20 years later, Australia is one of the safest places in the world to live. To be honest, I felt safer in Australia than I did in Toronto or Ottawa. (Uproxx)
Entertainment Link-Off: Pain and Gain
It’s testosterone galore at the theatres this weekend with Michael Bay’s Pain and Gain hitting the screens. Meanwhile over in Australia, you get to check out Iron Man 3 instead! Not a bad weekend at all. Anyway, don’t really know who to start off this week’s ELO with, so here’s one of Michael Bay’s former favourite, Megan Fox.
After the jump, the future of Iron Man is up in the air, first look at Thor: The Dark World, Kickstarter has another big project, an interesting America’s Got Talent audition gone wrong and watch Patton Oswalt channel his inner Penguin. Continue reading
Caption This: April 20 – 26, 2013
Inspired by the Globe and Mail’s caption writing person, we waste our time writing funny picture captions for some of the more interesting photos we come across when blogging. So here are some of the best pictures from the past week with a funny (-ish) caption. Continue reading
Canada is a Gaming Powerhouse
One thing that I’ve realized as working on our Canadian Gaming Week is that the Canadian gaming industry is currently in great shape. Sure, Vancouver could use a little bit of help and the once great BioWare has been on a down swing but to parrot a Don Cherry line about Canadian hockey, we are the best.
If you look at last week’s Canadian Videogame Awards, the nominees and winners lists look like most major year-end awards lists. Three of last year’s biggest triple-A games, the best-selling sports game in the world and two of the best reviewed indie games of 2012 were all developed on Canadian soil. Canadian gaming isn’t just a powerhouse but is thriving hotbed for the games industry.
Montreal’s gamesbymo Needs Your Help to Make A.N.N.E
Every once in a while on our sister site et geekera, we cover some of the more interesting offerings on Kickstarter. For Canadian Gaming Week, we thought that we would do a Kickstarter preview of our own.
Montreal indie studio gamesbymo is the one-man operation of developer Moise Breton. He’s taking to Kickstarter to get funding to complete work on his latest project called A.N.N.E.
Canadian PSN Users Can Get Freebies Thanks to a Class-Action Lawsuit
If Canadian users on the PlayStation Network or with Qriocity or Sony Online Entertainment accounts thought they had gotten all the freebies they could out of Sony after the 2011 PSN hack, think again. A recently settled class-action lawsuit in Ontario means that Canadian PSN/SOE users can get some more free stuff from Sony.
Despite Its Faults, I Still Love Mass Effect
I couldn’t go the whole of Canadian Gaming Week here on the blog without writing one more Mass Effect column. The reason that I write so often and at such length about Mass Effect is that the series is what brought me back into proper gaming after years of spending my time in a rut of playing sports and music games.
I’ve written a lot about the game over the last year. I’ve dug into that terribly unsatisfying ending. I’ve decried the horrible DLC practices that saw parts of the game cut out to sell separately from the main game. I’ve even promoted the Indoctrination Theory which might be my greatest sin against the franchise and common sense.
And despite how disappointed I was in the ending of the trilogy, despite how angry I was at having to pay for an on-disc “DLC” that was locked out behind what was effectively a $10 paywall and despite the fact that I have to make the conscious choice to end my playthroughs at the Citadel DLC to get the ending the trilogy deserves, I still love Mass Effect.
Preview: Fez Comes to PC Next Week
Next Wednesday, the critically acclaimed indie platformer Fez will make its way from bring an Xbox 360 exclusive to multiplatform with a PC launch through Steam.
Fez is a Canadian developed game by Montreal-based Polytron Corporation. Gamers may have heard of the outspoken Phil Fish who was one half of the game’s two-man dev team. Fish and Fez were profiled in the popular documentary Indie Game: The Movie which also featured hits Super Meat Boy and Braid.
The Lowdown 