While it’s one of the big four sports, baseball fans have gotten a pretty raw deal when it comes to video games. For the last three years, there hasn’t been a triple-A multi-platform baseball game. Since 2K let their MLB license expire, the only triple-A baseball game has been Sony’s MLB: The Show series. Over the last couple of years, Major League Baseball has taken it upon themselves to try to fill the gap in the market by publishing their own multi-platform baseball game with a revival of the classic baseball franchise RBI Baseball.
Video Games
The Walking Dead: Michonne – Episode Three Review: We Deserve Better
After a short couple of months, Telltale’s The Walking Dead: Michonne miniseries reaches its conclusion with Episode Three: What We Deserve. If you’ve read reviews of or played the first two episodes, you would know that Telltale is really struggling to capture the essence of one of The Walking Dead’s trademark characters. That’s still apparent in the final third of TWD: Michonne. To use an in-universe metaphor: It’s stumbling home like it’s a walker.
StarCraft II: Nova Covert Ops – Mission Pack 1 Impressions: Sniped
While the story of StarCraft II ended with Legacy of the Void and the Into the Void epilogue, Blizzard hasn’t ended the stories it wants to tell in the StarCraft universe. The first return to the Koprulu sector takes place several years after the conclusion of Legacy of the Void. One of the long-lost Blizzard projects was StarCraft: Ghost which was supposed to introduce Nova as the player character. The game was eventually scrapped and Nova was introduced in Wings of Liberty and a StarCraft: Ghost novel.
Many years after Ghost’s cancellation, Nova finally gets her long-awaited solo project. It’s not a shooter but it’s a real-time strategy game in the same way that we’ve come to know from StarCraft II but with an episodic twist.
Overwatch Open Beta Impressions: For the Watch
In the run up to its much-anticipated release next week, Blizzard ran the final big beta test for their upcoming first-person shooter franchise Overwatch. While some features, like competitive play, weren’t in the beta, this is the best chance that everyone is going to have to try the game out before Blizzard sticks it hand out looking for $60 for the game. Fortunately for Blizzard, they put a very strong foot forward by basically letting players have a go at a near-complete version of the game.
Clash Royale Review: Dealing from the Bottom of the Deck
Now that I’ve got a phone that’s less than three years old, I can finally start reviewing mobile games. Let’s start with one of the latest games to top the mobile games charts.
Supercell had a hit on its hands with Clash of Clans. The tower defense game still sits near the top of Google’s top grossing games chart. For their follow-up, they took many of the elements of Clash of Clans and distilled it into a competitive multiplayer strategy game called Clash Royale.
The Evolution Of F1 Video Games (Infographic)
I’m not sure if we’ll have much in the way of F1 race recap coverage this weekend but we’ll definitely have the Power Rankings before the weekend starts and the news roundup following the race. In the meantime, we have a little F1 infographic for your perusal. The beta test squad that traveled to Codemasters HQ think that F1 2016 will take the series to new heights. Just how far have F1 games come in over 30 years? Well, that’s what our infographic is about.
The Walking Dead: Michonne – Episode Two Review: No Shelter Given
A while back, I wondered if Telltale Games had spread itself too thin. At that point in time, it had The Walking Dead, The Wolf Among Us, Game of Thrones and Tales from the Borderlands in the works. Since then, they’ve added Batman and Minecraft to their lineup along with this TWD miniseries before the upcoming The Walking Dead: Season Three.
The first episode of The Walking Dead: Michonne certainly seemed like evidence that Telltale had finally overwhelmed itself and its quality was slipping. Episode Two: Give No Shelter is an improvement on the first episode but we’re still a long way from the peak of Telltale’s ability.
The Walking Dead: Michonne – Episode One Review: Sliced and Diced
Much like they did between Seasons One and Two of The Walking Dead, Telltale has another small adventure to bridge the gap between seasons of their The Walking Dead series. While their TWD story runs parallel to the comic series, The Walking Dead: Michonne actually forms part of the continuity of the main story.
Telltale’s last two efforts with beloved characters were a mixed bag with Borderlands fans loving Tales From The Borderlands while Game of Thrones fans were underwhelmed by Game of Thrones (though the treatment of the likes of Ramsay Snow and the Lannisters was the best part of the series). With Michonne being one of TWD’s most popular characters, how would this effort turn out?
Rise of the Tomb Raider Review: Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed, Something Askew
Seldom do reboots actually reinvigorate a franchise. Sure, Star Trek wasn’t too bad but when you consider the likes of Point Break and The Amazing Spider-Man and Conan The Barbarian and Godzilla (twice), you find yourself scared away from reboots. Gaming isn’t immune to that with the likes of Sim City, Medal of Honor and Sonic the Hedgehog as failed attempts to reinvigorate franchises.
One of the more successful reboots in history is 2013’s Tomb Raider which is the series best-selling and among its most critically acclaimed. It came as a shock that Microsoft had to pay the way for this sequel to 2013’s hit. Rise of the Tomb Raider recently hit PC after an exclusivity period on Xbox One and will come to PS4 this fall (despite being the platform that Tomb Raider sold best on).
So how does the sequel to the reboot standup? Well, it’s not all sunshine and lollipops.
Game Trailers Roundup for April 12, 2016
It’s been a while since we’ve run the latest in video game trailers here on The Lowdown but I’m thinking that it might be a weekly feature here. We have nine trailers from the last week in gaming. Those trailers include launch trailers for indie hits Enter the Gungeon, Job Simulator and The Banner Saga 2. And there are trailers for little games like Star Fox Zero and Battleborn too.
The Lowdown 