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Sunday Link-Off: Happy New Year!

luana-mourato-moonbasa13-06And here we are for a set of the links and the first set of links of 2014. Well, okay. We had Wednesday’s year-in-review but does that really count? Anyhow, it’s time for the Sunday links. Let’s start a new year off with a new face. Here’s Brazilian model Luana Mourato.

A recent poll says that most Canadians aren’t happy with the direction of the country. The next election is shaping up to be very interesting. (The Globe and Mail)

No one is happy with The Affordable Care Act. The right hates it because they hate the government doing anything affecting citizens. The left hates it because it doesn’t do enough. (New York Times)

Speaking of the political right, 2013 was a big year for shaming women. That’s something that should change. (Al Jazeera America)

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Weekend Geek Links of the Week

I’ll try to restart Caption This next week but until then, have a few geek links courtesy of et geekera.

I don’t think that anyone would be surprised if I mentioned that I was a fan of the doge meme. Now, the meme has an origin story. [Verge]

A lot of people blame the bomb that was Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within for Squaresoft having to merge with Enix to survive. The truth runs much deeper than that. (Note to self: Watch and review The Spirits Within and follow-up with Advent Children.) [NeoGAF]

History tells us that Bitcoin might be popular now but, like other private currencies, it will eventually die off. [Bloomberg]

Did you know that there’s a Guinness World Record for the largest video game collection? A New York man owns a collection of over 11,000 games. [Business Insider]

Metacritic did a roundup of their gaming review scores over the last twelve months. By their metrics, it was a rough year in gaming. [Metacritic]

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Leave a comment Posted on by Steve Murray Video Games

7 Best Games of the 7th Generation: The Honourable Mentions

Having given you my list of the seven best games of the last generation of consoles, I thought that I should give you a brief look at some of the games that were on the shortlist but didn’t quite make the cut.

Over the course of eight years and thousands of games, cutting a list of the best of the best down to only seven game leaves many deserving games on the sidelines. So to close out our series looking at the best games of the last generation of consoles, here’s a look at some of the games that were under serious consideration for the list.

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2 Comments Posted on by Steve Murray Video Games

The Walking Dead: Season Two – Episode One (Spoiler-Free) Review: Boulevard Of Broken Dreams

the-walking-dead-season-two-headerThe surprise hit of 2012 was The Walking Dead. Given how often that licensed games disappoint and Telltale’s shaky track record before the release of the first episode of their The Walking Dead series, no one was expecting Telltale’s new game set in the universe  of The Walking Dead comic books to be as great as it was. The first five episodes of The Walking Dead picked up dozens of Game of the Year awards along with seemingly hundreds of other awards in 2012.

So The Walking Dead: Season Two had a lot to live up to. Could the first episode of Season Two of The Walking Dead live up to the original or would it be underwhelming like the 400 Days DLC?

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Wednesday Link-Off: Goodbye 2013!

nina-agdal-beachbunny13-12Happy New Year! To officially close of 2013 and get us started into 2014, we’ve got a bunch of year-end lists and recaps for you in today’s links. And, as we are wont to do, we start off this post with our scientifically determined link-off woman of the year. This year, the honour goes to Danish model Nina Agdal.

While 2013 might not have been a perfect year for everyone, the team at Think Progress believes that this is the best year in human history. (Think Progress)

We’ve featured a lot of stories on our link-off posts but we haven’t covered them all. So here’s a list of 50 of the best long read stories on the internet last year. (Longreads)

Are you looking for something on paper to read? Then check out the best books of 2013. (TimeOut)

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The Lowdown Blog Annual: 2013

With another year having come and gone, I thought it was time to look back at the best of the past 12 months here on The Lowdown Blog. This year was a different one for us. We launched a sister blog, cut back a bit on the Man Lab posts and increased the video game posts. The result might have been a giant U-shape in the traffic over the course of the year but I’m happy with where the blog is today.

So let’s look back at the year with our most read posts from 2013 and the most read posts overall in 2013.

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Fails of the Year

Usually, when we do our fails posts, it’s the best fails we’ve found from the last short stretch of time. This week, we have some compilations of the best fails from the past twelve months in the first ever Fails of the Year.

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Sunday Link-Off: The Calm Before The Storm

emily-ratajkowski-fredericks13-01We’re just a couple of days away from New Year’s Day and we’re going to do the year in review links then. Until Wednesday, we have a normal set of links. Let’s start with Emily Ratajkowski.

You may not have heard but the world’s newest country is on the brink of civil war. So what’s happening in South Sudan. (Al Jazeera)

Noam Chomsky thinks that America has become a plutocracy. Considering that political interests are driven by donors and lobbyists, he’s probably not wrong. (Raw Story)

Have all the hoaxes on the internet that have been reported as real news broken the internet? (Esquire)

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The Lowdown Blog’s Top 10 Films of 2013

short term 12 b2013 is another year filled with many big budget, largely forgettable films, but among all the releases, there are truly some gems out there. In fact, some of these films that made it onto the top 10 list caught me by surprise. Over the course of the year, I have caught several films on a weekly basis. In fact, I have lost count of all the ticket stubs that I have collected! Below is the list of the top 10 films I have seen this year. Continue reading →

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Weekend Geek Links of the Week

I didn’t actually do the Geek Links of the Week over at et geekera this week but I still have one for you guys here this week. At some point, Caption This and the Entertainment Link-Off will be back. Just not this week.

How broken is YouTube’s Content ID system? A YouTuber had his video claimed by multiple music publishers for having the audacity to sing an a capella version of Silent Night. [Consumerist]

Solid State Drives will eventually be cheaper than Hard Disc Drives but don’t expect that until the next decade. [Network Computing]

According to a German insurance company, gamers cause about $130,000 of in-game damage per minute playing Grand Theft Auto V. [ShortList]

Square Enix might be open to the possibility of making Final Fantasy X-3 if the demand for the X/X-2 Remastered is high enough. [Siliconera]

Canadian StarCraft pro Scarlett came up just a bit short in the biggest show match in SC2 history. [et geekera]

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