No Money for Music: December 15 - 21, 2013

The third week of December was full of more Christmas songs to download for free. Google threw in a few more holiday downloads as well as a new list of free songs just for December. Starbucks joins in the holiday cheer with their selection of a CHVRCHES song for their pick of the week. Daily selections follow with their brief descriptions.

Alpha Protocol First Impressions

Originally Posted on Tumblr

Role playing games are one of my favorite genre of video games. When I’m not min-maxing my character stats, I can spend hours just exploring the world and talking with the characters in it. I was looking forward to Obsidian Entertainment’s original product ever since they got the Game Informer April 2008 cover story. Unfortunately, the game finally released in 2010 to a mixed critical reception. I picked up an Xbox 360 copy of the game for $5, and I just tried to play through a few of the beginning missions to see why people on the internet claimed Alpha Protocol was a much better RPG experience than the action-heavy Mass Effect series for instance. I sort of understand why the game didn’t provide the action people were expecting, but like other Obsidian-developed titles, I really enjoy the writing that puts the narrative above others for a mature title.

Crowdsourcing Picks: December 15 - 21, 2013

With the holiday passing soon, there are still projects to help out. For the week starting December 15, we have a couple of music-oriented projects to spotlight. There are some technology projects to look over as well.

Batman: Arkham Asylum First Impressions

As part of a charity drive, I was asked to donate some of my video games to a local organization to reward youth for bringing in contributions. I always seem to have some video games enclosed in their wrappers, and one of the games I gave away was Batman: Arkham Origins for the Xbox 360. I figured I messed up because I preordered the collectors edition that included a DVD copy of a movie that I could have acquired on Blu-ray if I preordered the PS3 version of the game. Either way, I still have not finished the other Arkham titles, so I figured I should talk about my experience with them before trying out what appears to be a more mediocre sequel in the franchise.

No Money for Music: Week of October 27

It’s great to be able to listen to a variety of songs on iTunes Radio. However, over the years my music library has accumulated all sorts of downloads based on free giveaways. I even got a Kanye West song on Halloween. After the break, see the songs with the album art and the descriptions Google and Apple wrote for them.

Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney Dual Destinies First Impressions

The law has been a passion of mine, so Capcom’s Ace Attorney adventure game series is a franchise I pay close attention to. North America did not get the last Ace Attorney game localized, though, as they see the games as niche titles, and it was a spin-off anyway. Recently Capcom released the fifth game in the main series, Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney: Dual Destinies on the Nintendo 3DS eShop. I am happy to report that new look is a return to form for the courtroom adventure, and I was pleasantly surprised to see Phoenix Wright back in action.

Crowdsourcing Picks: Week of October 27

Every since I found out about Kickstarter, I have been posting links to projects. Most of them are staff picks, but I hear about some others through newsletters and web sites. For example, one of the projects is a video game in which the playable character has diabetes, except it’s designed like an adventure rather than an educational platformer like Captain Novulin was.