Month: February 2016

Rocket League is coming to retail stores!

Posted on by avideogamelife.com

Rocket League

The hit game Rocket League will be making its way onto store shelves in disc form by way of “Rocket League: Collector’s Edition” packaging set to release by Q3 2016. The incredibly popular indie hit developed by Psyonix just recently released on Xbox One but was originally available on PC and PS4 in July 2015. Rocket League has already seen close to four million downloads, but a disc based version will make the game available to an even larger player base, especially those unable to download games due to limiting bandwidth caps.

The Collector’s Edition is being made available by 505 Games, already known for making other digital releases such as Payday 2 and Terraria available in physical format.

The package will include the three DLC packs that have already released. No pricing has been announced, however if you don’t want to wait for the disc based release the game is currently available for $19.99 in the Xbox store.

Rocket League

Rocket League is one of the most fun video games I’ve played in recent years, and it’s incredibly addicting. Every time I play it I end up telling myself “just one more match” for hours before I force myself to put the controller down. I’m glad that more people will be able to play Rocket League and am excited that the game will get more exposure via its presence on store shelves later this year.

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Trying Soylent 2.0 — The future of food?

Posted on by avideogamelife.com

I first heard about Soylent from The New Yorker as I read the intriguing article “The End of Food” in the May 12, 2014 issue. After reading the article I definitely wanted to try the product, however I never got around to ordering some until last week. I eventually ordered a 12 pack of Soylent 2.0 and it arrived a few days ago.

Soylent 2.0

The first thing I noticed is the simplistic packaging and bottle design. The bottle is a white, barren space, lacking any eye catching branding aside from a small logo near the bottom of the bottle. I’ve found that the absence of any significant branding has made people more likely to ask what I was drinking, which makes the simple design an effective marketing choice.

Upon opening my first bottle I noticed that Soylent doesn’t have any sort of smell or odor like I expected (I had expected it to smell gross). After I took a sip I was again surprised to find the drink tasted incredibly neutral. I’d describe it as a liquid slightly thicker than water with a hint of a milky taste. It’s easy to sip and leaves no real aftertaste. It’s much easier to drink than most protein shakes or products such as Slim Fast.

Soylent 2.0 bottle

The real question is whether or not it works. So far I can report that it is incredibly effective as a meal replacement. I’ve tried Slim Fast before, hoping for a quick, easy to prepare lunch for work, but it never left me satisfied. Soylent, however, does the job quite well. I’ve sipped on a bottle of Soylent for breakfast and dinner so far, and both times the bottle satiated my hunger and left me full for hours. I’ve found it best to sip on Soylent over an extended period of time, rather than chug it down, as this seems to help the full feeling last longer. Add an apple or banana and you’ll be full and ready to start your day.

So far I’m impressed with Soylent. I’m looking forward to keeping a bottle in my backpack as I go biking, hiking or camping after I get back to the U.S.

Apple Music on Android may be in Beta still, but it’s terrible

Posted on by avideogamelife.com

The Apple Music experience on Android has not been enjoyable since its release. Granted, it’s been in a perpetual beta status since its launch on Android, but I still expect better. I’ve had a wide variety of issues with the app which make it difficult to use, and I’m often temped to return to Spotify until I get an iPhone.

One of the most annoying g problems I have with the app is that my downloaded music seems to somehow get corrupted. The music will show that it is downloaded to my phone, but the songs will not play when I don’t have an Internet connection. They simply appear to load indefinitely. What’s strange is that sometimes music that worked fine offline will suddenly stop working offline for no apparent reason. I’ll have to remove the download and re-download them to get them to work offline again. Nothing is more annoying than downloading something to listen to on the bus ride to work and have it not play once I’m away from WiFi.

Another issue I have that’s just as annoying is that the app crashes often. So often that my phone recommended I remove the app. Crashes happen while clicking on a song, browsing playlist or even when I try to skip a track. When the app doesn’t crash it will start and stop playing songs at random. At the gym I’ll hit play, slip my phone into my pocket and in about five seconds the song will just stop playing. I’ll try to restart the song but the play button disappears, and surprise, the app soon crashes again.

Despite all these problems, I don’t necessarily blame Apple. My entire Android experience has been terrible, and I often find myself contemplating paying off my Galaxy S6 early to get back to the much better platform of the iPhone.

It’s worth noting that Apple Music works perfectly fine on my MacBook and iPad, and overall I enjoy those experiences more than the Spotify experience. That’s the only thing that has kept me from switching back.

Rocket League on the Xbox One is not very playable outside the U.S.

Posted on by avideogamelife.com

I was incredibly excited for Rocket League’s arrival on the Xbox One this week. I had played it previously on my MacBook’s Windows 10 partition, but it never ran quite well. I figured I’d wait to enjoy the game when it released on Xbox. Last night after work, however, I was met with disappointment. Every game I played was unbearably laggy. So laggy that the game was unplayable. My car would constantly stutter and reverse direction over and over again and would randomly transport around the arena. I stuck the matches out, hoping it would get better, but it never did. I rarely came into contact with the ball, and by some miracle I managed to accidentally score a goal, brushing past the ball just before the opposing player knocked it into his own goal.

At the end of each match my ping was shown as being anywhere from 50 to 300, but even at 50 the game was unplayable. I’m currently deployed which is likely the reason for the lag as the only servers are in the U.S. and Europe, but I have no issues with games such as Destiny or Battlefield on the same Internet. A quick search on Google revealed that I was not alone, as many Australian players have reported lag making the game unplayable for them as well.

Hopefully the server issues are worked out in the near future, otherwise I’ll be waiting even longer to finally enjoy Rocket League.

It’s been slow here

Posted on by avideogamelife.com

Hey I just wanted to pop in and apologize for the lack of writing that I’ve been doing lately. I’m still deployed, with about two months until I’m out of here, so you can expect it to be slow until I get back in the states. I’ve been focusing more of my free time on working out lately, and although I’ve still played video games I have less time to write about them.

I downloaded Mario and Luigi: Paper Jam for the 3DS the other night and am looking forward to spending time with it soon. It’ll be my first Mario & Luigi game, and I’ve heard some good things about it.

Rocket League released on the Xbox One today, and I can’t wait to play it after work today! I played a bit on the PC but I’m sure I’ll have a lot more fun on the Xbox.

Other than that I’ve been getting back into Destiny, doing strikes with a friend here as he worked his way up to level 40. I’m still looking forward to checking out the new raid, but it won’t be until I get back stateside.

I’ll have more to post soon, I promise!

Patrick Klepek’s informative look at piracy and The Witness

Posted on by avideogamelife.com

One of my favorite gaming personalities, Patrick Klepek (of Kotaku and formerly Giant Bomb) recently posted an interesting and informative look at the world of video game piracy and how it is affecting the popular new game The Witness. The video is only five minutes long but Patrick goes over a lot of information and touches on both sides of the issue. Definitely worth a watch!

I’ll admit, I’ve dabbled in piracy over the years, but as digital storefronts have gotten better and easier to use, I’ve actually found it more of a hassle to pirate anything these days. Time is money, and the process of buying a digital product is so easy these days that it’s not even worth the hassle of trying to save a few bucks. Besides the ease of use issue, I’ve found it more rewarding to actually support those who work hard to entertain us. I like seeing my iTunes movie collection grow, and as much as I love video games, I couldn’t even think of robbing a hard working developer, potentially deterring them from continuing to make high quality games.

Please don’t pirate!