Added to the Roman calendar by Numa Pompilius about 713 BC, February is named after the purification ritual Februa which was traditionally held in the middle of the month. Over in Finland, the month is called Helmikuu which means the “month of the pearl”, named after the snow which melts on tree branches. Here in the England we were rather less poetic and used to call it Solmonath, which means “mud month”.
In 2016, February saw the starting grid for the year’s biggest race: VR. Oculus’ competitors got going as the HTC Vive opened pre-orders at the eye-watering price of £689 and LG entered the fray. The PSN went down for an hour a two, but so did Xbox Live. 8-bit legends Hewson returned to gaming, and we had rumours of a new Ghostbusters game (which turned out to be correct, but terribly dull). The rumour mill also revealed Knack 2, and Microsoft decided that Hololens was nice but you were probably never going to be able to buy it.
One of the biggest screw-ups in recent years came an abrupt halt when Warner Bros completely cancelled Arkham Knight on PC. It had already been released last year, but was so terribly broken Warner pulled it from Steam in an attempt to fix it, before eventually giving up. We also found out that Titanfall 2 would have a single player campaign, and very good it is too.
Also looking good, but ending up to be the worst piece of rubbish to grace a PlayStation 4 this year, was Kick Off Revival, a game that should have never been released.
Reviews included Unravel, Firewatch, Dying Light: The Following, Bravely Second: End Layer, Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth, Earth Defense Force 4.1, Street Fighter V, Gemini: Heroes Reborn, Layers of Fear, XCOM 2, Far Cry: Primal, and Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare 2.
What with February being generally dark and depressing, we had a little fun with some live coverage of game jounos stuck in a lift, and we worshipped the lord and master of all video games, the ever present Mike Bithell, as he went and formally started his own studio. Posh git.
After the massacre in the previous month February was light on celebrity deaths with just actor Frank Kelly, best known for his role as Father Jack in comedy Father Ted, and To Kill A Mockingbird author Harper Lee, passing on.
Now over to Mike in the TSA Met Office weather room for an recap of the month’s weather.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cj-ul_P2CzI
ron_mcphatty
I’d forgotten Hololense had been shelved pending a garanteed profit, shame really as all that AR jazz is a bit easier to demo than VR. And tha Arkham Knight mess was truly a messy mess. Great game, really pretty on the PS4, a mate at work went the extra mile and got a pirated copy to play on his PC in the summer after buying it digitally and failing to get a refund, but also not being able to play it on release. Apparently it works fine for him now, but he’s not happy because he loves a winge.
Andrewww
Completely missed the news about Hewson’s return to producing games. I loved Uridium back then on the C-64, that would be awesome on PS4..!