Community Chronicle: 24/11/13

I hope that all of you lucky enough to be embarking on your next-gen adventures are having good weekend of gaming. From the PS4 in North America to the Xbox One now out across large parts of Europe and North America, there’s plenty of people with these machines in hand. 

Let’s not forget the people that have been working so hard on all of these launches. From the top of these gigantic corporations right down to the bottom, there will be people who have only just got their first next-gen experiences after months of hard work. To those people especially, they deserve a little break and to see what they’ve helped to accomplish.

As the Xbox One rolled out, many eager gamers finally got their hands on the new console and down to playing games and fiddling around with the new system. Peter gave us his first impressions on the system, and in particular, dived into discussing the new Kinect and the advantages it can give to navigating the OS.

Coruscant chipped in with his thoughts on the matter, saying that it “sounds difficult to navigate without Kinect. But then whenever I’ve played a 360 I’ve always found the menus to be over-complex. Looking at the PS4′s menu though, I don’t think it’ll be much better. I really wish they’d kept it closer to the XMB.”

An interesting perspective, and certainly one that Sony and Microsoft will need to be mindful of, as their systems and interfaces become ever more complex.

Of course, not everyone was able to get in on the fun and frolics, with a small number of people finding their Xbox Ones had broken optical drives. Thankfully JR‘s prediction – “I wonder if the media will blow this out of proportion like they did with the PS4?” he wondered – didn’t really come to fruition and Bunimomike continued with thoughts along those lines, to say that “It’s one of the things I hate about the internet. A few vocal folk can make things appear so seriously catastrophic when all that’s happened is a one-in-a-hundred chance and perfectly acceptable (like the PS4 problems).”

Finally, one of the more surprising stories to come out of the Xbox One’s launch day was a new chat show that sprung up via the PS4’s streaming functionality and the camera’s Playroom tech demo. A couple in Washington happened into the idea of taking calls and hosted The Spartan Show, going viral and staying up for far too many hours than was good for them, I’m sure!

TSBonyman staked a claim to the idea though, saying, “I mentioned the potential for this a few days ago. B******s stole my idea!” Though he did follow it up with a “LOL” and a smiley face, and went on to say, “I was planning on doing a few mini-streams to get the point across clearer once I got my PS4 but my thunder has been stolen. I don’t mind though – I’m no ‘TV personality-type’ so it’s great to see somebody else doing it!”

It will be fascinating to see how they do over the next few weeks and months.

Germanos kicks things off this week, having finished Resistance 2’s single player, and embarked on what he currently considers a much improved third game. Personally, it’s a franchise which disappointingly fizzled away, but I’ll always enjoy that particular universe.

TSBonyman found a little time to finish off Puppeteer this week, as he eagerly awaits his PS4, while Jimmy-Google finished off Ratchet & Clank: Nexus. Bambo_19 cheated the system a little with R&C, though, buying it from the US store and having earned his platinum last week! I’m not sure that one’s for the record books, though.

Kennykazey‘s been enjoying some Wii U gaming, it turns out, finishing Mass Effect 3 on the machine, and enjoying the gamepad functionality, before diving into a variety of platformers, like Tearaway.

Creeping ever closer to the 100 platinum mark, R1MJAW took his 99th from Walking with Dinosaurs, before turning his steely gaze to Lego Marvel Superheroes, which he’s crunching through to be his 100th. Surely he’s going to make it over the line in time for the PS4 now?

Finally, Tactical20 just about managed to steal a jet in GTA5… It, quite appropriately, took him about 20 attempts!

As with the last few weeks, this segment should hopefully be a little more fleshed out once we manage to get a solution to the forums up and running. Soon, we hope!

We’re nearly done, but you can head over to page two for the full trophy leaderboards. To finish off this page, we have the usual submission form for photos and accomplishments.

If people want to keep sending things in, I’ll be happy to post them, but gaming places is no longer a regular feature. If you fancy it, just use the submission form below, get in touch with me on Twitter at @teflon, or just send me an email out of the blue to [email protected].