Polynauts Central (22/8 Archived)

Posted by Shaun McIlroy on August 22, 2012 06:56 am 597

PolynautsHeader7/8

Todays image comes from the mind of Sneaky Spy Guy

Welcome to Polynauts Central. It's Wednesday, August 22nd, 2012. I'm PaddyStardust Shaun McIlroy and I'm here to once again take you through the Mountains of Polygon Madness.

Also keep in mind that if you're into comics, manga and anime and want a nice organised place to talk about those, then head on over to Crisis on Infinite Polygons for chaosyoshimage's all-in-one thread.

So with all that, join me now and lets spend a few minutes going over some of yesterdays gaming news.

FROM POLYGON

1: Announcing 'Press Reset: The story of Polygon' by Polygon Staff

Press Reset is the story of Polygon. It is a documentary mini-series chronicling the creation of this new publication. Like the website itself, it is a work currently in progress. With each new episode, you will see everything, from start to finish. Good, bad, and ugly. Failure or success.

2: Feature: The secret sauce of social games by Tracey Lien

"I think there's a difference between copying and cloning," he says. "With cloning, I don't think it's necessarily a negative thing. The reason why is because most of the time a developer will see a previous game that's quite popular and they put their own little spin on it and it might introduce new mechanics, better server software, better customer service, things like that, so even though the experience might be similar, it's still different enough.

3: 'Transformers: Fall of Cybertron' review: wheels of steel by Arthur Gies

Fall of Cybertron's greatest strength is its constant introduction of new gameplay quirks and abilities. While the basic gameplay systems remain the same - shoot, transform, melee - each chapter introduces a new wrinkle. Some Transformers can turn invisible; some can lasso onto elements of the environment; some fliers have two vehicle forms, a chopper and a jet. The new abilities break up the basic gameplay pillars and keep things from getting repetitive. It helps keep levels from overstaying their welcome, though this is also helped by a fairly brisk pace punctuated by some very large-scale set-pieces.

4: 'New Super Mario Bros. 2' review: a vein of gold by Phil Kollar

Mario's newfound drive for wealth brings a handful of additions to New Super Mario Bros. 2's well-trodden 2D platformer formula. Fans burnt out by the glut of Mario releases over the past five years will have trouble getting excited by the meager new elements here, but the greed-driven gameplay gives New Super Mario Bros. 2 the most interesting evolution of 2D Mario gameplay since the SNES era.

5: Layoffs come to 'The Secret World' developer Funcom by Michael McWhertor

On August 10th, the company announced in an investor update that Funcom was "currently implementing several cost-adjustment initiatives due to the expected lower initial revenues from The Secret World to secure future positive cash flows." At the time, Funcom lamented The Secret World's lower-than-expected review scores and financial expectations for the massively multiplayer online game co-published with EA.

FROM THE POLYNAUTS FORUMS:

1: Final Fantasy XIII Teaser Site by GunFlame

The continuation of the Lightning Saga. For something that was likely a knee-jerk reaction to the original XIII, it's really starting to become it's own thing now.

2: "Transformers: Fall of Cybertron" PC Version Image Quality Comparison by mattwhite924

Many of you may be considering getting the PC version of "Fall of Cybertron", but may be wondering how the graphics hold up on the PC. I figured I might as well do a quick comparison of the graphics settings so that you all know what you're getting.

3: Gaming While You Work by travthompson

I work in a small office of 8 people. Years ago we used to play Counter Strike, then a couple of us played hot seated Civilization 3. These were good days, increased company moral, and overall enjoyment of our jobs. In the last few years it has been difficult to find something to play. I personally Play SimCity 4 every now and then.

I was curious if I could get any input from the community, do you play games at work?

4: Guile's Theme Goes With Polygon by MowDownJoe

In case you need more proof that Guile's theme goes with everything, let's add the "Press Reset" trailer to the mix.

5: The Polyknights - Our official GW2 Guild by Xenosilence

Guildwars 2 is only days away. With the encroaching release date and the upcoming early access events we are preparing the launch of Polygon's official Guildwars 2 guild.

This guild will be called Polyknights.

REMINDER: Polygon.com : Community Requests Thread by Shaun McIlroy

This is our "Official Polynauts" topic for Polygon.com requests, those which we've all made mention of in anticipation of the sites launch in 2012. I thought I'd collate them all here for the Polygon team to check back and see if the stars align with their overall plans, whatever they may be.

FROM THE VERGE:

'Casual' Ross Miller brings you the latest tech news in 90 Seconds on The Verge which covers the following:

POLYNAUTS COMMENT OF THE DAY (21/8):

Because the point of having that other thread is so this one doesn't get bogged down by all the talk over comics, animated shows, and the like.

When we originally flocked here from Kotaku, this thread was a bastion for us, and we simply flooded it with whatever we wanted to talk about. This lead to looooong post chains about Batman, or Spider-man, or Avatar, or [insert something here], to the point where some people were either avoiding or ignoring large portions of the page.

So it was decided that those sections would branch off, because they could be supported as their own thing.

Nipah (4 recommends)

Every day there will only be one comment from the previous thread. It's decided based upon the most recommends an individual receives for their comment; should two people have the same rating then both comments will be posted.

Okay, there we have another midweeks worth of catch-ups folks. Remember to sound off in the comments below and share any awesome news you find today. As always, feel free to hit me up on Twitter @shaunmcilroy if you want to chitchat throughout the day.

NOTES:

New to the Polygon Community? Please take time to read the Community Guidelines as laid out by the editorial team here at The Verge. Particularly take note here: "Foul language: Cussing, swearing, or just plain nasty: all of the above are not cool here." That goes for NSFW material as well folks.

If you're looking the best way to filter through any current deals on games (regardless of platform) then check out The Gamers Grid created by community Polynaut, NuclearPrinny.

If you're a fan of the image up top and want to submit your own, remember to keep them coming in for this section of Polynauts Central, GIF's included, at this link. Finally, if you want to submit a header image for Crisis on Infinite Polygons you can do that on this thread.