Morning Caffeinated! -- Two Interviews, a Wii U oops and VR, baby

Ramblings and musings of occasional significance to the Shacknews audience. This is the morning edition for August 28, 2012. Topics include: the tale of two interviews, a Wii U oopsy, and tidbits that might make you spew you coffee across the screen. Wake up, scrubs, it's the Morning Caffeinated!

John Keefer

August 28, 2012 5:30 AM

Good morning, Shack. For those slightly confused by the name, don't be. This is still your Morning Keefinated, just rebranded for the folks who haven't yet started visiting Chatty and may not understand the history, but in the end, it's the same old stuff, same wrapper, same owner, but now with a word people will recognize. I'm going to kick things off by telling you the tale of two interviews. First, I love those wonderful wish-granters at Uber Entertainment who read our minds and said: "[Insert your name here], you want another Total Annihilation, don't you?" Of course, that worked as wonderfully as a "Would you kindly ..." in Rapture and we have been throwing money at their Planetary Annihilation Kickstarter ever since. I had the pleasure of chatting with former Cavedoggie and now Uber boss Jon Mavor about their plans for the game. Having run a TA fan site during the game's hey-day in the late '90s, I had so many questions. And those questions -- and his great answers -- made for a half-hour recording. That may not sound like much until you have to dig in a listen to it all and type it all out. Five hours later, I had the final product you got yesterday. You better appreciate it. If I don't transcribe another interview for five years, it will be too soon. *Would you kindly go read it?* The Where are the Now interview with he-of-the-long-locks Graeme Devine, on the other hand, was much easier. A combination of email and Instant Messenger for followup works great. I would have liked to do this on the phone because his Scottish accent is great. I must admit I forgot to ask what it was like for his daughter to be following in his footsteps. * * * * * You probably saw that a rep showing off some Wii U accessories at the GameStop Expo yesterday let slip the supposed release date for Nintendo's console (psst, November 18). We weren't supposed to get anything official until next month. The good news, according to my inside sources, is that the guy is still employed and still working with Nintendo. He is now in charge of demoing the great line of accessories for the GameBoy Color.

Hawken coming with VR

* * * * * I don't know about you, but I have been pretty impressed with what I have seen of the upcoming mech game Hawken. Now to learn that the game is being developed for Oculus VR compatibility, well, let's just say I changed my Depends. After getting the Carmack demo at QuakeCon, I'm totally ready to jump into my mech for some virtual rocket jumping. * * * * * Random bits & Quick hits: Congrats go out to MOONMANiBE and his team at Gaslamp for the announcement of Clockwork Empires. It's always great when a plan comes together ... A few of the Chatty gang playtested this drinking game at ShackCon and thought it was cool. It has beaten its Kickstarter goal (thanks, jimmy_legs). ... After I took a shot at his guilty conscience in yesterday's column, Steve Perlman has departed from what's left of OnLive. Curiouser and curiouser ... Will LucasArts EVER show us some real gameplay for the gorgeous Star Wars 1313? Maybe if I close my eyes and imagine. Hmmmm. GAH! Nope, I just saw Force Unleashed 2. Flashback: All this talk about Hawken and Mechwarrior Online makes me really miss Mechwarrior 2. The opening cinematic was one of the best ever. The Ghost Bear x-pack intro was just as intense. Any Ghost Bear Kodiak fans out there? Now play well, folks. Keef

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John Keefer

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 reply
August 28, 2012 5:30 AM

John Keefer posted a new article, Morning Caffeinated! -- Two Interviews, a Wii U oops and VR, baby.

Ramblings and musings of occasional significance to the Shacknews audience. This is the morning edition for August 28, 2012. Topics include: the tale of two interviews, a Wii U oopsy, and tidbits that might make you spew you coffee across the screen. Wake up, scrubs, it's the Morning Caffeinated!
- Mecha Tofu Pirate
  
   reply
  August 28, 2012 6:11 AM
  
  I hope that when the Oculus VR comes out, they have demos for it in stores or somewhere. It sounds cool but there's no way I'm buying it without using it first.
  - 60days
    
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    August 28, 2012 8:24 AM
    
    I was kind of sold by seeing another VR headset being used http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H5BNUck9QeY&feature=relmfu I never really thought about how natural the motion would be, but of course it would have to be.
- razorblade79
  
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  August 28, 2012 6:18 AM
  
  Mechwarrior 2 Mercenaries also had a great one. I love the line at the end
  
  Look at the bright side kid; you get to keep allll the moneyyy.
  - razorblade79
    
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    August 28, 2012 6:19 AM
    
    also hands down my favourite video game in the battletech universe.
  - Keefinator
    
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    August 28, 2012 9:54 AM
    
    Yeah, that was good too
- Mad Brahmin Disease
  
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  August 28, 2012 6:21 AM
  
  I really like this Behind The Shack stuff. Keef is Remo'ing up this place.
  - nodebug
    
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    August 28, 2012 7:07 AM
    
    Yeah, I'm enjoying reading these
  - Keefinator
    
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    August 28, 2012 8:58 AM
    
    Not sure how much behind the scenes I will be able to do each day, because most of the time it isn;t that exciting, but we'll see.
- Cognoscenti
  
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  August 28, 2012 7:01 AM
  
  I hadn't heard of this Oculus headset until just now. My inner teenager is exploding with excitement!
- [deleted] 48042586
  
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  August 28, 2012 7:11 AM
  
  [deleted]
- melkore
  
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  August 28, 2012 7:17 AM
  
  I like these enough to go to the site and put an exception in my adblock software. Just don't put up and ad walls and we're good.
  - Hiro
    
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    August 28, 2012 7:22 AM
    
    Nice! Keep up the good work Keef!
- glio1337
  
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  August 28, 2012 7:33 AM
  
  lol, "After I took a shot at his guilty conscience in yesterday's column
  - Keefinator
    
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    August 28, 2012 8:19 AM
    
    Yeah, that was fun ;)
- rosewood
  
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  August 28, 2012 9:28 AM
  
  I don't want to spew coffee anywhere
- MOOMANiBE
  
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  August 28, 2012 1:57 PM
  
  Thanks for the mention!
  
  By the way, who from the Shack Reporting team is gonna be at PAX? Just curious.
  - Keefinator
    
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    August 28, 2012 2:01 PM
    
    Steve.