Brian Crecente's Posts

Brian Crecente (26741378)

Brian Crecente (21738628)

It's for a placeholder on Gamestop for Animal Crossing Switch: Following in the footsteps of Animal Crossing: New Leaf (2013) and Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer (2015), Nintendo brings you a brand new Animal Crossing game for Nintendo Switch. This colorful simulation community-builder features your favorite characters from previous games in the series, including shop owner and occasional loan shark Tom Nook and adorable little Isbelle. Get ready to explore this brand new world and grab your copy of Animal Crossing.

Brian Crecente (21738164)

Brian Crecente (21738232)

Brian Crecente (20950380)

I'm actually pretty indifferent to unions, which I've said before. I think they can be a powerful force for positive change, but I also don't view them as a panacea. I also have never been critical of employment security or defended wealth inequality. I just don't think that unions can necessarily fix pay disparity between an owner of a company and his or her employees. I've shepherded quite a bit of union coverage and writing on Variety, even well before the massive Acti-Blizz layoffs. We even named the Game Workers Unite as one of the most influential people in the game industry last year. That aside, thanks for your kind words Locust Star and everyone. It's a bummer. I expect (hope) to land on my feet, but I'm more disappointed that Variety decided to ditch game coverage in the face of the vertical's successes. We were up to 2 million uniques a month, which is actually quite good.

Brian Crecente (20334689)

We're too old!!! :( :( :(

Brian Crecente (19751810)

Pretty sure that's not an official star wars store listing.

Brian Crecente (18798983)

That's from Feb. 11

Brian Crecente (18610105)

I've been told review code is going out early.

Brian Crecente (17363715)

They officially announced this morning they couldn't land the funding to sell it. Which is probably really bad news.

Brian Crecente (17363780)

Dupe post, sorry! Stupid train internet.

Brian Crecente (15992475)

If you're interested, here's the story behind the show:

Brian Crecente (15909513)

Some neat stuff in here about where Keighley hopes to take the show in the coming years.

Brian Crecente (15632725)

Spoke with Sweeney briefly here:

Brian Crecente (15452736)

Additional comments from the ESA and Senator Hassan can be found here, ESRB should be getting back to me today:

Brian Crecente (14341153)

I spoke with them earlier this month for this story:

Brian Crecente (14182625)

Variety review by Arthur Gies 4.5/5

Brian Crecente (13934239)

Brian Crecente (13514582)

Correct, they've never done a game in-house.

Brian Crecente (13514482)

They're still working out the details of how this might work, also they aren't quite sure what's going to happen with folks who pre-ordered the whole thing. (But I bet they honor it)

Brian Crecente (12639296)

Brian Crecente (12639211)

I believe so, but who knows with their saves, it's very confusing.

Brian Crecente (12638307)

I am astounded that we won't know which games will support cloud saves and which will require this for online play, until the service launches. That's really cutting it close.

Brian Crecente (12638106)

On the positive side, the Family group rules are really, really good. It seems you can add and remove members at will and that it supports people being in one group from different countries.

Brian Crecente (12637948)

There's a lot more about the service (good and bad) that I dug up here: My least favorite is the requirement for a weekly check-in to play NES games offline. :/

Brian Crecente (12545943)

Not at all, just that he quietly talked it around town and that a number of studios were very interested.

Brian Crecente (12543962)

I asked Lake about the game sequel and he remains tight-lipped, but the TV guys hope a show could make it happen.

Brian Crecente (12228260)

Review is live:

Brian Crecente (12227922)

Variety will be reviewing the game, and if you comment in the review you'll be entered to win our PS4 Pro 50K Limited Edition console. Woot

Brian Crecente (6381886)

I own maybe 20 of them. Hit me up if you have any specific questions. I personally love them, but there's a wide range and it helps to know what you want out of a watch before picking one up.

Brian Crecente (3447649)

A little context first. I've tried and own most of the major VR stuff and tried HoloLens both at its reveal and later at its first E3 showing, but not since. The headset is by far the most comfortable and the Lightpack solution slipped into my jeans pocket and I forgot about it after a few minutes. My sense, keeping in mind that I could compare Magic Leap side-by-side with anything else, is that it looked much better than an overlay. Certainly much better than any AR experienced through a phone. In terms of HoloLens, there's quite a gap between when I saw the two, but I feel like Magic Leap offered a more substantive visual. It felt more real, if that makes sense. I didn't get to try any Magic Leap games, which was a bummer, but the stuff I did try was very promising. It's also worth noting all of this took place in a very, very controlled environment. The demo room was large, dim and free of real world distraction.

Brian Crecente (3447540)

Super duper late to the party (I'm embarrassed to admit that I just go around to signing up for Reset Era) but if you have any questions about my time with Magic Leap on my face, let me know and I'll try to answer them.

Brian Crecente (10268903)

Interesting, I hadn't heard any of that. I do know that the film has a very complicated history () including its release in segregated Atlanta.

Brian Crecente (10265861)

It's amazing how racist some old cartoons are. Equally amazing, how they weren't (at least publicly) considered racist at the time and shown to kids. I grew up watching some of this sort of stuff without having any idea. Shows and movies like Song of the South, Heckle and Jeckle, Popeye, Dumbo, Jungle Book, some Loony Tunes. The key, though, is that most people these days get that yes, this was some super racists shit. There's a reason Disney buried Song of the South. And it was a good one.

Brian Crecente (10265979)

Also, this discussion reminds me a bit of this:

Brian Crecente (9760893)

Just adding source behind this discussion: The announcement is expected next month.

Brian Crecente (6431138)

Still working on it and Variety.

Brian Crecente (6625224)

Thanks for more of the nice comments everyone. You can find the Variety gaming stuff here: Still rolling things out slowly as I get my sea legs, figure out the CMS and such. But we will have reviews. Our first is God of War, written by Arthur.

Brian Crecente (6430926)

I'll likely not be linking to other site's news coverage at Variety.

Brian Crecente (10124256)

Yes

Brian Crecente (6427116)

Hey everyone (but MutantMagnet :/ :\ :<) Thanks for the kind words. I think Variety's decision to expand to full-blown gaming coverage is fantastic. I start Monday. It may have been lost in the PR that went out, but I'll continue to oversee big semi-regular features for Rolling Stone, like my GLOBAL EXCLUSIVE ON MAGIC LEAP'S UNVEILING (coughMutantMagnetcough) :D :D In terms of Glixel the brand. I believe it won't live on at Rolling Stone and it's not coming over to Variety. Social channels will maybe stay alive though. Worth noting that PMC owns both Variety and Rolling Stone. See you at PAX East?

Brian Crecente (9996153)

Here's an interview with the people behind it (same as the creators of Too Many Cooks):

Brian Crecente (5513177)

Is it too nerdy to talk about digital and smartwatches here? Do we need another thread for that?

Brian Crecente (5561823)

I am a huge digital watch nerd. Well, I'm not huge (yet) but my nerdom for digital watches is. While I love mechanical watches (my great grandfather was a watch repairman long long ago), my interest in digital watches started when my parents decided to give me a Casio GM-10 as a sort of sorry-we're-getting-divorced present. It was stolen shortly after I moved from S. Korea to Texas, but I owned it long enough to fall in love with the Casio design and in particular watches that did things beyond telling time. I have a pretty substantial collection of smartwatches and a few gaming watches. (I also wrote a fun story about the long, long history of gaming on your wrist back when I was at Polygon.) These days I'm also into hybrids, which are often mechanical watches with some neat low-end smart watch features. I absolutely love the Kronaby watches.

Brian Crecente (6921769)

I'm going to write something, maybe not a review, but something. It seems fine. It's well put together, but also feels very much geared to young players. It's got a strong STEM feel to it for me, which is great for parents of tweens. I'm not entirely sure yet if it will attract an older audience, but maybe they don't want or need to. No one else in the store looking for it and I've not heard much about concerns over supplies when asking around.

Brian Crecente (6921352)

Grabbed a Nintendo Labo kit at a store selling it early if you have any questions. Dropped pics here: