The Breakdown: StarCraft, Titanfall, COD, & More

Ello ello. Welcome back to BaicunnPress! Thank you for stopping by. It's a fantastically rainy day outside where I'm at. I hope you beautiful bastards are having a great day. It's Friday so let's get into The Breakdown.

Good news everybody! What's better than sunshine unicorns and nyan cats?...Free games, of course.

While they are working on StarCraft Remastered, Blizzard wants to keep the game brooding in our hearts and minds. To insure their psy-ops campaign is successful, Blizzard has released the original StarCraft with the Brood War expansion for free. They are calling it StarCraft Anthology. Based on the latest patch notes, they've ironed out some bugs that come with trying to play a nearly 20 year old game on a modern pc, along with some upgrades in matchmaking. Patch notes are here and download are available here. Also more StarCraft news should be unlocked on their official site on Thursday.

The day after the new shit drops on the StarCraft site; new Titanfall 2 will have a new DLC drop. Starting on Tuesday; 4/25, Respawn is set to launch 2 new maps, bringing back the Marked for Death gamemode, and adding the M.R.V.N. faction. It's rumored that we may even see a new Titan released.

In an antithetical twist, Activision has announced that they a releasing a new COD (surprise!?). It appears that this time around Sledgehammer is going back to the glory days of World At War with COD: WWII. Activision has announced a live stream event to start here at 1PM EDT on Wednesday; 4/26.

Since we're talking about publishers grasping at straws and DLC; EA released a full length trailer for Star Wars: Battlefront 2 at Star Wars Celebration. During the keynote talk EA/ Dice made comments inferring that there would be more options, a campaign, and no season pass DLC. Later further comments were made muddling facts by rephrasing to state, that there is not, not going to be pay for DLC. So who really fucking knows if consumers are going to get screwed again or not. I'm pessimistically optimistic, but I won't be pre-ordering this go round.


The world was given a Star Wars: The Last Jedi taser trailer. The trailer did present a bit of a kerfuffle with some fans, as Kylo Ren's mangled mug getting some cinematic cosmetic work. If you look closely you'll see that the gigantic Tyrion-esque scar has been downsized and migrated, becoming one of those badass brow to check eye scars. I guess the New Order has a pretty badass insurance plan.



While on the topic of the oddly grotesque, the English dub of Attack On Titan season 2 drops on Adult Swim tomorrow night.


In the same hyper japanese vein, Bandai Namco, has announced their newest game; Code Vein. It appears to be one part Dark Souls and two parts anime. The project is being directed by Hiroshi Yoshimura of God Eater's fame. Running on the Unreal 4 engine, this vampire based RPG is likely to attract a fan base quickly when it releases in 2018.

Vampires, aliens, and crazy shit oh my. Running on the heels of a successful 6 episode run in 2016, the X-Files is returning again for a 10 episode. Set to go to season in 2017-18.

In other fanboy pleasing news, Steven Universe is returning May 5th. The news comes straight from Cartoon Network via their Twitter account. To help make the announcement, Cartoon Network released a teaser trailer.  

#StevenUniverse can get really intense, huh? 😳 Steven's all-new adventure starts May 8th. pic.twitter.com/lVJQQ96SCb

— Cartoon Network (@cartoonnetwork) April 21, 2017

And rounding out the break down, Nintendo has announced that they are discontinuing the NES Classic. If you're wanting to add this game to your collection, time is running out; as the current production cycle will be it's last. But have no fear, as it is widely rumored that like their very own savior of Hyrule, Nintendo will be releasing an SNES Classic soon.

Thank you again for stopping by BaicunnPress. I hope you have a fucking awesome weekend. I'm headed out this evening for the MTG Prerelease. Crossed fingers for good pulls. Stop by next Friday for another Breakdown. I'm currently working on a few different projects and trying to tighten up my workflow so that I can get more content out to you guys faster. If you have any suggestions, please let me know. 

-Chali Baicunn

Last Jedi Teaser - Now We Wait

Ello ello. Welcome back to BaicunnPress! Thank you for stopping by. Yesterday, The Last Jedi teaser trailer was released at Star Wars Celebration. As far as I can tell, it's the standard model Star Wars teaser trailer. You know the shtick; gentle mentory disembodied voice speaking. Flashes of lightsabers, force powers, and blaster fire. Stuff exploding, and ships crashing. Glimpses of heroes and villains... I think you have the mental picture. I'm excited about this release, but honestly, I'm mostly excited that JarJar Abrams is out of the picture... So I can safely say, that I'm optimistic about the future of the franchise. 

Don't get me wrong, I love the Force Awakens. However, I believe that Star Wars and I have an unhealthy relationship, and by extension; I guess this means I love it because it is Star Wars, and not because it's good. With that said, I felt like Rogue One did a great job of stepping up the bar from The Force Awakens. I do have a minor quibble with intergalactic space farers needing to connect communications cables and operate separate control panels to position an antenna and send data. I'd think that screen writers would have a better grasp on wireless communications in the 21st century, but eh...

Below is what you likely came here for. Further down below is a video tribute to Carrie Fisher, that was shown at Star Wars Celebration 2017. Enjoy!



So what do you think of the trailer? Be sure to let me know what you think. Thanks again for stopping by. I really appreciate your all of your support. Please be sure to follow @BaicunnPress on Twitter or Google+ for new post releases. I hope you have a great weekend, and I will see you next time.

-Chali Baicunn

The Breakdown: Attack On Titan, Project Scorpio & More

Ello ello, and good day to you. Welcome back to BaicunnPress. It's Friday and I haven't murdered a single person yet; so I'd argue it's shaping up to be an alright week so far. If you're new here, The Breakdown, is a quick recap of nerd news you need to know about. (Usually delivered with an er of cheesiness and sarcasm.) I'll stop wasting, and let's jump into The Breakdown.

In case you've been out on expedition in the wilderness with the Scouts; Attack On Titan has returned. Season 2 first aired on April 1st, and is currently streaming with subtitles on Funimation, Crunchyroll, and Hulu. If you hate reading subs and you've already Adult Swim will be airing the English dub starting on April 22. I'm a bit of purist on this front, but screw it; it's been 2.333333 years since the last english dub episode of season  1 aired for the first time. Crossed fingers that production isn't delayed for season 3, as season  2 will only contain 12 episodes. 

While on the topic of possible disappointments, we have some more info regarding Microsoft's Project Scorpio. That may seem like a bit of cheap shot, but I'm skeptical that this mid generation upgrade is going to stop Microsoft from continuing to get its ass kicked by Sony. The specs of Scorpio are impressive for a console, as you can see in the infographic below. Impressive though they are, the projected cost is somewhere between $400 and $700, and this is likely to be an issue.

In other self-saving attempts; Microsoft with its sights on boosting user experience, has announced that they will soon be offering  cross-platform gaming and Steam style refunds for pc and Xbox game purchases. Currently there's not a lot of details, but I believe these are positive changes.  

Moving in the opposite direction of Microsoft. Germany's Landesmedienanstalt (Germany's media regulatory body) shits on user experience. In a ruling announced recently, YouTube and Twitch streamers are now considered "broadcasters", and subject to government licensing for any stream with more than 500 viewers. This licensing can cost multiple thousands of euros. The current licensing ruling is being considered only temporary, as the German government admitted that the law is outdated. Originally created to target radio and TV broadcasters. It'd be interesting to know how this ruling could apply podcasts.

In a whole 2 dicks one internet moment, Atlus also recently decided to go after Persona 5 streamers. Threatening bad things for any streamers that stream past the in game date of July 7. They go on and on about their Japanese Masters and what not to do, to avoid angering these faceless nameless overlords, in a post on their site. Down below is a screen cap (selecting the image will enlarge it. Also there's a joke in previous sentence, somewhere):

Since we're discussing out of touch developers; Earlier this month Gearbox announced that they'd be teaming up with the much despised  key reseller, G2A. In the announcement it was revealed that G2A would have exclusive  selling rights for the launch of Bulletstorm: Full Clip Edition, and fans of franchise quickly lost their shit. Due to the backlash, Gearbox laid out changes in business practice that G2A would have to start putting in place within 24 hours. Well that shit went sideways, and Gearbox  began pulling their support from G2A. After a bit more dick measuring the 2 parties have officially ended their relationship with Gearbox pulling out of their deal with G2A all together.

Before this thread is brought to a close, I want to leave you with some important PSAs:

As mentioned in a previous post, a BattleFront 2 ad trailer leaked below:



The Thor: Ragnarok teaser trailer dropped:



A reminder for you MTG players out there. The new Amonkhet set drops on 4/22. So now is the time to hit up your local card shops to check for pre- release events. Wizards of the Coast has a convenient tool HERE to help you find a pre-release event near you. 



Last but not least, this week is Star Wars Celebration in Orlando, FL. If you're interested in checking out any of the panels, the official Star Wars YouTube channel has them running HERE

Thanks again for stopping by. I hope you enjoyed the content. As always I appreciate your support and feedback. The Breakdown will be posted up every Friday. Monday's UAS education post will be repaired and returned back to the blog this weekend. That's all for now, and I will see you next time.  

-Chali Baicunn