Super AiG Screenshots Of The Year: 2017

It's been a while, but I'm back with a brand new post for you, filled with old content you've already seen! It's the seventh annual Super Adventures Screenshots Animated GIFs of the Year, featuring some of the very best images from the last 12 10 or so months of my site.

I have to be honest, this is going to be a much shorter post than it's been in years past because I just didn't have many games to pick from. I've only made 32 posts this year and one of them was a message reassuring people that the site wasn't dead, followed by a list of games I promised I was going to write about and then never did. Well, to be fair I did manage to get around to half of them.

Speaking of things I'm not going to be writing about in the future, there'll be an important announcement at the end of this article and it's not good news. So be sure to stick around for that... or just scroll down and read it now and then scroll back for the screenshots afterwards, either's fine. All game links will take you back to the original Super Adventures game article, so don't worry about ending up on Amazon or something. Wait... I could've had Amazon affiliate links all over my site this whole time and made 3% on every sale! Oh no!
Read on »

Assassins Creed 3 Blackbox

Minimum System Requirements 

Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo E6700 2.66GHz / AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 6000+Graphics: AMD Radeon HD 3870 or NVIDIA GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3RAM: 2 GB RAM

Recommended System Requirements

Processor: Intel Core 2 Quad Q6400 2.13GHz / AMD Phenom 9550 Quad-CoreGraphics: AMD Radeon HD 5770 512MB or NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260RAM: 4 GB RAM

Download The Game Here

Pokemon Go Adding New Deoxys Form This Week

Pokemon Go Adding New Deoxys Form This Week

The Mythical Psychic Pokemon Deoxys made its debut in Pokemon Go earlier this year as the game's second EX Raid boss, replacing Mewtwo. Up until now, the DNA Pokemon has only appeared in the mobile game in its Normal Forme, but a new variant of the Pokemon is set to arrive soon.

Developer Niantic has announced that Attack Forme Deoxys will be available in EX Raids later this month. Along with taking on a different appearance, Attack Forme Deoxys has a much higher attack stat than its standard form, and Niantic warns that it will be a "difficult challenge that requires Trainers to take advantage of every opportunity."

The new form of Deoxys is set to arrive with the next cycle of EX Raid invites, which are scheduled to go out beginning December 20. Unlike standard Raid Battles, you can only participate in EX Raids if you've received an invitation. In order to get one, you'll first need to have recently won a Raid Battle at a "qualifying" Gym. These are denoted by an EX Raid tag in the upper righthand corner when you look at the Gym's details.

In the meantime, players still have a little more time to catch Pokemon Go's latest Legendary, Cresselia. The Psychic Pokemon is scheduled to leave standard Raid Battles on December 18, just before Attack Forme Deoxys is set to arrive in EX Raids. Niantic hasn't announced when the game's next Legendary Pokemon will arrive, although the developer has teased that Azelf, Uxie, and Mesprit--three more Legendaries originally from Pokemon Diamond and Pearl--are on the way.

Pokemon Go's annual holiday celebration  is also set to return again soon. This year's event kicks off on December 18 and will introduce another handful of Gen 4 Pokemon, including Snorlax's pre-evolved form, Munchlax, as well as Snover, Abomasnow, and Croagunk. Festive hat Pikachu and Delibird will also return, and different bonuses will be meted out throughout the event until it ends on January 2.

Moero Chronicle Hyper Bumps Into The Nintendo Switch On April 26!

The upcoming dungeon-crawling RPG Moero Chronicle Hyper will launch on the Nintendo eShop this April 26 for $19.99 with a weeklong 30% discount!

The Switch release will be remastered in HD and will also include four new features:

• Vibration Function - Added for the "Bumping Scratch" session
• New Items - Stat-boosting items for your party
• Autopilot Mode - Allows players to pick a coordinate on the dungeon map and automatically heads toward that direction
• ALL Original Art and Event CGs - Originally released on the PlayStation Vita and Steam version, the Nintendo Switch release will also include all original art and event CGs.

In the new dialogue and dungeon screenshot batch, you'll meet some of the interesting monster girls that join Io's quest. Strengthen your relationship with Monster Girls by providing them gifts and upgrading their rooms! Relationship building is crucial as it also increases your party's attack!

When entering a dungeon, players can experience a myriad of dungeon environments, monsters, and treasure! And with the new Autopilot Mode, you can now crawl your way through dungeons with ease!

Originally released as Moero Chronicle in Japan and Asia on the PlayStationVita system, followed by a 2017 Western release on Steam, this dungeon-crawling RPG asks, "How cute can a monster be?" Fight through dungeons, recruiting Monster Girls and building relationships with them in order to solve the mystery afflicting the denizens of Monstopia!

[DEF CON] DEF CON Forums Android App In Beta!

DEF CON Forums Android App in Beta!

Let's Play Batman Arkham Asylum Part - 1 Walkthrough GTX 750TI (60FPS) [...

10 Ways To Be The Better Competitor (Tradecraft)

You should be the good competitor. Everyone thinks of the competitor as out there, as them, but it's you. A good competitor rises tides for all boats, while a bad competitor drags everyone down and salts the earth. A good competitor is a godsend, because you will always have competition and a bad competitor will make your life miserable. In the absence of a competitor, there is potential chaos and disruption. The good competitor maintains balance in the ecosystem and scares off bad competitors. Be thankful for the existence of a good competitor.

It can be hard being a good competitor as time goes by, because most stores started as the scrappy underdog. Being a good competitor is really being a better store. You may have become your local market leader, and you got that way by acting small. Herb Kelleher of Southwest Airlines had a saying, "Think small and act small, and we'll get bigger. Think big and act big, and we'll get smaller." 

Game stores start so small, they often aspire to not just be more professional, but legal. I had a friend who started a game store and aspired to pay his employees through a proper payroll service with proper insurance. Most people would be aghast at that, but for a lot of store owners, survival means doing what's necessary until they can afford to do what's right. In cases like this, you should act a little bigger to get a little bigger. 

Here's a list of areas where I think everyone could work harder to be a better competitor:

1. Know Who They Are.  Who is your competition? Most customers assume our competitors are stores 30-90 minutes away and they'll posture and act tribal, assuming we're in economic combat. My competitors are within a 10 minute drive time. Everyone else is a regional competitor who I'm happy to befriend and share advice. 
2. Follow The Law. Like the example above, we should be paying our payroll taxes, remitting our sales tax, buying the proper insurance, and following building codes.  It's common practice to stuff as many people as possible into an area zoned for retail rather than assembly, which also means HVAC and bathrooms are not to code. It's the cliche dirty, stinky game store. We should all be better, for ourselves, our community and for our industry.
3. Keep Street Dates. There are too many street dates, and I've been known to be lax with the less important ones. This year I've created a new process in the store for making sure we keep them all. The problem with street dates for a larger store is process: the person who ordered the game, the person who received the game, and the person selling that game, could be three or more different people and they all need to know street date status. That's fine with a big Magic release but when your one-off board game has a street date, it's easy to mess up. We're working on that and it should make us a better competitor.
4. Avoid Event Bombing. You don't need to coordinate events with competitors, and in fact I find the idea distasteful. I also have yet to see regional events make financial sense for stores, although some customers love them. I am event agnostic, in that I don't look at my competitors event schedules. We do what we do. Now, if I start questioning why an event isn't firing, only to learn my competitor has a similar event at the same time, I would certainly consider moving it (or just canceling it). There are events we cede to competition, often with customers we would also like to cede. We don't need to be all things to all people. And we don't need all people.
5. Fill in the Holes. A good competitor finds under served markets and serves them. There are a number of games we've given up on, and sometimes those games are viable at a very low level but we can't be bothered. It's a common inventory practice to drop the bottom 20% of low performing products. That's prime territory for a scrappy competitor. My competitor regularly picks up those games and runs with them. Good for them.
6. Speak No Evil. I used to know a guy who had a "Who List." If you got on his bad side, when people asked him about you, he would say "Who?" This is another way of saying speak no evil about your competitor. If you can't say anything nice, say nothing at all. I tend to say nothing at all. We keep a list of other stores that sell things we don't sell and we share this information with customers. I don't speak ill of my competition but they don't go on my good list either.
7. Leave Them Alone. I had a competitor who would come by my store, check out my operation,
   
   send spies and intermediaries, talk smack about the industry in attempts to demoralize me and generally Littlefinger his way into my community. I eventually made it clear I wanted him to go away and he did. I've had competitors attend my events and hand our their store flyers, until I had a lawyer smack them down.  If you're going to spy, be a responsible Varys, not a self-serving Littlefinger. Now, some veteran store owners will tell you they keep tabs on their competitors, but I honestly believe the best policy is to mind your own business. There is plenty of work to do at home. No need to travel abroad for inspiration. Stores that need to spy and keep tabs have a weak value proposition. Bulk up.
8. Poaching Employees. I always find it amusing when other stores attempt to do this. The truth is I would almost never hire another game store employee, because I know the shortcomings of all the other stores. I have different shortcomings and I don't need new ones. Store owners who try to steal my employees permanently burn our relationship (Littlefinger tried this).
9. Maintaining Value. If you have only one tool in your toolbox, the tool is you. Discounting doesn't always lead to a quick failure, but it usually does. I personally wouldn't want to have a store in a market where it's possible to somehow get away with this, because I like nice things like a house, college savings and retirement. The worst competitor salts the earth and sets a permanent standard for discounting that generally means all the stores in your region are kind of shitty. Forever and always. It takes money to have a nice store, pay employees, and not die of a heart attack at the register in your old age.
10. Decorum. Competition is a fact of life and talking about dancing on the graves of the fallen or otherwise humiliating, spreading rumors, gloating, complaining, or likewise behavior just makes you look bad. Over time, competitors come and go and I'm often too tired to do a grave dance. You hear of a new competitor and their entire life cycle flashes through your mind, because most are under capitalized, mismanaged, and market blind. 

There you have it! When a new competitor shows up on the scene, my general feel is I hope they're either good and lift all boats or they're bad and poor so they'll fail quickly.