XBox One has been out for about two weeks now and I know I haven’t posted any reviews yet, but I am sorry I’ve been busy… playing XBox One. It’s not that I didn’t want to share my experiences with you all but between XBox One, work and shooting for Whiskey and Waffles, it has definitely eaten into my review time.

But as is the policy here on The Flickcast, if anyone sends us a copy of something we review it and I am holding up to that end of the bargain as the team over at Twisted Pixel have sent me a download code for Lococycle.

The Long

The guys from Twisted Pixel Games have done a great job of creating compelling characters even with limited time to get the story across because of the average length of a XBox Live Arcade game being shorter than your standard fair in their past titles. The most interesting aspect of Lococycle is that they are able to do this with a character who doesn’t even speak English as one of the main protagonists.

A sentient motorcycle named I.R.I.S. accidentally hooks her Spanish speaking mechanic and makes a run across borders to the Freedom Rally while being chased by “her” creator Big Arms. While I did love ‘Splosion Man and Ms. ‘Splosion Man, the repeated quips did quickly grow repetitive. In Lococycle though, there were only a few very rare occurrences that it felt like a line was repeated. The entire time, I.R.I.S.’s personality just kept building.

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With the holiday season already in full effect, the countdown to Christmas is officially underway. The Whiskey and Waffles team decided that the best way to prepare for Christmas is to have a daily video unboxing our LEGO Star Wars Advent calendar. In the spirit of the holiday, we’ve invited a bunch of our friends to join us in the unboxing process too.

During the month of December, every day the Whiskey and Waffles YouTube channel will add a new video every day opening up a new day on the LEGO Star Wars Advent calendar with a bunch of our YouTube friends. Make sure to check back every day to see WallE and I along with our guest stars Max No Sleeves, Tom from Mars Rising Films, Davis of the Warp Zone, Carissa Blades of Big Funny Pink Bunny, We are Manchildren and Landon from Science and Fiction Films.

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‘Tis the season and we at The Flickcast along with the Whiskey and Waffles team want to point everyone in the direction of one of our top gift recommendations. Every month, WallE and I get a Loot Crate shipped to our HQ and proceed to compete over the items inside. The reason we can’t share is because the stuff inside is just too cool to spread the wealth.

What we recommend is that people make sure to buy each of their loved ones a subscription which starts at $13.37 a month (yes, their price is “LEET” so you know these guys know what they are doing). If you head to www.lootcrate.com/whiskeyandwaffles and use the code “whiskeyandwaffles” you’ll get a 10% discount.

As mentioned, WallE and I cannot share. So that lead us to create the Loot Crate War. Last month, we competed for zombie related swag. November was all about celebration between the 50th Anniversary of Doctor Who and the birth of a new console generation with the PlayStation 4 and XBox One launching.

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At its inception, one of the first things I thought Skylanders: Spyro’s Adventure needed was an app to help keep track of which characters anyone had. At first, a fan made app popped up but before Skylanders Giants was out, the app stopped getting updates. A few others popped up but often didn’t have special edition figures or get updates as new waves were released. But, after long wait, Activision has released the Skylanders Collection Vault app for iOS and somehow turned it into yet another game.

One of the things Activision has done right through its iOS releases for Skylanders like Skylanders Cloud Patrol, Skylanders Lost Islands and Skylanders Battlegrounds was linking the characters in the game to their real life counterparts that the player needed to have. Whether it was the code received when purchasing the figure or one obtained from the characters in game profile, people needed to unlock characters in the game which of course has lead to the “gotta buy ‘em all” mentality that has skyrocketed the franchise. That same collector itch is scratched when players can compare their full collection to that of their friends by showing the characters they have unlocked because they actually own them, not just playing for hours on end or using in app purchases.

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When the original Kinect launched in 2010, it is safe to say the peripheral had a share of flaws. It wasn’t as detailed as one would expect and couldn’t detect hands and fingers the way it was originally designed to. It also had a hard time reading individuals under a certain height. Considering Microsoft was trying to drive kids to play games like Kinectimals with the controllerless gaming, that was up there in the list of top functionality f&#* ups from them.

One that also seemed to be an issue was the rumor that the Kinect also had trouble reading people with darker skin tone. This lead to the premise that the Kinect was actually racist.

The team at Whiskey and Waffles joined up with Sandwich Productions (because the combination just sounded too damn tasty to ignore) and created the mocumentary simply entitled Racist XBox. We were thrilled with the end result and just how awesome WallE looked as a forensic scientist. We won’t spoil anything here but I will say there is a little bit of mature language so I wouldn’t go showing this to your 10 year old.

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The lines were drawn some time ago in this latest generation of the console war. With shots being fired all around since the consoles were officially announced to feature sets and launch titles, things have gotten messy.

And even though we are lucky enough to get review copies of games here on a regular basis, we didn’t get our hands on a freebie for either the XBox One or PlayStation 4. When budget came in to effect, I had to choose which side I’d be backing and since there could be only One… (You see what I did there?)

In the end, it came down to two things. The first is that I have bought both a PlayStation 3 and a Vita but the majority of my collection of games in the last generation were for the XBox 360. More people I knew played multiplayer on XBox 360 so for things like Call of Duty: Ghost and Grand Theft Auto V, that’s where people already were.

And as silly as they might be, I have become an achievement whore over the past 8 years and try as they might, Sony’s trophies don’t have the same effect on me. I cracked over 50,000 in one generation, I need to top it in the next.

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YouTube has more than its fair share of short form series. It also has heaps and heaps of video game content. But with the exception of a few standouts like Freddie Wong’s Video Game High School, there aren’t many great examples of gaming and short form series together.

Someone trying to change that is Petros L. Ioannou and his series My Life as a Video Game. Funded by a Kickstarter that raised $32,000, My Life as a Video Game will be a 9 episode first season that explores what happens when gamer Don DeWitt, played by Petros, gets too into the game and is pulled in to a world where games are real life.

Exploring multiple gaming genres, Don finds Kera Althorn (Jennifer Polansky) and is guided by the MENU System (Brent Black, better known on YouTube as BrentalFloss) through this pixel infused world. FPS, side scrolling beat ‘em up and space combat all look to be fair game in this epic launched on Petros’ YouTube channel LeonUnity. You can head there now to check out the first two episodes of My Life as a Video Game or check them out after the jump.

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Another Con has come and gone and while Blizzcon is happening next weekend, it looks like Stan Lee’s Comikaze Expo will be the last major con for the Whiskey & Waffles crew in 2013. Sure there will probably be a few smaller conventions, but this is the last of the big ones before the year closes.

But we wanted to share with you what Comikaze was like for us… well for me. Sadly WallE wasn’t able to attend Comikaze this year so I hit the floor solo and grabbed a bunch of footage to share with you all.

We didn’t get to do or normal round of interviews since I was shooting solo but I did get to hang on the floor with the guys from Bad Weather Films and appear on a panel for That Cosplay Show who were debuting the first look at their webseries of the same name which will be starting in early 2014.

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One billion dollars in merchandise shipped to retailers on day one. Quite the ambitious feat and though Grand Theft Auto V set the record for the fastest entertainment property to hit a billion dollars in actual sales in three days, Call of Duty: Ghosts is in a unique position in how they will reach it. This is the first Call of Duty since Call of Duty 2 to be released on a crossover year with a new console launch.

Not all gamers who are planning on purchasing the PlayStation 4 later this week or the XBox One next week are going to be able to afford a double purchase and considering what we’ve seen with the next gen graphics, it is certainly splitting the sales. And considering it is also a yearly franchise, there isn’t that same gigantic level of hype for a new Call of Duty the way there is for a new Grand Theft Auto. That said, Call of Duty: Ghosts is a game you are going to want to play.

The Long

Call of Duty: Ghosts is the first entry into the Call of Duty franchise from Infinity Ward since the conclusion of the Modern Warfare trilogy two years ago. They not only needed to introduce an entirely new set of characters but a new status quo as well. Set in a world similar to that of Modern Warfare and Black Ops, this version has a group of allied forces fending off an attack from the Federation.

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Last night we went to an early showing of Thor: The Dark World and there are definitely some split opinions from the Whiskey & Waffles team on this one. In the video after the break, you’ll see WallE’s take on it.

A for me, I will say I didn’t dislike Thor: The Dark World. It is a solid enough super hero movie, along the same lines as Iron Man 3 and certainly better than the abomination that was The Wolverine. There are some fun moments but two things really stood out that got in my way of fully embracing the movie(and don’t worry, I’ll keep it spoiler free).

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