I’m finding that what increasingly appeals to me in these community levels is an understanding of just that. I don’t necessarily need great gameplay in these levels. In fact, I’ve come to expect that I’m not going to get that. I run across clever moments in some of the levels, and that can be exciting, but the real draw in dipping into these levels is getting some random individual’s take on this world. A feel that I’ve landed someplace specific, with a texture or sound or sense of humor that reflects the designer’s sensibility in some way. Most of these folks can cleverly place a jump pad. It’s rare that one of them can make me lose time.
Today’s level, histoire mixe, did just that. I jumped in to sample a couple of levels before I had to head off to pick up my son from school. Before I knew it, thirty minutes had gone by and I had to hustle. Histoire mixe, made by Darkness-Thomas, achieves this in two main ways. One way is the depth of the background, which you can see in the screenshot above a little bit. That figure behind my sackbot is a garden gnome, over there to the left is a shovel resting against a fence, behind which fence you see the greenery of neighboring yards. The other way is through sound.
A lot of the levels use a fairly generic sound scheme. Random music or the seemingly ubiquitous–and annoyingly extraneous–buzzing of flies. At the start of this level you hear a buzzing. As you play you realize it’s a lawnmower in the distance. A neighbor is mowing his lawn. Other mechanical noises bully their way in, including, inexplicably, a helicopter, which I understand slightly when I realize the half-worded sign below me says, “Call of Duty” on it, followed by a helicopter full of sack soldiers. Why is this in the backyard? Can’t tell you. Does this matter to me? Nope. Because like a good short film, this level has a sense of place. I don’t know exactly what’s going on, and I couldn’t care less.
There’s a drawn-out scene in Bitter Feast in which a woman goes about her business. She’s being stalked by an evil force, played here by James LeGros, a chef upset at the bad reviews he’s gotten from the woman’s boyfriend, a food blogger.
She opens the medicine cabinet. Then she closes it and, there in the reflection, standing behind her, is…no one! Gore Verbinski closed the medicine cabinet on this gag with the unsettling opening of his Ring remake, in which two girls are stalked by a mysterious presence we never see. Amber Tamblyn opens the refrigerator, obscuring our view of the rest of the kitchen, and then when she closes it, we see standing there…nothing!
It’s the fake-out, based entirely on the audience knowing the usual horror movie tricks. It’s about other horror movies. This works in The Ring, which is a movie about watching a movie. But unless you’ve got some sort of meta commentary going on, it’s just pointless filler. Which pretty much describes Bitter Feast, a borderline torture porn, borderline comedy, and borderline commentary on the role of the critic.
The most fascinating thing is the moment that you realize — this might not happen until you look it up on IMDB after having watched Bitter Feast — the guy playing the victim is Josh from Blair Witch Project! The other fascinating thing is how awful James LeGros is as the prissy murderous psychotic TV chef. Oh, James, really? It’s come to this?
Just when you think you’ve seen nothing new, someone does something new. The Dead Island trailer tells you pretty much nothing about the game, but that doesn’t matter. It instead tells a fantastic zombie story in a way you’ve never seen and it doesn’t even have to use John Murphy’s 28 Days Later music to do it.
The Retribution add-on for Dawn of War II adds the Imperial Guard. You know the Imperial Guard, right? They’re normal dudes, like you and me, but with ruthless leaders, big guns, and tanks. There are at least ten ways they can kick ass. For instance:
7. With the Commissar Lord’s fists
The Commissar Lord is an Imperial Guard leader built to lead men into the thick of battle. All three of his weapon upgrades are melee weapons. The two most powerful are the Power Fist and Fist of Brockus, both of which are effective against all target types. You know what that means, don’t you? Tank punching! Unlike the other Imperial Guard leaders, the Commissar Lord doesn’t start with any skills. Instead, he has a retinue of followers tagging along. Give him the Carapace Armor or a Flak Jacket for more health. Now equip Stubbornness in his equipment slot and he’ll regenerate health based on the number of nearby infantry. Now go punch some tanks and bring along plenty of friends.
It’s a bit cruel to dribble out screenshots like these for a game that won’t be out until probably right before Black Friday 2011. Particularly a game as eagerly awaited as Batman: Arkham City. But what am I going to do? Ignore them?
