Voice chat isn’t as ubiquitous on the Playstation 3 as it is on the Xbox 360. I get through entire matches of Killzone 3 without hearing a word. But between matches, a few of the 20+ players have hooked up Bluetooth headsets and I can hear them chat with each other. Which is how I heard what might be my favorite thing ever overheard in a multiplayer game.
After the jump, online gamers say the darndest things Continue reading →
In less than a week since its release, Tiny Wings has rocketed to the #2 spot for paid iPhone apps, nestled underneath longtime mega-hit Angry Birds. And deservedly so. What an adorable and lovingly drawn diversion, based on a simple gimmick. If you know how to ski in Tribes, you’ll be all set. If you don’t, you’re about to learn.
(Thanks Inhabitant!)
It’s after midnight and finally I can jump online. My boy has been asleep for hours and I’ve put my wife to bed so maybe I can do a little gaming. I log onto LoL and a three of my buddies are in a game. Cool. I’ll do some other stuff while they finish their game.
Suddenly I get a chat from one of them. “We just won two in a row! Want to jump in?”
Hmm. Dilemma. Yeah, I want to jump in, but if we lose, it’ll get blamed on me. Plus I don’t have “mumble” or whatever it is these guys are using instead of Skype so I won’t be able to communicate as well. I type my concerns to my buddies.
“Don’t worry. We’ll blame the random 5th player if we lose.”
After the jump, I’m the random 5th player Continue reading →
Now that my friend Dingus has stumbled into a Little Big Planet 2 level in which some jackass made a swastika, I feel awful for convincing him to play a random level every day. So we’re officially ending that.
If you’re sick of seeing a daily Little Big Planet 2 post, you’re probably thinking to yourself, “It about time…”. But you just cool your Sackperson hating jets, mister. We’re still going strong. But from here on out, we’re just going to post about levels we like. No more of this jumping into random stuff and hoping we don’t end up in Little Big Slavery Ship, Penisworld, Holocaust Denier Adventureland, or whatever other junk some dillhole has dumped onto the servers before Sony shuts it down. From now on, we’re going to take full advantage of the community resources like friends lists, ratings, and Media Molecules’ recommendations. In other words, a big part of what makes Little Big Planet great.
After the jump, it’s not like going down to the pond chasing bluegills and tommycods Continue reading →
The latest update for DC Universe Online adds a whole mess of fixes and new content, including an extension of the Batcave raid that takes you from the outer defenses into the inner sanctum. I assume that’s where Batman stashes his porn, but I won’t know for a while. The Batcave raids are uber high level content, as I discovered when I stumbled into the outer caves thinking they were a solo mission. “Oh, look, it’s one robot. How hard can that–BZZT–ZAP–CRACKLE–Respawn at rally point?“. I later noticed in the overflowing journal that DC Universe warns you off the Batcave until you’ve gotten advanced gear.
But for us more mere mortals, there’s still a bunch of new stuff. More outfit styles, an auction house, a Bane mission for two players, and some sort of holiday themed Valentine’s Day stuff that was probably supposed to be out a few weeks ago.
Also, Catwoman races and missions! The Catwoman stuff gives DC Universe a chance to flex more of its voice acting. This is an amazing cast for the range of actors. On one hand, you’ve got Mark Hamill’s canny Joker, which many of you associate with some sort of Batman cartoon, but I know from the fantastic Arkham Asylum game. On the other hand, you’ve got Michelle Forbes’ cringe-worthy Circe. I’ve really liked Miss Forbes since seeing her in Kalifornia and she’s got a lovely voice. But when I hear her doing the Circe dialog, I just want to say, “Oh honey, no…”
Somewhere in between, but leaning towards Hamill’s side of the spectrum, is Adrienne Barbeau’s mellifluous Catwoman. Every husky catch in her throat puts me in mind of my adolescence, when John Carpenter subjected her and her decolletage to various horrors. In fact, I often forget she was actually in Escape from New York, because whenever she was onscreen, it was like I was suddenly watching a different movie. A movie very confusing to me at that age.
Uh. Anyway, where was I? Something about an MMO, I think…
Here’s the complete list of new stuff in the DC Universe Online update.
Look at that. Beautiful! Not necessarily the graphics engine, but the actual airplane. There’s nothing quite like the Warthog, a close support aircraft made for the unglamorous job of kicking up dirt. Anyone can makes a sleek jet with the sexy spaceship lines of an F-16 or F-22. Whatever. Give me the unique ungainly aesthetic of that big-nacelled beauty any day.
That’s a screenshot from A-10C Warthog, a flight sim released as part of Eagle Dynamics’ Digital Combat Series, which previously featured the the Russian Ka-50 Black Shark helicopter. Before that, Eagle was known for their Su-27 sims published by SSI, which were a paean to Russia’s versatile Su-27 fighter/bomber. In those games I simultaneously felt like I was in over my head, but in good hands. Eagle Dynamics made sophisticated, measured, detailed flight sims with long shallow learning curves doled out over a series of missions, and a scenario editor that meant lots of user-made missions. I couldn’t be happier that they’re still hard at work.
A-10C Warthog is out today. Read more about it here and buy it here for $60.
[Ed. note: Ben Sones’ comments appear here and here, in this thread on Bulletstorm.]
So far (I’m several acts into Chapter Two), [Bulletstorm] has been one long relentlessly linear hallway, about 20 to 60 feet wide. It doesn’t matter what the environment is. Underground cavern, desert landscape, sprawling alien city–it’s all just 20 to 60 foot hallways, peppered with things to hide behind. And sometimes, just to mix it up, things that explode.
Sometimes the game decides that you are getting a little too crazy with that 20 to 60 feet of wiggle room, and the freedom to traverse it at the pace of your choosing. It will then make you play a rail shooter level. I’ve done three of them so far. They are about as much fun as rail shooters tend to be, which is to say: not even a little. One of them was visually spectacular. Imagine a QTE directed by Roland Emmerich. So over the top that they’ll have to invent a new word for “over the top,” so that everyone can understand how much more over the top it is compared to other things that are over the top. But here on my side of the screen, it was still just a boring QTE.
Sometimes the game presents you with QTE “shoot the target” events that are so important, so vital that you not miss, that the game even aims for you. I swear I am not making that up.
Like the environments, the game itself is unwaveringly linear and scripted. It underscores this by wrenching control of the game away from you constantly, to show you something important, or to show you something unimportant, or sometimes just to play a line of dialog. Sometimes, as though to offer reassurance that it really does trust you not to screw up the carefully scripted bits with your dirty mouselooking hands, the game gives you the opportunity to give up control of the camera willingly. An on-screen prompt will appear, and if you quickly press and hold RMB, the camera will slowly pan away to look at whatever the game wants you to see, and then it rewards you with some points.
When you do have control of the camera, it’s often very obvious what the game wants you to do. Oh, I’m supposed to kick that guy into those electrical wires. I guess that guy is camped behind those cacti because I’m supposed to grab him with the Leash and pull him onto them. Ah, a courtyard filled with exploding barrels. I’ll bet a whole bunch of guys are about to run out and try to hide behind them. Yep, here they come. None of it feels spontaneous or creative. It’s less like playing a game, and more like acting out a part in a play. On the rare occasions when you die (rare because the game is quite easy so far) and have to replay an area, the heavy-handed railroading becomes even more painfully obvious. I question the game’s replayability, because it somehow manages to not feel fresh the first time.
Okay, that was cute and well worth futzing with the age gate (no one under 17 should see carnage like that). This tower defense game from developer iFun4All (get it?) is out today for the PSP, suggesting once again that it’s not yet time to put your PSP in the closet.
According to a press release from Nintendo, here are the games that will be available to round out the $250 you’ll spend on the Nintendo 3DS when it debuts on March 27:
Pilotwings Resort from Nintendo
Steel Diver from Nintendo
Nintendogs + cats from Nintendo
Super Street Fighter IV 3D Edition from Capcom
The Sims 3 from EA
Madden NFL Football from EA Sports
Pro Evolution Soccer 2011 3D from Konami
Lego Star Wars III: The Clone Wars from LucasArts
Ridge Racer 3D from Namco Bandai
Super Monkey Ball 3D from Sega
Bust-A-Move Universe from Square-Enix
Samurai Warriors: Chronicles from Tecmo/Koei.
Asphalt 3D from Ubisoft
Combat of Giants: Dinosaurs 3D from Ubosoft
Rayman 3D from Ubisoft
Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Shadow Wars from Ubisoft
That’s quite a spread. Even if there’s nothing there for you, you jaded hardcore gamer, it’s still a strong line-up. Strong enough to push a $250 doo-dad? We’ll see. Also, note how Ubisoft is going all-in, as if they were never even burned by the Wii.
The multiplayer in Killzone 3 is just like real life in that you arrive pretty much naked, you will be confused early and often, and everyone else will have better stuff than you. I can’t help you with real life. But I can help you with Killzone 3.
After the jump, ten things you should know going into Killzone 3’s multiplayer Continue reading →
Look at my little sackbot up there, caught in the gears. You’d think that would make me sad. It doesn’t. He’s fine. The gears are just speeding him on his way. I jumped into them on purpose after a creature hinted that I should take “a leap of faith”. I was doing this so I could “defeat the Red Menace” at some point. You read that right. Red Menace. Did I find this disturbing? Nah. You see, once you encounter your first swastika in LBP2, you can pretty much handle a little sackbot communism.
I got dipped into a level about shark attacks, and I immediately got excited. I started spinning up possible headers as the level loaded. Something about a bigger boat would be obvious, and maybe too easy. Something from the Indianapolis monologue perhaps? Or how about swimmin’ with bow-legged women? No. That’s weird.
Then the level started and it was awfulness. Just gigantic sharks attacking and my little sack dude screaming his head off in this awful manner. I shudder thinking about it. I finally figured out how to use the grappling hook to get away from the sharks and…what? A row of collectible object bubbles over my head, out of my reach, and smack dab in the center is a Nazi symbol. Here? Really?
I left feeling crappy, wondering what I was supposed to do. Report it? Give the creator a pointed review? I don’t know. It was just so out of left field. I waxed poetic about the “community” feel of this section of LBP2 previously. Doesn’t that word also suggest responsibility for those who play in the community?
I ended up just moving on and found the nice Red Menace level pictured. Actually it’s called The Fearsome Challenge. It was neither, truth be told, but it was a relief after the other level. Which I will not link to. But what I should have done, or should do…I suspect that will continue to nag at me.
I don’t like shopping, in games or life. There’s one friend I know would dig LoL but I hesitate to give him the hardsell because when we played Diablo together, he would spend 20 minutes at a stretch hanging out at the shop and agonizing over loincloths of flames vs. ones of lightning tassels. LoL offers players rows of class-based “recommended items” that’s more than good enough for me. Red ring, blue ring, boots with wings — great, to the front! Combining lower tier items into better ones is called “crafting,” but since the resulting upgrade is instantaneous and debris-free, I consider it more akin to smelting if smelting were either of those things. Again in both games and life, I’ve noticed that any service represented by or involving an impaled eyeball always costs more than I have on me. Once again, the humble coelacanth runs rings around us.
After the jump, why “numbers game” is oxymoronic Continue reading →
It’s a big week for shooters, mainly because I’m eager to see how Bulletstorm turns out. But of course a lot of you are looking foward to this week’s Killzone 3, which mystifies me since I’ve been playing it. I just don’t understand why the latest Killzone has been so well received. Is it me? I can barely keep my eyes open playing through the single-player campaign. It’s like everything wrong with shooters, wrapped up in one blandly pretty, entirely derivative, noisy, silly, unspectacular, tedious package. What an honest-to-goodness chore of a game. That said, once it comes out, I look forward to the multiplayer mode called warzone, carried over from the first game, in which teams move through a series of random mission types on a big map. The dynamic ebb and flow of warzone’s gameplay reminds me of Section 8.
(Speaking of which, when is Section 8: Prejudice getting a release date? I see a nice big Section 8-sized hole in the gap between Homefront’s March 15th release and Brink’s May 17th release.)
On the Nintendo DS, Radiant Historia gives Dragon Quest VI a run for it’s money when it comes to long drawn-out JRPGs. Six hours in, I love how the time-travel gimmick parcels out bits of evolving storyline. But it could use gameplay beyond scooping enemies around on a 4×4 grid. I find myself going back to Dragon Quest VI because I play RPGs for the RPGing and not the story, no matter how cleverly it’s told.
Finally, de Blob 2 is out this week. The first de Blob, a Wii exclusive, was a real gem in spite of having to yank the Wiimote to jump. What a lovely collage of color and music! I look forward to enjoying the sequel on a next-gen system without having to spazz out with a Wiimote.
Christien Murawski pointed me towards this Actual Videogame based on The Great Gatsby. I wonder if it explains Gatsby’s missing years. But I was far more impressed with the above videogame someone linked in the comments section. Awesome.
The official podcast of the Orphan Fan Club discusses Unknown, the latest movie from Orphan director Jaume Collet-Serra. And speaking of the latest movie from Jaume Collet-Serra, this week’s 3×3 is the biggest plot holes in movies. It starts at the 47-minute mark.
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