Archive for March 21st, 2011

If you’ve ever wondered what the raft escape from the crashing plane in Temple of Doom would be like, Snowboarding Down Mount Everest may be the level for you.

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I haven’t been terribly fond of Creative Assembly’s recent games, such as Empire: Total War or Napoleon: Total War. All that is changing with Shogun 2 (read my 1up review here).

And technically, this is just the first ten times, but I figured listing 15 would seem borderline creepy and going all the way up to, say, 20 or more would just get tedious. So here are ten times I fell in love with Shogun 2.

After the jump, is historotaku a word? Continue reading →

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The biggest obstacle to playing a wargame for people who haven’t played wargames is understanding what the game expects of you. Yeah, you need to capture Moscow or whatever, but the whole in-between part is so opaque I think people just don’t even bother. Part of the appeal of games is being given tasks which you can accomplish and then figuring out how to do that. I’m convinced that is the appeal of the otherwise-unfathomable-to-me RTS campaign paradigm, where some guy talks for a while and then you have to figure out the puzzle of how to defeat the space orcs.

But when the event is a more recent historical one, you kind of bring your own preconceived notions to the table. For example, it initially really bothered me that routed units in War in the East could just relocate to a new hex every time I moved adjacent to them. In my mind, I thought that routed units should just be eliminated when they engaged in combat. On one Three Moves Ahead podcast I think I called War in the East’s system “ping pong” or “kick the can” warfare. I’m pretty clever and smart. And I obviously know everything about invading Russia in the 1940s. So when I say I have all the answers, you can pretty much take that to the bank.

After the jump, it turns out I was wrong. Continue reading →

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…football fans across the country will have the opportunity to select the next cover athlete for the award-winning Madden NFL franchise. Beginning today and continuing through April 27, fans can participate in a bracket-style voting campaign and choose among 32 candidates (one representative from every NFL team) to appear on the cover of Madden NFL 12. Fans’ votes will determine which NFL players advance through the seeded bracket, culminating in the reveal of the Madden NFL 12 cover athlete on ESPN’s “SportsNation” on April 27.

It seems to me that you’d put Jean Madden on the cover of the game named after him, but I guess Electronic Arts figured it was someone else’s turn for a change. So they’re going to have a vote so you can pick which football player (pictured) will be featured on the cover of the next Madden. I’m going to vote for Pele.

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Let’s face it: an unavoidable fact of life when you play RPGs is that you are going to be spending an inordinate amount of time in dungeons. They may not all be dark, dank, moss covered caves or yawning caverns. They take the form of the interior of castles, the basement of suspicious taverns, or a cursed church. Regardless of how they are skinned, they are all dungeons: corridors separated by doors and puzzles, with enemies around every corner and usually a boss at the end of the road. Dungeons can be the best part of an RPG or a nagging problem in an otherwise good game. Despite the traumatically awful experience of the Fade, Dragon Age: Origins featured varied, interesting dungeon design, enough to keep me coming back through an expansion and seven downloadable adventures. Surely Dragon Age II wouldn’t disappoint.

After the jump: No honey, I didn’t make a wrong turn. Continue reading →

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Boondock Saints director Troy Duffy seems to think there might one day be a videogame based on his movies. That’s cute. Personally, I’m holding out for Tommy Wiseau to greenlight a videogame based on The Room.

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Call in the intervention squad. I’m starting to get hooked.

Actually, maybe ‘hooked’ is too strong a word. I can’t say I am going to keep playing this game the way I’ve kept playing, say, League of Legends. Since wrapping up that joint game diary with Kelly and Tom I have to say I’ve played that game fairly regularly. Or as regularly as possible. I cannot imagine that is going to happen with this game unless my kid somehow gets interested in it. We will see about that in the next few days. If I’m just considering myself alone, I don’t see it happening. It’s ugly and the learning curve looks too weird. Easy easy, la la la. Followed by, “That’s your team? Suck it!” From here it looks too much like the rocket ramp from When Worlds Collide.

Right now, though, the learning curve feels good. Right now, I’m picking up speed. I’m kicking serious Pokemon a–

After the jump, spamageddon Continue reading →

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It’s a big week for EA with the release of Crysis 2 and The Sims: Medieval. I’m afraid I have no idea whether either is any good. Stay tuned for this week’s game diaries for both.

Even though I was pleasantly surprised by the Lego Harry Potter, I can’t really muster any enthusiasm for Lego Star Wars: The Clone Wars. I’m feeling a little Lego fatigue, not to mention a little Star Wars fatigue, and a lot of prequel antipathy.

I quite liked Dissidia, an open arena brawling game with an appropriately flashy anime style (pictured), given that it was supposed to be based on Final Fantasy. Not that I knew who any of the characters were. But it was a solid fighting RPG for the PSP, and I’m glad to see it’s getting a sequel, which is also out this week. Wrap your head around this title: Dissidia 012 Duodecim Final Fantasy. Good luck getting some hapless Gamestop employee to look that one up.

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A small town lawyer learns to live and love by coaching a wrestling team? Sounds awful, doesn’t it? Well, it’s the opposite of awful, as we assert on this week’s podcast. Our 3×3, which starts at the 47-minute mark, is our favorite flashbacks in movies.

Podcast (movies): Play in new window | Download

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