Okay, so I took a look at your computer. I don’t know why it’s doing that, but now it doesn’t have a battery anymore. Sorry, but I need the battery, even though I already have seven of them, including this one expensive laptop battery that I’m afraid to sell, because maybe I’ll need it later. That’s how I feel about most of this stuff. I mean, seriously, you should see all this stuff I’m carrying around. Oleander. Can you believe it? I’m carrying around oleander.
Also, I’m going to need to take a look at any phones, copiers, and cash registers you may have around here. Especially cash registers. And do you happen to have any duct tape I can borrow? What about wire or nails?
On this week’s Joystiq podcast, I’m part of a panel of dudes who played Deus Ex and have a few things to say about it. I’m also on this week’s Gameshark podcast, where there’s a fair bit of Deus Ex talk. It seems odd to me that I’m talking Deus Ex: Human Revolution on two podcasts this week. I should probably step aside and let people who feel more passionately talk about it. Having some guy go “eh, it’s fine, I suppose” isn’t really interesting.
But since I didn’t care for the original Deus Ex, I’ve been asked by some folks what I think of this latest sequel. And that’s actually an interesting angle to me, because I think a lot of Deus Ex fans really appreciate what Eidos Montreal has created. I do as well. Partly because Eidos Montreal gets what made Deus Ex work, but also because they get what didn’t make Deus Ex work. Human Revolution address many of my complaints about the original game, including the AI problems, the problems at that time with the Unreal engine, and what I felt was a sloppy and mostly irrelevant mishmash of conspiracy theories in lieu of a story. Probably my favorite thing about Human Revolution is its timely and relevant theme of society’s ambivalence about technology. I couldn’t care less about those Illuminati goofballs.
Hard Reset, which is so very Painkiller meets Deus Ex and doesn’t bother with stealth or hacking, is out this week for the PC. I love what I’ve seen of it. I’ve been told it’s short, but it’s also half the price of a regular release, so do your own math. It’s also entirely missing any sort of multiplayer, so be sure the carry the two.
Red Orchestra 2, a World War II shooter in which you can’t even play as the Americans, is out this week. However, it’s not available for the Xbox 360 or Playstation 3. In fact, but you can’t even play it with a 360 controller. You’ll have to get your mouse and keyboard out of the closet.
King Arthur: Fallen Champions is the standalone sequel to King Arthur, a very scenario-based strategy game that plays a bit like one of Creative Assembly’s games, but with more magic than usual on account of Merlin and company. It’s only on PCs because it’s an RTS. Duh.
One of my favorite RTS developers, Petroglyph, is trying trying again, this time with a free-to-play MOBA called Rise of the Immortals. It goes live this week. Only on the PC, of course.
Finally, Sengoku from Paradox is out this week, and it has way too much math for any console gamers to figure out. It’s also got enough Japanese names to really confuse a gaijin like me. But I love how it takes the more personal, character-driven approach of Crusader Kings to convey the ebb and flow of feudal Japan. For all the glorious armies and rich artwork of Shogun 2, sometimes a guy just wants to concentrate on the strategy game parts of his strategy game.
Is Stephen Soderbergh’s Contagion the Traffic or the Ocean’s 13 of global pandemic movies? And how much does it suck that the trailer spoils important plot points? Much like this podcast. At the 59-minute mark, we start this week’s 3×3 of our favorite uses of the camera from a first-person point of view. Spoiler: Doom didn’t make any of our lists.
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