Oh, the things we do for the games we love: playing multiplayer horde mode, fiddling with emulators, updating our iPhone’s operating systems, dragging steering wheels into the living room, buying the Kinect, draping sheets over our heads. All that and more on this week’s Quarter to Three games podcast, featuring very special guest Rob “Bringing Da” Funk, a.k.a. Xaroc on the Qt3 forums.
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Choosing a featured community level this week was tough. Nothing bowled me over, but I did find a couple of cool things. My dilemma: do I feature the challenging level that is far from perfect but has good elements? Or do I go with the goofy level that has no game play, but which made me laugh? Gaming has me grumpy this week, so I should probably go with the latter. Something light and amusing.
I’m not going to do that, though. You shouldn’t be shortchanged because of my mood.
Act 1-3: Feeding Frenzy. The designer describes it as a survival/horror platformer. While I like the sound of that, I’m not sure I’d go so far as to label it as such. Your sackboy does have to survive a horrific situation in the icy caves of Mt. Kalan, but I wouldn’t put this up there with a Resident Evil game or Fatal Frame, which I haven’t played but once tried to watch a buddy play. I had to leave the room. There’s nothing in Feeding Frenzy that comes close to–hold up a second. My phone’s buzzing. Let me just…crap. Another stupid notification. I’m sorry. This’ll only take a second.
What’s that iPhone? My sunflowers are ready for harvest? Unbelievable. I told you not to bother me about that while I’m working. What? My crops will spoil if I don’t log in right now? Damn it! You know what? Shut up iPhone. I’m not talking to you.
After the jump, the fault lies with… Continue reading →
According to the old saying, sex is like pizza; even when it’s bad, it’s good. I disagree. On both counts. But the old saying does make me think of some tables in FX Pinball 2. Such as Sorcerer’s Lair, the latest addition. Sure, I’ll play it. But of all the tables available, I’ll play it out of a sense of obligation to the fine folks at Zen Pinball and my superscore. Not necessarily in that order.
When I first played Sorcerer’s Lair on the Playstation 3, it was the ugliest Zen Pinball table yet. Fortunately for Sorcerer’s Lair on the Xbox 360, Miss Splosion Man makes the lesser tables feel like so much more. The theme of Sorcerer’s Lair is two meddling kids, a cranky old sorcerer, a friendly ghost named Whisper, and the color purple. A hut rotates. A creaky old tree leans out. A pentagram spins. I kind of dread finding myself on a couple of inscrutable side tables. I wonder why I’m not just playing Haunted Mansion instead.
But at least this latest table isn’t a bunch of fruity comic book superheroes. We’ve got a lot more of those coming in the new Marvel Virtue and Vengeance pack of four tables. I look forward to a day in the distant future when more than half of my tables aren’t about people in capes. Which reminds me, you’ll be getting a very special treat in Pinball FX 2 this month, which includes Zen Studios trying a little something different. More on that later.
2 stars
Xbox 360
I’ve got a half million Forza 4 credits and nothing to do with them. I rarely have to pay for upgrades to my cars, since I’ve easily raced my affinites to a 100% discount on upgrades to the cars I drive (by the way, Forza, there’s a better and shorter word for “100% discount”). And since Forza 4 never pressures me to drive a particular car, and since I therefore have so many cars that I’ll never drive, and since I keep getting new cars just for leveling up, I have no idea what I’m supposed to do with these half million credits. Bid on a car in the auction house? Why? I already have more cars than I know what to do with. Buy paint jobs? Considering how little I want the most expensive paint jobs, that’s not much of a money sink.
For all its improvements, Forza 4 is like the Forzas before it in that it has no meaningful economy and almost no meaningful caRPG progression. It doesn’t even care whether I win or lose a race. After any given event, it flashes a congratulatory “race completed” message. Not “race won“. “Race completed“. 1st place, 3rd place, 12th place. It doesn’t matter. The race was completed.
Is Forza worried that I might get discouraged if I had to reach the podium to progress? If so, it needen’t worry. I constantly win, despite doing everything I can to make the game challenging. All the races feel rigged for me to win. I’ve been playing with all the assists and players advantages off (except for the color-coded braking line, something for which I’ll always be grateful to Forza). I haven’t been doing any tuning, and the only upgrades I’ve gotten for my cars are the automatic upgrades the game recommends before a race. Yet nearly every race feels like the old Wipeout games, where I start in the back and the only challenge is passing each of the other cars before the designated number of laps are over. I usually nose past them with almost no effort within a lap or two. And consider that I’m not using the rewind function, which is turned on by default, that allows any mistake to be erased with impunity. When is Forza 4 supposed to get challenging? Why isn’t there a separate difficulty setting for the other cars’ racing prowess? Or is the whole point that Forza 4 isn’t supposed to get challenging? Because right now, nearly half way to the level cap and well into the middle part of the career mode, the other cars are never a challenge. The only challenge is the course itself.
Forza 4 is a safe, visually bland, and thoroughly competent racing game. When I listen to the news on the radio while playing Forza, I can actually remember what I heard. The prime minister of Ukraine is in jail. The Republicans shot down Obama’s jobs bill. The underwear bomber is throwing in the towel. Kim Kardashian takes a whole week to get married. But when I listen to the news on the radio while playing Need for Speed: Shift 2, I have no idea what’s going on in the world. The world consists of nothing more than what I see out the windshield. I am invested, challenged, absorbed, 110% present, and sometimes wrestling with my own car as much as the other drivers’ cars. But Forza 4, a serviceable game in which I won the first time I took a Dodge Viper out onto a track I’d never driven, is about as engaging as a morning commute.
2 stars
Xbox 360
Rift is free this weekend, starting right…about…now through 9am Monday morning (California time). If you’re an erstwhile player interested in seeing what’s new (for instance, this mondo update just went live), there’s no time like the next few days. I won’t be there, as I have other grinding engagements at present, but I post this in the hopes of being able to vicariously enjoy Rift through you.
I’m one of those people who avoids information about the games I want to play. Rage was one of those titles. Despite seeing it at two different E3s, I had paid so little attention that I had no idea how the story even began.
After the jump, pinning down how Rage stacks up Continue reading →
Part of the expectation with found footage movies is that the you’re going to see a modest production that relies on creepy horror instead of effects or spectacle or anything too over-the-top. Found footage is often a shortcut for production values.
So that’s why the mostly not very good, but ultimately satisfying Grave Encounters is a refreshing change of pace. You have all the ingredients for a low-key found footage horror movie: bad actors left to improvise, a chintzy reality TV premise, a dumpy set, obvious humor, and reliance on gimmicks like a window moving ever-so-slightly. So it goes. They can’t all be Paranormal Activity.
But once you think you’ve got a bead on Grave Encounters, it pulls a fast one. Let me stress that you’re not getting a good movie. Instead, you’re getting a fun haunted house thrill ride. And in horror movies, that’ll do just fine.
Grave Encounters is currently available as video on demand. I recommend enjoying it with a group.
Among certain scientists*, it’s a known fact Quarter to Three readers are smarter, better looking, healthier, and win more stuff than the average person. Just ask Jens Genberg and Habbaku, the recipients of free copies of Space Pirates and Zombies, and Land Murphy and Abruzzi Ridge, who get their choice of free T-shirts from 604 Republic. Congratulations!
