It’s August 1961 in Nuevos Aires, during the eighth month of a zombie outbreak. We’re going in to Los Chuvoi, which is virulent enough that’s it’s liable to spill over into neighboring territories if we don’t contain it. The objective is to evacuate at least 60 people, and hopefully some of the scientists. It won’t be easy. Pandemics, man.
After the jump, how the Saviors of Los Chuvoi got their name Continue reading →
I don’t… What the… How did… I should have just stopped trying to understand once they stuck a XIII-2 at the end. It’s like trying to watch an episode of Lost. People hugging each other, sappy music, then something, then something else, then something, then it ends.
The game is Starcraft II played in a series of 1v1 matches, with the winner being the first to four victories. The map is Metalopolis, which features four starting positions behind narrow ramps, and two gold mineral expansions in the center. The races are randomly determined, just like real life generals. The players are Tom Chick, ranked 5th in his division in the silver league, and Kelly Wand, who has one of those dragon icons in Warcraft III but hasn’t even played the stupid campaign in Starcraft II.
The score so far: Tom: 3, Kelly: 3
Game seven after the jump Continue reading →
One of the prerequisites for being a zombie fan is that you must have low standards, because you’re going to be watching a lot of junk. Take, for example, Wicked Little Things. Please. The twist in this zombie movie is that it’s zombie kids, out for revenge because they were exploited for their labor in Appalachian coal mines. Now that’s not the most outrageous zombie twist I’ve ever seen. That distinction goes to a British movie called Devil’s Playground, where the zombies do Parkour.
To its credit, Wicked Little Things tries to be about three strong female characters. Unfortunately, two of those strong female characters are played by the wooden Lori Heuring and the sullen Scout Taylor-Compton. The movie’s best claim to a redeeming feature is a young (well, younger) Chloe Moretz. She plays the equivalent of the little girl in Poltergeist who’s in tune with all the scary stuff the adults don’t grok. She ends up being an emissary between the kid zombies and the grown-up humans. It’s pretty stupid and it involves pouring a lot of blood on the actors for no good reason.
Another thing this movie has going for it is the title. Wicked Little Things is about as good as horror movie titles get, even if it does put me in mind of Denise Richards and Neve Campbell making out in a swimming pool. Speaking of which, is it weird to feel protective of Chloe Moretz? I cringe to think of all the pitfalls in store for an actress with her talent. Hopefully, it won’t get any worse than last year’s Let Me In.
…a bit of middling-octane caulk to fill the gap between Split/Second and Test Drive Unlimited 2
In case you still don’t believe me that Tidalis is a truly great puzzle game — thinking man’s Bejeweled, yadda yadda yadda — and you’re just too lazy to download the demo to find out for yourself, then you have one more chance. Arcen Games has created a web version. Click here to try Tidalis Lite in a web browser.
Hold on a sec! Since you’re too lazy to download a demo, I know you’re not going to play the tutorial. So let me tell you what you’re doing. When you left click on a square, it fires a beam of that square’s color three spaces in the direction the arrow is facing. Your objective is to turn arrows so that the colored beam, which will trigger another beam from any similarly colored block it hits, triggers a chain of at least three blocks. So unlike many match-3’s, you can jump blocks.
To turn arrows, right click a block (notice that all the blocks of that color are now highlighted) and drag your mouse. This will drop a marker (M) on the initial block. Now, holding down the right button, you can drag the mouse along several blocks to turn their arrows. Then, when you’ve got it all set up, go back to the original marked block and left click on it. See? Enjoy the little musical tone based on the color and number of blocks you’ve Tidalized.
It may sound complicated, and it kind of is. A little. But whatever you do, don’t start messing with all the different game styles and special blocks until you’ve wrapped your head around the basics. Tidalis is a pretty generous package, but take it slow or you’re just going to blow a cerebral fuse.
Nintendo finally announced a release date and a price for the Nintendo 3DS.
On March 27, Nintendo introduces portable entertainment in 3D – without the need for special glasses. The Nintendo 3DS system will be available in either Cosmo Black or Aqua Blue, and will have a suggested retail price of $249.99.
That’s $250 of ouch for us, and $250 of great for Nintendo. But considering all the buzz this thing has gotten — I know first-hand that it really works, and it looks great — Nintendo isn’t going to price itself out of players’ hands, Sony style. Instead, I predict they will continue to win videogaming. As I’ve said before, it’s Nintendo’s world. We just play in it.
Dingus posted a fantastic Gamespotting relating to Sophia Coppola’s father/daughter tale, Somewhere. The movie shows Guitar Hero (and the Nintendo Wii, in a separate scene) as an activity that brings families together. It’s an important bit of insight into how videogames can cross boundaries.
Now along comes The Green Hornet to also pay homage to Guitar Hero (well, Rock Band, but who’s counting?).
After the jump, Seth Rogan knows games. Doesn’t he? Continue reading →
My wife ducked her head under the blankets, trying to hide her laughter.
“What?” I’m a bit annoyed at the lack of respect for my enthusiasm, and my accomplishment.
“You’re fighting zombies with a guy named Frank!” I couldn’t understand every one of those words as she said them at the time, because of the unbelievable amount of laughter, but I was able to piece her sentence together nonetheless.
“So?”
“Frank!” More laughter. I kissed her goodnight, clicked off the light, and left the room. My victory over Case West was clearly not going to be lauded appropriately at this time. Better to quit the field.
After the break, a soccer match breaks out Continue reading →
The game is Starcraft II played in a series of 1v1 matches, with the winner being the first to four victories. The map is Metalopolis, which features four starting positions behind narrow ramps, and two gold mineral expansions in the center. The races are randomly determined, just like real life generals. The players are Tom Chick, ranked 5th in his division in the silver league, and Kelly Wand, who has one of those dragon icons in Warcraft III but hasn’t even played the stupid campaign in Starcraft II.
The score so far: Tom: 3, Kelly: 2
Game six, after the jump Continue reading →
The latest add-on for Eve Online, Incursion, is currently being rolled out in stages, with the culmination being next week’s eponymous incursions by some kind of spacepirates or something. But today’s installment of Incursion added the revamped character design. Eve Online always let you make a detailed face (above, left) that didn’t matter one whit, since you were promptly put into a game where you played a spaceship. But now the superfluous character creation system is even more detailed (above, right).
We really wanted you to feel like you were sculpting the face yourself and tried to limit the amount of sliders as much as possible, putting sculpting of the face and body and posing of the face into the character model. In sculpt mode, you grab onto the nose and move the mouse to make it a bigger, push in the chin, pull the forehead and so on. Once you’re done sculpting and picking clothes, hair and such, you use the same method for posing. You grab your eyes and move them to control where your character is supposed to look, you grab the mouth to make him smile, and pull on the eyebrows to make the smile look a little mean.
The new character creation system is the first step to this summer’s Incarna add-on, which lets you get out of your ship and walk around in space stations like you can do in Star Trek Online.
When I first started DC Universe, I just rolled up a punching character, slapped the default Superman template onto her, and started playing. That’s her up there. Superchick.
But something funny happened on the way to 10th level. Things changed. Or didn’t, in the case of my other character.
After the jump, let me show you how DC Universe handles customization. Continue reading →
I already did my term of service with We Rule, a charming free-to-play social boondoggle for the iPhone. I don’t regret planting all those strawberries, saving up for that griffon nest, or badgering my friends to come buy potions from my wizards’ tower. I don’t even regret all the time I spent carefully arranging a white picket fence around a house with meticulously situated pink and red flower beds just behind the mailbox on the road to my kingdom’s main thoroughfare.
But when I’m done, I’m done. And I’m done. Oh, hey, what’s this new stuff just added to the We Rule follow-ups, We Farm and We City?
We Farm is going pre-historic! If you’ve ever fantasized about building your own version of “Jurassic Park,” you’re in luck. This week, ngmoco is releasing a Jurassic pen, complete with a Brontosaurus and Tyrannosaurus Rex, tar pits with Sabertooth Tigers, bone decorations, and a pre-historic museum. Now is the perfect time to upgrade your farm from “just alright” to “DINO-mite!”
Very cute. Nice try, Ngmoco, but it’s going to take more than a dinosaur theme to get me back into one of these things. I’m spending my gaming time these days in DC Universe, so you’ll just have to– Wait, what?
After just releasing much-requested water tiles to We City, this week’s invasion of We City sees superheroes swooping into the fold. Steel Hawk and his Tower of Justice set up shop to do battle with Dr. Disaster and his Factory of Doom, while the Angel Archer watches on from her Winged Haven.
Here’s the backstory for this lovely typography animation.
(Thanks to two guys from Pennsylvania!)
In addition to the expected PC version, Portal 2 will be out for the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 this April. But look what version is getting cross-platform play and special Steam treatment:
Marking the debut of Steam functioning on any next generation console, the features shipping in the PS3 version of Portal 2 include cross platform play (PC/Mac vs. PS3) for multiplayer games, persistent cloud-based storage of PS3 saved games, and cross platform chat (PC/Mac and PS3)….In addition, those who purchase Portal 2 for the PlayStation 3 may unlock a Steam Play (PC & Mac) copy of Portal 2 at no additional cost by linking their PSN and Steam accounts.
Note to the DC Universe Online developers at Sony Online Entertainment, who actually work for the folks who make the PS3, but still split their player community between PS3 players and PC players, never the twain shall meet: that’s how you do cross-platform support.
