Thanks to our continuing grant from the National Foundation for the Preservation of Old Videogames, our “Help Wanted” program is now in its second week. This week, we’re revisiting a Playstation 3 exclusive that was made available free as part of Sony’s apology for the Playstation Network being closed for so long. You did get your copy of Wipeout HD and the Fury add-on, didn’t you?
Wipeout in general, and HD’s Fury add-on in specific, is some of the most thrilling sexysleek sci-fi combat racing you will ever do. In multiplayer, it basically comes down to who knows the track best. But there are Mario Kart style power-ups that help level the playing field. We’ll play some regular races on the more forgiving speed classes, but we’ll also try Fury’s Eliminator and Zone Battle modes. Eliminator is scored based on damage and kills against other ships and Zone Battle is a trippy cyberrific risk/reward calculation about who can build up the most speed while dropping barricades on the field to mess up the other races. I’ll briefly explain the modes from the lobby, but the guide you can access from the main screen features a description in the “Race Types” section. While you’re there, look over the icons for the different pick-ups. There are only ten, and you’ll want to get a sense for what each one does before jumping into a race.
The controls might feel weirdly floaty depending on which ship you take. Wipeout is a game about maglev hovercraft thingies, after all. Consider enabling the pilot assist mode to help you from hitting walls, which is the exact thing you don’t want to do in this game.
The races will begin on Wednesday, October 5th at 6pm Pacific/9pm Eastern and will last for at least two hours. Just add tomchick to your friends list on the Playstation Network before the starting time on Wednesday. Then I’ll host races limited to friends only. Go to “Online”, then “Join Game”, then check the races on the list to find the one hosted by “tomchick”. If a race is in progress, you’ll have to spectate until the next race, but the races are short and few games make for spectating as sexy as Wipeout HD. And if you have a Bluetooth headset, it’s pretty painless to get it to work on the PSN if you want to chat.
What kind of game situates the first NPC vendor so that talking to him means standing with your back to the edge of a fatal cliff, at which point a menu pops up in which the analog stick still moves your character instead of changing the menu selection, so that when you pull down on the stick to select the next menu item, your character neatly steps off the edge of the cliff and dies?
Dark Souls. That’s what kind of game. Remember kids, when you’re in a menu screen, use the d-pad.
After the jump, something else I wish I’d known when I started playing Continue reading →
Like its predecessor Demon’s Souls, Dark Souls isn’t for everyone. But to those who it is for, it will be a dire and abiding wallet threat, not to mention a terrible time sink. The game diary begins today.
Then there’s Rage. Yeah. So in terms of big budget, AAA shooter franchises out this year, Resistance 3, Gears 3, and Rage have laid their cards on the table. Resistance 3 folded, Gears 3 threw down a pair of tens, and Rage reveals a jack high. Okay Battlefield and Modern Warfare, what do you guys got?
The downloadable Orcs Must Die is good, to be sure. But it’s no Toy Soldiers: Cold War. It’s about a Trenched. That’s frankly not a bad thing to be.
Activision follows up on last week’s X-Men game with this week’s Spider-Man game. Can they clear the bars that were the Thor and Captain America game before Batman: Arkham City likely closes the book on licensed superheroics?
Sony has a couple of dark horses this week. Payday: The Heist (pictured) is like Left 4 Dead meets Heat by way of Kane and Lynch 2 with a touch of Gears of War’s horde mode and an unabashed nod to the opening of The Dark Knight. Since it’s Sony Online, it will be available for the PC and PS3. And it looks like the Playstation Network will finally release the PS3 version of Eufloria, a lovely minimalist RTS built for the PC that should fit neatly into living rooms.
Although we’re thrilled to talk about Take Shelter, we have to ask that you don’t listen to the podcast until you’ve seen Jeff Nichols’ spectacular sign-of-the-times slow-burn thriller. All three of us loved it and we’d hate to ruin it for you. So until then, fast forward to the 3×3 starting at the 1:26 mark. We discuss the best practical makeup effects. Oh, and when we ask you to fast forward to avoid Lake Mungo spoilers, the spoiler discussion lasts 14 minutes. But for best results, see Take Shelter and Lake Mungo before listening to this podcast.
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A Lithuanian student of “gravitational aesthetics” has designed the last rollercoaster you will ever ride.
The first or second loop might already kill the rider. But the following ones will do the job for sure. If you think in terms of engineering, the coaster incorporates a seven-fold redundancy.
Okay, time to test this baby out. Where’s my copy of Rollercoaster Tycoon?
