Little Big Adventure. It’s a pretty sweet community level. Unfortunately I think I broke it. You’ll note there is no level link at the beginning of this. That’s because “PlayStationNetwork is unavailable due to maintenance.” Uh-huh. That’s what they’re saying. But I know the real reason is I broke it. Sorry everybody.
I didn’t mean to. I was just cruising along collecting things when I was instructed to put on a bubble-shooting hat and jump on the bubbles. It took me a few tries to figure out that you don’t really jump on the bubbles. You jump and look down hold down R1 and bubbles lift you through the level on a lovely little bubble elevator. I liked that. It was a cool way to get around. Then I noticed that the bubbles I was shooting were adding to my score. Huh. What if I just sat there shooting bubbles? Just wedged myself against the ceiling and held down R1?
Well, a couple things happen. Your scoring multiplier goes up to a hundred. You get about forty million points. The scoring counter freezes. I’m not the only one to do this. I currently share first place with two other people who did this. But right after I did it I was summarily signed out of the PSN and it went down. So, mea culpa. I didn’t see any of that coming. Speaking of not seeing things coming…
Above is reprinted, in its entirety, the strategy guide for Serious Sam 3, which comes out next week and includes 16-player co-op for the campaign mode. Forward the guide to 15 friends with whom you might be playing so that you’re all on the same page.
Join Tom “Dragonborn” Chick, Jason “Housecarl” McMaster, and special guest Gary “Drastic” Achenbach for this week’s Minnesota nice discussion of the latest in DLC, virtual real estate scams, TV shows, medical issues, and world religion. Plus a little Saints Row 3 and Skyrim talk.
I’m a casual Modern Warfare 3 player, so this isn’t going to be a list of stuff about how the 7.62mm round from a Dragunov spins clockwise so it should pull more to the right over greater distances. In military parlance, that’s called a slice. Besides, everyone knows the Dragunov doesn’t fire a 7.62mm round. Duh.
Instead, this is just a layman who really likes Modern Warfare 3 grousing about a couple of things that would make him like it even better.
After the jump, I tell Activision how to run their businessContinue reading →
I started playing this game on a dare. “Hey, Tom,” I said to myself, “I dare you to play whatever this Fusion: Genesis thing is that Microsoft just sent you. If only to see what kind of game it is. With a name like that, it’s got to be awful, right?” Since I’m such an insufferable pest, I finally relented just to shut myself up.
I’m surrounded by beautiful terrain. A brook babbles idly as I stalk through the bush. I’ve been following this party of Imperials for the last half mile. They have a Stormcloak captive that is, most likely, bound for a rather unpleasant evening. I was in that same place not too long ago and I can’t let a fellow rebel meet that fate.
I’m a few dozen yards away from my prey. I can almost taste their acrid clothing, coated with days of road dirt and hardship. The prisoner stumbles, prompting the guards to halt. I’m close enough now to hear them speak. Oh my God, what the hell is that?
I’m no longer in the woods; I’m in my living room. The illusion is completely gone. When the guard opened his mouth, it sounded like Arnold Schwarzenegger’s “slow” cousin. We went from Patrick Stewart to this?
Now that’s not to say the entire game is voiced poorly, it isn’t, but there are quite a few moments that range from odd to flat out laughable. I suppose this next bit could be considered a spoiler, but it’s a spoiler in the same way that saying there’s a Thieves Guild in the Elder Scrolls games. The leader of the Thieves Guild in this game sounds like he suffers from an angry version of VI.
That being said, Skyrim is on my short list for Game of the Year. Thank God it does just about everything else right.
Tarsem, the director of The Cell and The Fall, needed all three of his names to make Immortals, his first movie without a definite article. Our opinions are divided on how well that worked out. In the above shot, Immortals would be the guy on the right in the funny hat. Tom is yelling and snapping a fire whip at it. Dingus is to the far left, enthralled and wearing a princess costume because he will mention Tangled at least once on this podcast. Kellywand is crouched indecisively between them. We aren’t sure who that fourth guy is, the one over there with Dingus. He can be you, the listener.
This week’s 3×3 is hero survival rip-offs. You know those moments when the hero totally should have died, but didn’t? That’s what these are. Join us for the discussion around about the 1:20:00 mark.
I have no idea what’s going on in Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3. All I know is that when I play as Phoenix Wright, my special ability is to lie down and pull an Asian woman out of my pants. It must be a Japanese thing.
It’s particularly infuriating, because whatever’s going on with Phoenix Wright, I think he’s a character I want to play. Looking over the move list in the pause screen shows that he can toggle between investigation mode, in which he picks up items and puts them into folders, and trial mode, in which he uses the items for different kinds of attacks. He’s got a third mode, but search me if I know how to activate it or what it does. Of course, the mission mode — what a misleading name for a mostly useless feature — quickly slams me against a wall in which I’m learning nothing about the character and I’m instead learning that I can’t figure out the split-second timing it takes to get two mediums, a heavy, and a special attack during an air combo. I don’t need a mission mode to tell me that.
I really want to play the new characters in Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3, but Capcom can’t be arsed to teach me how. Which reminds me why Marvel vs. Capcom 3 (a.k.a. Penultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3) was both my favorite game of the year and my most disappointing game of the year back in July.
Sometimes an intersection is jammed with the smoking wreckage of cars and swarming with cops and gang members just because. Shots were fired, things got out of hand, chaos descended. Any good urban open-world game works this way. Stuff happens and then more stuff happens and then all sorts of crazy stuff has happened.
But sometimes there’s a reason for it all (pictured). And sometimes it happens to the accompaniment of a Finnish chick in a French band called The Do singing a song called Queen Dot Kong that makes me think of rioting clowns taking shotguns to each other.
It’s a little messed up round here, round here, round here…
It’s a little messed up round here, round here, round here…
It’s a little messed up round here, round here, round here…
No one told me to dress up
Well, you, wow, how
This is pretty damn queer
Oh shit, now we’re stuck
We’re stuck together for real
I’m sure Super Mario 3D Land on the Nintendo 3DS will be great for lots of folks. It just feels awfully generic to me. I blame my inability to appreciate whatever charm Mario is supposed to have, even when he dresses up as a raccoon. This week’s Rayman: Origins is more my speed. You know, weird, arty, French.
Speaking of French, Assassin’s Creed: Revelations is out. And speaking of retreads, Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary will let you enjoy the original Halo in HD. If you like racing games where you drive down long thin roads to try to pass cars that began the race in front of you, Electronic Arts offers Need for Speed: The Run. Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 is as inscrutable as ever.
But the dire threat to your wallet is Saints Row The Third, reviewed here, if you want scientific proof that you should buy it.
My first kill ever in Modern Warfare 3 isn’t nearly as entertaining as my first kill ever in Call of Duty: Black Ops. But at least it has a story arc. Watch the above movie in which I avenge the death of TJ 3658. Considering that I have a kill/death ratio of about 1:3 on a good day, it’s quite an anomaly that my very first action online was getting a kill before being killed. Followed up by an immediate assist. You can see me softening up that second guy before someone else’s grenade comes along and robs me of a killsteak of two.
When is a review not a review and instead the sort of sloppy love letter a mooning teenager might write in the hopes that no one but his intended would read it? Go here to find out. Needless to say, thumbs up.
Up next: making the Emu an endangered species
(Click here for the previous Saints Row 3 entry.)
This week we welcome Wade “Wade42” Richard as we talk about the misadventures of Steam, Zynga, and that Hellraiser cube in the middle of the Paranormal table for Pinball FX2. Also, Tom sells out and goes to bat for mainstream titles like Modern Warfare 3 while McMaster and Wade advocate for indie games.
The designer titles these levels with chapter numbers, and it’s best to honor this labeling scheme, for if you view them as sequels you’ll be disappointed. If you look at them as chapters, however, excitement can only follow.
A few weeks ago The Thief (Chapter 1) introduced me to a neat little LBP world. While the gameplay wasn’t particularly challenging, I loved moving through that world and was excited when I came to the end and found that the designer was not only promising more chapters, but actively working on them. This week’s featured levels are chapters two and three of The Thief community level series. Playing them is like getting to read a serialized novel, which is something I have not done since The Green Mile and The Thief makes me miss it. There’s something about wandering into a story as it is being created, and parceled out, that is infinitely appealing.
To be fair, the two chapters probably should have been a single level. The Thief Chp. 2 can barely stand on its own. But I like what the designer, ALADCV, is going for, and I love the atmosphere he is creating and the promise that attends it. I would like for him to settle on a format for his level titles, though, and it’s time for some variation in the music. Regardless, I sincerely hope he continues with this as a series. I don’t need more sequels in my life, but extra chapters are always welcome.
Click here for the previous Weekly Little Big Planet
In the second season of Louie, there’s a long scene of Louis CK in the car singing along with The Who. Anyone can relate to the scene. We all know what it’s like to rock out in the car. But it’s brilliant for its couple of extra layers of meaning. This is a middle-aged man digging on The Who as if he was a teenager in his first car. It’s a scene about how some songs connect us with other parts of our lives, like childhood. But there’s still more going on here. The scene, which has no dialogue and runs the entire length of Who Are You?, starts out being about Louie. But he eventually involves his daughters, who are riding in the back seat, in the action. Before the song is over, it becomes about him sharing his enthusiasm with them, singing to them, playing with them in the mirror, nerding out while the roll their eyes. It is the arc of a man’s life in one song, from youth to fatherhood.
Okay, maybe I’m reading too much into the scene. But it’s great for a reason, and not because I want to watch Louis CK listen to songs by a band I don’t even like.
In Saints Row 2, if you drive long enough while a certain song plays, your character will sing along. What a wonderful touch. Saints Row 3 ups the ante. There’s a longish drive early on, just after the basic mission about how to customize your car. If you’re like me, you couldn’t resist spending all your money. In this case, my otherwise boring four-door sedan is now candy pink, with bright gold rims and yellow tinted windows, with a cool vent in the hood, and a slight boost to the engine power. If you’re like me, you’re now in a car you love because you got to make very particular choices about it. Fancy pants videogame commentators will call this “player agency”. I call it a bitchin’ ride.
As you drive to the next waypoint with Pierce, one of the new gang members who will be along with you for much of the game, he takes control of the radio. Sublime’s What I Got starts playing. Even if you don’t recognize the name, I guarantee you know the song. And the two of you sing along. Together. But you don’t just sing. Developer Volition let the voice actors have a great time just messing around while the song played. They talk to each other. They make comments and joke around. They’re buddies. They connect. It’s a wonderful bit of personality, and if you aren’t in love with Saints Row at this point — as an entire enterprise and not just a single game — it will never work for you.
Up next: Okay, but how good is the actual, you know, game? On a scale of 1-10?
