Squad has added a “career mode” to Kerbal Space Program. The 0.22 update features a Research & Development Facility that tasks players with research missions. Experiments can be conducted which unlocks more advanced spacecraft components on a tech tree. Build rockets, fling them into orbit, and make your little green guys gather data. For science! Your kerbonauts finally have a purpose when they land on the Mun. If you don’t care for the career restrictions, sandbox mode is still available from the start of the game.
Kerbal Space Program is $23.00 on Steam Early Access or direct from the developer’s website.
Tom: I wanted to see Jaws in the summer of 1975 partly because I’d read the book. The hype must have helped. So my mother took me one day. She was concerned that I might be scared during the movie, so she reassured me that it was just a trained shark. It would take some time before all the lore about Bruce the mechanical shark filtered into popular consciousness. We stood in line. While waiting outside the theatre, I thought of the people inside the theater, getting to see Jaws right now, at that very instant. I occasionally speculated to my mother what part of the story was actually happening at any given point.
I don’t know how I made it past the emergence of Ben Gardner’s severed head on that day. But I vividly remember the shark lunging out of the water at Brody while he’s flinging chum. It terrified me. I hid my eyes. I kept them closed until the end of the movie, pressing my hands into my face just to be sure. I periodically asked my mother what was happening. I particularly remember Quint’s screams. “What’s happening now?” I asked, terrified.
Tom Chick and Jason McMaster announce their upcoming charity golf tournament for some sort of charity, probably having to do with sick kids. They also discuss Grand Theft Auto V, online and off; whether League of Legends is really a sport or even worth spectating; the latest in Marvel Heroes’ superheroics and eternity splinters; dogslicers and horsechoppers in Pathfinder; and the gameplay [sic] in Beyond: Two Souls.
The early sections of past Pokemon games all followed a similar path. You met a professor of Pokemonology, he gave you a starter and then tasked you with going out in the world to fill the Pokedex. Once you found a nice patch of tall grass you would start hunting beasts. You’d find a rat or gopher or prairie dog looking thing and capture it. You’d find a caterpillar and capture it. Usually a pigeon of some sort would come along for the ride. Eventually you would stumble across some fighting type and so it would go until your first team was fielded. Your starter would have an elemental attack but the rest of your misfit crew of vermin would feature a commonplace collection of boring, normal moves. Lots of leers, tackles, scratches and growls. Hardly the stuff of a championship team.
The Epilogue to my game of Awful Green Things from Outer Space is a series of completely random encounters driven by the ancient method of rolling a six-sided die and referring to a choose-your-own adventure book.*
Has your Pathfinder group reached Thistletop Delve yet? If so, your progress in this unique collectible card RPG is stalled for the time being, waiting for the next adventure deck. Hang in there! Later this month, publisher Paizo will release the Skinsaw Murders Adventure Deck, which takes your characters to the next level. Curious what’s in store for you?
Console players of Payday 2 can now purchase the “exclusive” pre-order bonus DLC for $4.99. The Lootbag DLC includes a red dot sight for rifles and shotguns, some in-game cash, a “unique” skull mask, and two cosmetic patterns. The old marketing image, (viewable here) clearly states that it was supposed to be only for pre-orders.
“These items will not be available to purchase after launch.”
There’s no word yet on whether or not PC players on Steam will be able to purchase this pre-order DLC. It’s as if there’s no honor among thieves.
Surely the Skylanders series has burnt up the creative momentum it accumulated when Toys for Bob started the series two years ago. This third iteration must be resting on its laurels, appealing to the age 6 and up captive audience by now. Right? Right?
After the jump, Skylander aficionado and parent Rob Harvey is on the caseContinue reading →
Ubisoft announced a couple of delays in their upcoming slate of high-profile games. First up, Watch Dogs, is being kicked back to Spring 2014. The open-world hacking adventure is being pushed to next year to “polish and fine tune each detail” in the game. Next, The Crew, Ubisoft’s highly anticipated multiplayer racing game will now launch sometime in Q4 of 2014. Hey, at least you can look forward to Assassin’s Creed 4 later this year! CEO Yves Guillemot explained both delays during an investor conference call.
“In a context of growing successes for mega-blockbusters, the additional time given to the development of our titles will allow them to fulfill their huge ambitions and thus offer players even more exceptional experiences.”
To pile a little more bad news on investors, Ubisoft revealed that both Rayman Legends and Splinter Cell failed to meet sales projections. Ubisoft lowered revenue expectations for the current year from $1.94 billion to $1.38 billion based on Watch Dogs and The Crew being moved to next year.
Tom: This artless trash has paved the way for hundreds, maybe thousands, of copycat movies about the slaughter and occasional torture of vapid teenagers. There’s no one to care about, no one to root for, no one even remotely interesting. It’s not funny, it’s not effective, and it’s certainly not scary. It’s like the clown at a birthday party that no one wants. Smell his flower. Go ahead. Smell it.
Chris: I was prepared, I thought. From the goofy title card that starts this movie to the opening half hour, I am buying into what I think this movie is selling. It’s grindhouse that wants to be arthouse, and I get it and I dig it because perhaps it has authentic 1974 ambitions to be what a guy like Quentin Tarantino’s been doing for 20 years. There are pieces here that feel as if they may have influenced Quentin, too. Abstract, odd dialogue. Some weirdness for weirdness sake with those gross, articulated carcass sculptures in the cemetery, for instance. A beautiful long shot of the van pulling over to pick up a hitchhiker. There are things to like here, perhaps.
The rest of my party fought the beast in the Thassilonian Dungeon while I wasn’t there. Our ranger, Harsk, fired a few bolts into it as it flew away. After the excitement died down, we began our search anew. While Lem, Harsk and Amiri split up to check out different locations, my instincts told me that something wasn’t right at the Shrine to Lamashtu. Of course, nothing is really ever “right” at the shrine, but moreso this time around. So I, Seelah, a paladin skilled at searching out monsters, traveled alone to the blasted shrine.
The camera just happens to be floating in space, pointing in a fixed direction that will coincide with the route of a Corellian corvette fleeing from an Imperial Star Destroyer. If that camera had been positioned a few feet higher, the corvette would have banged right into it, ruining the shot and depriving us all of an iconic moment. Instead, it glides smoothly past, close enough that we could almost reach up our hand and feel its belly, like a diver touching a whale. We can admire the detail and — more importantly — the size of the Tantive IV. Look at how long it’s taking to pass overhead.
After the jump, did you know that Leia’s blockade runner was called the Tantive IV? Continue reading →
I hadn’t planned on playing Pokemon Y. I started Pokemon Black with gusto but only got about about 13 hours into it before the sameness got to me. I was smart enough to rent Pokemon Black 2 and putter around with it before realizing that the same thing that I didn’t like about Black was also in play here. Along the way to the release of X and Y, I read about small changes made to the formula to streamline things. Nothing that would send the series off into a radical new direction but some things to modernize a game that has been in desperate need of modernization for some time. Take running. In Pokemon Y you can run from the outset, no special shoes require. Also, now your Pokemon get experience from capturing other Pokemon, so no more epic battles that end in nothing but a a new creature you probably won’t use due to how under-leveled it is. As exciting as these things sound, though, what finally pushed me over the edge was the experience share.
That’s the opening setup, I mean that’s how things looked on the actual Znutar when the crew discovered the Awful Green Things. The monsters started out in the Cockboat Bay (ha!) and spread out one per unoccupied space: 6 eggs, 4 babies, 2 adults. This was determined by the stars, or by 2d6. In the end, does it matter?
