A huge thanks to everyone who participated in our listener lottery/pledge drive, and congratulations to Soren Hoglund, whose pick for our next movie is, uh, not the sort of thing we’d normally see. But this week, we see Julia Louis-Dreyfus and James Gandolfini in Enough Said, which seems deceptively like a fluffy romantic comedy. Don’t hold that against it! The 3×3, which starts at the 1:02 mark, is about our favorite mistaken identities in movies.
Next week: Why Did I Get Married, Too
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You know those movies that rely on the character doing really stupid things to get the plot underway, and then to keep it going? A Single Shot is one of those. But as the story plays out, you discover Sam Rockwell’s hapless backwoods hunter isn’t doing what he’s doing just because he’s stupid. This is a movie about a small, powerless, and deeply frustrated man at the tail end of a series of bad decisions, trying to keep terrible situations from getting worse. Rockwell’s likability and charm occasionally surface, but they’re buried under a layer of pain and confusion, hidden behind his considerable beard and furrowed brow. This is yet another role that establishes Rockwell as a Serious Actor. See also Moon and Assassination of Jesse James.
A Single Shot is an atmospheric slow-burn hillbilly noir that knows noir is at its best when it’s uncompromisingly bleak. In addition to Rockwell, it features a cast of memorable actors (brace yourself for a searingly good Jeffrey Wright performance) drawling the script’s dense hillbilly argot so well that you can’t always tell what they’re saying. But you don’t need to. The inevitable events will carry you along, just as they do Rockwell’s character. You’re not here to untangle the plot so much as you’re here to watch one man dig himself a deep hole. Imagine a Chinatown in the damp hills of West Virginia, but without someone as sharp as Jake Gittes to unravel the threads.
Nothing on director David Rosenthal’s short list of slight films suggests he’d do a movie this dark, languid, rural, and uncompromising. Nothing on composer Atli Orvarsson’s list of credits suggests he could do a score this eerie and quiet. Edward Grau’s gloomy cinematography is spectacular, which is no surprise from the man who shot in the dark confines of Buried (Ryan Reynolds in a coffin), the moody atmosphere of The Awakening (Rebecca Hall in a haunted Victorian manor), and the lush period fashion of A Single Man (Colin Firth in bitchin’ Italian glasses). This is one to stream in HD or hold out for the Blu Ray.
A Single Shot is available for VOD. Watch in on Amazon.com to support Qt3.
(Contributor Rob Harvey visited Vicarious Visions to take a look at their upcoming Skylanders release, Swap Force. This is his report.)
Quarter to Three’s official Skylander trio of Mommy, Kiddo, and Rob sat awaiting our meal in the local Dairy Queen. Kiddo knew I had a secret. He had been bombarding me with breathless guesses for what my watch informed me was an hour, but what my ears insisted was longer than it takes for a planet to form.
Rob: “Guy, I have to take a trip for the next few days. I will be out of town–”
His smile evaporated and his head bowed as tears started to form. I knew I had seconds to act before SWAT styled troopers with “CPS” velcro identifiers on their backs repelled down from the ceiling to confiscate the ice cream and declare me unfit for parenting. Probably in that order. Those Blizzard’s are tasty.
Rob: “But Kiddo, Activision has asked if I want to fly out to New York to see Skylanders Swap Force.”
Tears froze pre-formed and his head snapped up with eyes so large you would think Santa Claus was sitting in the booth behind me. Then, he started to vibrate. Not jump or wiggle, but vibrate, as if the molecular bonds of his excited seven-year-old body were doing what normally required miles of atom smashers.
Kiddo: “Skky-yyy-lannd-der-der-sss SSuss-saah-wapp-force!?!?!?” Some other incoherent and excited syllables continued to shake out of the vibrating testament of how advertising still works.
But, after the jump, how will Skylanders Swap Force look to the molecularly stable adult? Continue reading →
Viewers of last night’s 2013 Primetime Emmy Awards were treated to proof positive that at least one of the winners of the Best Writing in a Variety Series award plays Spelunky. During the awad presentation, a video montage of the Colbert Report team at one point featured writer Rob Dubbin playing the sadistically tough platformer. Just after the broadcast, Mossmouth’s Derek Yu congratulated Dubbin on Twitter.
@supererogatory @robdubbin And a massive congratulations to you, Rob!
@mossmouth @supererogatory hey thanks! super pumped it worked out with the cameo. much honor to you sir.
Rob Dubbin, as well as being an Emmy Award winner, writes about gaming for Kill Screen.
Valve has anounced SteamOS, a Linux-based operating system that will allow gamers to stream their games to their televisions and other devices. Beyond being just a cloud gaming service, Valve is positioning the software as an all-inclusive entertainment solution. The system boasts features for the living room, including in-home streaming, media services, sharing, and other family options. In typical Valve fashion, the system will be open for users to share and modify.
Steam is not a one-way content broadcast channel, it’s a collaborative many-to-many entertainment platform, in which each participant is a multiplier of the experience for everyone else. With SteamOS, “openness” means that the hardware industry can iterate in the living room at a much faster pace than they’ve been able to. Content creators can connect directly to their customers. Users can alter or replace any part of the software or hardware they want. Gamers are empowered to join in the creation of the games they love. SteamOS will continue to evolve, but will remain an environment designed to foster these kinds of innovation.
The free operating system will be available “soon” according to Valve.
The threat to your wallet this week isn’t that Shadow Warrior is a remake of 3D Realms’ 1997 crass “Who wants some Wang?” Asian take on Duke Nukem. Instead, the threat to your wallet is that the guys who made Hard Reset are releasing a hyper-gory, slick, first person shooter/slicer with hearty RPG elements. That happens to be called Shadow Warrior. I’ve played an early build and I’m completely sold on the tech, the concept, and the tone. Also out this week is Alien Rage, a splashy generic sci-fi shooter that makes me want to reinstall Hard Reset.
This week’s mystery threat is a survival adventure called Day One: Garry’s Incident. I had mistaken it for the Source engine mod that lets you put ragdolls in compromising positions that resemble a cross between the Kama Sutra and Porrasturvat. But Day One: Garry’s Incident is something else entirely about an action hero who has to explore Amazonian ruins starting with nothing. Minecraft meets Uncharted?
Finally, it’s time for hockey season with the Fiffy games from EA and Pees 2014 from Konami. Nothin’ but net! Or, as they say in foreign countries, skoaaaaaaalllllll!
I knew the $8,000 I spent in Grand Theft Auto 5’s car shop upgrading the bumpers, window tint, spoiler, and adding glossy pink paint was totally worth it to make Michael’s new cotton-candy hatchback. If there was anything that would get Michael out of his mid-life funk, it would be this! Unfortunately, there’s a known issue with the car garages in Rockstar’s criminal magnum opus that made me lose that Strawberry Shortcake commuter car. According to the official support page, they’re looking into the problem.
In the meantime, please try to avoid parking a car in a garage, driving one already in a garage, or getting in a default vehicle, when playing as a character other than the one with your upgrades.
Franklin is such a thoughtful young man. He’ll just steal another hatchback for Michael.
The following article is about a mission in Grand Theft Auto V called “By the Book”. It contains spoilers about the game up to that point, but not beyond.
The root is still hanging on right at the gumline. I pull with the pliers while Mr. K screams and gurgles. Am I supposed to pull the tooth straight out, or just keeping yanking it side to side? I shouldn’t have hidden my eyes during this part of Marathon Man. Ah, I see my problem. The controls indicate that I needed to apply a circular motion, like trying to loosen a fence post.
Then, a comment behind me: “Eww.”
It’s my roommate. He has walked into the living room on the way to the kitchen, and there I am, with a pair of pliers plunged into some screaming guy’s bloody mouth, yanking the tooth back and forth. Well, not me, but Trevor, who I’m controlling. Torture by proxy. My official representative is torturing someone while I look on, pressing the buttons to let him do this, and suddenly someone is looking at me. Why does this feel strangely familiar?
After the jump, Rockstar is talking to us, America Continue reading →
What I know about MirrorMoon can be pretty much summed up in a single phrase, which is on the game’s main screen when you boot it up: it’s a “recursive space mystery”. I don’t even know what that means, which is no surprise given that I don’t know what I’m doing, where I’m doing it, or even whether I’m doing it. But here’s a picture of a planet I found with some sort of funky swirling thing going on. It seems like it’s this planet’s version of weather.
The basic concept — I have no idea if this constitutes a spoiler, because I have no idea whether there’s anything deeper down this inscrutable galactic rabbit hole — is that you fly a ship with unlabeled controls to a planet, where a hovering miniature version of the planet serves as a map/control panel, which you then use to activate something to let you do something that somehow involves going to other planets something something something. I think the miniature planet map (a mirror moon, perhaps?) is the recursive part of the game. Everything else is the space mystery.
MirrorMoon is available now on Steam. Let me know if you figure it out.
Race the Sun is in trouble. The sales of the procedurally generated racer have not been as fruitful as the developers hoped they would be. Aaron San Filippo, half of the Flippfly development team, wrote this blog post that comes with some less than stellar sales figures. He blames a common perception amongst gamers that “runners” should be free or on mobile devices, as well as the lack of exposure that comes with not being available on Steam.
Here’s where the story gets a bit discouraging. In our launch month, we’ve sold 771 copies, or about $7,400 worth.
Sales have fallen off pretty steadily as the media attention has died down. Our worst day came last week, at 2 copies sold.
This may seem like a pretty big number to some – but keep in mind there are two of us, with families to support, and bills to pay. Additionally, the game’s online features require a back-end server, and there are monthly costs associated with that, as well as our web hosting and other expenses.
Aaron San Filippo goes on to explain the Steam Greenlight votes have not been forthcoming, but that they are looking at other platforms like Desura or GoG.com on which to release the game.
Tom liked Race the Sun so much, he did a podcast with the developers.
In the pilot episode of TNT’s Falling Skies, Noah Wyle’s character is on the run from aliens. He has to travel light. When you’re on the lam from aliens, you can’t pack a lot. In fact, you can only bring one book. So Noah Wyle’s character soulfully considers whether to bring Jules Verne or Charles Dickens. The show was so awful that I don’t remember which one he chose.
But I know that me and my colleague Bruce Geryk would totally choose Verne, because there’s never going to be a good solitaire boardgame based on a Dickens novel. Geryk and I adore — yes, adore — Chris Taylor’s Nemo’s War, based on 20,000 Leagues under the Sea. We prove it on this podcast with Taylor. We adore it so much that we don’t mind it’s lack of aesthetic appeal or its rough edges or the fact that you can’t play competitively, so it’s not a really good candidate for a Tom vs Bruce article.
And now publisher Victory Point Games has announced Nemo’s War will be getting better production values and refined gameplay under the rubric of their Gold Banner series, which revisits their more popular titles. From their latest newsletter:
By popular demand, Nemo’s War will be first on the Gold Banner playtest table, with [Victory Point Games] boardgames producer, Josh Neiman, heading this second edition project, ably assisted by the game’s original developer, Alan Emrich and VPG co-founder, Stephanie Newland. Chris [Taylor] will be communicating his notes and thoughts to us to charge forward with and we will get the job done with Chris in the loop every step of the way and commenting his thoughts to us as his schedule allows. Expect us to round off some of the wargame edginess in this game’s presentation to make it more friendly and accessible to a broader market, but the great narrative and tension-filled solitaire gameplay will remain, of course!
The Gold Banner version of Nemo’s War will be out not soon enough.
Skylanders: Swap Force is out in two weeks and I just got back from a press event at developer Vicarious Visions’ studio. Here are a few key things that you might want to know.
After the jump, Skylanders cut in half? Continue reading →
State of Decay is available now on Steam Early Access for $20. The open-world zombie apocalypse game tasks players with scavenging supplies and building up a base while balancing the needs and relationships of other survivors. It’s just like The Walking Dead TV show, but without mid-season breaks. State of Decay launches on Early Access without keyboard and mouse support, so folks without a controller hooked up to their PCs should probably not jump into the work in progress. In a blog post, community manager Sanya Weathers warned that the Early Access version of the game is going to have issues until Undead Labs can bring up to full release state.
This process is not for everyone. Casual players, the easily frustrated, and the short of time should NOT get the Early Access version. Hey, I am all three of those things, y’all. Those are not criticisms. It’s just that we want everyone to have the experience that best suits their needs. You all deserve the best, so if you’re not into giving feedback, just wait a few months and play the final version after we make it great.
Tom liked State of Decay’s risk/reward challenge. He didn’t much care for the way in-game time passes when you aren’t playing the game.
Microsoft’s Albert Penello admitted that the E3 vision for the Xbox One will not be a reality at launch for many customers. Speaking to IGN during the Tokyo Game Show, Penello said that he understands some of the criticism that gamers have regarding the Xbox One’s TV and media functionality.
“TV, if you want to continue, would be another criticism. We talk a lot about TV and that’s only going to work basically in Japan and the U.S. at launch where you have HDMI-in scenarios, so you’ll say ‘hey, what if I have a terrestrial over the air?’ We won’t have a solution for that right away, but we still sell it as part of the vision. So it’s honest criticism and you’d love to have the new launch be everything that you had before and more, but unfortunately it’s an untenable [proposition].”
Albert Penello explained that realizing the Xbox One’s promise of being an all-inclusive entertainment hub is dependent on a number of factors, including the different global standards for television delivery.
I never thought I would type the following words: Maybe I’ve been playing too much Saints Row IV. Because when I read that the latest DLC for Metro Last Light includes a bicycle shotgun, it didn’t occur to me it was a shotgun made from bicycle parts. But that’s exactly the design by Alexandre Bannwarth from New Zealand, whose “design your own weapon” contest submission was chosen by Metro developer 4A to be part of the latest DLC.
The Developer’s Pack DLC also includes a shooting range with challenges for each weapon, a spider’s nest level with a new flamethrower, and an AI arena where you can set up battles. It’s available for $4 on its own, or as the third of four sets of DLC included in the season’s pass.
