Returning guest Seth Berkowitz joins us this week with some surprising comments about the new DLC for Mass Effect 3. We also discuss the state of Team Fortress 2, Ubisoft’s latest PC cock-up, whether serious videogamers should be playing kiddie games like Lego Batman 2, and what might be the only must-have title on the Vita.
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Do you see that Le Havre screenshot up there and think, “Gah, who could ever make sense of that jumble?” If so, this hard-to-learn/hard-to-master brain bender about not getting what you want might be a bit much for you. Because if you think that screenshot is daunting, wait until you get to the game itself.
After the jump, do you have what it takes to be harbor master? Continue reading →
Dirt Showdown is all the in-between stuff from other racing games. It’s those filler events you had to play to get to the next actual race. Basically, driving game gametax, now given its own game. It’s as if someone lifted up all the rally races from the previous Dirts, swept out the detritus that was left, collected it into a tidy little pile, and then slapped a name on it. Dirt Showdown.
After the jump, the lowdown on Showdown Continue reading →
It’s not only official that Tom vs Bruce will begin again early next month, but it’s also official that we’ll be working on articles with Kelly Wand, Stefan “Desslock” Janicki, and Erik Wolpaw, three of the most talented writers I know. Although Tom vs Bruce is a lot of work, it’s the best kind of work a person can hope to do: alongside someone he knows, likes, and admires. And by helping us meet our stretch goal, our Kickstarter supporters basically let me do this three times over.
We’re particularly grateful for our three full sponsors, one of whom is going to basically crowdsource his choice of game. Which should terrify me given all the jokes folks have made about what games they’d pick. Desert Bus. Pokemon: Conquest. Deus Ex. Lollipop Chainsaw. But I can safely say there is no game I wouldn’t enjoy playing with Bruce Geryk. And that’s why our final stretch goal is a bit selfish. If we can reach another $1000 in the next two days, we’ll fly Bruce to Los Angeles to stay with me, specifically so we can do an in-person Tom vs Bruce on video, most likely based on a boardgame.
If you haven’t wondered whether it’s wise to support two writers making a video, you should. Wonder, I mean. And support us, too. But you should definitely wonder whether it’s wise. I know we did. We initially dreaded doing the mandatory introduction video for Kickstarter. And even though it’s, uh, a bit rudimentary, it’s miles and away better than it was when we first put it together. We got feedback from some friends, Bruce did a bang-up job figuring out how to edit it, and then how to edit his edits, and then how to do those goofy videotoaster tricks with scans of our articles. We can’t claim professional quality, but we can claim that we care enough about what we create to fuss over it long enough that it won’t suck as much as it did before we fussed over it. If that’s not a testament to the kind of video you’ll get if we meet our last stretch goal, I don’t know what is.
Oh, and that picture up there? It’s relevant. You’ll just have to read our latest update to find out how.
The Sword of Islam add-on for Crusader Kings II is out today. When Crusader Kings II came out, I thought it was an oversight that you couldn’t play Muslim dynasties in a game about the Crusades. But it turns out Paradox wanted to either a) take time to do it right because the systems in place to game European dynasties wouldn’t be a satisfying representation of medieval Islam, or b) make money from DLC. Probably a little of both. And frankly, given that they’re right about a) and given the quality of most of their DLC, I can’t complain.
In the list of main features, alongside things like the new decadence concept for Muslim rulers, more countries, culture specific interface elements, the addition of Shia and Sunni Islam, and reworked combat, you’ll find this:
Wife wants to become first wife
That’s a “main feature”. Sure, you wanna-be caliphs can have four wives, but don’t think it’s going to make your life any easier.
How extended is today’s Extended Cut DLC for Mass Effect 3? Nearly two gigabytes, that’s how extended! Electronic Arts says they’re not actually changing the ending. According to the download page, here’s what upset fans get:
Additional scenes and an extended epilogue reveal the impact of Shepard’s choices on the future of the galaxy.
In other words, speaking more slowly and explaining more stuff about things that were intentionally ambiguous. Everything I needed to know I learned while playing Mass Effect 3. But the thinking is that more middling writing is just what this otherwise good sci-fi RPG shooter needs, which says a lot about the fans, the writers, and now the publisher.
I’ve lost interest in the whole issue, but I wonder if angry erstwhile fans will find any satisfaction in these two gigabytes. They’ve done very real damage to a series they supposedly loved, out of all proportion with their complaints. It’s shameful how they’ve hijacked Mass Effect on so many levels: as a story, as a franchise, and even just as a darn good standalone game about an alien invasion. But I’m mostly disappointed that Electronic Arts legitimized their complaints with this DLC. The ending of Mass Effect 3 was no better or worse than the ending of most videogames. And while the Extended Cut may not actually change the ending, it certainly changes the narrative.
Batman rides a gorilla. Robin builds a rickshaw and trundles around the parking lot. Clayface and Hush– Who? Clayface and Hush are in here. Lex Luthor’s hovership is defended by impenetrable electrical fields, yet there are convenient spawn points for Batman’s electricity suits next to every electrical field. There’s no room for Robin in the Batmobile, so he runs along behind it as if you were riding a horse in Skyrim. But Robin can roll around inside his own personal hamster ball. The Batcave explodes. You’ve just unlocked a mime. That’s right, a mime. He approached you on the chaotic and panic-riddled streets of Gotham City and offered to sell himself into your collection for 25,000 Lego studbucks. Of course, you accept. Then you smash a row of hedges to earn a golden brick, which will finally let you buy whatever’s for sale inside the as yet unlocked front door of Wayne Manor. Wait, what’s over here? A little man throws a pie at you.
You might ask, “Why?” You have asked the wrong question. The overriding question of Lego Batman 2 is always and only “Why not?” This is as ridiculous and ridiculously effective an open world game as Saints Row 3, but whereas that game was driven by action movie excesses, Lego Batman 2 is driven mostly by the two things all boys love most: breaking things and collecting stuff. And then playing with them. If you have a toy gorilla and a Batman action figure, Batman will naturally ride the gorilla.
After the jump, toy story Continue reading →
If you’re going to see an awful movie about a dude with a flaming skull for a head riding a flaming motorbike, this is probably the one to see. Not to say it’s good. It’s not. It’s laughably bad. But lordy, what awesome shots of flaming skulls and flaming motorbikes, all heavy metalish and trailing smoke and crazy zooms and tilts and God of War style chain flinging and other things going fiery. The Nicolas Cage overacting in between is just gravy. His style complements the CG, as his face gets all distorted and his eyes pop and smoke comes out of his head, like when a character in an old-timey cartoon sees a hot chick. I’m pretty sure he even goes AH-WOO-GA! at one point, like a steam whistle. He wouldn’t be out of place in one of those Mask sequels Jim Carrey passed on. I only wish that when he promised early on that when the demon takes hold, no one is safe, he didn’t then spend the rest of the movie defending women and children. That’s not very demonic.
The bigger issue is how long can Idris Elba maintain being cool when he’s in movies like The Losers, Thor, Prometheus, and Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance? I wonder if he thinks he’s hidden in Ghost Rider because of his fake French accent, like maybe you won’t know it’s him. I see you, Idris! Look, I’ll allow him no more than eleven or twelve stinkers before I start to think a little less of him. Also, since this is a movie based on a Marvel comic, I looked for a Stan Lee cameo and didn’t see one. Why would he not show up for his cameo? Was he getting his teeth whitened the day they were scheduled to shoot?
It’s time for your annual Spider-Man game! The Activision Quebec studio making these games for the last few years has done a decent job with mission-based Spider-Mannery, but now they’re breaking out into an open world. Can they capture the glee of Spider-Man’s previous open-world web-slinging? Is there anything left to capture? Or will this just be another mandatory movie tie-in?
Spec Ops: The Line is 2K’s attempt at their own Call of Duty. I have it on good authority there are no zombies. There’s new DLC this week for Battlefield 3 and Skyrim. “The PC version of an Ubisoft game” is usually a punchline. This week, it’s also part of the release schedule, as we get a PC version of Ghost Recon: Future Soldier.
This week we were mostly unimpressed by the Abraham Lincoln biopic, but we still manage a spirited debate over 19th century hat physics. At the 50-minute mark, this week’s 3×3 is our favorite still photographs in movies.
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If you were to ask someone playing A Valley Without Wind what he’s doing at any given time, and more importantly why he’s doing it, you’re likely to get a multilayered answer, a set of goals like a Russian nesting doll. For instance, here in the world I’m playing now, why am I pushing blindly down through the levels of an undersea cavern, wading through dark acid water, dropping balls of light as I go?
After the jump, let me explain Continue reading →
This week we welcome Marvel vs Capcom 3 game diarist Charles Wheeler to the podcast to tell us about the most dangerous arcade in Singapore, followed by a tentative, brief, and polite discussion about whether there’s any place in videogames for rape. We do not once use the phrase “white knight” and no chairs are thrown, so it’s a pretty poor excuse for how to get the most out of a controversial topic. Which leaves us to talk about Quantum Conundrum, Unity of Command, Valley Without Wind, Saints Row 3 DLC, and Age of Empires III. Yes, Age of Empires III. The Qt3 Games Podcast is nothing if not untopical.
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I don’t like Magic the Gathering. It’s a relic of a bygone century. Draw hands, hope you get enough lands but not too many lands, then lay out cards to do that awkward attack/block dance with the other guy’s cards. Much of the game is played between games, mostly at the counter of whatever store sells you your booster packs.
I mostly don’t like Magic because it’s success arguably killed better collectible card games. What fan of Jyhad, Legend of the Five Rings, and Decipher’s superlative Star Wars CCG wouldn’t be bitter to be playing Magic on Xbox Live, or Steam, or his iPad? Furthermore, who still bothers with Magic when games have folded into the actual game all that stuff about buying cards and tuning decks? Why would you play Magic in a post-Dominions world that has Ascension in it?
So after the jump, why would you ever read a review by me about the latest Magic videogame? Continue reading →
In his exhaustive, frank, and informative write-up of the long journey between versions 1.0 and 1.1 of A Valley Without Wind, designer Chris Park begrudgingly concedes that maybe players will want to name their own characters. So that’s one of the many new features in version 1.1. But Park seems pretty proud of his random name generator. As he notes, it came up with the name “Judge Glass”.
I was all, like, yeah, whatever, Mr. Developer Man. I know game designers are proud of the effort they put into their fancypants randomness generators. I’m sure Valley Without Wind knows what it’s doing when it comes to terrain, because it makes really cool places for me to explore given the infinite breadth and depth of its world. But I think I’ll just stick to my own character names, thankyouverymuch.
At which point the following character name came up randomly:
Yeah, okay, you got me. Not only is that one going to stick, it’s probably going to make it’s way into other games. Well played, Valley Without Wind.
As for the 1.1 update, boy, it’s a doozy. If you played AI War, Chris Park’s last game, you know how drastically it was overhauled based on post-release feedback. That overhaul just happened in Valley Without Wind and I couldn’t be more delighted with how different it is. It went from being a game I respected more than I liked to a game I really like. No caveat needed.
Of the four tables in Avenger’s Chronicles, three are exposition heavy tangents into Avengers comic books I didn’t read. The World War Hulk table, for instance, has far too much Hulk reminiscing and not nearly enough Hulk smashing. For a table about an indestructible superhero destroying an entire city, it’s mostly concerned with spelling words as Hulk tells us about his sports buddies back on planet Sackarr.
After the jump, action figures you already have Continue reading →
