Thanks to the largess of folks on Kickstarter, Tom vs Bruce will be starting up again in about two weeks. Unfortunately, we won’t be doing Diablo III despite my best efforts. I was hoping we could set up a hardcore game to see who could live longest, and I had every intention of luring Bruce into a deathtrap. I doubt he would have even made it to the Skeleton King.
But we’ve still got a few surprises in store. If we can reach a stretch goal, we’ll be collaborating with three very special guests. We’ll be announcing them over the next three days, as well as dropping hints about our first Tom vs Bruce. So keep an eye on the updates at our Kickstarter page and help us spread the word!
If you’ve been holding off for Age of Empires Online to finally gel, now’s as good a time as any to try it. The latest update, dubbed the Summer Update, just went live, completely revising the game’s long-term economy and tech tree, and introducing its new endgame stuff. This is the last step in a dramatic overhaul the game has gotten over the last few months.
After the jump, some hands-on time with the particularsContinue reading →
This isn’t really the place to revisit my unhappiness with Civilization V, but I’m sorry to discover the game hasn’t gotten better a year and a half after I reviewed it. Instead of addressing the problems with the game’s AI, interface, and design, Firaxis has been nickel and diming you with DLC maps and civilizations. Now that they’re selling a full add-on, what better time to give it the overhaul it needs?
But no such thing happens in Gods & Kings. This is the same disappointing strategy game it was a year and a half ago, except that it now has two finicky and mostly unimpressive systems shoehorned in.
After the jump, gods & spies doesn’t sound quite as snappyContinue reading →
Quantum Conundrum is from Kim Swift, one of the designers of Narbacular Drop, the puzzle game that inspired Portal and eventually led to Portal when Valve hired her. She has since left Valve. Quantum Conundrum is her first post-Valve game. As someone who didn’t play Portal for the puzzles — the genius of Portal is in the writing wrapped around a serviceable puzzle game — I’ll be curious to see what happens when you take a Portal designer out of Valve. Wallet threat level yellow.
Civilization V: Gods & Kings is the expansion for Civilization V. I’ve been playing it. Wallet threat level green.
A new version of Magic the Gathering: Duels of the Planeswalkers is out this week, giving folks a digital look at cards that won’t be out for reals until later this summer. Given how good the Magic videogames have been, and given how they’ve added gimmicky but effective new ways to play, this escalates the wallet threat level to yellow.
Pokemon Conquest for the Nintendo DS is a Pokemon strategy game from Koei. Let me write that again: a Pokemon strategy game from Koei. I’ve been playing it a bit, and it’s exactly what you’d expect. It reminds me a bit of the Devil Survivor games on the DS, but with squealing chirping Pokemons instead of devils, and with kidding Japanese warlords instead of Japanese school kids. Wallet threat level uhhh.
I heartily recommend half of the table in the Avengers Chronicles pinball tables from Zen Studios. Tune in tomorrow morning for specifics. And good luck trying to beat my high score on the Avengers table. I had one of those “OMG I Will Never Get This Lucky Again” balls in which the Avengers and I rocked that helicarrier. Suck it, Loki! Wallet threat level yellow.
Steel Battalion 2, also known as Steel Battalion Kinect, also also known as Steel Battalion No Thanks, is out this week. Wallet threat level green.
I haven’t played a Lego game since dinking around with one of the Harry Potters, but Traveller’s Tales sure knows how to get the most out of the formula. You might think Lego Batman 2 is just Arkham City for kids, but it looks like more of an open-world playground for DC Comics’ cast of superheroes. Wallet threat level yellow.
Just like actual critics, we’re split on Snow White and the Huntsman. But then the split is reversed when we compare it to John Carter. Join us for some high-falutin’ compare and contrast action. Then stick around for this week’s 3×3, which starts at the 54-minute mark. We talk about our favorite audience reactions.
Babel Rising, an upgraded version of a tower defense game for the iPhone, is about using god powers to kill little dudes trying to build a tower of Babel. It was a pretty simple game on the iPhone that involved a lot of jabbing and swiping, so naturally this upgraded version features support for Move on the Playstation 3 and Kinect on the Xbox 360. I’ve been playing on the 360 with a gamepad, since I don’t live in a Kinect enabled household.
You don’t need a AAA budget to make a great action RPG, or even just a fascinating action RPG. Instead, you need an appreciation for what makes the genre tick: the hack, the slash, the loot, the character leveling, the variety, the exploration, the calculus of risk/reward, the sense of personal investment. There’s a reason so many of us are clicking so obsessively through Diablo III, and it’s not just because it’s a pretty game. The best action RPGs are carefully calculated to go directly from the lizard brain to the index finger. Krater, an action RPG from a small Swedish studio, instead meanders, gets lost, and ends up in a quiet cul de sac somewhere around the cerebellum.
There are some important differences between those of us who play videogames and normal people. For instance, when a normal person browses this gallery of breathtakingly beautiful photographs from Timothy O’Sullivan’s 19th century survey of the American West, he probably thinks of Westerns. Movies like, I dunno, Stagecoach, The Searchers, and Young Guns. I don’t know a lot of Westerns.
But when I browse these pictures, the more immediate touchstone for me is Red Dead Redemption. I look at the picture of that settlement and think of a particular area in New Austin. I don’t think of watching a movie. I think of running down there among those buildings. I think of climbing to the top of that building in the background, to the left, and getting a commanding view of the little town. I think of playing a videogame.
I’d normally think that’s a little pathetic, but in this case, I think it’s a testament to the amazing work done by Rockstar’s San Diego studio, which created one of the most vivid virtual places you will ever visit. Go ahead, browse those survey pictures (here’s the link again) and tell me you don’t think of Red Dead Redemption.
Any self-respecting fan of action RPGs knows that you don’t have to play the AAA titles to get an immensely satisfying action RPG fix. In fact, the games made by Steven Peeler’s Soldak Entertainment offer things you can’t get in Diablo, Sacred, or Torchlight. Depths of Peril features a cool political system and Din’s Curse features dungeons that fight back. Soldak’s upcoming Drox Operative will bring these sorts of elements to a dynamic, open-world, sci-fi, space-based action RPG.
According to the game’s website, Drox Operative will be released either in the first quarter of 2012 or “when it’s done”. You can see how that turned out. But now you can check out Drox Operative for yourself by pre-ordering, which will let you play the beta.
In a Gamesindusty.biz interview to talk about Epic Mickey 2, Warren Spector made a general observation about violence in games that will pretty much upstage everything he has to say about Epic Mickey 2. That’s why PR folks like to shepherd interviews. It keeps guys like me and Gamasutra from ignoring all the stuff Spector says about Epic Mickey 2 to instead focus on this comment:
The ultraviolence has to stop. We have to stop loving it. I just don’t believe in the effects argument at all, but I do believe that we are fetishizing violence, and now in some cases actually combining it with an adolescent approach to sexuality. I just think it’s in bad taste.
After the jump, how about that camera control in Epic Mickey 2?Continue reading →
One of the cool things about the replays in Dirt Showdown is that you can upload snippets to Youtube. That’s me banging up that black and red drag racer looking thing. It belches blue fire from the pipes when I hold down the boost button. Pretty nifty. But one of the coolest things about the replays in Dirt Showdown is that you don’t have to listen to the announcer.
“They just rammed them!” he bellows as I hit another car.
Let’s consider this for a moment. I can see into the cars. Each one has a driver inside. There’s no one in the passenger seats. Unless there’s someone under a blanket in the backseat, each car carries only a single person. Yet the announcer is using plural pronouns. They just rammed them. Dirt Showdown does this constantly. They crossed the finish line! They’re in first place! They’re in the lead! They’re catching up with them!
I know this is a widely accepted way to wuss out of having to commit to a gender specific pronoun. Saying “he just rammed him” would imply that the drivers of both cars are male. That might alienate the women who play Dirt Showdown. And based on the list of nicknames you can choose for your driver, Codemasters clearly wants women to play. Sweetie. Muffin. Honey. Kitten. Stuff like that is in there. Grammar Nazi or Uptight Writer aren’t in there. Codemasters’ priority is clear.
I’ve tried turning down the announcer’s voice. But whereas all the other volume sliders range from 0% to 100%, the voice slider only goes down to 50%. It’s like being in the backseat of a car with windows that only go halfway down so unruly children can’t leap from the car while it’s moving.
This week, Chris Hornbostel joins us to talk about the latest developments in the 38 Studios story, as well as Neal Stephenson’s swordfighting game, and how some people hate that Tom Chick hates Lollipop Chainsaw. Then we get into The Witcher 2, Sins of a Solar Empire, and Dragon’s Dogma. Finally, I’d like to personally apologize for how rude everyone is during the closing music. What a bunch of jerks.
Command and Conquer: Generals was a grand action RTS. Then the Zero Hour add-on split each faction into distinct sub-factions. It took an already over-the-top action RTS that gloried in asymmetry and gave it more over-the-top and more asymmetry. Similarly, Rebellion splits Sins of a Solar Empire’s factions into subfactions. It takes an already nuanced strategic RTS that glories in asymmetry and gives it more nuance and more asymmetry.
There are precious few moments of inspiration in Lollipop Chainsaw. Such as running zombies down with a combine while You Spin Me Right Round plays. The combine handles like a zamboni. The unspectacular zombie splatter is one of the many casualties of this plasticky personality-less use of the Unreal engine. It’s certainly not inspired for the gameplay. But the value is in the idea, which is funny enough to sustain itself both times it happens. Lollipop Chainsaw needs about ten more ideas this good.
Instead, it has zombie basketball, zombie baseball, chainsaw dash courses, rote boss battles, a whole level of tedious retro games, and a lot of pointless twirling combat amid plasticky gore, rainbows, and pink hearts. Lollipop Chainsaw isn’t much of a game. It is a collection of poorly executed gimmicks and a heroine who occasionally chirps “What the dick?”.
I expect more from writer James Gunn and producer Goichi Suda after the wonderfully subversive Super and Killer 7. But Lollipop Chainsaw delivers on the same level as Scooby Doo and No More Heroes: lowbrow jokes, crass pandering, and a blithe disregard for meaningful characters or gameplay. One of the survivors you rescue has to go get another tampon. Another one has shit his pants. If you got your britches in a twist over the bad guys calling Catwoman a bitch in Arkham City, this game will send you into paroxysms of indignation over the insults hurled at the heroine. Levels are named after George Romero, Dan O’Bannon, and Lucio Fulci. Get it? Ten percent of the banter between the heroine and her boyfriend is really funny. Ninety percent of it isn’t.
If you want to play a shallow fighting game that combines bad humor, cheesecake, and gore, Splatterhouse would be delighted to get a little of your attention. It knows what it is and it delivers. But the gravest insult in Lollipop Chainsaw is that it’s such an obvious and vapid attempt at Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Bayonetta. You, ma’am, are no Bayonetta.
Inversion developer Saber Interactive did a great job with a shooter called Timeshift. The formula was simple: take a regular ol’ shooter, add a cool gimmick, and let it roll down its designated corridors. Timeshift’s time powers tweaked the usual gunplay and gave it a sense of identity. It made what would have been an otherwise forgettable shooter memorable. See also the recent Darkness II and Fear 3. So what went wrong with Inversion?
Inversion’s gimmick is mostly that biotic power from Mass Effect. You remember the one, right? Bloop out a blue blop of power during a firefight, and bad guys float up in the air so you can more easily shoot them. Later Inversion gives you a shockwave attack and a gravity gun to pick up and throw stuff. Sometimes you pass through zero-G areas where you can float between grabbable ledges as the level designers see fit. But instead of letting the gimmicks drive the action, Inversion all too often lets the level designers drive the action. The concept of a world where gravity has gone rogue doesn’t work so well when going rogue only means carefully scripted pockets. And the blue anti-gravity blops are based on an ammo concept instead of a cooldown bar, which works wonders at making it feel only as useful as the blop ammo put on the map.
Otherwise, Inversion drinks deeply from the Gears of War well, including the same basic combat model, the same generic space marines, and the same overwrought investment in its own bad story. But there’s none of Gears’ heft or kick. Instead, Inversion has that lightweight feel usually reserved for the first level of a game before you get the useful weapons.
Inversion’s two-player co-op is online only. Do you even know anyone else who has this game? Probably not. So the two-player co-op means an indestructible computer player tags along, playing part of the game for you. The multiplayer, which includes a horde mode, is only multiplayer if you can find someone else playing. Prospects don’t look good when you can’t find a match the Saturday afternoon after the game’s release. Leaving you with just another cover-based, checkpoint-driven forgettable shooter with a thin gimmick.
