Let’s pretend it’s the 90s, when shooters are all about and only about shooting, when storylines have to be inserted between action bits like commercial breaks, when bullet time is the new hotness, when 80s style jumpshooting isn’t replaced by wirework yet, and when finding the next medkit is the single most important factor in determining whether you’re going to have to play this part over again.
Your tour guide through this blast from the past is not the lovable squinting Max Payne you might remember. Instead, it’s a young James Caan, or at least an uncaany valley approximation of him that goes all Breaking Bad (i.e. shaves his head) half way through the game. Your shootporn will include the latest gen technology in entry wounds, exit wounds, and arterial spurt. It looks about as authentic as the ragdoll effects. Keep working on that stuff, guys. It should look good in two or three more games.
After the jump, it’s enough to make a guy long for a funhouse level or a dead babyContinue reading →
You know that annoying thing your buddy does when he pulls up in his car to pick you up? As you reach for the door, he lurches the car forward so you have to run and catch up. Then he does it again. And again. And it’s not funny, but what are you going to do, stand there until he backs up? That’s the situation with Dirt Showdown, which was supposed to be out this week and has instead lurched forward to June 12. Actually, it’s already out on the PC, but who plays a game like Dirt Showdown on a PC?
Maybe Dirt Showdown didn’t want to compete with this week’s Mad Riders, an ATV racing game from Techland that has a totally different name than the last ATV racing game from Techland. The one they released last year was called Nail’d. This one is called Mad Riders. See? Mad Riders is available for download for the PS3 and 360.
Also out this week is the Harley Quinn DLC for Arkham City, which is more than just a new skin to use in the combat challenges. The press release promises “more than two hours” of gameplay as you alternate between Batman and Robin, which should delight Robin fans, assuming there is any such thing.
This week’s 3×3 covers the awesomest scientific explanations in movies! It starts at the 55-minute mark and it doesn’t include anything from Chernobyl Diaries, the wretched horror movie we had to watch for the other part of the podcast.
Defender Chronicles II is a bit like Diablo III, where the early going is so easy that it’s almost a formality. You only have a few units, so your choices are limited. But the levels are so easy that you’re mostly just a bystander, watching your warriors, archers, and mages hack, pierce, and fry hapless goblins, gnolls, orcs, bats, ninjas, and spiders as they wend their way towards your base.
So you burn through all ten maps on novice, and maybe a few on casual. You “beat” the game. Now what?
Now you’re actually playing Defender Chronicles II, after the jumpContinue reading →
The mellifluous Jon Rowe joins us for a special 3D edition of the podcast: Day Z, Defender Chronicles 2, and, of course, Diablo III. As our official Day Z correspondent, Jon walks us through the various ethical and moral dilemmas you’ll face in this recent mod for Arma II. For instance, is it okay to shoot a guy in the face to take his beans? And what should you do when you see someone’s flare lying on the ground? And is it a good idea to hang around on the beach to try to make friends?
I’m mostly pretty good at marshaling the appropriate amount of fury for things like always-online DRM, in-app purchases, and free-to-play design compromises. But when games are as good as Lord of the Rings Online, Anno 2070, and Diablo III, I eventually just shrug and feel grateful that I’m playing a game this good (see also the extra box office take for The Avengers because it’s in 3D). At a certain point, you have to accept defeat, let go of your anger, and be glad when good things are successful, even if you don’t like aspects of their success.
In the case of Jetpack Joyride, that point involves cute dogs.
Having recently decided that hardcore is the way to go in Diablo III, I love this video. I think of it as a light-hearted primer to prepare myself for the inevitable moment of my character’s death. Because hardcore Diablo III is like real life in that it’s not a matter of if you will die, but when you will die.
Zen Studios announces Kickbeat for the Playstation Vita:
The game combines beat-matching mechanics with an acrobatic style of martial arts, turning every song into a raucous battle.
I just hope this isn’t eating into the time they should be spending on one of these. I still shake my head sadly to think what pinball tables I’m not playing because of Zen’s minigolf game.
To quote stylist Tyler Durden, you are not your fucking khakis. Neither are you your Socketed Silk Britches of the Bear. With that in mind, let’s try to look our best while we’re fighting the minions of Diablo, lord of whatever he’s lord of. I couldn’t hear when they explained that part because my ensemble was too loud.
Starhawk’s strength and weakness are pretty much the same thing. On one hand, you could say it’s got an egalitarian approach to handing out hardware. Games like EA’s Battlefield series condition us to think of the pilots and tank drivers as a privileged few. There’s only so much heavy iron and high octane on a map, and to the camping victors go the spoils. Similarly with the good guns. You have to put in your term of service to unlock the actual killing guns instead of the ones that tap the other guy on the shoulder so he can turn around and shoot you with the killing gun he’s unlocked. This caste system helps players find their places in the world. It keeps things orderly. It channels the chaos.
Tentacle rape does not exist. It is a fantasy, like women wearing high heels in bed, hot chicks banging pizza delivery boys, condomless impersonal consequence-free sex, and orcs. Like many fantasies, tentacle rape will appeal to some adults. I don’t pretend to understand that particular kink, but as someone with his own kinks (Is it too much information to mention Sarah Palin here?), I’m not going to judge someone else’s fantasy.
Not all folks are that accommodating. For instance, Luke Plunkett at Kotaku and Brandon Sheffield at Insert Credit, both of whom are intelligent writers with lots of insight into and experience with the fantasy worlds of videogaming. According to circumstantial evidence, they were instrumental in getting Kickstarter to cancel the funding campaign for Tentacle Bento. Plunkett and Sheffield both objected to Kickstarter allowing the project, which is a tabletop card game with a tentacle rape theme.
After the jump, the writhing powerful clutches of moral outrageContinue reading →
This week’s wallet threat level is as low as it is mainly because Defender Chronicles II is so cheap and Mario Tennis is so specific. But they’re both quite good. Defender Chronicles II for the iPhone is a ridiculously generous and long-term investment in tower defense RPGing, even more generous and more long-term than the original. So one of the best tower defense games you can play on any platform just got better. Mario Tennis Open for the Nintendo 3DS is one of those games I like in spite of the Mario goofiness. It’s not just enthusiastic and colorful. It combines the slickness of Virtua Tennis with the finesse of the Top Spin series.
I find Dragon’s Dogma a real chore so far. Capcom has assembled a collection of bad choices, from ugly world building to awkward combat to a wretched party system to the very name. I haven’t played such a “what were they thinking?” game in a while.
Also out this week is Ghost Recon: Future Soldier.
We watch Battleship so you don’t have to. And then Kelly Wand administers a Liam Neeson synopsis takedown. This week’s 3×3, which starts at the 46-minute mark in case you want to avoid Battleship spoilers, is our choice of movies that triumph over silly stuff like Magneto’s hat in those X-Men movies.
In case it wasn’t obvious, I’m pretty bowled over by Rebuild, a zombie apocalypse game recently ported from a web-based Flash game to an iPhone app. You can read my review of Rebuild here, and you can follow a game I’m playing in real time here. And now I’m bending developer Sarah Northway’s ear about the game’s history. She reveals connections to The Warriors, Day of the Triffids, and Faith No More; she tells you how close you came to having to play a tower defense game; and she reveals the life of an itinerant game developer.
