The Playstation Network is free, and it’s got ads. Fair enough. Xbox Live costs $60 a year. And as of last week’s update, it has more prominent advertising than the Playstation Network, without any commensurate price cut for the service. In other words, it brings additional revenue to Microsoft with no additional value to you. Don’t write it off as a simple piece of screen real estate you can ignore. There’s a principle at work here. Microsoft is selling your eyeballs and you don’t get a cut of that. As the internet and videogaming hash out various revenue models, I feel there should be a line between subscription-based and advertising-based services. One or the other, gentlemen. Make up your mind.
It takes a bit of work and a free OpenDNS accounts, but I recommend this Reddit poster’s suggestion for how to disable the ads. Which I will gladly endure on a service that doesn’t cost $60.
Now if only someone can figure out how to get rid of the ubiquitous tab for a search function I will never use. Anyone on Reddit know how to de-Bing my console system?
I never got into the Team Fortress 2 hat craze, but you can bet I’ll get behind my mask collection in Payday: the Heist. A recent patch added new Santa masks that look delightfully creepy. There’s also something about collectible Christmas presents that I don’t quite understand, but I was delighted to find one among the money in the bank heist. A brief snow flurry ensued.
The patch also offers some new features. For instance:
You can now join an ongoing game! You will no longer be locked out of games just because they have already started or because you dropped out during play. Just rejoin and continue collecting those precious dollars and gems!
A lot of the changes involve new animations. I was so surprised to round a corner and nearly trip over a SWAT officer in mid animation for a fancy slide that I almost forgot to shoot him with the shotgun I just unlocked. The patch also lists a whole lot of AI work that seems to come down to this point:
Combat will now be more mid ranged and not run-in gun battles
Fair enough. Fortunately, this is one of those Rainbox Six: Vegas style shotguns that works just fine as mid range. Perhaps my favorite change is this:
Slaughterhouse and Diamond Heist are now available in the Normal difficulty setting setting
These maps were previously available only as difficult missions for leveled up characters. Now it’s as if developer Overkill has unlocked two new maps. And what a boon, since I think Diamond Heist might be my new favorite map. It’s obviously based on Die Hard, featuring a big atrium plunging through the middle of multi-storied offices at the top of a skyscraper. It has you moving around the map a lot, which is a much more interesting space that the boxy crackhouse that plays similarly. It also starts with your gang hiding from guards, so like the bank heist, you can decide when to start hostilities. But unlike the bank heist, you can actually push through several of the objectives without alerting the guards. I’m guessing Diamond Heist could go for quite a while as a stealth mission, which would mean the silencer on the pistol is actually useful. I really like the objective progression as well. Nothing in Payday taps into the zeitgeist quite the grisly end the CFO meets in Diamond Heist!
Join us for secrets, betrayal, suspicion, and hidden identities. And that’s just the podcast! We also discuss Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, which two of us loved and one of us was all “meh” about. This results in a discussion so, uh, in-depth that the 3×3 doesn’t start until the 1:37 mark. At which point we figuratively jump into the pool and talk about our favorite swimming pool scene, as well as some other swimming pool scenes.
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Every year I try to explain that this list isn’t necessarily about games that are bad. It is instead about games that I’m surprised weren’t received more critically. So again, let me point out that I actually like and continue to play some of these games.
After the jump, the most overrated games of 2011 Continue reading →
The Bioware name has always meant “RPG” to me. However, I don’t mind that EA is moving the development of Command & Conquer 2 under that branding. It’s a name with plenty of room to grow. But that’s not all EA is doing. They’re folding their Victory Games studio into their Bioware label and calling it Bioware Victory, which has a really dopey ring to it.
Before the C&C studio was folded into Bioware, general manager Jon Van Caneghem commented on the name in this interview:
The initial idea came from the obvious parallel of winning in a strategy game, where the word “Victory” often ends up on your screen. The reason I think it fits so well is when you look at how to be successful in strategy games: it’s the ability to anticipate, plan, and react. This is no different when it comes to the gaming industry — you must anticipate the direction of the genre and marketplace, plan for what the consumers are looking for, and stay nimble enough to react to environmental changes.
In other words, marketing guys came up with the name. By that rationale, Bioware Pwn would work just as well. As a word, “victory” is too on-the-nose to be used unironically, unless you’re making serious wargames or selling to people in Wisconsin.
But what’s in a name, beyond the opportunity to take cheap shots on the internet? The Command & Conquer: Generals 2 announcement is a cause for celebration because Bioware Victory seems to be nee EALA, and those guys have been doing mostly great work, and even taking some risks. I’m glad to see the Frostbite 2 engine pressed into service. It served Need for Speed: The Run quite well. But mostly, I’m glad to see Generals picked up again. I’ve been playing a fair bit of the original Generals lately, and it has a lot to teach the genre. So long as EA, er EALA, uh, I mean Bioware Victory appreciates the basics* of C&C Generals, I expect a grand real time strategy game in 2013.
* Stayed tuned for more on that later this week!
Saints Row 3 lead designer Scott Phillips shows up to solve a few mysteries like why you can’t replay missions, why butts are pixellated but purple dildos aren’t, what’s going on in that mission where you’re suddenly drugged and naked, and what happened to Freckle Bitches. I should warn you that if you haven’t finished the storyline, we do discuss specific plot points, such as the fate of [redacted], the late game arrival of [redacted], and the [redacted] on Arapice Island.
In possibly related news, the Qt3 Games Podcast score for SWAT vs. zombies is now 2 to 1.
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Having trouble with Zelda: Skyward Sword? Here’s a foolproof shortcut to get to one of the game’s unintended endings.
1. At the beginning of the quest, go to Lanayru Desert to retrieve the song of the Thunder Dragon.
2. In the Lanayru Mine, speak with Golo the Goron.
3. Complete the Thunder Dragon’s event, and receive his song.
4. Before heading to the forest or volcano regions, speak with Golo in the mine again.
5. At this point, the forest and volcano events will no longer occur, making it impossible to continue.
The above instructions come from the email reply Nintendo sends to players who contact customer support looking for help after having done exactly those steps. Zelda Informer has reprinted the entire email here. I haven’t played Skyward Sword, so I have no idea how easy it is to stumble through those step and kill your game. But it’s a sad day when a Nintendo game can stop you in your tracks as cold as a Bethesda game.
This week, we welcome Jared (aka Otagan), who makes at least three of the following four claims: he doesn’t own an Xbox 360, he doesn’t care about pinball, he prefers a SWAT team to zombie hordes, and he is from the fictional land of North Dakota (allegedly pictured, although we know a screenshot from Red Dead Redemption when we see it). Furthermore, expect strange choices all around for games of the week. And speaking of strange, gremlins ate our discussion of Ace Combat: Assault Horizon, in which Jared explains that it’s not hardcore enough. Yep, he’s one of those guys.
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This is mostly a lovely and polished game, but sometimes its German roots show awkwardly. A data log entry or tooltip lapses into German, as if you’re at a Prufpunkt und der Schutz bittet um meine Papiere. Not very pleasant, is it? So the last place I expected to find a poetic touch is the random name generator.
A verbal pot of gold, after the jump Continue reading →
I have no desire to play Saints Row 3 as that dude up there, who I downloaded from the community gallery. I didn’t make him, I don’t care about him, I don’t like his voice, and lords knows I’ve played enough dudes like that in Modern Warfare 3 and Battlefield 3. But one of the achievements in Saints Row 3 is called Gender Equality. You unlock it by playing at least two hours as a dude and two hours as a chick. I’ve logged over forty hours as a chick, so now I’m doing my term of service as a dude. See? Gender equality. But after two hours, that guy is outta here.
By the way, if you haven’t experienced the charms of the Thompson helicopter (pictured), I recommend it. You can find one on the back of the cargo ship near Kenzie’s pad. What a lovely nimble little minx. The helicopter isn’t bad either.
One of the new additions in Anno 2070 is underwater gameplay. My concern at first was that an entirely new layer of gameplay could be more trouble than it’s worth. What is there to do down there? How does it relate to the above-water game? Is it feature creep or an exciting new level of gameplay?
After the jump, dive, dive, dive! Continue reading →
Fortune Street is no Monopoly. It’s actually a serious — you know, serious — boardgame. Don’t be fooled by the occasional minigame and Nintendo characters like Birdoe, Mushroomhead Guy, Princess Peachley, Doofus, Doogie, Hocker, Loogey, and Luigi. They’re just window dressing in an earnest mix of market speculation, real estate development, risk management, and die rolls with an occasional Candyland style slide when you least expect it. What’s more, Fortune Street doesn’t rely on the crazy turns of fortune that frequently upend Culdcept or Dorkapon Kingdoms*. Fortune Street wants it to be your fault when you lose, so it relies on 80% careful calculation and 20% luck. Fortune Street isn’t fooling around.
After the jump, this ain’t no Monopoly
* I know it’s not actually called that, but I can’t help myself.
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I just can’t get enough of these awesome gun models. Pictured is the fully upgraded AR-55, which fires three-round bursts to teach you control and is mighty enough at long range that it has obsoleted the sniper rifle. Plus my new outfit. As you can see, I even got my nails done.
You’d think Mario-themed games would be out in time for the all-important Thanksgiving shopping weekend. You’d be wrong. This week sees two arguably tardy releases for Nintendo systems. Mario Kart 7 for the Nintendo 3DS adds a new dimension to the same old game and nothing else. Fortune Street for the Wii may very well be one of the weirdest surprises I’ve had all year. What I thought was a Nintendo themed Monopoly game is instead an oddly hardcore boardgame. Stand by for full reviews of both games.
We’re all fans of Michael Fassbender, Carey Mulligan, and director Steve McQueen. But we’re not all fans of their latest collaboration, Shame. Since the movie is rated NC-17, so is this podcast, which contains the words penis, hog, and honker. This week’s 3×3 of our favorite transitions in movies kicks in at the 1:06 mark.
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