Remember when Microsoft announced they were going to publish a new Phantom Dust for the Xbox One? Yeah, that was pretty cool. Of course, it didn’t happen since Microsoft has better things to do. So Danish developer Betadwarf, who might not even realize they’re doing it, is taking up the slack.
Well, well, well, look what showed up today on the Playstation Store! Rockstar’s Bully is now available for $15. The text implies it’s a direct port of the Playstation 2 version, which was available as part of the classics catalog for the PS3. I’m not sure how it might compare to the sketchy remastered edition for the Xbox 360, but surely Sony and Rockstar took the time to do right by the best game of 2006.
Okay, now let’s get Red Dead Redemption playable on my PS4.
After the jump, is Bully really the best game of 2006? Continue reading →
Sony’s latest announcement about the developer of the troubled Driveclub:
Regular reviews take place throughout SCE Worldwide Studios, ensuring that the resources that we have in such a competitive landscape can create and produce high quality, innovative and commercially viable projects.
As part of this process we have reviewed and assessed all current projects and plans for the short and medium term and have decided to make some changes to the European studios structure.
As a result, It has been decided that Evolution Studio will close.
The irony is that after Driveclub’s half-baked marketing and botched release, Evolution devoted their resources to a steady stream of remarkable improvements. As of today, there is no better pure racing game on the PS4.
This week we see the sequel to that beloved found footage giant monster movie. But this time, the monster… well, we don’t want to spoil anything. At the 1:20 mark, we talk a bit about Jeff Nichols’ latest movie, Midnight Special. Then we discuss cancer in movies.
And be sure to check out the latest movie posters from our friend sinnick.
Next week: Batman vs Superman
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If you’d like to check out Battlefield Gothic Armada in motion, join me as I explore issues like whether space torpedoes are any good, the real value of ships being able to turn quickly, and how many points are worth putting into your navigator’s skill. For maximum space porn, I recommend watching in HD.
If you like that video and would like more like it, please subscribe to the Quarter to Three Youtube channel, which is currently a work in progress, so pardon our dust.
I know it’s hard to believe the people behind the Xbox One could be tone deaf to the state of the industry. But it seems Microsoft hired go-go dancers dressed as schoolgirls for their GDC party. The dancers writhed and wriggled around the periphery of a dance floor that had been set up for partygoers. Presumably people would come into the party, see the school-girl dancers, and think, “Yowsa, I gotta get me a copy of Halo 5!”
Frankly, what I find offensive is the idea of a dance floor devoted to the awkward gyrations of all those privileged white males.
Matt Peckham from Time.com returns from GDC, newly encouraged about the future of VR. Tom Chick tries in vain to talk him down.
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Chapter One: The Mysterious Hallway
The Gashlycrumb Tinies, or After the Outing by Edward Gorey was published in 1963. Neville was born shortly thereafter. He then spent some time growing. At some point in the process, before it had advanced significantly, he happened upon a poster of The Gashlycrumb Tinies. It was divided into 26 panels. Each panel was a letter of the alphabet and each letter was a child and each child was in the process of his or her demise. The poster was framed in someone’s hallway. He couldn’t recall whose. He couldn’t even recall how old he was. But he was old enough to be fascinated and confused by the terrible fates of these children, laid out in a grid of pen-and-ink snapshots. Why was Yorick’s head knocked in? Did someone find Fanny’s dessicated body in the swamp? What did it look like? So Una fell down the drain, but then what? Was she drowned? Suffocated? Simply lost? How can someone be devoured by mice? Rats, sure. But mice? What does ennui mean?
Neville then spent some more time growing. These questions receded into the back of his mind, mostly forgotten because whoever’s hallway that was, it wasn’t someplace he frequented.
After the jump, Chapter Two: The Fortuitous Discovery Continue reading →
How good can a sequel to the not very good Olympus Has Fallen be? You’re probably as surprised as we are. At the 1:29 mark, a discussion flares up about flamethrowers in movies.
Next week: 10 Cloverfield Lane
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We pretty much agree that if you try not to hold it to the standards of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, this movies might not be so awful, after all. Or that at least it’s a crazy enough wuxia ride with Michelle Yeoh. At the 1:26 mark, we take up residence in a discussion of abandoned buildings.
Next week: London Has Fallen
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Somehow I found myself going down a rabbit hole of Tomb Raider fan films on YouTube. The fewer the views, the more unintentionally hilarious the film. That’s how I discovered a combat move I’ve never seen before. Ladies, gentlemen, and children 13 and up, behold the butt punch.
I shouldn’t be surprised at the sheer number of them. I shouldn’t be surprised that most of them represent Lara Croft as nothing more than a ponytail, a tank top, and a nice rack. It’s called cosplay. Most of these fan films are just cosplay videos.
But then there’s the one from a couple of years ago with the deceptively understated title of Croft. Just Croft. It isn’t about the dress up. It is instead about the action. One tiny woman against a bunch of burly men with guns. Frankly, this is more Jane Wick than Lara Croft. But it’s competently shot, edited, acted, and even well written for what little part of it isn’t action. The action is top notch, with fantastic stunt work and some astonishing physicality. When the wirework looks this good (pictured), they’re doing it right.
Director Terrvor Addie and actress Cassandra Ebner have a long list of credits doing stuntwork for mega budget productions. In a way, it feels like cheating. This isn’t a fan film. This is a short film made by talented professionals showing off their skill.
Watch Croft here.
These days, you can’t swing a dead skaven without hitting some ill conceived and poorly implemented Warhammer shovelware. Which is too bad, because there’s some really nice stuff out there. Full Control’s turn-based Space Hulk series has a lot of crunchy tactics and satisfying character development squeezed into its claustrophobic corridors, and they’ve spent a couple years pouring a lot of content into it. Regicide’s chess RPG is awfully contrived, but it works about as well as the contrived narrow corridors of a space hulk. On the fantasy side, Vermintide is an excellent rat flavored variation on the Left 4 Dead formula. If you can power through some clunkiness, Mordheim is about as XCOM a Warhammer game as you could ever hope to play.
But how are you supposed to tell the good ones from the terrible ones? How are you supposed to know whether Warhammer: Arcane Magic, a “digital boardgame”, is any good? Is being a port of an iOS game something you should hold against it? Or should you pony up your $4 and give it a shot? Actually, make that $7 given the separately sold missions. The good news is that it’s a decent enough turn-based strategy grind in which your wizards collect spells as they work their way through a campaign.
After the jump, the bad news. Continue reading →
The Corpse of Anna Fritz opens with a shot of an unseen orderly wheeling a sheet-draped corpse down a corridor. A news voiceover explains that Anna Fritz, a world renowned actress, has died. Her body has been taken to an unspecified hospital to avoid a mob scene. The orderly rolls the gurney into the morgue, gingerly peels pack the sheet to reveal a beautiful woman, and snaps a picture with his cell phone. It gets worse from there.
In an American movie called The Body, three chicks accidentally kill a dude. Oops. To avoid getting in trouble, they posthumously stage a rape so they can claim self-defense. But that doesn’t work out so well when they discover they didn’t actually kill the dude, but just broke his neck. Awkward. The Body falls apart mainly because of the implausibility of its characters’ motivations and a conspicuous weak link in the cast.
The Corpse of Anna Fritz, a fascinating inverse of The Body, has no such shortcomings. The characters do what they do because they’re reprehensible. Spanish writer/director Hector Vincens isn’t interested in our sympathy. He’s just interested in subjecting us to his cruel thriller, setting the stage with one of the most ghastly reveals since Jack Nicholson’s tryst in room 237. It gets a bit clumsy from there, with lots of flopping around on the floor. But that scene — you’ll know it — easily sustains The Corpse of Anna Fritz until graves are spit on.
By the way, you know how you can hear outlandish things when you hear someone sing in a different language? Without the distinctive patter of that language, your brain translates the syllables into English. To my ears, it sounded like the song playing over the credits was “Cats Know Everything”. Ha ha. I must be mishearing a Spanish phrase.
Nope. The end credits song is in English and it’s called “Cats Know Everything”. Corpse of Anna Fritz: 2. Me: 0.
The Corpse of Anna Fritz is available exclusively on flixfling.com, whatever that is, starting March 8.
Chick and McMaster discuss Korean (South) MMO Black Desert Online, Pillars of Eternity, and Superhot. A completely different McMaster makes an appearance to tell us about The Long Dark.
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The (unfair) narrative about Star Wars: Battlefront is that it’s a multiplayer-only shooter, like the Battlefield series by the same developer. Which is news to me. I’ve played plenty of single-player and plenty of local splitscreen with a friend. One of the hooks for me is that when I beat a map on the hard difficulty setting, I’m no longer limited to the designated loadouts. Now I can bring in whatever equipment I want to help me beat it on expert. Here I come with my choice of thermal detonators, jump packs, personal shields, and bowcasters. It’s a great incentive to play the higher difficulty levels and a perfectly cromulent single-player and splitscreen pursuit.
Wait. Hold on just a minute. I’ve beaten Hoth on hard. But before I can go charging back in with thermal detonators, jump packs, personal shields, and bowcasters, it turns out I have to unlock them first by leveling up. The thermal detonator is easy. I unlocked that so long ago maybe I didn’t even have to unlock it. But the bowcaster? I can’t use that until I’m level 32. And that will never — I repeat, never — happen until I’ve spent many hours playing online against random strangers.
Okay, maybe it’s multiplayer only, after all.
After the jump, hell and shooters are other people. Continue reading →
