Imperial Stars II is kind of a joke name. The first Imperial Stars isn’t a published game, but a prototype that Chris Taylor made some time ago. No, not that Chris Taylor. The other Chris Taylor. The one who made the first Fallout and, more recently, the superlative solitaire boardgame Nemo’s War. Taylor updated the Imperial Stars prototype enough that it was a whole new game deserving of a whole new title, at which point Victory Point Games published it. Imperial Stars II was born.
After the jump, when spreadsheets collide. Continue reading →
One of the new features of the Heart of Thorns add-on for Guild Wars 2 is a new player vs. player mode called stronghold. ArenaNet recently revealed details about this mode and it turns out it’s basically a five vs. five MOBA. You can read an overview of stronghold mode here and watch a detailed presentation on an abandoned map in this forty minute video. You’ll note stronghold has all the trappings of a MOBA, with the equivalent of creeps, player roles, lanes, defensive towers, jungling, and resource gathering. That’s the map up there. You can see the lanes. You can also see that it’s got trebuchets. I don’t think trebuchets are a trapping of MOBAs, but they should be.
One of the things that mystifies me about MOBAs is how long they can take. A round of League of Legends takes about twice as long as it should, especially considering the relatively brittle match progression. You’re just knocking down towers, one after the other. There’s none of the fluidity you get in an actual RTS, with base building, variable army composition, and wide-open maps. Do MOBA players really want to push their way down the same lanes for over a half hour? Given the popularity of the genre, I guess they do.
So for all the MOBA trappings of stronghold mode, I’m delighted to hear ArenaNet designer Hugh Norfolk say:
We want to still preserve that feeling that you can play PvP in Guild Wars 2 and you’re not investing some weird amount of time that can be anywhere from ten minutes to thirty minutes to forty minutes or whatever. So we want to preserve time so players can have quick intense battles over a short period of time.
He later estimates that a round of stronghold will last fifteen minutes. That sounds about right to me. I can be finishing up my third round of stronghold while you’re finally getting to the enemy base in your first round of League of Legends!
Mr. Grey will see us this week.
Next week: Kingsmen
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Oh Australia, you’ve done it again! Aussie zombie movie Wyrmwood: Road of the Dead is a revelation emerging from the shambling horde of me-too cash-ins. Brothers Kiah and Tristan Roache-Turner — remember those names, because these are a couple of guys to watch — directed, wrote, edited, and even handled production design and sound design in this spirited and immaculately paced splatterfest. Wyrmwood has all the energy of a first-time director in love with his job, but perfectly willing to homage his influences. It freely riffs on Sam Raimi’s playfully slithering camera, George Miller’s classic post-apocalyptic outback chic, and the sickly visceral red splat of Romero and Savini’s full color zombie movies. But Wyrmwood is also refreshingly original, with its own unique take on zombie ecology that feeds into the can-do frontier spirit of the Australian outback and a mad scientist sequence so outrageously nonsensical that it wouldn’t feel out of place in a Resident Evil game. In fact, part of the appeal of Wyrmwood is how it plays as a loving mash-up of movie zombie mythology and videogame zombie mythology. Return of the Living Dead meets Dead Rising.
Although it’s ultimately about a couple of very specific characters, you can’t have a zombie apocalypse without killing a bunch of protagonists. You’ll meet plenty of tough men who know how to weld, headshot, scheme their way out of impossible situations, and even reference their cocks as needed, along with a uniquely Australian take on what would normally be the comedic sidekick. There’s even a last-minute villain totally worthy of being the movie’s hero.
But the real standout in Wyrmwood is its heroine, played by Bianca Bradey, who spends much of the movie acting with her eyes. Her introductory scene is one of the most thrilling zombie sequences I’ve seen since 28 Weeks Later and one of the creepiest zombie sequences I’ve seen since I was a kid and I stumbled across Italian zombie movies. A shambling corpse is one thing. A snarling infected feral zombie is yet another thing. But the thing dangling from the rafters in Brooke’s studio is something else entirely. And Brooke’s eventual contribution to surviving the zombie apocalypse is yet another example of how Wyrmwood is no mere me-too cash-in. It’s an Australian fever dream that has earned a place alongside classic zombie movies.
Wyrmwood is currently available on video on demand. Support Qt3 by watching it on Amazon.com.
I’m not in the habit of recommending, much less playing, early access games. I’d just as soon wait until a game is finished before playing it. It makes no sense to me that I’d jump into some form of entertainment while it’s still being made, any more than I’d eat lasagne before it’s been baked or move into a house before the roof was in place. “Hey Tom,” Joss Whedon might ask, “do you want to watch Avengers 2 now? I haven’t shot all the scenes, and the ending isn’t in yet, and there’s no CG yet for The Hulk. But here, you can watch what I’ve got so far!” What kind of deal is that? Why wouldn’t I wait until the movie comes out? Besides, I have plenty of finished movies I could watch.
It’s no different with games. So why would I play Offworld Trading Company, which enters public beta today and is available for $40 on Steam?
After the jump, it just takes one moment of weakness. Continue reading →
For the most part, you should leave well enough alone when it comes to tracking down the movies that freaked you out as a kid. You’re just going to be disappointed. Your jaded adult eyes will see right through the stuff of your childhood nightmares. Among my recent disappointments are Without Warning, in which an alien uses a fleshy frisbee to hunt humans such as David Caruso; Prophecy, in which a scalded mutant bear ponderously chases Robert Foxworth; and The Giant Spider Invasion, in which a Volkswagen Beetle is draped in black carpet and fitted with long spindly legs to stand in for a giant alien spider.
But some of the things that freaked me out as a kid hold up wonderfully! Phantasm, Jaws, Mario Bava’s Drop of Water segment in an anthology called Black Sabbath, Them, Dawn of the Dead. So I keep trying. My most recent experiment revisiting childhood terror was Blood Beach, which I was surprised to find in Amazon’s instant watch catalog. It’s a movie about something on the Santa Monica beach sucking people under the sand. What I remember most is being truly freaked out by how little is revealed during the course of the movie. Unlike the cover art on Amazon.com, there’s no gore and certainly no scantily clad women being eaten. Blood Beach is not nearly as lurid as the title suggests. Instead, people just disappear under the sand. That’s it. It even attacks during the day, on a crowded beach.
But what I didn’t remember because I was too young to know better is the absolute lack of pacing or craft in this 1980 throwaway B-movie. It is unable to achieve anything beyond its premise. Burt Young plays a wisecracking Chicago cop who seems to have wandered in from a different movie, and occasionally John Saxon shows up as a police lieutenant ordering around some extras playing cops. Saxon even gets a bit of dialogue that I thought was the tagline: “Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water, you can’t even get there”. He actually says that. He actually riffs on the Jaws 2 tagline.
There is a weird scene in which a crazy homeless lady watches impassively while a policeman who’s trying to help her gets sucked under. I remember that scene freaking me out as a kid. Why doesn’t she help? Why doesn’t she at least react? There’s also a gross, very 70s-style scene that turns inadvertently funny. A rapist attacks a woman under the pier, ripping open her shirt. She elbows him and breaks free, cowering in terror as he crawls on his belly towards her. Then the Blood Beach creature attacks him from under the sand, biting off his penis. I’ve never seen a more literal representation of someone getting his dick knocked in the dirt.
I still can’t help but begrudgingly admire Blood Beach for playing it close to the vest, mostly leaving it to our imagination to consider what could be doing this. A coronor who ends up being a stand-in for the usual movie scientist briefly speculates on the nature of the creature. We eventually get a glimpse of it before Burt Young blows it to smithereens, which then scatter about and regenerate into a bunch of little Blood Beach creatures. There was no Blood Beach 2 forthcoming to tell us the continuing story. Instead, Tremors will be along in ten years for the definitive take on the genre of underground monsters, of what lurks beneath. But what Blood Beach managed was a weird iteration on the mythology of quicksand, also a fixture of my childhood fears, as a hungry creature that will eat you alive.
The last pinball table from Zen Studios was yet another superhero table called Venom. I don’t know why it was called that because it was about a black Spider-Man. It was fine, I guess. Certainly better than the original red Spider-Man table. This latest table even had a red Spider-Man in a little table under the main table. Who can keep track of the different colors of Spider-Men? And who cares about them anyway? I’d have almost preferred another Star Wars table. Okay, maybe not. I can’t imagine there’s anything Star Wars themed left. I suppose you could have an Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru table about moisture farming on Tatooine. Don’t think I wouldn’t play the hell out of that.
But I’m delighted to hear that Zen’s next tables, as part of a two-pack called Iron & Steel, aren’t superheroes or Star Wars themes. They are entirely unlicesed! One is a Western table called Wild West Rampage and the other is a Medieval table called Castlestorm. Granted, Castlestorm is based on Zen’s Castlestorm games, but does it count as a license if pretty much no one knows the source material?*
From the developer’s blog:
The Wild West Rampage table stars Cindy, a bold bounty hunter who arrives in the western town of Rackton Point with a bone to pick with the town’s crooked Sheriff Evans. Cindy has her sights aimed on defeating his men and ruining their crooked plans to control the town, but it definitely won’t be easy to loosen Evans’ stranglehold. Hit the trail and experience an exciting Western-inspired playfield complete with a rolling 3D steam engine, swinging saloon doors, a six-shooter ball locker, and duels with members of Sheriff Evans’ posse!
You might think Iron & Steel is an odd name for a Western and Medieval theme. The steel makes sense because swords, but iron? Shouldn’t it be lead because of bullets? Lead & Steel? Zen points out that six-shooters are made of iron. I’ll have to take their word on that. Either way, don’t think I won’t play the hell out of these.
The Iron & Steel Pack will be out February 25 and 26 for every single Zen Pinball platform except the Wii U. Zen promises news of a Wii U release later.
* By the way, Castlestorm is actually pretty good as same-couch multiplayer tower defense slash Angry Birds game.
There’s a quirky appeal in the early parts of The Voices, as we meet Ryan Reynolds as a shy (ha!) wallflower (right…) working a factory job (as if). Whose cat and dog talk to him, complete with CG moving mouths and funny voices (provided by Reynolds himself). Look who’s talking. The cat is crass, aloof, and murderous. The dog is needy and obliging. When Reynolds meets with his psychiatrist, played by the maternally intense Jackie Weaver, he leans forward for no reason and presses his finger into her desk. It’s the sort of random affectation that made people notice Brad Pitt in 12 Monkeys. Reynolds is nothing if not earnest. Then Gemma Arterton and Anna Kendrick as his co-workers arrive on the scene and things get, um, complicated.
Since this is one of those bleakly black comedies, heads start rolling and blood starts splattering. The Voices squanders its quirky appeal and just gets mean and ugly, all black and no comedy. There’s a clever conceit with how the world changes when Reynolds takes his medication, but it’s more a joke of production design than perception. You’d never know The Voices was directed by Iranian expatriate Marjane Satrapi, whose graphic novel memoir Persepolis was adapted into an animated movie. This must be her Hollywood hazing.
However, it’s worth sticking with this black comedy for how it finally finds its groove during the credits. And oh boy, what a groove! This is the movie I wish I’d been watching all along. What a way to redeem ninety minutes.
The Voices is in limited release and available for video on demand. Support Qt3 and watch it on Amazon.com.
Hey, Channing Tatum is a space elf in the latest Wachowski movie!
Next week: Fifty Shades of Grey
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No one can kill a game like Fantasy Flight in their scramble for another buck. Witness Arkham Horror, an already clunky game bloated to maddening proportions of awkwardness with Fantasy Flight’s successive add-ons. If ever a game was worthy of Lovecraftian adjectives like nonEuclidean or Cyclopean, it’s Arkham Horror with all the add-ons. Trying to play will surely drive you mad.
But unlike many of Fantasy Flight’s bloated franchises, a wonderful thing happened with Arkham Horror. It got a reboot with Eldritch Horror, which shaved off the cruft, refocused the gameplay, and restored to cooperative (or solitaire!) gaming a sense of design. It felt like a company trying to make a good game rather than a company trying to make a buck milking a franchise. It felt like redemption. Ah, Eldritch Horror.
You can’t help but wonder how long it will take Fantasy Flight to destroy it.
After the jump, it begins. Continue reading →
This week we see Jude Law go on an undersea heist for Nazi gold.
Next week: Jupiter Ascending
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The very first course in Fire in the Deep, the new set of challenges for Trails Fusion, is a train. In case you thought there weren’t any new mechanics in a Trials game, the train hurtles past overhanging signal lights, so you have to time certain sections so you don’t smack into them, Wile E. Coyote style. Of course, the train is carrying a spinning sawblade the size of a Volkswagen that you have to ramp over. Ten tries later and I finally make it, only to be unable to jump far enough to clear the car carrying loose bombs. I call this train the pain train.
Fire in the Deep is the fourth of six add-ons, available for $5 each, or as part of the $20 season pass.
Offworld Trading Company is the economic real-time strategy game from Civ IV designer Soren Johnson and his new company, Mohawk Games. It has been shrouded for a while now. Not that no one’s been able to play it or talk about it. On the contrary. Early builds have been circulating and the people who’ve played them have been very vocal describing the experience. But no one has posted videos or screenshots. Why? Because they were asked not to. It was easy to imagine some sort of hideous Frankenstein monster placeholder graphics that developer Mohawk Games didn’t want us to see.
But now the shroud has been lifted, with screenshots and even a video on the official site. And I’m delighted to say that — surprise! — it’s an absolutely lovely game, clean and simple, with a shiny but quaint hard sci-fi vibe. Well played, Mohawk Games.
Offworld Trading Company will be available for early access in two weeks. Furthermore, Soren Johnson will be on the Quarter to Three Games Podcast in the near future.
Grey Goo is something worse than bad; it is mundane. Not so much a throwback as a bland crust, the heel of a loaf of bread left on a cutting board. It is a competent husk missing any vital organs. You can practically smell the Westwood coming off the feature list, which is hardly surprising given that developer Petroglyph includes a bunch of former Westwooders. Grey Goo has a lot of the trappings of those Westwood classics: simplicity, speed, streamlining, individual soldiers and tanks jostling each other as they swarm around in a big blob. But what you can’t smell is any sense of personality or joy. In their prime, Westwood games reeked of giddy pleasure. Even when the games weren’t good, they were overflowing with an ebullient affection for the act of throwing armies into each other and watching them blow up. Polish? Pah. Watch these bazooka dudes break up this tank rush!
After the jump, we’ll always have Command and Conquer. Continue reading →
This week we see surprise box office behemoth American Sniper.
Next week: Black Sea
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