There’s a reason Twilight Zone episodes are only a half-hour long. They’re all bite-sized premises and twists, less interested in exploring than titillating. Like a lot of science fiction, they’re happy to ask “what if?” and then leave the question hanging for you to ponder. But it takes longer to really explore a premise, to examine the implications of a twist, to pick up the thread and see where it leads. It’s a whole other level of commitment when the premise is a starting point, when the twist is the set-up, when the “what if?” is followed up with an answer resolved by relatable well-written characters making meaningful points about the human condition.
By the way, I heartily recommend The One I Love, starring the irresistible Mark Duplass and Elisabeth Moss, deflty directed by first-timer Charlie McDowell from a fiendishly clever script by Justin Lader. It’s also worth calling out the score by Saunder Jurriaans and Danny Bensi, who did the music for Enemy. The One I Love is available now on DVD, video on demand, and Netflix’s instant watch.
For your Let’s Plays, you don’t have to settle for hipsters who are no good at the game cutting wise for an hour. Or some cynical YouTube personality with an accent and an absurd pseudonym. Because Double Fine has launched a new series called Devs Play, which features someone good at a game sitting down to play with someone with unique insight into the game. In the first episode, Double Fine brand manager Greg Rice sits down with Westwood co-founder Louis Castle to play through the godawful infernally difficult 1994 Lion King game for the Genesis. It’s like director’s commentary for a movie, with an informed movie critic and the movie’s director!
Stick around for a cameo shortly before the one-hour mark. “My god, this looks hard,” he offers from his back seat. Indeed. Among the many things I learned from this excellent episode is that The Lion King is way outside the threshold of what I’ll tolerate in a game these days. 1994 was a long time ago. As Greg Rice notes, “It was a period when you’d buy one game and play it all summer and figure it out.”
The series continues with five more episodes to be posted weekly.
Wait, you haven’t played Grand Theft Auto V? Seriously? I obviously haven’t done my job if you missed this review and the top pick on this list of my favorite games of 2013. But if you’ve got Playstation 4 or Xbox One, your timing is impeccable. Rockstar’s latest and greatest is ready for you and there’s no excuse for you to miss out on an absolute masterpiece of modern videogaming. It’ll even be along on the PC shortly. Oh boy, are you in for a treat.
But what if you’ve already played it on the Xbox 360 or Playstation 3? Is this newest release relevant to you?
After the jump, when is it worth buying a game a second time?Continue reading →
With the latest patch for Driveclub, the Playstation 4’s beleagured driving sim has pretty much reached the state it should have been at when it was released. The connectivity issues have been fixed, the challenges finally work, races are fully stocked with face-off challenges that mix up the action, and all the DLC vehicles and tours are free for everyone (more vehicles and tours will be out later this month).
The patch also adds the dynamic weather feature that was going to be added post-launch. “Snow in Norway, rain in Scotland,” Evolution Studios claimed. But dynamic weather doesn’t just mean the sudden onslaught of snow flurries or possible showers. Races that had previously taken place under the lowering grey skies of Canada can break out in bright sunlight. It’s yet another lovely effect in an already lovely game.
So in these early hours, I like The Crew a whole lot. But I can’t say for sure whether that’s because The Crew is a great game or because it’s part of a genre with too few games. Open-world caRPGs are few, far between, expensive to make, rarely as successful as they need to be, and exactly what I want to play when I play a driving game. It speaks volumes that the greatest open-world caRPG is still Midnight Club: Los Angeles, a 2008 game that understood the importance of personality as only Rockstar understands. Personality in the driving model (the fundamental gameplay of any driving game), and personality in the places you drive. There is no game that handles quite like Midnight Club: Los Angeles, and until Grand Theft Auto V, there was no open-world that presented Los Angeles with such ineffable Los Angelesness.
After the jump, we’re not just in Los Angeles anymore.Continue reading →
Ken Block’s latest gymkhana video — this series features his drifting prowess in various souped up cars — follows him and a custom-build four-wheel-drive ’65 Mustang through several Los Angeles locations. What’s striking about this one is how much it reminds me of the basic thrust of Grand Theft Auto V’s action, which taps into man’s primal need to drive wrecklessly through all those familiar streets of Los Angeles, as seen in countless movies and television shows. But unlock Mr. Block, who races through streets closed off by the police, we get to do it with traffic and pedestrians turned on.
This week we don’t see a movie about an X-Man or the Prince of Persia. We instead see a handful of Gilroy brothers making great use of Jake Gyllenhaal.
