Tokyo in Secret World was never just a city in Japan. In terms of the lore, it is ground zero for the supernatural horrors that make The Secret World what it is. Tokyo is the source of mobs, quests, character skills, filth, villains, ghosts, and everything else that makes The Secret World more than a game about people living quiet lives on a New England coast. That would have been interesting, but a terrible MMO. Then, somewhere into the game’s mid-life, Tokyo became the name of promised new content that wasn’t just more instanced adventures or a new branch on the skill tree or more costumes. Tokyo would be a whole new area for folks who had exhausted Egypt and Transylvania. Tokyo would be the fourth act. It would be the next giant step. Tokyo. Would it ever arrive? Why was it taking so long? When would Tokyo get here? Tokyo was an eldritch El Dorado.
Tokyo is finally here as part of Issue #9: The Black Signal, available now for $9. For a little more than twice that amount, you can get a collector’s edition with special in-game doo-dads and a Japanese schoolgirl uniform. Lest you think the schoolgirl uniform is just gratuitous cheesecake, there’s a tradition in Japanese horror of schoolgirls in their uniforms dispatching monsters. Which is gratuitous, to be sure, but you can’t blame Funcom for knowing their source material.
More information about Issue #9 is available here. I should probably temper my expectations for Tokyo, since it’s “only” a new issue. But given how distinct Funcom made the other three regions in Secret World, I can’t help but have high hopes.
Maybe there’s too much new content in Guild Wars 2 for you. Maybe you missed some of the time-limited seasonal or story-based stuff. Maybe you’re not playing for the same reason you’re not watching some long running series like Dexter or Game of Thrones; because after a certain point, catching up is a whole lot more work than simply watching something else. But what’s worse about Guild Wars 2 is that there’s no way to catch up on some of the stuff that has passed you by.
Going forward, ArenaNet intends to change that with a new feature called a story journal, which is like a DVR for the time-limited content.
To unlock an episode and have it added to your story Journal, you simply need to log in to the game during the two-week period that the release is live to be given permanent, free access to the storyline of that episode. Once you’ve unlocked it by simply logging in, you can replay that episode’s storyline on any character on your account as many times as you like from your story Journal forever.
Any storylines you miss entirely can be purchased. Guild Wars 2 is also changing its approach to storyline achievements:
Achievements within story steps from episodes will operate very differently as well. Once one character on your account has completed an episode in their story journal, every character on your account will have access to a set of challenging achievements. At any time once unlocked, you can return and attempt to replay that episode in order to complete the achievements. The achievements will be much more difficult to complete than those traditionally found in Season 1, and are intended to be challenging achievements for skilled players to overcome. Each achievement will award both achievement points and material rewards.
Story journals go live with the debut of season two in July. Read more here.
During an address in Poland, President Barack Obama mentioned The Witcher as an example of Poland’s cultural and economic contribution to the rest of the world. I’m okay with that. I mean, Kieslowski’s Red, White, and Blue are great and all, but they don’t have much swordplay.
What I’m not okay with is President’s obvious bias against PCs, which are the primary platform for the Witcher games. When he mentioned The Witcher, he made the above gesture, as if he was steering Geralt around with a controller’s thumbsticks. Pfft. And to think I voted for the guy.
Wildstar is officially out today. It’s been available for the past several days for folks who bought into the headstart weekend. So how is it?
After the jump, glad you asked. Continue reading →
Join us for a discussion of the creepy Jake Gyllenhaal double feature, Enemy. If you want to avoid spoilers, fast forward to the 46-minute mark for this week’s 3×3 about deadly videogames.
Next week: Edge of Tomorrow
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The typical “just add Cthulhu” approach would make Witchmarsh a mere sidescrolling shooter, although a charming one. It certainly looks like it’s got one foot planted squarely in the sidescrolling shooter camp. Just look at the animated images on its crowdsourcing page of an investigator shotgunning what look like a couple of byakhees, or the firing arc of the bow straightening the longer it’s pulled. Seems at first glance like a hearty action game under a Lovecraftian sheet, in which era-appropriate characters shoot at Lovecraftian things. Maybe a “Metroidvania”. Arkhamvania?
But Witchmarsh has greater ambitions beyond its 2D sidescrolling action. From the description:
An action RPG set in 1920s Massachusetts. Create and manage a team of investigators in a story-driven supernatural mystery…Witchmarsh combines the eccentricities of the 1920s with elements of mystery and horror; think equal parts Lovecraft and Wodehouse. You’ll come across a host of oddball characters, from flappers and the nouveau riche, to petulant swamp wizards.
It’s an intriguing list of features, particularly with the promise of exploration, flexible character development, and co-op multiplayer. I’m imagining a combination of the boardgame Eldrich Horror and Adventure on the Atari 2600 and a Bioware RPG. The promo video demonstrates that the developers at Inglenook know atmosphere. Just the name of their studio speaks volumes. Inglenook. So suspiciously quaint that of course it would conceal unspeakable horrors.
Witchmarsh just met its target funding and has an estimated December release.
This week, Tom Chick and Bruce Geryk talk to a couple of the guys behind Sunless Sea, the subterranean nautical exploration game set in the world of Fallen London. Paul Arendt and Alexis Kennedy from Failbetter Games, one of the best places to look for an example of great writing in videogames, kick off a conversation about the importance of writing in videogames. And remember, eating people is wrong. And also funny.
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“But do you think it’s better than Sonic Racing All-Stars Transformed? Whatever that one is called? You know, the one with Sonic.”
He thinks for a minute. I don’t have to think. I already know the answer. But he’s thinking.
“I mean, yeah, I can understand that you like Mario Kart 8,” I continue. “But better than Sonic Transformed All-Stars Racing?”
He’s still thinking.
After the jump, here I am, discussing the comparative merits of kiddie racing games. Continue reading →
Have you ever been at a dinner when another couple hosting gets into a protracted argument? There’s nothing quite so tedious as being a bystander when someone else’s baggage is strewn around the room. That’s what it’s like watching Some Velvet Morning, in which Stanley Tucci and Alice Eve are a couple with an indeterminate history, getting into an argument, and drawing it out for 80 minutes. As the baggage unpacks, they’re both so overbearing, so typical, so flailing away at the thrust and counterthrust, poking, stabbing, deflecting weak verbal daggers, parrying, sniping. At least they’re such capable actors. Tucci is too often stereotyped as effete or a villain or an effete villain, so it’s always a bit of a thrill to see him throw his weight around. Eve is stunning to the point of being distracting — what was she saying just now? — but she plants both feet firmly and holds her own as the tedium unfolds. Get ready for the sort of actorly naturalistic bickering you might see in a 99-seat black box theatre that didn’t want to pay the roytalties for a production of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf.
And because this is a Neil LaBute script — it’s barely a movie for the way it never leaves Eve’s apartment — you don’t get to draw conclusions until you realize where he’s taking you. Which is pretty offensive. But he’s not done taking you someplace. As Neil LaBute demonstrates when he’s at his best, brutality can be playful. Is he trolling? Or is this tedium a set-up for a punchline? Or an observation about your own assumptions? Who’s Afraid of Neil LaBute?
Some Velvet Morning is available for VOD. Support Qt3 and watch it on Amazon.com.
At the end of State of Decay, you blow up a wall and escape from Trumbull Valley. Except in a zombie apocalypse, there’s really nowhere to escape to. So it’s back to Trumbull Valley. For the past year, developer Undead Labs has done their best to keep Trumbull Valley interesting and relevant with the Breakdown DLC. But eventually, you can’t drive around a bend in the road, look behind a rock, or cut through an alley without knowing the exact landscape you’re going to see on the other side. In an era of procedurally generated terrain, Trumbull Valley feels even smaller than it really is.
So it’s pretty exciting to finally go someplace new with the Lifeline DLC, which takes place in a new downtown environment. And which is out on Friday. Surprise! I wish more developers could spring their release dates on us three days in advance.
It’s also pretty exciting to have plenty of ammo, air strikes, and skilled soldiers for your early missions. Oh, look, I’ve found a hunting rifle and I don’t even need it because everyone already has a pair of assault rifles and my influence is topped out even though I just carelessly called in a pair of drone strikes. The idea is that you’ll gradually run low on supplies and, I presume, get overrun and eaten. But until then, Lifeline is a great way to give zombies the what-for in a new setting.
Someone who worked on Thief once said that stealth games make you feel like you’re getting away with something. That’s what I kept thinking while I watched SuicideMario shopping. I think that’s what she was doing. She sat there in her car for a bit. She got it. She went into a store. She came back out. She kept looking at her phone. I mostly sat in my car observing from a safe distance. I drove along slowly, following her. I even turned off the radio in the car just like you turn off the radio when you’re looking for an address. She might not have even known she was being followed. I was that sneaky. I was getting away with something.
After the jump, private eyes, watching you Continue reading →
The X-Men cross oceans of time in X-Men: Days of Future Past. If you want to skip spoilers, join us for this week’s 3×3 at the 1:01 mark, at which point we discuss gas masks in movies.
Next week: Enemy
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The conventional wisdom about Eldritch Horror is that it’s more streamlined than its predecessor Arkham Horror, which was Fantasy Flight’s sprawling, finicky, shoggoth-esque co-op monstrosity of investigators rolling dice to make combat checks and evasion checks and counting how many monsters are out and, oh look, we’ve just lost horribly to some Ancient One or another because we’re at ten, no, nine monsters on the board so let’s keep going, oops, no, ten, I forgot to count the sky box. And it is. Eldritch Horror is far more streamlined, partly because Fantasy Flight hasn’t yet turned it into a mule for their inevitable add-ons.
But there’s something more important at work here. Eldritch Horror is so much better than Arkham Horror for a reason much bigger than mere streamlining.
After the jump, he’s got the whole world in his claws. Continue reading →
Transistor starts off strong with its phenomenal soundtrack, striking visuals, lively animation, and intriguing premise. Yeah, these are the guys who did Bastion, all right. You find a second power and you assign it to a button. You find a third power and you use to modify your first power. You figure out the turn-based action queue. You’re off and running. Ashley Barrett starts singing. The city glows with color and eerie light. This is going to be good, right?
After the jump, the rest of the game happens. Continue reading →
For several years, I’ve been doing about four hours of podcasting a week. I’m not going to do the math, because if there’s one thing I’m worse at than history, it’s math. But that adds up to a lot of hours of me saying things as they pop into my head. In those many hours, I’ve said a lot of stupid things. One of the stupidest things I’ve said is that nothing interesting happened in American history between The Civil War and World War I. I actually said that. But that was before I got a history lesson from a handful of superlative games, such as Phil Eklund’s Pax Porfiriana (I’m baffled more people aren’t talking about this whip-smart marriage of gameplay, economics, theming, and historical insight), Joel Toppen’s Navajo Wars (which led to me reading Hampton Sides’ expansive and intimate Blood and Thunder: The Epic Story of Kit Carson and the Conquest of the American West), and most recently Javier Garcia de Gabiola’s Cuba: The Splendid Little War. It turns out America did some of her best and worst growing up in that gap between The Civil War and World War I.
After the jump, if Canada is America’s hat, Cuba is America’s untied left shoe. Continue reading →
