Bear with me for a bit, because this is going to get ugly. I have some serious reservations about Skylanders: Swap Force. Serious enough that I think they belong at the beginning of any conversation about this game, or “game”, or business model for selling figures. In fact, my reservations have at times coalesced into loathing. But, like many important reservations, they aren’t the full story. And they’re far from the last word.
So, after the jump, let me tell you why you might want to steer clear of Skylanders. Continue reading →
Are you Assassins Creeded out? Are you too fatigued to climb any more towers or parkour along one more historical city’s skyline? Who can blame you? It’s time for a vacation. At sea. I can assure you that if you’ve got Assassin’s Creed burnout, this week’s Assassin’s Creed 4: Black Flag is the Assassin’s Creed for you. It’s a cross between the freesailing of Sid Meier’s Pirates, the handcrafted seascape adventure of Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker, and the lush production values of an Assassin’s Creed game. And at long last it has a modern-day section that isn’t terrible! Consider this a threat to your wallet.
Also, Battlefield 4 is out this week if you want to pop off some ammunition.
A cast of Hollywood celebrities in a movie written by Cormac “No Country for Old Men” McCarthy and directed by Ridley “Prometheus” Scott? What could go right? At the 46-minute mark, you’ll get yours on this week’s 3×3 when we talk about our favorite moments of movie comeuppance.
Next week: Ender’s Game
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I have no idea what to make of Basement Crawl, an indie title created for the Playstation 4 by an unproven Polish developer. Based on the bullet points in a press release, it sounds like a latter day Bomberman with a horror motif. The developer promises more info soon. Until then, the box art (pictured) is promising.
Also, Naughty Bear was underrated. That’s right, I said that.
Brandon Cackowski-Schnell, Tom Chick, and Rob Harvey are adults enjoying certain children’s games. What’s the deal with that?
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Don’t be fooled by the iOS platform. This universal app isn’t exactly lite fare. A game can last for a few hours, or at least several sessions, once you’ve learned to endure the weight of constant decay. The tactical combat is simple, but occasionally oppressive, sometimes because of the randomness. Your entire army might march into a cruel latticework of archers and there’s nothing you can do about it. No matter what happens, it will all end with a crushing defeat as you scrabble to eke out a few more points. You probably won’t get any more points. The final turns will likely be a matter of rolling over to die. Just hit the next button a few more times.
After the jump, learning to live with failure. Continue reading →
The podcast is split two-to-one on this latest remake of Carrie, in which the stunning Chloe Grace Moretz plays an unconvincing wallflower with telekinetic powers that make this a prom to rememeber. At the 51-minute mark, this week’s 3×3 is for our favorite shopping scenes, some of which include people actually buying things.
Next week: The Counselor
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There are a few things missing from Grand Theft Auto V. A playable ingame MMO, for instance. Why can’t Franklin sit in front of a computer to grind away at some fictional fantasy world? I’m not at all joking. I am 100% serious. After all, he spent enough time and money with an online self-help program he found in GTA V’s fake internet. You guys did that bit, right? I can’t be the only one who fell for it. Spoiler: I got a T-shirt for my trouble.
But the main thing missing from Grand Theft Auto V is the ability to run a drug empire, similar to what you could do in Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars. Trevor has the equipment, material resources, and personnel to cook meth and I’m sure some of those layabouts in Shady Shores would be eager customers. Furthermore, the TV show Breaking Bad means cooking meth is something we all want to do. But for whatever reason, Rockstar has denied us. Maybe with DLC.
Until then, there’s Clicking Bad, a full-blown meth empire simulation that doesn’t quite offer the same level of graphics as Grand Theft Auto V.
(Thanks, Kelly Wand!)
It’s pretty easy to be dismissive of Zen Studio’s latest pinball tables. Check it out:
Zen Pinball continues their tradition of milking franchises with three more Star Wars tables. These include a Darth Vader table with traditional ramp-based gameplay. It opens with the infamous “noooooo” scene and continues with the Sith Lord commending your performance with basso profundo observations such as “fantastic”, “awesome”, and “absolutely marvelous”. Okay, maybe not that last one, but that’s probably because I haven’t gotten enough points yet. It’s a very open table, a very red table, and a very “Uh, really? Why?” table. You also get a Return of the Jedi table that iterates on the excellent Empire Strikes Back table in the last Star Wars pack. But just as Return of the Jedi is a pale shadow of Empire Strikes Back, the Return of the Jedi table is a pale shadow of the Empire Strike Back table, featuring Ewok collection, a terrible Princess Leia impersonator, and a mission in which R2-D2 and C-3PO have to walk to the door of Jabba’s palace. George Lucas and maybe even Richard Marquand would be proud. 2 stars.
See? How easy that was?
But, after the jump, there is another. Continue reading →
In Beyond: Two Souls, Ellen Page plays a creepy version of the character model of Ellie from The Last of Us. She has access to something called an iDen, which has a number of apps. It has a wall hack app. It has an app to divert the flow of flashbacks into her face so that she can see them. It has a medical app that you’ll almost never use. It has an app to tump over items that are scripted to tump over. It has a mindhack app that can mindhack about 1% of the characters you meet. That’s the problem with the iDen: it only works where the game developers say it can work.
For instance, mysterious things happen at a house and the Ellen Page character model is told not to look outside. Under no circumstance. Don’t look outside. Just don’t. Don’t even think about it. Naturally, this means she’s supposed to look outside. So you fire up the iDen’s wall hack app only to discover that suddenly the walls to the outside of the house are impervious to wall hacking. Oh, sure, you can still wall hack the walls to adjoining rooms, no problem. But certain walls have now become magically immune to the iDen. So now you have to figure out the puzzle some other way. Except that it’s not a puzzle at all, since the solution is to go to the front door and open it. Are games getting dumber, or am I getting smarter? Wait, I think I mean the other way around.
After the jump, the iDen explained Continue reading →
Tom Chick and Jason McMaster announce their upcoming charity golf tournament for some sort of charity, probably having to do with sick kids. They also discuss Grand Theft Auto V, online and off; whether League of Legends is really a sport or even worth spectating; the latest in Marvel Heroes’ superheroics and eternity splinters; dogslicers and horsechoppers in Pathfinder; and the gameplay [sic] in Beyond: Two Souls.
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This is what happens when you let Roger Corman make sci-fi.
Has your Pathfinder group reached Thistletop Delve yet? If so, your progress in this unique collectible card RPG is stalled for the time being, waiting for the next adventure deck. Hang in there! Later this month, publisher Paizo will release the Skinsaw Murders Adventure Deck, which takes your characters to the next level. Curious what’s in store for you?
After the jump, beyond Thistletop Continue reading →
The camera just happens to be floating in space, pointing in a fixed direction that will coincide with the route of a Corellian corvette fleeing from an Imperial Star Destroyer. If that camera had been positioned a few feet higher, the corvette would have banged right into it, ruining the shot and depriving us all of an iconic moment. Instead, it glides smoothly past, close enough that we could almost reach up our hand and feel its belly, like a diver touching a whale. We can admire the detail and — more importantly — the size of the Tantive IV. Look at how long it’s taking to pass overhead.
After the jump, did you know that Leia’s blockade runner was called the Tantive IV? Continue reading →
I can think of a handful of what I consider perfect movies. These aren’t literally perfect movies, of course. I don’t believe in some Platonic ideal movie made manifest. Instead, these are movies where a uniquely talented writer, director, and actors understand each other completely, and they have something relevant to say, and they somehow advance the medium or tell a story that connects with me. I’ve never really thought of videogames on the same level, which is odd, considering how I consistently try to apply the same standards to videogames that I apply to movies and other forms of entertainment. In five or ten years, with enough distance, will I consider Grand Theft Auto V one of those rare perfect games?
After the jump, I’m torn between “ask again later” and “signs point to yes” Continue reading →
