Jay: Today, we put an end to Baron Blade’s nefarious schemes. He begins the game as the Terralunar Implosion Beam inventor. What does this mean?
Tom: This means if you haven’t beaten the Baron’s first stage before he discards 15 cards, the ingame text explains what happens: “Baron Blade’s Terralunar Implosion Beam activates, pulling the moon into the earth. Game over.”
After the jump, will worlds collide? Continue reading →
Tom: Sentinels of the Multiverse is one of the purest sandbox games for how freely you mix and match its components. There is no set way to play. You must make choices. Every game consists of at least three components, each a small deck of cards. The villain is a deck of cards, the environment is a deck of cards, and however many heroes you want to bring along is each a deck of cards. Although the idea is that it’s a co-operative game in which each player controls one hero, it’s also a fine solitaire game. The villain’s difficulty supposedly scales by the number of heroes he’s facing, so you could presumably play with a single hero. But we find that three heroes is the sweet spot for maximum synergistic superheroics.
Jay: I love this game for the stories it generates while you play. The mechanics can be fun and are full of little rules interactions that I enjoy exploring, but more importantly, the combinations create unique narrative experiences. One game you can be fighting a mad scientist on a tropical island filled with dinosaurs and the next game you are defending the earth from a hostile galactic invasion while on a martian space base. As a way to explore these stories, we’re going to fight each of the villains, with the stipulation that the heroes will consist of that villain’s rival and two others of our choosing. We’ll start with the easier villains and work our way up.
After the jump, robot roll call. Continue reading →
Tom: Super Mario 3D World has more endings than the Lord of the Rings movies. Just when you think it’s over, it’s not because there’s more to do. And then you do all that, and you get to the end and…well, I’d rather let you discover that. Suffice to say that this game diary probably could have gone for another day or two.
But we set out to write up eight worlds, so let’s write up the eighth world in Super Mario 3D World.
After the jump, eight is enough? Continue reading →
Scott: What’s in that huge castle!? I want to know, but as you can see I need 130 green stars to unlock the super Bowser castle and I only have 114. I guess I need to go grind stars. Do I go back to world one or two? Should I try some of those harder levels I powered through just to get to the end? Is it time to finally figure out what the heck is going on with those Captain Toad levels? Ugh.
Tom: Obviously, I’m better than you at Super Mario 3D World, because at this point I have 124 stars. Of course, I’ve done all the Captain Toad levels as I found them; I enjoy the change of pace of solving a jumpless puzzle that I can turn around in my hands. But, yeah, it’s kind of a dick move to drop a “you shall not pass” in our way this late in the game. With the exception of a few optional levels, I thought I was ahead of the green star curve!
After the jump, what’s in the castle. Continue reading →
Tom: So, okay World Six, not bad. You even took a few bits that I thought would be terrible — such as the constantly dropping level where you have to keep jumping up to survive, and the boss monster that keeps splitting into a thousand tiny pieces that swarm me — and turned them into something I liked by the time it was over. I was sitting there playing thinking “ugh, this is going to be awful” and then it was over and I thought “oh, that was pretty cool”.
But it’s time to talk about the elephants in the room. It’s time to talk about a couple of enemies that have a serious impact on this game. It’s time to talk about two of Mario’s arch nemeses.
After the jump, Bowser’s got nothing on these guys. Continue reading →
Tom: Above is an example of where a platformer starts to come unravelled for me. That’s a picture of the last jump in Tricky Trapeze Theater.
After the jump, how to get people to hate Super Mario 3D World. Continue reading →
Scott: For the most part the social interaction stuff has been harmless. Most folks are content to scrawl a little fun graffiti with their stickers, or comment on such and such level. The Miiverse posts are so antiseptic and innocent, it’s a nice alternative to what we usually see when anonymous gamers share their thoughts. It must be tough to moderate this content considering it’s not just text but also drawings and clipart mashups. What could be a dicey environment for kids has turned out to be pretty pleasant. The nice lady in the above screenshot even helped me spot an easter egg.
After the jump, not everyone is as nice as Amandine. Continue reading →
Tom: Love the driveable ice skate! Just when you’re on the verge of saying, “okay, enough with the damn ice”, the ice skate comes along and you’re a little sad there isn’t actually more ice.
Scott: The ice skate is a great example of how creatively rich Mario games can be. As far as I can tell the ice skate is confined to one level. The skate is a great nod to Mario fans. I remember a similar level in Super Mario Bros. 3 where you get inside a big boot and stomp around. It only appears in that one level. Bad examples of this are the levels where you ride that seamonster around. Is it supposed to be some Yoshi stand in? Is Yoshi too big time to show up in a Mario game?
After the jump, size matters Continue reading →
Tom: Hmm, Shadow Play Alley is certainly stylish. And, hey, look, it’s the Mystery House Melee, a sort of quick n’ dirty combat chamber with increasingly difficult enemies. Basically a 30-second horde mode, with a star for each wave you pass. This is more like it. In fact, it occurs to me that short levels always make for a better game. If I don’t like a level, it’s over quickly. If I do like a level, it’s convenient to replay!
But what really won me over was Double Cherry Pass. Who can resist a small army of Princess Peach clones raising holy hell with fireballs? And I even got the sticker to show for it. It’s a picture of Princess Peach with a fireball in her hand. It’s like they knew I was going to take Princess Peach in this level! Here I am, caring about a sticker.
After the jump, Nintendo’s idea of multiplayer Continue reading →
Tom: Hey, you don’t have to be Mario! I can instead think of this as Super Princess Peach 3D World. The next two weeks are going to be much easier. Furthermore, it has cat suits. Cat suits! It’s a little weird and I can’t help but think of that scene in The Shining when Shelley Duvall sees people in bear suits or cat suits or whatever doing things to each other, but I’ll gladly take weird over that insufferable little plumber.
Scott: Mario loves getting weird. The cat suit is just the latest in a long line of animal skins: Frog Mario, Racoon Mario, freaking Tanooki Mario (Tom’s previous fave) and that’s just canon. I’m sure there are plenty of bizarro suits in Mario games I haven’t played. It’s surprising it took this long to get to cat. Seems like a massive oversight.
Tom: Nintendo is clearly more of a dog person.
Scott: Or maybe the folks over at Nintendo were waiting for a desperate moment like this — Wii U on the rocks, stockholders getting anxious — to break out the cat.
After the jump, Tanookis explained Continue reading →
Tom Chick and Scott Dobrosielsky will play through all eight worlds of Super Mario 3D World, writing an entry after each world for the next two weeks. What makes these grown men qualified to guide you through the worlds of Nintendo’s latest family-friendly platformer? Glad you asked.
After the jump, their bona fides Continue reading →
In every mainstream MMO, the gear your character collects acts, alongside the abilities you choose for your toon, as a gate for accessing more content. It’s an incredibly powerful carrot to dangle in front of players. Get more stuff with better stats and you get to level up and see more of the world. If the equipment the game gives you both looks good and improves your chances of survival, so much the better.
Secret World, though, makes a big part of the loot chase — namely armor — invisible on your character. This effectively divides equipment so that the useful gear you wear can be divorced from the cosmetic way your character appears onscreen. I’m not only chasing loot for practical reasons to improve my guy, but separately I’m also on the lookout for outfits that make him look sharp, too.
After the jump, does this hoodie make my toon look fat? Continue reading →
Developer Funcom wisely put Solomon Island at the beginning of The Secret World. This area is the most accessible, familiar, and varied. As Chris wrote in the previous entry, it’s arguably the strongest part of the game. It certainly affords ample hooks from which to hang the usual horror tropes. HP Lovecraft’s New England by way of Stephen King’s Maine with room for zombies, ghosts, Native American graveyards, re-animators, and more bigfoots than you can shake a dowsing rod at.
But, after the jump, there’s more to horror than King, Lovecraft, and Coombs. Continue reading →
In college, I spent many hours in the Ellis Library at the University of Missouri. The gigantic old building is a huge and somewhat forbidding place. The farther up you go, the less light you encounter. Shelves of books press together against narrow aisles, with study desk cubbyholes squeezed in wherever they fit. I’m guessing it’s fairly typical for big universities. But whoever designed the top of the Innsmouth Academy knows places like the Ellis Library.
After the jump, shhhh! Continue reading →
Who doesn’t like variety in character skins, clothes, and weapons? There’s no reason every sword and helmet should look the same. But I can’t help but wince every time my character, who relies on pistol skills in combat, fires her “pistols”, which are the nicest ones I’ve found. It sounds as ridiculous as it looks.
2 stars
PC
Up next: the wisdom of Solomon Island
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