The folks at 604 Republic have approached us with phat loot for a contest. I occasionally get offers like this, but I mostly ignore them because it’s goofy stuff like controller decals or a handful of credits for some online poker shenanigans. However, after taking a look at 604’s catalog, I saw about five or six T-shirts that I would gladly wear. In public. Around girls. Like that epic duel design above, which is way better than Jurassic Park 3. Take a look here for more designs.
And if you see anything you like, post in the comments section for this post. Commenters’ names will go into a random drawing. Additionally, join us for the Wednesday night Help Wanted session of Red Dead Redemption, and five (5!) instances of your name will go into the drawing.
A winner will be selected on Monday morning. Your choice of shirt and mailing address will be forwarded to the fine folks at 604, and they’ll send you some phat loot you can wear proudly!
A friend once described Vegas as “Disneyland for adults meets Wal-Mart”. I don’t get it, but I agree with the sentiment, which is to say Vegas is weird and slightly icky and it’s hard to explain why because it’s trying so hard to do things to make you like it.
I’d like to thank the fine folks at Blue Castle, now an internal team at Capcom, for making Dead Rising 2. I haven’t been to Vegas since playing Dead Rising 2. But I’m here now for a press event and I can’t help but look around at all the kitsch and evaluate its effectiveness against zombies. Thanks, Blue Castle, for making Vegas interesting again.
FIFA 12, a Forumula 1 racing game, is out this week. And X-Men Destiny, a DIY mutant game from the creators of Too Human. And an RTS based on Game of Thrones from the creators of Bloodbowl. And a standalone follow-up to the fantasy dungeon sim Dungeons, called Dark Lord, from the creators of Dungeons. And finally the bundled remasters of Ico and Shadow of the Colossus for the Playstation 3.
Don’t worry, next week could be a little brutal.
DC Comics apparently has a line of dolls based on videogame characters as well as the expected superheroes. I have no idea who that guy is up there, but he’s from a videogame. He’s too beefy to be Nathan Drake and too slight to be Marcus Fenix. Man, I have no idea. At any rate, you can purchase him next week for, I’m guessing, about thirty bucks.
Having now played or played alongside each of the five character classes in Diablo III, I think I’ve settled on a favorite.
After the jump, the voodoo that she do Continue reading →
Hard Reset got a patch today that made a few significant changes to how the game plays. Mostly for the better.
Some commentary, after the jump Continue reading →
I partly blame Blizzard for my disappointment at the Diablo III beta. To me, “beta” implies a complete but early build of a game. “Demo” implies a brief taste of a game. If the Diablo III beta had been called a Diablo III demo, I wouldn’t have been quite so surprised at the giant Diablofont message, “Conratulations, you have beaten the Diablo III beta”, after a couple hours of play. Fair enough. I guess Blizzard just wants a few of us banging on their servers. I’m happy to oblige.
But the more pressing issue is that, after playing through this beta twice, I still don’t have a character.
After the jump, this is not your older brother’s Diablo Continue reading →
Late in Gears of War 3, someone will say, “Bloody hell, they found the UIR! It’s a Gorasni ship!” The line is delivered as if it’s something that matters, but Gears of War 3 hasn’t told me what a UIR is or who the Gorasni are. The line might as well have been “Bloody hell, they found the Boop-i-dee-bop! It’s a Whamble-di-dee ship!” It’s an example of how Gears 3 cares about itself far too much to be arsed to care about me.
But my favorite scene is after the jump Continue reading →
You know how everyone has a vice? Like how some people are coffee addicts and some people are, well, heroin addicts? I’m a game addict. I want them all. I suppose part of this is my OCD, but there’s something deep and dark within me that makes me purchase these games and their collector’s editions with reckless abandon.
Point in case: I want Space Marine. However, I’m a big Gears of War fan and know I’ll be busy with Marcus and friends for quite some time. Luckily, the collector’s edition is only available from THQ and I hate waiting, so odds are I’ll just forget about it.
The lesson here, publishers, is to ship collector’s editions to stores so I can’t resist them. Or make two different ones, one I have to order from your site, the other I can get in stores. I’m looking directly at you, Dead Rising 2.
I’ve been told Hard Reset is a short game. I’ll have to take people’s word for it. It’s taking me quite a while to work through it, as I have to play many of the sections over a few times. I usually just need to work out which weapons are best for a given area, and then try a few times to get it right. On the normal difficulty level, this is turning out to be more challenging that I expected.
As a result, this isn’t a game I sit down to play for a few hours at a time, like Gears of War 3, which I powered through with nary a hitch, sometimes barely paying attention. Hard Reset is more like a short sharp dose of spectacular shootering, akin to a shot of espresso (to extend the metaphor, Gears of War 3 is a Big Gulp cup full of day-old 7-11 coffee). I partly blame/credit Hard Reset’s checkpoint system. This isn’t a “save anywhere then reload if you die” game. It’s a game about getting from checkpoint to checkpoint, which leaves the difficulty tuning up to the developers who made the game. I can respect this. They know the game far better than I do when I’m asked to choose easy, normal, or hard. Frankly, even those three choices are a bit much to trust to the average gamer.
If this is supposed to be a four hour game, a lot of my four hours are looping back over themselves, dancing circles around that line between challenge and frustration. Each section of Hard Reset is a challenge in making do with whatever resources I can grab, dealing with the weapon upgrade choices I’ve had to make, and testing my skill at old school Doom style shootering that laughs at the prospect of a reload or crouch button. Either that or I suck at shooters. Probably a little of both. But whatever the case, as soon as it gets to be too much, I can drop the difficulty level to casual. It’s tough, but fair, and the underlying gameplay is good enough to sustain it. The checkpoints that some PC gamers might bemoan as a console convention are sometimes actually game design.
I do wish Hard Reset did a better job encouraging replay by making the scoring clearer and more prominent. Most recently, Fear 3 is the best case example of how a clever scoring system can add a lot. Before that, The Club was unparalleled in this regard. Less successful attempts include Halo: Reach and ODST, Gears of War 3, Bulletstorm, and Bodycount. Without being at least as good as those games at scoring, I don’t see much of a future for Hard Reset. When I’m through with it, I’ll probably be through with it, which is a far more damning way of a game being short than by merely not taking very long to get to the end.
I’d like to think I’m above these little kiddie Kirby games. But then I actually play Canvas Curse, Epic Yarn, or now Mass Attack and I realize how wrong I am. The folks at HAL Laboratory, the division inside Nintendo that makes Kirby games, know how to make a fresh and exciting game featuring the same pale bloated character we’ve been playing all along. Unfortunately, no such thing is true about Epic Games, the folks who made Gears of War 3, which is also out this week.
I’ve tried to stick by Netflix over the years, but they’re making it harder and harder. As if the regular price increases weren’t enough, now they’re implementing a bifurcated system to keep mailed DVDs separate from streaming movies by making them separate services with separate names: Qwikster for the mailed hard copies, and Netflix for the online streaming, each with its own separate website and queue.
But, hey, at least Netflix — er, “Qwikster” — is getting a new feature:
One improvement we will make at [the launch of Qwikster] is to add a video games upgrade option, similar to our upgrade option for Blu-ray, for those who want to rent Wii, PS3 and Xbox 360 games. Members have been asking for video games for many years, and now that DVD by mail has its own team, we are finally getting it done.
In case you’re not hip to Netflix, “upgrade” is another word for “price increase”.
I’ve spent the last week or so playing Dead Island for a review over at GameShark. I’ve enjoyed my time with Dead Island, but as a reviewer, you have to move on. I’m currently playing Dead Rising 2: Off the Record for a preview and it’s throwing me off. For most games, I have a specific routine I follow based on the game and situation. I’ll be back in the swing of things shortly, but for now, I’m stuck in my Dead Island groove. To illustrate my point, I’ve written out my basic objectives when playing both games.
Dead Island Groove: Look around. Are there zombies? Probably. Are there a lot of zombies? If so, then I should run, if not I can choose to run or fight my way through. After the fight, check the dead for items and cash. Keep eyes open for vendor to sell to and a repair station for my weapons. Have thoughts about dieing alone. Die alone.
Dead Rising 2 Groove: Look around. Are there zombies? Probably. Are there a lot of zombies? Duh. Change into spandex shorts and a dress. Look for a bonnet. Laugh constantly during cut-scenes. Look for orange juice. Grab orange juice. Look for flashlights and gems. Take upskirt pictures for extra PP (Prestige Points). Take pictures of people being murdered for extra PP. Keep looking for orange juice, flashlights and gems. Kill every stinking zombie bastard you see. Be a douche.
You can imagine my conundrum.
The following comment from this interview with Gears of War 3 writer Karen Traviss explains a lot.
I don’t read novels. I’m a novelist, but I don’t read. I don’t like reading. I love comics. I love reading comics. I can still read comics and write, just about… But I come from a TV background.
The single most important thing anyone can do to be a better writer is to read, and specifically to read lots of different kinds of things. But if you want to write truly atrocious stuff like Gears of War 3, by all means stick to comic books and television.
It’s going to happen sooner or later, on every system you own. You’re going to want to download something, or install something, or save a game, and you’re going to discover you’re out of storage space. So you’ll have to wade into the data management option in search of stuff to delete. And you’ll discover things you’d long since forgotten.
For instance, to make room to download a Wii Ware title, today I discovered that I played Manhunt 2 on the Wii. I did? There even was a Manhunt 2? And it was on the Wii? Also I apparently played something on the Wii called Boogie. I’d rather you didn’t let that get around.
