We were just trying to stay alive, I suppose. We were doing okay for a while. And then we were attacked. They came in through the kitchen window. They were really fast, you know? Chased us. Chased your mum. And we were trapped. Trapped in the bedroom. I seen them, biting. I couldn’t do anything. I tried to go back. She was already gone. She was already gone.
I wrote — well, appropriated might be a more accurate term — the above fan fiction. That passage is from the perspective of one of the creatures in Kirby Mass Attack. A turnip or a fish or a flower or something. In that scene, the creature is explaining to his kids why their mother isn’t around anymore.
After the jump, when Kirbys attack en masse Continue reading →
Before I hand you over to Jason “Fenix” McMaster for Quarter to Three’s enthusiastic Gears of War 3 game diary, I leave you with this review:
You’ve played this game a couple of times already, and here you are shelling out another sixty bucks to play it all over again, with only minor improvements, and with the same shortcomings it’s had all along. The word that keeps springing to mind as I play is “competent”. When it’s all over, the reaction is a shrug. When it’s sitting on my shelf, I might as well reach for Gears of War 2. Or a shooter with some creative energy like Hard Reset, or Lost Planet 2, or Fear 3.
Thumbs down.
(Update: there was some confusion about the rating which has been resolved; the current C+ is the intended score)
“I should play what?”
I hear you. At a press event a few months back, this game was idling on a monitor in the corner. I probably wouldn’t have given it a second glance if I hadn’t been waiting for a demo of the remastered House of the Dead: Overkill for the Playstation 3. But as soon as the guy demoing it told me the name of the developer, my ears perked up. And by the time the demo was over, this was probably the upcoming Sega game I was most looking forward to.
I only wish Sega shared my enthusiasm. I didn’t even realize they’d released the game last week.
After the jump, what is Renegade Ops and why you should play it 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 →
…as Bodycount goes on, it resembles an Agatha Christie murder mystery in which the cast of characters begins to disappear one-by-one
Read the review here.
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.
Ah, what a relief! After a long summer of mostly junk, it’s nice to finally see something like Drive, which we all liked. A lot. Even those of us who weren’t already fans of Ryan Gosling and Nicholas Winding Refn. But first, a little impromptu Straw Dogs talk. Later, for our 3×3 this week, we discuss the most convincing movie scientists.
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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.
My mission, should I choose to accept it, was to escort a gold-filled train through treacherous territory. Along the way I would have to knock out gigantic sticks of dynamite obstructing the track, take down a few tanks, sink a destroyer coming down the river, and blow up a few UFOs. All with my sackboy in a little toy helicopter.
One other thing. The characters driving the train are Buzz Lightyear and Woody.
This week I got to try out the Toy Story DLC for Little Big Planet 2. A friend of mine suggested I should give it a shot. For some reason he thinks I like the game. “But it’s probably just a bunch of goofy costumes and stickers,” he said. “So don’t get your hopes up.” I didn’t. I don’t really care for costumes (sorry Ken). It’s not that I’m not a collector, I’ve just come to be fond of the way I’ve kitted out my sackboy, so turning him into Slinky Dog doesn’t interest me. I gave the DLC a spin anyway.
It helped me win the Cold War.
After the jump, it’s a helicopter level! I know this! Continue reading →
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.
There’s something simultaneously familiar and daunting about the Treasure logo appearing when I fire up Radiant Silvergun, a classic bullet hell shmup that thinks a lot more of me than I do. I love Treasure games, but you have to “get” what Treasure is trying to do in any given game before you “get” what they’re trying to do.
Does that make sense? If not, you’ll have to forgive me. I’ve applied more brain power to Radiant Silvergun than I intended, so I’m running on a mental deficit right now.
After the jump, Treasure’s hidden treasures Continue reading →
