The Dead Island zombie count will never be able to match the Dead Rising zombie count. But at least it’s now up from 5 to 11. Maybe 13 depending on whether a dead zombie technically still counts as a zombie.
Reader Brian has helpfully pointed to a previous zombie count of 19, but these numbers are hard to track and inherently unstable. We’ll be keeping an eye on Dead Island’s zombie population as it fluctuates.
On my way north to intercept the other convoy I run across a strange sight in the night — a fully lit up ship. Having operated near territory at war where all ships are running without lights, I take a moment to remind myself that the Gibraltar Strait services many, many nationalities and ports, and some of them might not even be at war with us. Bugger. Time to run some drills!
After the break, I lose half of my torpedoes. Continue reading →
Every time you play Patapon 3, you’re first greeted with the PSP splash screen, followed by the epilepsy warning. So far so good. Then you select your language of choice, even if you’ve already selected it before (maybe you’re feeling like a little French or Spanish this time). Then the game pops up a dialogue box telling you it’s looking for storage media. You then have to manually confirm the autosave feature by selecting “understood”. There is no option to not understand. Then there are three screens reporting the Patapon 3 is looking for, finding, and loading your system data (not to be confused with your saved game data, which you’ll get to manually load later). Then a loading screen displays a snatch of pulsing artwork in the lower right corner of the screen while the Online User Agreement loads. This is eleven pages long. You have to page through all eleven pages, one at a time, each with a button press. Then a box appears asking if you accept the terms, even if you’ve already accepted them during a previous playthough. Because, you know, it wants to make sure you haven’t changed your mind. So you have to move the d-pad to bring a highlight on screen for the accept option, at which point you have to hit a button to confirm. Then an elaborate cinematic plays for a while as it loads. After it’s played for a bit, it’s apparently loaded sufficiciently that you can skip it to reach the main splash screen. From there, you select continue and then select your saved game. Once your saved game is loaded, you have to confirm that you’ve loaded the saved game. Then three dialogue boxes scritch by and you have to confirm the last one, at which point you’re at a new loading screen on the way to the actual game. When that’s done, Patapon 3 informs you that you can press any button to start playing.
Congratulations, you have gotten into Patapon 3! You’ll get your chance to take this epic journey when the game is released next Tuesday.
Welcome to Stalker: Call of Pripyat. The game opens in a field after a long and badly dubbed intro. There I am, staring out at a wooded plain. There’s nothing around. Just…woods.
Up pop five objectives, but I haven’t been trained to use identify or set them yet. Having played many modern AAA games, I’m used to a short tutorial on the game systems, so I sit there for several seconds, hoping some friendly guy will come over and take pity on this sad, stupid man who’s just appeared and explain what the hell is going on. I’m not sure if it’s an eastern European thing (the developers are Ukranian, I think), but this game just drops you in, and leaves the systems up to you. Welcome to the Zone, stalker!
After the jump, splashing around in the deep end Continue reading →
The opening cutscene for SOCOM 4, Sony’s upcoming military shooter, introduces you to Lead Character McMainDude on his way to get a briefing from the commander. He waits outside the commander’s tent while an argument plays out inside. A feisty Korean woman is upset that her recon team isn’t being sent into the action. She’s furious. She’s seething. She mouths off to the commander, like you do in videogames. They exchange words over a map table and then the commander dismisses her. As she leaves the tent, she passes by Lead Character McMainDude and presses a pen into his hand.
“This is his pen,” she hisses. “Make sure you stab him with it.”
Then you get your briefing. Some stuff about Korea and a terrorist group. It’s mercifully brief, since everyone knows you want to get into the game proper. Naturally, you don’t stab the commander with a pen. Instead, as the scene winds down, the commander absently pats his pockets, looking for his pen. Nothing more is said about the pen, because nothing more needs to be said about the pen.
It’s a sad state of affairs in videogaming that I noticed this detail, not necessarily because it was memorable — the Korean woman is actually pretty cool, and she’ll figure prominently in the story — but because it meant the writers and animators collaborated on a gag. The writers wrote the pen gag, and the animators animated it. Normally, writers just write dialog and animators make characters that gesticulate generically. Then someone sticks them together and, voila!, cutscene.
I recently saw a demo of Ratchet & Clank: All 4 One, the upcoming co-op action game. Composer Michael Bross, known for the Oddworld games, was announced during the demo. At the end of the level, the players kill a big sort of squid/crayfish. As the creature chokes and coughs its last, Bross’ playful score slows and halts in tempo with the creature’s dying gasps. Here was an example of the animators and the score interacting specifically.
We can start talking about how games have reached the level of other entertainment when I stop noticing this sort of thing and I start taking it for granted.
I remember getting these little brain-teaser booklets as a kid, usually as a stocking stuffer. Flimsy books that felt like they were printed on something akin to newspaper paper. They had all kinds of little puzzles inside and were perfect for long trips in the car with the family.
Today’s level, Lights Part 2, brought that to mind, and it made me think that these community levels are kind of like one of those brain-teaser books. Only you can’t take LBP2 into the bathroom. Or at least I can’t. YMMV.
While I’m out there hustling (well, as much as hustling is possible at 1/3 speed) through the middle of Bay of Biscay, let’s talk some terminology. Things like crash dives, ballast blowing, silent running and torpedo impact. All of these things are part of your Silent Hunter III experience, but let me tell you about the most fascinating part of the game that you will get to know intimately: your navigational chart.
After the jump, who knew charts could talk? Continue reading →
If you’ve been following the series up to this point, you’ve undoubtedly been waiting patiently for something which up until now I’ve avoided doing, and I don’t mean taking unsolicited cheap shots at Tom Chick. That comes later. I mean talking about the AI.
After the jump, Gary’s AI Adversary, or GAIA (they really do call it that) Continue reading →
When I started writing, I was going to talk about a few different roads. I was going to take readers to some of my favorite places on Ibiza and Oahu. Together we were going to enjoy the coastal roads of Ibiza that wind through rock arches and past old medieval ruins. We were going to discover the interior wilderness of Oahu in a Land Rover. We were even going to take a delightful trip through the heart of Honalulu. We were going to, but then I found the road.
After the jump, let me be your Hawaiian sherpa Continue reading →
I mentioned in my first entry that own ten Harvest Moons. There are two main problems with almost every one of these games.
After the jump, Hero of Leaf Valley dodges one of them Continue reading →
I couldn’t quite decide whether Skulls of the Shogun was a good title. Now that I’ve played it, I’m pretty sure it is a good title, because it’s actually an important part of the game. As you kill enemy undead samurais, your dudes can chow down on their skulls. Each one makes your dude more powerful, and the third one turns him into a demon (pictured!). Which is a pretty cool thing to be.
For what looks like a cute and simple strategy game, Skulls of the Shogun has some nifty ideas. You can read my 1up preview here.
Today’s level, World War 2, has a disclaimer in its description.
This level has been made to entertain NOT OFFEND.
I can’t say it offends me, but I find it unsettling. I’m fine playing the CoD Nazi Zombies mode, but this skeeves me out. Why? I’m okay with Steven Spielberg exploiting World War II for film material, but when Michael Bay does it my panties get all in a bunch. Why?
Maybe I need a new prescription for my monocle.
…Crysis 2 sits comfortably on the shelves next to Dead Space 2, Bulletstorm, and Medal of Honor, not to mention Homefront, Black Ops, and Halo: Reach. You’re liable to hardly notice it.
For the next five days, I’ll be playing Silent Hunter III with the Grey Wolves mod, which fixes lots of bugs from the original game and tweaks tons of environmental values, ranging from visibility and detection ranges in low light to crew fatigue factors. The result is the most solid, real-feeling submarine experience, and the only way to play Silent Hunter III.
For this patrol, our destination grid is the farthest I’ve ever been. Even the letters look unfamiliar. I’m used to AM, AN and the Bs but this is what? DJ? Where is that? I’ve taken my little Type II boat all over the North Sea and the coast of Great Britain. With my fancy new Type VIIb, I ranged that coast and beyond numerous times in a single patrol. But this DJ18 — this is serious. This is the Atlantic. This is international traffic and massive convoys. This is deep waters and vast hunting grounds with no land in sight. This is… beyond our range at standard cruising speed.
Scheisse.
After the jump, 40 kilometers of nailbiting tension Continue reading →
I’m always curious to see how things turn out when the developer of big AAA console or PC games turns their attention to something decidedly smaller, like a Nintendo DS or iPhone title. Sometimes, you get id Software’s Rage HD: gorgeous graphics marred by overly simple shooting-gallery gameplay. It’s more of a tech demo than a game. I mean, more so than most of id Software’s products. Other times, you get Epic and Chair Entertainment’s Infinity Blade, a full-featured game that perfectly understands the platform it’s on. So naturally, I jumped at the chance to dive into Death Rally. My nostalgia for the old Windows game of the same name is basically zero — I don’t think I ever played it — so it would have to stand on its own merits.
After the jump: Great game, now where’s the rest of it? Continue reading →
