You’ll never guess which one of us is the Saw expert. At the 1:25, we exchange the rest of this podcast’s running time for a discussion of hand-offs or exchanges in movies.
Next week: Thor: Ragnarok
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You know how sometimes you think it would be cool to be back in school? Just learning about neat things, sampling a broad array of subjects, getting back to the classics of art, the fundamentals of science and mathematics, the greatest hits of history? Spending entire days just getting smarter? That would be cool, right?
But hold on a second. Continue reading →
Visceral Games was shut down by its owner and publisher Electronic Arts on October 17th. The Star Wars action adventure game they were working on, code-named Project Ragtag, was canceled and workers either went to other EA positions or looking for employment. Visceral’s Star Wars game was going to be modeled after Naughty Dog’s Uncharted series, but until now the public has never known much about it other than a quick snippet of video during EA’s E3 2016 presentation. Kotaku spoke to former and current EA employees, including Visceral sources, and uncovered some details. The ambitious single-player game put the player into the shoes of Dodger, a Han Solo styled rascal, and his ragtag (get it?) crew of ne’er-do-wells. Set between the movies A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back, Ragtag would focus on the seedier criminal elements of Star Wars. Heists, Hutts, and hand blasters.
What killed Ragtag? A little bit of this and a little bit of that. According to Kotaku’s sources, game director Amy Hennig’s project design was maybe too ambitious for the understaffed studio, while simultaneously being too conservative for EA’s strategic plans. The game was just too expensive, too complicated, and EA wasn’t going to see the kind of monetary return they needed to keep their shareholders happy.
“EA executives are like, ‘FIFA Ultimate Team makes a billion dollars a year.’ Where’s your version of that?”
After Star Wars: Battlefront shipped and EA shifted to the more profitable games-as-service model, the writing was on the wall for Ragtag. Dodger and company were done. EA’s announcement of both the game’s and the studio’s demise included a note that EA Vancouver had taken over the project and shifted the design to a “broader experience” for players.
I’ve already invested a fair amount of time in Assassin’s Creed: Origins on the PS4, but I couldn’t resist taking a gander at how it looks on the PC. Hoo boy! What a difference a GTX 1080 makes! “So much for playing on the PS4,” I decided, hunkering down to catch up with where I’d gotten on the PS4. But then three things happened in the 37 minutes I’ve logged on Steam: 1) Bayek doesn’t actually whistle when he whistles for his camel. I just press a key and the camel shows up, as if we have some sort of mind link. I’m uncomfortable with a camel inside my head. Plus, as someone who can’t do that cool pet-summoning whistle in real life, I want my power fantasy avatars to be able to do it. 2) I slew a leopard. Then it’s body melted about a foot into the ground. Which would be no big deal except that the twinkly loot point was also a foot under the ground. Try as I might, I couldn’t get the loot prompt to appear. The upper twinkly bits of the “loot here!” effect danced tantalizingly on the ground, like the leaves of a half-sprouted tuber. But the leopard pelt that I hunted fair and square was beyond my reach. 3) Bayek walks and runs in complete and utter silence. He even swims in silence. There is not so much as a gentle plash. While I concede this is a useful trait for an assassin, I kind of prefer the ambient shuffle of feet as Bayek’s boots pad across the sand. Visual immersion is all good and well, but it sort of falls apart when the sound is messed up.
So it’s back to the PS4, begrudgingly, where none of these three things happens. But now I’m having second thoughts because it’s so much easier to get headshots with a mouse. What’s more, the Destiny inspired inventory and quest screens aren’t so clunky when you’re driving with a mouse. And did I mention how much better it looks? I just have to accept the sad fact that no matter what platform you decide to play on, it’s always going to be an imperfect choice.
LawBreakers, Boss Key Productions’ multiplayer hero shooter, hasn’t exactly set the gaming world on fire. Despite already releasing two new maps, adding a competitive mode, and jiggering with mechanics in some pretty drastic ways since its August launch, Boss Key just hasn’t been able to attract the players that some other new multiplayer games have garnered. According to studio head Cliff Bleszinski, it’s all part of the plan. He wants steady growth like Rocket League or Warframe – games that built their healthy communities over extended periods. As he explains to GamesIndustry, his studio knows the hierarchy of gaming and isn’t looking to fight that particular battle just yet.
“I want to carve out my space and be Pepsi or RC Cola of that market – I’m not going to be Coke because Overwatch has too much of a stranglehold.”
While acknowledging some early mistakes in marketing, Bleszinski feels the best way to grow his game’s audience is to keep plugging away at updates, continue to produce content, and concentrate on promoting the game correctly. You can find a copy of the LawBreakers content roadmap here.
When do you give yourself permission to look up a hint while playing an adventure game? You can’t do it each time a difficult puzzle gets in your way, because you’ll deprive yourself of the endorphin rush when you come back the next morning and solve that doozy on your own. Puzzles are weird that way. Even when you put them down, something in your brain keeps doing the work.
But you also can’t never look up a hint, unless the game just “clicks” with you, like Myst did for me in college, when I finished it over the course of a single day, hint-free. That’s the only time I’ve ever done that, and yes, I am bragging about it.
Here’s my personal hints policy: Continue reading →
Twitch is now offering loot boxes with temporary emotes as prizes. Every time you spend 250 Bits on a Cheer, you will unlock a Halloween crate with one of six zombie emotes that can be used through the rest of the year. Collect all six, and you’ll unlock a permanent Zombie Lord Kappa emote, but you’ll probably need to wade through more than six crates since repeats aren’t worth anything. It’s time-limited crate availability coupled to the variant chase mechanic. Imagine it. You could spend Bits on Cheers to get Twitch loot boxes while watching your favorite streamer spectate in Call of Duty: World War 2 viewing other people opening their in-game loot boxes. If infinite regress is real, the cosmic voyager might say “It’s loot boxes all the way down!”
Twitch’s Halloween Crates will be available until November 3rd.
Locke is a tough movie to pull off. Just a guy in his car, on the phone, dealing with a personal crisis. Watch him make difficult decisions. Watch him take responsibility for his own bad choices. Watch him troubleshoot his own life. Baby Driver is an easy movie to pull off. A kind-hearted getaway driver getting into car chases, meeting a cute chick, and going on a heist. Watch him drive really fast. Watch him listen to catchy music. Watch him brood furiously into the camera. That Locke works and Baby Driver doesn’t speaks volumes about the difference between Tom Hardy and Ansel Elgort.
Wheelman is a little of both. It accepts the challenges of Locke, but embraces the simplicity of Baby Driver. One of its smartest choices is putting Frank Grillo in the driver’s seat. Visually, he’s ideal leading man material. That immaculately unshaved jawline, those intense sunken eyes, that wild hair refusing to behave. As an actor, he’s got just the right mix of hardened tough guy and soft-hearted dad. He’s the city and the suburbs, Hollywood and Sundance, drinking buddy and heartthrob. And he’s finally got a whole movie to himself, literally in the driver’s seat. A lesser movie would have made this about a tough criminal. But Wheelman insists on also being about a father, which gives the movie a lighter touch and ultimately a ton of heart. By the time it’s over — about ten minutes too late, but it’s earned a lot of goodwill by then — Wheelman is more Locke than Baby Driver. Daddy Driver.
First-timer Jeremy Rush shows fine instincts by shooting the movie with the same intimacy as Locke. Contrast this to a structurally similar movie called Getaway, which stays with Ethan Hawke as he drives through a souped-up thriller, which gets splashier and sillier the longer it goes on. Selena Gomez is along for the ride, which tells you all you need to know about Getaway. But Wheelman knows a car going fast is never as cool as a car going fast driven by someone you care about. Add someone who matters to the passenger seat and now you’re giving Locke a run for its money.
There’s a Game of the Year edition of Hitman coming. IO Interactive’s announcement brings good news for late adopters and current players. The new edition comes with all of Season One’s content, plus new suits and weapons, a new Patient Zero campaign based around stopping a viral infection, and some new escalation contracts that ramp up the difficulty. The Game of the Year edition is launching on November 7th. If you already own the first season, there will be a $20 upgrade DLC available so you don’t miss out on the clown suit.
The big reveal for people that missed some of the time-limited content is that they’re repeating Season One’s Elusive Contracts. It’s part of the free update to the game for all owners that includes a redesigned user interface, lighting upgrades, and new social features for missions. The encore of the Elusive Contracts will also be time-limited and if you already failed one, you will not be permitted another try. Sorry. No do-overs allowed.
A few original Xbox games will be available tomorrow for the Xbox One. Microsoft confirmed through IGN that thirteen old-school Xbox games, including Crimson Skies: High Road to Revenge and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, will be added to the backwards compatibility list on the newer console. As with the current Xbox 360 backwards compatible titles, you can either pop your old disc into your Xbox One and download an update to allow play, or you can purchase a new digital copy through the Xbox Store. You’ll soon be able to enjoy BloodRayne 2 or The King of Fighters Neowave on your gigantic TV in glorious 1080p.
In related news, the Xbox 360 backwards compatible games Halo 3, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, Fallout 3, and Assassin’s Creed are getting Xbox One X enhancement updates on November 7th.
Well, Norway, look what you’ve gone and done. I hope you’re suitably embarrassed. At the 1:00-mark, we buckle up for a discussion of seat belts.
Next week: Jigsaw
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The Pyro has a jetpack. If that information doesn’t make you shudder, that’s probably because you haven’t kept up with Team Fortress 2 in a while. Valve’s daily trickle of information for the Jungle Inferno update for the game revealed a revamp of the Pyro class which includes new weapons, balance changes, and even visual improvements to the Pyro’s flame effects. There’s even a crass new taunt for the Pyro that recreates the time-honored tradition of lighting farts on fire.
The Pyro is a master of the barbecue. The Pyro already has the best character video. The Pryo gave the game a pair of goggles that changes how everything appears to the player. The Pyro has a rocking body. The Pryo now jetpacks into the sky and rains hot flaming death on those below. The Pryo is objectively the best thing in Team Fortress 2 aside from the Sniper’s jar of urine.
The board for Gremlins Inc looks like a swirly looping mess of random spaces. Until you play the game and discover that it’s not. Clockwork Town is a very specific place with a specific layout with specific gameplay implication. It has a hard-to-reach Heaven, a Hell just a short jaunt off the beaten path, and a progression from the courthouse to the treasure vault to the bank to the office. The newly released prisoner will find himself approaching the casino, and he won’t get to the marketplace anytime soon. Like the board for any boardgame, it reveals patterns as you played it. It rewards you as you pay attention to it. It has geography.
Now it also has company. Continue reading →
Relic Entertainment has updated Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War 3 to offer more classic real-time strategy features for players. The Endless Update comes with the usual balance changes and adjustments, three new multiplayer maps, and three new elite units. The free patch also adds some much-requested multiplayer custom match options that bring the game back to its RTS roots and away from the sequel’s reliance on hero management. Players can now toggle elites off, disable doctrines, and not allow global abilities in their matches. The new options don’t turn the game into a full throwback to earlier Dawn of War entries, but they do give players the ability to mostly ignore the most controversial changes to the formula – namely, the way elites work. We’ll see if the changes are enough to bring the community back to WAAAGH.
Dead by Daylight, the other asymmetrical multiplayer horror game, is adding Freddy Krueger to its lineup of horror villains. While Friday the 13th: The Game has been content to putter along with different versions of Jason Vorhees, (Gunny sack Jason! Split hockey mask Jason! Zombie Jason! Jason gone wild!) Behaviour Digital has already nabbed Michael Myers and Leatherface to beef up its group of proprietary knockoff baddies like Generic Killer Farmer and Demonic Scary Old Lady. By adding Freddy Krueger, Dead by Daylight seems to going for a pure quantity pitch. Will players have to wait as long as the movie fans did for the crossover match?
