News Outlets Make Stupid Mistake, Also Sky Still Blue and Water Still Wet.

Long, exasperated sigh.

I'll have a new Play This Now up tomorrow if not sooner.

-K.

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Thursday Morning Sketch: Mr. Show - Food Ads

So, yeah, regular updates, and probably just updates in general, are being moved to Tuesday and Thursday. Yes, this is the sketch that leads into The Story of Everest.

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Review: Condemned 2: Bloodshot

It’s been a little over two years now since my last “official” review and it’s both sad and fitting that the first game I’m tackling since then is the sequel to the title I last reviewed. Condemned 2: Bloodshot came out a couple months ago so and I finished it not long after release so the timeliness of this review also says a lot about my work ethic, or lack thereof. So what did I think? Spoilers: I was disappointed.
Condemned: Criminal Origins began as a 360 launch title and eventually found its way to the PC, where it seemed sites only mentioned it in passing and reviews gave it fairly modest reviews. With nothing better to do I gave the demo a whirl and quickly became engrossed in this dark and seedy world of serial killers and brutal hobo battle royales. It had an exaggerated realism to it where the locales were eerily familiar even the scenario tugged fiercely at the bounds of rationality. It played upon that fear of being lost in that “bad” part of town by making those grim fantasies, grounded in reality, come true. Then at the very end they started introducing secret cults and dark, supernatural warriors.
I had feared that they would continue to head in this direction, because it was towards the end when more of this became revealed that the game started to lose its appeal. Once you start to move towards the more fantastic elements there is also an equal decline in tension and fear, because it’s one thing to be afraid of violent vagrants who could easily exist but it makes far less of an impact when you’re asking me to be afraid of digital boogeymen. I may be getting ahead of myself.
In the sequel we find our hero, Ethan Thomas, has changed from a clean cut, relatively personality-less FBI agent to a scruffy, angry, foul-mouthed jackass. He’s no longer with the Bureau and has been hitting the bottle pretty hard, the city is still rapidly going to shit, and there’s a murder that apparently only Ethan can solve!
Mechanically, the game is mostly sound, with the addition of thrown weapons and fist-fighting. There’s a combo system in here as well, but it’s damn near impossible to pull any of them off since you’re only given a small window of opportunity and are not allowed to take any damage during it. Blocking isn’t about timing anymore since you can simply hold a block with any weapon, but now all weapons can be destroyed with too much use, and blocking tends to make that happen faster, almost too easily. Even weapons made out of steel can be easily broken with a few swings by drug addict wielding a 2x4. There are more firearms this time around, and the addition of iron sight aiming, but in a game focused on melee combat it seems wrong to be using them. Unfortunate, then, that several levels are boiled down to Call of Duty-esque firefights in which you mow down legions of generic-looking tactical troopers, especially when what the series has as its big, shiny, unique gameplay element is the melee combat.
Much of what I liked about the first game is that much of the mystery was left unexplained and I suppose if they didn’t expand on anything in the sequel I would be bitching for that reason as well, but they explain too much too early and it isn’t a very satisfying realization. What I liked about the first game so much is that you were a lone man trapped in a crazy world and while you were busy murdering psychopaths you were all the while tracking a very specific one, taking the time to thoroughly examine his grisly accomplishments on the trail. This is what I liked, being on the trail of a dangerous serial killer while still being able to hit other people with pipes, not this supernatural nonsense of ancient cults and psychic powers and global conspiracies in which Ethan Thomas is our only hope.
It suffers from the same problem both Crysis and Far Cry had, in that they had made this awesome, semi-realistic game that pitted you against other human opponents. In Crysis, especially, you still had the edge over them with your super awesome nanosuit, and it allowed you to attack enemy strongholds from a variety of angles, as well as taking a stealthy approach or a guns-blazin’ one. I was perfectly happy taking out mercenaries and North Korean soldiers, but somewhere past the halfway mark it’s almost as if someone said “Hey, wait, we’re making a video game” and decided it needed to have mutants or demons.
They did improve upon the crime scene/evidence collection bits by having you do some of the detective work your self, giving you a list of choices of how to interpret the various scenarios, adding a bit more of an adventure element to the game. Sadly, though, this aspect is basically forgotten about towards the end of the game and you’re stuck with cultists, and machine guns and your super scream attack that makes peoples’ heads explode.
Multiplayer, sadly, is also an afterthought, where most rounds can be won simply by grabbing the weapon that does the most damage and swinging wildly as people come at you. All the timing and finesse of single-player combat is gone here, and you’re left with a bunch of players running around like headless chickens, madly swinging whatever refuse they’re clutching on to.
It’s not a terrible game and perhaps I gave their creative team too much credit the first time around, because the sequel is treading more familiar, much less interesting ground and if the ending is an indication it is hellbent on racing to the goal line at Generic Street. While when it comes to gameplay it’s more of the same with some improvements and that’s enough to you see you through to the end, you can’t help but feel that it took a horribly wrong turn and abandoned much of its exciting originality only to get lost in a sea of unrealized potential.

Likes: Much improved visuals, combat is deeper, detective work more complex.

Dislikes: Everything else.

Final word: Mechanically sound, an average game that could’ve been better, poster child for “What could have been.”




I knocked this out over the course of the last hour or so and it's screaming to be refined and edited, because that is an incoherent, meandering mess, but I just wanted to get that out of the way so I can move on to other games. Also I'm going with a more traditional scoring system, no half marks either, so a 3 out of 5 should be considered "average."

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What I (Dis)Liked Last Week

So, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull was the big event of last week and I think I can say, without fear of contradiction, that we all thought it was pretty bad. Indiana Jones' Greatest Adventures for the SNES, a system which saw some more use again this weekend, captures the spirit of the franchise better than the new film did; Indy swinging around, dodging traps and shooting guys. Let us not dwell on it further. In other very different Indy news, Justin is very upset that "his" Indy 500 driver was "taken out by some noob."
Wrapped up the first episode of Penny-Arcade Adventures: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness - Episode One, which from here on out I will refer to as PAA:ORSPD-EO. Even though I am a Penny-Arcade fan I was surprised at how much I enjoyed this; I always expected it to be very funny, which it is, but the combat was surprisingly fun and I'm looking forward to getting further into this Lovecraftian steampunk world they've created. Took a little over six hours to get through and I think that's a fair deal for $20, I even liked it enough to play through it a second time... I might even do it a third!
Out of some strange craving for non-linear side-scrolling 2D gaming I started playing both Super Metroid and Legend of Zelda: Link to the Past again and thought about how much I would enjoy it if Nintendo returned to its 2D, sprite-based roots, if only for a moment. Basically I want them to start making SNES games again. Beautiful sprite work and animation in a 2D game can go a long way for its appeal, because there is an endearing quality when you know that it was painstakingly hand-drawn. We would probably only remember the Metal Slug series as mediocre at best if it was all done with 3D models.
Finally finished the main story in GTA4 at a little over the 42 hour mark, took the time to go back and get both endings and I sort of like that neither of them are particularly happy ones. I think I'm around the 75-80% completion mark, with only the stunt jumps, races, special car thefts and pigeon slaughtering left to take care of and I'm in no particular rush to do so. It's easily one of the best action games ever made, and surprisingly well-written, and I'm really looking forward to see what they have planned for downloadable content.

Video games!

-K.

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Madness Rewarded, Expanded

So CVG is reporting that Metal Gear Solid 4 will have... Well, here, read this:

We know the Metal Gear Solid series is famous for its long cut-scenes, but this tops everything! Metal Gear Solid 4, the latest installment in Hideo Kojima's seminal stealth series, has cut-scenes (note the plural) that approach the 90 minutes mark.

And herein lies one of the biggest faults of the series and Hideo Kojima as a game designer; He doesn't know he isn't a fucking filmmaker. I'm not the kind of player that skips cut-scenes and dialogue and all the narrative bits because unless it's really bad I often enjoy those, but you've got to be kidding me with this. If you want to make a movie go make a goddamn movie, not a video game, you fucking lunatic.

-K.

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Play This Now: Penny Arcade Adventures: On The Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness - Episode One

So, the people behind an internet comic strip about video games decided they could step up and play with the people they've been making fun of for years, surely that should end in tears. You know what? Their game's pretty damn good. Developed by Hothead, a fairly new studio founded by ex-LucasArts members, most notably Ron Gilbert, one of the designers behind the Monkey Island series and Maniac Mansion, and with art and writing by Jerry Holkins and Mike Krahulik (Or Tycho and Gabe, if you like), it retains the feel of the comic strip (Extreme verbosity combined with crude vulgarity and sometimes, often hopefully, graphic violence) while existing in its own universe. The game is set in the city of New Arcadia, circa 1922, and finds Gabe and Tycho as paranormal investigators, founders of the Startling Developments Detective Agency. After a series of events you become the newest recruit to the agency, and before you can say "deep crow" you're off fighting robots and hobos. The story and game world are essentially a huge spoof of Lovecraft mythos, as if it was brought to you by the makers of Airplane! and The Naked Gun, so it does strike this balance between the idea that you are fighting a cult of mimes, which is silly, but they are trying to bring about the end of the world. The presentation and sound design are impressive, with big sweeping scores for some of the larger battles and comic book style cut-scenes in which your custom created character fits perfectly into. Combat is done in a JRPG turn-based style, but also, like Vagrant Story or the Mario & Luigi games, have some elements that require you to time button presses for maximum effect, like blocking and special attacks. It's something I did not get bored of, mostly because the story and atmosphere and funny and silly enough to keep me playing, unlike other RPGs it does not take itself way too seriously. It took me a little over six hours to get through, which is pretty good for $20 of episodic gaming, and I'm really looking forward to the next installment. At the very least, try the demo, on the site linked below.

Link, Greenhouse.

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Jonesing For More

Temple of Doom is no longer the weakest Indy film in the series. It's still number three in the rankings, it's just now it has the benefit of having something behind it. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is not a terrible film by itself, but as an Indy film, of which expectations are deservedly and reasonably high, it is almost painful to watch. Too many bad jokes, way too much CG, and a film that just, to put it bluntly, lacks balls. Whereas before Indy shoots a guy with a sword because he just doesn't want to fight him, you would think this older Indy should be mowing down every person that tries to swing a punch at him, but he doesn't fire his revolver once in the entire film. During one scene he points his guy at some crazy parkour Amazon indian who runs away, and that's it. This is a way too family friendly Indiana Jones film, with lame bickering between Indy and Marion and Shia LaBoeuwuweuuf's character getting hit in the crotch, heavy handed references to Jones Sr. and Marcus who have since passed and are spinning in their fictional graves. Also the commie villains just lack the same presence of evil so pure it just radiates off of them.
The movie really does falter quite badly when Indy isn't busy getting chased and/or punching guys, and even then it can get a little hokey. Running around tombs, hopping around the globe collecting clues and artifacts, all of that is fine, it's all the character-related dialogue that is so painful to listen to. Also Indy and aliens don't mix, it's one thing to be going after ancient religious artifacts, summoning spirits and undead creatures, but aliens from another dimension just doesn't feel right. I would feel the same way if the next X-Files movie finds Scully and Mulder trying to find Excalibur or something of that nature.
Bringing Marion back was a big mistake, because part of the appeal of the previous three films is that they stand very well being completely separate stories with only the tiniest of threads connecting them. Sure there are some returning characters, but as far as love interests there's a new one every film, like Bond girls.
I'm going to wrap this up because I'll just wind up almost having an aneurysm like last night, but goddamn it, Lucas. You already ruined one franchise, did you really have to go two for two? Mr. Spielberg, please, I beg you, go back and make another one, there's still time, and ditch your turkey-necked, jackass friend for the good of mankind.

-K.

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Wendesday Morning Sketch, Thursday Morning Edition: Kids in the Hall - Car Bangers

New employee started on Tuesday so I will be returning to the part time schedule, but I requested my days working change from Monday and Wednesday to Tuesday and Thursday, also I will continue working Friday afternoons. So I'll probably be shifting my regular bits to those days, because it is simply impossible to update this while not at work, can't be done.
The Kids in the Hall show Tuesday night was very entertaining and I was happy they got the Buddy Cole monologue out of the way almost at the beginning. For the benefit of those who did not attend, they played this around the middle of the show.

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What I (Dis)Liked Last Week

Again, another week where my gaming time, what little I had, was dominated by Grand Theft Auto IV. I understand I'm creeping ever closer to the end and I'm trying to extend it as long as I can while still getting other stuff done, taking care of all the Vigilante and Assassin side missions, doing activities with other characters to unlock their perks, etc. It really helps that there isn't another big release I can think of anytime soon that would draw my attention away, because the idea of falling behind and having a backlog on my leisure time would be a grim scenario indeed.
I still haven't given the LEGO Indiana Jones demo a whirl yet, but if LEGO Star Wars was any indicator it'll be cute and fun for an hour or two and then I'll get bored with it, in which case the demo served as a perfectly acceptable substitute in lieu of the full product.
Finally played Mario Kart Wii at the mega barbecue, most of you reading this probably attended and also played, and it is, indeed, a Mario Kart game. I'm not usually one to get on Nintendo's case about milking franchises because, while I have not yet played Galaxy, I still enjoy Mario's forays into platforming, RPGs and even some of the sports games. While almost each of the "official" platforming sequels in some way tries to bring new elements to the table, Mario Kart has barely changed since it's debut on the SNES apart from the addition of the bullshit blue shell. From the looks of things the majority of the tracks are recreations from previous games, which only serves to draw attention to a lack of originality that I often try my best to overlook when it comes to Nintendo. I understand that there's only so much you can do with a cart racer and it's selling like crazy so I can't fault them for, seemingly, giving people what they want.

So in the course of the last couple days I've apparently lost fifteen pounds. Maybe, just maybe, I have a bad scale. Skipped breakfast in favor of one of those shakes and it's becoming hard, especially with a slow day here, to resist the call of going to the vending machine which is literally right outside the door. Already dark clouds are surrounding this plan which will only lead up to an insane and shameful gorgefest of chocolate and salty snacks, where authorities will no doubt find me underneath a pile of plastic wrappers, sobbing while attempting to cram another Payday bar into my mouth.

Lastly, if there was one movie I would bother to go see an early midnight showing of it would be the new Indy, but now I'm in a rare position of not having a workable schedule. Goddamn it.

-K.

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The Price of Freedom (From Body Fat... and Happiness)

So I've been working here for a few months now and lately I've been running around a lot, more than usual. Well, not really running, but moving at an increased gait while lugging and lifting heavy equipment around, which means that, especially for a man that is winded after using a rotary phone, I've been sweating a lot. Probably because my exercise regiment has increased exponentially to something I'm not used to, but an increase from zero to anything would probably be considered exponential. I've also been eating less since I'm not spending as much time at home which means I don't have easier access and time spent snacking out anymore. So imagine my surprise when the scale in the kitchen was telling me I've actually gained a few pounds. That's right folks, I'm drawing ever closer to the 800lb milestone.

Really, though, what the fuck? That's not how things are supposed to work. In fact, it's supposed to be the complete opposite of that. It's not like I've been ordering roasted butter sandwiches and lard soup at the cafeteria, I've been eating plain grilled chicken sandwiches. On wheat, no less!

I'll probably have to do something about the breakfasts I've been getting here, though, despite the convenience of the friendly chef knowing exactly what I want every morning and as soon as I walk in I can count on him whipping up my bacon, egg and cheese bagel with some hashbrowns. My alternative, however, since I'm usually in a hurry to leave the house, would be to start drinking the health shakes that my dad has been on lately. They promise that they will "smash my hunger," but I've tried them before, and that phrase only works if the hunger they're referring to is a slumbering beast within your stomach that, once "smashed," becomes a raging, writhing, screeching hell spawn that demands vengeance.

The most obvious suspect would have to be that I've probably been averaging an intake of 4 liters of RC Cola a week, but can't I be allowed that vice? Isn't it enough that I don't really drink and I don't smoke and I don't kill hookers (At least not in the real world) and I don't get my morning pick-me-up from doing a line of blow in the bathroom, can't I have this? Sugar and caffeine, that's all I want to hang on to. In the not too distant past I attempted to abandon my sugar water and tried to go with just water with sugar-free flavor packs. This lasted a couple months and I must have been going through a withdrawal, though not nearly on the Trainspotting level, I did get an insane craving, much like a pregnant woman on a hilarious sitcom, for Pepsi that absolutely had to be sated and then I was off on my delicious, delicious sugar ride again.

But today I start anew, I've stopped bringing a bottle of RC to keep in the fridge here, I am no longer filling my cup full of Pepsi or Coke or even Fanta while making my way through the cafeteria, instead opting for an arguably healthier choice. I don't think it'll last, either.

This wouldn't be so difficult if I wasn't so completely sure that if depression and hopelessness had a flavor it would taste exactly like Diet Coke.

-K.

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Play This Now: Space Hulk Remake

Way back in the early days the PC was the home to niche genres like squad oriented turn-based strategy games and crazy hybrid puzzle-RPGs. Well, I guess they still are, more than ever, but anyway. Also back in these brave, olden times there was a fun but challenging turn-based strategy game set in the Warhammer 40K universe titled Space Hulk, in which you lead your squad of space marines through dark, cramped corridors fighting brutal alien foes. The game would've most likely been lost to time had it not been for the efforts of a little group called Teardown who created a full remake of the game. Titled, cleverly, Space Hulk, it is a carbon copy of the original with some improved visuals. If you like Warhammer 40K or turn-based strategy games it's worth a shot, also mostly because like all the other games, it don't cost nuthin'. Now if some other group of awesome nerds could get to work on a free remake of D/Generation, that would be fantastic.

Download, spacehulk.rar (19MB)

-K.

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Wednesday Morning Sketch: Upright Citizens Brigade - Ass Pennies

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Two Men Enter, One Man Leave

I think my time here would go more smoothly if Justin was not here. I realize that his departure would mean they would have to find another replacement and that would take more time for me to return to my former schedule, and I would have to train them, but I think that would be preferable. After the regular business of morning office moves we've spent some time cleaning out shelves of old equipment, finding a handful of old Jaz drives, which has prompted Justin to exclaim "JAZ!" every few minutes as if he's borderline retarded.
If this continues I fear that one of us will not survive and I will be happy with either outcome.

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What I (Dis)Liked Last Week

Still slowly making my way through Grand Theft Auto IV partly because I don't want to finish it too quickly and also because with the departure of the other part-time employee in our department I've been temporarily bumped to full time and I'm already going insane. It doesn't help that things have gotten much busier and I've had a couple incidents with slightly hostile users. It's a lot like high school, really; I have to get up earlier than I'd like, stay here for a little over eight hours, wait for lunch time to roll around so I can go to the cafeteria, I only get about five hours sleep a night if I'm lucky, and I try to keep to myself but there's still a lot of people I don't like.

The big difference here is that I'm sure the pain will go away on payday.

-K.

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Wednesday Morning Sketch: Mr. Show - Mustmayostardayonnaise

The best part, I think we'll all agree, is Jay Johnston looking like a ridiculous Abe Lincoln.

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CTA Tells GTA GTFO, T2 Says "no u."

A week or so before release there was a number of shootings over a single weekend in Chicago resulting in the death of a couple dozen people. The Chicago Transit Authority responded accordingly by removing ads for Grand Theft Auto IV from their busses, but to their surprise all violence in Chicago did not come to a grinding halt. Publisher Take Two has finally decided to take some action against them, with good reason. The Miami-Dade Transit Authority has also pulled the ads, after a single complaint from soon-to-be-disbarred Jack Thompson. The ads themselves are fairly tame, from what I've seen they simply show the characters and the title, and if that drives someone to violence you've got bigger problems in your town to deal with. Here's hoping they come out on top.

Somebody really needs to hurry up and invent a new medium to become the next enemy of the old and the ignorant.

-K.

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What I (Dis)Liked Last Week (GTA4)

As you can imagine, my free time last week was almost completely dominated by Grand Theft Auto IV, balancing my time between the excellent single-player and the almost-as-excellent multiplayer. I'm assuming it doesn't count time spent playing multiplayer in the states, so going by what it's saying on the stats section I'm reaching the 16 hours mark with a completion rating of 33%. Reading Jeff Gerstmann's latest post on Giant Bomb revealed he had finished the main story with about a 61% so I guess I'm at the halfway mark, and I really don't want it to end. Hopefully it won't take them very long to get the promised DLC out the door and it will be something substantial, rumors flew around about there being new cities (Vice City and San Andreas were technically considered "expansions" because they fell under the "Grand Theft Auto III" name, but that's a stretch.), but I would be perfectly happy and gladly put my money down if they were 10-20 hour mission packs set within Liberty City, because the playing area is already interesting enough, diverse and mind-bogglingly huge.

If you haven't been able to get your hands on it yet, it is everything San Andreas was except turned to 11 (or 12, because I thought San Andreas was really awesome.) The basics from last few games are there, but both the driving model and combat have seen significant changes. The cars are a little harder to handle, they feel like they have some real weight to them, you can't just go powersliding around corners like you used to. You can also free-aim a handgun or submachine gun out the driver's window, though steering and shooting at the same time is a little tricky, like a murderous take on patting your head and rubbing your stomach. The addition of a cover system has made the combat, usually a sore spot in the GTA games, much more entertaining. If it's tall enough to crouch or stand behind, you can almost always take cover behind it, anywhere in the game. You can even roll up to a firefight, spin your car sideways, get out and take cover behind that. They don't explode after taking a few bullets like they used to, either, but conventional explosives still get the job done, and even one popped tire means you're going to have a lot of trouble getting away. But being able to get a handle on the situation, pop out and fire a few rounds and take cover again helps keep the game from being frustrating and means that if you play smart, you can take out an entire gang of biker drug dealers with barely a scratch. Also blindfiring an RPG is awesome.

The multiplayer, for the most part, is a lot of fun. I'm not a big fan of racing, even when guns and explosives are involved, so the two race modes will probably go largely unplayed. But excluding those there are still six other competitive modes, three co-op missions and Free Roam. I admire what Rockstar has done here, being able to bring the entire city to an online format without sacrificing anything, and I haven't really had many issues with lag, but with only a 16 player max cap regular Deathmatch can suffer if the host doesn't configure things properly. You can limit the action to one of the three large islands, the two smaller ones, or even small sections like the docks, airport or prison, but if the host just gives free range to everyone and sets the "respawn distance" to far it means you'll probably spend most of your time trying to track someone down to kill for only a minute or two of action. Team Deathmatch isn't as problematic because the game tries to keep the teams as close as possible when respawning. When configured properly, though, it is a lot of fun. I've been giving the Crooks N' Cops mode the most play, a team mode with one team as the crooks, either collectively or escorting their boss, attempting to get to a getaway vehicle and the cops out to catch them before they escape. Playing as a cop, starting in a squad car with three other players, is a blast when you have a good driver, and coming upon a car load of crooks and hailing them with submachine gun fire. The co-op missions are fun, but there's only three, and even though the open world allows for a little latitude, chances are they'll get old within a month or two. Anyway, my review at this point is that it's an incredible game that I would've gladly paid double for.

Thanks to a heads-up from Theron, I've also been playing The Last Stand 2 (A misleading title) as well as the original. We'll call these two games my Play This Now for the last two weeks. I'd like to see another sequel where you have to also secure the buildings you search.

I just had lunch, now I'm going to go concentrate on not falling asleep.

-K.

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GTA4 GTA4 GTA4

GTA4 GTA4 GTA4 GTA4 GTA4 GTA4 GTA4. GTA4 GTA4 GTA4? GTA4! GTA4 GTA4 GTA4 GTA4 GTA4. GTA4 GTA4 GTA4, GTA4, GTA4 GTA4, and GTA4. GTA4 GTA4 GTA4 GTA4 GTA4. GTA4!!

-GTA4.

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