Thursday Morning Video: That Mitchell and Webb Look - Numberwang

A little late on the video because it's been a fucking nightmare this morning here, but it's still before noon so this counts.

Stay Numberwang.

-K.

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Big Guns and Bigger Eyes

I recently obtained a Sony PlayStation 3 Home Computer Entertainment System, and the first thing I did the morning after I got it was pick up a copy of Valkyria Chronicles, which I mentioned way back around this time last year.
It's really good.

That is to say it's mechanically really good. How it combines turn-based strategy and light third-person action is a triumph, except it comes wrapped in a JRPG presentation that carries the overwrought narrative baggage expected from the genre. Every character suffers from verbal diarrhea, complete with the standard half-hearted diatribes on subjects like human nature and racism mashed with the somewhat inappropriate feeling cutesy humor, the kind which is very often punctuated with a "Tee hee!" by one of the female protagonists. The cut-scenes are entirely skippable, but I suffer from an affliction that requires me to view them, because while it might be virtually impossible, especially at this point, to get me emotionally invested into the storyline, I like to know what's going on and what led up to a particular mission. It does help that the game has a great look to it, if I were so bold I might even say gorgeous, the way everything is presented with a painterly, watercolor look.
The short of it is that I don't really care for the story or characters, but now that we've gotten that out of the way we can talk about what I do like. When you are mercifully allowed to participate in the game proper, it is essentially a gridless turn-based strategy game. At the start of your turn you are presented with a map of the battlefield and a set of Command Points with which to move your units, selecting a unit brings the game into a third-person mode in which you move them about and attack in real-time. While they do less damage than they would during your turn, enemies can still fire upon the units you are moving, so speed and use of cover is still a factor, giving it a more action-y feel. Once your unit is in "aim mode" they have all the time in the world to pick their shot and fire, with headshots obviously doing more damage but being harder to make. Your units can only fire once per use, but can be reused multiple times in a turn, though the distance they can move decreases significantly with each use.
While the most I've ever seen allowed in a mission is 9 units, you assemble a squad of 20 from a large roster of characters in different classes, each with their own special "potentials" which can be good or bad and are only activated under certain conditions (e.g. Works better alone, not as effective in urban environments, etc.) and other characters they prefer fighting with. The experience you earn is spent on leveling up unit types (Snipers, scouts, shocktroopers, etc.) rather than individuals, which is a great relief. The money you earn is spent upgrading and modifying each class type's equipment, and you'll pick up some enemy weapons along the way, further allowing you to customize your squad.
There's a lot to chew on here and I've been taking it pretty slow, but so far it's a game with a surprising amount of depth considering it's coming from Sega. Maybe it would need to have a different context (I keep thinking about shoehorning Team Fortress 2 into this style), but it really feels like the kind of game that would do better on the PC.

-K.

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Space Asshole

I couldn't think of a funnier headline than the subject of the post itself. A couple weeks ago on the Idle Thumbs podcast they began talking about Red Faction: Guerrilla, with the PC version finally being released recently, and discussed the havoc you can wreak upon the innocent colonists, and what that turns the main character into. A few days ago Idle Thumbs host Chris Remo put together this little number, which I really enjoyed.

-K.

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I Hate Leaks

Looks like someone got ahold of the trailer for Left 4 Dead 2 and leaked it on to YouTube, or could be one of those "accidental" leaks that Valve seems to do from time to time. Sure, it might just be a cinematic, but it's pretty goddamn awesome, I especially love the twangy rendition of the theme at the beginning.

-K.

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Thursday Morning Video: Kids in the Hall - Directions

Picked up Borderlands on Tuesday, it's fun, if you've read a review it will likely say it's "Diablo with guns" and that's about right. The story and characters are paper thin, but the fairly basic leveling and acquisition of loot is still enough to drive a lot of people, including myself. I found a sniper rifle that fires explosions and I hear of machine guns that use healing bullets. Anyway, have a video:

-K.

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World of Savings

I meant to post about this when it was originally announced, but I forgot about it, mostly because I already bought World of Goo almost a year ago (And still have yet to play it). Anyway, to celebrate the first anniversary of their critically-acclaimed indie puzzler, 2D Boy are running a sale where you decide how much you want to pay for their game. This can be as little as one penny or up to infinity megabucks, but you should probably select an amount in between. The sale has been a huge success so far so they decided to extend the deal until October 25th, which, even though their servers are being pounded at the moment, should be enough time for you to take advantage of it.

-K.

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Thursday Morning Video: Post-It Note Atari

-K.

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Inanimotion

Prop Hunt is a hide-and-seek mod for Team Fortress 2, where one team spawns as random objects and the other spawns as pyros trying to find them. It looks like goofy fun, I'll have to try this when I get home.





-K.

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Thursday Morning Video: APB Podcast Episode 11: Reining Justice

I couldn't think of anything better to put up this morning, so I'll just share what I'm watching right now. APB is an upcoming MMO shooter from Realtime Worlds, the folks behind Crackdown, founded by David Jones, creator of Grand Theft Auto (And Lemmings, I just read, weird). Invites to the beta are supposedly being sent out within the next couple days and I'm hoping I make it in, I'm eager to try it out since they're claiming the way their dynamic matchmaking system works, on a per mission basis, that it is entirely possible to play the game solo. And that's precisely what I've been wanting out of a genre designed around social interactions.



-K.

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IT WAS A SPACECRAFT!

Just got a heads-up from the fine folks over at Good Old Games that they're running a 30% off weekend deal all titles in the Tex Murphy series. I haven't played any of them probably since they came out, so I can't speak to how well they've aged, but I may pick up the Pandora Directive (easily the best of the series) again just to see how they hold up.
Even thought here is a substantial amount of FMV in the three later gamers, billing them as "interactive movies" was probably a misstep, because that particular phrase has not come to invoke positive thoughts. They are very much adventure games, with the majority of the gameplay having you roam around through fully-rendered environments in first-person.
But you'd never know that from the trailer:



-K.

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Prank Call of the Wild(e)

Cabela's Big Game Hunter 2010 focuses on the thrill of hunting record-sized trophy animals across the globe. You'll take on the role of Jack Wilde, a skilled hunter who's been contacted by the elite hunting organization known as The Royal Ancient Order of Orion. They've invited Jack to join their Order, but first he has to successfully complete their membership trials. As Jack you'll explore some of the most prolific hunting grounds across the world, and eventually gain access to the Order's own private hunting reserve. You'll hunt Bighorn in Colorado and Reindeer in Finland. you'll track down Red Stag in New Zealand and Cape Buffalo in Tanzania. At every turn your skills as a hunter and marksman will be tested. After all, the Order only wants the best.

When the demo for Cabela's Big Game Hunter 2010 popped up on XBox Live I immediately downloaded it because I knew I could, at best, hope for something laughably terrible. I did not expect it to be as laughably terrible in the truly astonishing fashion in which it has been delivered. I have never investigated the genre, other than briefly playing Deer Hunter 2 on an old laptop (running Windows 95) we dug up here at work, but as far as I can recall I've never heard of any title trying to present a narrative to your wilderness slaughtering. The idea of trying to join a worldwide, top secret hunting organization, who have access to military-level technology to track your every move, is the exact type of ridiculous bullshit I need to care about this game. You do battle with mountain lions and bears in quicktime events, you gain experience and level up, your character swaps jokes over the radio with his mysterious handler from the Order, these things should not be in hunting games. So I purchased it, knowing full well the joke will not last much longer than the first hour, and then it will become an endurance trial to see it through to the end. It is a forty dollar prank I have just played on myself.


-K.

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Thursday Morning Video: Take On Me Literal Version

Is this your house?



-K.

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