Letting Off Steam

Hey, look at that, I'm already posting again. I can't check it directly while I'm here at work because Steam is correlated with fun, but it appears that a few publishers have gone completely insane. For today only, on Steam, you can pick up Grand Theft Auto IV for $7.49 (The game has fairly high requirements and I've heard reports of shoddy performance, though I haven't had a problem with it myself), Mirror's Edge for five bones and S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow for Chernobyl for a measly, a certifiable, a totally bonkers $1.99. Madness!
There are a few other deals that will extend to January 3rd, such as Braid for a mere two-fitty and the entire Jedi Knight collection for $6.50. But it looks like they may be shifting in new, more ridiculous 24-hour deals for the next few days, so keep your eyes peeled.

-K.

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Christmas Morning Video: Mystery Science Theater 3000 - Santa Claus

So, unlike last year we've got Christmas Eve off this time, and I won't be back in the office until the new year. Though with a long vacation ahead of me and my desktop still on the fritz, with my laptop remaining as my only fully function PC gaming device, it's a perfect time for me to go back and check out any indie games I might have overlooked, so there may be a post or two during that span (Don't count on it).
Anyway, I'll leave you with another mega-post containing a full episode of MST3K. This time Mike and the bots take on Santa Claus, not the man, but the poorly made and utterly bizarre Mexican kids' movie. Enjoy!











Merry Christmas everyone, and remember to watch out for the devil.

-K.

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Duke Nukem ForNever

There's a pretty great read over at Wired detailing what led to the demise of Duke Nukem Forever, pulling no punches in placing the blame squarely on 3D Realms frontman George Broussard's shoulders.

-K.

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The Price is Right

Got another newsletter from the noble stewards of the past at Good Old Games that, as a Christmas gift to their customers, they are giving away a two-pack of the original Tex Murphy games, Mean Streets and Martian Memorandum, at the low, low cost of no pennies. Better hurry, though, because their generous holiday spirit only extends until December 24th.
Yes, I know some of you are allergic to singing up for things, but Good Old Games is a completely free service (Until it comes time to actually pay for a game, of course), all titles function perfectly fine in XP or Vista, no mucking about with DOSBox, and the only e-mails you'll receive are ones alerting you to any new titles added or deals they've got going. There's no reason not to take advantage of this, unless you're simply a bad person.

-K.

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Thursday Morning Video: Bush Informed of 9/11 attack - Dramatizaion

This is probably only funny if you are familiar with Curb Your Enthusiasm, and even then you might think it's dumb. I love it.


-K.

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High Def Drifter

Yes, that's the best I could come up with.

There's always been dearth of Western-themed video games despite seeming rife for action-oriented titles. That isn't to say there aren't any at all, but there's a slow trickle of about one a year, and I wouldn't say any of them have achieved a classic status. Outlaws, the first-person shooter from LucasArts back when they weren't just exclusively focused on Star Wars, has always been the benchmark. I have fond memories of it, but I'd wager if I went back and played it now I might find it hasn't aged particularly well. The two Call of Juarez titles have been admirable, but ultimately mediocre stabs at the setting. The same could be said of the much more ambitious Gun, though its brief length and limited playing area for an open-world game worked against it. Now Rockstar is having a second go with Red Dead Redemption.
Red Dead Revolver was originally a Capcom title that they lost interest in developing, selling it to Rockstar who finished the game and was a respectable success. It was a mostly linear third-person shooter with some basic cover mechanics, but the fun combat, quick-draw showdowns, weapon upgrading and side missions made it a pretty enjoyable title, the main drawback being that difficulty curve ranged from challenging to murderous.
It was surprising, though, to have Rockstar announce a sequel, Red Dead Redemption, considering the original was released way back in 2004. And even though I don't have negative memories of Revolver, the early media didn't even make it a blip on my radar. But today Rockstar released what they say is the first in a series of video showing off the gameplay of Redemption, and now I'm probably looking forward to it more than anything else.


-K.

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Sometime Video: Mystery Science Theater 3000 - Mitchell

Cripes, has it been this long since I last posted? There are plenty of excuses, between being sick, trying for weeks to figure out why my desktop keeps crashing seemingly at random and being just plain lazy. Despite that I've still been playing a ton of games on the 360 and PS3 (and attempting to on the PC) that I should be talking about. I'll have to get around to that. But for now, have an extended video post:












-K.

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Pre-Thanksgiving Morning Video: Dock Ellis & The LSD No-No

Obviously I won't be here tomorrow so I'm putting up this week's video this morning. I thought about trying to find a video Thanksgiving related, but this is much funnier.


-K.

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The Shadow (of the Colossus) Out of Time

There are certainly other things I could be talking about because I haven't done a regular post in a while but this story caught my eye. The PlayStation 2, the nearly decade-old system that originally launched in Japan in March 2000, is just now officially being rolled out by Sony in Brazil, for more than what a PS3 costs here. Madness.

-K.

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Thursday Morning Video: NES Left 4 Dead

A fellow named Eric Ruth is developing an NES-style Left 4 Dead demake, says he'll be done with it sometime next year. I can't help but wonder if all the amusement to be had is the nostalgic charm and that I've absorbed all the useful entertainment nutrients I can from simply watching a demo video. At any rate, it's still impressive.



-K.

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Thursday Morning Video: Monty Python's The Meaning of Life - The Galaxy Song

The mellifluous tones of Eric Idle make me feel like everything's going to be okay.


-K.

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Thursday Morning Video: Giant Bomb - V-Pain Breaks Down Today's Schedule

-K.

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Run for the Borderlands

It's no secret that I'm not the largest fan of Diablo, so when the phrase "It's basically Diablo with guns" started getting thrown around to describe Gearbox's Borderlands it's understandable I wasn't exactly chomping at the bit to get my hands on it. After spending a considerable amount of time with the game both on the PC and the 360 I can say that they're absolutely right, and it's great.

An over-the-top sci-fi action-RPG set on a distant planet in the future is not the kind of thing anyone expected from Gearbox, the studio that, while starting with an expansion to the original Half-Life, made a name for itself through their Brothers in Arms franchise, a series of semi-tactical super serious World War 2 games. The game takes place on Pandora, a desolate desert world rules by vicious creatures and murderous raiders, and you play one of four characters that are searching for "the vault," a mythical, hidden place filled with alien riches. The storyline is paper thin, you can get by without reading any of the quest text, and it doesn't really matter. The game isn't about presenting an epic world with a grand narrative, it is entirely focused on getting you to shoot guys and collect loot.


Borderlands is a shooter, first and foremost, sort of wrapped in a role-playing game candy shell. Sure, you gain experience and skill points, but everything about the RPG aspect is purely mathematical. There is no room for personal interpretation or expression; no dialogue trees, no moral choices, you simply accept quests and get on with the murder. You'll earn money and equipment for completing these tasks which you will use in turn to buy and sell more equipment. And there's a lot of it.
Their method of procedurally generating weapons and how the game goes about that process led to a fairly well publicized claim of the game having, effectively, over half a million guns. This does involve in the creation of many, many guns you will simply pick up only to sell, and guns that are almost exactly the same except for a couple point differences in accuracy or damage, but the allure of opening every weapon cache hoping to find some crazy revolver that fires shotgun shells that do acid damage is strong. But it's just neat to jump back into the game after playing it earlier, find a weapon cache you already opened before and have it give you something completely different, albeit not always useful.
It's just a fun game to play, using your most prized weapons to wade through groups of enemies, giving it that distinct Diablo feel, but different in giving you complete freedom in your movement and actions. Playing online, with up to three additional players, simply increases the amount of hostile creatures you face at any time, and while it usually makes the game more fun, playing it with friends mean you all need to leave your character untouched in the meantime, because having just one person a few levels higher means they can tear through most quests while you're struggling to keep up with their murderous pace. For the most part, though, it works, and there's nothing wrong with just going it solo.
It's a big game with a lot to do and a lot to find, with my main character only a little more than half way to the level cap after about 15 hours of play, and definitely worth giving a look.


-K.

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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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Thursday Morning Video: 36 Skaters Make Downhill Neon Video Game

Watching this I was reminded of another video:



I love that even though the ambient sound of Space Invaders is just four tones the guy doing it makes it sound distinctly French.

-K.

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What is Game? - Resident Evil 5 PC gameplay

The PC port of Resident Evil 4 is a little notorious due to the fact that in its original state, the version that was put on the shelves for people to pay real money for, did not have lighting in it. More specifically, did not have any shading effects at all, no contrast, everything was overly bright and ugly. Also the control scheme did not include mouse support, the default being an extremely awkward and frustrating keyboard scheme, more or less requiring you to have a gamepad if you wanted to play it without hating it. It didn't do so well.
Still, it appears Capcom has faith in the PC market and this time decided it would be better if they ported the game themselves, and it works splendidly.



-K.

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In Your Base, Manipulatin' Your Dudes

I was poking around the archives over on Rock, Paper, Shotgun and found something that slipped through the cracks. The Manipulator is a little puzzle-platformer that popped up on TIGSource a while back that has you navigating a secret base and taking control of its inhabitants to advance, Oddworld-style. Nothing earth-shattering here, but a fun little distraction that you'll be able to get through in about an hour.

The game comes in at a trim 4MB, which you can grab here.

-K.

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Thursday Morning Video: Giant Bomb - Quick Look: Darkest of Days

Dreamcast post forthcoming, also some footage taking a look at the PC versions of Resident Evil 5, Batman: Arkham Asylum and Red Faction: Guerrilla on the way.

Until then, let's take a look at Darkest of Days. In stores now!



-K.

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We're Getting Old, Part 1 (TurboGrafx-16)

There are a few stories that I haven't touched on in a timely matter because I happen to be lazy, probably because I'm getting older, LIKE THESE SYSTEMS! (KA-POW!)

I almost didn't believe it, but the TurboGrafx-16 turned 20 back in the last week of August. 1Up ran a decent retrospective piece more focused on the business side of things and why the system didn't really take off in America.
I have a very faint memory of playing the system prior to getting one, they had it on display at the Children's Palace on Lindbergh (Now a JC Penny Home Store), playing the launch title Keith Courage in Alpha Zones. Even after I had owned it and played it for a number of years it wasn't really until I started writing this that I realize Keith Courage wasn't a very good game, but all of my gaming experience at the time came from the NES and Apple II, so it was mind-blowing, all those colors!
My parents got me one shortly after it was discontinued and the price dropped to fifty bucks. Even though the Genesis and SNES were out at the time and were already boasting a better lineup of titles, I didn't really care, this was something nobody else seemed to know existed and I was playing games none of my friends would. So what I'm saying is that I was an indie douche in my childhood.
I even owned the TurboExpress at one point, which was the handheld version of the system itself. It was large and bulky and strange, I'm pretty sure I've seen it used as some sort of elaborate tracking device or alien object in a few bad straight-to-video action movies. Despite proudly displaying games in full color, the green and black tints of the GameBoy reigned supreme. The major problem was, like the original system itself, affordability, because it hit the market in 1992 at $249, which is a hundred bucks more than what the Nintendo DS started at twelve years later. It also burned through 6 AA batteries in just a couple of hours. But damn if it wasn't impressive at the time.
Unfortunately I sold every piece of TurboGrafx material I owned on eBay, like I did with my top-loading NES and games, and I greatly regret both actions. Perhaps the nostalgia bug will bite harder and I'll reunite myself with the system, certainly I am not immune from that.
I'd like to share some footage of the titles that I have fond memories of:


Keith Courage in Alpha Zones - Yeah, you can probably tell just by watching this that it wasn't very good, a kind of feeble attempt at a Zelda II-ish side-scroller. Though it featured that unique method of rainbow transporation long before Katamari Damacy saw the light of day.


Bonk's Revenge - Despite not being the launch title, Bonk more or less became the mascot of the system, though certainly didn't even put a dent into the popularity of Mario or Sonic. It's a fairly standard platformer, but had style and charm, which goes a long way.


Galaga '90 - Namco was a name that still carried some heft back in those days, and they threw their weight behind the system with a great update to the arcade classic. I have a distinct memory from when I was about 9 or 10, my brother and I were switching rooms over the summer and I spent a night where all I had was a mattress on the floor and a TV to play this.


Pac-Land - This was a real curiosity, I remember being very excited about getting this game, even though the resemblance to the original gameplay concepts of Pac-Man are extremely thin. I remember correctly the two buttons were used to run left and right and the d-pad was used to jump. Weird!


Bomberman '94 - This is the only game I ever recall importing, and it required this ridiculously long circuit board dongle thingie to run properly on US hardware. Trying to get a round of Battle mode going when all the menu options beyond the title screen are in Japanese was kind of a pain, but being a fan of Bomberman it was totally worth it.


Part 2, the slightly more recognized celebration of the Dreamcast, is coming soon and will almost definitely be a less grueling affair to read.

-K.

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Party Like it's 1991: Knights of the Chalice

This dropped a while back but I never really got around to jumping into the demo until recently, Knights of the Chalice is a turn-based RPG that admirably attempts to recreate a tabletop game, notably making use of the D20 Open Gaming License to try to keep things familiar with those, well, familiar. Unfortunately I am not one terribly familiar with D&D experiences and though I mused for such a digital experience in the past, this one is a little bulky with the retro, DOS-era presentation and somewhat unfriendly interface, but it does present that truly turn-based combat I was looking for. I'm trying to soldier on with it and get my head around the controls and actions, because I think there's an enjoyable experience here, but I get the sense it was probably made for those already fully versed in the mechanics in mind. If you've got the patience and/or knowledge required you wouldn't be doing yourself any harm in checking out the demo.

-K.

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Plunging Deeper

I've been pretty busy here at work which has contributed to a total lack of energy during what little down time I have, which I would much rather be spending watching something on Netflix rather than exerting myself mentally. I do have things I have wanted to talk about, just bear with me. At any rate, a quick little update regarding the game of my last post, Spelunky. During my lengthy sessions with it I thought idly about how awesome an XBLA version of it would be, but I realized that was highly unlikely. It turns out that Spelunky creator Derek Yu is also in the business of granting wishes. Also it appears he's finally released version 1.0 of the game, which I will have to check out as soon as I get home (provided I can pry myself away from Arkham Asylum which is goddamn splendid), and I advise you to do the same.

-K.

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Play This Now: Spelunky

I'm about ten months late on this recommendation, which is right about when this was making the rounds on the gaming blogs, but I hadn't really gotten around to playing it until just the other night. Since then I've gone well past the 100-death mark, and that might be the most important distinction to make. If you play Spelunky, you're going to die. A lot. Basically, Spelunky is a side-scrolling platformer take on Rogue: the levels and items are randomly generated and placed, and your victory depends on luck just as much as skill. Maybe it's because I just played a bunch of pinball this weekend as well, but there's something about the way the game is structured that reminds me of it; No matter how sharp your focus one mistake can ruin all of your progress, and even though it's frustrating you know you can do better, and that keeps you coming back. It'll probably take a few deaths just to get the hang of the controls and get an idea of the mechanics, like how to successfully navigate one of the stores without an errant button press resulting in the shopkeeper blasting you with a shotgun, but once you do you've got a surprisingly deep time-waster that's perfect for short pick-up-and-play sessions.

Link, TIGSource Spelunky thread.

Link, Spelunky Wiki.

-K.

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Late Thursday Night Video: Giant Bomb - Incredible Crisis

I need to find this.



-K.

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What is Game? Doubleshot - Half-Life 2: Episode Two and Mirror's Edge

I have a review for Alone in the Dark in the pipes, but I think I may need a little more time to meditate on my time spent with it. I'll go ahead and say right now it wasn't very good.
In the meantime, I did some PC gaming over the weekend, getting through the pheonomial Research and Development made me want to go back and play through Half-Life 2: Episode Two again, and I finally cracked open the copy of Mirror's Edge I bought a couple weeks ago, which didn't take long to see it through to completion. Anyway, flashing lights and bright colors:




-K.

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Play This Now: Research and Development

I had written a fairly lengthy introduction to this post consisting of my thoughts on the mod scene these days but reading it I realized it was just me yammering on like a deranged loony. So, instead, I'm just going to say that if you have Half-Life: Episode 2, you should really, really play Research and Development. It's a short but very clever "mod" (More like a level pack) that is much more focused on puzzles, more or less iterating on the style of puzzles found in the game already, with only a wee bit of gravity gun combat thrown in. It's very well-designed, very smart and very impressive, especially considering it was made by one guy. And it's free, go check it out.

Link, ModDB.

-K.

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End of Line

Yes, yes, a thousand times yes.


-K.

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Gearbox Should Fire Their Marketing Department

I'm really looking forward to Borderlands, it was one of the few things at E3 I was really interested in but there didn't seem to be any footage of the presentation Gearbox gave. I guess to celebrate the announcement of the release date, October 20th, they put out a new trailer, and it'll also give me an opportunity to talk about it a bit.


I really hate the way the trailer was put together, though saying "role-playing shooter" is still not as bad as what the Crimecraft guys came up with a while back. The game itself is still looking very promising. To go into a little more detail, Borderlands is an open-world, post-apocalyptic FPS/RPG from Gearbox, the guys behind the Brothers in Arms series. The game can be played through alone or with up to three friends, who, if I understand correctly, can drop in and out at any time. You'll bomb around the planet in various vehicles, killing strange creatures, completing quests and collecting better. The hyperbolic "87 bazillion guns" refers to the fact that all the weapons in the game are procedurally generated, the game coming up with different stat combinations on the fly. There are different gun manufacturers in the game with their own unique styles, combined with the regular damage, accuracy, fire rate, etc. stats, as well as elemental damage. During a presentation last year, Gearbox frontman Randy Pitchford said that the number of weapons was more around half a million, which is still a staggering number, though many of those will probably amount to Lightning Sniper Rifle+1 and Lightning Sniper Rifle+2. The character advancement seems to be a typical Diablo-style affair, you pick one of four character types and level them up, picking different abilities from a skill tree as you progress.
Despite favorable reviews their last Brothers in Arms game, Hell's Highway, which I enjoyed myself, was not much of a success, so Borderlands could be Gearbox's make-or-break title. They seem be generating a lot of buzz, I hope it works out for them, I know I'll likely be picking it up.

-K.

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It's a Secret to All Who Know

Spotted this over on Offworld, an enterprising individual over at TIGSource has started work on a 3D, first-person remake of The Legend of Zelda. You can grab a brief, work-in-progress build which features a few recreated rooms of the game's first dungeon. Here's hoping he can see it through, it seems very promising.

-K.

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Someday Eventual Video: The News (as Seen Through the Eyes of a PCP Addict)

Sorry, I forgot I had a site for a little while.



-K.

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Let's Do the Time Warp Never

The Tivoli finally posted their midnight show schedule on the Landmark website and the selection this year is okay, I guess, a couple movies I've never seen I would like to see, a couple I've never seen in a theater, and one real head-scratcher. I've underlined the ones I would definitely like to see.

Joe Dante's original Gremlins • July 17 & 18
St. Louis premiere! Deadgirl • July 24 & 25
The Director's Cut! Donnie Darko • July 31 & Aug 1
Who ya gonna call? Ghostbusters • Aug 7 & 8
Robert De Niro & Jodie Foster in
Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver • Aug 14 & 15
Experience U2's Vertigo Tour in 3D!
3D glasses provided! U2 3D (What the fuck?) • Aug 21 & 22
David Bowie & Jennifer Connelly in Labyrinth • Aug 28 & 29
Michael J. Fox goes Back to the Future • Sep 4 & 5
Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction • Sep 11 & 12
High Times...Hard Bodies...Soft Rock:
Wet Hot American Summer • Sep 18 & 19
Firefly on the big screen! Serenity • Sep 25 & 26
John Carpenter's They Live • Oct 2 & 3
Bruce Campbell in Army of Darkness • Oct 9 & 10
Bruce Willis & Brad Pitt in
Terry Gilliams' 12 Monkeys • Oct 16 & 17
3D glasses provided! My Bloody Valentine 3D • Oct 23 & 24

I kind of want to hang out outside the Tivoli just to see if anybody shows up to see a U2 concert in a movie theater in 3D.

-K.

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Play This Now: Daggerfall

I don't know if you really need to actually play this now, but probably worth a mention that, for seemingly no reason at all, Bethesda has released Daggerfall, the second game in the Elder Scrolls series, for no pennies. This is not some new fancy updated version, however, and requires the use of DOSBox to get it running. Once you've got that you'll need to follow the 21-step procedure for installing it and getting it run with DOSBox, which if you can muster the patience to struggle through, you'll have a ginormous first-person RPG to play with no cost to you!

-K.

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Thursday Eventual Video: Giant Bomb - TANG: Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li

I wasn't going to post a video today, but then I did. Take that, me.



-K.

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Indie Game Report, Part 1

So I spent the larger portion of last week down at the lake, laptop in tow, having loaded it with a couple dozen games. I did this mainly because while spending a couple hours out on the lake or going up the river is fun, you need something to kill the other 12 hours you will be conscious because there is absolutely nothing else to do in that town. I picked up a few indie titles before the trip, because I got the idea in my head that I would play through them and then do a write-up about each of them. I ended up starting a new character in Oblivion and playing for three days. Okay, I thought, when I get home I'll get down to business.
When I got home I moved my character over to my desktop and installed a bunch of mods and played Oblivion for the next two days.
With only Saturday and Sunday remaining on what began as my nine-day vacation, I went into an indie game binge.



Cryostasis: Sleep of Reason

I'm starting off with a bit of a cheat, because Cryostasis isn't really an indie game, but doesn't seem to have garnered much buzz for a fairly recent release and I figured it deserved a mention.
Cryostasis is a sort of horror-themed adventure/FPS hybrid set in 1981 aboard a massive icebreaker that shipwrecked near the North Pole roughly twenty years earlier. You awake already on-board, and soon you're making your way through the ship, battling its undead crew and trying to piece together what happened. The game's main hook is that along the way you encounter certain corpses of the crew that you can inhabit, reliving their final moments and correcting their fatal mistakes, which will manipulate the environment in the present.
I am enjoying the game so far, but it does have some major flaws, technically and thematically. It is a visually stunning game that does some great work with lighting and shadows and other effects, the problem is that it is almost completely unplayable, by almost all accounts and not just my own, at those higher detail settings. The wandering around, exploring bits are okay, but whenever combat occurs it's like two boxers trying to duke it out inside a vat of molasses. So I was pretty much required to scale everything down to medium to get something resembling a stable framerate, but I can live with that.


It's a curiosity, it is too linear and the story unravels too slowly to be considered a good adventure game and the combat is a little too sluggish and clunky to be considered a good action game, but somehow it works. The time travel elements (They call it "Mental Echo," and so far there has been absolutely no explanation why the main character has this ability) do provide an effective hook, but even they can be bogged down by not being allowed to save during those scenes, forcing you to restart them over and over until you get it right.
On the plus side, the game does have a very effective atmosphere; the dark, silent rooms of the ship give a great sense of isolation, the bluish hues and ice-covered walls are a reminder of your overarching, oppressive foe: the cold. Your health meter is also your warmth level, you are constantly seeking new heat sources to keep yourself from freezing to death. Also, ice zombies.


Much like STALKER, some glaring, unfortunate flaws plague this title, but if you can get past those you'll find an original, enjoyable horror title. Though you still may want to wait until the price goes down.

Cryostsis: Sleep of Reason is currently available in stores and on Steam for $29.99. You can also download the official demo from FileShack or FileFront.


Trine

A small group of guys in Finland took the core concept of The Lost Vikings and mashed it up with the physics-based puzzles LittleBigPlanet, wrapped it in a fantasy setting and called it Trine.
Trine is a side-scrolling platformer from Frozenbyte, the folks behind the Shadowgrounds series of top-down shooters, about a thief, a wizard and a knight who lay their hands on title object, a magical artifact that binds souls together. Breaking free from the object and regaining their physical forms again means traveling through more than a dozen levels spread out across your fairly standard fantasy land.
What this means for you in gameplay terms is that you can switch between these three characters at any time, and you will need to in order to navigate the various challenges from the environment and an army of the undead. The thief, as you'd expect, is quick and nimble, carrying a bow and rope arrows. The wizard has telekinetic powers and can conjure small structures. The knight is good at destroying things.
The platforming is solid, the puzzles are, so far, challenging without being frustrating and the combat feels sort of tacked-on but doesn't really hurt the game. I've got no real complaints about how it plays.
The visuals may not be eye-popping, but after playing so many games with drab and muted color palettes it's pretty refreshing to jump into something that isn't afraid to be bright and vibrant. It would drive the "hardcore" Diablo players crazy.
Trine isn't a game that's going to light the world on fire, but it's a solid, fun amalgam of concepts that's worth your attention.



Trine is available now on Steam for $29.99, where you can also grab the demo.


Ben There, Dan That

Ben There, Dan That is an old-school freeware point-and-click adventure that is shameless about copying the style of LucasArts heyday adventure games verbatim.
Flatmates and adventuring duo Ben and Dan are fresh off their latest escapade in South America and return home to their native London with one desire: Catching a repeat of Magnum, PI. With the television aerial missing the pair craft a makeshift replacement, only to have it act as a conduit to zap them on to an alien spacecraft. So it's that old story again.
On the craft there are doors leading to alternate dimensions, such as a dimension populated by the undead and the dimension where England has become America's 51st state, making your way through each area to find the key to unlock the next door.
It's a familiar affair, if you've ever played an adventure game you'll know your way around this one, take it nice and easy, no monsters or quick-time events to deal with.
The writing, which is a lot of chatter between the two characters, is solid and funny for the most part, my only complaint being there's a little too much fourth wall, "hey, we're in an adventure" game humor that just falls flat. I'm not all the way through it but the puzzle solutions are pretty much right out in the open, which I guess is better than having to go out of your way and dig up a walkthrough.
But for some old school goodness that don't cost nuthin', you can do a whole lot worse than this. Go check it out.

Ben There, Dan That can be downloaded directly from the developer's website.

-K.

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Thursday Morning Video: Giant Bomb - Let's Tap Unboxening

Let's Tap for the Wii sounded really stupid when it was first announced. I'm glad it appears to have lived up to the hype.



-K.

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Bustin' Doesn't Make Me Feel Good

UPDATE: Atari came out with a bit of shocking honesty, basically saying, "Yeah, we pretty much phoned it in."

Original post: So I spotted this disconcerting story a couple nights ago over on Kotaku, stating that the PC version of Ghostbusters: The Video Game, releasing tomorrow, requires an internet connection for DRM authentication. That's a little irritating, but the worst part about that is that the PC version will not have multiplayer. Internet connection required, but only to make sure you aren't a pirate. That isn't the most non-sensical part, because taking a look at the image of the back of the box, the game apparently does not support dual-core processors or video cards that have 256MB of memory. I half expect to hear it also does not run on computers facing east or will not run for people with mustaches (except Ernie Hudson).

-K.

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What is Game? - Grand Theft Auto IV

Been bit by the Grand Theft Auto IV bug again. Rockstar really did create a world that is just fun to run around in and explore, with the option to cause some mayhem if you're feeling bored. Here's some gameplay footage of one of the missions and some more stupid videos after the jump.







-K.

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Good News, Everyone!

Came across this story while bombing around the intertron, now if only Sci-Fi (Soon to be "SyFy." Yipes.) would quit dumping money into worse knock-offs of bad movies and pony up some dough for a Firefly revival it could really make up for many of the boneheaded Fox cancellations. At least that's a damn sight more likely than revivals of Keen Eddie and The Lone Gunmen. Anyway, good for Groening and co., I guess I should get around to watching those movies.

-K.

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Four Blocks Away from the Iron Curtain

I'm still working on a worthwhile compilation of E3 media, with some interesting pieces still trickling in, but it's been mostly rough going. As I stated before it was kind of a boring E3, unless you're really into God of War-style brawlers or motion controls, which, unfortunately, I am not. But I'll knock it out eventually, there were still a couple of games that interested me that I haven't mentioned yet.

In the meantime, Tetris turned 25 over the weekend and to celebrate I'd like to share the BBC-produced Tetris documentary From Russia With Love, which I learned about and watched myself by way of Offworld.













-K.

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Sleepy Time in Gamesville

Even though I've dragged myself into work today I've been feeling a bit under the weather since yesterday, so I didn't feel up to casting my net and dragging in the choice catch from E3 so far, but it looks like it may be slim pickings at any rate. I'm going to wait for everything to wrap up (today is the final day) and try to put together a selection of highlights.

-K.

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E3 Day Zero Talkabout

I guess yesterday didn't really count as a real day of E3 for some reason, even though there was a very long procession of announcements and demonstrations. Microsoft kicked things off with their press conference that everyone but myself seems to be raving about. I guess I had to be there. The major buzz seems to be surrounding Project Natal, Microsoft's latest attempt to outdo the Wii. Project Natal is a camera peripheral that senses gestures, voice and facial expressions to control games. I remain perfectly comfortable with a controller. They also had Felicia Day come out and tell us there would be integrated Facebook and Twitter support for the 360, because why the fuck not. Hideo Kojima emerged from the depths of his shattered psyche to inform the world that the 360 would be getting a Metal Gear game, not the port of Metal Gear Solid 4 everyone was expecting (and hoping for), but rather a brand-new title featuring Raiden, a character that, to my knowledge, is the most hated of the franchise. Thanks, Hideo. Towards the end, Peter Molyneux had a discussion through Project Natal with a "digital boy" on-screen that was created by Lionhead, and by all accounts was apparently an intensely creepy experience.
There was very little in terms of new game announcements or developments, or at least ones that I care about at any rate, but there were a couple of note:

• In a somewhat surprising announcement that has, obviously, sparked anger on the internet, Valve announced Left 4 Dead 2. The argument is that many people believed Left 4 Dead would receieve free, continual gameplay updates, like in Team Fortress 2, and that Valve announcing a sequel that, I assume, will be a fully-priced retail product, is some sort of betrayal. I, too, felt that pang of entitlement momentarily, but quickly reconciled that with knowing I probably got $50 out of the first game, and also never recalled Valve promising additional content at the game's release. In this interview with project lead Chet Faliszek, he says that support for the original game will not suddenly disappear, though whether this translates to more content remains to be seen. Anyway, it's more Left 4 Dead except in the south, with new characters, a stronger focus on melee weapons, and other new improvements. I'm excited. You can check out the trailer and also take a look at this hands-on preview.
• Max Payne-creators Remedy finally emerged from their underground lair in Finland to show off Alan Wake, which has been MIA for a couple of years now, a game I've been excited about without knowing what the hell it actually is because they've never shown any gameplay until now. And it looks like a video game, thank god for that.
• It feels weird that I'm only going to be talking about three games and one of them is a downloadable release. Produced by Epic and Chair, Shadow Complex is a game I didn't bother digging any deeper into until I read "Metroid-like" somewhere. So it seems.

I trust that tomorrow, the first official day of the show, will provide more visual stimulation.

-K.

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The Oncoming Storm

You can see it lumbering distantly on the horizon, a dark force that envelopes and consumes all that wander into its gaping, howling maw. It emits a siren song of wonder and excitement, masking the true pain and darkness which lies beyond the hypnotic veil. Everyone knows not to trust its overwhelming power, but each year we fall victim.

E3 is coming.

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Thursday Morning Video: VernWow

Hey, this guy, I remember him.


-K.

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What is Game? - Dead Space

So instead of getting into King's Bounty or starting Broken Steel in Fallout 3 or restarting Silent Storm or polishing off the last survival challenge in Plants vs. Zombies or continuing to struggle through the problems I've been having with Call of Duty: World at War multiplayer (Which I may expand on later), I decided to play through Dead Space for the third time.

It's really good.



-K.

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Thursday Morning Video: Creepy Mario 64

Apparently there are people out there that seek out GameShark codes that don't imbue you with enhanced powers, but rather completely fuck up the game:





-K.

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Deep Thoughts

After hearing a little bit of buzz I decided to check out the just released "art" game Fathom by Adam "Atomic" Saltsman, a fellow who worked on the Wii version of Cave Story among other things, which seems to be more of a commentary on standard game conventions than a game itself. Without giving too much away it presents a different look on our usual expectations for game flow, especially when confronted with no-win situations.
I don't want to go this whole post sounding like a pretentious douche so I will say that while it is an interesting piece, it lacks an entertaining punch and is not as straightforward as, say, similar recent arty game Today I Die. Fathom can be a chore to get through, and it would be totally understandable if you simply lose patience with it halfway in. If you can't make it to the end just look up An Occurence at Owl Creek Bridge, it's basically the video game version of that.

-K.

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Play This Now: S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl

I'm unable to check this out for myself while I'm here at work, but I spotted a story over on Rock, Paper, Shotgun which has informed me that S.T.A.L.K.E.R. is now available on GameTap for the low price of zero dollars. I have not jumped on to GameTap since a few months before Turner sold it to French company Exent, so I cannot speak to the quality of the service as it is today, but there are a couple of caveats: Apparently it does not support 64-bit operating systems and does not allow the use of mods. If neither of those presents a problem, by all means check it out, but if you want to give it a go with some of the mods, some of which improve the game significantly, it would still be worth it to pick it up on Steam.

Link, GameTap S.T.A.L.K.E.R. page

-K.

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What is Game? - Fallout 3 (Test)

I think I'm going to try to make this a regular piece, because I'm very bored, to give a visual account of what I've been playing and also maybe give a better presentation on some things you might not have heard of. It'll be good when I get around to finally tackling King's Bounty or going back to play some Silent Storm.

Anyway, here's me dicking around in Fallout 3, mostly I was testing how well uploading HD videos to YouTube works:



-K.

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Thursday Morning Video: Little Mac

-K.

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Taste Supreme

I spend a lot of my time here trying to shift my mental focus on things other than my job, mostly to keep murderous rage at bay. Recently I've been occupying that space with thoughts about what the upcoming Tivoli midnight schedule will be like, and what I would show if it were up to me. Just single films here, even though my ideas for Back to Back to Back to the Future and Evil Dead Complete (All three films can easily be cut together to form one seamless feature) are totally awesome. This also gives me a chance to mention a few semi-obscure to totally obscure films I've been meaning to talk about in a form that requires the least amount of elaboration:

Blade Runner - This needs no explanation, this should simply be an annual event. I would not mind seeing the original theatrical version again just for contrast, but Final Cut is pretty goddamn awesome.
The Hudsucker Proxy - One of the least well-known and underappreciated Coen Brothers movies, their loving homage to the screwball comedies of the 30's and 40's is just as good as any of their other films. Co-written by Sam Raimi.
L.A. Confidential - I cannot stress it enough, one of the best films of all time.
The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension - It has been a very long time since I have seen this, so I don't know how well it would hold up, but it is perfect midnight film material.
The Frighteners - Peter Jackson's first American film, just before Lord of the Rings, is bizarre, funny and just a goddamn hoot.
Silver Streak - I really enjoy movies set on a train for some reason, and while this Gene Wilder/Richard Pryor thriller-comedy takes some time to get going, and the latter of the pair doesn't even show up until an hour into the film, it's a very enjoyable watch.
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan - After the abysmal first theatrical outing, the crew of the Enterpise get down to business in this gripping, engrossing adventure of... Oh forget it, KHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN!!
Heavy Metal - Really I just want to see some animated boobs on a big screen, but without the tentacles.
Hard Boiled - It's been too long since I've seen Chow Yun-Fat dive through windows with two pistols blazing.
Outland - Another movie I have not seen in a long time, but this is all you need to know: Outland is a remake of High Noon with Sean Connery. In space.
Wizards - I don't know how well this one holds up either, I only remember it being very violent. Really that's what I want out of an animated midnight movie.
Twice Upon a Time - Two unlikely heroes get mixed up in a battle of dreams and nightmares in this uniquely stylized, highly imaginative and funny animated film. It is a goddamn crime that virtually no one has even heard of this film, especially considering one of the producers was George Lucas. I'm not even sure if prints of this still exist, it's not available on DVD and copies of the VHS version are very rare. Someone managed to put together a "restoration cut," which mostly features more profane dialogue from the film's antagonist, which, surprisingly, I don't think works as well as the more family-friendly version, and threw it on YouTube.

I'm a goddamn nerd.

-K.

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