Archive for January, 2010

Episode 120: Requiescat in Pace (Gunshot)

By
ThePack
 – January 13, 2010Posted in: Main, Podcasts

It’s an Assassin’s Creed II Asstravaganza! This week, the guys chat with Roger Craig Smith, the voice of Ezio, Chris Redfield and countless other video game characters. Roger tells them about voice acting, his recording experience at Ubisoft, and much more. After the interview, stay tuned for our post-game ACII analysis. (Be advised that 56:30 and beyond is super spoiler territory, so make sure you’ve completed the game!) Make sure to come back for the interview in its entirety this weekend.

Relevant Links:

The late Peter Boyle as you’ve never seen him before! (Poochinski)

Assassin’s Creed 2 Unnecessary Censorship

Episode 120: Requiescat in Pace (Gunshot) [ 1:27:42 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (326)

Forced Feedback: Avatar

By
Justin
 – January 12, 2010Posted in: Blogs, Forced Feedback, Justin, Main, Nicolo

After a month in theaters, “Avatar” is still just as relevant ever. With over a $1 billion worldwide box office gross so far, James Cameron’s dream project may ultimately become the most financially successful film of all time (if you ignore inflation adjustment, of course). But will the movie have long-term effects for gamers? And will the 3D technology used here trickle down to your living room anytime soon? In this new column, Justin and Nick discuss the potential cultural impact of “Avatar” on our favorite pastime.

Justin: I watched a 3D screening of “Avatar” a couple weeks ago, and I’ll admit that I’m a little sick of the coverage this movie has received, a huge box-office take be damned. While I found much to like about the film, which is why Nick and I are dual-blogging here, I found the plot and thinly drawn characters to be utterly forgettable. I think if you take even a not-so-close look at the logistics of the Avatar program and the supposed diplomatic mission to Pandora, it makes little sense, and there are a bunch of other nagging issues that bug the hell out of me. Not trying to be a downer, but I want to make it clear that I have a lot of issues that I’m ignoring for the sake of this conversation before we proceed.

That said, I love those glowing helicopter lizards. And the hair-tentacle fusion stuff between the Na’vi and Pandoran wildlife. And the bioluminescent fauna that lights up when Jake walks by at night. Throughout the entire 2+ hour experience, I kept thinking about how much the planet reminded me of the Panzer Dragoon series, most notably Orta, and I was unsurprised when Nick mentioned that he picked up a similar video game vibe during his viewing. The movie, both thematically and visually, seems reminiscent of many recent gaming favorites, and I thought it would be fun to explore the symbiotic relationship between Hollywood and our industry that’s cropped up in recent years. So Nick, I was hoping you could touch a bit upon the “virtual world” theme that you were talking about last night…

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Q-Games’ Complexity Through Simplicity

By
Justin
 – January 8, 2010Posted in: Blogs, Justin, Main

On Monday night, I “officially” designated Uncharted 2 as my “Game of the Year,” but as I pointed out during our podcast, most of my other choices took a more old-school design plan. In the case of New Super Mario Bros. Wii, this meant bosses that always required three bonks on the head to defeat; for Punch-Out!!, this meant straightforward circuits with only a few bells and whistles. While some of my choices earned scoffs from the rest of the Pack, I still stand by them. And none were more elegant than PixelJunk Shooter, a game from a personal favorite dev team, Q-Games.

I won’t rehash the mechanics of Shooter, but what really blew me away about this particular entry in the series was how much you could do with so little. Though the basic controls used the comfortable dual-stick scheme, your little ship could fly circles around its Geometry Wars equivalent. Even with a very streamlined control scheme and visual style, you could:

  • Blend lava, water, steam, magnetic oil and ice for varying and occasionally unpredictable outcomes

  • Slide into different suits so that you could suddenly repel different substances or fly through intense heat

  • Latch onto glaciers, “bucket” plants and water pods to douse the environment and progress onward

  • Open switches, rescue trapped folks, battle monsters and more…

While I realize that these observations aren’t necessarily revelatory, I’m still blown away by the expansive move set in this $10 title, and how many different variables the game asks you to process in any given moment. And if you’ll allow me to get just a bit more pretentious than normal – brace yourselves – I think what defines Q-Games and its gaijin prez Dylan Cuthbert (at least in recent years) as auteurs is deceptively complex resource management in a very old-school package.

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World of Flash: Where the Flash Things Are

By
ThePack
 – January 7, 2010Posted in: Blogs, Draque, Main, World of Flash

Now that the holidays are over and people have gone back to the grind of reality, I have returned in an attempt to make your productivity plummet. In what will likely be the last of my “surveys of the Flash gaming world,” I will be like the mother bird and feast upon the flesh of my runt offspring. I josh. Instead I shall provide you with wings, so that you may begin to wander the wild world of Flash yourself.

Newgrounds

Tank

Founded by Tom Fulp, the programmer behind the dynamic developer duo that is Behemoth (creators of Alien Hominid and Castle Crashers), Newgrounds is likely the largest site of user-submitted and peer-reviewed content on the web. The site primarily relies on amateur or very small independent developers to submit their Flash game/video to the community. Then it is up to the community to either protect it and push it to the top, or to “blam” it and keep it from ever seeing the light of day.

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Episode 119: Flushing Out the Old

By
ThePack
 – January 5, 2010Posted in: Main, Podcasts

After weeks of anticipation, the guys have finally picked their Games of the Year – and they’re ready to take their choices to the grave! But before the Pack gets to the festivities, there’s some more post-holiday business to discuss. Nick goes back to the future in the original Mass Effect, Kaz maintains his Left 4 Dead 2 masochistic streak, and Justin and Tom let the Trajectiles fly in another DSi game from Q-Games. The second half of the show is a look at both 2009 and a theoretical 2019. How long will it be before you get to see The Rumble Pack in 3D? Tune in to find out!

Episode 119: Flushing Out the Old [ 1:53:22 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (304)

Game Night: Left 4 Dead 2

By
Justin
 – January 4, 2010Posted in: Game Night, Main

Who: Everyone

When: 9 p.m. EST, January 6th

What: Left 4 Dead 2 Multiplayer

Where: Steam AND Xbox Live

Why: Because we can’t beat the second campaign on our own! Damn jockeys!

RSVP here

LittleBigPlanet (PSP) Review

By
Justin
 – January 4, 2010Posted in: Justin, Main, Review

The PS3′s LittleBigPlanet was a game about unbridled creativity. Anything was possible, so long as you had the patience to glue it all together. LBP‘s younger brother for the PSP shares its title but is too often about compromise. While the charm, intricate level design and adorable Sackboys have survived the transition, much of what made the original special has been sent to the scrapheap.

LBP is a classic case of “can we/should we.” From a technical standpoint, the game is a marvel. Just in case you’re not up to speed on the PS3 predecessor – something you need to rectify immediately – LBP is a sidescrolling platformer that allows users to create their own levels from scratch and upload them online. Everything is customizable, from motion-sensing switches to lighting effects to enemy movement patterns. The PSP edition retains this exhaustive level editor and bustling online community. You can download user-made levels on the go, and for that alone, the guys at Studio Cambridge should be patted on the back. I just wish these new worlds had some texture.

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Time Better Spent

By
Kaz
 – January 3, 2010Posted in: Blogs, Kaz, Personal

I just spent the better part of the last two days blowing through Assassin’s Creed II, which is a credit to the game’s design and execution. I do have some complaints about the game that carry over from the first one, but aside from control issues, I think they’re intentional.

I don’t want to talk about the game’s quality here, though. I just wanted to make it perfectly clear that what I want to talk about isn’t a condemnation of Assassin’s Creed II – merely a strange phenomenon I’ve been experiencing.

Similar to when I blew through Modern Warfare 2 and Arkham Asylum, I feel thoroughly “vegged” out. I also feel a pang of guilt. Guilt that I played through a good game too fast and didn’t properly enjoy it. Guilt that, while I was totally enthralled and entertained, I may have just wasted precious time that could have been better spent. Guilt that I’m not having as much fun as I should.

I’m sure sometime around 1 p.m. on Wednesday, when I’m back at work after a two week break, I’ll be begging for a six hour chunk of time to game non-stop. I’ll be daydreaming of one more Modern Warfare 2 match or a long, arduous play of a Left 4 Dead 2 campaign. But for now, I’m left wondering if any game in recent memory has made me smile throughout. I seem to recall being irritated by little issues in games more than entertained by the good parts.

For a while, I had chalked up my displeasure with gaming to unemployment. It’s hard to enjoy anything when, in the back of your mind, you’re always thinking about how you’re going to make it to the next rent payment. But a month and a half into employment (at a job I find 100 times better to boot), I’m still not hitting up that gaming magic. What happened to joyously playing through Crackdown and laughing all the way?

I need to find that again. Even when playing Forza Motorsport 3, I’m not giddy like I want to be. And I’m probably going to pin that game as my favorite of the year.

I suppose I’ll leave these musings to my blog and keep them off the podcast. But if you’re wondering why my opinions seem depressing even when I think highly of a game, you’ll know why. Nothing seems to be sparking the way I want it to.

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