Who: Everyone
What: Mario Kart 7 multiplayer
Where: Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection (and simultaneous Skype chat)
When: Monday, December 12th at 9:00 p.m. EST
Why: Because you can only take so many blue shell barrages from the A.I.
Our 3DS friend codes can be found here: http://
Our Mario Kart 7 Community:
“The Rumble Pack”
11-9657-7914-8548
RSVP here
Goodbye babies, hello Metal Mario? This week, the guys are power-sliding through Mario Kart 7, and our community is now accepting fellow blue shell enthusiasts. Kaz introduces “Blueberry Flanksteak” to the latest Terraria patch, Tom joins the Modern Warfare 3 bandwagon and Justin is buried in 3DS hats. Plus, “Fred Claus” in your face, more Vita pricing speculation, the new “Might Ducks 2,” the purple Sour Patch kid, Infinity Blade II, sad tales of gaming excess and visit from our resident ghost.
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Sour Patch Kids Oops All Berries (seriously, we’ll ease up on candy talk next week)
Now starring Lemon, Orange, Lime and Kaz as the Swedish Fish! This week’s Sour Pack delves deep into the latest Zelda, Skyward Sword. (Do you know how many underpants Justin soiled while playing it? Answer at the end of the show.) Meanwhile, Tony can’t stop bugging giants in Skyrim, while Tom would rather be exploring post-nuclear apocalyptic wastelands. Plus, marriage via turkey, PS Vita memory woes, the briefest of Kindle Fire impressions, anticipated 2012 games, an update to our Metacritic draft and Uncharted 3Â unconditional love.
Given the current industry climate, claiming a game is “a breath of fresh air†feels like an overused expression. More people are creating independent video games now than ever before, sharing their passion for the medium and introducing new ideas and insightful variations to routine genre themes. Wizorb, a Breakout-style arcade game from indie studio Tribute Games, is no such marriage of clever concepts or daring foray into uncharted territory. Although there are some light RPG trimmings added to the familiar block-breaking action, the basic three-part formula has evolved little since Arkanoid: there are blocks, there is a ball, and a pervading nihilistic credo to eliminate all of the former using the latter.
Instead, Wizorb’s fresh air comes from the fact that every aspect has been crafted to fulfill the purest classic gameplay experience possible. Here is the naked art of the arcade game elevated to the highest level – the challenge of a player’s skills in an arena of singing equations and mathematical variables masked behind attractive, colorful pixels.
Freakyforms: Your Creations Alive has very modest ambitions. While most games with creation tools hope that you’ll use said tools to serve the play, with Freakforms, there’s very little play to be found at all. Instead, the game is entirely focused on giving life to any creature, inanimate object or idea you can imagine, often in the crudest and goofiest way possible. It doesn’t matter if you create an ordinary, normally-proportioned dog; the moment your “formee” is in motion, he’ll be stumbling and bumbling as if he wet noodles for legs. This is the video game equivalent of Dumpy the Pumpkin or that awful sputtering ketchup bot or any of the other inane-yet-lovable things we frequently bring up on our podcast each week. Freakforms aims to please so much that you can’t help but forgive so many of its failings.
To be fair, the actual creation mode, in which you’ll spend a good deal of time, is incredibly versatile. As you play through the adventure, you’re offered dozens of parts, all of which can be stretched, shrunken, rotated and thickened to suit your needs. As long as your formee has a mouth and a body, the game will find a way to put it into motion, and there isn’t an advanced physics model or anything like that to get in the way. I love LittleBigPlanet as much as anyone, but sometimes I just want to slap some wheels on a brick and call it a car. Freakyforms lets you make things as rudimentary or as complex as you’d like, but you’ll never be punished for ever making something “incorrectly.”
We’ve got the scoops, and we’ve got this fall’s biggest games. Tom and Tony are neck deep in bear pelts and the world of Skyrim, where Yetis grow on trees and bone meal sausages litter the road. Meanwhile, Justin and Kaz get in a barroom brawl in Uncharted 3. The guys also cover Super Mario 3D Land, Ratchet & Clank: All 4 One, Freakyforms and Rayman Origins. Plus, human Tigger, game story snobbery and the Rumble Pack musical you’ll never hear.
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Now that a few months have passed since the release of Red Dead Redemption, most players have probably completed the main campaign and have ridden into the sunset, or at least arrived at a happy stopping point. Rockstar has continued to support the game for those who can’t get enough rootin’ and/or tootin’ by releasing numerous DLC packs, starting with the free “Outlaws to the End†co-op missions and more recently the “Legends and Killers†pack, which adds new multiplayer maps and characters. The next few downloadable additions have already been detailed by Rockstar and are set to include more free-roam challenges and even a zombie ghost town.
Most players could easily rattle off a list of famous gunslingers who would fit perfectly in the gritty world the game presents: Jeremiah Johnson, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Grizzly Adams, Wild Bill, anyone Clint Eastwood has ever played; the list goes on.  But why stop there? If Rockstar itself is already throwing zombies in the mix, let’s pull out all the stops and consider any character who ever made his home on the range as potential DLC fodder. Here’s my own personal ‘most-wanted’ list of outlaws, banditos, cowboys and quick drawers.
Anthropomorphic horror is unleashed! This week, Kaz plays Sonic Generations and the guys ponder what exactly the name of that damn crocodile was. Afterwards, he recounts his tale of the hacked Xbox account, full of international intrigue and chimney sweep accents. Justin experiences the barkest of days in Solatorobo and Tom collects every goddamned Riddler trophy in Arkham City. Speaking of which, tons of bat-spoilers at the end of the show, so have your finger on the pause button if you’re not quite done with that one yet. Plus, a tour of the booger factory, non-commital bro-jobs, more Kirby, grandmotherly gaming, our favorite hipster Zelda and drooling ears.
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