Steam is selling stuff! I suck!
When you know you have a problem.
Steam's "Perils of Summer" sale has messed up my life. Here I was, ready to hide out and squirrel away some money for a mid-July bachelor party in Austin, Texas, when the digital download service announces that it will be slashing prices on PC games through July 4.
Some of the discounts have been ridiculous. For 24 hours Sunday and Monday, you could pick up CIVILIZATION IV and all of its expansions (including COLONIZATION) for $10. DAWN OF DISCOVERY and its expansion, VENICE, are still available for $20.09, originally priced at $30. If you like lush, rewarding, incredibly complicated city-building games set in the 15th century, I advise that you act now.
I also bought THE WITCHER: ENHANCED EDITION (read: functional version) for $6.79, marked down from $29.99. I originally got this game through Direct2Drive in late 2008 and aborted it as soon as I finished the introductory sequence, such were its technical problems. But it showed so much promise and stunning weirdness that I'm more than willing to give it another go.
And the bargain-bin items — the up-to 90 percent discounts on old or commercially disappointing titles, or ones that were cheap-ish in the first place — have helped me rack up a nearly $90 haul only four days into the sale. GHOST MASTER, ALTITUDE, EVE ONLINE: TYRANNIS ($1.99!), all of the OVERLORD games, last year's weird GHOSTBUSTERS thing, INDIGO PROPHECY, both MAX PAYNEs. They're all mine. I might never install most of these, but at $5 or less, it would have been stupid not to buy them, right?
Nod if you love me. Now.
Okay, I literally just bought KING'S BOUNTY: THE LEGEND and KING'S BOUNTY: ARMORED PRINCESS because I saw that Gameosaurus alumnus Peter Rambo bought one of them. I don't even know what they are and never heard of them until three minutes ago. They came in a pack for $10. There's a steampunk robot in one of the trailers.
I have a problem.
Here's the thing: we're talking about $90 — nay, $100 — that could have been applied to ... something else. Anything else. I love games and the fun I have playing them more than just about anything in this world. They come below my dogs and above my family on my ladder of caring.
But I have brothers in arms who are doing amazing things right now. Pat Himes, who has been one of my best friends for half of my life, is days from returning to the United States after two nearly uninterrupted years of Peace Corps service in Kyrgyzstan.
Himes outside some Kyrgyz village or another.
High school buddy Andy Keller, who studied in China in college and has been living there since, is in the final months of a yearlong bike ride around that enormous country, and, per my last conversation with him, is set to come back to the states for good sometime this fall. He and fellow insane person Evan Villarrubia have been documenting the entire trip in exquisite, crazy detail — check out a recent interview, the map of their trek, their blog and an amazing flickr stream.
And those are just the people I keep in touch with. Another high school friend posted a throwaway blurb on Facebook the other night about her moon party in a crater in New Mexico. Or something.
These are amazing, life-changing accomplishments, the sorts of things few people of my privileged suburban upbringing have tried or will try or could imagine even wanting to try. I don't envy the legion of proud retards who moved to big cities after college and continue to brag about it — they're good and fucked and probably miserable — but I'm pretty jealous of people like Andy and Pat, who will launch their careers in earnest with these wild mental touchstones locked in.
But why the achievement anxiety if I'm relatively pleased with the trajectory of my life? And why should I be jealous? I had every opportunity to do something just as wild. These guys weren't whisked away on their transcendental adventures by sheer luck or on the bankroll of some wealthy benefactor; they've taken them on because they had the gumption and the interest, and they were willing to sacrifice a lot of creature comforts along the way.
I simply can't imagine giving up my stuff for any substantial length of time. On my trip to Texas, for instance, I'll probably bring my PSP, my DS and a 700-page book I'm loving in chunks. I'll bring my laptop and its external hard drive, stuffed with episodes of JUSTIFIED and SONS OF ANARCHY and that HBO miniseries THE PACIFIC (all of which I'll buy when they become available, people). I'll have my ratty old 3G iPhone, soon to be replaced by this marvel of modern engineering, and I'll probably leave my home PC on so that I can access my music library remotely. I won't use any of it.
And if I can find room in my backpack, I'll probably stuff some clothes and a toothbrush in there or something.
I'm not embarrassed by my obsession with this stuff. Indeed, I wear it proudly, like a tattoo that's taken on new meaning after an initial shame spiral. Sure, I wish I could talk about the majesty of DEADWOOD or BATTLESTAR GALACTICA or BREAKING BAD more often than the occasional Google chat with my college roommate, who's having his own twentysomething adventures in our nation's capital (see: Facebook updates about getting drunk with Ezra Klein).
But that's the burden I carry for knowing everything about everything, right?
This feels as ridiculous to type as it surely does to read, but I can't help myself. Sometimes I think I've accumulated a vital, valuable body of pop-culture knowledge, a starting point for an assuredly brilliant future in arts and entertainment criticism. The trouble, of course, is that I'm the only one who sees it that way, and that no matter how hard I try or how credible my resumé becomes, I'm never going to break in to writing for the A.V. Club or Joystiq until I move away from here and start making connections.
And I'm not willing to do that until I put together some money and find a quiet, safe, affordable home in the outskirts of a happening place that accommodates my dogs. Executed properly, that's going to take years.
I pointlessly imagine what it's going to be like for Andy and Pat when they get back. Andy spent years in Beijing before hitting the road, and he's been to the states and back a couple times for various reasons. When Pat steps off the plane, he'll have lived in relative desolation for two years to the day, excepting a two-week vacation in York (ha!) over Christmas of last year.
How joyous for them! How lucky they'll feel to be enveloped in the suffocating embrace of instant-gratification-buy-take-break-throw-it-away culture, which I sincerely love! How ever did they manage? Surely they don't dare to be anything but happy to be home, lest they breach my impregnable fortress of feelings!
No, I don't imagine it will be like that. They'll have left a piece of them in their respective countries forever. Andy has walked among and broken bread with every type of Chinese person imaginable. Pat has spent all this time learning bits of two languages and becoming part of a hard-working agrarian family and community, only to watch ethnic violence tear the southern part of Kyrgyzstan a new asshole, right at the end of it all.
I, meanwhile, have this:
Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go buy SIN AND PUNISHMENT: STAR SUCCESSOR and try to remember that I bought PUZZLE QUEST 2 on Saturday.
Confessions of a PixelJunkie
I'm a non-owner of an Xbox 360 and a cautiously optimistic owner of a PlayStation 3. Each console has had its ups and downs. If there's one thing Microsoft has done exponentially better than Sony, it's connectivity.
From the XBLA library (and the XBL Indie titles) to friend-making to most forms of match-making (I'm ignoring ODST here...), the 360 has outclassed PS3 in nearly every form of online content, be it in quality, quantity, service terms and conditions, stability ... Sony has a lot of catching up to do.
One thing Sony has over Microsoft is the development studio Q-Games. Based in Japan, but run by a Westerner (Dylan Cuthbert), the titles made by Q-Games are often international collaborative efforts. And though they've also done work with Nintendo (example: STAR FOX COMMAND), they are best known for the PixelJunk series: PSN-exclusive titles that hold strange commonalities.
According to Cuthbert, what groups the games together are "simplicity, familiarity, and originality." Though they may have some 3D games in the works for their second series of games, series 1 (labeled as 1-1, 1-2, etc) are all 2D games whose stark colors look beautiful in 1080p, and whose soundtracks will always hold your attention.
I have at least dabbled in each of the four PixelJunk titles, and have absolutely conquered one of them. I'd like to share with you my experiences with each of the existing titles to date, and lay out some of my hopes for future ones. Here we go!
PIXELJUNK RACERS
How can anyone understand what's happening here? Thank the PixelGods this series got better.
This is the only PixelJunk title I don't like. And I think most of the PS3-owning community is with me on this. It wasn't a strong start for Q-Games. Series 1-1 title PixelJunk Racers is not a racing game at all, but rather a strange "destruction derby" style game where your goal is to wipe everyone else off the track within a time limit. The controls are awkward, the top-down view is frustrating, and the "character art" (if you can call it that, for the anthropomorphized animals) nauseates me. Word on the street is that, like the other games' follow-ups, there is an update (1-1a) in the works called "PixelJunk Racers 2nd Lap." I can assure you already that this is a lost cause. Let's move forward.
PIXELJUNK MONSTERS
This is why first impressions, while often valuable, shouldn't paint the whole picture. So Racers was a dud. We get it. But 1-2, PixelJunk Monsters, more than makes up for it. Monsters is a variant of the now tried-and-true "tower defense" genre. I won't explain the details of the gameplay, since you ought to be familiar with tower defense gaming already. The things I will comment on? Let's see...
First, the difficulty level. Technically there are three difficulties for each level (21 in the base game, another 15 added in 1-2a, "PixelJunk Monsters Encore"). Wanna hear the crazy part? Even at the easiest difficulty, you will struggle with this game in the later levels. I know I did. And I'm no slouch when it comes to tower defense. They made this game hard. Very, very hard. If you want to get all of the trophies for this game, expect to put 100+ hours in. (ed. -- I was going to flag this outrageous figure with some sort of objection, but ... you're absolutely right.)
Next, the aesthetic factor. Outside of Racers, I can give only extremely high marks to the visual and aural components of the PixelJunk titles. I daresay that these things are what make me a true "PixelJunkie." The art in Monsters is simple -- almost too simple. The backgrounds could be made in MS Paint (experts in MS Paint, mind you). The sprites (including your player-controlled sprite and the enemy sprites) are sufficiently detailed but don't pack a lot of animation. Again, simplicity is the key. It will never strain your eyes, which is good considering your critical thinking and quick execution skills will definitely be strained.
I don't care if you buy the soundtrack before or after the game. But do buy the soundtrack.
As for the music, composed by Japanese duo otograph (Takashi Iura and Sachiyo Oshima), let's just say it's awesome. Sony acknowledged its awesomeness and actually released the soundtrack, digitally, via PSN (see "Dive Into PixelJunk Monsters" on PSN). Twenty-four tracks of surprisingly catchy (and surprisingly tonal) electronic music. It's a total win. But, in my opinion, even this excellent album pales in comparison to what we'll be discussing next.
But before that! I should also mention that this is the only game in the PixelJunk series to date to reach the PSP. "PixelJunk Monsters Deluxe" includes all the content of "Monsters" and "Monsters Encore," plus more levels, art, music, etc. It's a nice deal for the portable gamer, or so I'm told. I'm not buying the game again when I already have it once on my PS3.
PIXELJUNK EDEN
Without question, without hesitation, without reservation, this is my favorite game in the PixelJunk series. This is the game that made me a PixelJunkie, that made me want to explore the other titles.
Before even getting to the gameplay, I have to gush about the art and music. The soundtrack, composed by artist Baiyon (real name Tomohisa Kuramitsu), is crazy-addictive. It's electronic, but more ambient electronic than Monsters' score. It is absolutely hypnotizing. Each of the 16 songs in the game (one for each stage, plus the "world map" music) have reached "must-have" status in my collection of game music. Even more important is how well the music blends with the game's visuals. And there's a reason for that...
Baiyon did the game's art as well.
So yeah, this Baiyon fellow is a large part of what makes this game awesome. It sucks you in. Play for too long and it might give you a headache. But this game gets ridiculously high marks for aesthetics. Color is extremely important in PixelJunk Eden, and the monochromatic, or low-count multi-chromatic, layouts of the stages in Eden will be burned into your retinas after only a few plays.
This game is more beautiful than you (understand).
Now let's move to the gameplay. All of the PixelJunk games build on already-established genres in gaming, but Eden goes the furthest. At first glance, one might say "this is a platformer." Specifically, a 2-D platformer collect-a-thon. But no, it turns out it's much, much more than that. First of all, the sense of scale in this game is crazy. You play as a tiny little pollinator called a "Grimp." It's your job to plant seeds and make flowers grow. So you "collect" pollen by breaking little round spores and then the even tinier pollen units can be collected and will flow towards a designated spot where the seed can be planted. Once filled, touch the seed, and a plant grows. Now you can move up (or left, or right, or occasionally down) by jumping around.
The grimp also has a small spiderweb that allows him to do a number of things. With it he can spin in a circle and collect pollen. He can also use it as a way to boost a jump in any given direction, or to simply hang down to get a better view of what's below (the camera is fixed). That's what I was getting at with sense of scale. Sometimes the camera will zoom out if you spin in a circle long enough, but generally, the camera stays centered on the grimp and you have to memorize what is around you, because the size of these stages is usually *enormous* compared to the size of the grimp. From what you can see on the initial screen, you may go up as many as 50 times the height of what you see at first. When you reach the "top" of a level and then do a free-fall to the bottom, it's insane to witness just how long it takes to reach the floor. Imagine all the progress you've made!
The end purpose of growing all these flowers is to find "Spectra." Each Spectra adds a flower to the world map, which allows you to reach more levels. Now, each time you enter a level, you end your play time after collecting the required number of Spectra. Each level has 5 Spectra, and you have to play through the level 5 times to get them all. First entry: you need one Spectra (Spectrum?). Next entry, two Spectra. So you eventually reach five, and that means you really collect 15 per stage (1+2+3+4+5). It's a lot of repetition, but you can add to the replayability yourself by trying to get the Spectra in different order, take different paths, pollinate different areas, etc. Only a few of the levels are strict in their linearity.
I got all 75 Spectra in PixelJunk Eden (including 1-3a, PixelJunk Eden Encore, which adds stages 11 through 15). After doing all this, I got a bonus skill for my spiderweb ability. Now I could actually shoot the web to latch onto plants, as compared to the original usage where you must already be firmly affixed to a plant and then create the web. This adds a whole new sense of fun and absurdity to the game.
Did I not mention this game is beautiful? I think I did. But I'm saying it again. This game is beautiful. Each level has a very unique feel, thanks to the art and music. It's a must-have. Thanks a lot, Q-Games, for turning me into a PixelJunkie with this title.
PIXELJUNK SHOOTER
1-4 is the most recent game in the PixelJunk series, having been released in late 2009. It's also the most complex as far as gameplay goes, because it's not merely a shooter. The control scheme for your subterranean vehicle is akin to GEOMETRY WARS (or, for you true classic gamers, ASTEROIDS). But you will equip different attachments to your ship to overcome different obstacles, with the end goal of rescuing stranded scientists. Depending on what you do (or don't) do in those stages, the scientists can be killed by water, lava, or other hazards before you can rescue them. Like Monsters, the difficulty level in Shooter is very high.
The fire and ice ball just got a whole lot puzzlier. Yes, I said puzzlier.
Visually, the game boasts more stark, monochromatic influences, much like Eden. Orange, blue, and white are probably the three most dominant colors, though lots of neon-tinted colors throughout the spectrum make their way into the game. As for the soundtrack, it was handled by a team named "High Frequency Bandwidth," made up of Alex Paterson and Dom Beken. It's not the best soundtrack in the series, but it will grow on you if you continue to play the game.
I think, as a combination shooter-puzzle-adventure title, you'll be hard-pressed to find a better downloadable game. That is, if you're willing to put up with the challenge. For perfectionists, you can do a lot more than just "clear" the stages. You can try to rescue all scientists, find hidden bonuses, and complete areas within certain time limits to earn more trophies. There are also enemies, and even boss fights, and how you handle them will also determine trophy collection.
While many have already declared this game the best PixelJunk yet, my personal opinion is that Eden is superior to Shooter if only because I'm into artsy-fartsy games. Get over it. You can like 'em both. I know I do.
---
For the future, there is plenty on the horizon. A PIXELJUNK SHOOTER 2 title has already been confirmed; whether or not this will be like the Encore titles and appear as 1-4a, or as a fully separate title, remains to be seen. There are rumors of a 1-5, PIXELJUNK DUNGEON, in the works as well. What kind of game this would be, who knows. If it's an RPG-style dungeon crawler, I will wet my pants.
Cuthbert has also talked about a second series of PixelJunk titles (2-X) that would all be 3-D instead of 2-D. As long as they continue to hold to their quality standard (minus Racers) I'll be plenty pleased. The PSN library may be sorely lacking in quality titles that XBLA has, but this is more than a consolation prize for Sony owners. This is something you can get sucked into. Something you can get *addicted* to. See for yourself: become a PixelJunkie.
Jurassic Hour #6: Cohabitation
I got into a ferocious little disagreement today with a person around whom I've become increasingly uncomfortable.
I work with this woman. She's been waging a campaign of coercion against me for the better part of a year, convincing me that she and I, though without any sort of romantic future, are genetically obligated to reproduce.
It's like a lie you've told yourself so long that you end up believing it, or partially believing it. She's been declaring (publicly and indiscreetly) that I would donate my sperm to her so often that, at one point, I just kind of assumed I would.
But I came to my senses a couple weeks ago. There are the obvious reasons — I'm special; I'm not fathering a kid without giving him or her a shot at a two-parent home; I'm simply not ready for it psychologically — but there are factors I hadn't considered before.
And those I won't discuss here, though I had in an earlier draft of this nonsense. I don't want to get into the shitting-on-people-online business again!
So I've decided that, no, I won't be donating any sperm. But I haven't found the right occasion to tell her this, and it's been souring our otherwise stable friendship. (This all assumes she's still interested, which may not be the case. We haven't discussed it in weeks.)
Today, she came in to work with a pretty brutal head cold. A normal person would treat upper respiratory symptoms this serious with medication — Afrin, Sinex, some other nasal mist — or, barring that, by inconspicuously blowing his or her nose. This person chose to make the most offensive, ear-splitting honk I've ever heard. Repeatedly. Like, again and again and again, and just when you think you're in the clear, it happens again. AND AGAIN.
I registered my frustration earlier this morning — "CHRIST, [person]!" — and was basically told to fuck off. Then I started sighing, and just before my shift ended, she got in my face, announcing to the newsroom that I was bitching because things weren't going exactly my way.
I was livid. Finished my work and walked out.
Artist's rendering of what it's like to live with me. Left: me.
But was she right? Was I more irritable than I otherwise might have been because she and I have other unresolved issues? Am I irritable, period? I contend that I am not, though I'll allow the possibility that I'm kind of a grouch sometimes. In the interest of full disclosure, I ought to note that I've been on one end or the other of serious, bitchy fights every day for the last week, most of which I've instigated. But with cause!
With help from Pat Gann and his seriously lovely wife Jennie, I examine this question and others in the sixth episode of the Jurassic Hour. Listen in horror as I recite items from my irritation journal and catalogue the sins committed by each of my roommates over the last eight years. Pat and Jennie later list their complaints about each other, with generally hilarious and good-natured results. I love these people, and I hope I never blow up on them the way I do on everybody else (who fucking deserves it).
Then, of course, Pat and I talk games, spending most of our time on our reaction to this year's Electronics Entertainment Expo. Long story short, we're excited about the next 12 months.
With music from The Octopus Project, Tame Impala, The Cracow Klezmer Band and the Klezmatics.
(right-click to save, use theplayer below, or get the show on iTunes here)
Jurassic Hour #6: Cohabitation
INTRO -- The Octopus Project, "Truck"
00:15 - 48:53 -- Living with other people is hard
49:27 - 1:05:45 -- Flight of the Fuckface
1:05:45 - 1:51:45 -- What you been playin?
OUTRO -- Tame Impala, "Desire Be Desire Go"
Review: ‘War for Cybertron’ has real spark
Like every playable Transformer in "War for Cybertron," Bumblebee has a retractable melee weapon. Duh.
After umpteen efforts across a variety of platforms, the Transformers finally have a game they can be proud of. Free from the narrative shackles of a TV show or movie cash-in, developer High Moon Studios has built a sturdy shooter and terrific multiplayer experience in “Transformers: War for Cybertron,” out this week on the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC.
The game is set before the events of the 1980s cartoon, giving you one company’s look at the civil war that ravaged the Transformers’ home planet and sent the dastardly Megatron and the heroic Optimus Prime into deep space. They’ll eventually scrap in our solar system, crash-land on Earth and take a 4-million-year dirt nap before waking up in 1984.
But as “War for Cybertron” begins, Optimus is not yet a “Prime,” a title bestowed upon the leader of the Autobots (the good guys). He’s not even a proper truck. Because the robots haven’t yet encountered our 18-wheelers and Volkswagen Beetles and whatnot, they transform into space-age versions of the same things. Optimus, for instance, is a strange sort of hover-barge.
The narrative is strung together over 10 missions (five each for the Autobots and Decepticons), which can be tackled solo, cooperatively or competitively. The levels are beefy, occasionally overstaying their welcome but never leaving you with less than your money’s worth.
There are collectibles to hunt down, of course, and a handful of inventive achievements will give you a reason to go through some of the stages a second time. But by the time you’ve cleared the single-player campaign once or twice, you’ll be glad to say goodbye to it.
Not because it isn’t good, but because the multiplayer is so much fun.
Though it can feel a bit like a checklist (gradually unlockable abilities, a la “Modern Warfare” and “Blur”; a cooperative mode that pits players against waves of computer-controlled enemies, a la every modern shooter), High Moon pulls off the online component with panache.
The class-based competitive multiplayer, with its points and levels and challenges, is a serious timesink.
So “War for Cybertron” has the game part covered. But be honest, you’re here for the license. So how good is the Transformers part?
Pretty great, actually. The voice cast is superb — faithful to the franchise’s roots where it matters (Peter Cullen as Optimus) and fittingly histrionic elsewhere, too. Megatron is still a screeching nihilist bent on getting his way; Optimus, in Cullen’s rumbling baritone, still gives long-winded speeches about honor and sacrifice. It isn’t SAG Award-caliber stuff, exactly, but it’s more or less what you remember from the cartoon.
The sound effects work deserves special mention, too. Transforming is a crucial component of the game, and the accompanying rattle in “War for Cybertron” is rapturous. It blends the cartoon’s classic “ruh-rut-Rut-RUT” with a more sophisticated hydraulic whine, admirably approximating what an alien robot transforming into a jet might actually sound like.
The same goes for the game’s substantial library of weapon noises, from the heavy thud of a laser gattling gun to the sickening, satisfying crack of truck-on-robot violence.
The visuals, though solid, don’t always fare as well.
Giantbomb.com lists 91 games powered by Epic’s flexible Unreal Engine 3, and “War for Cybertron” is one of the most unremarkably shiny among them. If you’ve played “Gears of War 2,” “Mass Effect 2” or any other shooter from a third-person perspective in the last few years, you’ve already seen the best of what’s on offer here.
The problem is rooted mostly in the game’s title and setting — the Transformers’ home planet of Cybertron. Per franchise lore, the entire planet is one big robot foundry, and a Transformer in its own right. I think. That means everything is metallic, angular, mildly reflective and a little boring.
It’s not that any one part of the game looks especially bad; in more than a few instances (the levels that involve low orbit, open air and lens flares, usually), it actually looks very nice. But if you’re tired of corridor crawls, this isn’t going to change your mind.
In some ways, though, keeping the action on Cybertron makes a lot of sense.
By setting the game before the events of the TV shows, High Moon wasn’t beholden to the burdensome, muddled, often pointless history of whatever the Autobots and Decepticons did on Earth.
And because Cybertronian environments are understandably built to spec for these enormous machine-people, the game steers clear of the scale issues that have plagued the franchise elsewhere (Is Optimus as big as an Earth tree or an Earth building? If Megatron turns into a big Earth gun, why is he as tall as Starscream? Such are the things that keep me up at night).
Fortunately, the character models themselves look quite good, each with their own glowing and moving parts. Some of the Decepticons can be tough to tell apart, as is the case with Michael Bay’s live-action “movies,” but by and large, the Transformers are sharply-designed bits of engineering.
Also worth noting — each robot credibly collapses into its vehicle form. Unlike the movies and cartoons, all of the interlocking pieces appear to end up somewhere in “War for Cybertron,” even if they don’t.
Though not without some issues, including a few day-one bugs that have yet to be ironed out, this game is easy to recommend. The online community is there, too, so you won’t want for teammates.
If you’re looking for something to string you through the summer, you could do much worse.
This article originally appeared in the York Dispatch.
Review: ‘Joe Danger’ brings the pain
Here’s a rare, unsolicited peek into the seedy world of local newspaper video game coverage — I don’t get much free stuff, and there’s zero institutional support financially, so every game you see discussed here is something I purchased out-of-pocket.
I’m more than happy to do that, of course, but I won’t intentionally purchase something I suspect to be bad.
So when I enthuse wildly about games week in and week out, as I’m about to do with British developer Hello Games’ first title, know that it comes from a sincere place.
“Joe Danger,” released last week exclusively on the PlayStation Network, is a bright, side-scrolling motorcycle action game that draws heavy inspiration from last year’s “Trials HD.”
Like “Trials,” “Joe” is split into dozens of easily digestible levels that require precise handling, a certain amount of patience and a willingness to hammer the restart button over and over again.
Both games become very challenging very quickly, asking you to rotate your avatar just so in mid-air or to pass under certain obstacles at low speed, lest you bounce about and inadvertently clothesline yourself. But where “Trials” became unmanageably, controller-chuckingly difficult about halfway through, “Joe” never feels as grueling.
Thanks to its cheery attitude and the ways it measures your progress, you’re more likely to smile when you flub a trick, land on a strip of spikes or plunge headlong into one of the game’s many shark tanks. And when you finally do nail a tough track, “Joe” is all the more rewarding for it.
Some of the levels can be cleared in a single run, but most pack so many objectives that you’ll be forced to finish them multiple times. Exploration will net you hidden stars and other trinkets scattered across three very separate lanes, a la “Excitebike.” Because you can change lanes only at prescribed switch points, and because the game frequently forbids you from backtracking, you’ll almost certainly miss a few items on your first go.
Fortunately, the game is built with that in mind. If you’ve found a level’s hidden stars but haven’t managed to sustain a trick combo all the way through, for example, you’ll get partial credit — usually enough to advance.
But if you’re a compulsive collector who doesn’t move on until all of a level’s quests are satisfied, be prepared for the long haul.
This is where I collapsed with “Trials.” Though I had unlocked the bulk of that game, I refused to advance to a given stage until I earned a gold medal in the one before it. That meant mastering an incredibly sensitive (and occasionally quirky) physics system and memorizing every ramp, wooden plank and pile of tires.
“Joe” is much more forgiving in that respect — you don’t have to lean halfway back and turbo-tap the gas to scale a nearly vertical rock face, for example — though it’s no slouch in the dexterity department. Every one of your fingers will be assigned to one or two buttons to manage boosting, ducking, jumping, flipping and tricking, and though that feels daunting at first, it becomes second-nature soon enough.
The busy controls also create some of your most memorable spills. As I write this, I’m still stuck on a stage that needs me to simultaneously boost and jump off a ramp (the square and x buttons), stop my momentum and move backward in mid-air (L2), pull off a backflip (left thumbstick) and grab trick (L1) to restore my boost meter, land on both wheels and turbo under a gate.
I can do it slowly if I set my mind to it, but to clear the level in the prescribed time, I have to do it quickly and flawlessly.
I had messed it up 46 consecutive times before I left for work this morning (like “Trials,” “Joe” helpfully keeps count of your screw-ups), landing on my neck or rocketing into a wall, and it was hilarious every time. That’s the distilled essence of a great action game. Even dying is fun.
I’ve spoken here only about the single-player career mode, but “Joe” also packs a suite of online and local multiplayer options, and its sandbox mode features one of the easiest track creators I’ve ever had the joy of using.
You can exchange user-made tracks over the Internet, though the game sadly lacks a marketplace where you can upload or download standout levels. Unless you have friends playing the game online, you’re out of luck.
That’s a relatively minor gripe, though, and among consoles, it’s something only “LittleBigPlanet” has started to figure out. “Joe Danger” is one of the best games available on Sony’s online service, and it should appeal to gamers and Super Dave Osborne fans everywhere.
This article originally appeared in the York Dispatch.
‘Toy Story 3′ made me feel … something
That way lies madness. And the incinerator.
When a movie mines nostalgia and sentiment as aggressively as "Toy Story 3" does, it's almost impossible to evaluate on its own terms. So here are four momentum-killing paragraphs of context.
1) I saw the first "Toy Story" with my friend Corey in 1995, when I was 11, at a shitty old multiplex in a shitty old shopping center near my house. The movie struck a couple chords with me then — the value of embracing differences, mostly, as I was privately coming to terms with my fabulousness at the time. When my mom bought me "Toy Story" on cassette months later, I went to sleep watching it dozens of times, wishing that my stack of Genesis cartridges had even half as much personality as the movie's selfish cowboy and deluded spaceman.
2) By the time "Toy Story 2" arrived in 1999, some of my friends had declared themselves too mature for animation. That wouldn't stop me. I saw the movie at a brand new, technically superior chain theater across town and loved it to pieces. Something about how man's quest for permanence warps his perspective ... or not. All I knew then was that it was heartfelt and exciting.
3) I've enjoyed and celebrated every entry in the Pixar canon since, but nothing resonates with me today like those two do. Maybe because they're the best, or maybe because they were first-ish (I wasn't cynical enough in 1998 to appreciate the hard edge in "A Bug's Life").
4) I entrusted my two dogs to my mom (you could say "abandoned" or "gave up," and you wouldn't be wrong) in 2007, when I decided I was too cosmopolitan for Pennsylvania and fled to the San Francisco Bay Area for five benighted months. It remains the worst thing I've ever done to any living thing, and even though I got one of the dogs back (and another one since -- a black Labradoodle whom I love just as dearly), I regret that decision every day of my life.
Fast forward to Friday, when I watched "Toy Story 3" by myself at precisely the same geographical coordinates where I saw the first one. That old multiplex had been demolished and recently replaced by a larger, ostensibly better one, though it has to be one of the most poorly managed movie theaters I've ever been to. Lovely facility and equipment, but careless projection, shitty speaker placement and the same gang of rowdy fucks who endeavor to ruin every other movie house in America.
Put another way: the more things change, the more they stay the same, right? That's one of several existential dilemmas at the heart of "Toy Story 3," the first family-friendly animated feature to stare death in the face and shudder.
Andy, the doe-eyed kid from the first two movies, has grown up in real time. He's 17, packing for college and largely done with his kid stuff, which has been consigned to a dusty eternity in the attic or endless torture at a nearby daycare center. The toys, still led by Woody (Tom Hanks) and Buzz Lightyear (Tim Allen), are split up, reunited, split up again and re-reunited at the daycare, where they hatch a plan get back to Andy's house before he leaves for school. They're enslaved, beaten up and nearly atomized in the process, and though the peril occasionally is played for laughs, it just as often isn't.
"Toy Story 3" insists that mortality is a thorny and scary thing. Time runs out, and when it does, ugh.
Granted, the movie ends happily, and it's as exuberant and hilarious as it is harrowing. From the introductory action beat, which brilliantly recalls the first five minutes of the first movie ("Well, I brought my dinosaur, who eats forcefield dogs!"), to the forgivable treacle in the film's final moments, "Toy Story 3" is dangerously smile-inducing. There's a moment about halfway through the film that fleshes out its villain — a strawberry-scented teddy bear — with more sincerity and style than any big-screen comic book adaptation has managed. The movie also riffs on some of the best moments from "The Godfather," the De Palma "Mission Impossible" and the "Ocean's" films, with an inside-out bank robbery-esque sequence as imaginative and elaborate as any I've seen.
The action and comedy here complement the message, rather than dilute it. That's fortunate, because there are other elements that threaten to muddle things.
See, we're talking about toys. Period. They're funny, emotional, magical toys who spring to life when their owners aren't around, but in the film's fiction, they're still ... things. There's no real-life analogue for the connection between Andy and a toy like Woody, who loves his owner with unflinching, dead-serious dedication. Given that so much of "Toy Story 3" hinges on our understanding and appreciation of that relationship, it's not always clear how we're supposed to feel.
But you're going to feel anyway, because the movie taps in to something old and elemental and important that you'll remember vaguely but won't be able to identify, no matter how old you are. "Toy Story 3" is about family, but not in the way "The Incredibles" is. It's about accomplishment, but not in the way "Up" is. When the toys finally grapple with the fact that they won't be around forever (you'll know the precise moment when you see it), you feel bad about their predicament, but you envy the truthful, unshakable attachment they have to the world and to each other.
It's about that, I think. And the effect is so broad, inclusive and unspecific that, by the end of it all, you're just happy to be alive and experiencing things right now. You'll want to go hug your best friends right now.
The original "Toy Story" holds up remarkably well, artistically speaking, but stacked against its creators' newest work, it feels somehow flat. Not bad, in the way first-generation PlayStation games look today. Just visually simple. "Toy Story 3" feels at once familiar and cutting-edge; lived-in and fresh. There's something remarkable about the depth of field here, even in two dimensions (I was up-sold to 3-D when I had to give up my 2-D seat to a handicapped kid; the enhancement is marginal). Colors pop when they should and fade when there's more important stuff to look at; the animation and computer models, key to so much of the movie's character, are absolutely top-notch. This is easily Pixar's most technically accomplished film to date.
But much more than that, "Toy Story 3" is a life-affirming piece of art that reminds you about the wonderful, sensitive creatures in this world, and how fiercely you should protect them when you find them. I was cheerful and devastated as I drove home, and when I pulled into my driveway, I gave my dogs — my dogs, which will be part of my decision-making calculus for as long as they live — the biggest hugs they've won from me since I crawled back from California.
Not because I was reminded of the finite time I have left with them, but because they're mine and I'm theirs and we depend on each other.
If that sounds ridiculous, well, you haven't seen "Toy Story 3," and I feel sorry for you.
Review: ‘Ambitions’ refreshes, complicates ‘Sims 3′
I've got loads of hobbies -- eating while lying down, exaggerating how much I can deadlift, etc. -- but one of my all-time favorite pastimes involves giggling privately about my depraved computer people.
I mean, American culture warriors are always fuming about the casual violence in the latest "Grand Theft Auto" or the wonderfully aggressive diversity in FOX's "Glee," but if they knew what was happening inside my PC, they'd run me out of town.
In my pretend neighborhood in the "The Sims 3," the newest installment in EA's people-simulator, I've created a gay secret agent who home-wrecked an ostensibly happy, heterosexual marriage between a supermodel and a former high school quarterback.
"Ambitions," the expansion pack released for the game last week, gives you six new professions -- stylist, firefighter, ghost hunter, private investigator, doctor and architectural designer -- and a handful of other goodies to play with.
To tease fate just a little more, I signed up my ill-gotten quarterback as a stylist.
Though physiology and gender politics in "The Sims" are generally flexible, the game sensibly insists that gay couples can't conceive, so my same-sex videogame spouse and I phoned an adoption service and took in a baby girl, for whom we recently purchased a Teddy bear we named Achiever.
We've taught the infant to walk and talk, and we anticipate a generally successful upbringing. Especially given that we've locked her in a dark room every night and forced her to practice her xylophone until she's demonstrated an elementary understanding of music theory.
We call her Barbaria.
Also, her crib is in a closet.
Of course, people have been constructing these twisted, emergent scenarios since the "Sims" franchise took home computing by storm 10 years ago.
The newer incarnations have refined the formula by helping you sculpt a more satisfying long-term arc for each of your Sims, but the basic premise hasn't changed much -- your people grow up, pay bills, fall in love (or don't), hopefully accomplish something and die.
It's what you do with your discretionary time, then, that makes the difference, and that's where "Ambitions" comes in."
At $40, it's a bit of a hard sell at first. The expansion, which requires a "Sims 3" installation, does little in the way of introducing new environments, and the six interactive professions feel a bit superficial at first.
Take my sexually ambiguous stylist lifemate, for instance. The first tier of the stylist job tree requires you to offer makeovers to a handful of virtual people and take photos of the success stories.
This is well and good the first and second times, but then you'll realize that you're essentially dressing up paper dolls for virtual cash, and you'll want to reformat your hard drive, if not abandon video games altogether.
Payoff: Fortunately, your professions become more interesting as you spend more time with them. The ghost hunter gradually unlocks better tools for investigating the paranormal; private investigators gain access to fingerprint-dusting kits if they work hard enough.
And if the professions don't interest you, the core game's entertaining but hands-off "careers" are complemented by the new education track, which takes you from playground monitor to district superintendent.
These changes, coupled with a raft of satisfying under-the-hood adjustments (the new inventing skill is almost a career unto itself), make that $40 pricetag a little easier to swallow. "Ambitions" likely complicates the many bugs already found in "The Sims 3" -- my entire computer family stopped moving when Barbaria learned to talk; the only way to keep them alive was to evict them all -- but it goes a long way to keeping the franchise fresh, too.
Is it for you? That's hard to say. I knew the game had me Tuesday night when, days from death, my avatar mounted a frantic, eleventh-hour quest for "ambrosia," the in-game fountain of youth that grants your Sim eternal adulthood.
If only actual immortality were as easy as getting your cooking and fishing skills to level 10.
This article originally appeared in the York Dispatch.
Review: ‘Red Dead’ redeems western games
By any measure, May was a bountiful month in gaming. But when comparing it to previous Mays — a historically dry month at retail and the traditional start of the summer dry spell — it was absolutely astonishing.
Week after week, gamers’ checking accounts — still reeling from an unusually strong start to the year — were pelted by dazzling releases from Nintendo, Rockstar, Remedy, Bizarre Creations, Black Rock Studio and other proven corners of the industry. Let’s take stock of some of that greatness and prepare for what looks to be a quiet, affordable June.
If you buy one game from May, make it “Mario Galaxy 2” for the Wii, which was reviewed in this space last week. But if you get two, pick up “Red Dead Redemption,” the spiritual successor to a competent but unremarkable open-world Western from the PS2 and Xbox era. “Redemption” builds on that game’s ideas and applies the same polish Rockstar Games typically reserves for its “Grand Theft Auto” titles, emerging as a strong contender for game of the year.
It would be disingenuous of me to tell you precisely how faithful “Redemption” is to the tenets of classic-westerndom. In that respect, I can offer only this — I’ve seen “Tombstone,” I’ve seen “The Wild Bunch,” and one of my favorite TV shows of all time is “Deadwood,” a sprawling, 36-episode dissection of frontier life as civilization creeps in.
Set about 40 years later, when telephones and power lines are making cowboys irrelevant, “Redemption” touches on many of the same concepts. And while Rockstar’s prose is hardly the flowery genius of David Milch, it does the job.
But how’s the shootin’ and stuff? Well, the game was put together by some of the fine people at the developer’s San Diego studio, which builds sturdier, better-looking games than its cousins do. The vistas and weather are absolutely the graphical stars of “Redemption,” lending real credibility to virtual sunsets and thunderstorms.
Guns carry real kick, too, adding some gravity to how you decide to dispatch the desperate, thirsty schlubs that litter the land. Do you lasso and hogtie your bounties, returning them to lawmen for due process? Or do you administer some frontier justice, blasting them off their horses and watching them flail about as they get caught in their own stirrups?
Thanks to some fancy software, people gyrate and stumble believably. If you shoot a guy in the shoulder while he’s running at you, his momentum will carry him forward even as he whips around and falls down. In “Redemption,” bullets hurt.
There’s an absurdly generous amount of content here. Aside from the entertaining and varied narrative missions, which take you from Mexico to the mountains and all points between, you have scads of sidequests, jobs and collections to complete, all at your leisure and in any order you please. Treasure-hunting, which forces you to rely on faded clues drawn on in-game maps, is my favorite distraction of the bunch, and it’ll last you five hours or so on its own. Provided you don’t cheat by looking up all nine treasures on YouTube, of course.
Know that the game is stacked with technical quirks — some graphical, some more serious — but they’re as forgivable as they are eye-popping. The gunplay, for one, is functional enough, but “Redemption” occasionally calls upon you to brain bad guys more quickly than is possible.
For instance, while going about your business in Armadillo, Chuparosa or one of the game’s other towns, a prostitute will scream for help as a scorned client tries to knife her to death. This all happens before your eyes, and if you train your sights on the attacker quickly enough, you’ll get the good lady’s thanks and a few bucks for your trouble.
If you’re too slow, or if you can’t be bothered, you watch a hooker die in the street. And if you try to shoot the bad guy after the fact, you’ll confuse the game’s morality system, which decides you’ve committed a crime.
Hardcore, hardly appropriate, hilarious, or a little of all three? In any case, it’s not a dealbreaker. “Red Dead Redemption” is a true milestone for sandbox gameplay, and it cements Rockstar’s reputation as one of the best in the business.
This article originally appeared in the York Dispatch.
Review: ‘Mario Galaxy 2′ has universal appeal
As Americans, we’re rightfully choosy about which mass-media entertainers we allow to use single names.Think Madonna.
Beyonce.
Chyna.
Gallagher.
Best of the best, right?
But one diminutive Italian dude towers above them all.
Since he arrived on the princess-rescuing scene in 1981, Mario has needed no introduction. You know this guy. He wears blue overalls and jumps on stuff. He likes mushrooms and coins and warp pipes and, above all, shiny things. His best friend is a dinosaur.
And perhaps it’s that universal familiarity that has prompted some videogame writers to pepper their otherwise exclamatory praise for “Super Mario Galaxy 2,” the latest title in a franchise that has sold more than 220 million units, with hints of fatigue.
“Superfluous,” “unnecessary” and one of the best Mario games of all time, declared Kotaku’s Stephen Totilo.
“We should, by rights, be well sick of (the Mario formula) by now,” said The Escapist’s Susan Arendt, “but it’s hard to be cranky when the level design is this good.”
If the cognitive dissonance sounds weird, that’s because it is.
We’ve become such a preening, entitled bunch of babies that most of us can’t bring ourselves to start by saying what ought to be said: “Galaxy 2″ is one of the very best platformers ever made, and it’s certainly the best game on the Nintendo Wii.
There are blemishes — those chintzy star bits from the first “Galaxy” return, for one — but they’re wee ones, and we’d be lucky to get titles this good five times as often.
Pretending as if the first “Galaxy” (and every other game in the Mario canon) never existed, “Galaxy 2″ begins with a five-minute tutorial to establish the ounce of narrative context you’ll need for the next 20 hours or so — Bowser is as big as a planet and steals Princess Peach, but Princess Peach has promised Mario cake.
Time to jump on stuff!
The game cuts you loose with the quickness. In the first 10 minutes, you’ll have careened around asteroids, leapfrogged black holes, hopscotched across disappearing elevators and slaughtered a baby piranha plant.
To the races: And you’ll have driven the laws of physics into humiliating exile, such are the gravity-defying heroics you’ll pull off in “Galaxy 2.”
The sequel keeps the spherical levels of the first game, but just as often, it stretches, perforates and bedazzles them with grouchy turtles, rope swings and other sundries from the Mushroom Kingdom.
These worlds — you travel between them on a spaceship styled after Mario’s face — are the most hazardous, creative, candy-coated obstacle courses ever
And fortunately, they bear revisiting. As with the first “Galaxy” and other 3-D Mario games, “Galaxy 2″ has you tromping about 40 or so stages in pursuit of 120 stars. Collect all of those, and you’ll unlock the privilege of finding 120 more.
Collect all of those, and you unlock a final world — something I’ve not accomplished yet — for a crack at two final objectives, bringing the total star count to 242.
Yoshi, Mario’s anatomically puzzling dinosaur companion (he lays eggs), appears in “Galaxy 2,” and he’s in fine form. By eating special fruits purposefully strewn through certain levels, he turns into a blimp, a lantern or a red-hot bullet that can scale vertical walls and run across water.
The fruits are fun, easy-to-use additions to the game; it’s just a shame that you’re given little license to experiment with them. Each power-up is placed conspicuously close to the section of the level where you’re meant to use it.
That makes some sense — unlike the fire-flowers of Marios past, each fruit expires after 15 seconds or so — but you’re never at a loss for what you’re supposed to do.
The same goes for Mario’s four new power-ups. The best of them is a suit that lets you conjure three clouds mid-air, bridging otherwise un-jumpable distances.
You’ll also play with a rock suit and a giant drill; ice flowers, fire flowers and the ghost and spring suits return from the first “Galaxy.”
Again, little room for experimentation, but the mechanics are so tight that you likely won’t complain. The game challenges your fingers more than it does your brain, which will be plenty busy chewing on the finer points of jumping upside-down or running inside a sphere.
There’s so much more to love — the outstanding orchestral remixes of old Mario tunes, the streamlined world map, Yoshi’s heart-melting repertoire of grunts and squeals — but it’s best left to discover on one’s own.
Trust Nintendo, and trust Mario. If you’re looking for a reason to put down “Red Dead Redemption” or “Alan Wake,” you’ve found it.
This article originally appeared May 31 in the York Dispatch.
