At the Mountains of Madness- Part Three: "My Old Kentucky Home"

If it's Monday, it must be Mad Men day here at Charge Shot!!! First things first, welcome to the new site. This feature's been going strong for three weeks now and you can expect more stuff like this (but the same amount of video games-related content) in the coming weeks with our new additions to the staff and our general re-tooling to a pan-pop culture blog. I for one am excited that my personal favorite role model/object of disgust Don Draper made it into the banner for the new layout; to quote Pete Campbell, "Why, that's just swell."

The third season of America's favorite television drama about the advertising industry is starting to take shape with this week's installment. We've seen how 1963 has been opening for Don Draper and co. and now it looks like things are really beginning to get rolling. The old guard is struggling to maintain control in the face of the British invasion, papa Hofstadt has moved in with Betty and Don, Pete kind of got promoted, and Roger got re-married. It's starting to look like all that the men of Madison Avenue have taken for granted these past few years is beginning to slowly slip away- let's see how they handle that.

Allow me to act as midwife in the birth of the brave new Charge Shot!!! Mix yourself an Old Fashioned and let's get rambling, ramblers!

This week's episode "My Old Kentucky Home" can be easily broken down into four basic plotlines. We'll start in ascending order of relevance and screen time with the "D" plot of little Sally Draper and Grandpa Gene. As Mad Men devotees are readily aware of, Betty's father Gene Hofstadt isn't in good shape. He's suffered a few strokes recently and is beginning to show early signs of possible Alzheimer's-related dementia. Last week, thanks to some slick convincing on the part of Don, Gene moved into the Drapers' Westchester home. Already it looks like his presence is causing as much of a problem as we all knew it would.

Gene keeps having moments where he forgets where and when he is, last week he poured out of all of Don's booze in an attempt to hide it from the Prohibition-era fuzz and now he's peeled a bunch of potatoes in the kitchen after he had a flashback to his Army days. Things only get worse when precocious little Sally Draper steals five dolalrs from his billfold. I assume that his outrage over the disappaernce of his cash is seen by Betty and Don as something of an overreaction- how much more was $5.00 worth in 1963? A ruckus is caused when he indirectly accuses the Drapers' black maid Carla of taking it, all while Sally looks on. After overturning every mattress in the house, Sally finally finds an indirect way to the return the money to grandpa (God, she's adorable) and all would seem at peace until Gene knowingly extorts her into reading him Edward Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire before she goes to bed. All of the talk about "decadence", "corruption", and "effeminate orientals" makes for a lot of symbolism, eh?

Our "C" plot brings us to the Bronx apartment of Joan and her husband, Greg. Greg's throwing a dinner party in an effort to impress the head of surgery at his hospital (he's a doctor, if you'll remember) and of course it's dutiful wife Joan's responsibility to play hostess. Throwing Emily Post instructions around, Joan is trying to assume the mantle of lady of the house, but Greg is getting all controlling and not letting her do her job. Joan who was so adept at being a woman in a man's world as a single, maneating, über-secretary is not quite as good at married life; or maybe it's just that she's married to Dr. Rape that's screwing up her usual sense of place. Over drinks we learn that Greg, who we assumed was so perfect on the outsider and only a monster on the inside- David Lynch style, may have let someone die under the knife. The wives of Greg's friends tell Joan that she's the best thing going in his life right now, personal and professional, and that she should avoid getting pregnant. These revelations about Greg are going to figure in pretty heavily later in the season, I would say. In order to change the subject from his professional failings, Greg makes Joan perform for their guests (which apparently was what you did back then, a practice I'm quite glad has faded out of style, personally). What is Joanie's hidden talent you ask? The accordion. That's right, the accordion. Joan and "Weird Al" Yankovic share a proficiency in the accordion. She sings in French for the guests, in what must be humiliating for her but seems to do the job which, given Greg's winning personality, may have been the point all along. Oo lah la!

"My name is Peggy Olson and I want to smoke marijuana."

That JUST HAPPENED.

Peggy's subplot deals with her, Paul, and Smitty (where's Kurt?) having to spend Saturday at the office trying to figure out a way to sell Bacardi rum. After experimenting with actually drinking the stuff, Smitty suggests they get high to get their creative juices flowing. Paul calls up an old college buddy from the Princeton class of '55 (as he reminds everyone as much as he can) and his fellow "cocksman" (a word I wish was still in use) shows up to deal some pot to the creative department at Sterling Cooper.

This part of the episode reveals two things- 1) Peggy's growing assertiveness and influence amongst the creatives and 2) Paul might not be as "hip" ("hep"?) as we were lead to believe oweing to his Jersey origins and lack of recent dope smoking. As with last week's episode, we can see that Peggy is going out of her way to become more included with her male colleagues, who still aren't 100% on board with her as one of the guys. She's becoming more outgoing and willing to play the game as opposed to the wide-eyed, earnest innocent we met in the pilot. Her smackdown/reassurance of her secretary Olive is particularly telling,.We're also finally getting some more character development from Paul Kinsey, whose subplots so far have revolved around his willingness to date black girls and his sweet parties in Montclair, NJ. Our resident Orson Welles look-alike apparently has an inferiority complex (who didn't see that coming?).

The final and biggest plot of this week's episode involves Don and Betty attending a party thrown by Roger and Jane at a country club on Long Island. Don seems particularly reluctant to attend based on his disapproval of Roger's recent behavior and Betty is concerned about her pregnancy-related appearance. This all comes to a head when Roger's buffoonery (performing in blackface!) drives Don to mingle with a fellow traveler on the up-from-nothing road. His new found friend is a man named Connie from New Mexico (this guy?). There they discuss how much they hate these high society parties and Don reveals some more about his past, namely that he's from Illinois by way of Pennsylvania coal country and that he used to pee in fancy people's cars when he worked as a valet. Don also shows us how to make a mean Old Fashioned, which I suspect will be rechristened the "Don Draper" in a matter of years.

Also revealed this episode, Pete and Trudy Campbell cut a mean Charleston.

Betty has a brief encounter with a kind of creepy, Reed Richards-looking type who wants to feel her belly while she waits for Trudy Campbell outside the ladies' room. It's weird that Betty's biggest display of intimacy so far has been with a stranger who hits on her at a country club and not with her husband. The weirdo is later revealed to be a bigwig at the governor's office, perhaps we'll hear more from him later in the season?

Draper marriage troubles escalate when a drunker Mrs. Jane Sterling fumbles for Don's belt and tells her she's so happy that he and Betty reconciled after their separation, as well as questioning why Don doesn't like her. Betty storms off at this humiliating display, Jane is of course one of the few people privy to the Drapers' recent squabble, having been Don's secretary through most of the ordeal. When Roger intervenes, Don tells him what he's been feeling, namely that Sterling's been acting like an idiot for the past year, divorcing his wife, marrying a 20-year-old etc. Also of note, it was Roger's divorce that helped to necessitate the selling of Sterling Cooper to the Brits, and we all know how Don feels about that (if you don't, he doesn't think well of them).

Don finds Betty and smooths things over, but we can only wonder how much longer until the bottom falls out for the "effeminate orientals" at Sterling Cooper.
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Charge Shot!!! 2.0

Oh, hi there. I didn’t see you come in. You have to stop doing that.

You might notice something a little… different about the ol’ blog today, yes? Maybe it lost weight, or got a new haircut, or maybe it is ushering in a new epoch of Charge Shot!!!, bitches.

Where we were once a dude-infested nerd-factory, deigning to write about video games and only video games, we are now expanding our outlook to include the other forms of media that you, the erstwhile reader, consume every day. Games still have a place here, near and dear to our hearts, and we hope not to lose those of you who we have attracted in the last nine months or so – we’ll still do features and interviews and reviews about games, our daily roundup of gaming news will continue, and our podcast will stay exclusively game-related.

Among those game posts will be other things, though – stuff about television and movies, music and books, gadgets and technology. To deliver these, we’ve brought on a whole slew of new writers who we hope you’ll enjoy as much as we do. Because of all these new faces, we’ll be posting twice most weekdays, three times if you count our gaming news link round-up. You guys, that’s almost twice the Charge Shot!!! you got before. It seems like a good deal to me.

You’ll also notice our brand-new layout, which we all think is head-and-shoulders above the old one. The new color scheme is light, very readable and more inviting. The navigation bar at the top (and bottom) of the site brings important things like our podcast and RSS feed to your immediate attention, while freeing up enough space that we have completely eliminated one sidebar. As a result, the content can breathe a little better, and we managed to make more space for advertisements while keeping them unobtrusive and tasteful. Cha-ching!

So, lots of changes, but hopefully nothing changed for the worse or changed for the sake of change. Please, if you have any suggestions, criticism, praise or witty asides, shoot us an email at editors@charge-shot.com, or simply leave a few words in the comments section. This has been a fun project for us over the last few months, and I think we’ve done some solid work in trying to entertain you. Hopefully it’s all uphill from here.

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Marginalia: 8.28.09

Gamasutra:  Breaking news!  People like Batman and puzzles!

GameDaily:  Harmonix’s upcoming Rock Band Network looks to sport some really bizarre console exclusivities.  And by bizarre I mean that it leaves the Wii out to dry (no surprise), gimps the PS3 version (weird), and will be fully-featured on the 360 (also no surprise, I guess).

Destructoid:  This Serious Sam HD trailer is one of the funniest game ads I’ve seen in a long time.

Gamasutra:  This year, 43 bills were introduced to Congress attempting to regulate game sales.  None passed.  I suppose this is some sort of victory or something?

Destructoid:  More TMNT titles are on the way.  This time for the DS(i).  If it’s Turtles in Time, stay far far away.

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Section 8’s Eyes May Be Bigger Than Its Stomach

A few months ago I heard about a first-person shooter with plans to abolish some genre conventions.  In an interview with Gamasutra, Robert Siwiak, a producer on Section 8 with TimeGate Studios, discussed the studio’s desire to “take what has been contemporary for first-person shooters for the past 10 to 15 years and say, ‘You know what, in some areas, there's a different way to do things.’” 

“A different way to do things” means nixing fixed spawn points.  It means allowing the player to airlift in vehicles or turrets.  It means Dynamic Combat Missions, a series of optional objectives that can easily change the course of a battle.

With the open beta in full swing, a demo available on Xbox Live, and a retail release just a few weeks away, I decided to see what the hubbub was about.  Unfortunately, my experience with the demo’s only gotten me worried about an otherwise-promising IP.

There’s nothing wrong with trying to reinvigorate the FPS genre.  And why not give TimeGate, a studio known primarily for its Kohan series of RTS titles, a shot?  Section 8 is angling for a share of the Big Ass Battle market, proven alive and well by the recent success of Battlefield 1943.  And TimeGate even got Microsoft to agree to some clan support by allowing players to run their own dedicated servers on Windows PCs.  Servers like this can bump the player cap from 16 to 32, which should make for bigger and crazier battles.  So far so good.  But how does Section 8 play? 

Your Heart Was in the Right Place…

If someone stuck a gun to my head and demanded I detail three reasons why they absolutely must play Section 8, I would cite the dropship spawning system, the customizable suit loadouts, and the Dynamic Combat Missions.  When players spawn, they do so via orbital dropships, choosing their location from a map.  They may want to drop in right next to their squad-mates (perfect for turning the tide in a firefight) or just outside the enemy-controlled base in hopes of sprinting past the sentry guns and hacking the control point.  Each control point is outfitted with AA turrets capable of shooting down players spawning within their firing range.  No camping here, folks. 

Every time they spawn, players can select from one of six suit loadouts, a feature reminiscent of the customizable mechs from Mechwarrior or Chromehounds.  There are six standard options, ranging from heavily-armed artillery to speedy infiltrator models.  However, they can all be completely customized:  their weapons, their equipment, and even their passive modules which grant bonuses to weapon damage, shields, etc.  This means that players can, depending on the objective, switch out a knife for a repair tool or a pistol for a rocket launcher. 

These personalized loadouts come in handy once the Dynamic Combat Missions become active.  DCMs, upon completion, grant teams points toward the total required for victory.  Objectives include driving an armored convoy vehicle back to your base, escorting a computer-controlled VIP, or retrieving enemy intelligence.  They all have time limits, so the enemy can stop you by either destroying your objective or simply holding you at bay.  Essentially, it wraps up a variety of common multiplayer modes into one big skirmish that also happens to have control points.  It’s an online shooter smorgasbord.

But You Bit Off More Than You Could Chew

A little bit of ambition never hurt anyone (a lot of ambition maybe, but not a little).  But I’m afraid that the Section 8 team may have missed the forest for the trees.  While they had less trouble inventing fresh mechanics than G.W. Carver did coming up with uses for the peanut, the game lacks an overall level of polish and competence that we’ve come to expect from full-priced retail releases.  And since said release is about only two weeks away, I believe the demo to be a pretty good (or bad, in this case) indicator of what’s to come.

For one thing, I get stuck on terrain.  A lot.  My supersuit-powered space marine gets his feet caught in divots in the ground, and I have to wait for his jetpack to recharge before I can get him out.  My rocket-launching convoy tank accidentally tumbles off a riverbed and gets stuck under a bridge (what I wouldn’t give for some destructible terrain).  Also, the jump height is atrocious.  Without resorting to his jetpack, my supersuit-powered space marine can clear ledges maybe 1 ft. tall.  I’m not asking for Halo jumping, by any means, but Source engine ups would do.  I could also go into a lengthy discussion about the mapping of the Jump command (and the rest of the completely unintuitive, only-sort-of-customizable controls) on 360, but I fear I might just give myself an aneurysm.  Suffice to say the controls felt like a surprisingly high barrier to entry.

Another thing that gives me pause is how buggy other parts of the demo were.  Occasionally after matches, I was treated to an inescapable, roaming camera tour of the map.  I was literally trapped in the game for multiple minutes and had to retreat directly to my Xbox Dashboard.  If this is happening prelaunch, I worry about the game’s stability after TimeGate turns it over to the user-created servers.  Also, I couldn’t always tell if and when my grenades and rockets were exploding.  Whether or not this problem was caused purely by lag I don’t know, but sometimes it just felt like my commands refused to register.  I also noticed input difficulty when trying to exit my supersuit’s Overdrive mode, which is a shame given its handiness in map-traversing sprints.

Hoping for the Best

When Section 8 clicks, it’s wonderful.  I’m requisitioning turrets from my dropship, blasting opponents with the handy recharging Lock On function, and completing a variety of objectives in a single session of play.  When it breaks down, it’s a shame because I’m reminded of all the awesome things I could be doing.  Furthermore, how this multiplayer-oriented gameplay will translate to a single-player campaign is beyond me.  I expect a lot of derivative narrative draped around missions that would be ten times more fun in multiplayer.  If Section 8 doesn’t have its act together by the time it hits shelves, I’ll watch, disappointed, as a forward-thinking game languishes under the long shadow cast by Halo 3: ODST before fading into obscurity.

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marginalia 8.27.09: wtf microsoft? edition

Joystiq: Apparently Microsoft’s Elite price cut comes at the expense of any and all high-definition cables. Those in the know can pick up HDMI cables for less than $10, but they cost three or four times that in a brick-and-mortar store.

Joystiq: Speaking of dumb ideas, Microsoft is raising the price of the Xbox Arcade across the pond. In my eyes, if they don’t adjust the price down because of the exchange rate, they shouldn’t adjust it the other way either.

Destructoid: At least Microsoft is doing something right – they’re claiming that all that Red Ring nonsense is in the past. I sure hope so!

Destructoid: Some are saying that Hans Zimmer has been hired to score Modern Warfare 2. Guy sure is getting a lot of mileage out of that one score he wrote!

GamePolitics: In Venezuela there’s a crime wave going on, and of course it is all of those violent games and toys that are at fault.

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this week on audiosurf radio – 8/27 – changing things up edition

Hey there you guys! I know Craig normally does Audiosurf Radio, and I know Audiosurf Radio usually posts on Tuesdays, but if this much change makes you uncomfortable you are probably going to need to find a new blog to read in a little less than a week. In the word-writing biz, that is what we like to call foreshadowing.

Upon launching the game, I fought back a groan – the first sentence of Lebeth’s weekly note is “It’s fan-created content week on Radio!” After thinking about it a bit, though, bands like The Anyways (a Scottish outfit with a Bebo page) and The Dark Gigantosaur (a group with a name like a bad Final Fantasy summon) are hardly any more or less obscure than the bands normally featured on Radio. Hey, it’s even possible that these songs, hand-picked by Audiosurf fans for Audiosurf fans, make for more interesting rides than the Techno of the Week that makes up many other Radio playlists.

Let’s do this, shall we?

 The Tracks

This is going to sound a little hypocritical coming from a guy with this much Pearl Jam in his iTunes library, but I don't think anyone told these guys that the 1990s ended quite some time ago. Their crunchy guitars and Kurt-Cobain-meets-Scott-Stapp lead vocalist don't sound bad, exactly, but they’re a little dated in this day and age. For Hope is probably the better of their two rides, and even it is only about half-and-half - for starters, four-and-a-half minutes stretches one's patience with a verse-chorus-verse grunge ballad. The verses are too slow and you can't get any combos going, but the choruses and the guitar solo in particular are good times. The crunchy, loud guitar parts in both of The Anyways' songs means you're riding the guitar more often than you're riding the drums, which is interesting even if it isn't that much else.

 
Images of a dinosaur eating potato chips were immediately banished from my mind once I actually started surfing this one - he means chips as in chiptunes! My predisposal to chiptunes aside, this is an uptempo song that doesn't let up, the techno thump carrying you from the very beginning to the very end. It's definitely the sort of thing that you might hear at a nerdy dance party, perhaps sandwiched in between 8-bit Weezer songs, and sharp-eared listeners will hear the sound Link's sword makes when his health is full. Fill up your hearts, and play this song.

When a song's congestion is 335, you know it's time to put on your big boy pants - the seizue warning you see every time you boot up Audiosurf was probably written with this song in mind. If I had to tell you the way it made me feel, I would probably say that it was like watching all of the action scenes from the Matrix movies squeezed into one five-second blast, or maybe like I did a bunch of speed and watched twelve episodes of Invader Zim and then died. The overwhelming fear they're talking about probably references my overwhelming fear of crashing on this track, which I did early and often - give this one a try, but have a sedative close at hand.

Other Selections
“Steel String Jockeys” is an okay song from a band with some serious hards-on for Nirvana, but the ride is all downhill with low congestion, the very definition of nondescript. And while I've got to give The Dark Gigantosaur credit for “Galactic Adventure” - the song does make me feel as if I'm floating in space - I'm apparently on a galactic adventure with Yanni and the guy who invented the Casio keyboard. If you can get over the instrumentation, you'll have a decent time - that last downward slope is fun enough, but Gigantosaur’s other two tracks are head and shoulders above it.

Author’s Note
All songs were played on the Pro difficulty using the Eraser character.  Craig plays this mode every week for a reason, you guys.

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Marginalia: 8.26.09

Gamepolitics: That boycott of Shadow Complex? Didn't work. You'll have to find a different way to tell Orson Scott Card that you don't like that he doesn't like same-sex marriage.

Gamasutra: A thoughtful piece framing the Console Wars in the context of other, more "acceptable" media.

Kotaku: Best Buy’s using a bribe of a free game and a price match to prevent PS3 owners from trading in their weighty console for the newer Slim model.

GameDaily: Retail outlets may find their shelves chock full of Sony motion-control cameras in early 2010.  I say chock full because Sony’s yet to announce a title that will make people actually buy the damn thing. 

Gamasutra: An interview with Stardock CEO Brad Wardell about minimizing the Jerkass Factor in online gaming.

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Blizzard Finally Talks Battle.net 2.0

If you’ve been listening to the Pod Shot!!!, you may remember some recent ramblings re Blizzard’s upcoming revamp of its Battle.net service.  Recent coverage from BlizzCon (via Joystiq and Giantbomb) illuminates the particulars of the service, answering some of our questions and raising some others.

Among one of the more pressing topics is the issue of microtransactions.  One of Battle.net’s most enduring features has always been the propagation of user-created maps.  Well, on B.net 2.0 you’ll still be able to share maps, but the best ones may cost money.  It looks like Blizzard looked at the wild success enjoyed by the free “Defense of the Ancients” scenario and decided they wanted a cut of the action.  No word yet on how maps will be deemed marketplace-worthy.  Hopefully capitalism’s invisible hand won’t squash nerd creativity.

Other options being explored include cross-server/cross-game chat (so you can talk to your buddy in Azeroth while you fight Kerrigan and her brood), Web 2.0 name identification (are we witnessing the end of gamertags?), improved matchmaking, and unlockable (or purchasable) Avatars and Decals.  Details are slim on how Battle.net will function as an out-of-game client, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see them emulate some of Steam’s better features. 

Will the new Battle.net really rival Steam?  I’m not sure.  It sounds like it will be tied solely to Blizzard titles, not upcoming Activision releases (though that may end up being their trump card).  I’ll just be happy to sign on and be able to find a competitive match that won’t result in my constant humiliation.

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Marginalia: 8.25.09

GameSpot:  Leaked advertising materials are telegraphing a Xbox 360 price cut.  The Pro (which is going the way of the Dodo) will drop to $249 and the Elite to its new $299 home.

Gamasutra:  After learning that trolling for Nintendo patents can yield hilarious results, people have begun combing the Internet regularly for weird new patents (really, you want people throwing a fake football in front of their TVs?) from the Japanese giant.

Destructoid:  People should stop ragging solely on JRPGs when complaining about game length.  BioWare’s upcoming epic Dragon Age: Origins is purported to have 120 hours of content.

GameSpot:  Finally, new Mass Effect DLC hits the Xbox Live Marketplace.  This is no surprise after months of Twittering and rumors, but it’s nice to see BioWare deliver.

GameSpot:  Someone opened an Internet/game addiction center in Washington state.  Sounds a little expensive, but it might be worth it for one of those “high adventure outings.”

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Shadow Complex, or The Past Becomes the Future

EDITOR’S NOTE: There will not be an Audiosurf Radio post this week due to time constraints.  Believe it or not, those posts do take time.  Also, Andrew and I failed to discuss who would review Shadow Complex.  So…here’s another one.

This year Microsoft wisely countered the typical summer game drought with its “Summer of Arcade” promotion.  On the whole, it seems to have worked.  They picked a perfect launch window for five games well-suited for affordable download: games new and old with a retro feel.  Fighting fans have been clamoring for a Marvel vs. Capcom 2 release since the Xbox Live Arcade was invented.  ‘Splosion Man (see Gene’s review) channels old-school platformers with its charming idle animations and precision-demanding level design.  Trials HD dresses up your average Flash tilt-bike game with slick graphics and leaderboards galore.  (We won’t worry our pretty little heads with the slack-jawed rehashing that is Turtles in Time: Reshelled.)

Shadow Complex, with its Metroid-meets-Castlevania 2.5D gameplay, fits nicely into this group.  Hit the jump for my thoughts on Chair Entertainment’s love letter to gaming’s past.

I’d be remiss in discussing Shadow Complex without acknowledging the controversy swirling overhead, which we discussed on our recent podcast.  Orson Scott Card, the Ender’s Game author who wrote a book (Empire) set in a world created by Chair Entertainment, disagrees with same-sex marriage.  Actually, “disagrees” is a bit of an understatement – he abhors it.  Because the marketing behind Shadow Complex prominently features Card’s name, liberal gamers are crying foul and boycotting the title.  Kotaku’s Stephen Totilo did his best to round up statements from all involved (gamer and developer, but no Card), and Gamasutra’s Christian Nutt puts the issue in context both personal and national, arguing that the “It’s just a game” defense insults not just the developer but gamers themselves.  In my opinion, Shadow Complex is so divorced from any ideology that I have no problem playing it while also disagreeing with Card’s political stance. 

Now that that’s out of the way, let’s talk about why you should play Shadow Complex.  I’ll admit, in the interest of full disclosure, that I have limited experience with the franchises it so loudly harkens back to.  I’ve never played Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, and I never beat Super Metroid.  I do, however, recognize the classic elements that set Shadow Complex apart from the majority of modern games. 

When gaming leapt into the third dimension, a myriad of problems were born: wonky cameras, inadequate draw distances, clunky controls, and uncanny valley full of awkward animations.  We also lost one of the hallmarks of 2D design: tile-based maps.  You can look all the way back to Mega Man and find games designed around levels with fixed camera points.  Some argue that the Resident Evil series lost something in the transition away from fixed-camera environments; it’s much harder to create suspense when the player has full control over what’s being seen.  Shadow Complex tackles this style head-on, providing a mix of open warehouses and tight, constraining rooms.  The tile-based environments also lend themselves to the immensely helpful map with its wonderful (and optional) Blue Line, which points toward your next objective at all times.  Also, the tiles allow for encounters with expertly crafted balance and pacing, something free-roaming cameras can often muddy up in three-dimensional spaces.  With current-gen technology, rooms transition smoothly – whether they be pockets of a cavern or a rooms in a barracks – which keeps the game moving at a comfortable pace.  The 2.5D sometimes make for some awkward aiming with the right stick, but a healthy auto-assist function should curb frustration.  Plus, by the end of the game, you’ve become so powerful that a few missed shots won’t matter – you’ll have time to fire five times before the enemy has the courage to stand up to you.

Shadow Complex all but says, “I’m a game.  Here’s some cool shit.”  Your pause screen is a series of progress meters, whether it be map exploration or item collection.  And the items, though they all have their Metroid analogs, are tons of fun.  All of your weapons, including missiles and grenades, can be fired on the game’s Z-axis, sending enemies in the back- or foreground screaming for cover.  The hook shot and the Friction Dampener feel like toys dreamt up in an issue of Popular Mechanics, and many of the puzzles requiring them elicit “a-ha!” moments upon completion.  Not all of the power-ups come easily, however.  You’ll have to work, hunt, and perhaps even do a bit of Internet research (I know I did) to get that 100% item Achievement.  It feels like the old days when games were happy to kick you in your cognitive balls, but had no problem rewarding you handsomely if you were up to the task.

For all the hoopla surrounding Card and the buzz about scriptwriter Peter David, Shadow Complex’s story is rather on par with what you might expect.  In David’s words (from the aforementioned Totilo piece), it’s a “story of a reluctant warrior being forced to find something worth fighting for.”  I reckon that’s the case.  You play a dude who follows a girl into a cave, watches her get kidnapped, and goes after her into an underground facility.  Your competence with weaponry is explained via one ten-second flashback.  Honestly, I can’t complain.  Playing the game was engrossing enough.

Shadow Complex is a testament to what can and should succeed on platforms like the Xbox Live Arcade.  It’s reasonably priced, ambitious, slick, and explores a genre that modern titles wouldn’t dare enter for fear of lackluster sales.   I spent eight hours completing the main campaign and I’m still hungry for more.  Controversy aside, Shadow Complex deserves to go down as a modern classic and should be spoken in the same breath as the predecessors to whom it pays homage.

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marginalia 8.24.09: yes i know it is pretty late, but i can always timestamp it as having been posted at 6:00pm and look like i am more on the ball edition

Game Music 4 All:  An interview with the people behind the Kind of Bloop, a suprisingly good 8-bit remix of the seminal Miles Davis album.

Variety: Plans for a BioShock movie continue to surface.  I'm currently taking bets on how swiftly the themes of free will and the illusion of choice fall by the wayside as people get all excited about who plays the Big Daddies.

Supersite for Windows: Microsoft fails to deny a 54.2% lifetime failure rate for the Xbox 360, stating ambiguously that their generous warranty is enough to keep their customers happy. Tell that to the guy with the eleven duds.

Joystiq: Someone is asking you if you’d be willing to pay for future seasons of 1 vs. 100 Live. If you listen closely, you can dimly hear the sound of no one being surprised.

Joystiq: What no we didn’t cut the price of the PS3 because of the staggering demand for it you guys no way that is crazy you are crazy with your crazy talk. What? No, yeah. No.

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At the Mountains of Madness- Part Two: "Love Among the Ruins"

Looking for some entertainment this week that doesn't reek of Orson Scott Card's involvement? Why don't you start watching AMC's Mad Men? There's nary a trace of Mormonism, alternate history, or opposition to gay marriage at all! Just smoking, boozing, womanizing, and advertising here, folks!

This week's Don Draper adventure takes it's name from an 1855 poem by the British poet Robert Browning concerning the rejection of ancient splendors for modern love. With that in mind let's take a gander at the week's developments amongst the employees of Sterling Cooper.

Foremost among the plot lines developing on Mad Men this season is the interoffice politics of the British colonization of Sterling Cooper. Pete and everyone's favorite faux-beatnik Paul Kinsey are doing their damndest to land the Madison Square Garden account , and when Don helps them to dodge the bullet of Paul's left-wing self-righteousness (look for that to become more and more of problem as the season goes on) and secure the trust of the men who want to demolish Penn Station (the "Ruins" of the episode's title?), the British home office orders them to drop the account. Why? Don makes it clear that doing advertising for Madison Square Garden would lead to decades' worth of business, but Lane Pryce states it plainly that due to previously unforeseen conflicts, S-C won't be handling MSG. Frustration mounts further when Don and Betty go out for an awkward dinner with Pryce and his wife (played by, holy crap, the girl from Army of Darkness!) who turn out to be just horribly boring people. Mrs. Pryce, hailing from "foggy" London, regards New York the way most New Yorkers think about the Midwest. To top off condescension towards the City That Never Sleeps, "We live near the UN so we have lots of Africans," she says. What does that even mean? Who are you people? During the tense follow-up convo the next day, Don asks his English overlord "Why did you buy us?" due to the seemingly endless series of fumbles of the part of S-C's new bosses. "I don't know," says Pryce. Get me Duck Philips on the phone!

On the home front we have the deteriorating mental health of Betty's stroke-addled, possibly Alzheimer's-afflicted father, Gene Hofstadt. Brother William (the man who Don pretended to be in Baltimore last week) wants to either dump dad in an old folks' home or move his family into the Hofstadt estate. This would of course keep the house from ever coming into Betty's possession, which she of course, cannot abide, apparently because she really dislikes her sister-in-law, Judy. Two observations, Betty doesn't like anybody except her dead mother, and I think there are at least 3 tertiary characters named Judy on this show. Seriously, everybody's unseen wife/sister/mother is named Judy. I think William's wife might be the first Judy we the audience have met but my God, the Sixties were full of Judies. Don shows that he's a pretty stand up guy by essentially Jedi Mind Tricking William into letting Gene stay with the Drapers for the time being, thus keeping the ownership of Betty's childhood home up for grabs. God he's good! After this, we're treated to Gene suffering from a Prohibition flashback and dumping all of Don's bourbon down the drain, and an adorable Hofstadt-Draper family portrait, but not before Don takes some time to daydream about boffing Sally's teacher around the Maypole. Oh Don, you'll do the right thing to keep your wife's family from self-destructing but nothing will stop you from leering at any pretty lady who isn't your wife! Sweet sunglasses, btw.

Also on the burner this week, Sterling divorce/marriage drama! Daughter Margaret doesn't want Roger to bring his child-bride Jane to her upcoming nuptials because that would of course be weird considering Roger's new wife and his daughter are the same age. Eww! Mona has a date, so that's just unfair! Did anyone else notice the unfortunate date of "fall bride" Margaret's wedding? Before we leave the Sterlings, Roger earns one thousand bonus points for his line about Lane Pryce's suit of armor: “You ever get three sheets to the wind and try that thing on?” Kudos to you, Mr. Sterling. Here's hoping that the season ends with Bert Cooper throwing on his samurai suit and fighting Pryce in his knight's garb!

Finally we come to our weekly installment of Peggy Olson vs. the Glass Ceiling. Working on an account for Patio (that's what they called Diet Pepsi before it was Diet Pepsi), Peggy's woman-friendly angle is shot down by the boy's club's notion that the client's idea for an Ann-Margaret-type in their ad will sell more diet pop. "Clients don't always know what they want," counters Peggy, aping her mentor, Don. The master himself responds "You're not an artist Peggy, you solve problems," proving she has a long way to go, even in the eyes of her biggest patron. She reacts to all this by going out to a crowded Brooklyn bar and picking up the first drunk college boy she can find. Her night is soured however because her gentleman caller is lacking a "Trojan". Nice brand awareness, Peggy! If there's one character on Mad Men who knows the value of prophylactics, it's young Ms. Olson, so her rendezvous is stopped at third, so to speak. Still, good for you, Peggy! You'll be a Mad (Wo)Man yet!

So that's Mad Men this week, guys! Stop by next week for "My Old Kentucky Home" and let's see if this mysterious image is addressed. Hmmm...curiouser and curiouser... Continue...

demo (?) monday: shadow complex

I know, I know, Microsoft has been doing everything in its power to push Chair Entertainment’s Shadow Complex down your throats, but here’s the thing: this week’s Demo Monday isn’t a Demo Monday at all, because as soon as I blew up a helicopter I bought me up some Microsoft Points and purchased Shadow Complex. Immediately. And I’m going to start this review off by saying that you really should do the same thing.

I’ve said in other pieces that I felt this year’s Summer of Arcade titles, ‘Splosion Man and then Turtles in Time, were not up to par compared to last year’s offerings. While Shadow Complex isn’t a mindbending experimental title that’s going to change the face of gaming, it is the first important game we’ve seen in the Arcade this summer.

Braid, for all of its gameplay-related merits, was also important for another reason – it proved that people were willing to spend 1200 Microsoft Points ($15) on an Xbox Live Arcade title. Gamers were a little upset about this decision, but Braid sold very well and since then we’ve seen more and more titles at that price point and above.

Shadow Complex is breaking some similar ground, albeit on the developer side of the fence. For one, it’s an Xbox Live Arcade game that licenses Epic’s Unreal Engine, which while nearly ubiquitous in AAA retail titles is to the best of my knowledge a rarity in the Arcade. The second innovation, perhaps related to the first one, is that this game is one of the larger Arcade titles currently available from the service, weighing in at over 700 megabytes. This (and the Games on Demand service) is likely the last step in a long journey, one that started with a 50 megabyte limit for Arcade titles just four years ago at the 360’s launch. Nothing says “you should have bought the system with a hard drive” like the fact that the must-have downloadable game of the summer is three times the size of your memory card.

All of that being said, I guess I should actually talk about the game a bit. Shadow Complex is a sidescrolling shooter/platformer with a heavy emphasis on exploration, in the style of the Metroid series and the post-Symphony of the Night Castlevania games. Shadow Complex probably does borrow a bit too many pages from Samus Aran’s book (I think they actually knocked her down and took it), but it’s just so well-executed that it’s hard to fault it for being derivative.

(For those unfamiliar, games like this have an interesting structure: you’re plunked down in the middle of one large, continuous map, with the only thing keeping you from exploring it all being your lack of equipment. Typically, there’s only one passable path, and at the end of it will be a power-up that will make more obstacles surmountable. Rinse and repeat until the end of the game. For those who enjoy meticulousness and puzzle-solving mixed in with your action, this is for you.)

A couple of things do distinguish it from Metroid and Castlevania. One of those things is that it’s not Metroid or Castlevania – those two games have the market cornered on sidescrolling exploring, and it’s refreshing just to enjoy that gameplay without being tied to the conventions of those particular series. It also makes solid use of the third dimension, despite being a sidescroller. Metroid and Castlevania games have, over the years, either been three-dimensional or two-dimensional with no switching in between. Shadow Complex actually populates its backgrounds with enemies and objects, making the game’s world look larger while forcing you to pay attention to your surroundings. It’s a nice, subtle touch, and a welcome one.

Ten years ago, Shadow Complex would have been pressed on a disk and sold in stores for whatever full retail price happened to be at the time. Not so today. This speaks both to our shifting tastes (first person shooter trumps sidescrolling action) and to the skyrocketing costs of and expectations for a modern video game. Shadow Complex has sparse but competent voicework for a handful of characters and a very nice 3D engine, but it doesn’t approach the level of detail or meticulousness that went into crafting the burnt-out Washington D.C. in Fallout 3 or the war-torn surface of Mars in Red Faction Guerilla. Gamers expect not just longer games for their money these days, but bigger and flashier ones too.

Hopefully the popularity of Shadow Complex convinces some publishers and developers that smaller games, if done well, can be just as (if not more) fiscally lucrative as the dozens of monolithic, big-budget releases tossed onto store shelves between November and January. You complain of the skyrocketing cost of game development – maybe you should just consider smaller games?

Chair Entertainment’s Shadow Complex is currently available from the Xbox Live Arcade for 1200 Microsoft Points ($15). I’m not sure how much of the demo I played, because I bought the game after playing the single-player campaign for all of ten minutes. For more thoughts about Shadow Complex, including some commentary on Orson Scott Card’s apparently controversial involvement, you should listen to this week’s Pod Shot!!!.

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pod shot: the skippy to my jif

Subscribe to the podcast via the feed, or find us on the iTunes store!

Another week, another podcast! This week we mostly talk about Shadow Complex and the PS3 Slim, with a healthy helping of diversions and ramblings. We also mistakenly believed that the last week of 1 vs 100 was this week, which is wrong. It’s next week. My hilarious Felicia Day joke seems silly, now.

Music this week is from Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars and it plays when you’re riding a barrel down the Midas River. Good game, good game.

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Marginalia: 8.21.09

Shacknews: Disc-switching abounds!  It looks like the 360 version of id’s apocalyptic FPS Rage may require multiple DVDs to account for the multiplayer component.

CO-OP: The most recent episode of CO-OP includes an interview with Facebook’s director of games.  Apparently people are making money off Facebook games.

Gamasutra: So GameStop’s definition of “having a weak summer” is posting its second-highest Q2 profit ever.  Stop your whining, Scrooge McDuck.

Destructoid: Chet Faliszek of the Left 4 Dead team claims that the upcoming DLC Crash Course was originally slated to drop before E3, which probably would’ve headed off all this sequel boycott nonsense.  Oops!

1UP: I wish I could just grab Harmonix by the collar and not let go until it convinces me why we need another iteration of Rock Band.

Destructoid: PopCap has officially announced Plants vs. Zombies for XBLA and iPhone.  Genius.

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Teaching Us How To Play…over and over again

So you’ve just gotten home from GameStop, unwrapped the plastic on that hot new title you’ve been saving for, and popped the disc in the tray.  You’ve watched the customary developer/publisher slates and navigated the main menu.  But before you can play the game, you’ve got to learn how.

Tutorials are ubiquitous in modern gaming.  With more powerful technology came more powerful methods of interaction, which in turn required longer and denser strings of commands.  Just open up a Street Fighter FAQ and try to prevent your eyes from glazing over. 

Is there a way around this convention?  Or should we simply embrace climbing the learning curve every time we boot up a new game?

Long gone are the days when gamers could be expected to rely on their manuals for instruction.  Does anyone remember the manual for Super Mario Bros.?  Without it, how would any of us have known what that the Koopa were a “tribe of turtles famous for their black magic”?  Or that all of the Mushroom Kingdom’s citizens had been transformed into bricks?  On a more serious note, the manual was a necessity if the player had never touched a controller before.  Control schemes had no conventions.  If you didn’t spend time reading, you wouldn’t know what the game had to offer you.  Nowadays, console games couldn’t care less about their manuals.  Gamers have since been trained that the game will teach them everything they need to know.

And teaching players is something some games need.  You can’t be expected to boot up a strategy title like Starcraft or Civilization and figure out the minutiae through trial and error.  But Starcraft, and it seems like its sequel will do things similarly, does its best to integrate its training into early levels, stripped down to reveal key mechanics to the player.  Mission A teaches you how to build stuff.  Mission B teaches you how to destroy it.  It starts to get a little formulaic.

As the industry strives to produce games with more mature (not “adult”) narratives, it’s running headlong into a conflict with this tutorial convention.  UFC 2009 Undisputed needs hours of tutorial video because it’s a complicated sports title that toes the line of simulation  But AAA, story-driven titles buckle under the weight of tutorials.  Think back to the last Square RPG you played.  Do you recall fondly the ten minutes you spent watching a canned demonstration of whatever new battle system they’ve created?  I know I don’t.  It puts chinks in my immersion. 

I believe this issue is tied to problems of progression (an issue I’ve discussed before).  In many mainstream games, characters are expected to learn/acquire new skills or weapons as they progress through the story.  I wrote before (see above link) about how that’s spawned a game story cliché , that of a lone individual amassing great power and overcoming his foes.  With those powers come their learning curves.  Assassin’s Creed does a decent job dressing up its tutorial elements in a meta, “You’re playing as a dude controlling his ancestor with a machine” conceit.  It does reinforce, however, that players can’t be expected to wield their new weapons effectively without being told how. 

Or can they?  Braid constantly changes up how time functions, forcing players to let go of their assumptions about the game’s mechanics (which conveniently reinforces its themes of love and loss).  Most of Portal is disguised as a tutorial program designed to test the player’s abilities.  The opening tutorial of Red Faction: Guerrilla is less a structured lesson than an introduction to the game’s destruction-friendly sandbox of a world.

We can see tutorials as a gaming-specific analog to exposition.  Sure, game narratives need exposition as much as any novel or film might.  But games also hinge on proper explanation of mechanics, just as most plots hinge on clear background information.  Think of any time you’ve gotten frustrated trying to navigate a game, or when a friend hasn’t had as much fun as you in multiplayer because he just can’t get the hang of it.  People who saw G.I. Joe: Rise of the Cobra probably felt the same way.

There is, however, such a thing as too much exposition.  It gets boring and stale.  You can almost hear the plot idling in the parking lot while the exposition takes too long in the store picking out what kind of chips it wants.  That’s where Beckett and Pinter came in.  Figure it out for yourself, they said, we’re not answering your damn questions.  Unfortunately, a complete lack of exposition can prove frustrating for an audience, just as a complete lack of instruction can make some games unplayable. 

A balance must be struck between this need for exposition and the oppressive weight of a bloated tutorial.  Since it’s become almost expected that one can play a game without ever opening the manual, developers must anticipate this.  But they should be encouraged to make their instruction jive with the game’s fiction and narrative.  If they can pull it off, the first two hours of games will get a lot more engaging.

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'Splosion Man is decidedly meaty

Andrew posted some impressions of the 'Splosion Man demo a few weeks ago, and came away a bit dissatisfied with the measly three levels therein. Upon playing the full game I can say that the size of the demo seems about right. Three levels is only about 6% of the game, but the demo gets you more than acquainted with the single mechanic the game explores in the other 47 levels: and oddly enough, it's not explosions. Well, I should say it's not exactly explosions as we've come to know it: particle effects, ragdoll physics, big guns etc. More precisely, it deals very wonderfully with kineticism (although 'Neticism Man would be a bit cumbersome as a title).

It's difficult to write lushly about any aspect of 'Splosion Man, and the game will either seem simplistic or refreshing in its austerity. The entirety of the game's 'story' can be deduced from the title sequence. The fact that you are a man that explodes at will and you are exploding your way through an exploding-friendly laboratory and all of its exploding-friendly/suicidal scientists is all you get. It's sort of like Sonic was, before all of that. Even the bosses that cap off each of the game's three worlds do little to establish your motives. Something about that is a little sobering. How often does a game come out now that eschews morality or drama or character development in a non-self-conscious way? Humor does emerge in other details, like 'Splosion Man's idle animations--as Ashley Davis gushes over--and the many morbid compulsions of your would-be captors. Even the humor bolsters the fact that all other aspects of the game are just a vehicle for that one simple gameplay mechanic.


'Splosion Man himself retains the same exact abilities throughout the entire game. All of Xbox controller's face buttons make you explode into the air and you are allowed to explode twice more before you hit the ground and recharge. This manifests itself as wall-climbing, platform jumping, switch activating, and only occasionally as an attack maneuver. What's interesting is that the levels he finds himself in, about 16 or so in each one of the three aesthetically similar worlds, grow increasingly chaotic. There are gameplay trends that characterize the three worlds, although even these are fluid. The first world pits 'Splosion Man most regularly against the scientists, who flip switches to activate turrets and other obstacles. The second world highlights rather lengthy timing sections, wherein rising water or giant indestructible robots will force the player to quickly run across platforms. The third world features twists on these trends, combining them, and introducing free-fall levels reminiscent of Irritating Stick. Individual levels vary rather dramatically in length from one to the next, which works especially well to disorient the player. I had considerable trouble getting through a few sections of each world and usually it was rote pattern learning that got me through in the end. Even relatively easy sections involve some trial and error.

However, once the patterns emerge and you find yourself in the rhythm of some remarkable feat of timing and improvisation, the game really shines. In most of the puzzles, the fact that 'Splosion man explodes is irrelevant. The visual manifestation of jumping or triggering exploding barrels that act like chutes could easily be something less volatile. (In fact, I think the title of the game does it an initial disservice. It would easy to conclude from the name and logo that the game was just a regurgitation of one gaming's many common articles. Fortunately Twisted Pixel inject enough extra-presentational gags to counter) I'm ashamed to admit I haven't had the pleasure of playing the co-op version, but I've heard it only accentuates the game's focus on acrobatics, coordination and kineticism. In the fifty levels of the game, the developers exhaust the mechanic and little else.


Perhaps my one complaint with 'Splosion Man is about its presentation. In the middle of some of the more dynamic motion puzzles, it's difficult not to notice how the level designs have been configured around some rather dramatic player movements. The camera pans in and out rather frantically to capture the important aspects of each platform section. Aside from activity the foreground however, there is not a whole lot going. I know I've been championing the game's simple approach thus far, but I can't help but feel like there was a missed opportunity to add some eye candy or pad out the settings a bit more. It would have been window dressing at the very best, but a nice touch.

I wholly recommend 'Splosion Man, especially for the price. Its irreverence betrays a neat sort of grace and, in some ways, facilitates it.

P.S. The live action reimagination of the game that accompanies the credits is almost worth the price of admission.

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marginalia 8.20.09

Supersite for Windows: The failure rate for the Xbox 360 is 54.2 percent?! It sounds high, but I’d believe it.

Joystiq: What do I miss most about the original Playstation? Disc switching!

Gamasutra: “Precisely the right time” must have started meaning “six months after you should have.”

Gamasutra: According to everyone on Earth, I should be excited about the prospect of Shadow Complex DLC.

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the importance of 2.0

I’ve been playing Loco Roco 2 on and off for awhile now, always inching toward beating it while never actually getting all the way there. As I normally do with games these days, I was looking for the blog post in the game, but nothing was immediately evident – Loco Roco 2 is definitely an improvement on the original, but much of what I said in my write-up still applies. It’s easy-breezy. While gameplay has improved, it is still more notable for its art and attitude than the actual game. Who wants to read about all that stuff again?

What it did get me thinking about was the importance of the revision, not just in games but in most media and technology. The second chance is an opportunity to really examine your product, identify its intrinsic strengths and weaknesses, and expand on the former while shoring up the latter. It’s also important to the establishment of a platform, whether in the form of a solid product line or a game franchise.

I’m hard-pressed to think of anything that wouldn’t benefit from 2.0. The much-loved Windows XP is actually a refinement of the long-forgotten Windows 2000, and the upcoming (and exciting!) Windows 7 is a refinement of the reviled Windows Vista. The first iPod was groundbreaking, sure, but only once Apple added USB and Windows support to later models did the product’s popularity really explode. SuperBabies: Baby Geniuses 2 corrected many of the most glaring flaws of the original Baby Geniuses. The list goes on.

Let’s keep looking at Loco Roco, and also let’s add Patapon to the mix. Both games are cut from the same cloth, stylistic Japanese-flavored oddities with interesting concepts but unavoidable flaws. In addition to the problems I had with the original Loco Roco, I would contend that the original Patapon was hampered by its repetitiveness and its repetitiveness. Loco Roco 2 and Patapon 2 are, largely, the same as their predecessors, but with a bunch of the wrinkles ironed out (to continue with the cloth metaphor). Loco Roco 2 adds a little more variety to the mix of levels, inserts some more interesting boss battles, and lays the cutesy cutscenes on pretty thick. Patapon 2 makes the creation and enhancement of your fighting force more tolerable via a leveling system that is much preferable to the last game, where if you wanted to replace one Patapon with a stronger one you had to kill the weaker one to make room. Gentle tweaks, but in those two cases they probably ended up with the best possible version of the concept.

The thing about refinement is its potential. Take Army of Two as an example. Rob and I, as you’ve heard, liked it more than we thought we would, and as a result the second game is very much on our radar. If EA can take what was fun about the first game (the bromance, the closer-quarters action sequences) and take out what wasn’t fun (the over-the-top racial profiling, firing down a runway at a hiding enemy’s hairline, the pretense that the game has anything important to say about anything) they’ll have a pretty good action game on their hands.

More storied franchises have done this too – few people care much for the first Mega Man game, but the second game (which Capcom only allowed series creator Keiji Inafune to do if he and his developers did it on the side, in addition to their regular duties) formed the base for a franchise that still releases two or three titles in an average year. Here, however, we see the problems with continuing the approach beyond the second entry in a given series, when there is too much emphasis on refinement and not enough on innovation. Walking the line between alienating people with newness and letting one’s product stagnate is difficult, but it can be done and more people need to learn how.

Have… have I made my point? Basically, I don’t think we should judge a game’s follow-up too harshly for directly copying large chunks of the first game. Innovation is nice, but so is refinement – there has to be a level of change between “none” and “drastic.” It’s when 3.0 looks too much like 1.0 that you start to get yourself in trouble.

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marginalia 8.19.09 - is it really this late in august already edition

Tom's Guide: A study says gamers are typically overweight and depressed. If we weren't so miserable, we'd haul our fat asses off the couch and tell them a thing or two.

Kotaku: Want to play PS2 games on the newer, slimmer, slightly-more-affordable PS3 Slim? Too bad. You can't.

Gamasutra: Peter Molyneux (of "I designed a creepy boy who wants to talk to you through the Natal" fame) officially announced Fable III. Fable Three? I haven't even played Fable One! (Also, they'll be releasing Fable II as a series of DLC episodes starting September 29th. Weird.)

Joystiq: LittleBigPlanet for the PSP has lost multiplayer. Doesn't matter to me, since I'm the only person in a 200-mile radius with a PSP.

Joystiq: What's your brand? Anything slim.

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B-b-b-b-b-BREAKING NEWS: PS3 Slim on the way Sept. 1

You heard the rumors.  You saw the Korean manufacturing orders.  You read about Kmart’s price drop claims.  Yesterday, finally, Sony came clean and admitted revealed the new PS3 Slim – and, oh yeah, it’ll be available on the First of September.

I first saw the reports on Twitter.  Then I watched the announcement video (courtesy 1UP) from Sony’s German GamesCom conference, followed by 1UP’s unboxing video, which shows a machine only marginally smaller than its predecessor.  But apparently “marginally smaller” is cause for another price drop to $299.99.  A quick Amazon search confirmed that all current PS3s now retail at the Slim’s price point.  I believe the kids call that a fire sale.

Gamasutra spoke with Sony’s Eric Lempel, who reiterated Sony’s “30 percent slimmer, 30 percent lighter and uses 30 percent less power” motto for the Slim.  Hopefully, all of the trimming really did cut down on production costs. 

A few things about this move strike me as genius (other than the whole “finally deciding to sell their console at a competitive price” thing).  A week after the new console drops, so too will the LittleBigPlanet Game of the Year Edition.  Gamers generally enjoy being told what to buy and labeling something as a Game of the Year can help in that department.  Uncharted 2 is also on the way, as well as a new Ratchet & Clank.  Then there’s the bloodthirsty elephant in the room, God of War 3, due out next spring.  There’s a good chance the opportunity to walk once more in Kratos’ gray-matter-splattered shoes will move plenty of the cheaper Slims.

Oh yeah, and I can now upgrade my chances of playing The Last Guardian (see heart-melting trailer) from “Impossible” to “Only If I Get Another Great Tax Return.”

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Marginalia: 8.18.09

Gamasutra: The people who run EVE Online have plans to release a console MMO that will be part of the same universe, allowing for FPS ground battles. A cool idea, for sure, but I’m still put off by EVE Online’s whole council of elders thing.

G4 TV: Later this year, you’ll be able to play Earthworm Jim on your next generation consoles.

1UP: Kmart’s hopping on the PS3 Slim bandwagon.

Joystiq: Spinoff’s of Will Wright’s Penis Monsters Spore are on their way to the Wii and DS.

Joystiq: This week is your last chance to play 1 vs 100! Microsoft really wants you to try it. They’re even rolling out Felicia Day!

Daily Tech: At long last, the PS3 we should have had three years ago.

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This Week on Audiosurf Radi-bro – 8/18 – COOL STORY, BRO Edition

Allow me to give credit where credit is due.  As I’ve demonstrated before, I regularly read the comment sections of each song after I ride it.  It helps me sort through my own opinions on a given track, as well as get a sense of how the community feels about it.  When I’m stuck, it generally proves useful.  This week was no exception.

In the comments for each song by Melbourne’s TenPenny Joke, Audiosurf user celkin posted “COOL STORY BRO,” spurring epic strings of “bro” jokes.  Why all the humor at the expense of bromantic fellas?  Well, TenPenny Joke sounds a lot like the kind of rock you might hear pumping from a frat house after all the girls leave and the boys need something to fill the silence besides the sound of ping pong balls plopping into Solo cups.

Breaking up the bro-rock playlist is a tune from French ska act WHISKYBABA. Their music, like their promotional artwork, is preposterous.  It’s been a while since I was even passable at French, so I’m only catching a few ridiculous words here and there.  But it sounds wonderfully silly and is a welcome change of pace from the bro angst.

Can you weather the bronado that is about to touch down off the coast of the Gulf of Mexibro?  Hit the jump and find out…bro.

Recbrommendations

The Eastern, sitar intro to “She” did not fully prepare me for the Nickelbackean onslaught that is to follow.  And, quite honestly, the reoccurrence of this opening lick in the guitar part kept me from immediately writing these guys off as Nickelback knockoffs.  I guess I was assuming that all Nickelback sounded like this or this, when in reality they can also sound like this (of which “She” ends up reminding me).  Just like the Bros-Who-Heretofore-Shall-Not-Be-Named, “She” has got some dreadful lyrics: “She will get inside your head(Like the wolf travels through the snow)/She’s the waves inside your bed (Where the wind travels she must follow)”  And with the soft metal guitar underneath them, it sounds like the titular (ha!) woman is diabolical, a succubus capable of bedding and destroying even the toughest bro.  It’s a fun ride, though the traffic is mostly drums.  This really stands out during the guitar broloes, which is unfortunate because they’re not bad broloes.  And then there’s a little string arrangement of the main melody at the end.  A bizarre choice considering the Eastern-sounding beginning.  Why wander through musical traditions like that? 

For the most part, “Flood” was spared from a lot of the comment board negativity, probably due to the significant lack of brocals (“bro-vocals” for those of you not playing along).  It’s completely instrumental, with driving percussion and scores of guitar broloes.  Whereas the other TenPenny tracks draw your attention to their abrocious lyrics, “Flood” actually allows you to appreciate their musicianship, which is adequate if not mildly impressive.  Let’s just say they can certainly play their instruments.  The ride is pretty challenging, with an awesome buildup to the final downhill plunge.  A staccato drum fill pummels the track beneath you just before it levels out to a sweeping curve of red tunnels.  All the while, I couldn’t shake a mental image of the Foo Fighters playing at a jam band concert.  There’s some sort of mental abrociation going on there, I just can’t quite put my finger on it.

“Ma Vie Mon Oeuvre” translates to “My Life, My Work,” which I’m sure relates to this song somehow.  Again, a language barrier (and lack of search results for lyrics) presents me from knowing whether or not this is completely tongue-in-cheek, though I suspect there’s some intentional goofiness going on.  Case in point: towards the end some guy’s voice booms “piano noir.”  Were it possible to drive off the road in Audiosurf, I’d have done it about ten times on this track.  The choruses feature vibrant red tunnels probably caused by the ska-style backing vocals (which always sound like drunk dudes shouting).  And the trumpets, oh man, the trumpets!  They’re so damn happy.  Like, “Under the Sea” happy.  Each start-and-stop horn section brought a big smile to my face.  Don’t worry, ska fans, there’s the requisite allego con moto ending.  You know, the part where all those 90s kids wearing Vans jump up and down real fast because they don’t know how to dance.  “Ma Vie Mon Oeuvre” may not fit in with the rest of this week’s Broeuvre, but you should strongly consider playing this song.

Other Selections
You don’t need to ride “Sirens” if you’ve already ridden “She.”  I’m absolving you of that duty completely.  Is it a bad song?  …I don’t think so?  There’s some cool drum syncopation which keeps the traffic from being too predictable.  Unfortunately, I can’t say the same for the music.  The vocalist sings about sirens a lot, which I guess means he’s talking about some sort of disaster scenario.  This theme is turned into aural metaphor when the guitar mimics the sound of a siren.  I can’t believe I wrote that.  Skip this song.

Author’s Brote
All songs were played at least twice on the Bro difficulty using the Vegas and Eraser characters.  Upon using the word “bronado” in my open, I did a quick Google search that brought up this hilarious MySpace page.  COOL STORY, BRO.

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Marginalia: 8.17.09 – No We’re Not Giving Up On Games Edition

1UP:  So Starcraft II got delayed.  But check out all this and tell me it’s not a good idea that Blizzard’s leaving it in the oven ‘til it’s ready. (Seriously, single-player units that would break multiplayer?  At least they’re aware of the crazy shit they’re designing.)

Gamasutra:  Goofy patent alert!  Sony recently filed a patent for some kind of “laugh detector,” which would “collect a user’s emotional output -- such as laughter, a smile, or a yawn…”  Also, Sony’s patent artists should be a little more sensitive.  Being penetrated by a wheel of shoes is no laughing matter.

GameSpot:  Hold the phone.  Sony filed a second crazy patent?  This time for a “deformable device”?  I presume they mean a stress-ball equivalent to the gloves in Minority Report.

GameDaily:  In Project Natal news, a design director from Rare has hinted at the possibility of classic Rare IPs finding their way to Microsoft’s camera-toy. 

1UP:  In his QuakeCon keynote, John Carmack announced that a premium subscription option would be added to Quake Live.  Apparently scattering fuzzy Dell ads throughout the levels wasn’t paying the bills.

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