fortytwo points

Pandemic and EA's The Saboteur Brings Us Back to WWII; Nazis Groan

I've certainly made no effort to garner EA's The Publisher's good will in the past, but despite my ill comments I am willing to accept that they frequently have their hands shoved into the warm, beating chest cavities of great developing partners. This time it's Pandemic's heart that is at risk, yet I can't help feeling like, maybe this time, it will be for the better. Having access to pockets that deep should certainly help a little...

Pandemic have built themselves a sound legacy with Full Spectrum Warrior, Destroy All Humans! 1 and 2, and the Mercenaries games, yet they've never really exploded into the zeitgeist with a smash hit that the community just can't stop talking about. They seem to have an excellent talent for creating engrossing worlds and genuinely likable (if not sometimes hollow) characters, so hopefully their latest efforts with Saboteur for the Xbox360 and PS3 will change this.

You play as an Irish racer who decides to fight his own war against the Nazis after they kill one of his friends. The protagonist was inspired by William Grover-Williams, a war hero for the French Resistance during WWII, and your most important weapons are infiltration and sabotage. Using them, an arsenal of period appropriate lead-spitters, and your own cold, murderous hands, you set out to reclaim portions of occupied territory for the native people.

Kotaku Discusses the Art of War; No One Becomes a Better Warrior For It

I think I've made it clear in the past that Kotaku is one of the few gaming sites I respect and today they've set out to solidify that opinion further. Owen Good's batted us another homer with his insightful piece about art direction in combat-oriented video games and claims "leaps in game presentation have typically corresponded to some kind of combat themed game". Considering the advances in photo-realism games like Call of Duty and Tom Clancy's Latest-Game-About-Special-Force-Guys-Doing-Special-Forcey-Things have helped usher in, it is an opinion-cum-fact that is difficult to argue against.

Good takes the time to interview members of Guerilla Games, Gearbox, and Infinity Ward to get their opinions on the subject and they all offer great insight into the process of designing worlds for these types of titles. Some lament the duty of creating realistically accurate environments while others embrace it, but it is great knowledge for those who think they may want to make a war game themselves. You can read the piece on Kotaku by clicking this link:

Kotaku Feature: "The Art of War" by Owen Good

They never fail to surprise me with a topic I am not sure I would have thought of myself. If you consider yourself a gamer and have not already, then I highly suggest you join their site.

Plus, Fleshbot is a part of the Gawker Media Network as well (parent company to Kotaku), and you're probably already a member there anyway, aren't you?

Tsk, tsk, tsk...

-Unfather

Watchmen Saturday Morning Cartoon

Okay, it has nothing to do with video games but who isn't excited to see The Watchmen movie?

It was a rhetorical question.

The movie drops tomorrow, but until then, enjoy this mock Saturday Morning Cartoon by HarryPartridge:

Genius. Gotta love the nuances, and my thanks to King-mag.com for pointing this one out.

-Unfather

Where To Get Incredible Game Music

dB Soundworks may not be well known now, but I'll put money down that this guy's gonna be the next Tommy Tallarico.

Danny Baranowsky owns the property and created the fantastic music for Flashbang's fantastic game Blush (reviewed here). There's a nice selection of electronic music to go through and it's all free to download, so check it out.

That's really all I've got to say about that. ;)

-Unfather

Flashbang's Blush flOws like Spore (the fun parts, that is)

It's sometimes surprising if not downright amazing what social networking can do for you. I really only joined Twitter to compliment fortytwo points with some real-time updates and I never thought it would actually lead me anywhere I cared to be. This parts not surprising, but I was wrong.

As I investigated my few followers in an effort to determine how crazy they must be to have taken an interest in my Twitter account, I found that one of them (at least) probably isn't an individual. Instead, they turned out to be a gaming service.

Now, this is exactly why I never did and really still haven't gotten into the whole web 2.0 hoopla. You're a less valuable community when someone starts using your channels to hawk their wares in what will probably be an apparently objective manner. It's not wrong to sell shit through creative means, but it is wrong to think that someone's your friend and to friend them as if they actually were. Take a look at Tila Tequila. No one in the world actually likes her and yet she has millions of online "friends". Am I the only one who finds a service that facilitates this kind of madness unappealing?

Extended Viewing with Halo Wars: Other People's Reviews

I haven't played the full version of Halo Wars yet and quite frankly probably won't any time soon, but I did offer my two cents about the demo with a review that you can see here.

The gist is that while it's functional, I'm not a fan.

But of course like most people in the world, I'm a fucktard in many regards, and if you just swallowed my view without a counter-opinion, well, that might just make you one too. So, to not help propagate exactly what I created this site to fight against, I've come across a few video reviews of Ensemble's latest and final effort and I decided to post them up here for your consideration.

Vadrum Rocks Super Mario Bros.

There's no end to the number of videos showcasing someone playing a video game theme on some unwitting and likely unfitting instrument, but this has to be one of the best:

You can check out more of Vadrum's work here on his YouTube channel. This guy's like the John Bonham of nerd-drummers.

That is, if John Bonham had died a virgin.

-Unfather

Tripbase's Stunning Videogame Locales Full of Strong Picks

I've been lazy about posting but surprisingly the site is growing despite me. Let's just cut through the excuses and explanations as to why this is and get to the happy ending though, shall we? I just had to clean dog S off the thankfully-hardwood floors and my patience has thinned a bit.

To calm myself down I decided to spend a little time gawking at the scenic vistas in Tripbase's nostalgic gallery of video gaming's best environments, and it may very well have saved the dog's life. Anything that acknowledges American McGee's Alice at the start is a worthy distraction, and it's accompanied by other strong choices like Fallout 3's wastelands, Assassin Creed's Middle Eastern landscape, and Oblivion's bloom-bleached, sheep-stained hills.

The choice-picks for me though have to be S.T.A.L.K.E.R. and Shadow of the Colossus, the latter which you may not have seen coming but will likely understand. S.T.A.L.K.E.R. is one of the first games to make me feel as if I truly was where I was supposed to be (post-explosion Chernobyl), and Shadow of the Colossus benefits from enemies that act as the levels themselves, making for an experience that will be unique until God of War III hits shelves.

The descriptions are lacking unfortunately so if you have not played these games, the references may mean little to you. But if you have, it will spark many fond memories of better games past. You can check them out for yourself here:

Tripbase's Stunning Videogame Locales

Now we have an excellent list of ideas to reference/steal when we make our own games, right?

-Unfather

GTA: Chinatown Wars Brings the Franchise Back to its Roots

Rockstar will remind us where the Grand Theft Auto franchise came from next month with their brand new Nintendo DS exclusive GTA: Chinatown Wars, and the best part is, they're bringing some great new stuff to the series in the process.

Set in Liberty City once again you play the role of a young man who's father has just been murdered. As you set off to deliver some prized family heirlooms to your uncle, you are attacked and they are stolen by the same Triads who murdered your kin. Driven to take back what's yours and to avenge your father's fate in the process, you set off to make things right once again.

Many seem want to forget it sometimes, but the first two GTA games were exclusively top-down affairs (if no less controversial), and some may even remember the occasionally pinball-like nature of the scoring system. Though the later does not return, the former does, and you control young Huang Lee (the protagonist) from the sky once again, this time with the debatable benefit of cel-shaded graphics. Much of the action is still true to the nature of the series in that you'll be beating down defenseless prostitutes and skidding over crippled pedestrians to your heart's content, but there are some key changes meant to breathe new life into the series and that should be noted.

Off With Her Head: Good Games Shouldn't Make You Feel This Bad

I have a million and seven excuses why I haven't been posting regularly lately, but this wall of half-lies and somewhat-truths I've constructed could not contain my desire to spread the word about this game.

(A special thanks to Play This Thing! for sharing this)

Bob Clark of The Designer's Dilemma blog recently developed a simple title called Off With Her Head for the Global Game Jam, and it's arguably of greater moral depth than almost any game in existence. Off With Her Head places you in the shoes of an executioner for a King, and you have the unenviable duty of convincing all the kingdom's women to either join the royal harem or die beheaded at your hands. The women of this land are all so beautiful and marry so quickly that even the realm's own men often go unwed, His Highness included, and the King has had enough. You will either help him resolve this problem in the most despicable manner possible, or you yourself will share their fate.