Thursday, December 2, 2010

Gaming Today

Gaming Today


Poker Night at the Inventory Review

Posted: 02 Dec 2010 02:42 AM PST

Stop me if you’ve heard this one… A rabbit, a wrestler, a Russian merc and a slacker walk into a bar. No?

Well, Poker Night at the Inventory, the celebrity poker game from Telltale games features an interesting cast of video game characters including Max from Steve Percell’s Freelance Police, Homestar Runner’s Strong Bad, The Heavy from TF2 and Penny Arcade’s resident smart ass – Tycho Brahe as players in the most interesting game of Texas Hold’em you’re likely to find for $5.

Poker Night at the Inventory is the epitome of a casual game. It’s low on gameplay features aside from its core – a single game of Poker, but it’s remarkable less for the game and more for the atmosphere created by the cast of misfits you play it with. The player is a faceless victim in a verbal war of the worlds as the colorful characters around the table spout off insults, comment on their playing and every once in a while say something very off the wall and surprising.

Telltale delivers a workable poker game under here. While it is mostly no frills it is definitely a competent title. The graphics are nice and the company manages to maintain the distinct visual style established in the games of thee lead characters, including a cell-shaded Tycho.

The banter between your opponents at the table is really what will keep you playing Poker Night if you’re not a card game fanatic. Strong Bad and Max often surprised me during play with some of their commentary – especially the odd or seemingly random comments made based upon either the hand they held or the way you were playing.

You start with $10,000 to bet with one character always offering up collateral in the form of unlocakble items for Team Fortress 2. The stakes of the poker game are reasonable and you can actually be completely pushed out of the game in two or three hands if you’re not careful. Luckily even if you tap out of the initial pot you can opt to listen to the other characters continue their match to listen to the unique dialog.

As you might expect the recorded dialog does repeat from time to time. Telltale was prepared for this however by allowing you to disable the color comments and just play through with some pointed dialog on. Even with the limited library of outbursts I found the game did a good job of not repeating the same random line ad nauseam.

The Heavy, Max and Strong Bad all turn in excellent performances and were in character through the game. I never felt like I wasn’t playing a real poker game with those crazy characters. Tycho however just felt awkward.

The voices of the characters are done by their original actors, including the weakest link of them all – Tycho himself. Of all the characters, the Penny Arcade voice actor felt like the least professional of the bunch. The acerbic slacker tone of his delivery felt natural, but there was just something off about the delivery. This was just not the voice I picture in my head when I read Tycho’s comments.

In the end, Poker Night at the Inventory is a great casual poker game with a cool gimmick. Telltale manages to deliver a $5 game with some staying power for fans of these oddball creations and I highly recommend if you like any of the games featuring Max, Strong Bad or The Heavy then this is a worthwhile impulse buy. Dedicated TF2 players will probably find the $5 loot upgrades a steal as well.

Pros

  • Excellent banter dialog during play
  • A fun Texas Hold’em poker game
  • Dialog option vary by game progress and hands

Cons

  • Tycho phones in his performance
  • Only one version of Poker included

The Verdict: 90/100


In The Name Of The King 2 Is Actually Happening

Posted: 01 Dec 2010 05:00 PM PST

There are things that make no sense at all, and then there are things that don’t just not make sense, but actually mock the very concept that the things we observe can be studied rationally. In the first category goes 2008′s In The Name Of The King: A Dungeon Siege Tale. Possibly the most insane Adaptation-In-Name-Only ever based on a video game, Uwe Boll’s low rent-low concept take on the Dungeon Siege series offers the viewer nothing. Nothing, that is, save the sheer, wacky joy of watching an absurd collection of clashing accents and anachronistic hairstyles dutifully hamming their way through the worst recreation of the middle ages since Army Of Darkness – except not on purpose.

Seriously, you have Jason Statham, Ray Liota, Leelee Sobieski, Ron Perlman, Claire Forlani, Fracking Matthew Lillard(???), none of whom can convincingly play any accent but the one they grew up with, and yet they’re all citizens of a magical fantasy kingdom that strongly resembles Ye Olde Englande. It’s the first time I’ve ever seen a film that is almost certainly better while under the influence of unlegal pharmaceuticals, and I didn’t actually wish I had some. To be sure, as a portrayal of the venerable Dungeon Siege universe, it is a terrible thing, but as a film, surely we can admit it is an even more terrible thing.

Which brings us to the second category of things that do not make sense. ITNOTK is an awful movie, but it is awesomely awful. It’s awfsome. Which is why it bombed as if it had been strapped to the chest of a dissident studio employee. And yet, somehow, despite earning a paltry $14,865,984 from DVD sales (the bulk of which probably came from ironic purchases), there is going to be a sequel.

No, we are not kidding.

There is really, truly, actually, going to be In The Name Of The King Two. And Uwe Boll has actually been hired to direct it. And Dolph Lundgren is going to star. And ZOMG MY MIND CANNOT FATHOM HOW THIS IS POSSIBLE. Via Bloginity:

Dolph Lundgren has signed up for 'In The Name of the King 2′.

Let that sink in for a minute. And then let Lundgren drunkenly mumble his way through explaining what happens:

"I play an ex-middle ages war veteran who gets f**ked up but he gets pulled into some sort of medieval power struggle, kind of gets a bit of a redemption for all his pains in service. It's a role I just wanted to play. It's fun to exercise my acting chops once in a while."

Yep. Dolph thinks he has acting chops. Amazing! Finally, someone who can compliment Uwe Boll. Speaking of Uwe, any hope that he might actually have managed to play a Dungeon Siege game since vomiting out the last movie has been dashed.

{D}irector Boll said: "It's like contemporary, right now big city, and we have Dolph Lundgren basically being a cop or like a fighting coordinator working as this, and one night he gets attacked by ninjas in his house and fell with the ninjas into a vortex back in time.

"And then it turns out it's like 50 years after the first part 'In the Name of the King' ended, and Ehb is destroyed and everybody is dead, Jason Statham and everybody who was in the first part, got wiped out.

That wins my vote for craziest F*cking Sh*t I’ve ever heard of, hands down. Presumably, In The Name Of The King 2 (too?) will be out next year. Until then, better hope Dungeon Siege 3 comes out first.


Rumor Mill Says an HD Remake of Halo and Halo 4 are Coming

Posted: 01 Dec 2010 04:53 PM PST

The UK’s biggest gaming rag, GamesMaster, is reporting that “industry chatter” says folks at 343 Industries are working on an updated version of Halo: Combat Evolved intended to run on the Halo: Reach engine. They also say another Halo game — Halo 4, in fact — would arrive in 2012. Eurogamer, nosy bastards that they are, decided to ask Microsoft about this ridiculous remake thing. The response: “Right now our focus is on supporting Halo: Reach. We have nothing to announce at this time.”

So it’s happening.

That whole Halo 4 thing makes perfect sense; Master Chief was last seen floating aimlessly through space in the Forward Unto Dawn toward some planet, and there are all sorts of Ratchet and Clank-style adventures he could get into there. Also, there’s lots of money to be had there.

And there must be some money to be had from an overhaul of the original Halo, but I can’t for the life of me understand why. Unless they completely redesign the whole game, an HD update would be even more insufferable than it was the first time around. Really, have you played Halo recently? Bungie’s level design philosophy was straight out of 1993 and would certainly not be acceptable today. It’s just fight down a hallway, go through that door, fight down a copied-and-pasted version of the previous hallway, turn the corner, fight through the same hallway again and on and on and on. It’s a game that feels much older than it really is because of its incredibly lazy design, and I think an updated version without wholesale alterations would be even lazier.

I do enjoy the story and the gameplay of Halo, though, and the design, in the sequels, has drastically improved over the years. So I encourage a remake if it’s actually a remake and not just a straight conversion. Don’t be lazy, 343. Do it right. Halo’s design dragged it down, and you have the power to make things right.


Why Mark Wahlberg Will Make a Bad Nathan Drake

Posted: 01 Dec 2010 03:54 PM PST


(This is another edition of “</RANT>,” a weekly opinion piece column on GameFront. Check back every week for more).

Last week, Mark Wahlberg confirmed that he was taking on the role of Nathan Drake in a movie based on PS3 blockbuster Uncharted. As always, this inspired a litany of comments from fans and bloggers alike, arguing whether or not Wahlberg would make a good Nathan Drake. We had a similar issue a few years ago as we debated the pros and cons of Christian Bale stepping into a sneaking suit and grunting his way through a Metal Gear Solid film. Now, I’m going to argue that Mark Wahlberg will not make a good Nathan Drake, but it won’t be due to what I think of his acting ability.

He’ll make a poor Nathan Drake simply because we already have a perfect Nathan Drake. In fact, we have the definitive Nathan Drake, and ignorance of this fact is nothing but a show of disrespect towards games as a valid entertainment medium.

Here’s the thing — a massive part of what has made Nathan Drake such a well known character is the performance of his voice actor, Nolan North. Say what you will about North and is over-exposure of late, his voice is intrinsically linked to the character that first saw him rise to prominence. If I hear North in another game, I think of Nathan Drake, and when I think of Nathan Drake, I can’t help but hear Nolan North’s voice. Uncharted’s protagonist is a decently written character and his dialog is quite charming, but without North’s performance, I don’t believe he’d ever have taken off quite so much as he has. There’s a reason many tip him as the male equivalent of Lara Croft, and it’s not because he has a massive dong (that we know of). It’s all in that voice.

This is why any discussion of Mark Wahlberg making a good Nathan Drake smacks of discredit toward videogames. By implying that such an iconic performance (and it is iconic) can be easily replaced by a “real” actor states that videogame voice actors, by the very virtue of their job, are doomed to inhabit a lower caste in the great acting hierarchy. Whether or not Wahlberg is a good actor is irrelevant. Whether he could do a decent “videogame action hero character” doesn’t really matter. The fact is, he’s not Nolan North. Ergo, he will not make a good Nathan Drake.

I realize that by arguing this, some of you will write me off as a purist fanboy. That couldn’t be farther from the truth. In fact, I’m not even a fan of the Uncharted series. I am, however, a fan of good voice actors, and a man who believes that videogames should be treated as a valid form of narrative art. The very existence of a game movie is an implication that films simply “do it better” than games (which couldn’t be less true these days), and shipping in Hollywood actors to replace voice actors hammers that statement home.

This is the same argument for Metal Gear Solid. How many of you can divorce David Hayter’s voice from Solid Snake? Not many, I’d wager. Hayter’s performance made Solid Snake, at least in the West. Without that gruff, deadpan performance, Solid Snake is only a fraction of his full character. It’s more than just having a gravelly voice, however. We all know Christian Bale can growl, but to simply say “Aw yeah, Christian Bale can make his voice go all husky, that’s good enough for Snake,” serves to completely discredit all the work David Hayter put into not just acting like Snake, but thoroughly owning the role.

This is something fans of movies should already understand. There are some characters that will forever be linked to their actors. In my opinion, replacing North with Wahlberg or Hayter with Bale is akin to having Kevin Bacon play Han Solo instead of Harrison Ford. Or telling Anthony Hopkins not to bother getting out of bed because Patrick Stewart’s going to have a crack at being Lecter. To replace an iconic performance with your own should rightly be seen as an act of arrogance. When videogames are concerned, however, not even fans of the games themselves seem to care about the importance of a character’s voice actor.

I don’t expect Hollywood to give a damn. Looking at some of the shite remakes that have been churned out seems to indicate that Hollywood doesn’t even respect itself anymore, let alone any other medium. I think we as game lovers, however, should give more credit to voice actors. There are some amazing ones out there — Nolan North, David Hayter, Yuri Lowenthal, Liam O’ Brien to name but a few. They never get the recognition they deserve. It’s all about the “real” actors with “real” celebrity status. Just look at the Spike Video Game Awards … are any of the “best performance” nominations for real voice actors? Hardly. If you’re not Hollywood, you don’t matter. And these are nominations coming from games journalists.

You can argue that some voice actors just aren’t photogenic enough to play a live-action version of the character, but then, who is asking for this live-action version in the first place? We already have the perfect Nathan Drake, do we really need a real human pretending to be him? That’s the thing — we believe live-action film will make something more authentic, but when it comes to game adaptations, it just makes things more fake, and less authentic than ever before. Wahlberg won’t automatically make a better Drake just because he’s a living, breathing actor. He won’t even make an adequate Drake. We have a Nathan Drake already who looks and sounds exactly like Nathan Drake, because he is Nathan Drake. He is a composite of Naughty Dog’s visual design and Nolan North’s performance. That is Nathan Drake.

This is why Mark Wahlberg will make a bad Nathan Drake. Because he’s not Nathan Drake.


Xbox Live Rewards Pour Vous

Posted: 01 Dec 2010 02:23 PM PST

There’s a new section of Xbox.com today. It’s rewards.xbox.com. If you head over there, you’ll notice that there is now a rewards program for Xbox Live. Above are the things you can do in the program and the reward (in Microsoft Points) you get for doing them. Yay. I think this probably trumps the Playstation Rewards program. Your move, Sony.

It’ll probably take a while to rack up the points, but who cares? I have to go to the movies 15 times to get one free ticket with the theater rewards card. And, hey, collecting random small chunks of points will be good for buying weirdly priced Mass Effect DLC down the road.


Kinect Has Now Sold Millions

Posted: 01 Dec 2010 12:36 PM PST

Kinect is popular, apparently, and now, after Black Friday, its popularity is growing. I know this because after 25 days on the market, 2.5 million Kinect sensors have been purchased. That’s weird, considering it had sold a million after ten days, but don’t go thinking sales have been as steady as that would indicate. Like I said, this figure comes in the wake of Black Friday, which surely boosted sales significantly. The boost was probably very significant, in fact. Look at how the Wii did over the weekend, for example.

Microsoft expects to sell five million of these things by the end of the month, but it’s hard to say if they’re still on pace after taking into account the BF Bump. I’m sure MS will let us know if they do hit that number, though. The war is on.


Blizzard Drops the Banhammer on More Starcraft 2 Players

Posted: 01 Dec 2010 09:24 AM PST

Back in October, Blizzard announced that they had banned 5000 Starcraft 2 players. Now, they’ve released word that another round of bans has gone out.

In a short statement on the Starcraft 2 blog, Blizzard reports the bans (although without giving any numbers), saying that the players banned,

were in violation of the Battle.net Terms of Use for cheating and/or using hack programs while playing. In addition to undermining the spirit of fair competition that's essential to play on Battle.net, cheating and hacking can lead to stability and performance issues with the service. As always, maintaining a stable, safe, and secure online-gaming experience for legitimate players is a top priority for us, and we’ll be continuing to keep watch on Battle.net and take action as needed.

No surprise here, as this tends to happen with regularity in Blizzard games. I guess we’ll have to wait and see if anyone reports getting banned for single-player cheats.


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