killergrapefruit

Battlecolon Los Angeles

2011-04-26T19:45:00.002+02:00

Battle: Los Apathy

or

at least Skyline made me laugh.

So Aaron Eckhart does his best impression of Harrison Ford looking glum and Michelle Rodriguez has more balls than the rest of the cast put together. If that's enough to get your juices flowing, prepare to blow your load early cause that's Battle: Los Angeles : The Movie: All of it.

Aliens travel inside meteorites and invade our coasts and CNN get's the scoop because they have really dedicated reporters. The aliens are hostile and really bad at aiming their swirly rockets but this is PG-13 anyway so what was I expecting. Some helpful scientists on the TV quickly conclude that it's totally our water that the aliens are after. It's their fuel or something and hey, at least they're not allergic to it this time.

And because water is like, super uncommon even though Titan, Europa, Enceladus and such are basically made out of that stuff and water is composed of the two most abundant elements in the universe- but I'm making more sense here than the movie does. I should just stop.

Here's the deal: It's boring as fuck. There's not a single good shot in it, all the cool stuff happens off-screen, when the marines aren't racist they're sexist and if they're neither that's because they're dead. I might have fallen asleep somewhere in the middle but since I didn't feel I missed anything important it doesn't really matter.

Actually, it's not just boring. It's also pretty stupid. Quite how did that huge ship get under the concrete? We'll never know. Their weakness is being shot in the chest? That must've taken a lot of work to find out.

And if you thought Independence Day had a stupid way to kill the mothership, no. I'm just going to spoil this, there's really no need to see it for yourself: They shoot a surface-to-air missile at it.

Moving Pictures #2

2011-04-26T19:17:00.000+02:00

I re-watched the Back to the Future Trilogy! And saw two movies called Red! One of them was good and the other had Felicia Day in it. So both were good? Anyway.

Back to the Future Trilogy
What can I say, it's a great movie, the first one that is. Why'd they make the sequels? My guess would be "for the money", and it quickly becomes very obvious that that's the case. The second BttF is a horrible retread of the first one that needlessly shifts the whole series' mood from careful (and somewhat inconsequential) joviality to this violent hodge-podge of half-baked dystopian ideas. Yeah, a time machine is probably a bad thing to mess with but come on... that's not what I signed up for when I read Back to the Future II on the cover.

All the more surprising is that Part III completely ditches its prequel's serious time jumping shenanigans and focuses on a single time period. And the comedy is back. What a relief. Both sequels were filmed back to back and yet they couldn't be more different in tone and quality. Back to the Future III is actually fun and lets the Trilogy end on an overall positive, if not very high note.

Red
The one with Morgan Freeman as the token black dude (guess his fate). So Bruce Willis is old and retired (what's new?) and he's got the hots for that telephone line chick, who of course turns out to be a total stunner. Hollywood. And there's something about a CIA plot that I've already forgotten about.

There's competent shooting, a couple of really cool stunts and excellent performances by John Malkovich and Helen Mirren. And the story wasn't your typical cliché stuff. And it was shot very nice. I guess I liked it? An entertaining, if forgettable, movie about semi-retired special operatives could've backfired immensely (-> Expendables) but here it didn't.

Red: Werewolf Hunter
Picking up from that blurb up there, no. This one wasn't any good. I really like Felicia Day. Like, like like. But Red is definitely something I want to forget and never mention again. Of course I wasn't expecting much from a SyFy budget horror flick, who does?. The crappy special effects that they borrowed from the nineties didn't help and the glacial pacing and needless filler shots bored the crap out of me. It's not even a good bad movie.

No Rush: Moving Pictures #1

2010-11-29T08:47:00.000+01:00

I recently watched a few movies and this is what I think about them.

Srpski film (A Serbian Film)

Let's get this one out of my system quick. I was mostly disappointed with it. After reading a lot of reviews that essentially condemned it as the sickest filth ever captured on film, I was expecting a Sorokin-like script brought to life by Takashi Miike. Media, I am disappoint. Again.

This isn't that much more shocking than your average American, so-called "torture porn", realised by a team of foreign filmmakers. Though director Srdjan Spasojevic and writer Aleksandar Radivojevic have gone on record stating the movie was meant as an allegory on how the Serbian state fucks with its citizens, I don't exactly buy it. The first half is promising enough, but it all goes to shit-town as soon as the screen is lowered and that scene happens. You know, the first of two that everyone talks about.

Spasojevic's and Radivojevic's point, if there really was any, could've been made so much better had they deeply incorporated it into the script, but as it stands it feels too tacked on and artificial. Of course, that may very well be entirely my fault. I am not Serbian, I cannot judge them on the validity of their claims. Still, the overall handling of the subject matter felt very poor and reflected badly on the film as a whole.

The ending was also too much of a cop out, but then again it wasn't really. I'm torn and frankly, this is probably the only aspect of the whole film that moved me. Was there ever any other logical conclusion to this? I guess not. It wouldn't have worked any other way, especially not after that other scene. Which was followed up by such a hilariously misplaced chain of events that its impact was rendered null on me, by the way.

Overall, Srpski film looks and feels like a carefully crafted controversy-piece, designed to put Spasojevic's and Radivojevic's names on the map. It might have succeeded in this point at least and it'll be interesting to see what its creators choose to follow it up with.

Verdict: Very uneven film, doesn't live up to its reputation, you're not missing much.

Enter the Void

Talking about cerebral, this film is a goddamn masterpiece. It's the fourth work of art by Gaspar Noé that I've seen, after Seul contre tous, Irréversible and the video to Placebo's Protège-Moi. And it's probably one of the best films I've seen this year, maybe ever.

I was not aware of Enter the Void's considerable length until after it started, so it was really surprising to experience the first 30 minutes, essentially the setup, in all this detail. A lesser filmmaker might've shortened this part down to five minutes, but in doing so would've greatly diminished its impact. Apparently this movie was on Noé's mind for 15 years, and it's kind of reflected in its ripeness and pace. Enter the Void unfolds at a very comfortable pace, to put it nicely.

Knowing nothing about the movie but its director and a short, meaningless imdb-style synopsis I was really thankful to experience it unspoilt. This is one of those movies that only correctly work when you're not aware of its entire plot already. Much like Requiem for a Dream, which coincidentally also has the ability to fuck your mind in a really weird way for days after watching it.

While Enter the Void touches on a range of subjects like drugs, spirituality, family and responsibility, it never judges on any of these. There's not much that I want to say about it, other than go see it. Did I just put down 55 of my precious EURO to import the French Ultimate Edition that will be released in two days? Looks like it.

What I really want to mention is the cast. Specifically, Paz de la Huerta. To say that she delivered an outstanding performance is grossly underselling it. She's uncompromising, talented, beautiful and also on Boardwalk Empire. She's also naked in both Boardwalke Empire and Enter the Void. Just puttin' that out there.

Verdict: If you like the magic of cinema and have an open mind, you'll probably be as blown away by Gaspar Noé's latest work as I am.

Easy A

What? You didn't think I'd stick to "sophisticated" films only, did you? Well now you know.

Once in a while there seems to appear a good comedy / romance flick. Like, an actually good comedic movie that doesn't downplay its artistic value for cheap laughs and unrealistic portrays of love and/or stars the dumbness incarnate, Katherine Heigl. This would be one of those times, and I was eager to find out whether Easy A would place itself among recent successes like Juno and The Girl Next Door. Why am I mentioning those two specifically? Well, on the surface Easy A looks like a perfect cross between the two.

Relative newcomers, writer Bert V. Royal and director Will Gluck managed to get this much talent and money for their production, and they show that they're able to utilise it. The jokes are funny, the conversations are intelligent and at no point is the viewer expected to switch his brain off and just laugh at the funny faces. I like that.

Of course, it's still a highly unrealistic idealisation of a not entirely age appropriate scenario - I was left wondering more than once how main character and maybe-heroine Olive could get away with her outfits, her attitude and parts of her "reputation", but I can forgive those flaws in what's an overall fairly competent take on the whole high school-as-microcosmos genre. And Stanley Tucci, as the father, is hilarious.

Parts of this film really restored my faith in humanity. It's finally gotten through to most people that being gay is normal enough to warrant an unbiased representation in a movie aimed at a mainstream audience. The scene in which Brandon describes high-school as hell was pretty touching. While he acknowledges that it gets better, there is still no way for him to cope with the current situation. The film strikes a serious note there. Think about it.

Verdict: Easy A is a nice feel-good movie without greater aspirations. And that's exactly what I need sometimes. A funny, imaginative and surprisingly intelligent teenage romantic comedy. I'm all for it.

Demo Impressions: Mafia II

2010-08-10T20:54:00.000+02:00

The demo has gone live on Steam and I finally managed to get the game running after encountering a few minor problems. Thanks PhysX!

Some critics say that the first Mafia was merely a clone of the GTA III formula with an emphasis on story and atmosphere. And in a way, Mafia II feels more like a GTA IV knock-off than a successor to the first Mafia. Is that a good thing? Frankly I don't know.

What is there in the demo is extremely light. A bit of driving, the warehouse mission that was shown at E3 and a final getaway that ends in a cliffhanger. Exploring the small chunk of Empire Bay that 2K Czech included is limited by a 10 minute counter, which frankly feels like a joke. The 30 minute limit in the Just Cause 2 Demo made sense, as it gave you just enough time to familiarise yourself with the game world and have a bit of fun in it. But 10 minutes in Empire Bay? That's barely enough to enjoy the ride to the only mission in game.

There's a lot of activities in the Demo and it's a shame you can't properly enjoy them. Bars, Hot-Dog stands, stores to buy clothes and guns and a fine selection of period-inspired cars are scattered around the map, waiting for you to discover them.

It should come as no surprise that Mafia II feels very "consolified". World textures can be muddy, streets look somewhat naked without road markings, cars control unfavourably on the keyboard and the interface was clearly designed with a controller in mind. That said, after playing the demo once with KB+M and then the 360 Controller respectively, shooting is definitely superior with a mouse. The rest however, handles decidedly better once you grab a Controller. Driving, moving and interacting with the world feels slightly off with a keyboard. And sadly, there is no way to fire blindly. I really hope those things are fixed in the final product but I'm not holding my breath.

Still, I'll probably play the demo again and explore the little bits of Empire Bay contained within.

Come Back: Dear Esther

2010-08-05T18:04:00.001+02:00

I'm daft and I forgot to post this after writing it up at around 4am, weeks ago. Did I say I'm daft already?

I seem to be playing Dear Esther quite often. It's good enough to warrant a replay on quality alone, but this time I wanted to experience it again, possibly for the last time, in its original visual form before Robert Briscoe's rebuilt 2010 version of Dear Esther will be released. On with it, then.

Let me make this post very anti-climactic: In my mind, Dear Esther still lives up to its reputation and deserves all the praise it got, maybe even more. So much has been written about this interactive experience that I struggle to come up with my own version of praise. I finished it just moments ago. Jessica Curry's music still swirling through my head, I can feel Nigel Carrington whispering Come back. Esther. Esther... In gamer parlance, he owns Dear Esther.

It's a beautiful piece of bits and bytes, but its hard to explain exactly how so. The calming sound of the shoreline and the piano pieces add a romantic feeling to the loneliness and isolation of Dear Esther's Hebridean Island locale. And then they're so starkly contrasted by the terror you encounter in the caves. The tight spaces seem to harbour this impossible feeling of a danger that isn't quite there, a glimpse of that ungraspable foe. Madness.

Aside from Silent Hill 2, this may be the only interactive experience that touched me this deeply. And they have more things in common than just the mood they get me in. Both have the loss of a wife at its centre. Both skilfully and effortlessly communicate the desolation of an abandoned location. Both are subtle. Dear Esther is not beating you over the head with it. A few noises here, a few technical drawings there. An alluded accident. A broken femur. A submerged car in a cave. The implied impossibilities. They're all ingredients in this unique and thought provoking broth that I ladle up vigorously and whole.

With Dear Esther, thechineseroom have created a stellar masterpiece of game design that in itself is not even a game. It's short and to the point, being over in little less than an hour. The deliberate, slow pacing does not feel detrimental, quite to the contrary. Dear Esther gives you time enough, nearly forcing you, to actively take in everything you see and hear. Everything it has to offer. My recommendation would be to savour it in the dark, alone and without hurry. What unfolds may very well be one of the defining pieces of digital interactive storytelling to date.

Fair warning for the uninitiated (and what are you doing here anyway? Go get Dear Esther!) The header image does not represent the current visual fidelity of Dear Esther. Robert Briscoe, formerly of DICE, is currently overhauling the visuals as well as remastering the audio. The official page already features pictures of his version. I take that as my justification for including one as well. Also, I was so engrossed in Dear Esther, I forgot to take actual screenshots.

Hostile Waters: Anno 1404

2010-08-05T17:31:00.000+02:00

Hey Ubisoft, I have a message for you. Let me channel the voice of John Stewart as much as I can, because this is important and only the man can say it as honest as I mean it. Are you ready? Okay, here it comes Ubisoft. A message for you: Go fuck yourselves.

At this point, I don't even care how good Anno 1404 might be. Or what improvements Venice brought to the table. The game is in such a broken state, still, after months and with no patch in sight. I've wasted enough energy in trying to get it to run. I have other games to play and I look forward to actually enjoy them.

Not like my issues are special, I'm in the same boat as every other buying customer. I can't save without the files becoming irrecoverably corrupted. My sprawling empire, build over the course of a day. Gone. Additionally, Anno has a habit of crashing to desktop as soon as I so much as look at it funny. Or sneeze. And the best thing is, I have apparently reached the maximum number of activations for this month. Say what?

You might say this is Related Designs' fault. But it's not. If you have a bunch of visionary, but frankly incompetent folk labouring away on one of your most prestigious franchises, you don't let them cock it up. There's only two ways to handle this right. Fire their asses and get someone else to do it, or provide them with technical assistance.

I see you did neither. Ignoring the problem and having the customers pay game first, consequences later is outright evil. This might be an accepted practice in the industry right now, but I think it's high time this changed. Not that you'd have any incentive to change. There's still money to be made, right on the backs of the people that still support you by buying your products instead of simply downloading them.

How does this make sense to you? I bet it doesn't. Not in the slightest. Yet you don't seem to care, because money is still being made and as long as the cash flows, there's no problem for capitalist bastards like you. And once the cash stops, just blame it on piracy, right?

You guys are a disgrace to this industry. Incompetent, lazy, greedy. Hurry and GTFO. I mean it.

Hard Surface: Just Cause 2

2010-07-09T15:39:00.000+02:00

Remember Hard Surface or any other of those expectation raising trailers for Just Cause 2? Like many, I had my doubts over the validity of the depicted action. It just seemed too much fun, with very little actual game. And in a way, that perfectly describes Just Cause 2.

Outfitted with a gravity defying grappling hook and a self-replenishing parachute, Rico Rodriguez could rival Bruce Wayne's taste in extreme sports. That is, if he were an extreme sportsman. Our man Rico works for the Agency though, overthrowing governments like they're camping tables and freeing the people from oppressive dictators like they're... oppressed. By dictators. Anyway. Just Cause 2. Great game.

It's hard for me to state how much fun I had with JC2 and the activities it allows. Did I pilot an airliner? Did I crash it into a mountainside? Did I ride on top of cars? Slingshot myself through the landscape with aforementioned grappling hook and parachute? Tethered enemies together? Tethered them to hard surfaces? Explosives? Vehicles speeding by? BASE jumped from a roof? Mountain? Airship? Speedboated in hostile waters? Yes to all of them and many, many more.

But that's just pastime activities. The seven story missions are as varied as they get, making great use of the 1074km² huge Island State of Panau. Casually mowing down trees as well as enemies with a Gatling Gun in the jungle or infiltrating a power plant next to a frozen sea in the mountains while being chased by Ninjas, the focus has clearly been on quality over quantity. The same can't be said about anything else in Just Cause 2, really. Well the weapons maybe, being clearly identifiable as "Handgun", "Shotgun", "Sniper Rifle" etc. instead of assaulting you with three dozen unique pistols and rifles to choose from.

The rest of the game spells superlative. Hundreds of villages and military installations as well as 2000 collectible supply crates used for upgrading weapons, vehicles and health are casually scattered across the island formation. There's more than a hundred vehicles too, from the lovingly hilarious Tuk Tuk to speedboats and nigh invincible tanks. It's so huge that one could get easily lost in it, and at first does, but as orienting and moving about gradually becomes ingrained into the player's brain, the game opens itself anew. First time it's the vastness of the playground; second time it's how you traverse it fluently.

One really has to appreciate the work Avalanche put into creating the game world. To get a glimpse of Panau's beauty I recommend Phill Cameron's guest piece on RPS here, called Postcards From Panau. In my view, Just Cause 2 sets a new standard for open game worlds. Being so immense without feeling empty is an achievement in itself.

So how does the game part hold up then? Here lies the problem: it doesn't. Not in a way that's expected, at least. While you can always take the easy route and go in all guns blazing, it's simply not fun to do. One could take that as a discouragement of the mundane, or simply as lazy design. I tend to go with the former, but it's hard not to feel like it's the latter. As soon as you introduce the grappling hook with it's many uses, explosives, or the fact that cars enthusiastically explode on contact if you vacate them above walking speed via parachute - it becomes a completely mental action romp.

However many, many times I was quietly wishing for it to drop all gamey pretensions and just accept the fact that it's an outstanding open world mayhem simulator that could very well stand on its own. Especially in the later stages one can't help but feel the sudden force on the designers as it dawned on them that there's too much fun and little game in here. What during missions becomes a natural flow of parkour and combat is often broken up by sudden onslaughts of enemies and ammo drought where you're suddenly expected to engage the enemy on his terms. It is frustrating when you're forced to pick up their mundane weapons or when your grappling hook is nothing more than a ladder replacement. Those moments don't happen too often, but it is a clear sign of the game getting in the way of my fun - and therefore somewhat sabotaging itself.

Altogether there's 49 faction missions and nine fortress infiltrations to keep the action fan busy, there's a lot of variety. Escorting, kidnapping, assassination, destruction, retrieval, it's all there. Many missions are also worth it for the little overacted snippets of the script, which can best be summed up as a continuation of the cheesy, sarcastic, so-bad-it's-good stuff only action movies during the 80's dared to show. It's not "Let off some steam, Bennett."-material, or "I eat Green Berets for breakfast.", or "Clean up your act.", just enough to make you groan or smile. At times the game seems deeply aware of its absurd nature, but it seems not particularly concerned about it.

And then there's Bolo Santosi. Sweet, sweet Bolo Santosi. She's become somewhat of a cult figure around the internets, and I can totally understand why. I dare say she alone is worth the price of admission.

And after more than 30 hours with Just Cause 2, I can safely say I got my money's worth. Explodey action romp with humorous touches and a sophisticated open world, totally free to explore and traverse as you wish? You could pick worse.

While we're at it, use of the BOLOPatch is highly recommended. Infinite Ammo and Strong Rope especially. Just don't tick that Infinite Health box. It ruins the game somewhat.

Go Get It Dirty: DiRT 2

2010-07-09T12:29:00.000+02:00

I'm going through my backlog at the moment and it occurred to me that I might as well write a short something about every game that I finish. It should help me clear my thoughts and such.

First up is DiRT 2, a game about cars. Cars that move and sometimes bump into each other, sometimes both at the same time. Shocker. I know. What cars does it offer? Nice ones. You'll find your favourite among the 35 World Rally Cars, sports cars, SUVs, trucks, off-road vehicles and buggies... well maybe not among the buggies. All in all, the general theme of your vehicles is what drives in the dirt. As a result, most tracks consist of generous amounts of gravel and sand. But there's no Car Wash mini-game. Sadface.

The DiRT 2 Tour, which is the singleplayer career mode, is spread over a hundred events split into eight different racing categories. Sadly, the two I liked best, namely Rally and Trailblazer, are shamefully under-represented. There's entirely too much soap-on-ice racing with SUVs, trucks and the dreaded buggies for my taste. I went in expecting a few non-Rally-ish races, but not considerably more than half of it. It's not that they're out of place in DiRT 2, as the name has probably given away. But still. I would've liked more Rally. I like Rally.

DiRT 2 is incredibly good at giving the player a constant stream of positive reinforcement. "You were in the zone out there", says Ken Block after a successful race. Katie Justice congratulates me on my progress. Dave Mirra apologizes for denting my car by being in my way of driving. And Mohammed bin Sulayem thinks I'm a legend. Woot! After every race the game hands out XP as if they're on fire. It's ultimately pointless because your level is just an increasingly higher number, but it feels good in a weird way. There's also more meaningful stuff like liveries for cars and even whole new cars that unlock, with things like custom horns or deco items (think bobblehead and fluffy dice) thrown in for good measure. It had me absolutely hooked. The future of racing games is an RPG?

But then it just stopped. After reaching level 30 I had unlocked everything. Outside of a few special cars there was nothing left to be rewarded with, the game no longer congratulates you on your progress, there is no achievement for reaching a higher level (only for completing the game). This happens at about fourty percent into the tour. And it's a problem. Because at around that point the variety and newness of the events disappears and gives way to uninspired racing. Granted, it's a racing game and you'd expect there to be races, but out of the blue it just refuses to continue the relationship with the player that has been built up for the last 10-15 hours. It's like the game had been finished at a point when someone from high up said: "We can't have just 50 events in our racing game" and someone lower in the food chain said "Okay. We'll make it one hundred." That person then proceeded to duplicate the racing content via copy and paste while the Department of Awesome Stuff wasn't informed so their work ended after half the DiRT Tour.

It's a shame, really. Why they didn't follow through with their progression and reward system is beyond me. Spread it out thinner, give me more filler or make me work harder, or have fewer events but don't just stop right in the middle. The fact that there's only 41 tracks doesn't help. I know I said "only", but consider that most of the later events consist of driving a track this way twice and one time in reverse. For three laps each. Its completely retarded and steadily sucks the fun out of the singleplayer tour. There's a track you only drive once in the entire game. At the other end of the spectrum, you can expect to clock in about 50 laps on some courses. Madness.

I get this nagging feeling that Codemasters did all this on purpose though. A lot of statistics show that on average, games tend to be played only to around the halfway mark and not all the way through. And strangely, that's the point where DiRT 2 stops being rewarding and becomes repetitive. I know it's a developers nightmare to have all this content that most gamers never see, but leaving it out is a ridiculous option.

And then there's multiplayer. In another strange move, Codemasters decided to implement a half-assed dual progression system to separate the online and offline content. Offline you gather XP for your level. Online you gather Fame for your Fame rating. Duh. It's exactly the same thing, but in blue. And the stuff you unlock offline can be used online. So you have to progress through both if you want to play just multiplayer, as you need to unlock the better vehicles to stand a chance and you can't even unlock stuff in multiplayer. Very clever Codemasters. Not.

Maybe it's just me, but I was really a bit offended by the worshipping of Colin McRae the man throughout the game. "He was a hero.", "an inspiration to us all", "he influenced my career significantly" and so on. There's even a tribute achievement called "For Colin". I think its all a bit too much reverence for a man that killed himself, his five year old son and two family friends in a helicopter crash because he flew too low and with an expired license. But I guess I'm alone with that opinion.

Oh my, words words words and I haven't even talked about the racing. It feels good and sometimes proper, but certain vehicle types are so much un-fun to drive it's a wonder I persevered. The Hummer H3 doesn't feel like the 2 tonne monster that it is in reality. DiRT 2's version behaves like you'd expect a rock taped to a soap-bar on a water slide to behave. Funny to watch, but a nightmare to steer. Thankfully the rally cars have a good weight to them, it's just a shame there's not enough events for them.

Still, I've had fun in my time with DiRT 2. The game looks fantastic and the audio design is excellent. But it's not a revolutionary racing game, and sadly not enough of a rally game.

By Any Means Necessary

2010-07-08T18:15:00.000+02:00

Gordon Freeman is back... in Dragon Age 2.

I kid, I kid. But he looks a bit like Nameless Swordguy, innit?

Promising a new visual style and quite a few other marketing points, DA2 is probably the project we knew of since March.

Fallout Tales #1

2010-05-25T21:14:00.000+02:00

A few hours ago I got off the phone with a friend who complained Fallout didn't work on his brand spanking new Win7 (yeah, he's behind the times a bit...). Of course I said he's a pansy and it works. Even with the Hi-Res patch. I'll prove him, I said. I'll just install it on my PC, I said. Naturally, it didn't work.

After a bit of cursing and screaming, I had to resort to black computer magic (you need a black computer for this, obv.) and it's working now. Yay for black computer magic!

So what's the problem? I have a fairly new PC, and I blame it entirely. It's Phenom X4, HD 5770 new. It would scream its raw power in your face, were it not so silent. So let's try and run a 13 year old Windows 95 game on it.

Thanks to the guys at gog.com there's already a properly modernised version of the original Fallout games available, what with a working installer and all. The following stuff specifically applies to the first Fallout as I haven't bothered with F2 yet.

On most new PCs the GOG version will run slower and a bit choppy - this is the price we pay for paying such a low price. It's no certainly no dealbreaker when playing at the original puny resolution of 640x480 (there's phones out there with higher resolutions nowadays...) but it gets pretty choppy as soon as you crank up the resolution via the aforementioned Resolution Patch. Unplayable even. Bummer.

But! It can be helped. The nice community at gog.com has found a nice workaround for this problem. Simply delete the ddraw.dll from the game's installation folder and it will resort to using the one that's included in Windows. It works for pretty much everyone. Except for me.

My machine unceremoniously hangs itself with a black screen as soon as I fiddle with the ddraw.dll in any way. In that case, replacing it with the one found in timeslip's Sfall mod. Which is no longer distributed in its original form since Interplay decided to steal it for their Steam-release of the Fallouts last fall. No thanks Interplay!

So here's where I stopped screaming and whipped out the black computer magic. After downloading the semi-official 1.2 patch here (both 1.2 and 1.2.1 EN-RC) and the 1.3.x patch here and installing them in the correct order (1.2 -> 1.2.1 -> 1.3.x) nothing changed. Apparently, they don't come with a new ddraw.dll either (anymore?). But it's nice to have a fixed version anyway, so thanks to TeamX for patching the game.

Applying the Fallout1 Resolution Patch (this) to the newly patched falloutw.exe didn't help either. The game lagged with the original ddraw.dll and wouldn't start up without it. But I was not going to give up.

So, yeah. Long story short, I just copied the ddraw.dll from my Windows\SysWOW64 folder into the game directory. Naturally, 32-bit users should copy the one found in Windows\System32. Because that's the one it was supposed to fall back to anyway. It just wouldn't do it. "If the Hill will not come to Mahomet..."

Additionally, it was necessary to enable "Run in 256 colours" under Properties -> Compatibility -> Settings for falloutw.exe to stop the game from having weird graphical glitches. Oh, and I had to disable vsync in the Catalyst Control Center ("Always off"). It's working now, in full 1920x1200 pixels for me to awe at. And it's as gorgeous as ever.

Sleep Is Death for $ Whatever

2010-05-14T23:38:00.000+02:00

Just a month after releasing Sleep is Death, the mastermind that is Jason Rohrer slashes the price of his two player storytelling game to whatever interested players want to pay him. Okay, not exactly "whatever", it's at least $1.75 but still. A bargain's a bargain and I suspect the spectacular success of the Humble Indie Bundle might've influenced this decision a tiny little bit.

I actually preordered Sleep is Death way back in April, but so far I've not found the time to play around with it. What I've seen of it looks spectacular though. People seem to come up with genuinely weird tales so far, like the Dr. Who fanfiction by the Burch siblings here from which I've created the header. And while we're at it, Jason Rohrer has had an interesting conversation with Chris Crawford last year on German/French TV station Arte's "Into the Night..." programme. Unfortunately it's no longer available directly from Arte, so I'll sneakily link to it here.

Portal is Free

2010-05-14T01:18:00.000+02:00

Incredible. Valve have decided to offer Portal for free on Steam - for a limited time. The offer ends May 24th and I should stress this isn't a "free to play" promotion, but rather "free to own". They're effectively giving away one of the best games ~~of the last decade~~ ever. There's no excuse to not own Portal now, not even having a Mac exempts you from it. Yeah, that's the other thing. Valve have also released their Steam Client (and a boatload of games) for Apple PCs running Mac OS X. Productivity in design companies is expected to crash accordingly.

This also marks the first time in three years that we've seen a life sign from GLaDOS - ~~apparently she's still alive~~ no I'm not making that lame joke.
Here's the announcement, brought to you by the Aperture Science Enrichment Center:

Watch out for the Black Mesa lower back tattoo and... what was that? Upcoming cooperative portal testing initiative? Co-op on Portal 2! Say it ain't so.

Portal is available right here on Steam. Where else, really.

Evelyn Evelyn

2010-03-29T11:37:00.000+02:00

Whoah. Evelyn Evelyn arrived on Saturday and I've been listening to it pretty much since then. Yay for pre-orders and timely delivery! It's Jason Webley and Amanda Palmer, so fans probably know what to expect. I should've, too, but I didn't. So I'm (still) completely blown away. One moment I'm grinning and giggling at the hilarity of it, the next moment I'm wrought with grief and my eyes are welling up. I know I'm build closer to sea than I'd like, but so what. I can't help it. This is gold and everyone that disagrees is just plain wrong.

It's a musical potpourri of folk, pop, country and ukulele with interspersed (lengthy and tragic) narration and it's so effective in its simplicity and honesty. It elicits laughter and smiles at the most unexpected moments, there's hardly a way to describe it. My only criticism is that there's not enough of it. As in, skip the "Tragic Events" and you're not left with much meat. Oh the tasty, tasty meat... Does its deliciousness excuse the scarcity of it? Big YES. And if you think you know a song just by reading the title, "Myspace" will pleasantly surprise you. "Sandy Fishnets" is Jason Webley at his best, it's a song where he can really slip into the matter. The cover version of "Love will tear us apart" is extremely minimal. As in, "The XX" minimal. Just don't put this into your makeout playlist. Unless you both want to end up shattered and in tears that is.

It's ridiculous how much better Amanda Palmer gets with each subsequent release. Jason Webley is probably the best stage partner she could wish for, they're like a musical and creative match made in heaven. I'm also pretty sure there's a law against making music this good, and they've simply broken it. But I'll gladly finance their legal defense fund by buying more copies of their works, if needed. Also... "Neil Gaiman appears courtesy of Amanda Palmer" :3

You're Playing It Wrong: Mass Effect 2

2010-02-14T18:30:00.000+01:00

I can't watch how most people play games anymore. It's excruciating to the point where fall into a rage and, in my ill-guided efforts to actually improve their gaming fun, completely ruin it for them. I can be difficult for sure.

So you're new to cover based shooters. Don't worry, we've all been through those five minutes at some point in our life. But we got past that. We familiarised ourselves with the rules and adapted. You, on the other hand, seem to insist on doing it wrong. I'll give you a few tips after the jump.

Here's how not to play Mass Effect 2:

Ignore cover
It's there for a reason. It protects you against most attacks and gives your weapons a bonus to accuracy. It's such an integral part of the game. Just use it, okay?

Pop out of cover to aim
Did you know you can aim before sticking your head out? And that it's the preferred way of doing it? I know, it doesn't make sense for the character. How can he see without looking first? Because magic, clearly.

Use the wrong kind of cover
Now this may sound complicated at first, but generally, whatever you take cover behind should be between you and your enemies. Believe me, hugging the wall at 9 won't protect you against any oncoming foes at 12. Because 9 becomes 12 and 12 is now 3, and 3 is totally unprotected even when your squadmates have your 6, which is 9 now. Got it?

Pick the wrong class
If you constantly forget about your abilities and can't be bothered to use them, maybe playing as an Adept or Sentinel isn't the best idea. There's a reason you can choose to be a Soldier.

Use the wrong kind of weapon
You like the Assault Rifle. I can tell by the look of it being constantly in your hands. Chances are, there's a better weapon to destroy that heavy weapons nest up on that balcony on the other side of the chasm. Maybe you should use it.

Ignore your powers
There's a reason your abilities don't need upwards of 30 seconds to recharge anymore. The designers want you to actually use them so please go ahead. Use them. They have given you absolution on constantly spamming your powers, make use of it!

Quicksave every 30 seconds
Why is "Quicksave" bound to Thumbbutton1, and "Use/Cover/Sprint" to the smaller, hard to reach Thumbbutton2? Seriously, what is wrong with you? Did you just say you had 700 Savegames for a single Character in Mass Effect? Excuse me while I go over there. Far over there...

Isn't it swede?

2010-02-08T22:34:00.000+01:00

Ingest and revel in it.

Bioshocked 2: Return of the horribly draconian DRM

2010-01-20T22:36:00.000+01:00

The day has come, mothers gather your children, fathers lock up your female offsprings or commit homicide among your loved ones (whichever is more convenient), I'm just gonna say it right now: other publishers could really learn a bit from present day EA.

What's that? The world is still here, no explodey action... well then I'm in trouble. Imagine me, thinking I wouldn't have to put any effort into writing an actual explanation after spouting this heresy. Drats.

Bioshock 2 has finally unveiled it's DRM scheme now and after most of the reasonable world warming up to the thought of not totally locking down games for paying customers, 2K Games finally comes out of the closet and admits it: they're not part of the reasonable world.

It has been known for a long time that BS2 would use Games for Windows LIVE - in part because of its excellent and seamless integration of multiplayer I guess. It seems ridiculous to have Digital Extremes (THE Digital Extremes) work on a completely separate game that relies on multiple participants and the effectively strangle it within the womb by removing dedicated servers, a server browser and all those goodies that GfWL obfuscates or simply omits. But that's not all. Let's be optimistic and say DE deliver a must-have multiplayer experience, it's half-life will still be closer to 6 months than to a year.

And what must my eyes read this morning? The game's not undesirable enough. It seems to me that whoever coughed up the initial Bioshock DRM was so high up in the chain of command that repercussions were essentially inexecutable on that sad, miserable individual. High enough to be able to spoil Borderlands and its DLCs with the same taint at least. And now, this unperson strikes again. Oh how he must enjoy being unpopular! Yes, there will be SecuROM. Yes, there will be a 5 machine activation limit.

I imagine Ken Levine, and I imagine him weeping lightly. Weeping in unison with Jordan Thomas and all the fine folk at 2K Marin, DE and associates. Back then there was a lot of hate towards the developers of the first game when really, it wasn't their fault their studio was called 2K Boston and their publisher/overlord is 2K Games. 2K != 2K in this case, see? Good that they were allowed to revert back to their true name - Irrational Games. Maybe 2K Marin will have the chance to choose a nice name for themselves? Maybe Reflective Surface? (See what I did there...)

Anyway. This, coupled with their already announced "aggressive DLC plans" (= heavy wallet abuse) has led me to cancel my preorder of the Collector's Edition. No score, Art Book or retro poster can gloss over those flaws. Too bad. I'd say in about a year, when SecuROM has inevitably been patched out and the DLC will be available bundled with the equally inevitable Complete / GotY Edition, we can start negotiating again.

Ah, frig! Back to that EA thing. Yeah, I'll take mandatory registration and First-Day-DLC à la Dragon Age: Origins and Mass Effect 2 any day over this abominable lockdown. Apropos Mass Effect 2, I can't wait to get my hands on the Collector's Edition...

In defense of a DLC

2010-01-11T03:15:00.000+01:00

I don't get the bitching about the Warden's Keep DLC for Dragon Age:Origins and the way it's presented. A single NPC promotes it inside the game. You don't get to hear a stupid message about it every time you start the game, reload a game or talk to someone, or open the journal. It's unintrusive and self-contained. Don't want to do it? Don't friggin talk to the guy again. Simple.

And it wasn't just an hour of dungeoneering. People keep bitching about the length but if you listen to all the dialogue and read the lore, it's comfortably two hours long. Two very immersive (I hate that word by the way) hours and it seems odd that players claim breach of immersion by an NPC advertising additional content and then skip/steamroll through said content's story like crazy.

Another thing to consider is what it added to the longevity of the game. It's more than a simple dungeon and a chest to store stuff inside. Let's see...

You are able to forge Starfang, the best 1H-sword in the game. And it's not unbalanced Fallout 3-style but fits in well. It stays close enough to other weapons in power to make it not a necessity, and they really did make it look nice.

The Warden's Commander Armour is pretty neat. Depending on when you get it, it's either a very good or simply one of the best sets of armour in the game. It protects you for as long as you wear it, which can easily be the rest of the game. The rest of the friggin huge game.

The storage chest is a subversive thing. See, it undercuts the whole gameplay mechanic of immediacy of inventory. You're not supposed to have a warehouse full of wargear stashed away somewhere. It's there for the compulsive hoarder, the clutterer. For people who can't let go or... well, you get my point. There's even a mod that goes further by including a chest in your camp.

It adds six unique special abilities. Those aren't gamebreakers and you can even choose to not take them. But, depending on your class, you get two very nice and gameplay enhancing abilities that complement your character.

On top of that, all Voice Actors reprise their roles. Are players aware of how much it costs to do an hour of studio recording?

Of course I'm not without criticism. It's disappointing that there's nothing to do after you're through the story - no incentive to revisit the area. You don't get to see a rebuilt keep or a bit of life after essentially gaining a personal stronghold and I'm hoping BioWare will pick this up for the Awakening Expansion Pack.

I had hoped that after months of it being released, the blind hating would have stopped, but it seems to me that it became canon. And you know what? It's things like this that kill PC gaming.

Fret Not: The End Is Near

2009-12-19T10:08:00.000+01:00

By which I mean this year's end, of course. I'm totally not talking about snow piling up outside my window and the cold seeping through walls. Although it's -16°C outside I'm sure my meaty body will survive this act of insubordination by mother nature. Stupid mother nature, don't you know we humans conquered you centuries ago? Do as we bid, or we'll treat you in the most cruel ways imaginable...wait a bit, oh, nevermind then. I'm reminded we already do.

Centuries, century... oh, yeah. Another century will be over in just a few days. Oh, the thrill of it! What will the new century bring? Opportunities? Change? Progression? And did we like the old one enough to call it affectionate names once it's over?

I should've probably thought about this earlier and started a "... of the decade" series of lists, which I completely forgot to since the media seems to have forgotten as well. Dammit media, you're not very reliable, are you? Oh yes, you aren't.

John Walker called Dragon Age: Origins the "RPG of the decade" in his PCGamer review and he's very much wrong or simply bad at math. See, Baldur's Gate II came out in 2000, a year that belongs to the oughts (what a terrible name) and is therefore the RPG of the decade. It's also rather ironic that the nineties had their decade piece delivered so late on December 12, 1999 - whereas the oughts (can we please come up with an affectionate name for them already?) had theirs not one year later. The ougths as the Decade of Stagnation? At least concerning RPGs, I'm inclined to say yes.

Why I love my PC

2009-12-11T03:39:00.000+01:00

This is why I love my PC.

Hug him! Hug him to death!

2009-12-08T20:10:00.000+01:00

Update: Eurogamer gave it a surprising 9/10. Consider me enthused.

Silent Hill: Shattered Memories, the inevitable remake-with-a-twist of cult classic Silent Hill, is slowly readying itself for release, with the Americas already able to dig into the Wii version that came out yesterday. The PS2 and PSP versions, as well as an international release sadly won't happen this year.

Developed by Climax, the Brits that already underachieved with Silent Hill: Origins, I'm not holding my breath on this one. Removing the combat mechanics and changing the trademark rust-and-blood look of everyone's favourite holiday resort into a theme of coldness (complete with ice covering the city) has a potential to go either way though.

Should the game bomb we can at least look forward to the soundtrack, as the venerable Akira Yamaoka is still gracing the Silent Hill series with his haunting musical vision. Which may very well be for the last time, as he recently took his leave from Konami.

This video is a Montage set to a new piece from the soundtrack called "When You're Gone". Sung by Mary Elizabeth McGlynn. Of course.

And here's some vague gameplay impressions. As you can see, the developers have Harry Mason suffering a horrible disease. He's apparently allergic to free hugs. :(

Warhammer 40k: Dawn of War II

2009-11-24T21:41:00.000+01:00

Come! Show me what passes for fury among your misbegotten kind!

One of the best games of the year so far and a steal for just 10.49€ / £7.99 6.49€ / £4.99 at play.com.

Call of Duty: Moderate Warfare 2

2009-11-23T19:47:00.000+01:00

I was genuinely surprised when Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare turned out to be the game everybody was talking about. A gripping yet criminally short campaign, coupled with what was generally hailed as the second coming for online gamers worldwide. I got a little bit excited when the inevitable sequel was announced.

Having finished the campaign of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2: Warfare Reloaded in less than 5 hours this morning, I just want to be done with this quick and painless. I really shouldn't call this a review, but since I played through it in one piece I can't call this first impressions anymore, can I?

This game is clearly a joke. Or at least, it must have been one at first. Think about it this way: Infinity Ward create an uninspired sequel that can't even copy the best parts of the original without feeling estranged, bland and carelessly thrown together. The game comes out and everyone is in shock. Consumers scratch their head in utter disbelief. Then, a week later, IW unlock the real game, which was hidden on the discs all along! It's the best thing since sliced bread. This practical joke immortalizes the developer. History is written.

And here's what seems to have really happened: During production, IW are burnt out after creating half of the fake game, so they can't be arsed to produce the real one on top of it. They phone it in and hand it over to marketing, who promptly open the war chest and go to town with it. Bobby Kotick is pissed and releases his famous statement of taking the fun out of developing games. And to gloss over the fact that Activision got handed a lemon here, he raises the price so people want it more. Because that makes sense when you're Bobby Kotick.

The rest of 2009 is party time at Infinity Ward. Hans Zimmer is invited to score the game. Nearly everyone at IW goes on paid vacation to Thailand, where $5 plastic NVGs are discovered. A plan is forged. Since the economic crash in 2008, the whole team gets paid in blow, which is way more stable as a currency than the dollar. Aliens and a scene in which the player assumes the role of a glass of Marmite trying to choke Jack Thompson are cut at the last minute.

After speedballing for days, some Q&A guy responsible for the PC version screams "Fuck the PC!". A spontaneous lynch mob assembles and guts most of the computers at Infinity Ward. Dedicated Servers are lost in the basement, and frankly no one can be bothered to go down there, as it's just way too dark and come on who really cares oh look someone left crack on the table. But back to Modern Warfare 2.

Modern Warfare 2 excels at being mediocre. In its current form, the campaign is a blatant copy of the formula that made CoD 4 good. But the pacing is way off. There's no real up and down roller coaster ride anymore, it's just various degrees of mushy, frantic panic. After "No Russian", which didn't make sense to begin with, pretty much every level ended with me silently asking myself what the heck I just experienced. "No Russian" is the third level.

People are introduced and then killed left and right, and after soaking up a few thousand bullets myself, some guy always manages to hit me really mean and kill me with one of those Bullets of Mediocre Scriptwriting. Only that one time, it didn't really kill me and the bad guy had to burn me alive. Oh, yeah, spoiler warning.

By now, I guess everyone who's interested in the story has either read the synopsis on wikipedia or, well, played the game. So I'll continue talking openly.

What made CoD 4 such an outstanding piece of game was in large part thanks to the outstanding set pieces. Pripyat, generic Middle Eastern country, AC-130, the cargo ship and the hijacked airliner, there was a lot to take in. Modern Warfare 2 has nothing of that kind. Many levels give off a "been there, done that" vibe. The Oil Rig level from Splinter Cell. The White House conclusion like the ending of The Rock. Russian Gulag, from The Rock again. The finale's caves are straight out of Iron Man, followed by a Far Cry 2 boat chase / desert wandering sequence.

Even the levels on American soil feel uninspired and underwhelming. The amount of ground you cover between that Burger Shack and the other place in Virginia is ridiculous. Go over there, grab a Stinger, shoot something, come back over here, grab another Stinger, shoot something else. Go over there. Grab a gun. Man, just shoot something. Boring.

By far the best level was the Russian Gulag that housed Captain Price. Nevermind the fact that he was kinda safe with Soap and Friends at the end of CoD 4, no, wait, my head's still hurting from trying to make sense of this mess. And what was up with that VIP in Virginia?!

Modern Warfare 2 is officially brainless blockbuster material. All the cool scenes and twists have been in the trailers. Playing them makes you just painfully aware of how scripted and dull they feel. The revelation after you crash down in Washington was pretty cool though, but I guess you couldn't punch that into the trailer. When that gunship went down and I emptied the last two clips into sheer endless hordes of Russian armed forces, only to repeat that later with the added knowledge of what that white flash meant... that was a really clever.

And all the clever bits from the first game are here, too. Only they're overused to the point that they're not clever anymore. Breaches get boring fast. Coordinated sniping is funny the first few times, but then it's nothing to write home about. There's nothing in here that had me go "Frig! That was new." Well, knifing this dude after rappelling down was ace. I give you that one, Modern Warfare 2. But the fucking ending... Dude, this isn't The Dark Knight! You're not Batman.

And whoever came up with "the game is not balanced for lean", your brain is not balanced for lean.

Civilization IV: Complete Edition

2009-11-19T01:57:00.000+01:00

Just. One. More. Turn.

Get it for 6.49€ / £4.99 from play.com.

AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA!!! - A Reckless Disregard for Gravity

2009-11-19T01:28:00.000+01:00

"BASE jump through a floating city, creating your own stunts to delight your fans."

Indeed. A great game in a very unique setting.

50% off until November 19. Pick it up for just 5,49€ / £4.99 / $7.49 on Steam.