This bloody follow-up to a 2007 video game finds the two escaped inmates marked for death after tangling with the fearsome criminal gang The7. The contract on their lives cuts short Kane’s reunion with his estranged daughter and makes it harder for psychopathic Lynch to stay on his diet of self-prescribed pills. To shake the hit men, Kane and Lynch enter into an elaborate scheme pitting The7’s consigliere against a villain known as the Butcher of Bosnia. Writer Edginton (Victorian Undead) turns in a script that reads like a decent action movie—and Kane and Lynch are way more villainous than your typical antiheroes, leading to some funny, four-lettered exchanges. Mitten’s (Wasteland) art works best in the frenetic action scenes but doesn’t live up to the promise of Ben Templesmith’s (30 Days of Night) covers.
Verdict: First published over six issues last year, this is an interstitial work filling in some details between the original game and its 2010 sequel. Though enjoyable, it’s a nonessential title. Most libraries can skip it. If you’re looking for convoluted crime stories with gory gunplay, you’re better off picking up 100 Bullets: The Deluxe Edition.
Can I say Deus Ex: Human Revolution for this? Probably not. That’s coming out on August 23rd and August seems Summery. So I’m going with Warhammer 40000: Space Marine. That’s coming out on September 9th which seems more like Fall.
Crap. Wikipedia is telling me that the Fall equinox is September 23rd. I don’t even know what an equinox is. Something to do with horses?
Fine the Fall release I’m most looking forward to is Batman: Arkham City. Actually this is pretty true. I loved the first game and I’ve been picking up the Paul Dini/Carlos D’anda miniseries (which is good). So that feels like a safe choice.
Now, I don’t have this preordered—unlike Deus Ex: Human Revolution and Skyrim—and I don’t think I’m going for the collector’s edition—unlike the Augmented Edition and the Collector’s Edition of the above titles. I already have Gotham Knight on DVD and I’m pretty sure I don’t need a Batman statue.
Actually I’m only 30% sure I don’t need a Batman statue.
You know what I do need? Batman: Year One (DVD).
Hmmm . . . maybe I’ll make my own Collector’s Edition.
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This post was part of Gamer Banter, a monthly video game discussion coordinated by Terry at Game Couch. If you’re interested in being part of this, please email him for details.
Sentinels of the Multiverse
Card Game
Publisher: Greater Than Games
Players: 2-5
Play Time: 30-60 minutes
Ages: 8+Bunker, Tempest and The Mighty Ra have tracked Baron Blade to his mobile defense platform in Insula Primalis. There, surrounded by legions
of Blade Battalions, the mad scientist schemes to pull the moon into the earth. The heroes have made it this far, but now they face not only the insidious genius and his henchmen, but the saurian and geological dangers of this deadly land. How can they possibly stop Baron Blade in time?
Sentinels of the Multiverse is a cooperative card game for 2-5 players set in the fictitious universe of the equally fictitious Sentinel Comics. Comic book fans will recognize tropes and archetypes, but – in terms of world building – there’s a nice blend of borrowed and original material here. With character cards that look like comic book covers and flavor text quoting from invented issues, it’s easy to believe you’re playing a licensed product.
To its credit, this first game from the startup Greater Than Games is fast, fun and easy to learn. Most modern games have me running to BoardGameGeek to figure out the right way to play – and that’s after studying exhaustive, overwritten manuals. The gameplay in SotM is streamlined – events in a round are clearly spelled out and it was rare that I needed to consult the manual to figure something out.
The players choose their characters, pick the villain and decide where the battle will take place. With 10 heroes, 4 villains and 4 environments (578 cards in all), there’s already great variety even before possible expansion sets. Then the game begins: the villain plays a card, the players play their card and then the environment plays a card.
In our game, Baron Blade was quick to summon his minions and use tech against us. The Mighty Ra countered with fire blasts to take out the henchmen, the Indestructible Bunker used his Omni-Cannon to do massive damage against the Baron while the Inhuman Tempest addressed environmental dangers (velociraptors and lava) with flash floods. The cooperative nature really came through and led to us role playing our characters.
Some additional elements really make SotM standout: if a character falls in battle, the player can keep playing by using incapacitated abilities to strengthen other characters; villains take on second forms, example: Omnitron flips between being a robot factory and a renegade robot itself; and there’s a nemesis mechanic which takes place when a hero meets their archenemy.
If you’re looking for an exciting card game, I strongly recommend Sentinels of the Multiverse. It’s fast paced, challenging without being convoluted and the depth of backstory along with high quality card art will have you convinced you’ve discovered a new line of comic books.
Note: You aren’t supposed to take pictures inside an art museum, so the accompanying photos are merely simulations of what it would look like if I surreptitiously took pics with my phone.
“Hi Annie! Hi Annie! Hi Annie! Do you get it? That’s Anakin Skywalker!” says the guy pointing at Darth Vader’s costume. This isn’t a conversation I want to have, so I duck into another gallery and stare at N. C. Wyeth’s Robin Hood for ten minutes.
I’m at the Norton Museum of Art for Out of this World: Extraordinary Costumes from Film and Television which runs until September 4, 2011 before moving on. It’s a mixture of costumes and props famous science fiction television shows and movies like Blade Runner, Star Trek and Batman. Kind of like a traveling Planet Hollywood, except you’re not hovering over someone’s dinner while looking at the Terminator 2 leather jacket.
As a geek, it’s an odd combination of feelings — being in the presence of sci-fi artifacts while also seeing how well they actually stack up. Dr. Eldon Tyrell’s white bathrobe is intricately detailed, but Vader’s chest panel looks roughshod – though it does have Aurebesh lettering (which you can’t spot in the movies). The Batsuit from Batman & Robin is all about the nipples, but The Riddler suit from Batman Forever is an amazing piece of work. And Jeri Ryan is either very petite or her Seven of Nine costume is stretchier than it looks.
With thirty-something costumes, plus props like Luke’s hand and a Klingon D7 battle cruiser, Out of this World is definitely an exhibit worth catching. Just expect random people to come up to you and tell you about Harrison Ford’s dysentery and why Ghostbusters 3 will never happen.
Halos and Avatars
Author: Craig Detweiler
Publisher: Westminster John Knox Press
Released: Feb 2010
208 pages (229 with notes)This guest review is courtesy of ProfX, a shockingly handsome philosophy professor who’s soon to receive his Ph.D.
Introduction
Last time you heard from me, I told you that Philosophy through Video Games was a good effort and a nice try, but recommended you wait to buy it till the second edition comes out. This time, rather than talking about games and philosophy, however, I’m going to branch out and talk about games and religion.
“Why games and religion?” you ask. Well, my friend, you may recall that there have traditionally been two great enemies of video games in the US: politicians and religious parents. Specifically, Christian parents. Specifically, conservative Christian parents. Halos and Avatars is an attempt to convince concerned Christian parents that video games really aren’t that bad after all. And, perhaps more ambitiously, it’s an attempt to develop a new field: the theology of video games.
I love this because, not only do I recognize a bunch of these games, they’re also ones I really loved: The Movie Monster Game (damn, I miss Epyx), Axe of Rage, Death Wish 3 and more.
Guinness World Records 2011: Gamer’s Edition
Publisher: BradyGames
Released: Jan 2011Isaac “error1” Wehmanen completed Fallout 3 in 30 minutes 9 seconds. Bioshock 2 plus the Minvera’s Den expansion have 189 audio logs and Leon S. Kennedy has 47 unique death animations in Resident Evil 4.
This is an example of the variety found in Guinness World Records’ latest collection of video game records.
Having spent over a hundred hours playing Fallout 3, I have to imagine error1 missed the point of the game, but more power to him for exploiting glitches to do his speed run. I wish I had made the numerous glitches work for me.
Aside from trying to be too 1337, Guinness has put together a great volume and its wealth of current information makes a great case for this being an annual product. The book is divided into genre subdivisions, and they’re smart and thorough. Shooting, for example, is subdivided into First Person, Third Person, 2D Shooters, Online Shooters and Light Guns. Each major subdivision highlights a “Critical Hit” game which exemplifies the field, like Madden NFL for Sports.
There’s a mostly modern spin, but classic systems are referenced and there’s plenty of love shown to arcade games. With nods to Farmville (the most popular Facebook game whose most expensive item is a 5,000,000 farm coin/$2835 mansion), Minecraft (among the Best of PC Games), and the iPad (the first 3D iPad game is Flight Control HD), the book isn’t showing any lag.
Guinness adds extra value by sprinkling trivia throughout the volume and placing uncredited quotes at the bottom of each page which will have you flipping to the back of the book to prove you guessed the character and game correctly.
Finally, Guinness pulls in many lists like the Twin Galaxies scoreboards, Top 50 Game Characters, Best of E3, Golden Joystick and other bests of 2010.
Next year I’m looking forward to seeing if someone has unseated Halo 3’s $55 million budget as the Most Expensive FPS Videogame Ever Produced.
And if you think you can Set a Record, hit up the official site.
Infernal Devices
Author: K.W. Jeter
Publisher: Angry Robot
Released: April 2011It’s only fitting that the author who coined the phrase “steampunk” should benefit from the genre’s resurgence with this reprint of his 1987 title. Infernal Devices follows the misadventures of George Dower, son of a famed watchmaker who is so ill-inclined towards clockwork devices he apologetically announces he’s the son, not the father when greeting customers at his store. The arrival of an “Ethiope” carrying one of his father’s inventions puts George on a tortuous quest where he must find the Lovecraftian denizens of Wetwick, a hidden London district, flee from the Ladies Union for the Suppression of Carnal Vice, impersonate a clockwork Paganini and avoid becoming a casualty in the war between the Royal Anti-Society and the Godly Army. It’s unfortunate that Jeter’s original subtitle “A mad Victorian fantasy” has been lost, because that’s the best way to approach a book which reads like a Victorian Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.
March’s Gamer Banter topic is: What do you mean when you say you beat a game?
When I say I beat a game, I mean that I completed its story mode. However, being completely done with a game is another story.
I’m playing Donkey Kong Country Returns right now and – I can already tell – when I pummel the final boss, I’ll be done with the game. This has nothing to do with how much I like the game (a lot) and everything to do with my self-acknowledged inability to find every hidden puzzle piece or K-O-N-G letter.
But I don’t play a lot of platformers. I spend more time with shooters (currently playing Aliens vs Predator) and, after I beat the game, I go back to mop up some achievements – mostly the low hanging fruit. Sometimes, I’ll even replay the game at a higher difficulty level for frustration’s sake.
RPGs are another story. In that case, after I beat the story mode, I go back and explore other paths, try out different character builds and then hit the DLC. I think Mass Effect 3 will launch before I’m completely done with ME2 and I haven’t touched Dragon Age 2 yet, because there’s a witch that must be hunted.
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This post was part of Gamer Banter, a monthly video game discussion coordinated by Terry at Game Couch. If you’re interested in being part of this, please email him for details.
I picked up Star Trek: The Complete Comic Book Collection around the holidays when the price was hovering around $6. It’s back up to $18 now, but even that’s a good price for what it collects: over 500 issues from the Gold Key, Marvel, DC, Malibu, and Wildstorm runs. With the exception of Enterprise, every crew is featured and, minus the X-Men crossovers, it seems pretty damn complete.
Despite all that, I got it solely for the Gold Key series.
The Gold Key series ran from 1967 to 1979 and it’s amazingly weird. The creators are said to have never watched the show and — based on the results — it’s not hard to discount that as an internet rumor. To their credit, later issues seem more in line with the original series, but there’s still plenty of WTFery to be seen.
So here goes . . .
The 5 Weirdest Moments in Gold Key Star Trek
5. Genocide!
The Enterprise. Its five-year mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and burn it to hell! This gem from issue 1 “The Planet of No Return” pits the Enterprise against evil vegetation. The mere chance that spores from planet might spread and threaten other life on other planets leads Spock to the only course of action: Total Destruction! As Captain Kirk says in this issue, “Suffering Solar Showers!”
4. Down Periscope!
Issue 1 introduced the Enterprise’s TV scanner so why not have an Infra-Red Periscope in issue 2 “The Devil’s Isle of Space”? Between fire-spouting nacelles and glassed-in Teleportation Chambers, Gold Key’s Enterprise is a nitpicker’s dream. I still would have liked it if the headphones-wearing Ensign just asked Kirk why he didn’t use the viewscreen.
3. The Mummy!
Actually I’m not sure how weird this is. The television show featured an interstellar Abe Lincoln after all. Maybe the weird thing here is that Gold Key thought of issue 21′s “The Mummies of Heitius VII” and somehow Gene Roddenberry didn’t.
2. The Dark Crystal!
One of the things I really like about Gold Key, oddities aside, is that they didn’t have the budgetary limitations the show had — anything Gold Key’s writers could imagine could be adapted to 4-color page. Here in issue 34′s “The Psychocrystals” the Enterprise crew discovers beings made from solid crystals — a completely new type of life — which inexplicably dress like Indians out of TV Western.
1. Voodoo Science!
“Weird, Deep Space, Voodoo” has to be the worst diagnosis ever. Issue 7 brings the Enterprise to a Voodoo-based civilization which threatens the Earth itself! Luckily Spock knows how to whip up some Vulcan voodoo! Armed with magic potions and a voodoo doll, Kirk and Spock are ready to take on “The Voodoo Planet!”
