On this episode we welcome the awesome Michael Biehn, whom you already know from such films as Terminator, Aliens, and Tombstone. We talk with Michael Biehn about movies, his directorial experience with The Victim, providing his voice to Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon, and more. Also, Miellyn Barrows stops by to put up with Scott and Ash, while Matt and Hilary are out; and we told you so about ABC’s upcoming TV show, SHIELD. See the future.

Rated NA 104

ABC :Clark Gregg reprises his role of Agent Phil Coulson from Marvel’s feature films as he assembles a small, highly select group of Agents from the worldwide law-enforcement organization known as S.H.I.E.L.D. Together they investigate the new, the strange, and the unknown across the globe, protecting the ordinary from the extraordinary. Coulson’s team consists of Agent Grant Ward (Brett Dalton), highly trained in combat and espionage, Agent Melinda May (Ming-Na Wen) expert pilot and martial artist, Agent Leo Fitz (Iain De Caestecker); brilliant engineer and Agent Jemma Simmons (Elizabeth Henstridge) genius bio-chemist. Joining them on their journey into mystery is new recruit and computer hacker Skye (Chloe Bennet). From Executive Producers Joss Whedon (“Marvel’s The Avengers,” ”Buffy the Vampire Slayer”); Jed Whedon & Maurissa Tancharoen, “Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.” pilot co-writers (“Dollhouse,” “Dr.Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog”); Jeffrey Bell (“Angel,” “Alias”); and Jeph Loeb (“Smallville”) comes Marvel’s first TV series. “Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.” is produced by ABC Studios and Marvel Television.

• Oh yeah, if you want to go back and check out our article Five Things We Want From S.H.I.E.L.D. you’ll see a few items have already been crossed off that list. You’re welcome internets.
• Again, before the internet punches us in our face holes… We’re KIDDING! We understand that the blogs we write have little to no influence on the space/time continuum..

A slow news week can’t keep the gang down on this May the Fourth / Free Comic Book Day celebration. We talk Shadow of the Eternals, High Heavens, Dragon Age: World of Thedas, The Elite, Star Command, and Far Cry: Blood Dragon. Ash regales us with takes of D&D, and you tell us your go-to fantasy RPG class. Utini!

Rated NA 103

Vanilla Dragon’s Dogma can be brutally challenging and The Dark Arisen expansion adds a number of new enemies and bosses that will undoubtedly punish even veteran DD players. While a number of encounters are wonderfully designed, some enemies are more frustrating to fight than fun. A few enemies can even kill players and pawns instantly, which can be annoying as hell after forgetting to save after a 20 minute boss fight. Dark Arisen can be difficult, but boy are the rewards nice. Scattered throughout chests and on corpses are high level cursed items which can later purified and equipped. The random nature of the cursed-drops makes frequent trips into the dungeon a rewarding experience, and soon those “impossible” fights become entirely possible.

In terms of a narrative, the Arisen is drawn to the Bitterblack Isle by a mysterious woman who vaguely mentions finding her “beloved” somewhere within the recesses of the dungeon. Bits of story can be found throughout the labyrinth and slowly but surely it all starts to make sense. Once again, the story in Dragon’s Dogma is pretty solid should you go looking for it.

Dragon’s Dogma: Dark Arisen is an impressive addition to the franchise with tons of high level content to explore and items to loot. With a bit of patience and a lot of lamp oil, you’ll likely enjoy your trip to the Bitterback Isle.

Check out our Gransys Survival Guide

Kyle Latino brings some of my favorite things together.

Remember the days when you had all sorts of free time on your hands? When it wasn’t a big deal to say to a few friends, ‘Hey, let’s get together for a game night’? Now our lives are full of … well all sorts of stuff. (For me it’s a dog and a house and a garden and a husband and work and writing and laundry and sleep and eating and… man life is rough!) My D&D group has to schedule a month in advance, sometimes further, and even still we have people who can’t make it at the last minute. I blame the babies.

Whether you already have plans to play or you just wish you did, hopefully this collection of D&D related stuff will help quell the hunger pains just a little.

As I’m sure you’re aware, in D&D, group dynamics are paramount, and bringing a new member into an established group can have unpredictable effects. It can elevate your game to a whole new level, turn it into an irretrievable shipwreck, or you could wind up in an SUV with Kanye. You know, normal stuff.

All of the following clips explore what can happen when the new guy shows up.

Dungeons & Dragons & Bitches from Key and Peele (NSFW)

Proof that all you need to have people follow you into a quest is to a good imagination and a fresh take.

Carlos the Dwarf from Freaks and Geeks

I’ve never been a DM, but if I were, my game would totally have kittens and grandmas in it. Vicious kittens and ninja grandmas. I also love the end of this clip.

Trailer for Zero Charisma

I can’t wait to see this movie which won this year’s Audience Award at SXSW.

And your bonus comic:

In Search Of A Robust Cosmology by Penny Arcade

Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon was released by Ubisoft on May 1, 2013 and offers a nostalgic power slide through the best and worst clichés of action movies and video games from 80s and 90s.

In a world where nothing is the same and everything is different, the wasteland of North America is under threat from the red menace and Canada has been obliterated by a precision nuclear strike. Cyber-commando and proud American hero Sergeant Rex Power Colt is the only one left can stop Omega Force as they threaten to undermine the sanctity of the stars and stripes. Will he make it?

Blood Dragon utilizes the same first-person shooter game mechanics feature in Far Cry 3, lending the high quality open-world freedom of the original game – but with more lasers, cyber soldiers, and dinosaurs bent on eating them (fine, dragons). Power guitar riffs and hair metal feature heavily in the stand-alone expansion DLC, and cut scenes feature stylized pixel panels, heavy on the kitsch. Dialogue and voice acting are spot on cringe-worthy, offering tongue-in cheek commentary and self-aware mockery from the get go.

If you enjoyed the gameplay of Far Cry 3, and are looking for gratuitous language, explosions, cyber-all-the-things, and are hankering for the hilarity that nostalgic parody can bring, this DLC is for you. It’s ridiculous and absurd, but had me laughing more often than not. Or groaning.

Oh, and don’t forget your D20. You’re gonna need it.

Tabletop. Every PAX, its the part of the show that we always aim to make it to, but somehow leave feeling like we didn’t spend enough time there. At PAX East, we were luckily enough to find High Heavens, a project from Harmonix veteran / Art Director, Ryan Lesser. High Heavens is described as a board game where gods battle in the skies! Matt and I, being the competitive gaming friends that we are, sat down to give it a go.

In High Heavens, you play as a faction of deities and demigods from different mythologies and battle against an opponent in a head to head format. The game takes place in the clouds, on a 5 column hexagonal map. You win the game by destroying the opponents home-base. For instance, Matt and I played a demo at PAX East 2013 — Norse vs. Greek, with the home-bases as Asgard and Mount Olympus.

Followers of our site know we have a certain affinity for these types of games, as evidenced by our obsession with the mobile game Hero Academy, which is a good starting frame of reference for High Heavens. You might also think of High Heavens as Chess with some MTG elements.

That’s because the game requires strategy, and a little bit of luck. You deploy your gods from your home-base, but the gods you can deploy depend on the cards that you have in your hand. The draw deck for each faction provides a random element to the game, ensuring that no two battles play out the same way.

What we really loved about High Heavens is that each character in the game has a unique set of stats (e.g., health, movement, range, melee power, special abilities). We spoke with Ryan about the design of the characters, and why he choose this source material. He explained that he is something of a mythology nerd, so each character’s stats and abilities is modeled after the god itself. For example, Hermes has a longer movement range, while Hercules has more melee power. Some characters can heal or revive teammates, while others gain armor bonuses or can debuff enemy forces.

The character design is extremely well thought out, and the games we saw at PAX were totally balanced. Of course, I won the battle between Matt and myself, but Matt literally would have won the game on the next turn. The strategy is pretty deep too, it literally took me 5 minutes to plan the attack that won the game. The game next to ours was also extremely close in terms of the remaining hitpoints on the winner’s home-base. We were also able to complete a game in less than an hour.

The game pieces themselves are well-designed too. For example, Gods stand on stacks of colored chips, to indicate status such as health, armor, attack bonuses, and poison debuffs. Pieces are designed to be clean and easy to view at a glance. The result is that you can play a very nuanced strategy battle, without the board being crapped up with a bunch of loose pieces. Solid.

What’s more is that Ryan has plans for expansions, Norse and Greek gods are only the tip of the iceberg. There are already plans for an Egyptian expansion, and the sky’s the limit (see what I did there?) for other expansions… Japanese mythology?! Native American mythology?! How freaking cool would that be.

Sounds awesome! Where do I get this game?!

So here’s where you come in. High Heavens has just a few more days left on it’s Kickstarter campaign, and the project is really close to meeting it’s goal. But one look at the Kickstarter page, and you’ll see why some of these stretch goals need to be hit too. There’s some really awesome game enhancements in the works, like 3D modeled mini’s, terrain pieces, a neoprene play-mat, and custom molded stacking chips for character effects.

Having had a hell of a lot of fun playing this game at PAX, we’d highly recommend you visit the High Heavens Kickstarter and consider backing this project.

Happy Gaming.

The gang is back together again for the first regular podcast of the new Rated NA Century! We talk a little Hero Academy, Nintendo, New Xbox, Beyond: Two Souls, and Oxyana. We review Dark Arisen, Adera (ft. Ali Hillis) and Oblivion. SPOILER ALERT: Bioshock Infinite spoiler talk (54:20 – 1:08:07). Finally, a great NAQOTW where you tell us what you love about where you are! Wish you were here!

Rated NA 102

Special thanks to @MrSlikk for the view on 102.

Alternate podcast title: Beating the dragon.

Combo Crew is the newest upcoming mobile game from indie darlings, The Game Bakers. We fell in love them a couple of years ago after playing Squids at PAX. Since then, we’ve been perfecting all of the missions in both Squids and Squids: Wild West. Admittedly, Squids WW was challenging enough, I’ve been a bit of a sissy in starting the pro quest. But now I have an excuse, because Combo Crew is going to blow your pants off with arcade action on touch devices.

We got to take a sneak peek at Combo Crew at PAX East 2013, when we met with Audrey Leprince and Emeric Thoa in a cosy corner in the concourse just outside of the expo hall. We huddled around Emeric’s iPad and were immediately enthralled. What we saw was a brawler inspired by the arcade classics like Streets of Rage, Final Fight (my personal favorite) and Street Fighter. The twist is Combo Crew eschews the virtual D-Pad in favor of swipe controls. And it’s awesome!

The Game Bakers really have a reverence for the classics, so making sure the classic arcade experience translated to a mobile platform was an important aspect of the game’s development. Emeric explains, “games like Street Fighter and Final Flight require a D-pad controller, and that just doesn’t make sense for touch devices. So we challenged ourselves to make a brawler with really good touch controls. And we’re pretty sure we’ve pulled it off!”

I think they did too. The controls are intuitive, using single finger motions for regular moves, and two finger motions for specials. I remember as we sat in the concourse watching Emeric demo the game my first thought was whether or not this would still work on the smaller screen space of a phone (up until then we’d only seen the game on a tablet). Of course! Audrey pulled out her cell phone, and showed us the same great attention to detail on the smaller screen. In designing the game, they looked at the controls for both phones and tablets, and made adjustments when specific motions did not translate well between the screen sizes.

That same attention to detail follows the game’s presentation. Combo Crew has a different art style than Squids, but with the same level of polish we’ve come to love about The Game Bakers passion for developing quality games. In Combo Crew your team of fighters fight your way up to the top of a tower, where they are being held hostage. And come on… it wouldn’t be a classic beat em up without a tower to climb, right?!

Emeric and Audrey explained that there will be multiple characters to fight with (with a few surprises in the works), and each character has different strengths and weaknesses, just like the Final Fight days. Combo Crew also has social integration. You can connect with friends to compare scores of course; but you can also work with a friend asynchronously — your buds can revive you and continue the battle up the tower. There will be a lot of great replay value, I believe, considering the multiple game modes, unlockables and social integration.

Combo Crew, from The Game Bakers, is scheduled for a May release on iOS and Android. Get your digits ready.

During our most recent chat with Ali Hillis on Rated NA 101, we were admittedly surprised to hear that she provided the voice for the main character in an ongoing episodic puzzle-adventure game, Adera, from Hitpoint studios, on Windows 8. As one of the few Surface owners out there, I’d seen the game in the Windows Marketplace. For a long time, it was one of the few Xbox Live enabled games in the marketplace. I’d actually had the darn thing installed on my machine, but never had the time to give it a go. (Admittedly, I have a hard time not finishing games, so I knew once I started Adera I was in for the long haul). Well, the news of Ali’s voice in the game was all the motivation I needed to get started.

Adera tells the story of Jane Sinclaire (voiced by Ali Hillis), who until very recently, believed her grandfather to be dead. She receives a mysterious package, which leads her out into the Atacama desert in search for answers. And that’s when, as they say, shenanigans ensue! A helicopter crash quickly leaves Sinclair and her pilot, Hawk, stuck in the middle of the sprawling desert. However, we see both ice and seaweed on the wreckage, and Jane begins to discover everything is not as it seems.

The story unfolds through exploring the game’s highly detailed environments. The core elements of gameplay are reminiscent of old-school puzzle-adventures like Myst or Shivers (Shivers?! Establishing puzzle-game cred – whaaaat?!). But Adera also takes advantage of the platform, introducing new school functionality like touch-screen functionality in puzzles, using the gyroscopic sensor in the tablet to explore environments, and the metro-style interface as a hub to review progress and collectibles. There are also some great animated sequences that blend well into the gameplay.

There is also a good variety of puzzles to interact with, including hidden object, tanagram, traditional figure-it-out puzzles, and the classic figure-out-what-object-and-what-to-do-with-it. I appreciate that the nature of that last type is all logical. You use an axe to cut vines… as opposed to other puzzle games where you trade an axe for an orange, which you put into a juicer, to make super acid that melts the vines… you know what I mean.

Adera is an episodic game, with five parts scheduled to release (Ep 5 is coming soon). I played through the first episode, which offers around 3 to 4 hours of gameplay… which is awesome considering the first episode was FREE. I found the story to be engaging, providing the right amount of depth for a puzzle game, holding the elements together well without getting too involved. There is a hint system in place, making the game accessible to all skill levels, while allowing you to ratchet things up or down on the fly. Being an Xbox Live enabled game, Adera also has Achievements and supports Cloud Saves so that you can start playing on one device and then resume playing on another (e.g. from tablet to desktop).

If I were to make one request, at least from Episode 1 alone, is that I want more Ali in my game. Puzzle games, in general, often have dialogue for those moments where you’re stuck, and the character will say something like, “I don’t think that goes there.” While Ali voiced many of the lines in the game, these types of lines were text only. So to the fine folks at Hitpoint, more Ali please. Anyone that follows our merry band never gets tired of hearing her voice.

I’ll definitely be picking up the remaining episodes. Hillis remarked, in our interview, that as the recording for the episodes continued, she was given the liberty to open things up a bit, with some tongue-in-cheek humor about all the puzzles that impede Sinclair’s progress. If you’ve got a Win8 machine, you’ll definitely want to give Adera a go. And let @missalihillis know what you think about the game!

Happy Gaming 

We welcome the awesome and talented Ali Hillis back to the podcast. Ali was one of our very first interviews way back in early 2011 (linkage), and for some reason she actually kept in touch.  This time around she takes us through her origin story, how she got into acting and video games, and her love of animal rescue. Our chat concludes in a rapid fire session we call the Lightning round… get it?! If you’re a fan of Mass Effect, Final Fantasy, Star Craft, Kid Icarus, Gears of War, or FUSE then you’re probably already a fan of Ali. Finally, Rated NA responds to a challenge of our PC gaming cred. By the goddess!

Rated NA 101

If you’re a fan of Ali like we are, make sure you follow her on Twitter @missalihillis and harass her on a regular basis.

Wait what’s going on here… a Comic review? Shouldn’t Matt be doing this? I didn’t even know Scott could read!

Well for your information I’ve been interested in try to pick up a few comics here and there, but I’m not so much into the super hero thing. But, while I was browsing a certain digital comics storefront something caught my eye: THEREMIN… what?! And now a non-comic reader’s review of a comic.

Full disclosure, I own a Theremin, I’ve watched the documentary about Leon Theremin and Clara Rockmore, who I’m convinced is the only person that can actually play the damn thing… and come on, Rock-more. Anyhow, the cover depicts our favorite Russian scientist-inventor standing tall against the backdrop of the Kremlin and the night sky.

And what’s this? He’s holding what looks like a space laser, correction, retrofuturistic ray gun. Let me stop me right there. Sold.

Indeed, Theremin issue #1, written by Curt Pires and art by Dalton Rose, tells the story of the inventor-turned-super-spy’s journey through space time. Thanks, of course to his trusty musical, but not actually intended to be, invention he finds the time between time. The use of silhouettes and color-hues go hand in hand with the non-linear, spy-fuled storytelling.

It’s totally plausible, since the real Theremin pretty much fell off the face of the Earth for a number of years… or did he fall off the face of time? I’ll let you decide. So let see: science, analog instruments, spy stuff… check. Yep, I think I’m on board. Check out Theremin #1 published by MonkeyBrain comics.

Theremin at MonkeyBrain Comics

Theremin at ComiXology

Now that you are powerless — you shall be treated the same as all my beloved subjects — you will obey every order — and be punished for every infraction – for the rest of your natural lives!

I’ve managed to attend MegaCon almost every year since 1994, and have seen the convention go through more changes than I can count. I’m happy to say that 2013 may have been the very best MegaCon yet.

With an impressive 50,000 + attendees, this year’s MegaCon simply felt bigger than ever before. It seems as though the folks running MegaCon did their homework and figured out the secret ingredient to running a great convention… variety. MegaCon manged to provide a little bit of everything for everyone; from professional wrestlers and comic book artists, to Captain Jean Luc Picard himself. The amount of cosplay on display was actually pretty staggering, and the quality of work was worth the price of admission alone.

MegaCon has become a great little convention over the years, and I sure as hell can’t wait to see what they have planned for the future.

Episode 100 ! What else is there to say? I couldn’t be more proud of how far we’ve come, more astonished that people listen… and continue to listen, and more energized for what we’ve yet to create. We forego the usual shenanigans to answer your questions about everything and anything Nerd Appropriate, and look back at the last 100 episodes. Also, in our NAQOTW, your responses to our signature question (we answer it too). Thank you for all of your tweets, likes, comments, and continued support, it means more to us than we can ever express in words.

Rated NA 100

Bonus: Haven’t deciphered our thinly veiled references to a certain character from a certain sci-fi film? Enjoy this bonus cover art, courtesy of @pL4tiNumfi5t

This particular strategy guide is plump with great art (some of my favorite in recent years actually), maps, strategies, and item locations. The limited edition guide also ships with an incredibly cool replica bird/cage key that looks great and actually has a solid weight to it. You can pick up the guide up HERE and add it to your collection.

It will all make sense

As of April 3, 2013, Disney closed down LucasArts and assumed development of any Lucasfilm properties. A look at the legacy left behind by the studio and its 30-year legacy.

As former LucasArts composer Lesse Harlin put it this past Friday, “LucasArts died today. It was 30 years old.” A studio as old as I am, whose games were influential in my development as a sci-fi nerd. The eulogy was coupled with a set of images of former studio employees. It was with heavy heart that I realized they will never make a game again. Sure, The Force Unleashed 2 wasn’t their best, but I won’t judge them based on their losses.

My memories will be ones of love. The games worth going back to time and again – games that cultivated me as a gamer. That turned me into the Star Wars geek I am, and welcomed me into the cozy bosom of the Extended Universe. Sorry, Scott – Star Wars Kinect didn’t quite make the cut.

5) Star Wars: The Old Republic

Starting this list from the best and working back, I found myself at a cross-road in picking number five. Had I enjoyed The Force Unleashed, or did having to pull that star destroyer from the sky effectively kill it for me? The story wasn’t memorable either. What about KOTOR II? The story had so much potential, but did the bugs and crumbling ending undo it? Maybe.

I’ve played SWTOR since I screamed when I was accepted in the closed beta a year and a half ago. I still have fun, and it makes me love the quirks about the Star Wars Universe even more. Keep in mind though – I am not an MMO gamer. I realize some of the gameplay and social mechanics turned a lot of seasoned MMOers away. But having someone that I play with all the time enabled me to immerse myself in the completion of the various storylines, and it has been an exceedingly gratifying game. Whether they would have been better suited to individual or episodic games, I’ll leave up in the air.

After playing other Star Wars games for years, SWTOR took me back to the magic of the #1 game on this list – immersion in an alien universe and interaction with engaging characters. I found myself loving the PvP aspect offered through the warzones too, which is something I ha not expected. But at its core, SWTOR has been a storytelling adventure, with each class having plot twists I didn’t see coming.

Plus, whoever gets tired of making Alderaan jokes?

4) Star Wars Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy

What more does anyone want than to be as a student of their own race and gender at Luke Skywalker’s academy on Yavin IV, studying under the tutelage of Kyle Katern? Equipped with a lightsaber from admission, we were given a top notch education in combat and force mechanics. Rain sizzling on your blade as you fight enemies and leaving scorch marks in your wake! Alas, such an education is no longer available for our youth.

Star Wars Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy was released the same year as Knights of the Old Republic, and brought with it a focus on lightsaber combat and force powers (ahh force lift into the lava, please). Arguably, it had some of the most enjoyable lightsaber combat that came out of the Jedi Knight games, and when coupled with a story progression that involved sith artefacts, and dark and light side endings, it stands out as one of the more memorable games produced by LucasArts.

3) Star Wars: Rebel Assault

Star Wars: Rebel Assault was a few years old by the time I got my hands on it.  If I close my eyes, I can still see the route your fighter takes as it swoops for an attack run on the star destroyer. I was terrible at it – it makes my shoulders tense just thinking about how long it took me to get past some levels, but that doesn’t change how much fun I had playing it. Originally released in 1993, what made Rebel Assault special was also the inclusion of footage and music from the original movies. To me, the right music can make a good game even better (Total Annihilation anyone?), and that holds true here. I’d cultivated a love for Star Wars at an early age due to my wookie big older brother, and this nurtured it even more.

2) Monkey Island 2: LeChuck’s Revenge

I accept the caveat that another of the Monkey Island series might be more deserving of this slot, but I had to go with my gut for this one – and go with the game that sticks out most in my mind. The first time I played LeChuck’s Revenge, it was in a friend’s  computer in their basement when I was a teenager in high school. We had just purchased our first computer at home, and I was discovering the world of PC gaming. I’d grown up under the wing of my older brother, who to this date has probably owned half of the gaming consoles out there. A right proper upbringing.

I lost sleep playing LeChuck’s Revenge at home – the crash of lightning as Threepwood digs up a grave in the cemetery, the paper with Largo’s spit (yech), and me wondering, is that really how they made penicillin?

It was a lark. I had tons of fun and it was memorable – I’m sure for more than just me.

1) Knights of the Old Republic

This should come as no surprise. The idea of choosing my path, light or dark, mingled with the capability to play the mysterious stranger (can you hear the arena announcer?) as a woman was what hooked me on KOTOR. Revan will always be a woman to me, canon be damned. And I remember that climatic moment when it was revealed who the PC really was. It’s a defined gaming moment in my memory. And what’s not to love about HK-47?

Knights of the Old Republic stands out as a fore-runner to modern role-playing games, and I’ve been hard pressed to find anyone who didn’t enjoy it. The engaging story left its mark on me and influences my costume-making to this day.  Through LucasArts collaboration with Bioware, it is still a game that I can pick up and play a decade later, and enjoy the gameplay, character interactions, world, and story-telling just as much.

What are your thoughts on the closure of LucasArts? Any memorable gaming moments or favourites?

The “Nerd Appropriate Signature Question” has always been about our guests’ secret hobbies and/or passions, and we’ve gotten some shockingly awesome answers over the years. It dawned on us while we were working on content for episode 100, that we’ve never asked our friends, supporters, and community for their answers to our signature question. So if you have the time between now and April 12th, please take a moment to answer the following question so that you can be a part of our big 100th episode. We appreciate you all more than you know, and we could not have pulled off some of the fun things that we have over the years without your support. Episode 100 should be a ton of fun, and we might even shed a few nerdy tears..

Question: What is your secret nerdy hobby or passion that you’re almost too embarrassed to share? (but you’ll do it anyway) 

• Do you have any questions for Hilary, Matt, Scott or myself? Ask away!
• Ever wonder what tools we use to produce or podcast, or perhaps how we get some of the guests we get?
• Curious about what we do for our day jobs? We may finally reveal our secrets!

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, a pair of blue-collar janitors battled Imperial grime, with only a sonic mop and a bottle of glass cleaner to see them through! And as of April 2, Canadian-based Space Janitors started their second season of sci-fi comedy, bringing us back in the fight to find our anti-heroes still alive.

Needless to say, if you’re a fan of Star Wars, this is a web series you should have your eye on. It follows Mike Chet (Pat Thornton) and Darby Richards (Brendan Halloran), two janitors aboard a massive space station, and their friends, computer psychologist Edith Kingpin (Evany Rosen), android LN6-K (Tess Degenstein), and Dennis (Scott Yamamura), one of the 10,000 identical, cloned squall troopers aboard the station.

The short episodes follow their hi-jinks aboard the station, an every-man amidst the war, and are rife with deadpan nerd humour. Hat tips to a variety of sci-fi shows and genres are found in each episode, which run 4-8 minutes each Set and costume design are endearingly campy, and comedic delivery is spot-on, which may be unsurprising given the background in comedy both the creators (Davin Lengyel and Geoff Lapaire) and actors themselves have. Imagine my delight at a cameo from Chris Gibbs in Season 1, an actor and improviser who has toured the Canadian Fringe Festival circuit and is on my ‘go to’ list for comedy whenever he’s in my home city.

While I might have a soft spot for home-grown humour, this Canuck would recommend Space Janitors to any sci-fi savy serah looking for a laugh. I was hooked from the get-go.

Season 1 is available on Geek and Sundry, or on their website at SpaceJanitors.com. Season 2 started on April 2, and episodes posted every 2^nd Tuesday. Check out S1E1 below!

Hey there!

Thanks so much for checking out Nerd Appropriate’s coverage of the 2013 BioWare Base at PAX East. As massive BioWare fans, we’re excited to be able to bring this to you.  For 2.5 years we’ve been producing our podcast, Rated NA, and are coming up on our 100^th episode in just a few days (time flies when you’re telling terrible jokes). We’ll be releasing a handful of panels all weekend ( eight in total ) so you can catch up on all the fun stuff you may have missed at this year’s PAX East. For a quick look, head to http://biowarebase.nerdappropriate.com/ or simply download them directly from iTunes or Feedburner.

EP 1 – Mass Effect: Exploring the Universe

Mass Effect Senior Creative Director, Preston Watamaniuk, members of the Mass Effect team, and special guests talk in-depth about the Commander Shepard trilogy.

EP 2 – Dragon Age: Thedas Unlocked

Dragon Age Executive Producer, Mark Darrah and members of the Dragon Age team as well as special guests dive into the Dragon Age franchise.

EP 3 – Creating BioWare Comics & Apparel

Dragon Age Creative Director, Mike Laidlaw and guests from Dark Horse Comics and Treehouse Brand Stores discuss how partners bring you the coolest tie-ins to BioWare games.

EP 4 – Dragon Age: Thedas Unlocked

Dragon Age Creative Director, Mike Laidlaw, members of the Dragon Age team as well as special guests give an entertaining look into the vibrant world of Thedas.

EP 5 – Mass Effect: Exploring the Universe

Mass Effect Senior Creative Director, Preston Watamaniuk, members of the Mass Effect team, and special guest Raphael Sbarge, voice of Kaidan Alenko, provide behind-the-scenes insight into the trilogy.

EP 6 – Voice Acting: Tips Tricks & How to Get Started

Join special guest Raphael Sbarge, voice of Mass Effect’s Kaidan Alenko and Knights of the Old Republic’s Carth Onasi, and the BioWare team to find out more about voice acting in video games.

EP 7 – BioWare: Behind the Scenes

Take a step behind the curtain as the BioWare team talks about what it’s like working at the Edmonton and Montreal studios.

EP 8 – Getting a Job at BioWare

Listen to this episode to hear how BioWare hiring managers, including a couple members of the HR team, recruit talented folks to join the BioWare family.

The gang returns from PAX East 2013 with tales of gaming, friendship, and pax pox. In Hilary’s absence, an attempt at a gentleman podcast is made. We talk about our favorite games, from AAA to indie, from tabletop to mobile. Finally, you share your favorite, recent con memories with us in our NAQOTW.

Rated NA 99

Poster available at 604Republic.com

Joffrey: I just hate this little bastard. I hate him in the books and I hate him on the show. He’s obnoxious, cruel, and keeps getting worse with time. I don’t recall what antics he gets up to in the books, but I am hoping for some more Joffrey scenes slapping at least.

Catelyn: You’d think I’d like her. She’s a woman, a mother, a strong character, who is trying her best to protect her children, yet she keeps really screwing things up! The whole mess with arresting Tyrion and taking him to the Eyrie? That caused trouble for Ned back in King’s Landing to say the least. She let Jaime run off with Brienne, which caused a rift with her son and his commanders. Catelyn is not dumb, but she keeps doing dumb things! Argh!

Jaime: He falls in the love to hate category. He’s a prick, and arrogant, spoiled, pretty little man who can wield a sword better than most in the realm and has carnal relations with his sister. He also has a mean streak and a sharp tongue, and despite all of this, he amuses me. Despite all his accomplishments, his status, he is insecure and his words and actions occasionally show it no matter how he tries to hide it. I think he wants to be a knight, with all the honor and accolades others have, but he’ll never achieve it.

Cersei: While we’re talking Lannisters, the good Queen is certainly worth mentioning. The other half of the incestuous sibling pair, Cersei is an ambitious woman limited by her gender in a world dominated by men. She’s smart, but, like her brother, arrogant, shares his mean streak, and foolish in some of her choices; politically and personally.

Ser Jorah: The dude is a creeper. He is, hands down, grade A, “nice guy.” He pretty much spends his days making doe eyes and pining for Daenarys while at the same time playing the role as advisor and surrogate father. Ugh.

Robb: He’s a boy thrust into a man’s role: “King of the North.” He’s not well-versed in warfare or politics, which means I probably should cut him some slack. Sadly, I am not. While the lady who won his heart is certainly lovely, it is really worth throwing an alliance away in a time of war? I don’t think so.

Theon: Where I find Jaime’s arrogance and smart ass nature endearing, I have wanted nothing more than to beat the piss out of Theon since his introduction. A least Jaime can back up his arrogance with sword play, what’s Theon got going for him other than his libido? A libido which put him in a rather embarrassing, and really gross, situation with his own sister. Hell, he was outsmarted by two children under the age of fifteen when he invaded and took over Winterfell briefly, before his own men turned on him. Theon is a self-fulfilling prophecy of failure due to his insecurities.

I’m curious to see how far season three goes in terms of plot in the books, which I presume will mostly be from A Storm of Swords. I suspect this season, and a fourth, will likely be the text of that book split. There are a lot of events to be covered, as well as not moving too fast through the books George R.R. Martin has yet to finish, and fans no doubt want justice done to them. It’s been amazing seeing Westeros brought to life and getting to see more places, and meeting more characters, will undoubtedly be another fun ride.

What about everyone else? Who are you looking forward to seeing back?

Natalie currently resides in the San Francisco Bay Area where she tries to balance full-time work and various nerdy hobbies. While being a huge Bioware fangirl, she also enjoys other video games (i.e. Arkam City, the Fable series) as well as comic books set in the DC universe

Today I had the pleasure of being escorted into the Mass Effect panel called Mass Effect Trilogy: A Retrospective. It was in the largest room at PAX East and for good reason. If capacity is true, a few thousand people were ushered into the room to witness the creators of one of the largest sci fi epics in gaming history wistfully discuss the project they loved and have now left. Yes there are more Mass Effect games, but no it will not be the same. I wish I had breaking news about what that next game will be, but for now only a few folks in Montreal know for sure.

For me these panels are always a little bittersweet. I am not a hardcore gamer. Sure I imagine I have dumped a lot more time into gaming than your average folk. I definitely have spent a large portion of my life discussing, dissecting and reviewing games, but I never really considered myself “hardcore”. My logic is that I know people that I consider “hardcore”. Their knowledge and passion for gaming knows little bounds. I share a podcast with a few of these people as well as interact with a whole slew of them on our twitter account. I respect their ability to play games and dedicate time and effort to them. They grow passionate bonds with these titles. It’s these people that I think about when I sit in a room of 4000 all yelling inside jokes and favorite characters at their creators. Everyone laughing and having a good time when “I should go” gets mentioned. I think it is amazing that a world as broad as Mass Effect can draw so many into it’s web and never let them go.

There are the cos-players who spend their hard earned money and probably short amount of free time building exact replicas of armor sets and weapons. Crafting from raw materials the things that artists and technicians have poured over minor details to create. The people creating the costumes that they so proudly and sometimes brashly wear to conventions broadcast their love for these titles. I am always amazed that not only do they have the guts to wear these sometimes revealing costumes, but they have the bravado to embody the character wholly down to their facial movements and poses.

It is people like these, the ones that will wait for hours to get an autograph from a voice actor, or will spend countless nights crafting costumes in their homes, these people that sadly make me reflect on whether I’ve ever loved something this much in my life. I think back on being a teenager and spending all of my money on Vampire the Masquerade cards and X-Men comics. I think about how many hours I spent attempting to recreate humongous fantasy settings to then show them off as a DM for my friends. I think about the comedians I, sometimes unintentionally, emulate after memorizing their acts. I think back to the moment 3 Octobers ago when Ash, Scott and myself were sitting in Scott’s living room and one of us murmured the words “nerd appropriate”, and that is what makes this site great for me. All of you have loved something enough in your lives and you choose to share those moments with us and in turn we get to share our moments with the things that we love with you. Regardless if I am a hardcore gamer or a comic book nerd or a movie buff, we can all come together and bask in each others joy over properties with which we have had special relationships.

PAX always makes me a little wistful, a little hopeful about what may come around the corner for us and in turn you guys. It blows my mind every time we get a comment on an article, a retweet or reply and yes a review on a podcast (You guys are OK at what you do). I can promise you that we aren’t running out of the love for the things we are passionate about and this site will continue to grow as long as that love lingers on. To all the people I’ve met at PAX, know that you make this all worth it, and to the one’s I’ve yet to meet, there will be plenty more chances. Let’s keep the love going.

While I’ve sat in on a plethora of talks, my top three, without a doubt, were (in no particular order):

Saving Doug

Saving Doug - Empathy, Character, and Choice in The Walking Dead:  presented by Jake Rodkin & Sean Vanaman of Telltale Games.

Designing Journey: presented by Jenova Chen of Thatgamecompany.

Designing Humor in Borderlands 2: presented by Anthony Burch of Gearbox Software.

As a bonus, I think everyone involved in video games in any capacity needs to check out David Gaider’s Sex & Videogames talk. Also, read his blog! Follow him on twitter! Be a better person!

GDC has been pretty phenomenal for the most part. For more be sure to follow me on twitter. @allithrasher

With that, I’m off to bed.

PS written on a space device, per usual. Please excuse typos & tone. Woohoo!

Each of the six playable characters were incredibly different from the lightning fast Kid Red, to the gargantuan Gatling gun wielding Gordo.

The oddly titled Secret Ponchos allows players to control one of six outlaw fighters in an arena style class based top down shooter. If that sounds at all confusing to you, it should be, because the “secret” of Secret Ponchos is that it’s unique.

The combat system in Secret ponchos is simple. Each character has a number of abilities, similar to an arcade brawler, that he or she can utilize after meters recharge and weapons reload. Gordo for example can hurl a Molotov cocktail, light the ground on fire creating a wall of flame, or simply unload with his comically large Gatling gun. The action is quick and brutal, and can get downright nasty with six gunslingers running around a single map. Controlling your character is similar to modern FPS controls with aim, reload, and fire right where they should be. It only took me a single match to figure out how to play, denoting that much time was spent getting things to “feel” right.

After spending a good thirty minutes with Secret Ponchos I managed to play all of the characters available on the PAX floor and was eager to try out even more. I’m selfishly hoping for at least a dozen characters.

I briefly talked to Switchblade Monkeys creative director Yousuf Mapra who mentioned that the team was comprised entirely of friends who were hoping to build something that hadn’t been built before. Seeing as how I couldn’t recall any top-down class-based spaghetti western style shooters, I think they may have pulled it off. Stylistically, the game’s characters reminded me of something that a young Rob Schrab (creator of SCUD) would have conceptualized. Each of the six playable characters were drenched in style; from the lightning fast Kid Red, to the gargantuan Gatling gun wielding Gordo. After spending a good thirty minutes with Secret Ponchos, I managed to play all of the characters currently available and was eager to try out even more. I even managed to get pretty good with my boy Gordo.

Yousuf mentioned that the build available on the show floor was actually in pre-Alpha, which hopefully means that some of the minor bugs and animation issues I encountered while playing would be gone by the time the game launches. It never pays to gripe about an alpha build, so I won’t bother going into detail.

Secret Ponchos was a huge surprise with a ton of potential. Should Switchblade Monkeys work out some minor balance issues, expand their character roster, and expand upon their leveling and/or skill progression, they will have a spaghetti infused hit on their hands.

Are you a die hard fan of the G.I. Joe franchise and/or Cobra Command? Then you will like G.I. Joe: Retaliation -  AND you will like this movie better than G.I. Joe: Rise of Cobra, but it’s still going to shake your branches on a few key points- as any movie adaptation of another story will do (read my Oz article for more on this).

NOT EVEN ONE YO JOE!?!?! All we get is some marine-core Hoo-a? I feel cheated. Trust me – I would have chanted a proud and loud YO JOE! had I been given the chance.

C’mon HASBRO! I cheered when you got that wicked cool logo shout out at the start of the movie – so why not have more characters in the movie? You introduced an awesome bucket-list of characters in the last one (Rise of Cobra). Main characters: Duke,  Roadblock, Flint, Lady Jaye, and SURPRISE! General Joe Colton played by action hero Bruce Willis – a BEARDLESS, BALD retired Gen. Joe? ugh. Where’s his greying flattop? It’s ok, Bruce, I forgive you, because at least you were sly and had a bad ass house/armory.

BEST ACTION SCENE OF THE MOVIE? I’m a huge fan of  kung-fu and karate and martial arts (must be my ninja bloodline) and the mountain scene with Snake Eyes and Jinx vs the other ninjas was so cool. I loved the use of ropes and grappling hooks, running on the mountain sides and swinging in mid air in different directions. Gravity is, generally speaking, not my friend so seeing this was simply the coolest.

The movie lends itself less toward hoaky sci-fi action and more toward believable live-action. Dwayne Johnson is a completely believable Roadblock and is so massive and muscly that he could lift a pick up truck if he wanted!  Lady Jaye – your character was ok, but in the comic and in the cartoon, you had shorter hair – sue me for being a girl and dwelling on that little detail. As a kid, I tried to identify with the female Joes and I wasn’t ever going to be a red-head, so Staff Segerent Hart-Burnett was as close as I was going to get. As for Retaliation, I really wanted more romance between her and Flint – I mean, c’mon, you were romantic in the comics, right? Just kiss already! Flint, don’t be a creep. Oh and Lady Jaye, can you leave your daddy issues at home please? This is an action movie, thanks.

SPOILERS AHEAD

Cobra Commander – your voice is wrong! Did you finish puberty in maximum security prison? Where’s your high pitched hissy voice? I miss you.

I still give it… 4 out 5. It’s a fun movie with tons of brutality and no gore. Not enough Joes, but a whole lotta guns. I like.

Transistor… in a word, speechless. The NA gang was fortunate enough to visit the Supergiant Games booth during PAX East 2013 to get a hands-on demo with their latest title, Transistor, and then spend a few moments chatting with Creative Director, Greg Kasavin.

You’ll recall that Supergiant Games created the much-beloved Bastion. This game used a clever dynamic narration system and action-RPG elements to create a rich fantasy world, which popped with vibrant colors and a killer soundtrack. With such seemingly simple elements, the game was able to draw players into a rich narrative and create plenty of feels, within players, for the characters and the world itself.

That small team of 7 (now a whopping 10) is back to announce their latest project, Transistor. You know Transistor is a Supergaint Games project as soon as you lay eyes on it, but it would be a huge disservice to describe Transistor as being the same as Bastion. Through the immense talents of the development team, they’ve created something that has that Supergiant aesthetic (so happy that is a thing), but is fundamentally different from Bastion. Transistor has an identity all its own.

Transistor is a sci-fi action RPG, which takes place in the vast metropolis of Cloudbank. The art style makes the environment feel enormous, beautiful but almost intimidating. You play as Red, a singer whose voice has vanished. She discovers an extraordinary weapon, the Transistor, and is pursued by enemies who will stop at nothing to recover the weapon. The Transistor, cleverly, also appears to provide the narration for the game as well.

The Supergiant Games team is excited about the direction of the story, “it is important to start off our stories with a lot of mystery. Hopefully players feel assured that we are going to pay that off, and that, by the end, questions are going to be answered.”

We also spent a few minutes talking about the decision to create a female protagonist  and the place at which Transistor and Bastion diverge, creatively. Greg explained, “[It] was not a particularly difficult choice for us. The characters we create… they’re designed to reflect the world they come from. In Bastion you play as a scrappy, luckless kid, living a hard lifestyle… working with a hammer that’s way bigger than he is. You’re supposed to kind of feel bad for him.” (Red is much longer and elegant) “Bastion is a frontier world. Cloudbank is a grand city, people have it pretty good until bad things start happening. There is an elegant singer [who] gets into a pretty bad situation, she is a reflection of the world. She represents the kind of story we want to tell with this game.”

Similarly, the combat system is a reflection of the sci-fi inspired world created within the game. The Transistor is a weapon which looks like a giant sword you might find in a JRPG. When you first acquire the Transistor you find yourself with a limited set of hack and slash style moves, but the game quickly takes a mind-blowing turn. 

You quickly discover a tactical ability, Turn, that allows Red to freeze the action and plan a sequence of movement actions and attacks. Your total Turn is limited, so figuring out where to move and who to attack is of critical importance. It opens up a great variety of ways to approach combat. Its amazing, and challenging, the moves you execute after the planning is done occur in faster-than-real-time, but enemies are not frozen when the actions are being carried out. So, for example, that long range attack you planned at the end of your sequence might totally miss because the enemies move as the plan is executed.

As Greg explained, “there’s the plan, and there’s the reality.”

Gameplay is further enriched through combat abilities. During the demo we experienced a number of abilities, a variety of short and long ranged attacks, some that benefited a brawling style of play, and others that suited a more elegant strike and vanish style of play. Even around the office, the Supergiant Games team discovered that some people went straight into the action, while others took a ruthless, terminator-style approach in using Turn to plan every move. We learned that, later in the game, some abilities might work better in Turn, while others are more conductive to real-time combat (see what I did there).

The entire demo was maybe 15 minutes long, but I was hooked right at the title screen by the heart-pounding theme song (Darren Korb) and haunting vocals (Ashley Barrett), I literally got chills. I don’t think I was alone in this sentiment. The response by the fans was overwhelming, the booth was crowded with fans eager to play all weekend. When we asked about the fan response: “We’re incredibly grateful for it, but we still have a lot of hard work ahead of us. There’s nothing like this to embolden us to keep moving forward… [the response] is still sinking in for us.”

At one point we joked that, based on the traffic at the booth, Supergiant Games could simply become a merch company and do just fine. A joke that was answered with an inspiring response, “I’m in this to make games. T-shirts are fine, but I’m glad to have [Transistor] out there, and to get back to work and move forward with confidence.”

It’s that passion that perfectly manifests itself in Transistor, and we couldn’t be more excited for the kind folks at Supergiant Games. We feel it’s going to be amazing, but we will all have to wait… until 2014. Until then, put this on repeat…

Matt and I made our way to PAX: East as press for the first time in 2011. It was our first time really representing NA and we had zero clue as to what we were doing. Sure, we had been attending conventions for almost twenty years, but we discovered that covering them as media was a completely different story. After stumbling around the convention floor with virtually no appointments, we made some contacts, handed out a few cards and got acquainted with what we needed to do. Since the fine folks at Penny Arcade allowed us to cover their show, we’ve been lucky enough to cover other events like San Diego Comic-Con, Star Wars Celebration, Prime, Megacon, and more.

This year’s PAX: East was a bit of an “off” year, simply due to the fact that many major developers and publishers were off working on next-gen content and had nothing new to show. Microsoft, for example, simply brought Halo 4 and Gears of War: Judgment to the party, both of which are already on store shelves. Absent this year were the monolithic Borderlands 2 statues and THQ branded giant robots that towered over the show floor. Both Twitch TV and League of Legends had the largest booths, and caused some major traffic issues in and around their respective areas. It always amazes me to see thousands of League players staring up at the screen in awe of someone’s “Jungling” skill, whatever that may be. While the big AAA guns were off recharging, indie studios stole the spotlight with incredible titles like Don’t Starve, Combo Crew, and Girls Like Robots. The Indie MegaBooth was bigger and better than ever before with over 60 titles on display, some of which (like Golden Arrow), were developed by a single hard working maniac (said with love).

PAX East 2013 was an incredible experience filled with everything we’ve grown to love from conventions. Thanks so much for hanging out with us! It always brings us unparalleled joy to see familiar faces while wandering in a sea of 60,000 people from all over the world. We’ll see you at the next show!

How does a table of game developers end up with stickers and post-it notes all over their faces? By creating a paper version of Costume Quest, obviously.

Welcome to my GDC Diary Day 2! Once again, hastily typed up on a mobile device and totally destroyed by autocorrect.

Yesterday I attended the second full day session of the Game Design Workshop. My brain is currently overfull in a wonderful way. While many of my fellow attendees are nursing their very real hangovers, I’m holding down an intellectual one.

While many of my fellow attendees are nursing their very real hangovers I’m holding down an intellectual one.

The first part of my day was spent working towards making a paper version of one of my favorite games with a drive towards maximum silliness. Did we succeed? Well, I’ll let the grown man yelling “trick or treat” while dancing and putting stickers all over his face answer that for me (actually, he wouldn’t let me take a photo, understandably, but just trust me). The afternoon brought more design exercises in the form of Stone Lebrande‘s session, Supply Chain. The chaotic exercise was wildly fun, but also drove home some important messages about collaboration between varying teams within a design organization or project.

My brain is overfull right now, and I’m sprinting off to my first full day of talks. Thanks for reading folks, now enjoy some photos of us on a trolley – check out @juliusblaise (my colleague Adam) for photos and vine vids of our beyond work adventures.

Upon arriving at PAX East on Friday morning I quickly followed the herd of anxious
enthusiasts to one of the longest lines I would wait in all weekend. After a few probing
questions, I discovered that I was in line to hear the keynote speaker of the convention,
and the more-exciting news, that speaker was Cliff Bleszinski.

Known lovingly by the gaming world as “Cliffy B”, Bleszinski is known to most as the
former design director for Epic Games and for his massive body of work including the
Gears of War Trilogy.

Needless to say, upon seeing Cliffy B walk on stage, I was eager to hear what epic speech
he would inevitably deliver to introduce one of the year’s most-anticipated gaming
occasions.

Right away I knew that this keynote would not have the same tone as other speeches;
Bleszinski came right on stage with a casual command of the stage that immediately
made me feel a sense of camaraderie. I’ve come to learn that the nonchalance of Cliffy
B is interpreted by many as arrogance; however, I felt that in this case he was breaking
down the walls of formality to build a connection with a crowd of people he could truly
empathize with. It turned out that this empathy would really be the theme of his keynote.
For the rest of his speech I would get an honest and in-depth look at the journey Cliff
Bleszinski took before becoming the Cliffy B we all know today.

From his first encounter with the Nintendo Entertainment System, to his love affair with
all things ninja (including the beloved Ninja Gaiden), Bleszinski gave a detailed narrative
including some very humorous moments (like his loathing for the unbeatable NES game
Athena) and also some very heartfelt memories.

What most moved me about his story was his honest retelling of his most-troubling
teenage moments. It is clear that some of Bleszinski’s important speaking points were
his personal encounters with bullying. He recounted tales of his awful experiences while
encouraging the audience to take heed of this continuing problem within today’s youth.

Another point that Bleszinski referenced was the flak the gaming industry gets by being
referenced as a supposed-catalyst for violence in schools and amongst today’s youth.
Very astutely, he noted that if those accusations were valid, a gathering of gamers, such
as PAX, would be one of the most violent and dangerous places to be, and, as we all
know, quite the opposite is true. This comment was met with applause and cheers from
an audience that, quite clearly, agrees with Cliffy B.

Overall, I was very impressed with how frank and cavalier Cliff Bleszinski really turned
out to be. Keynote speeches at large events are notorious for being dry and overstated,
but these few moments into the personal journey of a gaming legend really set the tone
for what was to be a very exciting and positive experience at PAX East 2013.

Anyone that’s ever hosted a dinner, planned a party, or tried to make a seating chart for a wedding knows that you can’t just dive in all willy-nilly and expect everyone to be happy. No, it’s a hidden talent that takes skill and dedication to know that some folks are happier when sat with certain people, upset when placed next to others. Some guests will just flat out move when sat next to particular people. Now, you can finally hone this talent in the adventure-seating arrangement puzzler, Girls Like Robots, from Popcannibal games.

I’m a sucker for Robots (and Girls too, I suppose) which probably factored into my visit to the Popcannibal booth on the PAX East 2013 expo floor. I played probably two levels of the on-site demo before handing the tablet back and thinking, “yeah, that’s all I need to see, I’m buying this right NOW.” This quirkly puzzler saved my sanity when a flight delay kept me from my warm bed back home a bit longer than I had hoped.

You can’t make everyone happy, or can you? 

With just a few simple rules, Girls Like Robots will test your spatial reasoning and planning skill: Girls like Robots, Nerds like Girls, Girls don’t like Nerds (that one hurts, guys), June likes Bugs (oh, I get it), Bugs don’t like Girls, and so on. Given a grid of squares, and matching number of persons to sit, your job is to arrange the characters in such a way that maximizes happiness.

The levels keep things fresh by introducing different challenges, for instance, sometimes you are given all of the tiles to place straight away, while other levels make you seat people next to one another as they “arrive” in the queue.

Adventure, romance, bags of happiness!

I apologize to the inner perfectionist in you now, for each of the 100+ levels in the game is awarded a Bronze, Silver, or Gold rank. To ease your suffering, the Girls Like Robots takes a light-hearted approach with a clever art-style, and old-timey string music from the Peacemeal String Band. Rules and gameplay elements are slowly introduced via the game’s narrative, which takes players from cities to schools to volcanoes (!!) and beyond.

The humor is sharp, poking fun at social culture, while also being self-aware (like Robots!). It’s a game that can easily be played in short sessions, but you’ll quickly find your self hooked into chasing those gold awards. The awards you attain go into a “Bag of Happy” which you can then redeem to unlock bonus levels and challenges.

Girls Like Robots is whip-smart with a clever presentation and rich gameplay. Boot up those logic circuits and place yourself near Girls Like Robots for maximum happiness.

Find Girls Like Robots on Steam Greenlight, Desura, iOS (universal app), and Android (soon). Happy Gaming.

On this special edition podcast we present the audio from the PAX East Panel: Foreplay, Romance in Games with our very own, Hilary. This awesome panel was moderated by Sean Baptiste from Fire Hose Games, featuring Aenne and Melissa from Reset Transmission and our pals, Miellyn and Lacy Wilson from Tin Man Games. Oh, and Raphael Sbarge was kind enough to make a surprise appearance on the panel, enjoy!

Whatever happened to foreplay? People tend to talk (and program) a lot about sex in games and forget all about the delicious build up. But with growing female and non-traditional male consumer bases, game developers are starting to reach beyond the adolescent male fantasy. You can get hitched in Skyrim, have a steamy bath with your lady in Witcher 2, and woo a whole lot of different people in Mass Effect… and that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

Rated NA 98

What’s this… A review of Tomb Raider?! Didn’t you just get back from PAX East? Yes, and you’d be right. Somewhere in the middle of all this craziness, travel, and avoiding the dreaded PAX Pox, I managed to complete Tomb Raider… what I didn’t manage to finish, however, until now, is this review.

Long story short, this game offers an excellent adventure experience, complete with an engaging narrative, great audio design, and interesting locations. I think it’s important, also, to clear up a few potential misconceptions about the game. You may or may not remember the community reaction to some trailers that came out a while ago where it appeared Lara was put in some less than favorable conditions. This sparked reactions that called into question the treatment of Lara as a character, and the way some pretty intense topics were dealt with. Thankfully, it would seem little to none of that made it into the final release.

Lara is a character who starts out weak, not because she is a female, rather because she is unsure of herself, still looks to her mentors for guidance, and often places herself squarely within her father’s shadow. The game opens with her exploration vessel wrecking on a remote Japanese island, a destination, which we learn is one she fought to journey toward. So yeah, the Lara we start with isn’t high on confidence, and probably feels a little guilty too. It is certainty not the Lara we end up with. And the transformation of the character is where the game shines, but to talk about it here would be something of a spoiler and should be experienced first-hand.

Tomb Raider seems to borrow a little inspiration from Lost, for the island had many inhabitants over many centuries, and is currently inhabited by a crazed pack of unsavory characters led by a madman. There are even odd weather events and supernatural beings. Because of this however, Tomb Raider takes us to meticulously detailed landscapes including jungles, shanty towns, bunkers, caves, and yes… tombs! It was refreshing that each map in the game had a different feel to it. The Tombs themsleves are actually small puzzles (think PoP or AC2) that offer big gains in XP, they’re fun and not frustrating to the point where puzzle-adverse players would be turned off. There is also a day / night cycle that changes as the story progresses, which is also interesting to contend with considering you can fast-travel to places you’ve already been to find things you’ve may have missed prior.

Gameplay is what you might expect for adventure game (PoP, Uncharted, etc.) with some significant, satisfying twists. You run and jump, climb rock faces, glide down ropes, and search for loot. However, your weapons, gear, and abilities increase as you gain experience, and scavenge for materials. What makes this gameplay great is the stealth mechanic and close quarters combat. The game automatically puts you in and out of stealth mode when appropriate, freeing the player up to focus on making those beautifully animated stealth kills. The game draws you further into the gameplay by having a very minimal HUD, often just a small map in the corner. The overall effect is fluid gameplay and a polished UI.

Lara herself, also becomes a skilled adventurer through the XP system, and you choose how to best approach that situation. Fancy yourself a hunter? explorer? or a skill combatant? There are a lot of options for deciding how you want to play. Personally, I find the standard gear to be the most satisfying. There are times in which two enemies are having a conversation, kill one and the other will be alerted to your presence. Better yet, fire an arrow into the rock nearby, and pick off both silently, when they separate to investigate. Sure, you could run in guns-a-blazing, but in the words of a famous duelist it is “so uncivilized.”

Gripes, I have just few. Specifically, each map has a number of items to collect and challenges to complete. Once you gain enough XP the collection portion becomes more of a chore than anything. You could avoid the challenges, but you probably couldn’t max your abilities.  That being said, all of the items you collect are fully voiced, so instead of just reading a document or inspecting a trinket, Lara reads or talks about it, it’s a nice touch. Secondly, the achievement system is completely transparent, so if that’s your thing, make sure you look at the list before you start, because at least half of them are totally miss-able. Finally, hunting animals to upgrade weapons… its just not my thing.

Finally, the multiplayer. It’s perfectly fine, but I just cannot get into it. I saw two kinds of people playing: those who are working toward that level 60 achievement, and those that jump in just to check things out. Because upgrades are unlocked through experience, the gameplay favors the experienced. I played a few team matches in which savvy players, who already knew the maps, base camped with the secret weapons hidden on each level and picked the opposing team off. In deathmatch, there’s very little incentive to move from a defensive position, which creates lopsided score results. Yes, there are other game modes, but I couldn’t find enough players to join in. Deathmatch reigns here, and with so many other games with better multiplayer, I can’t see sticking around here long unless you’ve got your own group of like minded players for private matches.

Gripes aside. After playing a few 40+ hour games before this, it is refreshing to get back into an adventure experience that plays like an action movie. Heck, just to give you an idea of what I was playing before-hand, I forgot you could jump  in these games for the first 20 minutes or so. It’s a fun world to play in. This is a game not to be missed by fans of adventure or a good origin story. If you haven’t already, muster up your courage and explore Tomb Raider. 

Apologies everyone, I’m awkwardly typing this on a mobile device in between playing rounds of Cards Against Humanity with some of my work bros. Yeah, that’s right, I know how to party.

So It’s GDC week and for the first time ever, I’m out here – and it’s amazing! Seriously, I’m as excited as a little kid going to summer camp! (well, a confident little kid, not the kind who dreads leaving their parents and is overcome with a paralyzing fear at the sight of strangers).

I’ve been working in the games industry for the last four years – and I’ve been a designer for a little over half that time. Like many of my mentors and closest colleagues, most of my knowledge is self taught or informal. I’ve transferred skills from other professions, read books, absorbed skills by word of mouth, but I’ve never formally sat in a classroom learning my craft. (PS a big shout out and thank you to all of the people who’ve tolerated me barging into their office with “I have a question” over the years).

A few of us from Harmonix went out early to attend workshops and boot camps in our various disciplines. After a delayed flight and a few hours of sleep , I met up with a three of my design colleagues, had an awesome breakfast on a rooftop garden, chugged some coffee, and power walked over to the conference center.

The two day design workshop at GDC has a faculty roster of industry powerhouses – people whose talks and papers I’ve been voraciously consuming, and whose games I’ve been playing. You can view the full roster on the GDC site (sorry everyone I am having the worst time typing).

That’s Chris Foster, Sr Designer

We spent the first part of the day examining SiSSYFiGHT3000, (a card game exercise where you play as nasty little girls trying to tear down each others self esteem). When the game was first brought out I had two reactions: 1, why does it have to be a game about little girls being total dickheads to each other? 2, if I am going to play a game as a horrible playground child, why am I playing as the color blue and not as Cathy or Missy or Peggy?

As the exercise progressed these questions were addressed. Part of the setup of SF3000 is that it has a wobbly narrative – why DO you have to play as little girls? Does this narrative make sense? Our first major exercise was working in groups to reskin the game with a new narrative. After lunch our groups rapidly iterated on retooling the game’s mechanics to improve it.

In the end, Radioactive Rat Kings, the card game our table came up with, bore little resemblance to SF3000. We played as anthropomorphic rats living in a dystopian society, fighting for control of resources and vying to be the ruler of it all – the Rat King! We changed some of the core mechanics, added new ones, and added an extra layer of player vs player interaction.

I also got to play the game the table next to ours worked on, Barnyard Death Cult. As part of my introduction to the game I learned that not only do people in Australia consume kangaroo meat but that it is also apparently delicious. The more you know ….

After a lunch break (during which I consumed more falafal than a person my size reasonably should) it was time for electives.

I chose to attend a session on tactics for getting players to care about your characters or agents in game. The exercises we did were incredibly useful for developing a skill set that went beyond relying on  narrative to accomplish this. By focusing on the desired emotional outcome our groups worked through the challenges of developing mechanics that could achieve this.

My group did an ok job but I was really impressed by the table next to ours. When it came time to “playtest” each other’s games they had, in about an hours worth of time, built a really rich story out of the mechanics they’d added to their game.

After a lot of handshakes, high fives, and hellos, I wrapped up day 1 the best way I know how – by eating tacos with my workmates as we compared notes about the day. And now of course I’m hastily writing this piece as we wrap up a CAH round.

It’s only been one day and my brain is already buzzing with new techniques and ideas I want to try once I’m home… And a pitch for Radioactive Rat Kings the comic book (I’m only half joking).

More tomorrow – maybe ill even find time to properly draft and type up a post. Phone typing FTW!

-Alli

For More follow her on twitter: @allithrasher

It should be noted that Saints Row 4 has an interesting tale of development. From what we’ve heard, Saints Row 4 started out as DLC for Saints Row 3 but was a bit too massive in both in concept and size to be constrained by current DLC limitations. On top of that, Volition’s publisher THQ was on the decline and was forced to sell off its IPs to the highest bidders. Koch Media (owner of Deep Silver) wound up purchasing the Saints Row franchise franchise for an impressive 22.3 million dollars, proving once and for all the value of a good dick joke.

We were ushered into a small room at the Westin during PAX: East to watch a short presentation on Saints Row IV that highlighted some of the game’s new features and impressive new super abilities. Unlike other publishers that simply press play and walk away, we were also joined by Volition’s Jim Boon (senior producer) and Scott Phillips (design director) who stuck around after the presentation to answer any and all questions thrown their way.  Interaction was encouraged, and we appreciate that.

From the footage we were shown, Saints Row 4 appears to be just as idiotic (I say that with love) and fun as its predecessor, but with some incredible new additions. The leader of the Saints, now the President of the United States (naturally), will be abducted by aliens within the first few hours of the game. While alien abduction is normally a bad thing, it appears to have given Volition even more narrative freedom (is that possible?) by introducing alternate realities into the franchise. Steel Port proper will still be navigable, but from what we were told much of the game would take place in different, often darker, versions of the city. Much of the campaign will also revolve around the player freeing his/her homies from the clutches of their own virtual nightmares. Think of it like Saints Row meets the Matrix.

Throughout the campaign different super powers such as flight, telekinesis, freeze beams and more can be acquired and modified turning the leader of the Saints into an even bigger bad ass than ever before. While super powers were all the buzz, there will be a number of impressive new weapons introduced into the franchise including the wub-tastic “Dub Step Gun”, which forces groups of enemies to dance until  they…drop. Weapons can now be visually modified to suit your character’s particular style, so if the player wants their rocket launcher to look like an unassuming guitar case, it can be done. Oh yeah, there will also be a giant mech suit complete with hover jets, rocket launchers, and Gatling guns for players to enjoy. We love mechs. .

When we asked about the returning voice cast, Jim Boone stated that most of the cast would in fact be returning, but with a few exceptions just to mix things up. No details on the soundtrack were ready to be revealed, but Volition seems to understand the power of a properly utilized licensed song.

While we didn’t see a whole lot of footage, what we did see made me feel confident that Saints Row 4 would be one hell of a giggle fueled joy ride. Can’t wait.

There are a number of images within the book that look so incredibly realistic that some visitors at my house mistook them for photographs. When we finally took the time to read the fine print, we realized that the creepy pictures were in fact renders done by artist Brandon Russell and not actual people.

Tomb Raider: The Art of Survival is all the evidence one would ever need to win the “video games are art” argument. Almost all of the images within its pages are frame worthy. If you’re a fan of Lara’s latest adventure, or simply a fan of great art, Tomb Raider: The Art of Survival is totally worth raiding for.

AC:IV will be an open world experience that revolves entirely around exploration and adventure. Players that have always wanted to sail around in search of booty marked with an “X” may finally have a title coming their way that fulfills that niche dream. From the pre-alpha footage we were shown, the game is already looking incredible, with beautiful vistas and wide open waters. Kenway’s ship, the Jackdaw, will serve as an important character in the title, and will be upgradeable throughout the campaign.Unlike AC III’s ship combat, where boarding an enemy vessel was a scripted event, ALL enemy ships can now be boarded.  Time to buckle some swashes!

This Sunday we’ll be chatting with Ubisoft about AC: IV and will have some more info coming your way.

Matt said this is heavily copyrighted!

Round three, FIGHT! PAX: East 2013 has arrived and we will be reporting on all madness that Boston has to offer. With a light layer of snow on the ground, PAX is already looking a lot different this time around. This year, the entire NA team (Scott, Hilary, Matt and myself) will be in Boston covering the event, and we’ll do our very best to show you all the great stuff that some of the bigger outlets forget to mention. We’ve said it before, but the Penny Arcade Expo is one of our absolute favorite cons and we can’t wait to share our adventures with you.

In 2013, we’ll be bringing you MORE inside information than ever before, with honest looks at upcoming games, chats with developers and talent, and some of the best cosplay you’ve probably ever seen. We’re booked solid for all three days and will have some great stuff to share with you all.  

If you happen to be in Boston for PAX send us a tweet and let us know  (@NerdAppropriate).  We’ll meet you on the convention floor and do five hour energy shots with you or something.

Bioware Base: Drop by the Bioware Base in room 206 AB and say hello to our very own Hilary who will be there all weekend making sure nobody gets too crazy with their omni-tools. Who the heck is Hilary?  She’s blond and tall.  Did we mention that we’ll also be creating podcasts of all of the Bioware panels this year?  Well we are! Keep your eyes on the site for some more info about how to listen.

Foreplay: Romance in Games: Finally, join Hilary and friends this Sunday at the Corgi Theatre at 10:30am for a panel all about the sexy time.  >>>

Whatever happened to foreplay? People tend to talk (and program) a lot about sex in games and forget all about the delicious build up. But with growing female and non-traditional male consumer bases, game developers are starting to reach beyond the adolescent male fantasy. You can get hitched in Skyrim, have a steamy bath with your lady in Witcher 2, and woo a whole lot of different people in Mass Effect… and that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

Moderated by Fire Hose Games and When I Grow Up’s Sean Baptiste, writers Miellyn Fitzwater Barrows and Lacy Wilson from Tin Man Games’ romance gamebook series Strange Loves join the hosts of the Press2Reset Transmission Podcast Melissa Kay and Aenne Schumann and BioWare Event Consultant and Rated NA Podcast host Hilary Shapiro to draw back the covers on the sensual side of games and game culture.

• CORGI THEATRE
• SUNDAY 3/24 10:30AM – 11:30AM

Gears of War: Judgment

You can follow the adventure of Ali Hillis HERE on Twitter.

Actress Julia Voth (Resident Evil, Bitch Slap) stops by to talk about her new web series, Project S.E.R.A. We also chat about Saskatchewan, the Canadian sitcom Package Deal, and the joy of picture frame wall arrangement  Julia is genuine, down to earth, and fun to chat with, so we hope you enjoy the interview. Of course, we also provide a healthy dose of our regular hi-jinks with Veronica Mars and DC Universe movie news. Pistol-Clothesline!

Rated NA 97

Project SERA 

Package Deal

Lisa knows there’s nothing funny ’bout the word ‘Tromboner’

If you have any interest in independent development, OR need some creative inspiration, the Indie MEGABOOTH should be the perfect place to meet and mingle with some of the diabolical minds behind this year’s selections. All 42+ booths will have playable versions of their games, and will have representatives from their respective studios on hand to answer your questions. We cannot wait to get our freshly sanitized hands all over this year’s games.

If you’d like to see what games are appearing in this year’s Indie MEGABOOTH, head on over to IndieMEGABOOTH.com and take a quick look at the great trailer created by the fine folks over at GorgeousRobot.com

Clayton Donnan from Code Cyclone joins us to talk about their new game, Killing Social. We continue our countdown to PAX East with with a pit stop at a Gears of War Judgement preview event. Plus, reviews of SimCity, Tomb Raider, Oz The Great and Powerful and a spoiler-free omni-scan of Mass Effect 3 Citadel DLC. Finally, we discuss our SimCity-inspired fictional metropolis names with you in our NAQOTW. Katana Strike!

Killing Social

Rated NA 96

Click HERE – To see Mr. Feloni explain

Luscasfilm appears to be headed in a bold new direction and will be bombarding fans with brand new content unlike anything we’ve seen before. The house that Lucas built has even  gone on record exclaiming their excitement over “exploring a whole new Star Wars series set in a time period previously untouched in Star Wars films or TV programming.”  While it has been incredible seeing what happened before the original trilogy(Clone Wars/ KOTR), won’t it be incredible to see what happens next?  And if you missed our chat with Clone Wars actress Ashley Eckstein, click here!

Here are some of great things critics have been saying about the film.

“A project this simple would be nowhere without the actors, and Whedon gets fine work out of just about everybody.” – Linda Holmes – NPR

“It’s rather joyous to see a name director pursue a true passion project, and realise it with such simplicity, elegance and emotional directness.” Hannah McGill – The List

“So many comedies are unable to have more than a handful of memorable moments, but Much Ado About Nothing has dozens.” Andrew Robinson – Film School Rejects

Much is written about this nefarious clan and their plots to outwit and outmaneuver one another; brother set against brother, marriages and trysts with powerful allies, rumors of incest, and lovers found dead after arguments between siblings. We get a voyeuristic view into their world of lust and revenge right from the start. In the first season, when Rodrigo becomes Pope Alexander VI, the Church and other European powers attempt to ruin him, but with a family like his, who needs enemies?

This show is one of my absolute favorites, from set design to storytelling. The actors are brilliant, especially François Arnaud as the always ambitious Cesare Borgia (hawt!) and Holliday Grainger as the willful Lucrezia Borgia. Writers, beware! This series will leave you more inspired than ever with nail-biting plot tension and dynamic character arcs. Intrigue and murders and sex – oh my!

I should note that this is probably not the best show for kids. Mature scenes and violence abound in this beautifully produced series. Season 3 starts on April 14^th, so go check it out!

It’s risky to attempt a prequel of a beloved story successfully without disappointing generations of cult followers. I have to admit, however, I’m usually a fan of these- being able to separate an otherwise interesting concept from an original masterpiece (Prometheus, Star Wars I-III, X-Men:First Class, The Hobbit, and Star Trek:Enterprise). Okay, maybe masterpiece is a stretch on some of these, but you get my drift.

Even more difficult to do is attempting a movie from a beloved book, or series of books, without disappointing generations of cult followers. I again admit, however, I’m usually a fan – after tearing the writing apart and pointing out all the differences (Harry Potter, Alice in Wonderland, Jurassic Park, The Twilight Saga, Lord of the Rings, The Golden Compass,  The Hunger Games, Chronicles of Narnia, Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and many many more).

Oz: The Great and Powerful was not great, it was just good. Nor was it powerful, it was punchy.

Many critics have said that Oz lacks the magic of the original Wizard of Oz. I would have to agree. I went in to the theater with a child-like wonderment ready to be wowed and astounded by the “wonderful world of Oz” and yet, I feel it fell flat and un-wondrous. The black and white scenes in the beginning were a nice homage to the original, but it felt weird and over technologically advanced. It was too crisp to feel “old”. Does that makes sense? The tornado scene was awesome – I will admit. I absolutely LOVED it. Likewise, I loved his balloon ride entrance into Oz – the color transformation was beautiful – however, the world itself did not feel as magical as a giant studio lot filled with candy colored plants and plastic flowers.

“You were not the Wizard we were expecting,” is a major repeated line of the movie, and the same could be said of James Franco. Now, my sister would have my head for saying that, being an outspoken Franco fan, but he’s not the wizard I had in mind. Why does it always look like he’s smiling? Trying to shake off the China Girl from his leg looked like he was enjoying it, not annoyed by it. However, he was a good “younger” Great and Powerful Oz. The smoke bellowing scenes at the end foretelling the mysterious wizard’s way of communication were spot on and justly grandiose. Michelle Williams was a really, really good Glinda, and  you actually see her character transform and blossom into the likeness of the character we all know and love played by Billie Burke. As for the wicked witch sisters of the East and West played by Rachel Weisz and Mila Kunis respectfully, I think their performances were great and evil and will become known as some of the greatest Disney villains of all time. Yes, Disney villains. I especially enjoyed the homage to Disney’s Evil Queen from Snow White and her poisonous apple. That is a classic theme that I just adore! Taking candy (or apples) from strangers is always bad.

Before I continue, let me repeat – I am a HUGE fan of fantasy stories, especially ones that have been around for generations. I even love all the different variations (Grimm, Once) that people come up with and sequels and prequels and side stories and stories written from different points-of-view (Wicked). I’m an EVEN BIGGER fan of L. Frank Baum and ALL THINGS Wonderful Wizard of Oz (Return to Oz, starring  Fairuza Balk, and the TV mini-series “Tin Man” starring Zooey Deschanel, and the upcoming 2013 animated feature Dorothy of Oz by Summertime Entertainment with an incredible cast!). I have even been named Aunt Em to my niece!  Cinematically, Oz:The Great and Powerful  is beautiful. The nods to the original movie and to the books were clever, but it is just lacking magic. That sweet sweet Disney magic, that we soak up.

The Special Effects were mostly incredible – Finley was by far the best CG “monkey” I have ever seen and China Girl was so believably real I forgot that not only was she made of china but that she was a computer generated character. Then there’s other effects… that… um… well… that are simply not good. When Oscar’s balloon initially lands in Oz, he lands in a river. The water looks bad. It looks so bad – so bad that they should have CG’d ALL the water from there on out in the scene, or just used REAL water from the beginning. Choose with conviction and then execute. This is just but one example of where CG fell flat. Theodora’s evil transformation is borderline cartoon like (does that make it less scary for the kiddies? no). Then there’s Sam Raimi‘s use of the 3D camera.

Let me start by saying that I do not enjoy 3D films. I get motion sick and they give me headaches. I did not see Oz: The Great and Powerful in 3D because of this.  The scenes were not just filmed IN 3D but FOR 3D and it is apparent. This is where “punchy” parlour tricks for kids come into play. Which all makes me wonder, should I have seen it in 3D? Theodora and Oz run through the land escaping some horrible flying beast. The trail twists and winds and the camera pushes in and out too obviously reaching for 3D tricks. There are many times throughout the movie where this happens, and frankly I don’t think it is necessary. Why not just shoot a GORGEOUS movie in 3D (Hugo, Avatar) without the jokey 3D jokes that we can get from “riding the movies” in the theme parks? Dislike, and contrary to what was said at Comic-Con in San Diego last year, I think it was done purposeful.

When asked last year at SDCC2012 Oz Press Conference,“…you have a great way of being able to stay true to the source material while still keeping the Sam Raimi touch, whether it’s your camera work or the sense of humor you inject in it.  How were you able to throw those elements into Oz while keeping it the Oz we know from the books or movies?.” Sam Raimi replies, ”Well, as opposed to just doing a lot of camera gymnastics for thrill and chill’s sake, we’re really trying to describe the fantastic world of Oz.  When the camera is moving, those more dramatic types of movements are to show the depth of a canyon in Oz, or the height of a waterfall, or what it’s like to soar with Glinda in her bubbles, above the beautiful environments that were created by our production designer, Robert Stromberg.  So, the camera’s movement is used to describe the beauty and the fantastic qualities of this impossible place.  And there is a sense of humor, but I think it comes from the whimsical nature of [L. Frank] Baum’s great worlds and characters…”

Really, Sam? Or were you just really excited to do some “camera gymnastics for thrill and chill’s sake”?

All in all, I enjoyed it. I wasn’t on the edge of my seat. I wasn’t emotionally moved as I am with the majority of Disney movies. This adaptation was alright. I will most likely see it over and over again much like I do with other Walt Disney classics but probably not as often as I’ve seen the original masterpiece that is The Wizard of Oz.

“Oh – You’re a very bad man!”

“Oh, no my dear. I’m a very good man. I’m just a very bad Wizard.”

― L. Frank Baum, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

While the rest of you are saying goodbye to Shepard and friends in the final Citadel DLC, I am saying Hello again to the Spacer-Sole Survivor-Female-Vanguard I’ve grown to love over the years.

You see, I’ve been embarking on a optional Assignment, on and off again for a couple of years now. If you listen to Rated NA, you’ll know that I’m an unapologetic achievement hunter. So I’m setting out to 100% (Xbox) the Mass Effect Trilogy, starting at the beginning. Before Mass 3 came out (now over a year ago), I plowed through multiple play-throughs to unlock higher difficultly levels and obtain those elusive squad-member achievements. When crossed with different class choices and powers to unlock the ability-based achievements, its safe to say I’ve really explored the space with my N7 cowbell (combo pun + reference achievement unlocked).

This week I carved out a little time to catch the final 3 achievements I needed for Mass 1: Extreme Power Gamer (Level 60), Medal of Valor (Insanity), and Krogan Ally (Play the majority of the game with Wrex). I’m sure that last one is hard to believe for the Wrex fans out there, but I’m traditionally a Tali / Garrus, Liara / Garrus player myself, but that’s neither here nor there. Interestingly enough, this happened to be one of my best and favorite runs of Mass 1. So let’s take a look at how things shape up, over 7 years later.

The Build

My FemShep was spec’d for almost entirely total defense. I maxed out all passive skills plus Barrier and Adrenaline Burst. Due to achievements obtained in other playthroughs I also had too many points into Charm and Intimidate as well. On the offensive end I focused on Pistols, Marksman, and Warp. To my detriment, I completely ignored Lift, but more on that later. My basic strategy was to function as a support character, sending my squad ahead of me like body guards. After all, the game only ends when you fall. I would use Barrier and Shield Boost for personal defense, Throw for crowd control, then Unity + Adrenaline Burst + Unity to make sure my team was always on their feet. I had Barrier quick mapped for the entire run.

The Run

And for the most part, this strategy generally works. When I started the insanity run, my 3rd tour Shep was already at level 59, which meant that all of my gear was IX or X and all of my squad abilities were also nearly maxed out. Because of this I would say that the playthrough on Hard (leveled from ~35 to 59) was actually more difficult than the Insane one. But even at this veteran run, I learned a few new tricks that I’d never really explored before.

What I remembered from the Hard run was that the Krogan were my most formidable opponents, and really the only ones that ever gave me trouble (aside from Geth Armature, which I generally avoided). The Krogan have some insane shielding and health regeneration, even at a sliver of health, they can’t be counted out (double tap those dudes). Playing mostly with Wrex / Garrus my basic strategy was to strip shields and Warp the shit out of them, but it wasn’t good enough. It still left me vulnerable to the overly aggressive Krogan who could charge in and flatten you in a few melee strikes and shotgun blasts.

And by the by, it doesn’t hurt to be handy with the Mako. I’m in the minority apparently, because I always loved the Mako and could drive it well; which is probably why I now crusade for a ME Kart Racing game, but I digress…

Lessons Learned

I’d heard stories about how Lift could be used on Saren, which would greatly assist you in the Insane play, but I never really entertained the idea anywhere else in the game. I’d seen how quickly even Garrus would go down during Insane combat, and assumed that Liara would be even more of a liability. Boy was I wrong… it was a mistake of me to doubt my Asari girlfriend. I brought her along to Ilos, because I started to worry that having Wrex and Garrus for the entire game might screw up the Wrex achievement.

At level 60, Liara was no joke, she could Lift and draw anything into Singularity. The game was back on… by that point I’d already realized that Sledgehammer Rounds were the only way to go, and with that we’d toss the now puny Krogan and Geth Prime into the atmosphere, and blast them like skeet into the ether with a well placed Carnage shot from Wrex. The entire experience was extremely gratifying. And yes… when you go to fight Saren, get your Lift on.

Only the Beginning

In my assessment, the game holds up surprisingly well, though certainty showing its age now. I enjoyed seeing the beginnings of stories that would span the entire franchise, from talking down Wrex to sacrificing Kaiden (sorry Mr. Sbarge), even minor characters that I will look forward to meeting later. I am always impressed to go back to Mass 1, where you first see rumblings of Cerberus, coming face-to-face with a reaper, or when you first meet Salarian fighters and know that Mass 2 will have the greatest Scientist Salarian of all (my bro till the end). I can only imagine this is how I’d feel if I ever went back and watched the first seasons of Lost or Fringe. Playing Mass 1 for the origin story alone is worth your time.

You say Goodbye, and I say Hello

And with that I finally put Mass 1 to rest, as I take a final, full tour of duty with my Shepard. Thanks to BioWare creating such a fun game that I only originally bought because I figured “oh… so they made KOTOR again, but in Space… sign me up.”  Who knew, right?!

I must admit I’ve only played through Mass 2 one time, but the fundamental change between 1 and 2 is much larger than 2 and 3, so I’m excited to get into it again. I only really need the Insanity achievement so my options are much more open for gameplay as well. If you’ve got any tips or suggestions as to the build of my character (most likely my Vanguard again) or the strategies for companions or weapons, let me know!

And with that, I should go.

The goal of WIDGET is to post a few blogs a week from a variety of females who are fans of creativity and community.  With such an impressive launch lineup, we’re expecting some great things in the future.  Check out these links from their press release below.

If you’re interested in contributing a blog post or know anyone that would be we are super interested to hear from you! Please contact Leena@widgetau.org for more information, or if you’d like to support WIDGET in another way, check out our support page at http://widgetau.org/support-widget/. More information about WIDGET can be found on the about page: http://widgetau.org/about-widget/

Click WIDGET to check it out!

To get into the main plot would be spoiling all the enjoyment a person can have unraveling the mystery on one’s own.   Pro tip… If you’re a fan of Mass Effect’s party banter, turn on the subtitles so that you don’t miss any of the highly entertaining pieces of dialogue that happen while folks are  running, gunning, and ducking for cover. Jennifer Hale, and I presume Mark Meer, seem to really enjoy the material they were given. Tonally, the Citadel DLC is much more lighthearted and whimsical  thanks to the writers, who let Shepard and the crew loosen up and poke fun at the legend created over the course of three games.

Bioware’s “evil genius” level designers have created a sufficient challenge for Shepard in the CAT6 mercenary squad, who are unlike anything players have faced so far in the trilogy. I hate disruptor drones and grenades!  In order to survive these new enemy types players will have to adapt and throw out some of the tactics they learned from past adventures. The levels themselves are innovative, look gorgeous, and force players to approach each battle tactically.  Locations such as the sushi restaurant, the Citadel archives, and Shepard’s apartment are visually stunning and unique.  Players that enjoy lore will want to explore the residence and the archives. It’s a treat!

For as much time spent shooting, there was even more to do in exploring the post-mission content. There are individual “dates” to be had with just about everyone who have served on the Normandy. And when I say everyone, I do mean everyone. Most of the crew from ME2 are back, or receive a nod, and they are ready to celebrate too!  If a player is so inclined, they can redecorate Shepard’s apartment and have one last bash for the crew of the Normandy .

If the player hosts the party, and that is highly advisable, make sure to check out each and every group conversation. There are two different paths, indicated via dialogue, to take for the event, but it’s all a loving nod to the camaraderie Shepard has built with their crew and a way for players to say a final goodbye to the characters they love.

For those looking for a bit more action post-mission? Check out the Armax Arsenal Combat Arena. It’s reminiscent of the multiplayer experience and a heck of a lot of fun.

The Citadel DLC was made for the fans; the ones who laughed, cried, and cheered for Shepard no matter what. If there are any doubts left in people’s minds about whether or not Bioware loves their player base, the Citadel DLC should quickly erase them. Hats off to the writers, voice actors, editors, community managers, level designers, everyone at Bioware, who made this possible. Mass Effect has been one hell of a ride thanks to their efforts. If anyone is on the fence about the content, Fear not! The Citadel DLC is a worthy familial farewell to the characters we all love.

Natalie currently resides in the San Francisco Bay Area where she tries to balance full-time work and various nerdy hobbies. While being a huge Bioware fangirl, she also enjoys other video games (i.e. Arkam City, the Fable series) as well as comic books set in the DC universe

When I was but a wee lad, I spent countless hours munching on onion-inspired snacks playing some frantic multiplayer games like Bomberman (I had the Super Multitap) and Blast Chamber (my bud had the PS Multitap). It’s carefully calculated mayhem – now, CandyGun Games and Kalypso take you back to that frantic fun in Dollar Dash.

Dollar Dash revolves around the comical antics of cartoon thieves who use wacky powerups and the enviornment to get the best of their opponents. In the core Dollar Dash game mode, the theives compete to collect money that drops around the game environment. The more more you collect, the slower you go, but you’ve go weapons, traps, and power-ups at your disposal to keep the others at bay. Your goal is to deposit the loot in the getaway vehicle, and collect the most loot to win the match. (Big money, big prizes, I love it!)

As you collect more loot and win more matches, players unlock customization options, some purely cosmetic (I prefer the beard and pirate hat), while others provide bonuses in game (immune to fire attacks for instance). Weapons and power-ups that you pick-up, in game, are fairly unique from one another, which opens up quite a bit of strategy — but its really all about lighthearted fun.

The level design is quite impressive. The environment is both hazard and weapon. For example, at the docks you can blast players into the water, or collapse sections of the dock just as they are about to cash in with their loot, it’s highly satisfying. Other levels have one-way doors, random vehicles to avoid, and guards to get in your way. There are 18 unique levels in all.

The game also features local and online drop in/out play, as well as two additional game modes and customizable matches. If you’re looking for some casual mayhem or family fun, you can pick up Dollar Dash today on XBLA for 800 MS, Win PC for $9.99, with the PSN version soon to follow.

www.dollardashgame.com
www.candygungames.com
www.kalypsomedia.com

Happy Gaming.

Class based multiplayer is the new addition to the Gears of War franchise, and while GOW purists may scoff at its addition, having defined classes with specific combat roles really does add a brand new level of depth (and fun) to the franchise.

OverRun mode pits the COG against the ever-scaly locust hordes in a game of attack and defend. As the COG it was our job to block the Locust from destroying our grub hole (see: objective).  And while it may sound simple, defending a grub hole is always serious business. The addition of playable classes really made the experience feel brand new. Engineers were able to slow the advance of the locust by placing barriers and turrets throughout the environment, while medics healed, scouts sniped, and soliders soldiered. As a medic I was able to get a fair amount of points by hanging back and playing “support”, while the other members of my team mixed it up on the front lines.  Some moments of the action were so intense that members of both teams were high-fiving and giving each other pats on the back.  Brothers till the end I suppose.

In terms of gameplay, the game felt a lot like Gears of War 3, with some minor changes to button functionality and weapon speed.  The ability to hip-toss (is that a thing?) grenades meant that they no longer needed to be “charged up” in order be thrown far distances.  This did seem to increase grenade lethality  but was by no means game breaking.  The new semi-automatic Markza sniper rifle, used by the scout class, was deadly accurate, but lacked the stopping power of the Longshot of old, while the Booshka grenade launcher proved deadly to large groups. Oh yeah, active reload still sounded and felt incredible.

Quite possibly the best part about the event was the overwhelming sense of community and positivity on display. To be honest, the event reminded me a lot of all the time I spent in the arcade as a kid.  In the olden days we’d wait for ages for a chance to face off against a total stranger in whatever game was popular at the time.  Sure, there was a ton of trash-talking and dirty looks, but in the end we were all friends united by our love of gaming. Sappy? Sure, but totally true.

Gears of War: Judgment hits shelves on March 19th and appears to be a worthy entry into the franchise.

Today, Square Enix has announced that a new Thief game will be coming to next-gen consoles and higher-end PC systems. The game will be made by Eidos Montreal, the creative force behind the re-imagined Deus Ex: Human Revolution.

The press-release teases the following:

Time has moved on. Power has shifted. New greed replaces the old.

But to remain free in the city of chains – that is still the greatest prize.
First I stole to survive… then I survived to steal.
I am one man; I hear your secrets, see your hidden truths.
I am the shadows, the dark and deadly, the velvet night. You will not see me coming.

I am Garrett….What’s yours is mine.

Long time fans of the series will remember Thief’s emphasis on stealth-action and combat, making the team behind Deus Ex a logical choice for the game’s development. We also get a glimpse into the backdrop of the game:

There is a rising tide of fear in The City. Hatred saturates every stone and whilst the rich prosper, the less fortunate face misery and repression. Ravaged with sickness and famine, they wait for something to change.

Into this shadowy world steps Garrett, THE master thief in a first-person adventure featuring intelligent design that allows players to take full control, with freedom to choose their path through the game’s levels and how they approach and overcome each challenge.

Keep it tuned here, and to thiefgame.com as we discover more details.

Miellyn Barrows drops in, shenanigans ensue, and we look forward to PAX East. Assassin’s Creed has gone pirate, Mass Effect gets a Reckoning, Dead Space 3 gets spoilery, and The Bridge melts minds. Finally, you tell us your essential items for a plague free convention season in our NAQOTW. Ahoy!

Rated NA 95

Assassin’s Creed 4: Black Flag

Okay, guys. Let’s get real. I’m a HUGE Assassin’s Creed fan. Those of you who listen to the podcast already know this, so kudos to you awesome folks for believing me over Matt. *wink*

Today something amazing happened – the new trailer for AC4 came out and it’s fantastic! Get ready to be transported to a time of pirates and plunder. Arg!

Before you jump down to view the video though, I want you to know when I first saw this trailer, my world exploded into a cacophony of brilliant, multicolored sparkles. Well, to be fair, it was actually when I first laid eyes on our new protagonist, Edward Kenway. A little dramatic, yes, but I’m excited. It should be noted that Kenway is the father of Haytham (AC3) and grandfather to Connor, AC3’s Native American protagonist. More than that, he is HAWT and it looks like Ezio may have some serious competition for being the most intriguing killer. Who doesn’t like swashbuckling, swarthy heartthrobs?

And for those of you who are into that sort of thing, lookie – there’s some naked girls, too! Bodice-rippers rejoice!

Back to the game. It appears you (as Kenway) are captain of “The Jackdaw” in this open-world action game complete with naval combat. I’m sure many of you will be pleased to see ship battles returning to the high seas. I know I am. Many hours were spent in AC3 destroying vessels and upgrading my ship. Great job by Ubisoft for adding that nugget of gameplay to an already-fun adventure series!

So, sit back and enjoy the tale Blackbeard weaves about your new favorite assassin…

Needless to say, I can’t wait to get my hands on this game. It drops Oct 29^th on current gen, and interestingly, the trailer states, “Also coming for next-gen consoles.”

Can’t a lady (or dude) just enjoy the company of fine friends at a club in peace? Apparently not. Shep and crew embark on one last adventure, complete with your own apartment, and one last chance to say goodbye to your friends, both old and new. This trailer has some great one-liners and plenty of sentimental  moments. It’s though to say goodbye, but think of it as your chance to forever live in a moment before the conclusion of Shepard’s story.

Everybody say Normandeeeeee! KIT, best friends forever.

If you like free stuff, Microsoft is also giving away a custom built Gears of War: Judgment Xbox 360 console as well as some copies of the game. Tune in live for your chance to win booty!

Gears of War Judgment: Pre Launch Tour – While we were able to get our hands on GOW: Judgment at last year’s SDCC (it was a ton of fun), we were excited to hear that the crew from Epic games would be in Orlando next week to promote the upcoming Gears of War prequel, Judgment. It’s not every day that our sweaty little bog of a town gets fun events like this (usually it’s just sinkholes), so we’re excited to check out what the latest People and Fly and Epic have to offer. We’ll be sure to share all the chainsaw filled goodness that we discover. For more info about the pre launch tour [CLICK HERE].

Orlando MegaCon: Orlando MegaCon is one of the Southeast’s biggest comic book and pop culture conventions and we’re happy to say we’ll be covering the convention for the very first time.   If you happen to be in Orlando on March 15th-17th, drop by MegaCon and shoot us a tweet and let us know you’re there, we’ll likely be running around the con floor getting ourselves prepped for….

Matt said this is heavily copyrighted!

PAX: East 2013: The Penny Arcade Expo is an incredible convention.  This year the entire Nerd Appropriate crew will be in Boston (March 21st to March 24th)  to cover the latest in gaming, cosplay, and creativity. We have tons of announcements to make regarding PAX: East, so keep your eyes on our Twitter feed in the coming weeks for news and details. Oh yeah, our very own Hilary will be appearing on the Foreplay: Romance in Video Games panel on Sunday so don’t miss it!

The Road to 100: We are in absolute shock that our podcast Rated NA is nearing its big 100th episode.  What do we have planned?  Well, it’s top secret but we’re doing our best to make episode 100 something you’ll never forget.

As always, you can follow our Twitter feed @NerdAppropriate for the latest updates and banter.

We are all familiar with MC Escher’s works of perceptual illusion and physical impossibilities. Quite brilliant really, stare into one of these works long enough and your eye gets lost in the detail as your mind struggles to make sense of the depth and contrast. It’s a world onto it’s own, ripe for puzzling — Ty Taylor and Mario Castaneda have done just that in the indie-darling, The Bridge.

On the surface it looks so simple, but the devil is in the detail, and I think that’s what makes The Bridge an instant classic. One in which grey-scale MC Escher-esque landscapes and mind-bending puzzles come to life. Like most great puzzle games the goal is deceptively simple: navigate your avatar (who looks suspiciously like Escher, himself) to the door and proceed to the next level. Of course, the door is sometimes on the wall… or is that the ceiling… oh, wait, that’s the floor again. The sketchbook-art style of Castaneda is really quite inspired, as you are drawn (pun intended) into The Bridge’s beautifully designed levels.

The game utilizes a minimalistic control scheme – WASD to move your avatar, and the Arrow keys to rotate the game environment. Yeah, that’s right… I said rotate the game environment, have fun trying to do both at the same time while processing gravitational physics. As in many puzzle games, you learn to crawl before you walk, walk before you run. Each level presents a unique challenge, the solution to which becomes part of your mental arsenal to use in future levels.

Soon enough, however, you’ll find yourself on the wrong side of mobius strip trying to figure out where it all went wrong. Fear not, for the developers want the game to be accessible, fun, and encourage experimentation — the game has a “rewind” function, a la Braid, however, unlike Braid, it is not a part of the game-play from what I’ve experienced, rather, it is available so that you can explore the game freely.

I like to fancy myself the resident puzzler at Nerd Appropriate; you know, decent mental-rotation and spatial-orientation cognitive abilities, charming good-looks, that sort of thing… so believe me when I tell you this game will challenge you. There are times in which I simply had to take a step back and approach a puzzle at a later time. At one point my mind became so lost in the infinite looping of one stage, I found myself endlessly rotating the environment, starting into the washing machine of my mind. I got a little nauseous — I don’t mean this in a negative way, that’s high praise. This is the point at which I realized I really enjoy this game.

So I write this as I am stuck at a particular puzzle a bit later in the game, knowing full-well that a more challenging mode of the game is unlocked once the main story is complete. I also look forward to the a-HA moment, when I finally solve it.

The Bridge is a must-play, for the presentation as much as the game-play itself. What started as a college project has turned into something quite wonderful, having garnered praise from various indie-challenges, developer showcases, and even the PAX 10. Now, you can enjoy the game on Steam, with support for Steam Cloud, Big Picture, and Full Controller support.

The Bridge is Black and White

The Bridge on Steam

Good luck, and Happy Gaming.

And after a few takes, we discuss the PS4, new Mass Effect 3 DLC, and gaming websites. We review Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance, Anna Karenina, Die Hard 5, and Paper Mario: Sticker Star. Finally you tell us about the most difficult and rewarding boss fights in our NAQOTW. Improvise!

Rated NA 94

Mass Effect 3: Reckoning launches on February 26th for free on the Xbox 360, PC and PlayStation 3.  See you in the trenches.

Executive Producer Casey Hudson states “The team has poured heart and soul into Mass Effect 3: Reckoning and Mass Effect 3: Citadel. As the launch of these chapters near, the feeling around the studio is bittersweet… We have always been humbled and driven by the passion of our fans for the Mass Effect trilogy. We hope fans will enjoy spending more time with some of their favorite characters — we have certainly enjoyed spending time creating them. We’re excited to release this final sendoff for the trilogy and move forward into the future of the Mass Effect universe.“ While it’s incredibly hard to say goodbye to Commander Shepard, and Jennifer Hale for that matter, we can’t wait to see what the future holds.

SOURCE Bioware : When a sinister conspiracy targets Commander Shepard, you and your team must uncover the truth, through battles and intrigue that range from the glamour of the Citadel’s Wards to the top-secret Council Archives. Uncover the truth and fight alongside your squad – as well as the cast from the original Mass Effect and Mass Effect 2, including Urdnot Wrex!

When the adventure is over, reconnect with your favorite characters from the Mass Effect Trilogy, try your luck at the Citadel’s Silver Coast Casino, blow off steam in the Armax Combat Arena, or explore and furnish Shepard’s own living quarters on the Citadel. With unique content and cinematics featuring your friends and romance interests in the Mass Effect trilogy, Mass Effect 3: Citadel offers one final chance to see the characters you have known for years and rekindle romances.

The gang is back together, which can only mean one thing… more singing! We also discuss the Xbox UI, System Shock 2 on GOG, Aliens Colonial Marines, and streaming possibilities on the PS4. Hilary takes Flight and Matt gathers around Magic 2013 on XBLA. Finally, you help us assemble a team to save the Earth from an asteroid apocalypse in our NAQOTW. Thank you for being a friend.

Rated NA 93

To sweeten the deal Wil (Stand by Me) Wheaton will be starring in the game, hopefully as the evil bearded antagonist, and the score will be provided by Ronald Jenkees, Jimmy Hinson (BigGiantCircles), and Judith de los Santos (Malukah).  Did we mention that this is the SAME Jimmy Hinson that provided much of the music for Mass Effect 2, as well as our *award winning podcast Rated NA? With some incredible awards and top tier talent, There Came an Echo is one Kickstarter project you should really keep your eyes on.

From their Kickstarter page:

There Came an Echo is currently being developed for the PC, and should release in approximately mid-2014 on Steam. The $90,000 we’re asking for is primarily for the art department: the money will be used directly to hire an art director and a 3-D modeler for a period of approximately fourteen months. We’ve already invested heavily in our sound team, recording studio, actors, and programmers, but we need your help to round out the team!

At various points throughout missions, your units will make various observations and come back to you with questions. “Sir, I’ve got a clear shot on an enemy target thirty meters away. Should I take the shot?” “Sir, do you want me to link back up with Grace? She’s under heavy fire.” You’ll need to survey the situation and give an informed “affirmative” or “negative”. It’s a dialogue, not a soliloquy.

Head on over to their Kickstarter page and help make something truly innovative!

*I don’t think we’ve ever won any awards

“To call the next game Mass Effect 4 or ME4 is doing it a disservice and seems to cause a lot of confusion here. We have already said that the Commander Shepard trilogy is over and that the next game will not feature him/her. That is the only detail you have on the game. I see people saying “well, they’ll have to pick a canon ending”. No, because the game does not have to come after. Or before. Or off to the side. Or with characters you know. Or yaddayaddayadda. Wherever, whenever, whoever, etc will all be revealed years down the road when we actually start talking about it.”

Yanick Roy the Studio Director of Bioware Montreal, the group working on the next installment, added:

“What Chris is saying is that thinking of the next Mass Effect game as Mass Effect 4 would imply certain linearity, a straight evolution of the gameplay and story of the first three games. But because we are switching to a new engine and need to rebuild a bunch of game systems, we have an opportunity to rethink how we want these systems to be going forward instead of just inheriting them from the previous games. Story-wise, the arc of the first trilogy has also been concluded, and what we will do is tell a new story set in the Mass Effect universe. That doesn’t mean that events of the first three games and the choices you made won’t get recognized, but they likely won’t be what this new story will focus on.”

It is wrong to say that, even as a long time fan of Shepard, I am totally fine with the next installment in the Mass Effect franchise not being about the beloved commander? In fact, it kind of makes more excited about the next game.  It’s not that I don’t love Shepard, it’s not that I wouldn’t want to listen to another forty-ish hours of Jennifer Hale, because I would. It’s that I’ve said my goodbyes to the characters I’ve come to love, heck, two different times counting the ME3 extended cut. And, well, it was damn exhausting as a player! I’m not sure I could go back for another round. I also feel attempting to add to Shepard’s story, in sequel or prequel form, would have run the risk of ruining a good thing? Like the favorite television show which goes on a season too long instead of going out on a high note. One might not hate the season, but it sort of puts a damper on the overall quality of the show.
The Mass Efffect universe is vast in scope. There are plenty of other stories to be told on other worlds, with other characters, from the perspectives of other races. I think it’s time to let Shepard retire and see what else is out there in the galaxy. I’m really curious, and excited, to see what Bioware comes up with next!

I’m loving that fact that Borderlands 2 continues to use their SHiFT codes in new and unusual ways. Hoping there is much more of this to come!

PC / Mac Loverpalooza SHiFT Code: W3KJ3-69JR5-9CXT3-JTJJT-WSCK5
Xbox 360 Loverpalooza SHiFT Code: W3W3B-BHX9K-3TSTX-WXJ3J-XCHKH
PlayStation 3 Loverpalooza SHiFT Code: WJCJJ-HCBFB-CCKC3-H3CJT-6FBHW

These codes will be active through February 17, 2013

With Hil out, Nate from Reset Transmission makes a surprise appearance on the podcast, literally. What better way to spend your Valentines week than with a Bro-cast! Star Wars movie news and new Dreamcast games will never stop, while the Justice League film probably will. Journey scoops up more honors at the DICE awards, while we continue our review in progress of Dead Space 3. We take a look at Netflix’s House of Cards, the return of Community, the Dark Knights Returns animated feature… and Shia Lebouf?. Finally, we discuss what you want to see in the next Assassin’s Creed game. High-Five!

Rated NA 92

The Sounds: The sound effects and ambient sounds of Dead Space 3 continue to play a major role in the scares. With every muffled hiss and alien moan, you’ll no doubt find yourself spinning in 360 degrees just to make sure some creepy thing isn’t right behind you ready to pounce. If you’re not playing Dead Space with some nice headphones or 7.1 surround, you’re really doing yourself a disservice. Recently, while exploring an infested ship, an event occurred that effectively eliminated my character’s ability to hear. Being deaf and somewhat blind is no bueno when the things in the dark are trying to eat you.

The Tech: The new crafting system allows for the player to build his/her own custom weapons from scratch and manages to do it in an exciting way that is easy to learn.  As Isaac (an engineer) progresses through the story all sorts of scrap metal and random bits of tech will be found in various random locations.  After bringing the items to the nearest workbench the items can be combined into an almost limitless combination of necromorph killing weapons.  Do you want a shotgun with a underslung saw blade?  No problem!  What about a machine gun with another machine gun attached that shoots electro bullets and has a cool scope thing?  Sure thing.  The guns all look incredible despite being held together with necromorph goo and duct tape and feel great to fire as well.  Well done!

The Scares: After putting some thought as to why some folks might feel as though Dead Space 3 isn’t quite as scary as the first two entries in the series, I can honestly say that it’s simply due to familiarity.  Like Isaac, we’ve done this before.  Sure, monsters in the dark are pretty damn terrifying, but we’ve seen hundreds of these creeps before in Dead Space 1 and 2 and have managed to blow them all to itty-bitty pieces.  I would venture to say that players who have never played a Dead Space game before will probably want to keep a pair of Depends undergarments nearby just in case.  Play Dead Space 3 alone in the dark with some great headphones and no distractions and I can almost promise your pulse will race and your palms will sweat.  If Dead Space 3 isn’t scary you’re probably playing it wrong.

Consider making the Protagonist a Woman: Jaina Proudmore, Sylvanas Windrunner, Tyrande Whisperwind, these are some of the most powerful people in Azeroth, or at least were when I last played. Yet, I think any Warcraft movie runs the risk of some generic, white male, “chosen one,” coming-of-age fantasy story which we’ve seen played out a thousand times. Women play significant roles in shaping Azeroth, see the above examples, why not take advantage of it and tell the story from a woman’s point of view?

One more thing on women: Armor. It should cover things: If the people making this film ignore my first suggestion, fine. At least have what women do show up be wearing proper armor. Please? I have horrid memories of finding a delightful piece of armor, which was amazing statistic wise, and having it turn into a plate bikini once placed upon my avatar. How about no. Okay? Okay. I would find a lady in the full tier two paladin Judgment Armor quite appealing and so would many others.

No Outland: Illidan Stormrage was a badass villain, but damn. The Burning Crusade expansion was absolutely horrible on the eyes. Lots of glowing green, floating purple crap, and whatever the heck Hellfire Peninsula was. Ugh. I think sticking to Azeroth proper, though I wouldn’t complain about seeing Northrend at all, would be more appealing.

Pick a conflict and stick with it: There’s a lot of strife in Azeroth, it is the World of Warcraft after all. Alliance versus Horde, demons versus everyone, undead versus everyone, it can be complicated for an adventurer! Lots of movies try and shove every little reference they can in, but few do it well. I was mighty impressed the Avengers, while having a lot of characters, managed to not get bogged down in bloat. Given the huge amount of material a writer would have to work with, they need to stay focused in Azeroth. Maybe look at the downfall of Lordaeron, or Deathwing, a specific series of well-known events which are already established. Which leads me to my next point…

Plot over Eye Candy: I feel, given the need by directors/producers to create a spectacle, to squeeze every drop of eye candy they can in (e.g. The first installation of the Hobbit), a Warcraft movie is potentially a ripe target for being overburdened with visuals. Yes, it’s great you can show a massive orc army storming about, or the majestic elven forests, but do you really need to if it’s not moving the plot along? I like epic battles and beautiful settings, but I need more than a bit of flashy CGI to stay interested in a movie.

Movies, like video games, are never going to please everyone in the audience. We all have our preferences, some are stronger than others, and we all have our own expectations of a particular property. The tricky thing with translating video games to film is that the director is essentially trying to establish a singular point of reference to tell an audience a story. Its possible fans of a game franchise, who have spent hours playing, influencing plot, in that world may not share in such a vision because they’ve already created their own. Why go sit in a theatre when you can essentially control the story yourself? I’m willing to give a Warcraft movie a fair shake, especially since it sound like it is in the planning stages, but they’re going to have to offer me a pretty compelling reason for me to fork over my money.

Natalie currently resides in the San Francisco Bay Area where she tries to balance full-time work and various nerdy hobbies. While being a huge Bioware fangirl, she also enjoys other video games (i.e. Arkam City, the Fable series) as well as comic books set in the DC universe

The game will feature Jennifer Hale as one of the voice actors, and clearly has some top notch graphics for the iOS platform. That being said, it’s a game we are definitely keeping an eye on. New to Republique? Here’s the skinny from the team:

“Use your iOS device to help a mysterious woman escape from a hidden Orwellian nation.”

Developed by industry veterans behind AAA games like Metal Gear Solid, Halo, F.E.A.R., Uncharted, and Kinect, République is an epic action game designed specifically for iOS. Set in the mysterious facility known as “Metamorphosis,” République is a game that explores the present day challenges of living in a world struggling with the dangers of censorship, voyeurism and paranoia.

Officially born on Halloween Day, 2011, République is midway through an aggressive two-year development cycle with much of that time spent optimizing graphical performance on iOS and developing innovative, touch-based gameplay based upon the player’s symbiotic relationship with the story’s protagonist, Hope. Upon release of République on iOS, then development team will turn its focus to the enhanced desktop version of the game.

Books like 1984 and Brave New World have served as key sources of inspiration not only for the narrative, but also the core “stealth survival” gameplay. In République, players become Big Brother: Hope’s protector as well as a growing threat to the Overseer’s grip over his secret nation. Over the story-driven campaign, players will gradually gain control over surveillance cameras and other network-enabled devices, culminating in an epic struggle with the Overseer over Hope’s future.

We continue our countdown to PAX with new schemes. Also, news about Witcher 3, and an announcement on the horizon from Sony. Ash checks out the new film, Warm Bodies, and the gang gives some early impressions of Dead Space 3. Finally, you help us wildly speculate about most wanted features in the PS4 in our NAQOTW.

Rated NA 91

When we get more details about specific events and panels, we’ll be sure to fill you all in on our MegaCon battle plan.

Rated NA 91: Question of the Week: With the PS4 announcement looming on the horizon, what new features would make YOU purchase day one? 

Everybody’s workin for the weekend… and another Mass Effect challenge, of course. This one requires the squad to earn the Killstreak 3 medal, which (don’t get ahead of me) requires you to earn 3 killstreaks within a single round.

I never really paid attention to exactly what that entailed in the past, so a quick interweb search brings us up to speed: A killstreak is 5 kills within the span of about a second, among the entire squad. So sure, you can line it all up on your own with missiles… but I’m not wasting 3+ missiles on my own. A little coordination, corralling, and timing will net you a Commendation Pack (or, as it seems to be the trend for me, another Hurricane upgrade).

Amazingly, I continue to find myself coming back to ME3MP, and still really enjoying it. Nice to see the relative difficultly of the task increasing for this particular weekend. Pew Pew Pew.

Jessica Merizan stops by to talk about community management at BioWare, Crabcat Industries, Try This At Home on Nerdist, and… tomahawks?! We also discuss the latest from the Marvel movie circuit and the announcement that JJ Abrams is directing Star Wars VII. Finally, you talk community events with us in our NAQOTW. So throw your keys in the bowl, sit back, and relax.

Rated NA 90

For some odd reason my spell check doesn’t like the word revengeance. Someone get Webster on the phone!

In other news, the demo for the new Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance game from Platinum is out and in our sweet little hands. After a couple of play-throughs and punishing boss fights I’d thought I’d give some first impressions. The game looks shiny and new in the best of ways. The story, while I’m sure as indecipherable as any other Metal Gear game, follows Raiden in a shiny new cyborg getup. He’s been rebuilt with the intention of hunting down terrorists and taking them apart with his sword. And oh what a sword. Crackling with electric energy when you tear through foes, the sword feels totally natural and not at all as ridiculous as I expected.

The game play is smooth and while it felt button mashy most of the time, I still got the feeling that with some more time spent with the game, there is a good bit of skill involved. The first time you happen upon the boss match in this demo, you die. You die fast, you die often, and you die painfully. It just happens, it’s OK. Slowly you’ll grasp the concept of parrying his blows and doing them with better timing rewards you with better finishing combos. The faceless fodder in the form of cyborgs that they throw at you are basically there for health bumps and little else, but it makes the game a tad bit more challenging and rewarding than just running for a health bump or waiting a period of time. Nothing about this game wants you to lie in waiting. The pace is frantic and the information is overloaded. You keep up by moving through waves of enemies as fast as you can.

The nice new feature that Platinum has bundled into this game is blade mode. This mode zooms in and locks your player in place, you then maneuver the left and right sticks to slice and dice your opponents to gory, bloody pieces in the most unsettling and satisfying of ways. Once you start to mix this in with the button mashing combos, things start to open up for you.

The demo is short, and I mean almost laughably so. I played through it twice in under an hour with the majority of that taken up by the boss fight, but it gives you a good hint at the mechanics of the game. The only problem I have is that with a demo this short it’s hard to know if there is going to be more depth than what you saw. They hint at the fact that there will be upgrades, but you never actually see them. So if all I am left with is XY and blade mode, it may get stale pretty quick. Then again, watching Raiden go Ginsu on some enemies sure is gratifying. Unfortunately the demo leaves a little too much out for me to be able to tell. All in all, if you were wanting to check out what the gameplay is like, I’d give this a go. Otherwise if you were looking for a closer look into the depth of gameplay or story, this one may be a pass until the full retail game is released.

As reported by Deadline.com, the director of your favorite Mission Impossible movie, possibly favorite Star Trek movie and least favorite Amblin Entertainment movie is set to helm a brand new, Disney owned Star Wars film. I’m assuming that the majority of nerds with pitchforks are deciding whether they love this or hate it. I think the guy is a brilliant producer and slightly less brilliant director, but it has the possibility of being a good movie. It can’t be much worse than the prequels.

The bankruptcy proceedings of THQ continues to be one of the larger headlines in a week full of gaming-related news and events. Up until now, we’ve been hearing the rumors of companies bidding on THQ studios and games. This week results of some of those sales are coming to light. A business wire report summarizes some of the moves within the gaming industry. Keeping in mind, that this is all very much in flux:

Relic Studios (Warhammer, Company of Heroes) goes to Sega Corporation

Volition Inc. (Metro: Last Light) goes to Koch Media

Homefront 2 goes to Crytek

Evolve to Take-Two Interactive

THQ Montreal and South Park: Stick of Truth to Ubisoft

While this may read like a list of off-season player trading in a major sports league, remember that we are talking about actual people, the jobs, and their families, here. With that being said, there are still some properties and studios left unaccounted for. Notably, developer Vigil (Darksiders) has not yet been picked up. This leaves the fate of that franchise, the studio, and it’s employees very much uncertain conjuring up similar feelings of what happened with 38 Studios’ employees. It’s a tough situation to face, say what you like about the game’s themselves (and many loved Darksiders) but hopefully the employees of Vigil can land on their feet during this uncertain time.

On the flip side, Ubisoft seems a positive fit for THQ Montreal and South Park: Stick of Truth, although there is some legal kerfuffle (technical term) regarding the movement of the latter to a new owner. From the perspective of the game alone, let’s hope this title gets to see the light of day.

Source: Business Wire (via Market Watch)

While we would hope that everything pans out well in the end, reality is often much more cruel. We welcome your comments and feels about this developing story in the space below:

New Locations: Set just off the coast of Gransys in the cursed Bitterblack Isles, players will reportedly venture on an all new series of quests while encountering over 25 brand new enemy types. If victorious, players stand the chance of getting over 100 pieces of new loot (to make themselves feel all powerful and stuff).  If you held onto your save game from the original DD you’ll be able to import your character, keep your loot and level, and get the insane bonus of “100,000 Rift Crystals, unlimited Ferrystones and the Gransys Armour Pack consisting of six brand new costumes for free.”  Not a bad deal right?

The Best news?  Capcom was apparently listening to fans (and our podcast) because it appears there will finally be some fast travel options available for players this time around.   We loved the game, but we really hated walking so damn much.  Video game laziness is a thing, okay?

Here is a list of all goodies Dark Arisen has to offer.

All of the content from the original Dragon’s Dogma plus…

1. A massive new underground realm to explore featuring over 25 terrifying new enemies
2. More skills/equipment/augments:
3. Level 3 Skills
4. DD: DA provides each character class with a new tier of skills, giving players new devastating abilities and skills to master
5. Over 100 pieces of new equipment
6. All new high level weapons and armor sets for players venturing into the underground caverns
7. 14 new character/Pawn augments
8. New tiers of equipment enhancement
9. And there’s more:
10. Increased character customization options
11. Item appraisal
12. Option to select Japanese voice over

Miellyn Barrows makes an unexpected appearance on the podcast as Matt’s internet implodes. We talk about Far Cry 3, Borderlands 2 DLC, the Dead Space 3 demo, and what Epcot was like in the late ’80s… just go with it. You let us know what fictional character deserves their own real-life monument. The road to PAX East starts now!

Rated NA 89

One of the greatest things about this piece of DLC is the addition of gorgeous new vistas: a tenuous rope bridge over a yawning chasm of ice, a snaking path leading to a secret ancient grove and a stoic fort standing amidst blinding sunlight spilling into a canyon… just to name a few. Bethesda really does create a beautiful playground with Skyrim and this is not lacking in their DLC.

So, the story. Here’s a brief synopsis:

You either join the Dawnguard or a league of vampires to uncover the secrets of additional Elder Scrolls.  As you venture across the lands performing quests for your chosen faction, you eventually meet Serana (who reminds me of Underworld’s Selene), Lord Harkon’s daughter. You begin to learn more about Vampire Lord Harkon only to find he’s a super-villain and must be stopped. I mean, really, how could you let Skyrim fall victim to his treacherous plans? Will you destroy the Vampire Lord and take his place or lead the Dawnguard to ultimate victory? Either way, you find out more about the history and demise of the Snow Elves along the way.

Overall, Dawnguard, while not as expansive as Shivering Isles was for Oblivion, contains some great new quests and achievements. You also get access to new skill trees as well as shouts. I would recommend Dawnguard simply because Serana can stay with you as a follower after the main quest ends – she’s pretty awesome in combat as a spell-slinging creature of the night.

I did encounter some game-crashing bugs and some rogue map markers leading me astray, but despite those nuisances, this DLC is worth the time and money. If you’re a fan of Skyrim, pick it up!

Stay tuned for a review of Dragonborn – coming soon!

Dead Space is a franchise I usually associate with jump-scares, claustrophobic environments, and the general crushing vastness of space. In the Dead Space 3 demo, Visceral Games brings some new ideas to the table, and I think I’m good with it.

Notably, Dead Space 3 features drop-in/drop-out co-op in the campaign.  The primary player still assumes the role of Isaac Clarke, while the secondary player takes on the role of Earthgov Sergeant John Carver. Having played the previous two installments in the series, I choose to tackle the demo with a friend. I immediately found that the game is not as scary, or at least not scary in the way that playing alone makes you feel. I would describe it more as frantic. Maybe it’s a function of my experience, or maybe it was having an extra gun at your side.

My co-op bud had little experience with the franchise, so it was a trial-by-fire approach to learning the mechanics of the Dead Space universe, “Aim for the limbs”, “Curb stomp that dude!”, “Use kinesis on that limb that hurl it at another dude!”. I forget how much of a fan I am of this series sometimes.

The environment is different too. This time around, the action unfolds on the icy planet of Tau Volantis. Interestingly, the surface of the planet was obviously not very dark, although the snowstorms often obscure your vision. We did venture into caves and underground facilities, which brought all of the shadowy horror you’d expect from Dead Space  but the surface is an entirely different story. At one point we were battling what appeared to be other humans (I’m assuming sympathetic to the zealot movement) and using a cover mechanic to hide from their automatic weapons. It’s certainty different for the franchise, but it is still great fun. At one point my co-op partner and I sort of lost track of which humans were on our side, and I admittedly discharged a high powered shotgun-style weapon into this one poor chap, who was immediately reduced to a pile of goo. My co-op partner remarked, “I think he was on our side” to which I replied, “You can never be too careful.” Force of habit, you see, before there was Zombieland, I was double-tapping all the corpses on those wretched space stations.

And that brings me to weapons. As a long-time Dead Space fan, and an even longer-time System Shock fan, I’ve come to learn one very important gameplay strategy. Usually, if you stick with the first weapon you get in the game (i.e. Plasma Cutter or Pistol or whatever) you can put all of your upgrade points into said weapon and become quite a force to reckon with. I think the original Dead Space even had an achievement for this. The game, as they say, has now changed.

To my surprise  Dead Space 3 features a fully functional weapon crafting system in which you can swap out weapon components to build something that suits your play-style. Seems like someone has been busy with those workbenches. Weapon frames can now be outfitted with secondary weapons! For example, you can add a shotgun to your plasma cutter, but you lose the ability to rotate the cutter’s angle. Weapons also have swappable support features now: So, for example, you can add parts that automatically pick up ammo for you, or restore your partner’s stasis as well when using a stasis pack. As such, it also seems as if there is a common ammo pool now too (common to your weapons, not the team). While this may not be as “realistic” as carrying around spikes, charges, tesla coils, explosives, etc. I welcome this change.

The result of these new features and mechanics? It still feels like a Dead Space game, but maybe one that is branching out. I can see that playing solo is probably still going to keep you on edge, but the co-op is a different beast. It’s hectic, and maybe a little more tactical too. My co-op bud and I built weapons that complimented each other, which made the challenge at the end of the demo a bit more manageable. There was also a couple of great interactive cut-scene sequences in which you and your partner each scramble together to get out of danger. Note also that the demo only allows you play on normal, and I would bet playing on Zealot difficulty (for you masochists out there), even with a co-op partner, would still be quite tense indeed.

The game still features great graphics,up-close animation, and fascinating environments to explore. If you’re worried about the new additions to the game, don’t be. If you’re looking for terror, play it solo. On the other hand, I think that you’d be missing out on a lot of what is going to make this game really great if you don’t give the co-op a chance. Considering that this game uses a New Game+ system, there’s no reason not too.

Hell has frozen over, and my Plasma Cutter is charged and ready.

The Cave is a new adventure title from Ron Gilbert, creator of fine games such as Monkey Island and Manic Mansion. SEGA and Double Fine have recently announced that this newest adventure will be hitting XBLA, PSN, and Steam on January 22, with the Wii U launch following a day later. Currency conversion aside, the game will retail for $14.99

I got the chance to play a demo of The Cave at PAX Prime this past year, and it immediately brought back memories of scheming all the ways to cause mayhem in Manic Mansion. Similiar to that game, The Cave gives you seven very different characters to start. From that team you pick three and test your luck in a well-crafted adventure with all the fit and finish you have come to expect from a Double Fine title. Each character brings a different set of skills to the table, which means that there is usually multiple ways to solve the game’s puzzles.

I have the impression that the experience at PAX only gave fans a taste, as I passed by a few environments that I could not yet interact with. If Gilbert’s previous games are any clue, we are in store for some fun shenanigans when the game is released next week.

With any luck there will be a rocket propelled car somewhere down there to launch into the stratosphere.

Rated NA 88

The article linked to me , and a bit more research,  showed that a lot of people weren’t too happy about the impending inclusion of same-sex romance.  Some fans who did want to see same-sex romance in SWTOR felt slighted by the fact the romance options would be with with NPCs and not companion characters, which get to travel around with your character, and are not relegated to a single world. Then there are the usual “gays ruin games” and “don’t push a social agenda” folks, and even people who would genuinely prefer no romances, gay or straight, due to all of the chaos the topic seems to stir up.

I understand the disappointment over the lack of a same-sex companion romance, over the fact romance will be offered being relegated to paid content to high level players. Hell, it was how I felt about Mass Effect 2 when the Lair of the Shadow Broker DLC was announced. No offense Kelly Chambers, but I initially felt a little left out with all the new squadmates in ME2 and nothing I could enjoy until I had to pay for it almost a year after launch. But, that said, it seems there’s an assumption that developers can snap their fingers and go back to fix various dialogue options, cinematics, quests, and other content to make it seamless with the new additions. I think technical difficulties/limitations are a valid reason for having a DLC solution, especially since, if Mass Effect and Dragon Age 2 are any indication, Bioware has been upping the quality of what we come to expect from their DLC. Also, given the game is now free-to-play, I don’t think it’s entirely unreasonable to pay for the extra content. Game development isn’t an act of charity after all.

At the end of the day, while the execution might be imperfect at times, Bioware is one of the few major companies who consistently offer options for the inclusion of gay players in its products. World of Warcraft lacks a player romance option–outside of seedy corners of Goldshire, and I don’t recall any of the NPCs, who do have established romances in lore, being homosexual. So, when a major MMO takes a step to provide some visibility for gays? I consider it a win.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go start on my Jedi Knight/Kira Carsen fanfic. Head canon
solves all problems.

Natalie currently resides in the San Francisco Bay Area where she tries to balance full-time work and various nerdy hobbies. While being a huge Bioware fangirl, she also enjoys other video games (i.e. Arkam City, the Fable series) as well as comic books set in the DC universe

You might remember CD Projekt Red from excellent games such as Witcher 1 and Witcher 2. They’re now working on a adaptation of the Cyberpunk pen and paper games in the upcoming Cyberpunk 2077. Feast your meatbag eyes on the following trailer:

An excerpt from the video description sets up the action:

The teaser shows how the Psycho Squad might acquire a new member. The Psycho Squad specializes in combating “psychos” — individuals who overuse implants and substances that boost or otherwise alter the human body. When things spin out of control, they call in MAX-TAC (Maximum Force Tactical Division), popularly called the Psycho Squad.

While I’m not really stoked on trailers that do not feature gameplay, I’m willing to take this one on the pedigree of CD Projekt Red alone, being a huge Witcher fan. This is definitely one we will keep watch on until… you know… when it’s ready.

Source: Cyberpunk.net

Y the Last Man

I have been a Totally Rad Show fan since the very beginning. I literally remember Alex hyping it on an episode of Diggnation and thought, that sounds cool. Needless to say, I fell in love with it and loved the format of three friends talking about things they liked (and sometimes didn’t). It was an inspiration for why we started this podcast.

We showed off Danny Trachtenberg’s fan made, and amazing, short called Portal: No Escape. The short looks big budget and is amazingly done. A great piece of fan appreciation mixed with an artists eye. If you haven’t seen it yet click on the link and take a gander, it’s well worth your seven minutes.

The latest news via The Vulture is that the long in development Y the Last Man movie has added it’s director and it’s none other than Mr. Trachtenberg. This is fantastic news for multiple reasons, one, I think the guy has a great eye from the little bit I’ve seen of his work, and the second is that he is a huge fan of the series. Meaning we have a real fan behind a comic series that is one of the best of all time. Y the Last Man is written by Brian K Vaughan and focuses on Yorick, the last man on earth, and his monkey Ampersand. The series revolves around many plot points that include Yorick attempting to find his ex-girlfriend and massive political intrigue. It takes you across the country in search of answers as to why this happened and if it can be fixed. If  you’ve yet to read the story, I can’t recommend it enough. You can pick it up here on Amazon or at your local comic shop. While we are on the subject of Vaughn, his latest is Saga. It is a sort of space opera version of Romeo and Juliet, mixed with tons of sex, violence and aliens. It is fantastic with amazing art by Fiona Staples. Again, pick this up on Amazon or wherever  you buy comics.

Also, Dan, if you’re reading this, how about Trent Reznor on the score?

If you’ve seen the Portal short, Dan put together a great making of that shows some of how the effects were put together.

The Setup:  Much to my surprise, Far Cry 3 co-op features a fully fleshed out story starring four brand new (and comically stereotypical) protagonists.  There is even a shirtless tattooed Russian guy with karate pants that looks and sounds like someone  from an old Steven Seagal film!  All kidding aside, the new characters fit very well into the action film-esque Far Cry universe, and don’t at all feel out of place.  In terms of the plot line, the character’s motivation is pretty simple, “Let’s get our money back!”, and the objective based missions are padded with brief in game cinematics that  finally let you know exactly why you’re shooting people in the noggins!   Weapon load outs can be changed on the fly, and players gain experience that carries over into other multiplayer modes.   While the customization isn’t quite as robust at the single player game, it does dangle the carrot just close enough to keep you coming back for more.  It’s just a lot of fun gang.

Multiplayer Stealth?  Sold! : Far Cry 3 has a great stealth system that can now be enjoyed by up to four players at once.  Since extra experience is offered for dispatching enemies in creative ways, the stealthy player and his friends will, in theory, level faster than the machine gun wielding maniac.  Don’t get me wrong, there will be plenty of gun play, but being stealthy really is a viable option, and we think that’s pretty cool.

A Typical Mission:  The opening mission sees the four protagonists dropped off on the familiar beaches of the Rook Islands.  Unlike Far Cry 3′s single player campaign, the cooperative campaign is entirely linear and doesn’t really leave the player with all that much exploring to do.  While having the vast open world available to multiple players at the same time would be nice, I can understand why it probably wasn’t possible from a design perspective.  To be honest, I’m sort of shocked that the folks at Ubisoft were able to squeeze such a massive world on a single disk.  I’m not kidding, it’s Skyrim big.  Once the action starts players will have to figure out the best way to dispatch enemies, carry supplies, ambush vehicles, and sneak around pirate infested shanty towns.  I for one have always wanted to sneak around a pirate infested shanty town.  To break up the repetition of endless bandit slaughter, there will occasionally be challenges that pit the players against one another for some extra experience and bragging rights.  The challenges are brief, but make no sense in terms of the narrative.  Then again, who really cares right?

Nerd Appropriate: The Far Cry 3 cooperative campaign has a lot to offer, and despite some minor technical issues, the level of depth and complexity it offered left me happily surprised.  Also… sneaking through pirate infested shanty towns?  Awesome.

NOTE: Not the right Steam Box

ON THE OS: Steam Box will be Linux based but will allow you to install Windows on it if you so desire. The box will be open… sigh…

ON MOTION CONTROL:  The Steam Box will not utilize motion control but Valve is looking for ways to make motion control exciting AND useful. Mr. Newell also stated that he though Wii Sports was the best use of motion control thus far.

ON CONNECTIVITY: The Steam Box will also be a server.  The idea is to eventually allow multiple televisions to connect to a single Steam Box.  In theory a LAN party could be hosted with a single steam box, and a bunch of T.V.s of course.

ON A MOBILE PLATFORM: There are plans apparently in the works to extend The Steam Box experience onto the mobile space.  They are also trying to figure out a way to make touchpad technology fun and useful.

ON COMPETING WITH MICROSOFT AND SONY:  Mr. Newell had a great quote that I couldn’t agree with more ,“The internet is super smart. If you do something that is cool, that’s actually worth people’s time, then they’ll adopt it. If you do something that’s not cool and sucks, you can spend as many marketing dollars as you want, [they] just won’t.” [SOURCE]

Hats off to The Verge for breaking this info.  2013 will be an incredibly interesting year for gamers and tech lovers everywhere.  We’ll have more news and opinions on the Steam Box as it develops.

Rated NA 87

Offline Challenges:  RAD Soldiers comes with a number of challenges that can be completed offline to rank up and get some experience before thrusting you into online play.  Most of the single player challenges are against themed enemy teams and typically consist of a single military objective (usually, defend the objective for five turns).  The challenges start off easy enough, but the rewards for completing them are next to nothing.  While it’s entirely possible to endlessly complete medium-difficulty challenges to gain RAD bucks (in game currency), you may be tempted to buy some RAD bucks with real money to boost your squad with some new members or weapons. This is of course what they’re banking on…

Asynchronous Online:   Like our beloved Hero Academy, the multiplayer component of RAD Soldiers is asynchronous, meaning that both players take their respective turns whenever they feel like it.  While this is convenient, it’s often easy to lose track of what you were up to the last time you played, especially if you have multiple games going at the same time.  Ideally, RAD Soldiers would be played by two friends on their respective tablets in the same room taking turns and talking smack… That would be good times.

Not Nerd Appropriate: While I’m not a huge fan of micro-transactions I fully understand why they’re a necessary evil in today’s gaming world.  To be honest, if you don’t like mico-transactions then don’t micro-transact!  In terms of actual gameplay issues, the maps are currently a bit of a mess and feel claustrophobic and cramped.  Unit health also needs to be tweaked a wee bit, because as it stands every unit takes a veritable hail of gunfire to bring down.  It’s the little things.

Nerd Appropriate: I’m delighted to say that despite some minor gripes, RAD Soliders is a wonderfully complex tactical experience that is drenched in style.  The game looks and plays quite well and fans of games like XCOM: Enemy Unknown or Hero Academy won’t be disappointed.  I can’t wait to see what weapons, units, and maps will be added in the near future.

NEXT GEN CONSOLES Q4- While this rumor has been circulating for what seems like forever, we’ve heard from a number Bothan spies that 2013 will in fact be the launch of next-gen consoles.  And no, I don’t count the Wii-U.  Where did we get our intel? First, the folks over at Bloomberg stated that the next-gen Xbox would launch in 2013 with an improved connect sens0r (because everything is better with Kinect…right?)  Other sites like Kotaku, CVG,  and Joystiq have all but confirmed that we’ll see the 720…err…Durango…uhm..new Xbox in 2013.  Oh yeah, and there is also the little fact that developers are already hard at work on titles for these new systems.  Examples?  DICE is working on Battlefield 4, Bungie is building their ambitious new MMO Destiny (which looks incredible), and 343 is plugging away on Halo 5 (which they would be smart to offer as a launch title/bundle).  Like it or not these systems are coming, so save your shillings.

Telltale’s Walking Dead: Season 2 -*SPOILERS*  Telltale’s Walking Dead series will return in (Q2 or Q3) 2013 for season two of  Clementine’s tale of survival in the zombie infested wastes of America.  If you’ve beaten the Walking Dead, you’re probably aware that things don’t exactly end with Lee and Clem hopping on a sailboat and riding into the sunset.  Here are two possibilities as to what could happen in season 2.  1) Molly is the Main Protagonist:  Molly, the zombie killing parkour ninja from episode 4 will return as the main protagonist in season 2.  Why? Molly was a loner, but instantly took a liking to Clementine and Lee.  Molly vanishes at the end of episode 4 and presumably gets out of Savannah alive due to her climbing axe and gravitas.  Playing as Molly on a search for Clementine would allow for some new puzzles and gameplay mechanics due to Molly’s speed and vertical mobility.  We really hope we’re right about this one.  2) Time Jump - Making Clem even six or seven years older would  allow players to see what became of Clementine after the events of season one.  While I’d love to see Clementine all grown up, I highly doubt that Telltale will go the time jump route. Oh yeah, Kenny and Lily are still alive… no doubt about it.

Dragon Age 3: Inquisition Will Be Incredible : Even though we liked it, Dragon Age 2 took a lot of lumps.  The crew at Bioware seem to be focusing extra hard on DA3 and are really taking their time with this title.  Currently being built on a modified version of DICE’s Frostbite 2 engine (see: pretty/destructible environments), Dragon Age 3 will follow a brand new protagonist on a crazy adventure to fix a world at war.  Many outlets are reporting that Dragon Age III will also have some sort of online multiplayer component, which, if anything like ME3 Multiplayer, should prove amazing. If DA3 does in fact come out in 2013, look for it in Q4….When those new consoles are coming out.

Mass Effect: Cart Racing: Laugh all you want, but this title is money in the bank. While we’ve joked about this idea on countless podcasts we think this could actually make one hell of a Bioware title.  Imagine racing around the halls of Omega in your turbo charged Mako with Saren on your six riding on his hover disk thingy.  Play as your favorite big-head Mass Effect characters while racing in familiar ME locations like Tuchanka and the Citadel.  Utilize biotics and tech powers to sabotage and stun other racers.  Silly?  Sure.  Fun?  Hell yes.

We promise to be right about at least 50% of what we’ve claimed here… Okay, maybe not the cart racing. Onward to an amazing 2013!

Rated NA – 50 – If you’ve never listened to our podcast before, this is a great place to start.  All three of us reflect on all things NA and we get some feedback from former guests and interviewees.

Rated NA 55: PAX: East 2012 – This episode is FILLED with reviews and tales of adventure from this year’s PAX: East.  Some of our opinions of new titles were spot on, some not so much.

Rated NA 56: East Coast West Coast Battle: Not only is this Hilary’s first episode, but it’s also the first time we mention our good friends over at the Reset Transmission podcast.  This is where things get interesting.

Rated NA 60: Wife Swap: Lineup change!  Aenne Schumann from Reset Transmission joins us on Rated NA while myself and Hilary do our very best to break Reset Transmission.

Rated NA 61: Large Huge Ellipsoids:   The debut of our new theme song by Jimmy Hinson AKA Big Giant Circles.  We love it.

Rated NA 67: SDCC Interview Special:  I got to attend Comic-Con as press for the first time and it was pretty damn exciting.  I  carried my microphone and got some impromptu interviews with David Gaider, Team Unicorn, Courtenay Taylor, and the cast of Firefly (sorta).

Rated NA 68: The Long Con & Vorcha Thongs:  San Diego Comic-Con wrap up and a quick talk about our amazingly fun community game night.

Rated NA 70: Jennifer Hale  : The undisputed queen of voice acting joins us for one of my favorite episodes of all time.  This was a guest I had been trying to get on the show for over a year,  so it was great to see it finally come together.  Jennifer was incredibly funny, honest, and inspirational… you need to check this one out.

Rated NA 72: NA Strikes Back: Scott and I were lucky enough to cover Star Wars Celebration VII and gathered as much Star Wars intel as humanly possible.

Rated NA 73: PAX Prime – Master of the Orange Shorts: Back to back conventions!  Scott and I flew out the following weekend to Seattle for PAX: Prime and had an amazing adventure.   We discuss our Pre-PAX community gathering, favorite games, and all time best convention memories.  I really love this episode.

Rated NA 75: Patrick Weekes : Author of the Palace Job, and this little series called Mass Effect, Patrick Weekes joins us on Rated NA 75 to talk about writing, video games, and his road to Bioware.  An incredibly kind guy that I honestly just want to hang out and play D&D with.

Rated NA 77: Husband Swap: More mischief and mayhem with the gang from Reset Transmission.  This time we were joined by Reset’s Nate Hales while Scott did his best to mind-control Melissa and Aenne using only the sound his soothing voice.

Rated NA 78: Ashley Eckstein: Creator of Her Universe Clothing and voice of Ahsoka Tano on Star Wars: The Clone Wars, Ashley Eckstien joins us for a fun chat about Star Wars, voice acting, celebration, and even Nickelodeon… fun episode!

Rated NA 81: Amy Acker:  Star of Angel, Dollhouse, Alias, and the upcoming Joss Whedon film Much ado About Nothing, Amy Acker joins us for a fun talk about her career, adventures, and nerdy hobbies. To be honest, I’m still sort of in shock that Amy agreed to to be on our show.  Great episode for Whedon fans everywhere.

 Rated NA 83: Miellyn Barrows – Choose Your Own Adventure: Author Miellyn barrows joins us on an incredibly fun, and innuendo drenched episode.  We also talk to Miellyn about her game-book from Tin Man Games, Strange Loves: Vampire Boyfriends.  “MmmHmmm vampire sex!”

Rated NA 85: Ashly Burch -  One of my all time favorite episodes.  Actress Ashly Burch (HAWP) joins us for a Mass Effect and Walking Dead drenched episode, sprinkled with bad jokes and lots of laughs.  As a huge fan of Ash, I was incredibly excited to have her on this episode with us.

As always you can subscribe to our podcast HERE on iTunes, or simply download it directly HERE through feedburner. If you have a few spare moments give us a rating on iTunes, or tell a friend about our show.  We don’t spend a penny on advertising so we need all the help we can get.  We appreciate you guys more than you know and are looking forward to an incredible 2013. Thank YOU! Really. – Ash

Oh yeah!  Follow us on Twitter @NerdAppropriate .  We do our best to reply to each and every tweet that comes our way.

343 brings Halo back

We talked about (and argued, but it’s been lost to the archives) Halo 4 on the podcast but have yet to commit anything to digital ink, as it were. This is because Halo 4 felt like it deserved a bit more than a gut reaction to gameplay and graphics. This deserved some inspection into story and polish. 343 Industries did not have it easy here, they were following in the footsteps of a highly vaunted developer in Bungie. The company that along with Epic lifted the XBox up into new heights. 343 had to come in and not just keep a series fresh, but make make it their own without pissing off legions of fans. Did they accomplish this task? You’ll have to read on.

If you are a longtime friend of the site than you are well aware of the battles Ash and myself have had over “ground aliens” vs “space aliens”. Halo, and maybe rightfully so, always felt a bit cartoony and based in some sort of limbo fiction that didn’t ever sit well with Ash, while Gears of War felt slow and just a wash of the color grey for me. Both series have arguably left these tropes behind with Gears 3 and Halo Reach, but Halo 4 could have fallen right back in step with Halo 3 and told a listless, muddled story about space religion and huge intergalactic wars. The material was there and ready to be consumed. Instead they went a different direction. The story ended up being personal and introspective. One of the internal battle Chief has over his own makeup, along with his relationship to Cortana, the AI prodding you along the path. Deeper threads of friendship and personal discovery are told. Granted this is while you shoot at aliens, but at the very least this story was something you could follow.

Am I saying that playing Halo 4 was akin to reading a Cormac McCarthy book? No, but it also doesn’t read like a 14 year old boys Ender’s Game Fan Fic either. The cut scenes that 343 put together were some of the most gorgeous (yes not in engine, but did you care?) and well directed in a game in recent 360 history. Chief had gravitas and personality now. He was someone who had something, and more importantly, someone to fight for. When the game’s action took a break and you got to look at gorgeous out door scenery or a dramatic scene between you and the military command, it wasn’t done just for effect, it furthered one of the more interesting Halo stories told. I may be biased here as a Halo fan, but other than Reach, I don’t know that I’ve ever cared about Chief, or even Cortana. Not more than in the way that they were entertaining. Cortana wasn’t my friend, she was the voice telling me to run from button to button while mowing down grunts. Chief didn’t have emotion, he was a faceless any man who just happened to be 8 foot tall and a killing machine. Now  he was a guy who had a past, one that he wasn’t so sure about anymore. He had a friend that he would do anything for, and that is something I can understand.

This is not to say that you are just pondering your existence and that there isn’t a bad guy. It isn’t quite of the weight of Saren or the Illusive Man, but the Didact is palpable and the final fights where you face him are punishing. The ending (no spoilers) leaves just enough open to start guessing at the future of the series. While this may not be the strongest villain in gaming history, it is definitely a solid start for 343. I was never super enthused by the antagonists in 3. The campaign always felt confusing to me with a lot of circling around to talk about the Prophet of Truth and then the Arbiter would pop up for a second. It just felt crowded when it came to characters and villains. This time around we have a single goal, unified around the Didact and his forerunner army.

As for gameplay, Halo always felt floaty. Not in the way you could leap ridiculous heights or anything of that sort, but in the detached from your body sort of way. First person games tend to fall into this trap. Dishonored felt glidey at times and Halo always felt like a floating gun. 343 managed to give first person weight. Plus, let’s just take a moment to talk about the guns. These were bar none the best guns to ever appear in a Halo game. From the first moment I fired them they sounded amazing, felt amazing, and seemed to have impact. This wasn’t a gun that just made a gun sound and did some sort of damage, but the variety and power to them was unique down to each one. The Marine weapons were powerful, loud and heavy. The Covenant were light weight and quick, while the Forerunner weapons added an entirely new dimension with seemingly endless ammo at times. Yes, they each have a sniper rifle or an automatic, but there was enough differentiation that I know I preferred to have a battle rifle and the suppressor.

I gushed over the graphics in the podcast and will do a little more here, but their was not one moment in this game where the view wasn’t astonishing for a 6 year old system. Light effects, atmosphere and the details in the characters were fantastic. Everything felt alive and moving. I know Halo has a style to it, but damn if 343 didn’t pretty it up. The forest didn’t feel bland or flat, but alive and terrifying. I knew those damn dogs were going to pop out at any moment, or would be hiding up in a tree. There was no scooby doo effect of something looking different so I’d interact with it. Everything was there and blended into part of the scenery. While it was definitely “on rails” like all Halo games, the atmosphere ended up making me feel less restricted even though I was on a predefined path.

Last up is multiplayer. Scott, Ash, Derek and myself sat down for a few rounds of Spartan ops and while it usually is pretty hard to screw up cooperative multiplayer, they managed to step it up a notch. Voice acting by Jennifer Hale sounded great and having a little story to go along with your on screen battle helps. We were all laughing and having fun with the excessive amounts of weapons and a difficulty that felt ratcheted up for the amount of players we had in game. There is more depth to be explored here, but on first glance, Spartan Ops will keep me coming back.

Over all this game felt polished and like one hell of a shot across the bow. If you had any doubt, much like myself, that these guys would deliver, let those feelings be vanquished because they nailed it. Is Halo 4 the best game ever? No, but it is one of the best Halo’s ever, and that is saying a lot. Would it have made it into my top 10(ish) on the podcast had I finished it before then? Yes, I think it might have. It would have been extremely close. The only thing that would keep it out is that it isn’t a surprise because it is a Halo title. It IS a surprise because it’s 343, but that was one of the best surprises I’ve had all year. Here’s to many more where this came from, I’m now officially looking forward to Halo 5.

As is custom now, those ever popular Steam sales are the perfect time to score huge deals on high-profile titles, but it’s also the time where an under-the-radar indie game can find top billing alongside those AAA games. Enter FTL (Faster than Light) from Subset Games, which I can hardly assume is under the radar anymore. Within just a few short months the game has been featured on Steam sales multiple times, and has totally destroyed the productivity of this podcast, to be sure. It’s 8-bit inspired, takes place in space, and utilizes strategy elements. I’m a sucker for it, but find no disappointment in succumbing to everything this game has to offer.

FTL: Faster than Light – Trailer from Justin Ma on Vimeo.

I like to summarize this game in the same way I used to jokingly describe new music “It’s like Band-A and Band-B had a baby.” And to me, this game is if Oregon Trail and Battlestar Galactica had a baby. I know, that’s a pretty lofty claim. Subset describes it as “A Spaceship Simulation Real-Time Roguelike-like.” I think that works too.

In FTL you are the captain of a Federation starship, and you carry information vital to the survival of the Federation, which is under attack by a Rebel faction. You start the game aboard the Kestrel, with a modest crew of 3 humans. It is your charge to carry this vital information across the galaxy to the Federation fleet, in hopes that it gives you the critical advantage to defeat rebel forces.

Surrender is not an option!

Easier said than done. Managing a ship is no easy business, and with that all the trappings of a resource management game. With a limited energy source you must power O2 for the ship, shields and weapons systems, a drive core and pilot station. Along the way you encounter rebel and alien enemies, which carry out in ship-to-ship strategy combat. Target the shields to expose the enemy ship, focus fire on specific subsystems to disable their escape… or just set fire to the ship and obliterate the enemy crew! Worse yet, enemy factions can board your ship, at which point all hell breaks loose. Let me tell you a tail of heroism…

Federation Cruizer “The Appropriate” was on the second leg of their journey when mantis-like aliens boarded the ship. Under heavy fire the crew of Hilary, Matt, Ash and Scott battles valiantly to sustain the attack of the ship while killing the invaders aboard. The enemy warped into the section of the ship with the O2 exchanger, and quickly destroyed it. Battered and bruised the brave crew of The Appropriate defeated the enemy, but at an enormous cost — fires blazed aboard the ship, quickly depraving the crew of oxygen, Matt returned to the pilot station to chart a course to safety while Hilary and Scott worked to contain the fire. Ash ran to the back of the ship  to repair the O2 sensor. With his last breath oxygen was restored to the ship, but his injuries sustained from combat, fire, and smoke inhalation were too much to overcome. A hero was born that day, as Ash saved the crew of The Appropriate, and possibly the Federation as well…

So yeah, it’s an 8-bit styled game, without an overly deep narrative, but the game is what you make of it. The downtempo sci-fi soundtrack and personalization touches you can put on the game draw you in as you explore the vastness of space. There are plenty of twists and turns along the way, opportunities to barter, expand your crew, upgrade weapons, or discover new technology… it’s totally up to you.

Fire is bad.

But a final warning, the game is hard as hell, but in a good way. You learn from mistakes, and the difficulty of the game keeps you honest. And, as you progress, you can unlock new ship layouts, and alien ships, each with a different starting configuration, which provides different strategies for approaching the game. And on a final note, I’m liking this trend in indie gaming, where the soundtrack is so important (and thus so good) in the game that it warrants a separate purchase. I’m telling you, if anything I’ve just described sounds even remotely interesting to you, do yourself a favor and grab this game now. For the next 26 hours it’s on Steam right now for $5 (or $7 with the soundtrack – Highly Recommended)!

Give it a try, and share your adventures with us! Happy Gaming. 

On this final podcast of 2012 we take a look back at some of our favorite things. We talk THQ, Amazon TV, and Windows Phone, and review some highly addicting games in Middle Manager of Justice and FTL: Faster than Light. Finally, your top 5 things from the year. We couldn’t do it without you, thanks for listening! Here’s to a great 2013!

Rated NA 86

For those not familiar, Jade Empire is a martial arts adventure role playing game set in a world inspired by ancient China. Players can choose one of six protagonists, three male, three female, for their adventures in the empire which, broadly speaking, break down in the traditional warrior, rogue, and mage classes.

After selecting a character and a brief tutorial on how to fight it’s time to meet Master Li, the man who took your orphaned self in and trained you, and the adventure begins. You pick up your first follower, Dawn Star, a childhood friend who has the ability to see ghosts, and meet Gao the Lesser (voiced by Nathan Fillion, of all people), as you head off to protect the village from a bandit raid. From there events escalate pretty quickly, culminating with the protagonists departure from their long-time home to save the Jade Empire.

Throughout your adventures you pick up more followers, reveal more of the past and the impact it will play on your future, all while kicking the crap out of ghosts and mortals foolish enough to get in your way. There is a “light side/dark side,” for lack of a better term, alignment system at play, here termed the Way of the Open Palm versus the Way of the Closed Fist. And what would a Bioware game without some sweet loving? While one gathers quite the party, only three are available to for the player to win the heart of: Dawn Star, Silk Fox, and Sky. Silk Fox and Sky are also same-sex romance options for either gender, which I’ll revisit in bit here.

Why You Should Care

So, why should you bother going back for Jade Empire when you can have all the shiny graphics, and more sophisticated gameplay, of the later Bioware titles? For one, Jade Empire is pretty. Its age shows with some of the cinematics and environments, but there are places which I promise you will take a moment to enjoy. It is a lovely game, bright and colorful at times, but it can also take on a darker, creepier tone when required. The combat can be a pain at times, but, in my humble opinion, is infinitely more bearable than Dragon Age: Origins– if you can get through Origins, Jade Empire will be a breeze. Plus, it is quite fun to watch the different styles in motion as you button mash to victory.

More importantly, the story is fantastic. The Jade Empire is a well-constructed world, the developers even created an entire language for the game, with rich lore to engross the player in and plenty of well-realized NPCs to interact with. Do not skip the Aishi the Mournful Blade side quest– it is a treat, promise! The protagonist has a number of followers and they all have side quests too, which I learned after the fact and need to go back to check out, but they all have unique voices and make your travels more colorful. I was really surprised to find the same-sex romances options for both men and women were available before Mass Effect and Dragon Age, further highlighting progressive leanings by Bioware in this department. I don’t think the romances are as strong as later titles, but they’re good fun nonetheless. I wooed Silk Fox and was quite entertained.

Final Thoughts

So, why is Jade Empire not often gushed about by fans? I still don’t have a definitive answer. Bioware had, and continues to have, an established fan base which is usually all over any of the products which come out. By the time Jade Empire was released Bioware had already established itself with Baldur’s Gate, Neverwinter Nights, and Knights of the Old Republic, all of which were well received. It doesn’t seem there would be an issue of concern over a lack of quality product being delivered. Were people turned off by a new IP? A fantasy story set outside of medieval Europe?

The reviews I read focused criticism on the combat, some found it too easy, and the length of the game, clocking in at about 20 hours or so. These are fair points, but given the overall positive impressions the game left for the reviewers? Clearly it was not a deal breaker in terms of recommending the game.

Maybe players just didn’t connect with the game? It happens. For example, I think Fallout 3 is a good game, but I couldn’t finish it–it just never struck a chord of “must see and do all the things.” This is a fair point after all– a person isn’t going sink hours into a game if they cannot get into it.

A lot of factors determine what causes a person enjoy a game. There is no one variable, nor are there right or wrong ones. But, that said, I think there are a lot of elements fans of Bioware games will enjoy in Jade Empire. It’s a beautiful game, an original setting, wonderful characters, and it deserves more love in my opinion. It’s 600 Microsoft points, and about $15 on Steam. If you’re looking to escape the winter blues, go check out Jade Empire. I’d love to hear reactions on this, whether folks have played before or are checking it out for the first time. Maybe there will be some theories as to why this is the “forgotten” Bioware game.

Natalie currently resides in the San Francisco Bay Area where she tries to balance full-time work and various nerdy hobbies. While being a huge Bioware fangirl, she also enjoys other video games (i.e. Arkam City, the Fable series) as well as comic books set in the DC universe

Challenges run from now until the game’s release, and appear to be a pretty good deal to score some free DLC for the game depending on your progress. There are 5 DLC items to unlock in all, and your participation in the hunt also gives you a chance to win some real world prizes including themed consoles, an ATV, or a trip to Fiji — all in the spirit of Tomb Raider of course. The challenges themselves, thus far, have involved answering trivia questions and uploading photos (it is, after all a Scavenger Hunt).

Check out the trailer here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cx-XM8tKn4M

The hunt is currently open to those that have pre-ordered the game, and based on what we’ve already seen at past Pax events, Tomb Raider is shaping up to be a interesting and exciting release. Follow the hunt online or on your mobile at: http://trscavenger.com/login

Good luck.

Is there room on the Rated NA podcast for two nerds named Ash?  We’re joined on this week’s episode of Rated NA by writer, actress, and all around creative whirlwind, Ashly Burch.  Ashly and her brother Anthony are the masterminds behind the incredibly hilarious comedy series Hey Ash Whatcha’ Playin? (HAWP).  If web comedy isn’t your thing,  Ashly also voiced everyone’s favorite 13 year old explosive expert Tiny Tina in Borderlands 2!  We were lucky enough to have Ash on for the entire episode and ended up gushing for hours about Mass Effect, The Walking Dead, XCOM and more..  Oh yeah, we also got around to reading your listener responses to this week’s NAQOTW.

Rated NA 85

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SOURCE: IGN

The We In Team:  Four player co-op is where the party currently resides. Games like Mass Effect 3, Gears of War 3, and Borderlands 2 have found new and innovative ways to punish alien life forms with your closest friends, and we love this trend.  After doing some recon of their official site, I have to say that Fuse has me genuinely excited.  At its core, Fuse is a class based third person shooter with a cover mechanic (see Mass Effect 3) that allows the player to choose between one of four distinct character archetypes with unique special abilities and weapon proficiencies.  The game looks nice enough visually, but how it handles remains to be seen.  As we all know, if a shooter can’t shoot, it often misses the mark. … Did I just make that up?

Golden Voices: While we may be a bit bias, we’re incredibly excited that two of our favorite voice actors are back together once again in Fuse!  Apparently Insomniac has great taste.  That’s right, Jennifer Hale and Ali Hillis will reunite to play agents Isabelle Sinclair and Naya Deveraux, two of the four playable protagonists. (Hale and Hillis were the voices of Commander Shepard and Dr. Liara T’Soni in the Mass Effect Trilogy)  Since Hale and Hillis always bring their  ”A” game, we at least know that the voice acting in Fuse is going to be incredible.

Fuse is set to launch for the Xbox 360 and PS3 in March of 2013.

Step aside, other popular ‘word’ games, there’s a new wizard in town. It’s you! And you’re summoning all the RAJ, ZA, and QI you can shake a wand at in the new mobile game, Spellwood from Three Rings Design. Longtime fans of Three Rings Design may remember (or still play) the wildly awesome Puzzle Pirates, in which classic and new casual puzzle games blend seemly together in the world of swashbuckling.

In Spellwood, Three Rings takes you to a world of magic, where all manner of rabbits, cats and mice duel in battles of letter-play. Imagine blending that one popular mobile word game (you know the one) with RPG elements of Puzzle Quest. In a nutshell, that’s Spellwood, and it’s so Wizard (19 points).

Start out in the single player adventure. You take on the role of a young rabbit wizard who is on his way to challenge the world. The adventure unfolds through challenging wizarding towers around the game map. Battle your way to the top of the tower to unlock the next tower (over 90 adversaries overall). Battles work like this: cast words onto the game board, and the point total of that word is dealt as damage against your opponent. Deplete your opponents HP to win. Spellwood wrinkles the strategy of a typical word game by removing words from the board after a couple of turns.

Wins get you XP, and leveling up increases your HP, and the ability to use items… yes, items! This is where things get interesting. Your character has both gear and one-time use equipment. Your gear (which includes your wand, hat, and letter bag) can increase your damage while reducing the damage of your opponent. Then you have one-time use items like double-letter squares you can throw down to gain a surprise advantage, or a potion to restore a portion of your health. So even when things are looking bleak (11 point word) you’re never out of the fight. It’s those RPG elements, I feel, that elevate Spellwood above the competition.

Of course, you can take your talents online and dual against your Facebook or GameCenter friends. All of this is contained within the solid cartoon-style presentation of Three Rings creativity we’ve come to love.

There’s one more thing I feel needs to be discussed in the current era of mobile gaming. You see Spellwood is a cool $1.99 on Android and iOS, and that’s a good thing. So often do we see great games marred by nerfed abilities that require microtransactions to upgrade, you’ll find none of that nonsense here.

Spellwood puts a clever twist on a classic, making it fun and accessible to players of all skill levels. Wands at the ready, Spellwood is Nerd Appropriate (17 points… if you had enough tiles).

Visit www.spellwood.com for more information and where to purchase.

Happy Gaming

The Nerd Appropriate Question of the Week: What is Your Favorite Family Moment From a Game, Movie, or Television Series?

But now the answer may be here in the form of the Marvel Now! new Number Ones.  It’s a reboot of sorts for pretty much all of the most popular Marvel characters, including Hulk, Ironman, Capt. America, even Deadpool and plenty more! I wouldn’t call it a new origin story for everyone or anything like that (Seriously, we all know how Spiderman got his powers by now).  Actually it’s nothing like that. It’s more like each character is starting a new chapter of their own story in a way that’s great for new or returning readers to pick up.  Altogether, their will be 27 Number Ones as part of the Marvel Now! campaign. (http://marvel.com/marvelnow?nav=1) so chances are you’re favorite characters are involved.

What’s more is some things have changed in the Marvel ‘verse in the past year.  The events of the fantastic ‘AvX’ (Avengers vs. X-men) series, a 12 issues series that I whole heartedly recommend to any past, current, or future Marvel fan (you should be able to find it in its second printing out now), have left their very lasting marks on everyone across the board.  And I do mean everyone.  Which is why in addition to the character reboots there is a totally new series titled “Uncanny Avengers”.  If you know much about the X-men and the Avengers then you know this is huge.  If not you’ll just have to trust me.

So what are you waiting for? You know you loved The Avengers on the big screen.  Now you can continue that adventure with them every week!

Marvel NOW!

If you’re a fan of strategy, tabletop, miniatures, or card games, have we got a game for you. Minion Master from BitFlip games has come out of beta and is ready for you to get your grubby mitts all over. At it’s core its a card-driven table top game that plays out with animated miniatures. Under the hood, however, it’s a whole ‘nother story…

We got a chance to check out Minion Master at Pax Prime this year, it was good then, and is even better now. In short, attack and destroy your opponent’s tower to win. You start with a digital deck of cards, which discard for mana, and use it to summon creatures and effects.  The action plays out on a 3D tabletop environment with animated minions. What you’ll immediately notice is that the game appears to take place in real time, while in reality turns are processed in discrete time to keep the action moving. There are currently 3 fractions with which you can build decks and a ton of cards to choose from.

Impressive to say the least, the game is actively being evolved by a small team of three full time (and a couple part-time) developers. Playing the game for the first time you know that the team clearly has tabletop chops. Just about anything you’d want to do, you can… and whatever feature isn’t there now, it will probably be there tomorrow. Its refreshing to see a developer work so closely with a community to maximize the player experience.

For example, the game automates the process of moving the minions on the board by default, according to behaviors for each unit. While there are behavior modifier cards it is not possible to move units individually… nor would you want to move each one… maps can be huge with multiple players! Since Pax, however, BitFlip upgraded this process with a micromanagement system that smartly draws from the mana pool. So you can target specific units for the exact tactical advantage. To that point, it’s a living game that promises to stay balanced while giving players new ways to customize their experience.

The game features up to 6 player multiplayer, singleplayer and all points in between. You can build and save decks, edit maps, and even game with the devs from time to time in the community sessions.

There’s really just too much to cover here, other than to say that it’s customizable,  fun, and constantly being supported. You can get started for free, or grab all factions with five pre-built decks for just $20. Take a look at Minion Master on Desura, at Minion Master’s website, and give them a vote of confidence at Steam Greenlight.

Happy Gaming

The gang recaps the VGAs, Humble Bundle is awesome-er, Spellwood is a mobile gem, and we get our hands dirty with AC3 multiplayer. Finally, your thoughts and impressions about the award show’s winners and losers. Its more fun than finding magical games to put into the eye sockets of statues.

Rated NA 84

PC gaming is something most players do when they’re by themselves.  The current interface limits social interaction due to the way PCs traditionally are set up.  I would venture to say that most PC players have a desk in a dark corner of their homes someplace where they can play in peace on their 20 inch monitor.  Console gaming has become a visually pleasing social experience, with HD graphics (hopefully on a large T.V.), surround sound, and a comfy couch nearby.  Valve wants to make these qualities easily accessible to the PC gaming community, and I couldn’t agree more.

Having a simple to use living room PC with proprietary upgradeable hardware would allow players to get the best of both worlds; a PC quality gaming system that can be enjoyed by all on their living room television.  So will I buy a living room PC?  Day 1.  How about you?  Sound off.

For years now Nerd Appropriate Matt and myself have argued about the Halo franchise.   While he thought Halo was an incredible console shooting experience, I never really “got it.”  Now to clarify, I’ve played and beaten almost every Halo title ever made and had fun doing so, but I always felt as though Halo was missing that special shooter magic it needed to keep me coming back for more.   Here is where things get interesting…

When 343 took over for Bungie to produce Halo 4, the skeptic in me instantly thought the franchise was doomed to fail.  I’m a pretty optimistic guy, but c’mon!?  Halo without Bungie is like Mass Effect without Bioware… Gross right? 

Halo 4 is by far my favorite title in the series and manages to do so many things that previous Halo games could never quite pull off.  The weapons feel incredible and sound better than ever before.  As rounds spit from some of the new automatic weapons, you’ll swear you can feel the heat from the muzzle (so dramatic).  The character of Chief has a bit more weight when he moves and no longer feels like a floating disembodied head on the battlefield.  The environments and vistas are some of the most beautiful I’ve ever seen on the 360 and I found myself stopping to look at the scenery on more than one occasion (it’s pretty)!  While the plots of past Halo games were convoluted and hard to follow, Halo 4 does a great job of making the character of Chief likable with a story that easy to understand.  In Halo 4 Chief has a very personal mission to help out the only friend he really has, and he’s willing to kill anything and everything in his path in order to pull it off.  While the old Halo games felt a bit like Independence Day, Halo 4 feels a bit like Die Hard… and that’s a really good thing.

So here I sit with my dirty old foot lodged in my mouth.  I think I’ve become a Halo Fan…

Rated NA 83

Take The Helm:  While seemingly simplistic, there is actually a whole lot to AC3′s naval combat.  The Aquilla must constantly be mindful of the weather and wind direction, which are visible on the HUD.  The ship speed can be altered by setting the sails to no sail, half sail, or full sail, but the faster the Aquilla goes, the less maneuverable she becomes.   Cannons can be fired from both your port and starboard sides (that’s ship speak for left and right) and smaller cannons (the ladies) can be fired in 360 degrees to deliver a precise killing blow to a wounded vessel.  Expensive, but awesome, additions can be purchased for the Aquilla, like a battering ram and a variety of different shells for your cannons.  The explosions look so damn pretty, and it never ever gets old.

Avast!:   In terms of variety, there are a ton of different sailing missing to pass your time in between sessions of red coat slaughter, from scouting and destruction, to escort and protection.  After about 30 hours with ACIII, no two missions have really felt the same, and that’s just incredible.  On rare occasions you’ll have the option of taking down the mast of an enemy ship in order to board the enemy vessel to deal with the enemy crew… personally.. with pointy stuff..

Quite possibly the biggest triumph of AC3′s ship combat is how surprisingly well it all fits into the story.  You would think that a half Native American assassin would have no place on the deck of a pirate ship, but it all makes sense and feels incredibly organic.  Conner’s relationship with Robert Faulkner, his first mate, is one of my favorites in the game  and (Faulker is actually voiced by Kevin McNally who played portrayed Joshamee Gibbs, the first mate aboard the Black Pearl in the Pirates of the Carribean series) I find myself actually caring a lot about the Aquilla and her crew.  Personally, I would love to see Ubisoft put out an entire game using what they have accomplished here.

The Omega DLC is pretty much what it says it is: Shepard helping Aria reclaim her space station. The player is immediately launched into a quick explanation of what transpired for those who didn’t read the comics. Cerberus general Oleg Petrovsky took over Omega on orders from the Illusive Man. The CEO, queen, if you’re feeling dramatic, wants her station back and Shepard is going to help her. Following a rough landing, and a few firefights, once on Omega the player is introduced to Nyreen Kandros, the first female turian seen in-game, who has a bit of personal history with Aria and Omega.

Party time: Shepard spends the bulk of the time with Aria as a party member, who has a fun new power with flare, and Nyreen chips in with her biotic protection bubble and grenades. There are familiar enemies, I still hate Atlas mechs, as well as some new ones to impede the player’s progress. Rampart mechs are fast and nasty up close, adjutants are the biotic Cthulu’s who were released by Cerberus onto Omega, and are also a joy to contend with (Author’s note: I am not a fan of tentacles unless they are on Liara’s head. Adjutants? Not. Cool.).

Ladies Night: Other elements I enjoyed? The influence of the paragon/renegade choices not only on the outcomes of situations, but on Aria’s personality in game. I played through the DLC with both alignments and, if one enjoys dialogue and banter, I’d recommend doing the same. Aria’s reactions, and interactions, with Shepard and Nyreen change depending on what the player chooses. It reminded me of the light/dark side alignment and the impact on party members in Knights of the Old Republic after a fashion. I was also happy to see DLC with two female characters as the focus (yes, yes, the asari are mono-gendered, technically. But, details). Bioware has always done an excellent job of showcasing strong, well-written women, but it’s always refreshing to see since it’s not nearly as prevalent as I would like in gaming, yet.

Omega is definitely a fun addition which I would recommend for anyone looking to spend a couple more hours in the Mass Effect universe.  Also, if you’d like to check out NA’s chat with Mass Effect producer Mike Gamble about the making of Omega, and Mass Effect in general, check out Rated NA 32: Omega Explosion.

Natalie currently resides in the San Francisco Bay Area where she tries to balance full-time work and various nerdy hobbies. While being a huge Bioware fangirl, she also enjoys other video games (i.e. Arkam City, the Fable series) as well as comic books set in the DC universe

Rated NA 82

The Truth: If you’ve ever wondered what we all “do” here at the site, i’ll spill the beans.  Long ago we met for breakfast to work out some of the details of our LLC (yes, we’re legit).  After some deliberation we decided that Matt would handle web design, development, and tech (which is what he does for a living),  while Scott and I split up editing and PR duties respectively.  Earlier this year we were joined by Hilary who started out as a guest and simply never left. Creating content for NA is a great gig with no deadlines, no rules, and no pressure other than the pressure that we create for ourselves.  It really is optimal in every way possible.

What We Learned: In the beginning just getting folks to talk to our site was a real challenge.  I’m not kidding when I say that dozens upon dozens of emails went unanswered.   And while it was discouraging at first, it taught me patience.  The folks at Penny Arcade gave NA our first legitimate press pass and our bad luck ended at PAX: East 2010.  It was at PAX we learned the basic rules of game journalism, be honest, be humble, and above all else, don’t be a dick.  Using this secret formula things started happening for us, and people started paying attention.  So why the heck do we do this?  I can only speak for myself when I say that I work on the site because I love this stuff, and I really love that YOU love this stuff.

Thank you SO MUCH for sticking around, you guys are the best.  And like it our not we’ll be here for a long time to come.

Light Spoilers Ahead

The Story:  The Walking Dead:  No Time Left is the moving conclusion to Telltale’s ground breaking adventure game set in Robert Kirman’s zombie infested universe.  For the past four episodes players have taken on the role of Lee Evertt, who surprisingly turned out to be one of the best written protagonists in recent years.  Convicted of murder, The Walking Dead begins with Lee’s trip to prison, or the end of his life as a free man.  Lee’s adventures are all essentially a gift, and even though his time in the zombie infested wasteland is less than perfect, I’d venture to say that it’s better than rotting away in prison for the rest of his days.  Lee’s story is one of friendship, redemption, and above all else love.  And what a story it was.

For Clementine: The Walking Dead isn’t about shooting, platforming, skill trees, or anything we’ve really become accustomed to in recent years, it’s about relationships.  There are no meters to gauge how close you become with your companions along the way, and no way of gaining their trust in any way other than your actions.  The heart and soul of the game is an eight year old girl by the name of Clementine who is quite possibly the only child I’ve ever liked in a video game.  Clementine is just a cool kid, and unless you have no soul, you’ll do everything in your power to keep her safe.  Over the course of the season we’ve gotten to known Clementine, taught her how to shoot a gun, kill a walker, and have watched her grow into a brave and confident young lady.  Clementine is Lee Evertt’s salvation, everything you do, you do for Clem.  She’s worth it.

Heavy Spoilers Ahead

The End:  At the end of Episode Four (written by the diabolical Gary Whitta) Lee was scratched/bitten by a walker leaving players wondering what could possibly come next.  Episode five gives players some of the most difficult decisions in the entire series, and by the time the episode is over players will undoubtedly feel emotionally eviscerated.  In the end I couldn’t allow Clementine to shoot Lee even though I knew deep inside that he was doomed.  I cared so much for the character that I told myself that maybe Lee was just sick from his wounds, and maybe, just maybe he could survive what had happened.  Telltale has done something truly remarkable with The Walking Dead, and episode five is a moving ending to a wonderfully crafted adventure.  Thank you Telltale for making me sad AND changing the way games are played.

It’s been mentioned before and it bears repeating. Dance Central 3 is fun as all get-out and challenging to boot… and it just keeps getting better.

A Brief Review

The game has as much visual eye candy as ever, and the overall presentation of the game is crisp! At this point you sort of know what you’re getting into with Dance Central, this installment, however, has a few pleasant surprises…

The revamped Story mode showcases the effort put into crafting a narrative around the music, one that is funny and keeps things light. And it’s the right amount of narrative for a game of this nature, I likened it to the story you experience before getting on a theme-park ride. Just enough to get you excited, and not overbearing (because I’ve just got to dance…). And thanks to the expanded narrative, the characters that we’ve seen over 3 games have more soul, which makes the game more engaging.

My experience with this song list took a real turn for the better. You see, the game features songs from decades starting at the 70′s. I knew there would be some classic wedding tunes and some boy-band pop that really isn’t my thing (but there’s clearly an appeal to the right demographic). Keep in mind that musical tastes, after all, are quite personal and specific. So there’s something here for everyone, which will be great for those Dance Central parties.

Something else occurred to me too, something more important — this game is totes challenging. Even more so, I’d say, than the previous installments. Sure, it’s partly because there’s a natural tendency to make the choreography harder to evolve with long-time fans… but look at the range of songs in this game due to the decade thing… disco, hip hop, freestyle, pop, in addition to more modern moves. You don’t just have to be good, you’ve got be versatile. The combination of new moves and tweaked favorites really keep you on your toes (on your toes… see what I did there?).

Dress Classy, Dance Cheesy

And this brings us to now with the recent news that Gangnam Style is coming to Dance Central 3 on November 27th. Shits gonna be cray. Today (Nov 20th) also marks the release of two additional Usher songs (Twisted and Euphoria), which is great because Usher and his choreography team had a hand in developing those routines. (Read: they’re hard).

If you’ve been on the fence about Dance Central 3, now’s the time to jump in! Make sure you don’t get served… MC Hammer sure as hell won’t.

Happy Gaming. 

We couldn’t be more excited to have Actress Amy Acker on the podcast to talk about TV (Angel, Dollhouse, Alias, and even S.H.I.E.L.D. ), film, Much Ado About Nothing, and… pickling? Is there anything she can’t do?! As always you can follow our Twitter feed here @NerdAppropriate or subscribe to our weekly podcasts here on the ol’ iTunes.  Thanks so much for checking us out.

Rated NA 81

Episode Five: No Time Left, before it launches on PlayStation Network US (11/20), Xbox LIVE (11/21), PlayStation Network EU (11/21), PC/MAC (11/21), and iOS (11/21).

While you were out… (minimal spoilers)

The reader gets a glimpse of life in the Tevinter Imperium as the trio, in disguise, goes to a rather lavish party that Titus is slated to attend.  Alistair confronts the magister upon his arrival and, following a fight, Titus escapes. After interrogating one of the henchmen, the trio sails towards Seheron to continue the chase, but they are captured by the Qunari. Alistair and Varric are provided reasonable accommodations and meet the new Arishok, Sten, last seen in Dragon Age: Origins. Sten reveals some of what he knows of Titus and the magister’s interest in Alistair’s heritage.

Meanwhile, Isabela has been hauled off to the dungeons. There she is questioned on her past, her family ties to the Qun, and deeds she’s done by a Qunari named Rasaan. After refusing to give into Rasaan’s demands, Isabela fights back, escaping the dungeon and tracking down Varric and Alistair. After arming her friends with some recently liberated weapons, Isabela goes back to free her captured crew and finds herself in another confrontation with Rasaan, whom she defeats. The escape of Alistair and Varric is cut short by the arrival of the Arishok. Alistair beats his former companion in a fight and proposes an alliance between them against Titus, setting the stage for the next series of comics as they continue their quest.

The Verdict?

I thought this installment was much better than the Silent Grove in terms of the pacing. Other than a bit of an info dump in the second issue, it was easier to immerse myself compared to the abrupt starts and stops in the other series. I was also happy to see the continued balance of exposition with action, something I also liked about the Silent Grove. One of my favorite parts of the comics has been the art, not that I know a damn thing about critiquing it. So, we’ll just sum it up like this: I think the art is pretty and liked getting to see more fight scenes as I think the artist handles them well.

There were a couple questions I had on some of Isabela’s actions as they seemed inconsistent with her presentation in game, though I’ll leave that to the reader to decide for themselves since I want to avoid major spoilers. I did find the change of narrator, from Alistair to Isabela, to be a nice touch, giving an alternate viewpoint on the events unfolding. As such, I am looking forward to seeing what happens with Varric in the next series given the character’s tendency to weave a good tale and his past. One of my favorite parts about the comics has been getting to see places me mentioned in game. I rather enjoyed our glimpse into the life of Tevinter magisters and I hope that’s something we’ll get more of in the next series. (Maybe even the next game? Please?)

I was surprised to see the Qunari featured so heavily again as they were the focus of quite a bit of the Dragon Age II content.  Obviously, this leads me to wonder on the role, if any, we’ll see in Inquisition from the followers of the Qun.  I’ll also be interested to see if the comics don’t tie up some loose ends like Asunder did. Certain characters from Origins had their fates determined outside the realm of video games in that novel, I’m curious to see if something similar will play out here.

Nerd Appropriate

My recommendation? If you’re a Dragon Age fan looking to get a bit of Thedas while we wait for more news on the upcoming game? “Those Who Speak” is worth looking into.

Natalie currently resides in the San Francisco Bay Area where she tries to balance full-time work and various nerdy hobbies. While being a huge Bioware fangirl, she also enjoys other video games (i.e. Arkam City, the Fable series) as well as comic books set in the DC universe

Watch Firefly: Browncoats Unite tonight at 10 PM (ET/PT) on the Science Channel.

PRESS RELEASE: After months of intense buzz and two blockbuster panels at both San Diego and New York Comic-Con, it’s finally time for the main event – FIREFLY: BROWNCOATS UNITE on November 11 at 10 PM (ET/PT), Science Channel reunites Joss Whedon, Nathan Fillion and the entire renegade crew of the Serenity for the first time ever to provide the complete oral history on the franchise that continues to explode in popularity – despite meeting its end a decade ago.  The 60-minute special includes secrets from the set, exclusive cast interviews, and footage from this year’s colossal Comic-Con panel that dominated the pop culture conversation.  Joining Whedon and Fillion for FIREFLY: BROWNCOATS UNITE are Serenity crewmembers Sean Maher, Summer Glau, Adam Baldwin, Morena Baccarin, Alan Tudyk, Gina Torres and Jewel Staite; along with executive producer Tim Minear and executive story editor Jose Molina.

This summer, FIREFLY creator Joss Whedon triumphantly exclaimed to a crowd of thousands at San Diego Comic-Con that “the story is alive.” Legions of fans across the world couldn’t agree more, proving that a series which is comprised of only 14 episodes had endured the test of time.  Guided by Entertainment Weekly senior writer Jeff Jensen, Science Channel re-created the set of the Serenity for this epic gathering capturing the insights and memories of space’s most-rebellious flight crew – including the moment they realized they were canceled and where they believe the FIREFLY universe could live next.

“When Science Channel began airing FIREFLY in 2011, we immediately realized that these fans are a subculture united by a unique and fanatical passion for the series,” says Debbie Adler Myers, general manager and executive vice president of Science Channel.  “Our goal is to present them the series they love – but in a totally new and surprising way.  Whether that’s through exploring the science behind the show or reuniting the entire cast for the first time, we want Science Channel to be the home for Browncoats everywhere.”

Science Channel’s FIREFLY Sunday extravaganza begins at 7AM ET/PT with an all-day marathon of the series.  Then, at 10PM ET/PT, the event Browncoats everywhere have been waiting for - FIREFLY: BROWNCOATS UNITE premieres on Science Channel.

Pid effortlessly blends old school 2D platforming with new and interesting abilities. It starts out quite simple really, press A to jump, hold A longer to jump higher. Before long, Kurt is endowed with a glowing light. Throw the light onto a surface and it sticks, shooting a beam outward that carries Kurt away from it. Beams can be stuck on floors, walls, ceilings and platforms. Here’s the catch, you only get two. Drop the third and the first one goes away. You see, there’s more than one way to cross a spike pit.

The game slowly introduces enemies, which you can dispose of with bombs. In an old school homage, Kurt doesn’t throw beams or bombs very far, so you need to be quick, agile, and tactical. Once you master one tactic, the game hits you with another ability, another tactic, and gets you thinking about combination of tactics. It’s all quite elegant really.

Speaking of elegant, the environments offer great detail. 3D environments provide a clever sense of depth to an otherwise 2 dimensional game. Kurt travels through caves, houses, cityscapes and everywhere in between. Each environment is unique, though somehow smoothly transitioning together. A top-notch soundtrack rounds out the mix, the kind of music that you actually notice when you’re playing a game. Just like the gameplay, it offers something new, but with many moments where you think, “is that Duck Tales, or that sounds a bit like Castlevania…” It just works.

And if you want a challenge, Pid has it. If you like to stray from the beaten path to find super secret collectibles, they will be there. If a wall looks a little sketchy, you can probably walk through it. Better yet, if you don’t want to do any of that you don’t have to and Pid doesn’t make you feel bad for not doing it. The straight and narrow is still challenging, with one boss battle in particular that will get your thumbs going. If you’re up to task there’s even a hardcore mode as well, unlocked presumably after you finish the first go.

Pid is a steal at ~$10, and you can grab it for PC, Xbox, and PS3. I’m pretty sure I’ve not even scratched the surface either — Pid offers a co-op mode too. While I’ve not gotten to try it, I could only imagine what two beam juggling, bomb throwing kids can do, but I want to go to there.

Help Kurt find his way home, check out Pid by Might and Magic, and

Happy Gaming.

Why she agreed to be on our podcast, i’ll never know..

We couldn’t be more excited to let you all know that we’ll be joined on Rated NA 81 by actress Amy Acker!  For those of you who are fans of  Mr. Joss Whedon (who isn’t these days?) you probably recognize Amy from her starring roles in Angel and Dollhouse.  We’ve been massive fans of Amy’s work for ages now and are looking forward to probing her mind and hanging out.  If you have any questions you’d like to ask Amy about any of her projects, from Angel to the upcoming Much Ado About Nothing, simply drop a question in the comments below.  This should be a good one gang!

1.  The return of old faces:  The best part of Mass Effect wasn’t the space battles, futuristic weaponry, or even the gameplay, it was the relationships that we got to forge throughout our adventures.  While I understand the appeal of allowing the player to meet a entirely new cast and crew, it would be a shame to not bring back some of the Normandy’s heroes for a bit more action.  Imagine the thrill of running into an old and crusty Joker in a slimy bar on the edge of the galaxy, or showing up on Omega generations later to find Aria still in charge… . Awesome right?  Gamers love familiarity, and we’ve grown to know the characters of Mass Effect quite well.  Plus, we all know Asari and Krogan live forever.

2. No Prequels: Too much has already happened in the Mass Effect universe to ever devote a full game to old news.  While many people here at NA think it would be a great idea to spend time on the First Contact War or even the Rachni War, I say move forward!  The worst threat in the history of all time just got its butt kicked (in one of three ways) and it’s time to see what the future holds after the defeat of the Reapers.  As much as I’d love to play through these classic galactic conflicts myself, I feel as though they’re better suited for the books and comics.

3. Space Combat:  How incredible was it when the Normandy was blown out of the sky by the Collectors and then later returned to have its revenge with super Garrus pimped laser cannons?  Now imagine getting to actually PLAY that scenario and not just watch it.  With such incredible ship detail and design, it was always a shame we never got to pilot the Normandy through the Omega relay with our own sweaty hands.  While ship combat of that caliber was not entirely possible on current gen consoles, who knows what next gen will allow the developers to create.  More explosions!

4. Cooperative Campaign: Don’t get me wrong, I love me a traditional RPG, but WOW was cooperative multiplayer in ME3 a lot fun.  How would developers create a story based RPG with various dialog options that still allowed players to drop in and out of their friend’s games without screwing up their story?  I have no idea… but damn would that be awesome.

5. The Search for Shep:  One thing all players have in common is their love for Commander Shepard.  Imagine an entire campaign based around the search for a missing, and perhaps dead, Shepard.  Millions of players around the world agree that Commander Shepard is one of the greatest video game protagonists of all time, so why not make them work (and pay $$) to try and get their beloved Shepard back.   Also, Bioware wouldn’t be caught in a lie by saying that after ME3 Shepard’s story was over.  This wouldn’t be Shepard’s story, it we be a story about the search for a lost galactic hero.  Heck, it could even have puzzles and parkour!  Okay… maybe I just want Jennifer Hale back.

Mass Effect 3 Multiplayer Gift: Simply Log into Mass Effect 3 Multiplayer today to get a free gift pack. It has guns in it!

Mass Effect 3 Multiplayer N7 Day Challenge:  Requires three extractions while playing as a human character (basic human kits, N7 humans, ex-Cerberus). This can be completed on any map at any difficulty.
Completing this challenge will unlock the N7 Day banner as reward. (source)

N7 Day Fan Kit:   Wallpapers, Facebook Covers, Profile pics, Forum Icons, etc.  Download the Fan Kit here.

N7 Day Pinterest : An amazing collection of fan art gathered for N7 day here.

N7 Contest:  Win some great stuff by submitting pics of your N7 inspired costumes or art. (Contest Rules)

We have a ton of Bioware and Mass Effect related content coming your way very soon, so make sure to check back here soon.

Wind, rain and sickness won’t keep us from you. Disney buys Lucasfilm, Marvel works on new Avengers stuff, and Microsoft looks at phone hardware. We review Wreck it Ralph and Walking Dead Ep 4, plus our early impressions of AC3 and indie-platforming darling, Pid. Finally, we find out who you’d recast for Luke, Leia, and Han in Star Wars Episode 7. Who is Haytham?!

Rated NA 80

For more information on The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim or Dragonborn please visit www.elderscrolls.com

A Day at The Office:  There is very little hand holding or guidance in XCOM’s robust campaign. In the beginning, I was given a modest budget, a bunch of countries to keep happy, and a small task force of rookie soldiers to save the world with.  Once I was done with the tutorial, I was instantly overwhelmed by how much there was to do.  While the intro did a great job of explaining combat, the intricacies of base building and resource management were totally alien to me... sigh…  After a few months (which can take up to few hours each), I really started to enjoy the resource management and research aspects of Enemy Unknown.  Even after playing all the way through the campaign, it remained a challenge to keep my solider’s gear up to date and ready for action.  From the research of alien technology, to alien autopsies and interrogations, there is a ton to do at HQ.  Each and every time a new piece of alien technology is discovered it can be researched to improve the stats of your soldiers or your base.  Cool right?

Combat: Player units are organized by profession (sniper, support… etc) and can be further customized with specific abilities using a mini skill tree similar to what we’ve become accustomed to in almost all games involving XP.  Solider’s kits, weapons, gear, and appearance can all be modified making for some truly unique and funny alien busting squads.  Similar to Warhammer 40k, or even 4th Edition Dungeons and Dragons, each player unit has a certain number of actions he/she can take before their turn is over.  For instance, an assault trooper can move and fire, while a sniper has to remain stationary to take a shot.  Memorizing who can do what only takes a few battles, and even novice players will feel comfortable with combat in little time.    As soldiers unlock new armor, guns, and skills they quickly move from rookie scrubs to terrors on the battlefield.

Graphics:  Having had the pleasure of hearing Firaxis talk about the production of this game on multiple occasions, I know that much effort was made to make Enemy Unknown faithful re-imagining of the 1990s original.  While many of the creature designs are similar to the old XCOM, the look and “feel” of the creatures have been modified to make more sense to a modern audience.  Great work was also done with the cameras to make the turn based battle feel quite visceral and brutal.  Head-shots end with a brutal *pop*, spiny aliens burst out from within their hosts, and explosions explode with explosive explosiveness !  To be honest, I almost guarantee that you’ll forget you’re playing a turn based strategy title.

The Story:  Sadly there isn’t a whole lot going on in the story department.  The game revolves around an increasing alien threat and a possible “end of the world” scenario for mankind.  While there are a handful of NPCs, none of them are entirely memorable as they stay behind at base and rattle off exposition and research notes.  The real story lies with your squad and their adventures  in the trenches.  Stories like the time when Sgt. Buck “Buckshot” Wayne got mind controlled and pulled the pin on his own grenade sadly blowing himself, and several civilians, to tiny bits. Or the time that Lance “The Finger” Percival fired his plasma sniper across an entire map to get a critical head-shot on a rampaging Berzerker who was inches away from taking out his squad leader.  The real “story” of Enemy Unknown is the story that the player forges himself… Creativity at its finest.

Nerd Appropriate:  XCOM: Enemy Unknown is a bold take on a classic genre that hopefully brings new players into the fold.  With a ton of depth and customization, players could easily find themselves spending hours upon hours tweaking their squads armor, colors, heads, and haircuts before sending their tiny soldiers out to face their inevitable brutal slaughter (unless you reload).

The fine folks at Gearbox Software have given us SHiFT codes to unlock Halloween themed skins for Borderlands 2 which will be good for about two more days. If you haven’t signed up for SHiFT, it’s incredibly easy and can be done entirely from your consol or pc’s in game menu. Once you put these codes in, be sure to check your character’s inventory to unlock them.  Unlike the codes we’re used to in the biz, these suckers can be used multiple times and are good for a set duration of time.  Hope you had a great holiday!

Salvadore:

PC SHiFT Code: CTK3J-9XH3W-CRB3J-33TBJ-9JJHW
Xbox 360 SHiFT Code: WTK33-HFR95-RZRJX-KRBB3-CZ3KF
PlayStation 3 SHiFT Code: C3W3B-5JX5J-3C55J-ZJWTJ-RH3HR

Maya: 

PC SHiFT Code: WTKBJ-XRHTW-C63BT-JTB33-J6C9T
Xbox 360 SHiFT Code: WJC3T-SS6S5-X9FTF-WRTB3-BT39H
PlayStation 3 SHiFT Code: KTCTJ-ZHCKB-BKKW3-STCJT-3FZTW

Axton:

PC SHiFT Code: KT53J-36HBK-W6JJ3-BJJB3-WH95H
Xbox 360 SHiFT Code: KBKBT-WH6Z5-X96B6-WX3TJ-5J6J3
PlayStation 3 SHiFT Code: CJ5T3-5H5KT-3KCKT-9JKBB-3SKHT

Gaige:

PC SHiFT Code: W3WBJ-C6ZB5-C6JJT-33JJB-JSFX6
Xbox 360 SHiFT Code: WTKTJ-696S5-R9RB6-5RTT3-BTS3H
PlayStation 3 SHiFT Code: CJWTB-FZK5T-TKKWT-ZJ5B3-X56B9

Zero:

PC SHiFT Code: 5J5JB-B9S35-W6J33-3BJBT-33JSF
Xbox 360 SHiFT Code: 5J53B-J96HW-F9FBX-CFTT3-FTFXS
PlayStation 3 SHiFT Code: KBKB3-J3R5J-BKCKT-H3W33-9F56C

Firefly

Amazon is having a huge sale on all things Whedon today for the goldbox. I won’t waste too much time since all you need is some sweet link action. Whedon Fire(fly) Sale!

I want to preface this article with the knowledge that my wife, my sister in law and myself are all fine. Basically unscathed by a storm that was one of the largest in history out of the Atlantic and literally laid waste to a sizable portion of the eastern seaboard. I want to give my thanks and appreciation to the amazing work that the city where I live New York, and it’s first responders, pulled off in managing the needs of millions of people and the random emergencies that come up during a hurricane.

I am somewhat of a hurricane vet. It is hard to live in Florida for 30 years and not deal with a few hurricanes along the way. Whether it’s the threat of massive storms like Andrew and Katrina, or dealing with the amount of damage even small fast ones like Charlie can do to an area. It’s not just the flooding either. Hurricanes cause random damage from wind. Things like debris and shrapnel flying around in 90+ mph winds or roofs being torn from their houses. Fire pops up around the storm due to gas lines being broken or electrical hazards. These are things the fireman and police are attempting to deal with during the storm, let alone people trapped and on the verge of being killed in their own homes by flooding, falling trees and lord knows what else. Hurricanes can be terrifying if you are in the wrong area, they are rather unpredictable and horribly powerful. I’ve spent them in a closet while gigantic oak trees are falling all around me and I’ve spent them playing games in a living room with friends while waiting it out. During the storm is not even always the worst part. The aftermath of large storms like this often leave people homeless or without power. Nothing about hurricanes are to be taken lightly or in laughter. Right now millions are in need across the east coast.

My wife, my sister in law and myself spent it playing board games and watching movies in our living room. Accustomed to dealing with the sounds of a hurricane we were just hoping to not have to see any of the many trees in our neighborhood go down and that flooding would be at a minimum. We are in one of the higher parts of Brooklyn and were not requested to evacuate. First up was Clue, Simpson’s edition. Why Clue? It’s a classic. Spoiler alert, it was Krusty the Klown with the poisoned donut in the Android’s Dungeon. I hadn’t played Clue in quite a while. We had fun. We bounced between the rooms and noted all of our clues. The sisters played a very effective game of deception to where I guessed it was Krusty with the extend-o glove in Android’s Dungeon. So close. Melissa, my wife, ended up winning while Jenna, her sister, was still whittling down in which room it had taken place. Above the age of 21? Clue is much more fun with beer. Which, as a secondary note, is also how a hurricane can be a little more fun.

Small World

Second game? Small World. We talked about this game on the podcast a while ago and it never ceases to amaze me how easy it is to teach and how much fun it is to play. For a quick recap, Small World is a board game that is akin to Risk, if Risk were fun and fast. Each game takes about 45 minutes to play and the goal is to conquer as many lands for as long as possible. Each land earns you a coin or two and the person with more coins at the end of the game wins. The twist is how you play. You assume the roll of a varied race and gain a class. Something like a Flying Wizards or Seafaring Hobbits, maybe even Plundering Trolls. Each combination is random and varied, they are separate and dealt out at the beginning of the game. Each person chooses a combo and plays according to that combination. Are you seafaring rats? Then you better move in and spread out as much as you can. The next twist is that you can switch your combo out. That’s right, once your combination has run it’s course and you cannot take over any further lands, only one race gains people while playing, you can go into what Small World calls decline. You flip all your tokens over, choose a new combination and start all over again. Games are limited to 10 turns and the board will change out depending on the number of players. The game is fast, fun and always evolving. This was Jenna’s first play through and the verdict? It was a hit, so much so that she has continued to request a second play through long after the hurricane was over. The ending of this one? Jenna won with forest dwelling amazons.

So the third and final game was yet another classic, Monopoly. The Simpson’s Edition (I have a thing for the Simpson’s, maybe we’ll talk about it on a podcast sometime). You would think everyone knows how to play Monopoly. I mean come on, it’s Monopoly. Next to checkers and chess it may very well be the most ubiquitous game in the states. Well my wife and her sister had never played the game in the way 99% of the rest of the country has. So we spent the first 15 minutes going over the “real” rules plus one of my favorite bonus rules. Any money collected for taxes or community chest/chance goes directly into the center, whoever lands on Free Parking gets the pot. It’s fun and gives people who are on the downward spiral a way out. Jenna bought herself into bankruptcy and Melissa waited t0o long to build houses and ended up losing. Leaving me! I FINALLY WON A GAME! I had forgotten how much I enjoy Monopoly, although when Scott and our friends used to play it we were pretty brutal to each other. Games often ended in near fist fights. This time though, with the wind howling in the background, it was a blast.

Last up in our hurricane hold out was watching the third Paranormal Activity. I am not a huge fan of these movies. I thought the first one was interesting and sort of fun, the second one was horribly boring and the third one? Terrifying. Set in the 80′s following the two sisters from the first two movies, you learn of the beginning of said activities of the paranormal kind. The movie learned from the mistakes of the second one and spent much less time in setup mode. There were some unique and horribly unsettling camera tricks, like the camcorder mounted to a rotating fan. This leads to the slowest pan since Kubrick and it is terribly unsettling. My wife spent the movie hiding behind my shoulder and watching through her hands. It was a great pre-Halloween movie and a wonderful distraction from what was going on outside.

That brings us to now. We are fine, and I want to thank everyone that tweeted well wishes and checked up on us. Our phone has been in and out, but internet has remained mostly consistent. I’ve managed to check up on all of my friends in the area and everyone seems ok and in good spirits. That is sadly not the case for everyone. So if you are in a position to volunteer or give, then please do so. The easiest one is the Red Cross. I will include a good list below to find out where and how you can help. I hope you and your families and friends are OK and were either not in the path of this massive storm or weathered it with minimal complications. Hurricanes are never fun, never to be taken lightly, but sometimes can create a good excuse to go old school and spend some quality time with your family.

Places to help:

• Red Cross
• Salvation Army
• Americare
• NY Food Bank
• Give Blood (it is always in need in your area, and things like this are a good reminder)

So a guy walks into a bar and orders a beer, the bartender says, “what’s that iguana doing on your shoulder?” The man replies, “I don’t know, but Disney just bought Lucasfilm for four billion dollars.”  — Your right, that’s not a joke, because it is actually happening.

The news is already all over the web, so I did what every blogger does and rushed out to post the news slept on it. A few hours removed from the situation, and here’s my take, this will be great news for Star Wars fans in the long run. Here’s the thing, Disney plans to release a new trilogy starting with Episode 7 in 2015, a new films every 2-3 years or so after that. Already, a need is being met. Let’s take a closer look.

In your anger… you killed him

It’s not like fans were particularly overwhelmingly stoked with the most recent trilogy anyhow. Fan anger essentially drove Lucas to get out of the major motion picture game. And for everything you may dislike about the man’s decisions, he’s got the wherewithal to recognize that it’s time to turn the franchise over to the next generation. We’ve already seen flashes of brilliance in recent years through Robot Chicken and Family Guy, and the maturation of the Clone Wars has really put the series on par with past storytelling it its own right. For a guy everyone loves to dig on, Lucas still packs the room for panels, and gets thunderous applause when he appears on the Daily Show. He has approved and advised the aforementioned projects along the way, and will continue to serve as creative consultant on the next trilogy, so I think it’s time to cut the guy a break, good things are coming.

There’s a great big beautiful tomorrow

Some have worried that Disney’s acquisition of Lucasfilm will result in some Disney / Star Wars mash-ups. I’ve got news for you, that day came a long time ago when Star Tours landed in theme parks. We have already seen action figures of the Mouse dressed in Jedi robes and Rebel pilot suits. There’s a set of action figures casting the Muppets as Star Wars characters, and a painting of Kermit sitting next to Yoda on the banks of Dagobah (it’s not easy being green). This didn’t happen overnight, it’s been a long time coming. That’s progress for you. 

And for what it’s worth, this acquisition might do better in improving Star Wars presence at Hollywood Studios. Seriously, out of an entire era of Star Wars stuff the best we can get at a Disney park is a single ride and gift shop? Have you seen the impact Harry Potter has had on Islands of Adventure? How about an entire area dedicated to Star Wars featuring a Cantina with a Bith band, a Jedi temple for kids to explore with their parents, an underwater adventure in a Gungan Sub? Just imagine what could be built with more than 2 minutes of brainstorming.

A new hope or phantom menace

The new trilogy is said to follow the stories of Luke, Han, and Leia beyond Jedi, which raises some interesting quandries: notably, who is going to play these characters? Your guess is as good as mine (and if you have a guess, I’d like to hear it in the comments). The keen eye might also notice that many of these stories are fleshed out in the EU, so there is some canon that needs to be considered in the plot.

So let’s see what we’ve got so far: characters that have been well established, a movie that has to deal with narratives that already exist, and a die hard fan base that grew up loving the franchise? Yep, I’m talking about… The Avengers. Consider another well known company recently acquired by Disney, that seems to be doing ok for itself right now: Marvel. I seem to remember that Avengers flick doing pretty well. The gears should now be turning over in your head, not about what you should dread, but what might actually be possible. Imagine getting through Ep. 7-9 and then having concurrent one-off movies in the Star Wars universe that center on other popular characters (Mara Jade anyone?).

Let me submit another example: The Muppets. One could make the argument that this franchise would be collecting dust right now if not for the acquisition of Disney. Instead, our beloved Muppets are making a revival of sorts, with a successful movie faithful to it’s roots, another movie on the way, and some funny appearances on late-night tv. That’s not to say that Star Wars would be collecting dust if Lucas didn’t decide to sell it… but what about Indiana Jones? That the fourth film was  forgettable. Unfortunately, the chances of Shia LaBeouf being forgotten will likely not increase, however.

Once upon a time: Disney has a new princess

OOOooohhhh… I bet that headline just makes your skin crawl. After all, Leia is a princess and Amidala is a Queen. And we all know how Disney loves their princesses. Worries about seeing Leia next to Princess Aurora or Bell should be shelved until it actually happens. But in the interest of imagining the way-out-there possibilities of this acquisition, here’s another idea: Once upon a time. 

Hear me out, that show has been better that originally expected, and new characters are written into the series all the time, some (Dr. Whale) not really making as much sense as others (Killian Jones). So why run a storyline with characters in Storybrooke who just happen to be named Luke and Leia, and just happen to come from a realm completely unknown so the fairy-tale characters. Just as Gold and Whale butt heads over Magic vs. Science. So too can these new characters explore the interplay between Magic, Science, and the Force. Just spitballing here.

Share your feels

I think we should keep our pitchforks in the barn for now. The Star Wars horizon was already looking pretty bright with the likes of Clone Wars, 1313, and Detours. We should be looking forward to what is possible with the acquisition by Disney, using the resurgence of The Muppets and The Avengers as a reference point for the future of Star Wars and Indiana Jones. While there are many questions still yet to be answered, I’ll be standing on a sandy dune of Tatooine staring out at the Sunsets looking toward the future.

Share your feels in the comments below, and may the Force be with you, always.

The gang is finally back together again to talk X-Com, Dance Central 3, Borderlands 2 DLC, and Dishonored. We talk technology with the iPad Mini and Microsoft Surface. We also gush over Avengers news, and Hilary spoils a movie or two. On this pre-Halloween contest we reminisce about costumes with your responses in our NAQOTW! Spooky!

Rated NA 79

The thing that surprised me most was that you can build 3 houses. Three! No more whining about not having a house in Falkreath, Morthal and Dawnstar!

Let’s take a look at the main components, shall we?

Designing: After jumping through all the hoops (radiant quests) to get the Jarl of each province to sell the land, you arrive at your little homestead to find a drafting table, a carpenter’s table and an anvil. Your first step is to create a small, square house (don’t worry – this will eventually be your entry hall). From there, you begin to create a main hall which will connect all your additions like a library, kitchen, bedrooms, alchemy tower, greenhouse, etc. The choice in how you create your houses is entirely up to you. Some fun extras are a stable, garden, animal pen, smelter and a few regionally specific items.

Stewards: These guys and gals are great. They help you get supplies, decorate and even hire other staff like bards and carriage drivers. You can convert other housecarls like Lydia in Whiterun to be your steward as well as a few select followers. Not all will qualify, however, so here’s a quick cheat sheet.

Additionally, if you become a Thane in the region, your new housecarl can become your steward. It’s important to note that you will need to complete the first part of your house before hiring a steward.

Building: Bethesda doesn’t make this easy. You need a TON of Iron Ingot to create things like fittings, hinges and nails. Luckily other supplies like lumber can be purchased at mills or via your housecarl (steward).  As a side note, your Smithing skills will get a boost from all the ironwork, so Hearthfire could be good to do early if you want to level quickly. I believe you can start this DLC at level 9, however, you’ll need lots of cash so sell all the loot you get from cave exploration!

Decorating: The slow way to do this is ask your steward. For instant gratification assuming you have the supplies, you can build things yourself. There are workbenches in every room to create furniture, chandeliers, wall hangings and much more. I went with a hybrid approach; after seeing what the steward bought (this could take in-game weeks), I created extra stuff. Patience isn’t my forte.

Adopting: Yep. That’s right! You can now adopt an annoying adorable kid to live in your home. After you’ve attained a child’s bed and some furniture, simply go to the orphanage in Riften. There you can choose which orphan will be your new son or daughter. I believe there are other kids that you can adopt as well, but I went straight for the orphans. They can live with you in any of your three custom homes or you can modify one of the pre-existing houses to create a child’s room.

In sum, Hearthfire adds a rich layer of customization to an already beautiful game. If you haven’t downloaded it yet, you should. Go forth and build up your homesteads!

Your house could look like this.

Sadly I don’t feel as though I fit into the 1% who are good at parkour and acrobatics.  I do have to say that I was a whiz with Chinese throwing stars when I was a teen. Do throwing stars work at all on zombies? No? Shit…

Beginnings:  I’ve been a G4 fan since the”olden days” and used to watch TechTv way back when Morgan Webb was still “that intern” lurking off camera in the background.   One year, while visiting San Francisco, some friends and I even went to the TechTV studios to have a tour and check things out.  It was a time when TechTV was providing something that simply didn’t exist on cable, and I loved it.

“Ash… I love that name! Fuck off!” — Olivia Munn

A decade later I found myself at San Diego Comic-Con listening to the cast and crew of X-play talk about video game journalism and how they all got their start.  While much of the panel was spent torturing interns and shaving Blair Herter’s chest hair, the panel also talked about what we needed to do in order to break into the mysterious world of video game journalism.  The Answer?  Start your own site covering the things you love and create your own body of work.  While running this website doesn’t provide us with piles upon piles shiny doubloons, we ARE doing what we love and have grown more than we ever really anticipated.  Oh yeah, G4 also granted us our very first interview with Abbie Heppe, which gave our site the blast of legitimacy we sorely needed to get things started (thanks Abbie and Blain).  After two years, 78 podcasts, and over 900 articles, we’re still here!

Like a Phoenix: While both X-Play and AOTS may be going away forever in December, I doubt we’ve seen the last of the cast and crew.  I do have to say that I’ll miss is seeing the X-Play posse storm into the tiny press room at PAX: Prime quite a bit.  Like it or not, the loss of G4 (in its current incarnation) is a terrible blow to fans of video games and nerd culture everywhere.  Perhaps one day we’ll see everyone back together under a new name, rising from the ashes like the proverbial phoenix.  Best of luck guys, and thanks.

The Mask Is Awesome

If you have been waiting for a game that combines the stealth play of Metal Gear and Thief, the supernatural abilities of Bioshock, the Story of, dare I say, Bioware quality and a setting unlike much else, then the game you have been waiting for is here. Bethesda has unleashed the surprise new IP Dishonored and it has taken over my life. You play as Corvo, the Empress guard who has the unfortunate circumstance of being framed for his own master’s death and the disappearance of her daughter. You then must choose your path by allying with a rebel band who is looking to take out the new Lord Regent. Now how you reach that goal is where things get interesting.

I am a gigantic fan of stealth games. There is something thrilling about looking for patterns and figuring out the best approach to move through the game and achieve your goals. What I usually dislike is when a game feels like it is on rails. Maybe not one set of rails but maybe 2 or 3. You can leave one set only to get on another. The shocking realization in Dishonored is that there are many, many ways to get through a stage and not all of them even require sneaking. I often found myself reaching the area I needed and while exploring, discovering 10′s of other ways to get to where I was going. Paths upon paths. The sewers, the roofs, end arounds, there are very few limits to how you may want to traverse the stage. Some require patience, others precise skill with the tools at hand. At no point do you feel like you hit an imaginary wall, there is just enough space on the map to allow you to attempt a different point of entry and sometimes surprise yourself with how far around or up you can go.

There are choices to be made on how you want to play as well. You can run and gun, sneak, kill, be merciful, the choices are yours to be made. Those choices affect the world around you in a very natural way. Kill a ton of the bootleggers men? Well there is a solid chance they won’t be too fond of you later.  These are the things that make decisions sometimes difficult. You may want to do nothing more than kill those disgusting twins, but showing mercy may wrinkle time in your favor down the line, or it may not and you can get your blade on without worry. Dishonored brings in this notion of chaos. Something you create by your path of destruction on each stage. If you cause a lot of chaos, you will end up with more enemies with heightened sense of your presence on the next level. While it sounds like it is encouraging you not to kill, and it does, this does not mean you can’t. You aren’t punished for killing unless killing isn’t what you want. By that I mean if you hack and slash your way through the stages and enjoy it, they present you with more things to hack and slash through on the next stage. This may be your style of play and it does not punish you for such. Now if you are attempting to be perfectly quiet and merciful and you get in a situation where you rip through 10 guys, you aren’t immediately punished, but staying quiet and merciful will become more difficult.

Gameplay

Dishonored is a classic first person stealth game. Evoking memories of Thief or even early Deus Ex at most times. Movement is fluid and unencumbered, although you can feel sort of “glidey” because of it being first person, but this does not get in the way. Combat can be employed at range with a crossbow or pistol. Aiming is pretty straightforward with a good retical, and given you upgrade your mask, you can zoom in and use this as your scope, firing from the zoomed in view. Sneaking is not done through hanging off of buildings or some secret shadow mode. It is done how you would sneak in real life. Avoiding paths and hiding behind walls. There is no stick to cover, but you can effectively lean around corners while maintaining your stealth. Sneaking around groups of guys and running to your target, or crawling up behind someone to choke them out is visceral and exhilarating. Firing a crossbow and pistol was fairly accurate and worked much like any other first person shooter.

Hand to hand combat, on the other hand (pun fully intended), was much more frantic. If you got in close you immediately had to react and fight with your assassins blade. It felt clumsy when I was caught off guard and deadly when I was prepared. The mechanism, much like Assassins Creed, of timing a block to effectively parry an attack works well when you pull it off, but when you don’t, man, you are in trouble. In general you can take about 3-4 hits before you have to use a health potion. This is easy enough with the d-pad, but if you forget, it can make for a lot of restarting. Death comes swiftly it seems for both you and your prey. Depending on where you hit the enemy you can cause more damage. Land a head shot and sometimes you get the special feeling of decapitating your foe. The grisly deaths were a surprise, but enjoyable (in the way that attempting to not feel like a sociopath enjoying death can be).

The other twist Dishonored adds to the gameplay forum is a set of special abilities. Each one adds a spin to how you can play the game. The most basic one is Blink, which allows you to sort of *bamf* to a new area. This ability is the linchpin to you getting up above, down below and around the obstacles in your path. Each special move can be powered up by collecting and applying runes that are scattered through out the game. Other moves allow you to possess rats, and eventually humans; gain better agility and health; make dead bodies disappear; bend time; use blasts of wind; and summon rats. Each one will enhance different ways of playing the game and it’s possible to get through the game simply using Blink if you wanted to. I recommend you spend the runes when you get them. They aren’t super rare and you will feasibly be able to max out 3-4 abilities with little to no effort. You find the runes through the use of a heart that you carry around, it is gruesome and fantastic. Special hint, that heart does a lot more than find runes, aim it at people, press down on your right stick and more little easter eggs exist with in it.

Story

You can find as much or as little story as you want in this game. The main plot deftly introduces new side characters, some likable, some despicable, but each one adding a new twist to a great story. On top of that there is the now classic trope of books and notes being scattered about the stages. Each one encapsulating a little piece of some story to add to the depth of the world. Even NPC’s that have no relation to you or your story add bits and pieces to the world. Creating real dialogue with interesting characters that are just milling about or guarding your next objective. Emily, the little girl you are trying to find, can either be your best friend or you can relegate her to the side. These are the choices you have that can make you the calm uncle type figure or the silent guardian. All of it allowing you to make the story what you will, but I will give you this hint. Avoiding the notes and books, not interacting with Emily, may speed up your game but you will miss out on a lot of fun easter eggs and personality. The devil is so often in the details and this game is loaded with details. They do make the purposeful decision to allow you to interact as much or as little as you’d like.

The voice acting and animations for the characters are all superb, but this is where one negative comes across glaringly to me. Corvo is silent. He has no voice. In a world filled with voiced characters you remain the silent hero. If it were somehow in the same vein as the quiet Master Chief I may be OK with it, but it is not. Instead you have conversations with people, one’s in which you make decisions and none of these are voiced. It was a miss for me but may not bother you much.

Graphics

I am not the latest and greatest kind of guy. If you’ve listened to our podcast you know that when it comes to graphics I am pretty well pleased by style over power. But even I have to admit that the 360 is starting to show its age with this game. While the world is still gorgeous and the style is spot on, the actual graphics themselves come off sort of old and stale. Sharp edges on hands and mouths and noses that look disconnected. Maps that kind of fade in. This has nothing to do with Dishonored, but it may push me to recommend this on PC if you have one with some power behind it. Beyond the aged graphics on the 360 lays a fantastic style. Exaggerated body types, elongated faces, the dress that is reminiscent of the colonies or old England. All of it combines to make this weird future past that fits the story beautifully. Not a single note on the art misses when it comes to direction. The game is beautiful when the graphic age is taken with a grain of salt.

Wrap-up

Should you play Dishonored? Yes. There is no but about it. It literally stopped me cold in the tracks of playing Borderlands 2. It took over my gaming life and kept me up late at night to try and best each level. I cannot comment on replay-ability as of yet, but each level is select-able once passed to attempt to collect all of the secrets and find all avenues to the end goal. I absolutely loved the story, loved the gameplay and loved the setting. The beauty of Dishonored is that it doesn’t do anything wholly original, but yet feels 100% unique. It combines elements of stealth, RPG, and action gaming to make one of the most fun and stressful games I’ve played in a while. If you have a Thief shaped hole in your heart, I suggest you go to the store (be it digital or brick and mortar) and pick this up now.

Rated NA 78

Oh yeah!  If you’re joining us for the very first time and love voice acting as much as we do, have a look at some of our previous interviews and podcasts with some of the finest voice actors in the entire galaxy.

Interview: Ali Hillis 

Interview: Tara Platt

Podcast: Jennifer Hale

As always you can download subcribe and download past episodes of Rated NA on iTunes for zero dollars.

I’m always on the lookout for the next quality mobile game to keep me occupied when I’m away from the PC or console. And in my opinion, the bar is set pretty high with an onslaught of titles increasing in visual and technical quality.

Enter Psyonix, who wets our tasebuds with Arc Squadron, a 3D space combat game running on the Unreal Engine. The screenshots and video we have thus far show sharp graphics, an interesting variety of environments  enemies, and bosses, in addition to some infectious beats.

I’m generally skeptical that such games will pack a powerful punch, but in an overall short experience. Arc Squadron, however, boasts a enormous campaign plus challenge levels. Add to that elements of customization, which is a great touch, and quite frankly, something that gamers almost expect in this overwhelmingly RPG infused gaming-age. Arc Squadron hits you with six upgradable ships, ten weapons, and ship skins.

The game aims to be available in the next few weeks, and it’s definitely one to keep an eye on. For now, check this video:

Check out Psyonix for more information on Arc Squadron

Happy Gaming.

We’ll do our best to get your questions answered!