October 2011 Archives

For a couple weeks, I told Clark that we were putting Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure on his Christmas list, reviews be damned. Then the reviews started in saying the game wasn't so bad. Then Clark saw the concept in action at the Toys R Us display, where you can plop packaged toys on the Portal of Power and trigger character-specific replays.

So we didn't last until Christmas.

I was hoping we'd strike a game deal today, but the big box stores aren't ready to reveal the crazy discounts we're sure to see arrive next month... but we picked up the game anyway. Today's TRU flyer does include a promise for Rewards cardholders: spent $100 on Skylanders junk between now and Christmas Eve and you can get a free single figure. Rhonda checked; this does not mean SPEND $100 RIGHT NOW FUFUFUFU. This means they're tracking your Skylanders affection on the Rewards card, and if you land $100, you'll get a coupon in the mail along with your regular TRU Rewards mailer.

I know I griped about the "action figures" totally not being action figures (there is no articulation whatsoever.) But I must say that the figures are very well produced. The sculpts are detailed, the bases are unique, and the paint apps are nice. They could all use some washes or some kind of dry brush effect, but each dude has plenty of color, well-applied. The Portal wireless device is also a good looking toy... good decor plus multiple lights capable of producing several different glowing colors.

What I'm saying is, they could have cheaped out on these things, and - aside from articulation - they didn't.

I find it hilarious that, while most games with extravagant DLC and DRM schemes are slammed by both the press and gamers, Skylanders has, so far, been given a free pass. I suppose the utter blatantness of the pitch helps. It is highly obvious to everybody that the purpose of the game is to sell toys, more so than usual. Still, each $8 figure is, in effect, a DLC key to unlock content that is already on the game disk. Where's all the screaming babies complaining that they paid for the disk, they should get all the data on it? Clearly there is no data on the lump of plastic I just bought.

The answer being that that audience doesn't even realize this game exists, they're too busy analyzing pre-release ROM dumps of Uncharted 3 to see if the for-pay multiplayer character skins are on the disk.

It is a scheme, though. For sure. $70 gets you the game, the largish Portal of Power and three figures. Not bad. From what I've seen so far, it's fair to gauge Skylanders as a $40 game that comes with $30 worth of toys. Additional singles go for $8; figure three-packs for $20. You can, I understand, play the game without buying any additional toys... although the game does its damnedest to prod you into buying more toys. It's egregious, in fact. I'm willing to call that part of the fun, because I like being sold to, but your wallet may vary.

Because, even within the game's first hour, you'll encounter areas (or collect power-ups) that are open only to toys you do not yet own. This is brilliant. There are eight elements in the game and each character is assigned to a particular element. "Only a Life-element Skylander can open this gate!" the announcer will intone whenever you get too close... like triggering the automatic door on the way out of Toys R Us, except in this case it's a warning that the door is not about to open for you because you haven't yet spent enough at TRU.

Now, it's optional. You may never open that Life gate and still finish the game to completion with hours and hours on the playtime clock. But come on. You've spent more on worse stuff.

Then there's the Adventure Packs. $20 gets you four toys: a character you can't buy singly, two items you can't get anywhere else, and another toy that unlocks a new level. You're paying $20 for another level! Double brilliant!

Can you imagine if an all-digital game tried this? $8 character unlocks, $20 single levels/power-ups packs. All granting access to data that's obviously already on the game disk? There'd be rioting in the streets. But somehow, you jam those DLC keys inside some kooky toys and suddenly you're an innovator. I love it. We'll have no trouble netting the $100 on the TRU deal. Then our biggest problem becomes making sure we're smart about what figs we buy as singles and what is left for the money-saving three-packs.

Watching Clark play it, I saw the magic in action. He loves switching in characters at will, shifting toys on the Portal multiple times per level. He likes the game's cutesy conceit that these toys are real, just somehow frozen and miniaturized in our world.

That Portal is large enough for four Skylander figures. This game only supports two player, but I'll wager the tech is already in place for a sequel that ups the count to four players.

Also, can we all feel bad for poor Spyro? Sure, he made the game's subtitle. But when you play the game, the one time PS1 mascot celeb is no more special than any other toy. He doesn't even talk in the cutscenes! He's not even afforded center status on the box art! I wonder if Skylanders development had a Starfox Adventures sort of moment, where the devs were showing the game off to the brass and somebody important at Activision said, "Hey, we own Spyro, whom I'm told is a dragon. Shouldn't he be in this game?"

"If you go back and count all the games made for consumer game machines, this is the seventh Mario Kart. Each of the previous subtitles meant different things to different users, but this is a nice, basic title that sends the same message to all of the countless Mario kart players around the world:

 

We made a seventh Mario Kart."

 

- Hideki Konno, Nintendo Power #273, November 2011

Hey there iOS folks. Like the App Store on Facebook and you can get a code to download Jetpack Joyride for free. It's quite good. It's one of those infinite-scrolling dealies where you have to avoid incoming hazards. I don't usually care for these simplistic iOS games, but this one is made really well. The level is randomized each time, so you don't get bored with the same scenery or have to memorize an endless pattern.

Plus it gives you a savable screenshot at the end of each run. 960x640. Bigger than what I've posted here.

And Game Center support.

I also really like the challenge system, where you constantly have three oddball missions in the queue. These missions actually subtly change the levels, which is a nice touch. For example, for one mission you have to high-five X scientists... and I'm like, WTF? How do you high-five scientists? Turns out, the game won't bother to animate little high-fives unless that particular challenge is active. Cool.

The game is free until the Facebook page runs out of codes, whenever that is.

But I liked the coincidental "share this link" stuff that framed Club Nintendo's social sharing of Skyward Sword.

I'm not proud of it, but I'm back into podcasting.

If you enjoyed the kind of nonsense we used to do back on the Aeropodcast, you'll find me and some of the old Aero crew on "You Like the Worst Stuff." Haygood, Stephen... plus I roped in Tony and seek to rope in more. Because I like roping. YLtWS is not as 100% gaming-oriented as the Aeropodcast was. Although gaming is still pretty much all I want to talk about. This new show format opens the sack a little so Haygood has room to talk about "Pan Am" every week.

It's hosted by the fine folks at GGSGamer.com, and it can be found alongside the other million billion podcasts in the iTunes.

There's certainly a lot to be said about sexy Halloween costumes. But as a comics fan, I feel I must applaud the research done for the second "Sexy Green Lantern" costume above. (As seen on Party City's website.) Because that's Arisia's costume, at least, it's the less sexy version, as seen in the recent Green Lantern animated movies.

That's the high-collared version used when DC wants to make Arisia young, innocent and not-busty. Her usual modern comics garb is, well, sexier. But I have to give somebody points for bothering. They could have just taken a Ryan Reynolds suit and changed where the hips fall... OH WAIT, they did, row one.

I'm also impressed there's an official Zatanna costume. I mean, her costume amounts to Sexy Magician, but still.

Or, as the game's initial cutscene prefers to spell it, trajedy. That's... an indicator.

The PSN has had a hell of a couple weeks... tons of great stuff showing up. Rocketbirds is great, Elemental Monsters is great, Dungeon Defenders I think is great, but I can't clear the second board.

I had hoped Okabu would be great. I love the look, I love the logo. But wow, as available, it is a disappointment.

Let's give developer Hand Circus a pass on the typos and amateur errors of that ilk. We shouldn't, but let's. The game has bigger problems.

Controls, for one. You have to pilot around the cool-looking cloud whales, often picking up riders that each have specific powers. Driving these guys is, unfortunately, a major pain. They are way too floaty, far too imprecise. OK, they're clouds, but I'd still like to be able to circumnavigate the thin twisty roads that cover Okabu island (or whatever it's called) without constantly driving off of them. And there's way too many functions assigned to a few context-sensitive buttons.

Then there's the audio, which will, astonishingly, start skipping. As if the CD player is stuck. I didn't even know that was still possible.

Hand Circus needs to patch this thing immediately. They need to do one of those PlayStation Blog appearances where they get all "we hear your concerns, and we have a fantastic patch on the way to clear it up." Okabu is supposed to be a big deal for PSN this month, a featured release during a highly visible Store campaign. It feels like somebody (Sony?) rushed Hand Circus to fill a slot in the Store schedule, and we got a half-baked game as a result.

This episode is about science. Clark will point out some identifying characteristics of solids, liquids and gases.

ALSO: The difference between rules and laws.

We've been sucking our way through Kirby's Return to Dreamland and it is undeniably great. Co-op multiplayer where there's little you can do to screw each other up; this is the family multiplayer you've been waiting for. The worst thing that can happen - and I play with a six-year-old - is your other team members hogging the best power-ups.

And since this is classically styled Kirby game, one of those power-ups is Stone. Once Clark and I discovered that the Stone transformation is randomized, we became determined to uncover all the possible forms. So we set all four players to Kirby and started mashing buttons.

The game is out tomorrow, so if you want to avoid weird Kirby form spoilers, stop reading now!

These four are basic, common forms. The fist, the 8 ton weight, and two types of star boxes.

These are not particularly less common, just more fun. The old style Kirby rock, a statue of his co-stars from whatever other Kirby game they're from, a Kirby statue, and the muscleman.

Now we get the rare forms. I'd say you pull one of these four about one in twenty times. I'm not enough of a Kirby dude to recognize all of these. There's Meta-Knight's ship, a balancing clown enemy, some kind of fossil (Yin-Yarn?) and the a structure that is either Mount Fuji or the hideout from "M.A.S.K."

I know not enough of you picked up Kirby's Epic Yarn last year. But if you did, this is a no-brainer. I miss Epic Yarn's gorgeously clever art style, but the Kirby fundamentals are all in play in his new game. Plus, it's been a good long time since Nintendo has fielded a Wii release.

Clark made his own video weblog. This episode covers some school rules, and some facts about animals and dinosaurs.

For anybody boohooing over the raft of DLC already available for Batman: Arkham City, and how it's gouging us for content that is either A) part of the game we paid for, or B) data on the disk we paid for:

Catwoman Bundle Pack - 217 MB. This one comes with every new copy of Batman: Arkham City. Comes with three versions of Catwoman and some kind of adventure just for her (IE, not simple challenge maps.) If you buy the game used, you either buy this DLC separately or you don't get it at all. From what I understand, the Catwoman stuff does not have much to do with the main game. So it's your option to buy it or ignore it, if you dabble in used games. At 217 MB, it seems obvious to me that some part of it is not actually on the disk.

Robin Bundle Pack - 114MB. Free if you bought the game at Best Buy. Comes with three versions of Robin and two challenge maps. Again, a download, not an on-disk unlock.

Iceberg Lounge Challenge Map - 44MB. Free with Collector's Edition.

Dark Knight Batman Skin - 23MB. Free with Collector's Edition.

Sinestro Corps Batman Skin - 22MB. Free with "Green Lantern" blu-ray.

I don't know how much these will cost when they finally hit the PSN Store, I just think it bears pointing out that SOMETHING is being downloaded here, and it's more than just an unlock key.

For comparison, LittleBigPlanet is constantly forcing updates that contain all the DLC, whether you bought it or not. There's a good reason for that: because LBP is an online multiplayer-focused game and you might want to play with somebody who bought DLC that you do not own. The forced download lets you "see" that content without everybody having to pause while your PS3 tries to fetch the data. Nevertheless, this means your PS3 LBP data file contains a ton of stuff you never purchased... and if you do, all you download is a tiny, tiny 114k file that unlocks that particular data.

Picked up my PS3 Collector's Edition of Batman: Arkham City. Got it through Best Buy, which included the added bonus of the Play-as-Robin DLC for free.

I sort of forgot why I picked the CE, since it is more than a bit more expensive than the regular game. So in the parking lot of Best Buy, I'm checking the back of the box, thinking "I better get more than a stupid statue for that price." In addition to the weird packaging, the statue, and the Robin DLC, the CE also has the following:

- Art book (good bonus, but it's a small hardcover, and it's not like there's no where else in the world to go to look at pretty Batman artworks)
- "Batman: Gotham Knight" movie on blu-ray (which I already own... does the 360 CE come with this?)
- DLC codes for Dark Knight skin, Iceberg Lounge map, Gotham City Imposters beta, and, of course, the Play-as-Catwoman stuff that comes with all new copies of the game
- Download code for "Arkham City: The Album" (which is, unfortunately, band tracks not soundtrack music... is any of this garbage any good?)
- Catalog for ordering Arkham City merch, which is rather presumptuous (although it contains the only gently-tossed-out-there notion that Batman might actually appear in comic books; there's an ad for DC's New 52 waaaaaay in the back)

Here's the unfolded CE box:

The art book is behind the statue, and the DLC codes are tucked into the lower shelf. The exterior panels are nice shots of Batman, Joker and Two-Face. On the inside walls you get some pictures of Gotham.

So it's a nice package, although it commits the cardinal sin of Collector's Editions: there's no box for the game disk. It's actually attached to the back cover of the art book. So I guess I'm supposed to stack the art book with my pile of PS3 games on the off chance I'll remove the Arkham City disk from my PS3 and need a place to store it? Dumb.

We picked up the Extended Cut blu-ray of "Green Lantern" this weekend (OF COURSE WE DID.) I wasn't timing it or anything, but I think the Extended Cut amounted to about ten total minutes of new material, most of which in a lengthy prologue sequence presenting the formative years of Young Hal Jordan. IE, the Death of Martin Jordan bit. You get a nice bit with the three kids - Hal, Carol, Hector - which helps telegraph some of the "I've Always Loved Her!" stuff that Hector pulls after the Parallax infection.

We also find out that Hal's nephew's family seems to be living in the same house where Hal and his brothers grew up. The kid might even have Hal's old room.

The downside to this new material is that when you reach the part where the Theatrical Cut does its own Death of Martin Jordan flashback, it's flashing back to the same clips you just watched ten minutes earlier.

But what can you do, you can't expect twenty unseen minutes of alien Green Lanterns in space combat, can you? That kind of Extended Cut would require work.

The deleted scenes/making of docs are great, since they show off Ryan Reynolds in the ridiculous warpaint he had to wear so the CG animators could track placement of his mask and costume. We had never really watched any behind-the-scenes kind of stuff before, so Clark was newly interested in the clips that showed off how they did the stunts and effects.

One of the deleted scenes is a great tragedy that they didn't finish it. In the final edit, there's a weird scene near the end where Hal goes to Oa to beg the Guardians for help tossing Parallax off of Earth. As soon as the Guardians deny the request, he then asks their permission that he fight Parallax alone... which is stupid, because he was likely going to do that anyway. Throughout the whole conversation, Sinestro is standing there giving Hal the stinkeye, both because he is defying the Guardians and because he's brave enough to do it.

The deleted scene has Hal going to Sinestro first, and their conversation makes a ton more sense than Hal's weird 180-degree flip-flop when he's talking to the Guardians. If you keep that dialogue, then Hal essentially flies up to the citadel with the sole purpose of telling them off for being inscrutable close-mouthed ancient shitheads, which is the kind of thing Hal does in the comics all the time. And it gives Sinestro more much-needed screen time.

Plus, a non-animated Tomar Re is in that deleted scene... but because nobody paid Geoffrey Rush to cut audio for stuff they didn't put in the final film, Tomar just stands there and talks in subtitles. Hilarious!

The blu-ray has a couple preview clips from the upcoming GL animated series. It is totally Green Lantern as done by "Star Wars: The Clone Wars." Same kind of super-smooth, stylized CG characters. Supposed to debut next February with a preview episode this November. Oh yes, we're down for this.

Bonus detail I noticed both times I saw the film in theaters but then promptly forgot: there's a Pokemon Sapphire GBA cartridge on Hector's desk.

Low, right?

I suppose it's stupid that I ask that, since I was at E3 and totally did not play Skylanders when it was right in front of me. But I just can't imagine it being any good. Any good at all.

I'm interested in the title, in the same way that I'm always interested in high-priced, peripheral-based extensions of video gaming. Like Babysitting Mama and Rock Band and every time Nintendo makes a pedometer. I like the idea that you have toys of your in-game characters, and that those toys somehow hold data that helps your game. Being able to take your toys to a friend's house and have your guys transfer to another game is one of those cool-sounding selling points that I know will never, ever see action... because who else but me would buy Skylanders?

Aside from the serious doubts that the game itself is any good, then there's the problem with the toys. They're not action figures. They're little statues. One, maybe two points of articulation. Glancing through the gallery of toys, I see some swiveling necks and tails and arms. Not a ball joint to be seen.

And "Chop Chop" is the name they give to a samurai character with vaguely Asian armor. Nice. 'Cause that's not lame.

And then there's the mystifying presence (and subtitle) of Spyro the Dragon. Once a major contender for PlayStation mascot status, Spyro appeared in dreck after dreck until he vanished down the memory well. Now he's back, redesigned so he looks more Harry Potter than Looney Tune, and somehow he's involved with this mess. Although, being a Nintendo fan, I can't fault the developers for using a somewhat-still-recognizable name brand to front this untested new gaming concept (hell, look at the last five Kirby games: all weird, non-Kirby stuff with Kirby on lead vocals.) I understand that.

Clark and I saw the demo kiosk at Toys R Us last week (the toys are expected to show up this weekend) and Clark immediately wanted it. No Spyro baggage, no concerns about action figure designs... hasn't even occurred to him that the game might stink. Just strikes him instantly as a fun idea: toys combined with a game.

So I'll be watching the early reviews on this one.

(Photo from this Kotaku article.)

Nintendo sent out Kirby cake pops along with the new Wii game Kirby's Return to Dreamland. You may have seen this lovingly crafted assortment of powered-up Kirbies, but we were happy to receive this one:

I told Clark that Nintendo sent him his dessert.

He let me have a bite, and it was really good.

So far, the game's really good as well.

This article nails, nails, what in my mind is the biggest problem with comics fans and comics punditry. The tendency to judge a character, a storyline, a book by one single issue.

Topher Kohan of CNN's pop culture weblog, after making sure we're aware just how big of a Green Lantern he is (he liked "Blackest Night"!), writes about last month's "Green Lantern" #1, part of DC's New 52:

So far in the reboot, the Green Lantern I grew up reading about, Hal Jordan, is not even a Green Lantern anymore. And the villainous Sinestro, who left the Green Lantern Corps and was bent on destroying it, is not only back in the Corps but is the main character. That's a bold choice, since it seems he has not changed the way he feels about being a Green Lantern.

That's called storyline, Topher. Also drama and conflict. Is Kohan, a self-professed comics fans, seriously suggesting that Hal-out/Sinestro-in is in fact DC's new status quo for the title? This is basic storytelling: two main characters have had their situations seriously changed, and the arc will cover how they deal with that. That's what happens when people write books. Characters are put into challenges, and the end result is supposed to be something entertaining for the reader.

Also, I think DC has been preeeeeetttty clear that the GL books were not really getting a reboot, despite what's going on in the bulk of the New 52 books. What happened in GL #1 follows directly out of the "War of the Green Lanterns" storyline told in the issues of GL published over the previous months. I'd think a big Lantern fan would know that. Unlike some of the New 52 changes, DC didn't drop Ringless Hal in out of the sky.

I love the whiny "not even a Green Lantern anymore." Come on, dude. Are you that oblivious to how comics work? Do you honestly think that Hal Jordan isn't going to end up triumphantly putting on the ring at around the three-quarters mark of this story?

When did you "grow up" reading about the adventures of Hal Jordan? Are you a Silver Age oldster who somehow missed the decade of Kyle Rayner's run as primary GL? Or are you so young that the only GL stories you've read date from Hal's rebirth saga in 2005?

Either way, the fanboy entitlement is palpable.

Now comes the part where Topher polls the people in his office, who might have watched "Super Friends" at some point.

Another Green Lantern fan, David Burns, said, "The art seems pretty decent. There's not really a lot of story so far to comment on as far as the reboot goes, but I do wish I could see how the story grows. I guess that counts for something. I guess my overall impressions are a little lukewarm, but I have enough interest to want to read the whole thing."

Fellow fan David Whitehead said, "Honestly, it looks like nothing has changed with the Green Lantern Corps. The corps' history with Sinestro is obviously still there, as is the animosity towards Hal Jordan. While there doesn't appear to be much of an impact from the 'New 52,' the storyline does look interesting. I'm curious about where it's going to go. And an interesting story is much more important than yet another reboot gimmick."

So I think fans agree that this new "Green Lantern" is not bad, but we are taking a "wait and see" attitude about where Johns is going to take the story. I, for one, will keep reading to see how it all pans out!

Yes, fans agree! All two of them.

You've got one fan who doesn't seem to realize that finding out what happens next is as easy as buying the next issue ("I wish I could see how the story grows"?!?!), and you have another who feels sort of shorted that the New 52 did not wholly reboot the GL franchise even though that was just "a reboot gimmick."

This is why nobody reads comics anymore. Because one issue is no longer strong enough to get people to commit, and the slow delivery means no one is willing to come back in 30 days to find out what happens next. We should probably stop the monthly publication paradigm altogether and put out comics the way they put out movies: one gigantic story, all at one time.

Then readers can judge worth based on complete stories and long-form character development, instead of threatening to walk out of the movie after the first fifteen minutes.

So just who owns regional publishing rights to Fatal Frame these days? Tecmo or Nintendo? Nintendo sat on Fatal Frame: Mask of the Lunar Eclipse for Wii, and fingers of accusation were flying in all directions on that one. Now we're hearing about a 3DS entry to the series, although the latest "Nintendo Power" dubs it Spirit Photography: The Haunted Notebook. NP says the game's story mode is called "Fatal Frame: The Purple Diary," so we're still firmly in Fatal Frame land... perhaps the new game title is a stab at re-presenting the series?

What I like, and you can see it in action in the trailer, is that the game will come with a physical notebook that is used to trigger ghost events in your real world. I suppose using Nintendo's AR "?" card would break immersion.

Given that AR-based ghost/monster games are not uncommon on iPhones, and that we have The Hidden coming to 3DS soon, maybe Nintendo will see their way to releasing Spirit Photography outside of Japan? Or maybe Tecmo is back in charge of the franchise, and we don't have to worry about Nintendo of America mysteriously getting cold feet over the game?

The only thing I'm worried is, as my house does not have tatami mats and folding screen doors, the in-your-room ghost effects may not carry as much punch.

DC Universe Squatz. I'm going to assume (hope) that Squatz is an existing toy brand, and they just happened to license the DC characters for this small collection.

You get two in a pack, one revealed, one secret. Both of them are encased in some kind of powdery junk that fizzes and dissolves when you dunk them in water. We bought a pack with a revealed Green Lantern, and our secret character was Aquaman. The Geoff Johns Special.

Look at those little figures, though. Big chubby cheeks and chins. In profile, these things definitely have bellies. GL even has a receding hairline. I get the Urban Vinyl look and all the super-deformed chibi toys out there... but these are simple, unabashedly obese super-heroes toys.

Odd.

I wonder if Microsoft or Google or Nintendo or Sony or Samsung or any modern tech firm would have half the tech they employ today were it not for this one guy's vision and the team of people he collected. Like, would we still be using a command line? Would we still be buying music CDs? Would phones still be awful bullshit? Most of his greatest successes were with products that Popular Opinion said would never work (and indeed, some people can't get past that, and continue to chalk up Apple's success to blind fannishness.)

His history is part apocryphal, part unbelievable. But what's undeniable is he made what we had better.

The distortion field has dissipated. Namaste.

Unexpected.

Hudson recently released the Elemental Monster Online Card Game for PS3. It sells for one whole dollar. I almost bought it last week - because, a dollar - but bailed out when I saw where the real Fonzi Scheme is (more on that shortly.) This week, however, the game was priced as FREE to PlayStation Plus members, so I grabbed it.

Turns out, it is a very capable, quick-playing, strategic, customizable card game! Check out this video of my first online match against somebody way better than me:

I won! I won even with making a completely stupid error near the end. I won even with not having cards half as cool. Which is a sign of a good game, that you can't just buy your way to a win by having really rare and powerful cards.

I know it looks complicated, but it really isn't. The game is, unfortunately, a victim of the Japanese RPG practice of making sure every screen has as much text as possible, in a seriously lame font. (The complete lack of kerning between two 'f's kills me.) The basic deal is you field three monsters, pick one of them to be your attacker, then pick his attack. Sometimes "standby" monsters can pull off a bonus attack, and some attacks cost you mana which refills at the end of each turn. Monsters and attacks have an elemental type assigned to them, so certain types are weaker or stronger against other certain types.

It plays a little like a cross between Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh, with the time-saving benefit of not having to draw cards... whoever is on the table is all you'll ever get. Although you can hide monsters under your three, to be revealed with the top guy is killed. Plus, you can choose from different formations of the three to apply element-based stat bonuses. In my game above, I chose a Light element focus and used an attack formation that gave a small buff to all of my Light creatures' attack. Again, I know that sounds complicated, but you pick your element (by assigning a "jewel" to your deck) and formation when you build your deck and then never worry about during the actual game. Plus, it gives you a solid reason for playing through the single-player campaign, because that's the only way to unlock all of the formations and element jewels.

For $1 (or for free!), you get a lengthy single-player campaign, enough cards to dig into the game, and a full set of Trophies. Including a Platinum, which is almost unheard of for a PSN release, and certainly not on something this cheap.

Here comes the No Free Lunch part. You can buy random packs of extra cards for $5 (currently half-off for Plus members!), where you get 24 cards randomly selected from miniature expansion sets of 30 cards each. And yes, I mean random. I bought a pack of Sacred War and pulled one card six times out of the 24. Still, at $2.50, I'm plenty happy with what's being offered.

I know, I just scared you off. Except that you can unlock new cards (including ones from the for-sale expansion sets) just by playing the game, offline and online. So buying card packs is more like a way to speed up the collection, or bulk up on multiples.

Online multiplayer is another additional cost, although seriously, it ain't much. Online matches against friends are free. If you want to play online against a non-friend, it costs one ticket. Tickets are four for $1, but you get ten free tickets to start.

It's a very interesting business model. It seems like you can go pretty far without spending much of anything. It undercuts just about every other online card game concept I've ever seen, and the core gameplay itself is quite nice. I hope some of my PS3 friends give this a shot.

It just popped up on Netflix (and it's a Starz film, which means it will un-pop eventually), and it reminded me a lot of Miyazaki's "Spirited Away," another animated film that looks great but drifts from scene to scene. "Howl's Moving Castle" is based on a book, so I'm sure massive liberties were taken to turn it into a two hour film... but still, it's a weird piece.

Like "Spirited Away," a lot of what happens in "Howl" just... happens. And then the characters sort of deal with it. Why does Howl save Sophie in the alleyway? Why does the Witch turn Sophie into an elderly woman? Why does Howl believe the "cleaning lady" ruse? Why does Sophie get the bright idea to take Calcifer out of the castle? Why does Suliman concede to ending the war? What exactly makes Sophie fall for Howl, and vice-versa?

And then the out-of-nowhere Turnip Head ending? "Hi, I'm the long lost prince!" Guh-whut?

Much of "Howl" feels like a replay of "Spirited Away." Handsome male is actually some kind of monster. Girl needs to break curse. Ancillary animal pet characters end up being magical transformations and/or can whisk the heroes out of damage with no trouble.

Then there's the near-constant use of watery gloop. Which is welcome, since Miyazaki does that sort of thing so well. The Witch's guards in "Howl" front some amazing scenes, as they grow and bubble and morph. There's a lot of really well-animated motion, impressive landscapes, beautiful music. That makes it worth watching, but man, I just don't understand half of what goes on, as far as having a cohesive storyline is concerned.

And Christian Bale? Hilariously mis-voice-cast.

"Ponyo" was way better.

Here it is, the final week of DC's New 52 #1s. I miss it already. I would love to get the entire line every month, but I'm trying to learn deep lessons about what I collect and keep, so there's no way I can do that. On to Week #4, the last!

Although maybe I wouldn't apply that wish to "Blackhawks #1." I think there's more than a couple titles in the New 52 that exist solely so DC can continue to exert copyright over the names. The Blackhawks seem to be yet another super-secret para military organization in the DCnU, right alongside the Suicide Squad, SHADE, NOWHERE, and who knows how many others. Have we uncovered the new Checkmate yet? The Blackhawks do all kind of Call of Duty type stuff, and there's drama in the team, and also nanobyte thingies. Like a lot of the lesser (in my opinion) new DC books, it's probably pretty cool if read all on its own, but amongst the massive landscape of characters and teams and genres, it's not going to stand out to me.

"All Star Western #1" is exactly what Palmiotti and Gray were doing with "Jonah Hex" for, like, the past decade. Which is to say that it is great. The only trick with this one is the story, where Hex visits 1880s Gotham. So you get a few fan service refs like Penguin's grandfather being the city's mayor. I don't know if that is going to drive the title going forward, and we can expect a big team-up with Waverider in the next arc, but it is hardly necessary to the kind of cinematic, taut morality plays that have defined Hex's previous book. As for the title, I can only guess that DC thinks the Josh Brolin movie did irreparable damage to the brand name, so they went with the weird-sounding "All Star Western." Whatever. It's a great book. KILLER art as well.

Strange coincidence: in this week's "Batman: The Brave and the Bold #11" (which is not a reboot book, as it is part of DC's kids line), Batman goes back in time and meets up with Jonah Hex as he saunters into 1880s Gotham.

"Superman #1" was fun, particularly for someone who works in media. There's a lot of modern talk about the Daily Planet being on the way out (duh, newspaper) and Lois Lane has just been promoted to being in charge of the owner's other holdings in TV and online. Superman, being a rustic, still works for the paper. I like that split: Lois as progressive technologist; Clark as old-school fundamentalist. At one crisis point, Perry White yells for his print reporter to bring him "the detail and analysis only print can provide!" and I laughed out loud. I also like how DC's current editorial vision seems to be that Clark's hair is always messed up when he's back in Kent mode. And there is nothing like George Perez layouts, is there? He is the master of tiny, layered panels.

"Savage Hawkman #1" seems like it will finally clean up a character that has been confused for decades. It's not a character I care about, however.

"Batman: The Dark Knight #1" was all right. About half the book was Bruce as James Bond, complete with a new female sexpot who swoops in to tease him at a fancy dress party. As for the Two-Face reveal at the end, I just chuckled.

"Justice League Dark #1" is the best new title with the worst new title. I'm a sucker for team books, especially team books that feature characters with little-to-no chance of receiving solo books. I really like the idea that this could be a splinter team from the core League, a special ops roster called in to deal with magical threats. Or, as in this case, they jump in once Superman and the rest are swatted aside.

"The Fury of Firestorm: The Nuclear Men #1" has this week's required-by-law DC torture scene. I don't like Firestorm, but I like this new take on the character by letting two guys share the mantle. Still, it's a C-grade character in a universe with plenty of A and B-grades.

"I, Vampire #1" is another retain-the-copyright title. It's a smart, complicated read, but I don't see myself following vampire adventures every month. I hope it works, I hope new readers come in to check this stuff out.

"The Flash #1" was great. I like the new segmented costume, I love the art, I like the continuation of the Patty vs Iris thing. Flash is pretty dour, though, so I am interested to see how he appears in "Justice League." Can anybody on the team be fun, or is everybody inwardly tortured and conflicted?

Speaking of a fun Flash, the new Kid Flash in "Teen Titans #1" fits that bill. Don't like the art (too 1990s) but I like Tim Drake and I like the potential for major DCU cleanup here. First, we might just maybe no longer have that silly Wally West origin story. Second, we might only have one team dedicated to corralling and training young heroes. For years, both the Titans and the Justice Society tried to do that. At first I was not going to follow this one, but I think I might pick it up.

"Green Lantern: New Guardians #1" was cool. I don't know how (or why) DC will keep this going alongside three other GL books, but I'll take it. Aside from being focused on Kyle (the luckiest guy in comics; can you believe he is still around? And I like the dude!), I guess this title will deliver more stories about the other colors in the Lantern spectrum.

"Voodoo #1" was a nice surprise. I'm sure half the book being set in a strip club has done nothing for DC's reputation, but Sami Basri's art continues to be clean and unique. I hope the big payoff at the end of this story is that she's actually Martian Manhunter.

But perhaps my biggest surprise was "Aquaman #1." Yeah, I'm getting it. As long as Geoff Johns and Ivan Reis are on this, it's going to be great to read and to look at. Most of this book is Johns directly confronting the pop culture silliness that has dogged the character since the low-rent Super Friends cartoon. It's like when that email first went around that suggested Scooby and Shaggy were potheads, and it becomes enough of a haze engulfing the characters that it has to be dealt with... or else everybody in the audience will just keep on making their own jokes and they won't pay attention to what's on the screen. So Johns puts the DCU public in the role of the real public, mocking Aquaman (to his face!) about talking to fish and being useless on land.

The panel that really sold me was "I get by." And I'd love to know if he actually intended on eating the fish dinner he ordered.

Another bit I found interesting: the dialogue directly name-checks YouTube and Saturday Night Live. That's the DCnU for you! Previously, they would have invented some silly alternaverse version, like Friday Night Improv or something. I know, previously, there was a DCU analog for YouTube, but I forget what it was called. ViewTube or similar. Although this new attitude risks comics becoming mired in time ten, twenty years hence, it certainly feels better today.

Although I think the DCU still has Sundollar rather than Starbucks.

Keeping: New Guardians, JL Dark, Flash, All Star Western. Adding: Aquaman. Probably adding: Teen Titans.