February 2012 Archives

So this is what my iMac is doing this evening: downloading the Extended Editions of the Lord of the Rings movies. Amazon had the blu-ray boxed set on sale for $50, so I grabbed it. We already have the DVD sets of the EEs, but I hear tell the HD edition looks pretty spectacular. This set also comes with iTunes versions - which is what I'm downloading now - which rounds out to a nice package at that price.

And now I can verify if our names are in the EE fan club credit roll. Did Jackson do that on the blu-ray release, or was that just a one-time only DVD EE offer?

Game variants are like Rock Band DLC releases. You don't care about them until one comes out that promises to be your absolute favorite.

For example, Oz Fluxx.

Like Munchkin, like Monopoly, like Uno, there's a cottage industry of Fluxx variants. We've had original Fluxx forever and have been mostly fine with it (although we played it for years without realizing our deck was missing some cards and duplicated others! We had two Doughnuts, if I remember correctly. No big deal, Fluxx is cool like that.) So I did not feel the need to collect all the alternative versions that have arrived over the years. Chrononauts is my Looney Labs game of choice anyway.

So no Eco Fluxx, Family Fluxx, Stoner Fluxx, Pirate Fluxx, Star Fluxx or Zombie Fluxx. I did get Monty Python Fluxx, but hey, Monty Python.

And now Oz Fluxx. You'll recall Clark and I read through all of the original Baum Oz stories, so I'm hoping this game dips into the mythos a little deeper than just skimming the MGM film. Seems perhaps unlikely, as that damn movie is too ingrained into the public consciousness... but at least maybe Tik-Tok and Jack Pumpkinhead made the cut? Monty Python Fluxx was too heavy on "Holy Grail" refs for my taste, so there you are.

The Oz family is one of the greats of American literature, and it seems like a perfect match for the Fluxx system!

Sidebar: I think Oz is a great example of how weird copyright laws function in America. I often wonder how different the Oz franchise would be had it been shepherded by invested owners over the past hundred years, rather than released to the wilds of the public domain. Baum's relations are still alive (and one of them is still writing Oz books)... why shouldn't they get compensation whenever somebody wants to produce something Ozzy?

And I'm not slamming Looney Labs for Oz Fluxx, just talking out loud about it. At least LL put in some work on Oz Fluxx... honored the creation, respected the man's work, commissioned some new artwork, found fun ways to match up Baum's world with their Fluxx engine. I found a website (probably one of many) encouraging people to re-publish Oz books for profit since the rights to the Oz stories themselves are free and clear. That, to me, is a bunch of shit. Flipping no-cost Oz books into 99 cent iPhone book apps is greasy as hell.

Those Action League figures continue to surprise. I just spotted these four sets at Walmart: eight figures pulled from last fall's Flashpoint storyline. Hey kids! Re-enact the politically-advantageous marriage of Aquaman and Wonder Woman! Simulate the thinly-veiled disdain Batman's Dad Batman holds for emo-goth Superman!

Seems like a crazy thing to turn into toys, six months later after Flashpoint ended. Kinda neat though. I get the feeling there's a lot of "why not?" in the toy merchandising wing of DC Comics.

This car appears to be transporting several members of the Loyal Order of Water Buffaloes.

Star Wars has jumped on to the Squinkies train, although it's not official Squinkies merch. It's Star Wars Fighter Pods. Same thing, though. Same squishy pencil topper stuck inside a plastic ball. Somehow, these guys have legitimized the crappy 25-cent toys you get out of store exit vending machines. All it takes is sculpting and paint apps, I suppose.

Anyway, there's a frozen Han no bigger than my fingertip. The carbonite toys always crack me up. OOTA GOOTA CHIBI SOLO?

Retro City Rampage is coming out for PSN after all. And also PC. Creator Brian Provinciano plans to drop all four versions (those two plus XBLA and WiiWare) in May. Good luck to him getting all four to launch within that four week window.

I am very happy to see the game head to PS3, because I'll get Trophies for it. I don't imagine there will be much of a graphic differential between the versions.

But the announcement reminded me about a prediction I put out to Twitter back in October.

Which was quickly replied to by the Retro City Rampage Twitter account, using the word "guarantee." Now, I'm sure a lot can happen over months (years!) of game development, so there may have been no PSN plans last fall and, whoop, something changed circa New Year's.

Or, RetroCR was just being snarky and taking issue with my unnecessarily specific timeline. If he lands Retro City Rampage on PSN concurrent with the XBLA version, he'll have proved me wrong.

And I'm not counting out an iOS version yet.

Here's me demoing Soulcalibur V from this morning.

I was so instantly ashamed of myself when I went for the old "Mountain Dew and Cheetos" joke about gamers. I am a traitor. But there you are, with the set lights on you, and you're so afraid to stammer or blank out and drive the whole segment off into a ditch. See also, me goofing up "T for teen." Amateur.

I've been a fan since Soulcalibur II, and I like how the series (and fighting games in general) has evolved to include more of the kind of crap that makes guys like me want to keep playing. IE, guys that really don't care about mastering every counter and moveset. The movement towards levelling up player progression, collecting titles, creating characters, saving replays, and following online rivals gives me something to shoot for. Rather than just 1P 2P START over and over again.

I'd for sure buy DLC that adds Talim, Taki and Xianghua back into the game.

Right after lodging four ignominious losses, I have redeemed myself against three of those four opponents. I'll never beat Tufpickle.

Also note that I just lost to Clark. Sometimes the lad just plain outplays me.

And hey, good news: Next week we get a third faction!

I guess not every "let the readers kick off a discussion topic" post can be a winner. But boy howdy is this one useless:

Who else thinks that this year is just too much? There are far too many games coming out that are worth purchasing.

The hell? This is a legal avenue of bitch now? Who am I kidding, this thread pops up every year around this time. As soon as publishers start making their release date calendars public, somebody starts tallying up the total dollar amount of how much it would cost to buy them all.

The author then goes on to list 28 games that he or she wants to buy, with the absurd caveat that "It is definitely up for change though depending on quality, length, and money." It's a typical list, populated with plenty of name brands, AAA sequels and the odd buzz-friendly arthouse title. I'm sure I'll own half of them myself by this time next year.

It's not the "I can't afford it" vibe that bugs me, it's the idea that this year is somehow different from last year. Or the year before that. We have yet to have a year in video gaming where gamers could comfortably feel like they could easily buy and play every single important release. It's never happened. There is always going to be too many games, and your job is to decide what gets your money and your time.

Do movie fans complain about too many movies coming out in a year? And movies cost a fraction of the money and time that games cost. They don't because nobody expects to see every movie every year. This gets back to my beef with the "piracy preservationists," guys who think every game over a certain age that is no longer in active pursuit by a publisher should be made freely available for anyone who wants it. Gamers tend to think that we should get EVERYTHING. Every game. It must hinge on the digital nature of games. Games were traded digitally well before music and movies were (well, hacked), so this "digital should be free" bullshit is now hardcoded in gamer DNA.

This is not a legitimate discussion topic. This is just comment bait, pandering for pageviews.

This whole time I've been kinda half bitching about Arkham City's holiday trophy, where you're supposed to visit the perpetually imprisoned Calendar Man on twelve specific days. I'm not changing the PS3 clock to cheat (thank you Animal Crossing), so it means I have to track real-life holidays. That wasn't what bugged me, I can follow along with that, what I didn't like was that I had no way to prove to myself that I did not miss any (or that the game for sure had logged my Calendar Man experience.)

Turns out I just had to look to the right.

There's a friggin calendar hanging on the wall by the cell, with all twelve holidays circled. And once you've checked in with goony Calendar Man, the game scratches out the month with red pen. Easy!

Now, you never see Batman scribble on the calendar, so I have to assume one of Two-Face's thugs upstairs must wander down with a crayon after Batman exits the courthouse.

Look at that depressing record. Four straight losses, three of which were to people I know and could therefore conceivably psych them out with distraction and deception.

Hero Academy is still the most amazing thing going on iOS right now. At any given time, Clark and I have four to five games going between us, and we spend a few minutes before school and at bedtime cycling through all of our matches. Can't wait to see what the new army will bring to the game. In my fondest future imaginings, Hero Academy ends up with eight different teams, full replay-to-YouTube functionality, and the ability to make your own play field.

Look, there's a lot of people in the world. More than you can imagine. And they all need something to do all day.

For the most part, everybody needs a job. And a hobby or two. Lots of things need doing and there are lots of things to do. Now, you're not going to care about most of those things. You're not going to like many of those things. But the world is big enough that this group of people over here can go do that while this group of people over here go do this.

By and large, most of the world is just not interested in catering to you. But you will, over your lifetime, tend to surround yourself with those who do, and that environment will color your perception about how the world works.

So the next time you get pissed because you read about scientists researching something stupid, or when we pay more attention to a celebrity death than to dead GIs, or when you discover that some people like dressing up in animal costumes... sit back, breathe out, and let them be.

Scientists figuring out how hair curliness predicts the shape and length of a ponytail does not mean this same group could have cured cancer by now had they not been irrationally consumed with mathematically defining cheerleaders' hairstyles. It does not mean that there is less money in the world to pay people to figure out the life questions you personally would rather see answered, whether your interest is vital or trite. It just means they wanted to learn something - which is pretty much their job description - so they learned it.

For all we know, these particular scientists are utter crap at curing cancer. Just like, statistically, you're utter crap at fixing a car. But just because you can't fix a car doesn't mean you should spend every spare hour trying to learn how. And nor should anyone expect you to. You're expected to like the things YOU like, worry about the things YOU care about, and stay out of everybody else's way.

Like, why should the fact that soldiers die preclude people from mourning Whitney Houston? There's no competition to see who can be the saddest survivor. I personally do not care much at all about Whitney Houston, and yes I do get annoyed when Twitter and Facebook explode with teary shock whenever a celebrity dies, but I'm not going to take a shot at someone posting RIP WHITNEY :( by suggesting they ought to feel worse about US soldiers being sent home in boxes. Or, going meta here, that "the media" should do more to honor fallen soldiers and not so much about old pop stars that are found dead in a bathtub.

You can dress up your outrage in acceptably-patriotic tones, but in the end, it's still about wanting people to be more like you. And they're not. You think most people are like you, deep down, but they're not. You can have a lot of friends who agree with you, but your friends are nothing compared to the gargantuan weight of the world's population. Your friends are nothing compared to the county, for that matter. The simple truth? More people care(d) about Whitney Houston in a meaningful, personal way than care about US soldiers. Go ahead and get pissed about that, but it is folly to expect otherwise. Just like how more people care about US soldiers than care about what you do for a living, assuming you're not a soldier and not Whitney Houston.

The good news is that plenty of people are trying to cure cancer. But the scientists that can't? They need something to do too.

And plenty of people honor fallen soldiers. For example, when I die, my name won't be inscribed on a plaque under the inscription REMEMBERED HERE, OUR COMMUNITY'S LOST MARKETING MANAGERS.

Unless you're into some really freaky shit, somebody out there is working on something that you would find both important and necessary. Hell, even the crazy stuff is being taken care of. Trust in the size of the world to make all things possible.

Furries, you're OK in my book.

Man, and you think Alan Moore was shafted by DC. Check out this interview with Scott Shaw! from last October that I'm sad to say I'm just now finding.

Some pull quotes for you... here's what Shaw! and co. pitched to follow up the "Final Ark" miniseries.

Well, the "ending" we were told we had to use was that all of the Zoo Crew, except for Pig-Iron, would be transformed from "funny animals" into "real" animals. I think the plan was to have Captain Carrot the fuzzy bunny living in Zatanna's hat for a while, but that never materialized. Instead, the ending was "resolved" (incorrectly, with Pig-Iron as one of the "real" critters) in a panel or two DC's final CRISIS issue whatever it was called. Not knowing that would happen, Bill and I approached DC with what we thought would be some fun comics. First, we'd follow up CAPTAIN CARROT AND THE FINAL ARK the next summer with a three issue LEGION OF SUPER-PETS starring the "real" versions of the Zoo Crew fighting various animal-based human supervillains from the DC Universe, which Bill and I would co-write and that Phil Winslade would draw, since he drew the last few pages of our miniseries. At the end of that story arc, Animal Man would discover that the Super-Pets were more than they appeared to be; he would contact Zatanna who would reverse their transformation.

The next summer, I'd write and draw a squarebound 80-PAGE GIANT CAPTAIN CARROT AND HIS AMAZING ZOO CREW! comic, featuring "reprints" that never really existed in the first place. Stories like the Zoo Crew meeting their evil counterparts, the Bruise Crew, the Terrific Whatsit in WWII, the supposedly deceased Little Cheese as a sort of super-ghost, Deadmouse, a story starring the Just'a Lotta Animals, etc. And the summer after that, Bill and I would cook up the big finale, with the restored Zoo Crew returning to Earth-26 to reclaim their flooded planet. We wanted to introduce some new, street-level heroes who were a resistance movement fighting against Starro The Conqueror in their world's post-Katrina-esque environment. We'd also show how Starro had made Pig-Iron his unwilling deputy, forcing the porcine powerhouse to continue the ruse that he'd turned evil - or Starro would flood what was left un-submerged on Earth-26. This would all culminate in an all-out big battle issue with Starro defeated and everything back to normal for the Zoo Crew.

Deadmouse! Amazing!

I picked up the Zatanna series pretty much solely on the rumor that Captain Carrot was going to be inside her magician's hat. Which was, I must stress, a rumor I was handed by Dan DiDio himself when I asked about new Zoo Crew material at a Philly comic con. And yeah, they ended up never following up on that, but the Zatanna series was still worth the pickup.

Then there's this:

DC Direct was gonna hire me to design action figures of the whole team and a few of the villains but the project was bumped by - get this! - the WATCHMEN movie figures that no one bought, the SPIRIT movie figures that no one bought, and the JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA figures that were, like the film itself, never even made! So, although some Warner Bros. executroid saw a copy of our miniseries and asked, "Why aren't we producing toys of these characters?", the proposed project was put "on the back burner", never to be mentioned again, dammit.

The only upside to this is that DC Direct's toys tend to be all for the adult collector and thus largely unplayable. And I'd want Zoo Crew figures that could be played with, not just stood on shelves in static poses. But that's not much of an upside.

The Zoo Crew team is, I think, the largest profile DC animals that have yet to pop up in that cool kids-oriented DC Super Pets books. And that's a series that has included Proty, Lobo's space dolphins, Gleek, and Hoppy the Marvel Bunny. So there's nothing too obscure for that line. Must be a legal thing (Shaw! owns 10% of the property) keeping the Zoo Crew out of there, although I bet Art Balthazar has some lovely sketches of his take on Captain Carrot just in case.

With no wins to me.

The Ticket to Ride Pocket iOS game was priced down to "free" recently, so Josh and I tried it out. I'm developing an interest in async iOS board games in the wake of Hero Academy.

I think I've played the board game version maybe once in my life. And I did not retain a lot of the pre-game explanatory movie. So it took us a couple turns to get the swing of it.

I'm not sure this particular board game is a great match for async play, since you do very little on your turn.

It is also sort of an odd choice that the game assigns avatars to you. You'd think you'd get to choose something like that. Not that it matters. Although it is amusing to see Josh presented as a pretty lady.

BONUS SCREENSHOT: Here's Clark raising an undead army in Hero Academy.

I'm guessing this was part of yesterday's PS3 firmware upgrade:

The Facebook PSN updates used to say something like "Joe Fourhman has purchased The Simpsons Arcade Game on the PlayStation Network." Now it seems your PS3 is going to offer up a little bit more detail, specifically promoting the PlayStation Plus service. While I like the new language, that yellow Plus icon is going to get pretty boring.

I'm sure most of my non-gaming friends have turned off the Facebook PSN notifications anyway.

Someday, when we've got some time, remind me to tell you a long, fascinating story about Igor Krasnodymov's Haunted Village. (Available for sale for 25 euros under the Games tab right here.)

How many more months are we going to have "The New 52!" proudly stamped across the top of each cover? Not really judging, just curious. Now that we have word of some original New 52 titles being cancelled, it sort of busts up the assumed magic of 52 books, right? Now it's just back to business as usual of publishing comics, without the mythical number.

So where am I on my personal New 52 journey? As predicted, the Lantern books are my core. I like how Sinestro has been turned from a cliche Silver Age embarrassment into a complicated and entertaining asshole. Seriously, when I started reading GL books, back in the Hal-has-gray-hair and Kyle Rayner years, Sinestro was almost completely ignored. Written off as one of the franchise's dopier elements, best forgotten. Now he is routinely one of the best characters in the book. I'm intrigued by the Third Army thing, I love the evolved Red Lanterns (an actual team of characters instead of just grunting psychopaths)... although I'm tired of the Guardians Gone Bad thing, yet again. It's easy to see why DC dumped the Guardians for so many years, because their role seems ever doomed to be the cause of everything bad that ever happens.

In the Justice League books, I do like the new League origin. But I wish I wish I wish they had run through this origin in a weekly series concurrent with the New 52 launch, rather than dragging this "five years ago" flashback out over all these months. The nest of the DCU is six months in, and we still have little reference for where the Justice League is in the contemporary setting. Both Justice League Dark and Justice League International have mentioned the core League in passing, but it still seems like a big black hole in the DCU right now. None of the member books bring it up (at least, there's no mention of the League in Aquaman, Flash, Green Lantern, Action, or any of the Batman books.) It's just weird.

Note: the attached JL panel is lousy. For Jim Lee, that's a pretty lame bit of pin up work.

I'm slowly stepping backward away from the Bat books. The end of the first story arc means I can safely stop getting them. So I've already dropped Nightwing, and the other four Batman titles are soon to follow. Nothing personal, really. I just need to keep my list flexible. There's this Earth-2 stuff coming up and I need room to check that out.

I also stopped Teen Titans, which is probably a good thing, since they're about to launch a third Teen Titans family book and I'm just not that into it. The art on Teen Titans was pretty terrible as well. Very '90s.

Speaking of bad art killing books, Mr. Terrific was cancelled (I think it will last through issue 8 or so?) I really hope he lands somewhere cool, and not just slumming in one of the DCnU's many super-secret acronym organizations, like when they dumped him in Checkmate. Does the new Justice League have a rotating roster? Who the hell knows.

I'm getting Swamp Thing, but it's more of a prank I'm pulling on myself, to see how many issues I'll buy until Swamp Thing actually puts in an appearance. So far, I'm up to around $20. No Swamp Thing in sight.

So I'm getting back to my normal equilibrium. Probably not buying more books in the New 52 wake, but not buying fewer books. And definitely enjoying the discovery of what's different, what's new, and what's coming next.

I do wish DC would stop being stupid in those awful DC Nation All Access Pass text pieces. Last week's synergy-centric blurb has Ian Sattler raving about how he was stopping typing right now to go download Arkham City Lockdown for iOS. Jesus. Stop writing like marketdroids and talk to us like actual human beings. I can't stand reading more mindless jabber about how EXCITED the editorial staff is about the BIG CHANGES and INTENSE ACTION, and how INCREDIBLY COOL outside media project X is going to be. I especially hate when they start teasing BOY I'VE SEEN SOME PAGES FROM UPCOMING BOOK X AND WOW ARE YOU GUYS GOING TO LOVE IT BUT I CAN'T SPOIL IT AND WOW AGAIN. Grow up.