Author: Shmee

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Feel The Rush!

rush

Ron Howard is the king of making movies based on true stories.  A Beautiful Mind and Apollo 13 are classics, so I was looking forward to seeing Rush in the fall of 2013, but it got lost in the shuffle.  I am glad my wife pointed out to me that it was available as part of the Cinemax free weekend because while this movie is not a classic it is still very good.

The story follows two Formula One drivers:  The free spirited and loose living James Hunt (Chris Hemsworth), and the buttoned up and stiff Niki Lauda (Daniel Brühl) from their early race days to their storied battle for the 1976 Formula One Championship.  They hate each other at first, but over time they come to respect one another.  Plus they have a mutual understanding of what it takes to do their very dangerous job.

What I love about this movie is that it doesn’t try to make this story more than it is.  It is about two men that race.  Neither of them are the good guy or the bad guy, and it doesn’t even try and mold them in to likeable people.  They are both quite honestly kind of jerks, but what they did in 1976 was so amazing that to change who they are and were would be a disservice to their story.  They were simply dominant.

Chris Hemsworth finally got to show that he was more than Thor, sure he still looks like Thor in this movie, but he gets to show a much wider range of emotion.  Daniel Brühl turns in a great performance as well.  He makes the arrogant jerk that is Nikki Lauda watchable and human, and from what I have read that is quite the feat.

Ron Howard has an amazing ability to not let his movie making style overwhelm the movies he directs.  Each of his films has a unique feel, and that is the same with Rush.  If I hadn’t been told that it was a Ron Howard film it would have been hard to discern.  He lets this tale progress organically, and he doesn’t force anything to happen.  He has earned his place among the top directors working today.

Rush is a very good movie, and for two men to dominate a sport the way Hunt and Lauda did was incredible.  Still the movie would have needed something a little extra to push it in to classic territory.  I think the two men that this movie is about hold it back because they themselves are not deep enough.  They are race car drivers and not a lot more.  Ron Howard did not disappoint with Rush, and I am just sad that I waited a year to watch it.

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Try And Survive A Fortnite!

fortnite

I already touched on Fortnite by Epic Games a little bit in my PAX wrap-up, but I thought I would go a little more in depth for the three of you that read my blog.  Well okay all two of you (sorry I included myself), but I love you guys!

Fortnite is as mash-up of Minecraft and a third person shooter.  You start off with a stick and you run around hitting things to break them apart for their materials.  Things like cars give you metal and gears, houses and trees give wood, and so on.  Unlike Minecraft there is no mining.  You can only harvest what is above the ground.  However, just like Minecraft you use the materials that you gained to build better stuff.  Like pick axes and guns, and of course the titular forts.

You will need to build goods forts too because when the zombies come, they come in force, and they destroy everything in their path.  They will make you pray that you built enough bullets (Build a lot of bullets!).  There are a good verity of zombies: there are the standard walk up to you and start to bite ones, ones that throw bombs, ones that explode, and even ones that throw other zombies.  They will attack from all sides and above, so if you built a crappy fort, you will loose.

The game is fast paced and visceral meanwhile the graphics are fun and cheery.  If I had one complaint it is that it looks a little too much like Team Fortress 2.  Still that is a very minor complaint, and since this game is still in Pre-Alpha to Alpha, that may change. The other thing that I am worried about is how the Free-To-Play mechanics are going to work.  It would be lame to come up against a team that just bought all the resources to win without trying.

The base of what they have now for Fortnite is fantastic, and I really hope that I get in to the upcoming closed alpha, because I really want to play some more.  You can sign up for the alpha here.  Keep your eye out for Fortnite because it may become your new video game addiction!

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Shmee Takes A Sip From A Massive Chalice!

massive-chalice

I probably back to many video games on Kickstarter, but I love helping indie studios build unique games that most publishers would overlook.  A studio that I always back is Double Fine, so you should be less than surprised that to find out that I backed their latest game Massive Chalice.  I got a chance to play Massive Chalice while at PAX Prime, and it seems to be shaping up nicely.

What they showed of Massive Chalice plays like a standard turn based tactical game similar to XCOM, but with a twist that this game takes place over hundreds of years.  They call it an “Epic Timeline”.  With an Epic Timeline, your heroes will grow old, so to keep their skills you need to assign them to keeps and castles, and marry them off so they will have strong battle ready kids.  You can also have fighters go and train in those keeps to learn more skills.  It is a fun way to get troops with unique skill sets.

Now never fear this isn’t a dating simulator.  These are old school arranged marriages, so if you put two people together they will get married and have kids.  It is their duty after all.  Now certain people will be more compatible and create better kids, so that is something to look for.  Just like all other tactical games you can also research new skills and technologies while the timeline is running, and you can send diplomats and fighters to deal with problems for you, so that way you don’t always have to deal with problems personally.

It looks like my trust in Double Fine was well founded.  Massive Chalice is shaping up to be a great addition to their already fun portfolio.  Between this game and a new Costume Quest coming out, I will have plenty of Double Fine games to enjoy.  If you weren’t looking forward to Massive Chalice before, you should be now.  It is coming out soonish (like hopefully this month) to PC and Xbox One.

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Hands On Shadow Realms!

BioWare-Shadow-Realms

While Shadow Realms wasn’t at PAX Prime proper, BioWare did have party were they allowed attendees to play the game while eating free food and talking to the developers.  I happen to love playing games and eating free food, so this was pretty awesome.  I came away from the event pretty excited about Shadow Realms’ potential.

What they showed of the game was a four on one action RPG dungeon.  So four heroes, a mage, a cleric, an assassin, and a fighter went up against a Shadow Lord.  The heroes controlled kind of like if you merged an MMO and Diablo with a third person shooter.  The primary attack was a left click on the mouse with the character’s primary special ability on the right click, and since I was the assassin that was my dodge.  The WASD keys were the directional movement.  Other abilities like poison dart throwing were assigned to hot keys.

I didn’t get to play as the Shadow Lord, but his controls were similar except that he couldn’t interact with the heroes directly.  He would either have to take control over one of his minions, lay traps, plant bombs, or spawn bigger bad guys.  It definitely made the campaign more difficult having someone actively working against us.  We were not able to beat the Shadow Lord, but we came pretty darn close, and I am sure our group could have taken him if we got another shot at it.

BioWare also talked about the parts of the game that we did not see, for instance there will be a single player component to this game were all the role playing will take place.  So all the talking and story will be done in another area, and only the combat will be multiplayer, or at least that is what is sounded like.  Now I am not sure if that means there will be no single player combat, and no multiplayer roleplaying, but since this game is in pre-alpha the devs themselves may not know, or the answers may change.  I am also not sure how the Shadow Lord’s role playing will take place.  Will he have a totally different story?

BioWare said that this game will be PC only, but the controls would map to a controller very easily, and EA likes money, so I would bet that you will see this on Xbox One and PS4 soon after the game comes out.  The other big question about this game is how the episodic content will work.  Only Telltale Games has been able to make that model work well, and that is because point and click adventure games lend themselves to being told in episodes or chapters.  We will have to see if BioWare can pull it off for a large scale RPG.

As you can see I still have a lot of questions about Shadow Realms, but since this game is in pre-alpha and not feature complete, I may be a couple years away from getting those answers.  I had a lot of fun playing this game,  and I cannot wait to get more info and hopefully a little more play time.

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PAX Prime 2014 Wrap-Up!

pax

So another PAX Prime has come and gone, so I thought I would share my impressions of this year’s show!

The Year Of The Off-Site Party: This year there were a lot of off-site events.  I went to two of these events, Bioware’s Shadow Realms party, and Epic’s Fortnite event.  At these events the developers wined and dined attendees, and also let the attendees play their games, which was very nice of them.

The Expo Hall Has Became More Pointless: The Expo Hall is a main selling point for PAX, and it is worth walking through, but it has lost a lot relevance.  All the games, including some lower tier games, have long lines, and they are showing less and less.  Your time is better spent playing board games, chatting with indie developers, going to talks and panels, or checking out the aforementioned outside events.

PAX Needs More Space: The show is more spread out than ever.  To go see something at the main theater, you had to walk six blocks.  What to play board games? Three blocks.  Go get something signed? Off you go to the Paramount Theater.  I love that PAX Prime is in Seattle, but they need to find a bigger venue.

Oculus Rift Is Everywhere, But Still Not Compelling: There were a lot of games featuring the Oculus Rift, but they were mostly small indies, and the games themselves were not that interesting.  It was fun to get the gear on this year, but if Facebook wants to sell a lot of these things they are going to need to find a must have game to move units.

Board/Card Game Of The Year: I didn’t play a lot of board games this year, but of the few I did play, I am going with Hot Tin Roof.  It is a game were you play as cats trying to navigate city roof tops, but other cats will build cat walks and shelters and make you pay to pass through.  It is like they mixed Monopoly and Ticket To Ride and made both simpler and more streamlined.  It will be a great new game for the family.

Table-Top RPG Of The Year: This one took me by surprise, but Valiant by Catalyst took the title this year.  It takes place in the little known Valiant comic book universe, which you have probably never heard of outside of maybe X-O Manowar.  It is a simple system with fun rules, and fast gameplay.  The little known universe works in its favor since you can bend the NPC superheroes to fit your needs, and no-one cares that much.  This would be a great starter RPG for anyone wanting to dip their toe in to the Table-Top world.

Video Game Of The Year: Fortnite.  You might argue that they bribed me by giving me free food and drinks, but I don’t care!  I have no journalistic integrality to uphold.  This Minecraft/Shooter hybrid is a lot of fun, and from what the devs told us there are a lot of new modes coming.  It is in closed Alpha right now, but you can sign up and try to get in, and you should, so you can help me build forts and try to stem the zombie tide!  Here is the link.

That was a brief review of my PAX Prime.  I had a lot of fun.  I may go more in depth with the games I played in the days to come, but we will see.  Thanks for reading, and maybe I will see you at next year’s PAX.