Monthly Archives: March 2015

Orphan Black: Season 3 Trailer

Tatiana Maslany has amazed audiences and critics for two seasons in Orphan Black, playing Sarah, Cosima, Alison, Helena and many more clones from Project Leda. But in Season 3, the clone world is getting even more crowded, now that we know a male strain exists, Project Castor, played by Ari Millen.

Check out the new trailer for Season 3 above, as we learn more about what's to come.

Orphan Black: Season 3 premieres Saturday, April 18, 9:00pm ET on BBC America.

Helldivers Review

Helldivers won't be remembered for its narrative, nor will it be praised for intriguing mission design. No, these elements of the game are merely average pieces of a backdrop in a theater enacting thrilling performances destined to be endlessly retold among friends and fellow helldivers--and many of those tales are the kind that begin with "Hey, do you remember that one time?" Among these stories, the best ones told by veteran helldivers are of the edge-of-your-seat moments that culminate in cries of jubilance and relief as you and your allies watch your space-faring drop ship fly to safety just in the nick of time. But just as indelible are the tales that end with howls of disappointment (or, sometimes, laughter) as the last remaining member of the team crumbles against the odds and is finally overtaken. There are undoubtedly some blemishes in Helldivers' armor, but inside that armor you'll find a story creator, helping you craft fond memories to be retold for years to come.

Indeed, the stories you create will be ones that will stick with you long after you hang up your uniform, as the plot in Helldivers is one quickly lost to the recesses of space. A multiplayer twin-stick shooter, Helldivers sends you and your fellow caped soldiers to march across the galaxy, delivering "managed democracy," all for the glory of Super Earth. You fight an interstellar war against three other races: the grotesque bugs; the technologically advanced illuminati, and the cyborgs, humans who grafted flesh to metal after separating from the regime--all of whom the government has decreed the enemies of freedom for some reason or other.

The game draws its theme from current history and popular fiction such as Starship Troopers, with the latter inspiring the game's light-hearted, corny propaganda. There are also some thinly veiled references to real-world issues. The Super Earth government labels cyborgs, who reportedly attack with suicide bombers, as terrorists, all the while justifying war in the name of protecting democracy and "our way of life," as well as collecting necessary resources such as, you guessed it, oil deposits (sometimes the veil is so thin as to be nonexistent). But Helldivers isn't attempting to be the next Spec Ops: The Line. It uses tongue-in-cheek humor throughout, and a delicate touch with its weighty themes.

Helldivers is tug of war on a cosmic scale. You and your fellow helldivers fight together against the three computer-controlled species, who reciprocate by pushing toward Super Earth. It's a persistent online universe, in which battles are won and lost even if you don't partake in them. The war theater, viewed from a console on the deck of your ship, is split into three large sections that are then broken into smaller sectors, any of which are claimable after you gather enough community points. These points are earned by completing missions on the many procedurally created planets nestled within. Once all the smaller sectors are claimed, you can begin the real battle, on the alien homeworld. During my time with the game, we were able to take the fight to the bug planet, which invoked some fond memories of a certain sci-fi adventure romp. Hopes were high, but to say the planet was a tough nut to crack would be an understatement--we got completely whupped. The desert world was too much for our handful of helldivers, but perhaps the story will be different post launch. Ultimately, complete conquest of the three planets is the goal, and once achieved, the game starts anew. The home world fights are not the only special events, however. On occasion, helldivers are called to safeguard a city under siege, and cleansing the infestation results in a double dose of experience points. Also, if an enemy species manages to breach Super Earth's defenses, all players rally to its defense.

The humdrum missions, sadly, do put a damper on the engaging design of Helldivers' war front. Planets are won by completing objectives, which don't stretch far beyond the typical, such as capturing and holding an area, activating some device or another, or the always popular escort mission. Odds are you will be too occupied dealing with oncoming waves of enemies to notice boredom seeping in, but after hours of slowly dragging a briefcase or yet another hapless group of stranded civilians across a stretch of terrain, it's difficult not to feel a sense of slowly mounting frustration at the tedium. Completing missions offers a variety of awards, at least. Experience points, in an amount that varies depending on your performance, are showered upon you at the end of each stage. Leveling up unlocks new weapons and gear to be used in your campaign, though I would have preferred for the game to denote which piece of equipment unlocks at what level, rather than being occasionally surprised.

Helldivers' one-two punch of deep strategy complementing intense cooperative combat, however, is fantastic. It is so good, in fact, that it often overshadows much of the dreariness arising from the dull missions. It is incredibly satisfying to play on a team of up to four helldivers, all relying on each other to survive while executing carefully planned strategies involving perks and equipment. Playing the game solo is possible and provides its own set of challenges, but it just doesn't offer the same experience. Choosing a planet, the squad leader picks where the group of guerilla fighters will make its landing. On the ground, the team then decides what pieces of equipment, called stratagems, to call down, and what objectives to tackle first. Equipment varies, and includes options ranging from a UAV, which pinpoints threats on the map, to gun turrets, ammunition boxes, heavy guns, and much more. New stratagems are unlocked when battles on certain planets are completed, with more equipment being offered as a reward. The enemies you face also affect your game plan: Bugs are plated in thick carapace, and charge at you brandishing massive claws; cyborgs are often strapped in bullet-deflecting armor, forcing you to carefully line your shots up with any exposed fleshy bits; and the illuminati attack with high-tech war machines, mind control, and snipers that can kill with one hit.

The stories you create will be ones that will stick with you long after you hang up your uniform, as the plot in Helldivers is one quickly lost to the recesses of space.

The combat itself unfolds organically as you make your way from objective to objective. If your landing is free of immediate hostiles, you can attempt to move through the area with stealth and haste, quickly eliminating any scouting party before scouts manage to raise an alarm. It's entirely possible to complete a mission leaving only the corpses of unwitting foes in your wake, but more often than not, you will end up hammering down your trigger as enraged forces rush to meet you. The weapons, which include a disparate array of rifles, shotguns, and beam cannons, dish out white-hot metal or plasma in gratifying thunder. Bullets rip through flesh, leaving smatterings of blood and piles of viscera in their wake. Effortlessly smooth controls make the gunplay feel terrific throughout every fight.

Helldivers is easy to jump into, depending on your familiarity with twin-stick shooters, but even if you're used to the style, you will find that the game has many factors for you to keep in mind the moment your boots touch terra firma. Chief among them is the immense difficulty, which requires all players to be at the height of their game, as one mistake can spell immediate disaster. As you travel around, research samples that dot maps must be collected in order to earn points to use to upgrade weapons and stratagems. Friendly fire is another item of concern, as it is always on and cannot be disabled, so practice keen trigger discipline. Ammo conservation is an equally high priority, as reloading will discard any unused rounds in a clip.

Death is no stranger in Helldivers, and despite your glorious, flowing cape, you are not superhuman. The game demands a sharp eye and a clever wit; otherwise, you will go down fast. And, take it from someone who knows, if your fallback procedure keeps circling back to running away as quickly as possible, then maybe it's time to rethink the battle plan. Falling in combat is hardly the end of the game, however, as you can call down a reinforcement stratagem to bring a lost comrade back onto the battlefield. But do keep an eye on where the pod (actually, any stratagem, come to think of it) is about to land. Far too many helldivers have lost their lives being crushed beneath incoming ordnance, which doesn't solve any problems whatsoever.

Beyond mission design and story, Helldivers has other issues, though some are negligible. For example, you can customize the look of your helldiver, as well as unlock new clothing designs as you go along, but the options only change from dark to not-so-dark. Since the camera floats off at a distance, it's easy to confuse one dark-armored soldier with another, often resulting in someone foolishly falling off a ledge or firing a weapon into an unrecognized ally. A friend I was playing with also mentioned that the game wasn't tracking his progress when he was playing in my lobby. This is a minor issue; one that I've been informed may be patched by the time the game releases. On the more nitpicky side: What is with the wind on some planets? More than once, during rare moments of silence, I watched as shadows of clouds moved northwest, while dust on the ground flowed to the west, and a small handful of particles lazily floated east. All the while my cape drooped, apathetic to the elements. But on the subject of capes, it's oddly amusing to spin in place and watch your cape flow in response to the motion. And I know I'm not the only one to feel this way. Before nearly every mission, I watched as so-called hardened fighters twirled on the deck of a battleship; joining the impromptu dances is almost irresistible.

The game draws its theme from current history and popular fiction such as Starship Troopers, with the latter inspiring the game's light-hearted, corny propaganda.

Helldivers is a hugely entertaining space romp, despite bearing a few battle scars. It is truly a game designed for precious water cooler moments, when you can tell stories of fights barely won, and anecdotes detailing white-knuckle flights from insatiable hordes. The deafening cheers heard through my microphone as the last living member of the team squashed a bug tank with three reinforcement pods, turning the tide back toward victory, is forever etched in my mind. Imperfect as it may be, Helldivers' focus on the cooperation of a small team looking out for each other against oppressive waves of enemies elevates it from what would have been a fun and challenging shooter, to a game that now sits at the top of my list of how I plan to spend many future evenings: with a gun in hand, my allies at my back, and a broad smile on my face.

Shovel Knight Expansion Details Revealed

Yacht Club Games has revealed details on its upcoming Shovel Knight expansion. Shovel Knight: Plague of Shadows will be free to owners of the original game and is slated for a Q2 2015 release.

In Plague of Shadows, players control Plague Knight, one of The Order of No Quarter bosses in Shovel Knight, in a new campaign in which he must battle his former compatriots in order to create the Ultimate Potion, according to the developer's blog.

The studio promises that Shovel Knight: Plague of Shadows will deliver “a new play style, new story, new bosses, and more," including a new alchemy crafting system.

Continue reading…

Xbox 360 Can Reserve Free Xbox One Titles, Gets Preview Program

Xbox 360 users who have an Xbox Live Gold membership can now start claiming copies of the free Xbox One titles offered with Games With Gold directly through their console.

According to a post on the Major Nelson blog, players can reserve the free games through selecting the Games With Gold section on the Xbox 360 dashboard. Until now, Xbox 360 users could only previously go through the process holding games via the website.

Continue reading…

Screamride Review

As fun as it is, there's something rather...disturbing...about Screamride. A game about racing rollercoaster cars down rails at tremendous speeds and smashing them into concrete skyscrapers isn't to be taken seriously, of course, and I'm not terribly concerned about the riders, who seem beyond thrilled for the chance to sacrifice their well-being for the chance to fling themselves into solid objects. My worry lies with the pedestrians walking around out there. There are promenades to stroll on among the office buildings and laboratories. What right-minded individual would think to hang out there--or to work there?

Well. This isn't the kind of thing you're supposed to be thinking when you play Screamride, which sets itself apart from the developer's own Rollercoaster Tycoon series in this regard. In the RCT series, a crash was always a tragedy; Screamride's thrill-seekers hoot and holler on their way towards collisions like the Duke boys sliding across the hood of the General Lee, and the rocktronica soundtrack doesn't miss a beat, even when the riders' ragdoll bodies thump against asphalt. They must enjoy it. So do I, actually, though your enjoyment depends on your willingness to cast aside memories of Rollercoaster Tycoon and its freedoms in favor of Screamride's hyper-happy attitude and unique mix of construction and destruction.

Add racing to that mix, too, if you want a fuller picture. Screamride is split into four discrete chunks: racing, demolition, engineering, and sandbox creation, locking creation tools behind gates that can only be opened by participating in career events. That's not the worst thing in the world--Little Big Planet manages to make the idea work, after all--but if coaster creation is your primary draw, busywork is mandatory. There are other limits that also stifle creative minds bursting with ideas, but forget about them for a moment. Instead, picture a roller coaster that gives its riders a modicum of control over speed and balance--coaster cars with brakes and accelerators, and with limited boosting capabilities, that let you lean into curves so you don't go flying from the tracks as you whip around corners.

Experiencing a coaster this way is called screamriding, and it closely resembles traditional racing, apart from the obvious limitation of being glued to the track, with the exception of jumps, or in circumstances when the race purposefully ends with a coaster train launching from the track and into a high-rise. You are an active participant, earning boost by pressing a button just as you near the end of a blue stretch of track, and using an analog stick to nudge the car left or right, either to keep the car on the track, or to navigate the twists the game throws in, such as monorails that require you to lean on two wheels. Of course, most of the twists are in the coaster design themselves. No real-life coaster would risk such barf-inducing curlicues, but in the Screamride fantasy, why not throw caution to the wind? The rider-view camera angles might inspire some waves of nausea for you, but I never felt like upchucking. Then again, I seem to be immune from coaster sickness in real life, too.

Your enjoyment depends on your willingness to cast aside memories of Rollercoaster Tycoon and its freedoms in favor of Screamride's aggressive xtreme attitude and unique mix of construction and destruction.

Real life coasters rarely allow you to reach speeds of 150 miles per hour, unless you're a regular at Ferrari World in Abu Dhabi. Early on, when navigation isn't so tricky, it's easy to enjoy the thrills; as the campaign progresses, you're more concerned with spotting where blue tracks ends so you can earn a spot of boost, and with avoiding spills that could cost you time. At advanced stages, Screamride isn't about the joys of riding roller coasters: It's about gaining as many points as you can and showing off your skills on the game's online leaderboards. The game's insistence on turning everything into a competition is its defining negative feature, actually. "Sorry if you want to just ride the coaster and enjoy it!" says Screamride. "Roller coasters aren't fun enough on their own." Screamriding comes with its own kind of thrills, at least; finishing the Sky-Scraping Serpent challenge without a derailment rewards you not just with points, but by allowing you to sigh with relief after several minutes of white-knuckle track navigation.

Screamride's biggest gameplay triumph is only tangentially related to coasters. The game is big on destruction. It wants you to see colossal buildings collapse into voxelized heaps, and even showcases a few debacles outside of demolition levels. (You can even fly your car into towers should you launch from the track during a race.) Being a demolition expert is the game's strongest allure. On a fundamental level, demolition challenges are akin to a 3D version of Angry Birds: You launch a cabin from a rotating arm into arrangements of structures in the hope of causing a cavalcade of destruction and gaining points for it. (2007's Pain for the PlayStation 3 also springs to mind as an apt comparison.) Explosive barrels are tucked away in strategic places, and spires are placed to maximize damage if you bump them in just the right way.

Destructive delights.

Demolition is based on physics, so even a seemingly perfect launch may not have the effect you desired. Luckily, Screamride avoids Angry Birds' aggravations, focusing more on the demolition than on unreasonable challenges. Later levels add all sorts of accoutrements to the mix: cabins that divide or bounce, trampolines and magnets that extend your cabin's usefulness, and so forth. Other levels launch coaster cars off of a track and let you steer them directly into structures. Whatever the specific wrecking ball you use, razing a level is wholly satisfying. Monoliths topple onto other monoliths like a set of massive dominoes, and firing a cabin into the spindly legs of a colossal robot causes it to collapse upon itself in a glorious implosion of rubble. You can always restart the level with the press of a button should you miss your target; doing so causes demolished structures to be rebuilt as you watch, a process that might have been almost as amusing as the demolition if it didn't cause the frame rate to hit rock bottom. (Generally, the frame rate is not Screamride's strong suit.)

You get your build on in Screamride's engineering challenges. The sandbox aside, these levels best hark to the spirit of Frontier's previous creations, plopping a coaster down on some terrain, and asking you to complete it using a specific set of standards. "Complete the coaster with a minimum drop height of 100 meters, a minimum travel length of 950 meters, a top speed of 93 mph minimum, and using at least three special pieces" is one such goal, though others are much simpler ("Launch a rider"). There are some engineering control quirks to contend with, mostly to do with navigating between disconnected tracks, but the interface is otherwise commendable, and it's easy to test your coaster as you progress, and then return to construction, where you can add and twist tracks to your heart's content.

So many loops, so many restrictions.

The interface's usability is at its most apparent when you delve into Screamride's sandbox, which is overflowing with ways to build coasters and environments, whether you intend for those environments to provide atmosphere, or whether you intend to annihilate them. Make your own structures using cubes of concrete, glass, iron, and stone. Craft the island that your challenge rests upon with tiles of grass and metal. Delve into blueprints, where you can find pre-fashioned constructs that help automate the parts you aren't interested and focus on the parts you care about. Screamride asks a lot of a controller, given all the baubles and doodads, but clear tooltips make the process as simple as you could ask for.

There are complications that arise: all of this creation is in the service of a screamriding, demolition, or engineering challenge, so if you want to share your accomplishment, you must adjust vital parameters. That means setting goals, establishing any limits on coaster parts like loops and corkscrews, bonus challenges, and so forth. If you apply yourself, however, the results can be marvelous. As I write this, Screamride has not been released to the public, but press members and Frontier's developers have crafted some excellent stuff, like my favorite of the screamriding challenges, The Vaporizer, which flies along at speeds surpassing 170 miles per hour, and offers no hope of figuring which was is up and which is down until the challenge had ended. Thanks, SirTokeAlot85! Too bad I can't see how I fared against other racers on your level--or on any user-created levels.

The game is big on destruction. It wants you to see colossal buildings collapse into voxelized heaps.

The sandbox's downfall is not in the breadth of its toolset, but in the limitations on how you use it. Screamride suffers from a pressing need to give everything you do the same structure as its career challenges. You cannot simply build a coaster, ride it, and share it for others to do the same--not directly. Well, you can build an engineering challenge and ride your creation by testing it during and after construction, and then remove a couple of pieces of track and create a lame challenge out of it for others to complete and test. Or, you can save your coaster as a blueprint, which other players can use in their own level, which requires building a level, placing your coaster, and testing it. Or, others can download your challenge and then edit and test the coaster. But these are convoluted ways of circumventing Screamride's "Roller coasters aren't fun enough on their own!" outlook. It's frustrating to have so many tools, and so few ways of putting them to use, like an overwhelming pile of Legos that you can only use for making a boat, a car, or a house. Future downloadable content allowing for straightforward sharing, riding (not screamriding), and viewing coasters in action would be as surprising as a pile of vomit at Busch Gardens Tampa's Montu exit.

I don't wish to further belabor the issue of "what Screamride doesn't do," however, because "what Screamride does do" is a more interesting subject. It turns roller coaster riding into a self-destructive blood sport in which you demolish buildings and ruin little computer people's lives for the inherent joy of it. Building up and tearing down is an age-old pleasure, and seeing sky-high structures fall like dominoes with a flick of a stick is Screamride's primary delight. I sometimes think of all those digital men and women that went plummeting to their dooms, but at least they died doing what they loved.

Final Fantasy X / X-2 HD Remaster on PS4 Arriving May

Square Enix has confirmed that Final Fantasy X / X-2 HD Remaster for PS4 will launch in North America on May 12, 2015. The game’s European and Australian/NZ launch date is yet to be announced but should fall during the same week.

The new North American version will include system-exclusive features and an exclusive calendar featuring artwork by prominent Japanese artist and character designer Yoshitaka Amano; the calendar will be available as a special pre-order bonus at participating retailers and the Square Enix Online Store.

It's back again. Like Jason Voorhees. Or, um, cold sores?

Continue reading…

Drawing Spock on $5 Notes is Totally Not Illegal

Hey Canadians - "Spocking" your $5 bills is 100% legal.

For years, Canadians have drawn Spock ears, a bowl cut and eyebrows on the visage of former Prime Minister Sir Wilfrid Laurier, whose face in profile vaguely resembles the late great Leonard Nimoy. Now, in the wake of Nimoy's death, the Bank of Canada has come out to say defacing the bills isn't illegal, although it is frowned upon.

"The Bank of Canada feels that writing and markings on bank notes are inappropriate as they are a symbol of our country and a source of national pride," wrote Bank of Canada spokeswoman Josianne Menard in an email to cbc.

Continue reading…

Five Nights at Freddy’s 3 Arrives on Steam

Point-and-click survival horror game Five Nights at Freddy’s 3 is now available to download from Steam for Windows PC.

The game takes place 30 years after Freddy Fazbear's Pizza closed it's doors, according to the game’s description, with the events taking place there evolving into an urban myth.

“The owners of 'Fazbear's Fright: The Horror Attraction' are determined to revive the legend and make the experience as authentic as possible for patrons, going to great lengths to find anything that might have survived decades of neglect and ruin. At first there were only empty shells, a hand, a hook, an old paper-plate doll, but then a remarkable discovery was made… The attraction now has one animatronic.”

Continue reading…

The 100’s Alycia Debnam-Carey on Lexa’s Complexity and Popularity

You never know how a newly introduced character will be received on an ongoing TV show, but suffice to say, many fans of The 100 have responded very positively to Lexa, played by Australian actress Alycia Debnam-Carey. The young, intense Commander of the Grounders has become a central part of Season 2’s storyline, as she and Clarke (Eliza Taylor) have lead their two previously warring people together, as a showdown with their mutual enemies inside Mount Weather approached.

Many had also noticed that Lexa was seemingly growing attracted to Clarke as the season progressed -- and the feeling could be mutual -- which was given onscreen confirmation last week when the two shared a passionate kiss. With that potential romance put on hold by Clarke for the time being, the duo and those that follow them are headed into combat, as the final two episodes of Season 2 air this week and next.

Continue reading…