Gig Matrix

Aaron lent me Darksiders after talking it up as a worthwhile Zelda clone. Actually, everyone on the planet spoke about it in those terms. And neither Aaron nor everyone else were wrong.

The game’s structure is similar to that of Zelda games: You have to get to the big bad guy, but first you have to take out his four guardians. And to get to each of them, you have to go through their dungeons. And to get to the dungeons, you have to complete a fetch quest or five. You come across doors you can’t open and ledges you can’t get to, the implication being that you’ll need to acquire some equipment or skill to get through.

I just got the “crossblade” today, Darksiders’ version of Link’s boomerang. I know from all I’ve read and heard about this game that I’ll later get something akin to a hookshot. I’m already seeing places I’ll need to use it.

Continue reading Game diary: Darksiders, day one

Apparently, you wouldn’t like Edward Norton when he’s angry. The notoriously difficult actor, who once made his American History X director Tony Kaye wish he were the one getting curb stomped, has been cut as the Hulk from the forthcoming The Avengers movie. Which means we’ll get a third big-screen Hulk this decade, after Norton’s The Incredible Hulk and Eric Bana’s daddy-issue laden Hulk failed to smash box office records.

So who should Marvel and director Joss Whedon cast alongside Robert Downey Jr., Samuel L. Jackson, Scarlett Johansson and Chris Evans? We need look no further than the Whedonverse for some incredible alternatives.

• Adam Baldwin: The man they called Jayne certainly has the physique to pull it off.
• Seth Green: Sure, he played a midget named Oz, but he has experience transforming into a werewolf. Plus, his last name is Green.
• David Boreanaz: The broad-shouldered Angel could perfect the Bruce Banner brood.
• Amy Acker: If she can make us buy Fred turning into an ancient blue demon, she could probably sell turning into a green monster. She’s that good.
• Joss Whedon: Hey, he already went green to play the joy-dancing Numfar of the Deathwok Clan on Angel.

Dear Drop Dead Diva,

You could stand to lose about 5,000 lbs … in the form of all the gratuitous guest stars taking time away from your stellar cast. In just over a season, the plus-sized dramedy has been bursting at the seams with guests including Paula Abdul, Delta Burke, Elliot Gould, Ricki Lake, Sharon Lawrence, Chad Lowe, Liza Minnelli, Kathy Najimy, Rosie O’Donnell … even Tim Gunn, for chrissakes. We get it, Project Runway is on Lifetime now!

Drop the dead weight D-listers! Or at least get D-list queen Kathy Griffin to spar with series regular Margaret Cho.

Kisses,
Gig Matrix

P.S. You can bring back Gilmore Girls’ Emily Kuroda, but give her some funny! Her appearance was a total wasted opportunity.

It’s not often I wish I lived near L.A., but this Attract Mode/Giant Robot Scott Pilgrim party has me pricing U-Hauls. Pilgrim mastermind Bryan Lee O’Malley will be there to sign copies of his comic books and play Ubisoft’s Scott Pilgrim game. Sounds like it could be sort of fun.

Speaking of that game, bubblegum chipcore (I just made that up) band Anamanaguchi has released another song they’ll be contributing to the soundtrack. Man, I would totally buy this game Day One if only it had four-player co-op. Oh that’s right it does.

Another whirlwind E3 has come and gone, and I could barely keep up with the nonstop glut of infodump that hit all week. I was on a bus from NYC to DC Monday, trying in vain to watch Microsoft’s press conference over the Bolt Bus’ dial-up caliber wi-fi. If I’d known it was going to be a bunch of people jumping around like idiots, I probably wouldn’t have bothered. I tuned in to Sony’s press conference on G4 the following day and was so bored I switched to Diff’rent Strokes. Wait, that wasn’t dead Gary Coleman, that was PSP’s new ad campaign? It’s utterly embarrassing.

Nintendo’s was the only presser I missed, and apparently it was the only one worth watching. Even though this makes my soul die a lot. Reggie could totally star in a horror movie that would put High Tension to shame. Those eyes… Quelle horreur!

Continue reading Hot or not: E3 edition

I’ve been less than impressed with Mass Effect 2 narrative DLC so far. The Zaeed, Hammerhead and Kasumi packs aren’t a complete waste of time, but they feel underbaked and inessential. Two of them add team members you’ll never use or talk to, and the other introduces the neo-Mako, which I’m perfectly happy leaving in the garage.

I fully expected the new Overlord pack, released this past Wednesday and buried in E3 happenings, to follow that same path: a mostly silent Sheppard (too expensive to get the voice talent back in the studio), a plot of no consequence, and a 10-point achievement or two. Well, I was right on that last one.

Overlord is really well done. The plot summary — a virtual intelligence at a Cerberus facility goes nuts and kills people — doesn’t sound like much, but the spoilery details I’m avoiding here add a dimension absent in previous DLC. There are audio and visual effects, like the V.I.‘s digital howl and a Sheppard hallucination sequence, that are unlike anything done in the game so far. The Hammerhead makes an appearance, but is used judiciously as a transportation mechanism, as opposed to the basis of a mission.

The story ends with your standard opportunity to be a moral white knight or heartless clod, but ME2 is kind of forced to work that way. And in a DLC first, I got the feeling that my handling of the end of this arc would have some repercussions in Mass Effect 3. Guess Bioware wasn’t kidding about bridging the gap between the two games with DLC.

I’m not sorry I bought and played those other DLC packs, but Overlord makes them look silly. Definitely worth 560 MS points.

I couldn’t help but wonder: Could Sex and the City 2 be as bad as all the critics say? The reviews aren’t just bad; they’re downright angry and hateful. Although the movie fails to live up to the wit and panache of the HBO series and will likely disappoint longtime devotees, it’s hardly the death knell of feminism that critics paint it to be. That was Ally McBeal, remember?

To be fair, the movie isn’t very good. It actually makes the first film look amazing in comparison, and that one couldn’t quite deliver on the sometimes brilliant heights of the series. I criticized the final season of SatC for packing too much plot into 30-minute episodes. Take the episode “The Catch” in which Charlotte marries Harry and like 300 other things happen. Somehow, the two-and-a-half hour Sex and the City 2 has less plot in it.

Continue reading A hard day's Arabian night

I read about Zombie Sniper HD on Destructoid yesterday, and immediately loaded up xbox.com to add it to my download queue. I’m no particular fan of zombies, and, really, the Internet’s obsession with them is wearying. Why, when memes are hopelessly dusty after 72 hours, have we held on to zombies (and bacon, for that matter) (and Portal references) for like forever?

And it’s not like Zombie Sniper HD sounded particularly good. But I do like to shoot things that are far away, and recent sniping-heavy games sound a little too sim-y for my taste. Like, I don’t want to care about relative humidity or the Coriolis effect. I wanted to see if someone had succeeded in making a simple, fun sniping game.

So, with all this running through my head, I queued up the trial of Zombie Sniper 3D, noting only on a subconscious level that it had a different name than the thing I’d read about earlier. When I got home from work, I turned on my 360 and let the thing download.

Zombie Sniper 3D (which you can see in that video above) is not, if I’m being objective, a good game. Zombie Sniper 3D is, if I’m being objective, actually pretty terrible. The “3D” we’re talking about here is the Wolfenstein 3D variety, not the Avatar variety. Those 3D bits—textures, geometry, lighting—are amateurish. The zombies are barely animated; shoot one and it just tips over into a puddle of red. The voice acting is clearly done by someone’s little brother, and the zombie eating your brain sounds a lot like maybe that same little brother eating a potato chip.

Continue reading Too many words about Zombie Sniper 3D

So the Internet’s been abuzz that there’s an awesome new Street Fighter short film (above) that like totally redeems the legacy left behind by Hollywood’s abominable take on the franchise. I’m not going to say that Raul Julia died of embarrassment over playing M. Bison opposite Jean-Claude Van Damme’s Guile, but I will say that it’s his last-ever film and heavily insinuate that Street Fighter did indeed psycho crush his soul.

While Street Fighter: Legacy is nowhere near as bad as seeing Noxzema’s Kristin Kreuk play Chun-Li, let’s face it: it’s not very good. The special moves just come off as goofy when performed by people, and the special effects on the hadouken are pretty laughable. As is Ken’s hair. And Ryu’s eyebrows. However, it does feature one thing that makes it the best SF film ever made: At the 1:32 mark, Ryu kicks Ken in the neck—hard—and it leaves a dirt mark. And while it won’t make me unsee Kylie Minogue in blue camo spandex, that’s still pretty awesome.