The Sitting Dead

There's no denying that we are within the Zombie decade.

The undead have permeated pop culture in so many ways, from movies, to TV, to books, they're everywhere - kind of like a zombie infection itself spreading to all mediums.

A lot of that is thanks to Robert Kirkman's incredible The Walking Dead series, now both in graphic novel and television form, grabbing a huge horde of fans.

The latest chapter in the character-driven zombie saga is in the form of a video game - The Walking Dead by Telltale Games.

You can't find this game at your local EB Games or Wal-mart, nope this is an online only, episodic game series available exclusively on the PlayStation Network and Xbox Live Marketplace.

And guess what, it's pretty rad.



The first episode - A New Day came out between April 25 and 27th on most platforms.

The game centres on Lee Everett, a new character in the franchise who finds himself in the back of a police car leaving Atlanta on his way to prison when the zombie apocalypse begins.

Your character is suddenly thrust into the crisis with few friends and fewer answers.

The game focuses heavily on story and character, much like the comics do and the game is better for that. As Lee, you will have to make some tough choices, sometimes deciding who lives and who dies. All of those choices you make within the game have an impact on the story and carry on throughout the following episodes as they are released over the course of the year, with 5 in total. In this sense almost everyone experiences the game differently.

In my attempt to avoid spoilers, I'll just say that you will find some familiar faces and places, if you've watched the show or read the comics or both.

If this is your first foray into The Walking Dead universe, it serves as a great introduction to the story and look and feel (that the comics especially is know for). The animation style is very 'comic booky' with heavy lines and a hand-drawn cell-shaded look.

The game has a few hiccups with some animations and a few voice overs feel forced or humorous, but overall this is an easy game to recommend for fans of The Walking Dead and noobs alike.

IGN sums up the pricing better than I could here:

How Much Does Walking Dead Cost? Release Date?As it's coming to so many platforms, keeping track of how much The Walking Dead: The Game will cost you has been tough. If you're buying it on the PC or Mac, you get a five-episode season pass for $24.99 on Tuesday, April 24th. (EU gets the PC/Mac version for 24.99 Euros on Tuesday, too.) If you buy on PlayStation 3, you can grab each episode for $4.99 or buy the five-episode season pass for $19.99 on Tuesday, April 24th. (EU gets the PS3 episodes one by one for 4.99 Euros and the season pass for 19.99 Euros starting on Wednesday, April 25th.) If you get it on Xbox 360, there is no season pass so you'll have to pay 400 Microsoft Points per episode sometime this month.


I highly recommend checking out The Walking Dead game if you are a fan of horror, character-driven stories, or other aspects of the series.

Not recommended for people who play COD all day and have no life.

Star Wars is Dead

beep...beep...beep...

beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep.

Call it, April 3rd 2012. Star Wars Died.

The same day that Star Wars Kinect was released into the fold.

No, it's not a coincidence that the two events happened on the same day, the Jedi do not believe in coincidence either.

The moment I saw a digital Han Solo dancing around in the frozen carbonate chamber from Episode V, I knew it was all over. See the travesty for yourself here

And what a messy journey it has been.

There's no denying the quality of the original trilogy, it's sacred ground, ironically tarnished by its own creator George Lucas. He continues to destroy his own work by throwing more and more CG on the screen, cluttering the once beautiful landscapes and epic scenes. It's almost like he's trying to see how much crap he can fill in a scene and still have some form of cohesion.

I recently re-watched the entire series while I was sick, and I'm not even sure if I like it any more. When it was all over, I pondered to myself - 'that's Star Wars?' I've seen the movies countless times, and I've considered myself a fan for years. But now, I'm not to sure if its even worth the time.

The franchise has been milked, squeezed, an exploited to the point where the original soul or magic of the far away galaxy simply is no more. Star Wars has become a disgusting corporate marketing engine which only has one purpose, making more money with what little life it has left.

The death of Star Wars has been a long time coming, but it is hard to find the exact start to its cancer. Maybe it was in the very inception of the series all those years ago, it could also be when Lucas and co. released the prequel trilogy, or perhaps the Clone Wars TV show.

Whatever the beginning of the end was, Star Wars Kinect finished the job. Han Solo, a beloved anti-hero and the essence of the original Star Wars bravado... swinging his arms to a remixed Jason Derulo song called I'm Han Solo.

Here's an example of the lyrics:

I'm feeling like a star,
you can't stop my shine
I'm loving Cloud City,
my head's in the sky

I'm solo, I'm Han Solo,
I'm Han Solo.
I'm Han Solo. Solo.

Yeah, I'm feeling good tonight,
Finally feeling free and it feels so right, oh.
Time to do the things I like,
Gonna see a Princess, everything's all right, oh.

No Jabba to answer to,
Ain't a fixture in the palace zoo, no.
And since that carbonite's off me
I'm livin' life now that I'm free, yeah.

Told me to get myself together
Now I got myself together, yeah.
Now I made it through the weather,

Better days are gonna get better.

I'm so happy the carbonite is gone.
I'm movin' on.
I'm so happy that it's over now.
The pain is gone.

I'm solo, I'm Han Solo,
I'm Han Solo.
I'm Han Solo. Solo.

What the sweet fuck is that?

Star Wars has had a relatively proud history of video games within its franchise, games like Rogue Squadron (for N64 and Gamecube) and even Epsiode I: Pod Racer (for N64) improved the series in incredible ways. Some of my favourite games have been from the Star Wars universe.

Star Wars Kinect slaps that tradition in the face by mushing together a few mini games, none of them worth playing, and cashing in on all of those poor poor fans out there who will gobble it up. Packaging it with the snazzy Star Wars Xbox 360 bundle as well to help drive game sales.



The whole thing just stinks of capitalist interference with a beloved franchise, now officially dead.

Dead dead dead. Done. Gone.

Luckily for the science fiction fans out there, and there are quite a few of you I'm sure, there's still so much to be happy about: Mass Effect, Prometheus, Star Trek, BattleStar Galactica, and so much more.

We don't need Star Wars anymore. We can move on from it's force choke hold on us and move forward with better science fiction that actually deserves our attention and money.  

Perhaps in 20, 50 years a brilliant director will revive Star Wars and return it to its past glory. But until then, let it rest in peace.

Mass Effect Multiplayer

No Spoilers

I've finished the campaign of Mass Effect 3, which was a bitter sweet experience. On the one hand it was an incredible finale to one of the greatest moments in video game history. But that ending also means that, for now, the Mass Effect universe is on break. :(

Yes the ending has its controversies, but I felt that it did the series justice. The whole trilogy has been absolutely brilliant and I nearly cried when the curtains finally closed.

However, despite feeling depressed about the game being finished, I keep coming back to the multiplayer.

I'm not sure if this is a way for me to continually torture myself as a reminder that the trilogy is finished, or if it's actually damn good, probably a little bit of both.

The multiplayer is quite simple in practise, there aren't 20 different game modes with 32 players on one map. It's just you and 3 people fighting waves of incoming enemies. It's horde mode. But it's so fun I can't stop.
The Resurgence Pack was recently released as FREE (OMG) DLC beefing up the multiplayer suite with more maps, characters and weapons. Not to shabby considering EA's penchant for charging you for every possible thing.

It's awesome trying out the 6 different classes with different species, power-ups and weapons - fine-tuning your ultimate warrior badass.

My only gripe is that once finishing the game, I'm not sure why I'm still beefing up my galactic readiness or retiring my commandos and starting from scratch.

But the fun remains. Sure there are the typical issues you find in most multiplayer games: people sucking on your team, people quitting mid-match, etc. But there aren't too many glitches in the game itself to plague the experience.

One of the aspects that makes Mass Effect 3's multiplayer so addictive is the character upgrade system and weapon customization mechanic which it borrows from the single-player experience. You won't be as powerful as Commander Shepard, which makes sense seeing as he/she is the ultimate badass, but you can make your online characters pretty formidable. Each species has their unique idiosyncrasies which are really fun to explore. The Krogan, for instance are fantastic melee warriors, laughing away as they smash away your opponents.

I think I'm going to pick up Mass Effect 1 again (why did I ever trade it in?) and re-play the entire series from the beginning. I just can't get enough Mass Effect.

 

Two Reviews

Two video game reviews in this week's The Coast by yours truly.

One you should avoid (my young padawan) and one you should go out and buy right now.

The first is Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II. Man. was that a brutal game to get through.

You may notice that some of my game reviews come long after their initial release, this is because sometimes I get bored with a game and move on to a different one. It's a bad habit, and I should stop, but I don't.

SWTFU2 was one of these games.

I also don't like reviewing games until I've completed them as much as possible, which is why many games never end up gracing The Coast's lovely pages. But I digress.

I had the Wii version of SWTFU2, which probably only made things worse (what with the horrible graphics, design, controls), but I figured I played through the first one on Wii, which was actually pretty good, might as well do the sequel there too right? Wrong. Part 2 was even worse than the original. It felt so blocky, repetitive and a real chore to play through. For entertainment purposes, it was a tough sell. But I was looking at my stack of games, thinking it was getting to that point where I need to trade some in and noticed that I still needed to finish that horrible game. So I powered through the rest on easy just to get it over with. Got my $5 EB Games credit, or whatever it ended up being, and it was out of my life for good.

It's sad when such a great premise, such as playing a character who can control the force almost without limit, ends up falling completely flat on its face.

For my review in The Coast, click here.

Secondly we have a must own title if you happen to own (or are planning to get) a 3DS - Mario Kart 7. Let it be known that I've been a Mario Kart fan since the Super Nintendo days, which could influence my opinion one way or another. This time, it was decidedly positive.

Mario Kart 7 is probably the best title in the franchise since the pivotal Mario Kart 64, which was pure gold back in the day (and still available on Wii's virtual console). MK7 mixes up the formula a little bit by adding hang-gliding and underwater portions of levels which change up the pace of races in interesting ways. There are lots of tracks and different karts to chose from and the online suite is similar to the Wii version, making it the best example yet of how to do online on the 3DS.

The review online has a couple of typos, so I'll post the fixed text here:

Mario Kart has been around since the Super Nintendo days and hasn’t changed too much over the years. This iteration---the first in 3D---adds a few things to a tried and true formula. Karts can now soar through the air or submerge underwater, opening up new possibilities for shortcuts around the tracks. Some new items have been added as well, like the 'Super Leaf' (which gives your kart a Tanooki tail as seen inSuper Mario Bros. 3) and the Fire Flower allowing you to hurl fireballs at opponents. What hasn’t changed is the sense of randomness and fun that has been a staple of the series since the beginning. With 32 tracks, 16 new and 16 classics, you can get lost for hours. It also brings over the great online multiplayer suite found in Mario Kart Wii so you can try out your skills on real opponents, there is surprisingly little lag online and racing against other humans only adds to the craziness.

Mario Party 9

Multiplayer - the word has come to mean a lot of different things over the years, whether it's spewing vitriol on Call Of Duty or Zerg Rushing in Star Craft. But one form of multiplayer has always had an important place in my heart since the days of 2-player Super Mario Bros. on the NES

On the couch, with your buddies.

It's a feature that has slipped off the radar for many developers out there, but one company that still seems to get this is Nintendo.

Mario Party 9 released on March 11th, 2012 for $49.99, the first time we've seen a new Mario Party in five years, a pretty long hiatus for a series which has seen fairly regular releases before.

The long-running Mario Party series shines brightest when playing with other people, making for one of the best social gaming experiences available. There's something to be said for actually talking and interacting with your friends in the same room. When you're yelling back and forth with each other, while competing for the same goals on one screen, it's intense, crazy and genuine.

If you've played any Mario Party game before, you know exactly what to expect. 1-4 players, or computers if you're lonely :( go head-to-head trying to get the most mini-stars before it's over to become the winner. You collect these mini-stars by landing on them or beating your opponents in various mini-games.

A big change this time around is that instead of each player taking their own route around the board, they all go together in a car/submarine/thingy as one 'captains' the vehicle each turn. There are also new boss battles where players need to work together to defeat them.

The magic, sadly, is completely lost when playing by yourself. It's just playing mini-games with no real depth or purpose. It gets stale really quick.

But if you've got young kids, or enjoy having friends over who aren't shy about playing video games, Mario Party 9 holds its own as a great way to play together.

Yes Mario Party 9 is far from perfect, some mini-games are complete throw-away, and it's re-hashed formula has been done to death. But when it comes right down to it, playing with friends in the same room, with loveable characters from the Nintendo universe is hard to beat.