Shadow Of The Colossus Mobiles From Salty And Sweet: I’ll Take 400

I honestly didn’t think it could get any better than the Left 4 Dead/Team Fortress mobiles made by the one and only SaltyandSweet over on Etsy. Apparently the lady at the laundro-mat was right because I’m a moron.

The two latest mobiles are gorgeous representations of  Shadow of the Colossus and Bioshock. Both runs, along with the rest of her awesome catalog are available on her site. Maybe you thought the L4D mobiles were a little too… pants shitting…  to hang over your baby’s crib. If that’s the case then you should totally pick up on of the SoC ones, because rockets and farm animals are sooo last year.

TL;DR – Two Great Tastes That Taste Great Together

For a very short time I worked in a white tablecloth restaurant that could be called “fine dining”. It was known for its high quality dry-aged beef and took special pride in the wine pairings. For anyone who’s not familiar with it, the goal of pairing is to find the right wine for the right steak. E.g.– Cabernet Sauvignon ages well in oak and often has a sweet, smokey taste. This flavor goes perfectly with red meat but not so much with poultry of fish (which are usually paired with a white wine).

Why is this important? The idea of pairing is that by combining two ingredients the attributes of each will compliment the other and turn a plate of food in to a one of a king meal. Let’s see how this applies to video games.

A few months back I read The Road by Cormac McCarthy. At about that same time I also dove back in to the Capital Wastes with the new DLC for Fallout 3. I was halfway through this bleak, depressing book when I loaded up my old save and– The Pitt never looked so full of despair. It was like I’d been playing the game with blinders on up until that point. As much as I love playing Fallout, my mind can drift when I play it (specially during the long treks to those un-quicktravelable locations). At the same time, whenever I let my mind wander – in traffic, at work – it was always The Road that I thought about.

We’ve all read a sad story, or a tense chapter and felt affected after we put the book down– it’s the same as playing too much Tetris and seeing falling blocks everywhere. Perfect example; pull an all-nighter with Left 4 Dead, then read some of World War Z and tell me if the next day you don’t absent-mindedly examine your workplace for prospective safe houses. A good book will refuse to let you keep your mind off the story after you close the cover, and a good game will refuse to let you take your eyes off the screen while you play it. The Road had put me in the headspace of characters in a post-apocalyptic world. By doing that it gave more of an impact to playing Fallout. I guess I started taking the game a little more seriously.

After that I turned the difficulty up a little to make it feel like there was more risk to my actions. I started playing it smarter, like the Father character in the Road. I checked 360 degrees every few paces conserving as much ammunition as I could and bypassing every enemy that didn’t detect me. Instead of seeing Fallout from the perspective  of “I can do anything to anyone and just reload the game”, I saw it closer to “anything can happen to me, I should be careful”.

News From The BioShock Movie, and Unfortunately It’s Not That It’s Cancelled

Be prepared to hate BioShock, everybody, because the guy that fucked up the greatest zombie franchise to date is rumored to be the new director of the probably-never-going-to-come-out BioShock movie.

Juan Carlos Fresnadillo, director of the loathsome 28 Weeks Later, has been put on the director’s pedestal in place of the relatively awesome Gore Verbinsky, who did all the Pirates of the Caribbeans, The Ring, and personal fave, The Mexican, but is still staying on as producer. All of this according to the always trustworthy Variety.

So, a different studio is busy flubbing the Bioshock sequel by adding Big Sisters, multiplayer, and who knows what else, while a no-name director that has only directed one bad movie is about to helm the budget-strapped film. At least it was written by the guy that wrote Sweeney Todd, I guess. So long, BioShock, it was nice while it lasted.

And That’s The End Of That Chapter

I finally did it, everybody, I finally finished Bioshock. I know it’s a good year and a half after I should have, but just like your girlfriend’s period, better late than never.

So, I’m not going to spoil anything here (I’ll save that for the podcast), but I will say that it was absolutely fantastic, and if you haven’t played it, do it. The only question now is “what’s next?” There’s not a lot of great stuff out there right now, but I do have Dark Sector untouched on my shelf. Actually, I might going to make a run to GameStop and see what their buy two get one free deal can net me. FarCry 2, maybe?

Big Sister!!! Ahhhhhhhh!!!!!

Via Kotaku

First thought? Her head looks weird.
Second thought? Mark needs to finish BioShock so we can talk about it freely on the podcast.

Yeah, I’m Gonna Need Those Vita-Chambers

So I made it about halfway through the Medical Pavilion level during my second playthrough of BioShock earlier today before realizing that there’s no way I can beat this game on Hard without using the Vita-Chambers. Sucks because beating the game without them would have earned me another 100 gamerpoints/gold.

But in reality, I’m actually saving myself real-life gold, because I probably would have thrown my Xbox 360 out the window in frustration otherwise:

Democracy in Action: BioShock Wins

As you probably saw in an earlier post/poll, I let the gaming public decide the next game I’m going to work on. After a sound and Obama-esque victory, it looks like I’ll be doing my second playthrough of BioShock on the hardest difficulty. I’m still deciding on whether or not I’ll use the Vita-Chambers; I could pocket 100 cheevers to beat the game without them, but I have a feeling that I’m not skilled enough to pull that one off. Those Big Daddies sure seem daunting on those harder difficulties.

As of this posting, 63 people voted to decide how I would spend my time. Thanks for the strong turnout!

Cheevers: Choose You Own Adventure

I have a few games that I never completely mastered, and rather than shelling out some greenbacks for a new game, I was thinking about finished up one of those instead. The three games you see above are currently in the running, and for three separate reasons. I never beat BioShock on the hardest difficulty, I didn’t collect all the Lambda locations in Half-Life 2, and I only did one playthrough of Mass Effect. So, let’s let democracy decide! I’ll check the poll in a few days and we’ll go from there. Oh, and I didn’t block multiple voting, so you can American Idol your ass off!!

Note: Bratz votes will not be counted.

P.S. I have a question for my overseas friends (actually, blacktail, this is aimed squarely at you): Did you guys have Choose Your Own Adventure books in the UK? Or better yet, Bunnicula?

Threevue Classics: Gamers In The Wild: Tonight At Work

We’re one year old this week! To celebrate, every day this week each of us will re-post one of our favorite articles from this past year, just in case you missed it.

I like this one mainly for the picture I made for it, and I remember that night perfectly. They were on table 12.

Being a waiter at a restaurant in Waikiki, I overhear many conversations about many different subjects, most of which I couldn’t care less about. But every once in awhile, something will catch my ear that will immediately grab my attention. Case in point, this evening, as I passed by table 12, I heard one young fellow say to another, “I’ve only done like four of the assassinations.” DING! I instantly turned around and, amidst the danger that I would uncover a duo of international contract killers, in turn ensuring my own doom, I said, “Are you playing Assassin’s Creed?” At that moment, at the expense of my other tables, we became friends via VG’s.

The funny thing was that both guys were their with significant others, and one of them even had a baby in a stroller next to him all night. But throughout their dinner, nary a word of virtual worlds was uttered, until the ladies went outside with the kid. We chatted about Assassin’s Creed and Mass Effect. I asked if they had been following the news coming out the the GDC all week. One of the guys, who I think was South African (it wasn’t Ludwing Kietzmann, I checked his credit card) said no, but that he was going to watch the highlights on “Inside Xbox Live.” It was really cool. 17% gratuity cool.

I’ve had a few other game related moments at work. One night, which was the same night that Russ and his wife came in, I showed a kid how to do the power slide on Mario Kart DS. Another night, I swear to god that heard a guy say “Bioshock” to the rest of his table, but I was in a huge hurry and couldn’t confirm.

Demotopia!/Cheapskate/My Faves: Top Six Xbox 360 Demos

Listen. I know that Microsoft charges $50/year for their Xbox Live Gold membership, allowing you access to their robust online system. But did you know that every new Xbox 360 comes with a free Silver membership, which allows you to interact with friends (just not in games) and access to the Xbox Live Marketplace (XBLM), where you can download media for free?

What I’m getting at are the free demos you can download in XBLM. Currently, there are 158 to choose from. Here are my six favorite, in alphabetical order. Keep in mind that these are my favorite demos available, and are not reflections on the final games themselves:

Cheapskate: Gamefly Deals

We here at threevue are big fans of Gamefly, although I personally stopped my subscriptions months ago due to a lack of time and games to play.

They have some great deals going on right now for their pre-played games, like Mass Effect for $19.99, Bioshock for $24.99, and a deal I picked up for myself, Medal of Honor: Airborne for $17.99. I just checked, all of those prices are better than at half.com, and with free shipping. And I can’t even imagine what they’re charging at Gamestop for these titles right now.

Revisiting Rapture

Recently I decided to keep/forgot to cancel my Gamefly membership for another month, so I was just looking at my queueeueeu to see what was on deck after finishing the innuendo-laden Rainbow Six Vegas 2. There aren’t a ton of games out right now that I’m dying to play, and the only soon-to-be released one I’m really looking forward to is Battlefield: Bad Company, which launches in a few weeks.

What I decided to do is go back and finish Bioshock, which I never did, but know I should. The only thing though is that I forgot most of the events leading up to where I am in the game, but I can just glance over a walkthrough to jog ol’ memory. Besides, there’s not much to it: underwater city, Big Daddies, Little Sisters, murderous masked meth-heads. Kind of reminds me of my childhood.

Dead Set on Dead Space

I’m genuinely interested in EA’s upcoming thriller Dead Space, mainly thanks to a recent Joystiq hands-on article where they liken the experience to Resident Evil 4 and Bioshock (two games I hold in very high esteem). It looks to be coming out this winter.

See it in action:

bioshock the movie!!! omg!!!

Wait…don’t get your hopes up just yet. Variety’s new video game blog, The Cut Scene, which is mostly dedicated to the relationship between games and Hollywood, is reporting that with the major success of Bioshock last year, many movie studios are at least interested in turning the undersea epic into movie. Bioshock does have a very unique and interesting story that, I feel, if done right could make a quality film. The problem is Hollywood’s history of making terrible video game based movies.

Last year, the big story was the rise and fall of the Halo movie, which the world is probably better off without. I hope if the Bioshock movie does get a green light, it gets handled with care by someone that knows a little something about games. I would also like to nominate myself for the part of the main character, and Tyler and Russ to play little sisters. 

threevue review: Bioshock

Mark:
At the top of a long list of games that I have started but never finished lies Bioshock. That’s not to say that I don’t like it, though. I love it. The thing is that it takes commitment to play. It is such a deep and involved game that it’s impossible to pick up, crank out a few levels, then move on. Every time I play this game, I want to make sure that I can concentrate on it 100%. I need to have a lot of free time, I need it to be quiet, and if possible I need it to be at night. There is so much to this game in every aspect: the story, the setting, the music, the characters, and so on, that to miss any part of it due to carelessness would be a tragedy.

The game as a whole is fantastic, but my favorite aspect is the story. It’s like a great book where I’m constantly wanting to know what happens next and can easily spend hours on it just to watch the plot unfold. It’s also difficult. Sure, there are different difficulty settings, but even on easy it is a challenge. For me, this is almost game that I would rather watch someone else who is really good at it play and enjoy it from a distance. I’m always so afraid that I’m doing something wrong, or I don’t have the right powers or weapons equipped that I’m going to ruin the whole game. Sometimes that gets frustrating, but that’s the point. Just like the main character, you are thrown into a deadly and terrifying world and have nothing to depend on but your own instincts.

91/100

Russ:
Although I don’t agree with most of the reviews out there (the ones that say that Bioshock is a “whole new experience”, “transcendent”, or “open-ended”), it is a great game. Gorgeous and haunting, every little detail is really impressive. The story itself is great, if not a little shallow – how many times did I just know that I wasn’t going to be able to go straight where I wanted, because I was going to have some task thrown at me right at the last minute? The controls are responsive, the battles frantic, and the atmosphere is unmatched.

But I sorely miss multiplayer or really, any sort of add-on to the single-player story. It’s so short that after playing through it, my only option was to play through it again. It’s been a month since I played through it the second time, and I’ve already forgotten about it – I just have fuzzy warm feelings relating to it.

91/100

Tyler:

Two paragraphs are not enough to cover this game but, here goes. Bioshock sucks you in to a world that is jarring and unfamiliar and yet plausible and realistic at the same time, this is done by expert use of credible detail. Intuitive controls, historical accuracy, a dark atmosphere and a twisted storyline make Bioshock a game that is quickly pick-up-and-playable while at the same time mysterious and interesting. My favorite thing about this game is the story/setting… talk about a departure from the usual FPS fare. Also, I like the random encounter system in regards to enemies, a feature that really does make no two playthroughs alike. Cons: slightly paper mache-esque character models look a little out of place compared to the detail afforded the environments.

Some games are so good, that they almost shouldn’t be replayed (online or otherwise); Bioshock is one of these games. Going through it one time is such a rich and layered experience that any retry weakens the significance of that first journey. When was the last time you played a game that made you think, really think so that after you turned it off you went to sleep dissecting the philosophy behind the characters, tried to figure out their though processes and what made them the way they were? I think the thing the Bioshock has over any other game out there this year is its originality. I know I constantly knock Gears of War but, c’mon, there’s more creativity in the first 5 minutes of Bioshock than whatever the whole trilogy of Gears will be like… I know this for a fact. As much as I enjoy COD4, will I be loving all over it 5 years from now? No, I’ll be all about COD7: Future Blahblah, games like that are awesome but eventually become replaced by successors. The experience of Bioshock (like the first time I played MGS or Resident Evil) will stay as poignant and stirring as it is right now. I just can’t tell you how awesome it is not to be shooting terrorists, nazis, aliens or zombies for once.

97/100