DC/Marvel Teaming With Lego

This isn't gaming news, but it touches on two beloved subjects here at Casa McD: superheroes and Lego. Starting January 2012, Lego will begin a multi-year deal to produce sets based on DC and Marvel comics characters.

A line tied to The Avengers feature film will include minifigs of Iron Man, The Hulk, Captain America, Thor, Hawkeye, Loki and Black Widow, while the the X-Men collection includes Wolverine, Magneto, Nick Fury and Deadpool, and the Spider-Man sets offer Spider-Man and Doctor Octopus. On the DC side, we'll be seeing Batman, Robin, Catwoman, The Joker, The Riddler, Two-Face, Poison Ivy, Harley Quinn, Bane, Bruce Wayne, Superman, Lex Luthor, Green Lantern, and Wonder Woman.

In the past, Lego has produced significant lines for both Spider-man and Batman, but this is the first universe-spanning deal to date. They're launching the new endeavor with a Lego Super Heroes Unite contest, which invites people to use their minifigs to create artwork and films highlighting the characters. Expect to start seeing sets in May 2012.

LostWinds Coming to Mobile Devices

Eurogamer is announcing that LostWinds, a really clever little puzzle/platforming game, is coming to mobile devices later this year. This charming fantasy from the creators of Kinectimals features the adventures of a young boy who conjures the wind with gestures. It was originally published in the WiiWare store, where it got buried in the service's notoriously crowded marketplace. It seems like a great fit for iOS and Android, and should help this great little item get the audience it deserves.

Days of Wonder: Memoir '44 Out of Beta & Small World Underground

When I loaded up Days of Wonder's new online version of Memoir '44, I could swear my copy said it was still in beta, and mentioned that in my announcement. It has, in fact, been out of beta since late June, and is humming along quite nicely.Thanks to Christine Goutaland for correcting me.

Also, we got a chance over the weekend to play a warm-up game of Small World Underground, and we're liking it a lot. The new races are clever, the powers are dastardly, and the integration of places and relics puts a nice spin on the play. One caveat, however: don't use this one to introduce new players to Small World. The new additions add a little the learning curve and might put off novices.

PUZZLE: Tabling the Question

I haven't done a math puzzle in a while, so here's an old one to strain the average brain. (And by that I mean my brain: in the past, my readers have solved these so fast it's almost embarrassing.)

Mr. Jenkins comes home to find his son Todd reading a comic book rather that working on his quadratic equations. He sets about berating the boy, when Todd interrupts him with a deal. "If I can pose a problem you can't solve, you have to finish my homework, and I can to finish my comic." Mr. Jenkins, considering himself something of a math whiz, takes this bet in a heartbeat.

Todd pushes a large, perfectly round table into a corner, with its edge touching both walls. He places a spot and then turns to his father. "That spot," says Todd, "is exactly 9 inches from one wall and 8 inches from the other. Without measuring the table, tell me its diameter."

My Jenkins puzzled and puzzled 'til his puzzler was sore, and then wound up finishing Todd's homework while the boy returned the adventures of Uncle Scrooge. Would you have done any better?

A Closer Look: French Tarot: Trumps 15 & 16

Many people are familiar with the standard Tarot suits (the "Major Arcana") used for "divination" purposes, but they're less aware that Tarot cards were created for playing trick-taking games and have a rich and diverse design history. These images are part of an ongoing series highlighting the art of a single deck used in France, which contains scenes of rural and domestic life in the 19th century.

Click to enlarge

Tarot Trump 15: Detail

Click to enlarge

Tarot Trump 16: Detail

App O' The Mornin': Tiny Tower

Grade: B
Price: freemium (extra in-game money can be purchased)

Compulsion loop games are not one of my favorite categories. Any title that requires someone to check in and do something at regular intervals feels less like a game and more like a poor lifestyle choice. Yet the genre remains insanely popular among people who forget just how irritating it was to keep a tamagotchi.

Tiny Tower (NimbleBit) is designed in such a way that it can be played by people who like to check on their game every 30 minutes or so, but it doesn’t have to be played that way. This rather clever balance between compulsion loop design and simple simulation gaming is what makes Tiny Tower work.

The game is like a stripped down, pixilated version of the much-missed SimTower. You build a high-rise, one floor at a time, and designate each floor as either residential or work. Tenants are rated for their work skills in food, service, recreation, retail, or creative businesses. After you build each floor and designate it as a business, you assign tenants to a job, preferably in some area of their ability.

Sometimes these are dream jobs for the tenants, while other jobs make them unhappy. Either way, they work where they’re told to and earn the money needed to continue construction and restock and the stores. The  Marxists at Popmatters try to read Deep Meaning into this, with lines like "I have become an exploiter of digital-human capital." (There is no more unintentionally hilarious read on the net than game coverage at Popmatters.) Because we all know that 16-bit dude with a frowny-face is dying inside as he quietly hums "The Internationale".

Tony Tower is free to play, but if you want to play faster you can buy more “bux” online. If you don’t get too obsessed with it, Tiny Tower is great fun and can provide a few minutes of daily play as you manage your little building. If you do get obsessed with it, it ceases to become a fun little game and transmorphs into a time sink.

Your Turn: The Games Magazine Electronic Games 100

It's that time of year again. For the next two months, I will be working with my crack staff to compile and write the Electronic Games 100: a buyer's guide to the best 100 video, computer, and handheld games published since last November. (We also do a small section of previews for titles we do not yet have in completed form.)

So let me know what you think. What have you been playing? What did you love? What did you hate? Do you know something small that deserves more attention? Something big that deserves less attention?

On Twitter, use hashtag #games100 to make your suggestions. I'm also on Google+ and Facebook, or you can use the comboxes. This is the first time I'm doing this "live," so let me know what you think. You can check out the Awards tag on this site for some examples from last year, which saw Super Mario Galaxy II winning as game of the year, just because that's the way we roll.

I can tell you this much: it's going to take a concerted effort to keep mobile games to only 1/4th of the list (25 titles), as I did last year. Given the sorry state of originality in PC and videogaming, and the startling originality and fun found on mobile platforms, that may not be easy. Four words, people: Axe in the Face.

Please note: this is for electronic games only. I don't edit the Traditional Games 100.

Shaun the Sheep: The Hedge Maze

Because I won't ever pass up an opportunity to put Shaun the Sheep on my blog, here's a picture of the giant new Shaun corn maze that's about to open in Staffordshire, England.

It appears to show Shaun striking a sassy pose while his brain shoots out the top of his head. It seem to be based on this (without the shooting-brain part):

Snapdragon: A Festive Children's Game Played With Flaming Food

Thou art easier swallowed than a flapdragon.

Wm. Shakespeare, Love's Labor's Lost

In Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking Glass, Alice is introduced to various fanciful insects by a gnat the size a chicken. To an American child, these creatures appeared to be little more than whimsical creations, but one insect had special connotations for the British:

A snap-dragon-fly

`Look on the branch above your head,' said the Gnat, `and there you'll find a snap-dragon-fly. Its body is made of plum-pudding, its wings of holly-leaves, and its head is a raisin burning in brandy.'

`And what does it live on?'

`Frumenty and mince pie,' the Gnat replied; `and it makes is nest in a Christmas box.'

I'd never really paused over this reference to a "snapdragon fly", but the most recent episode of Masterpiece Mystery, an adaptation of the Inspector Poirot novel Hallowe'en Party, included an alarming scene of kids playing a party game during a Halloween celebration. Children kept reaching into a flaming bowl, grabbing something, and popping it in their mouths while chanting "snip snap dragon." You can find the scene (for as long as it stays up on Youtube), at the 7:00 mark here. I hadn't the faintest idea what they were doing until we looked it up and learned that it's an old game (no one knows just how old) called snapdragon or flapdragon.

from Poirot: Halowe'en Party (2010)

Here's how Martin Gardner describes it in The Annotated Alice:

Snapdragon (or flapdragon) is the name of a pastime that delighted Victorian children during the Christmas season. A shallow bowl was filled with brandy, raisins were tossed in, and the brandy set on fire. Players try to snatch the raisins from the flickering blue flames and pop them, still blazing, into their mouths. The burning raisins also were called snapdragons.

The chant that accompanies the game goes like this:

Here he comes with flaming bowl / Don't he mean to take his toll!
Snip! Snap! Dragon!
Take care you don't take too much / Be not greedy in your clutch!
Snip! Snap! Dragon!
With his blue and lapping tongue / Many of you will be stung!
Snip! Snap! Dragon!
For he snaps at all that comes / Snatching at his feast of plums!
Snip! Snap! Dragon!
But Old Christmas makes him come / Though he looks so fee! fa! fum!
Snip! Snap! Dragon!
Don't 'ee fear him but be bold / Out he goes his flames are cold!
Snip! Snap! Dragon!

Snapdragon is normally a Christmas tradition, although it's played at Halloween as well. There's no clear indication of the game's origins, but some sources trace it to the ancient Greeks or Druids, which seems rather fanciful. It pops up several times in the works of Shakespeare, where he uses "flapdragon"  and "snapdragon" interchangeably to indicate something that's easy to swallow. You know: like flaming fruit. That pushes the game back to the 16th century at least. Like so many indoor amusements, it became traditional during the Victorian era, because nothing says "fun for kids" like sticking your hand in a burning bowl of liquor.

I'm annoyed that I even have to add this, but if you try this game at home, please remember that fire is hot and if you're injured it's totally your own fault, not mine.

D-Day Dice

Since we're talking about D-Day, let's linger a little longer and turn our attention to Emmanuel Aquin and his print-and-play game D-Day Dice. The game has thus far been available in a free trial version, as Aquin spread the word to generate interest. Now, it's being picked up for publication by Valley Games, and will be out by November of this year. A Kickstarter campaign should begin shortly, and I'll post a link when it goes live.

If you scroll to the bottom of the Valley Games page, you can download the trial version, print it out, and give it a test run. Based on a read-through of the rules, D-Day Dice appears to have an interesting mechanic, calling to mind a mashup of Roll Through the Ages and Memoir '44, with an added layer of depth. I'm going to print this one out and give it a spin, and I'm looking forward to trying the finished game.

H/T: W. Eric Martin

Memoir '44: Play Online

Days of Wonder has launched an online version of their best-selling casual war game, Memoir '44. Like many DOW games, Memoir '44 gets a heavy workout here at Casa McD, so this is welcome news. So far, I've just taken the solo mode for a spin, but it's a straight-up computer conversion of the tabletop game. It plays on a single screen, with your cards aligned at the bottom and the board dominating the center of the layout. Mouse click responses seem a little odd: if you double click too fast, it doesn't register the move. Other than that, it's looking good so far.

Right now it's in "open beta," and people who sign up get 50 free "gold ingots." The game uses a pay-to-play model in which you pay ingots to play solo and online games. Ingots can be purchased at a rate of 200 for $8. For $30, you get 1,000 ingots plus the Expert Mode, which allows you to create and upload custom scenarios. For $60, you 2,400 ingots, plus expert mode, plus $30 off any Memoir '44 product. Sessions cost 2-3 ingots each.

It's an interesting model, and I'm not sure how it will work out. It avoids the problems of a subscription-based system, but it's hard, at this point, to determine whether the value-versus-cost balance is quite right. If we calculate about 90 games for 200 ingots, with anywhere from 30-45 minutes for each game, you're looking at maybe 200 hours of gameplay for $8. That doesn't seem unreasonable.

EA Buys PopCap For ...

... $1.3 billion. (It sounds better if you use a Dr. Evil voice.) That can buy a lot of zombie-eating plants. Congrats to the PopCap folks. They're good guys, and I remember when they were just a few dudes making casual games. They went from nothing to $1.3 billion in ten years. It's as though all those jewels were real.

Via TechCrunch.

App O' The Mornin': Bumpy Road

Grade: A
Price: $3

This sophomore effort from the creators of Kosmo Spin has a delightful aesthetic, with a muted but eye-catching color palette and charming art. It’s a look that works perfectly for game about an older couple out for a Sunday drive on a corduroy road past windmills and impossibly narrow houses.

The gameplay is just as interesting as the visual element. Bumpy Road uses a novel mechanic to create a twist on the 2D platforming, move-to-the-right genre that has thrived on mobile touch devices. In this case, you don’t control the car, which moves at a steady pace, but the road itself, which is comprised of a series of little bumps. Touching the road raises it a little bit. Touch behind the car to create a hill that makes the car go faster. Touch in front of it to create a hill that slows the car down. Touch beneath it to make the car hop.

It’s as simple as that. The levels consist of multiple platforms and occasional water hazards, with minor variations for the two gameplay modes. In Evergreen Ride, you need to go as far as possible without falling into one of the water hazards. The trip is endless, with little powerups found along the way to close traps and allow you to focus on gathering items to improve your final time. There are no traps in Sunday Trip mode, so the goal is to get to a finish line as fast as possible by grabbing the accelerator powerups and avoiding the brake powerups. The result is a great little app, with a novel mechanic and engaging gameplay.

Site Update: Changes and Other News

I started State of Play a year ago this month for a few reasons. I wanted a place to write about games that I didn't always have a chance to write about in my print work, but also to just have a little corner of the internet that was all my own. It's been a place where I worked out ideas for print stories, most notably with the long series on gaming in Colonial America, which eventually appeared as a lead feature in Games Magazine. I wanted to create a personal blog from a the point of a view of a someone who does a lot of gaming for a living and thus has to think and write about this material on a daily basis.

I got off to a pretty serious start with an average of 20 posts a week in the beginning. That gradually tapered off, and then posts started getting a bit more irregular back in April. Part of this was because I had a lot of work to do in order to go on vacation, and part of this was the beginning of graduate school. I've been trying to find a good way to balance the blog with work and school, and might have finally found a pattern that works. So, here are the changes:

• Posts will be 3 times a week: Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. This gives me a target to shoot for that shouldn't be too hard to hit, while also providing regular visitors with a better sense of when to expect new content. 
• The App O' the Mornin' will return in a reduced form. I wrote about 100 app reviews for the site, and another 50 or so for various print venues, and then my brain when pfffft. This was around the time that Axe in the Face was released, and I don't recall a lot of apps grabbing my attention after that. Maybe it was app burnout on my part, but there seemed to be a bit of a lull in quality appage. In the intervening time, the well of good apps has gradually refilled, giving me something to write about again. Thus, each Monday, starting today, I'll do an App Review.
• I also have a stack of board games to review, but I take these very slowly. I hate reviews that are done on one or two playthroughs. I tend to take a couple of months to test things and gradually build some kind of opinion. Yes, I can form a pretty fast snap judgment like any other experienced gamer, and it will usually turn out correct, but without a number of plays under my belt, I just don't feel like I have much to say. For instance, I've been testing Rivals for Catan, in its many different play modes, for over a month, and I still want to play a couple more times before I write about it. 

Also, I'd ask you to please remember to use the Amazon links from the sidebar when you shop at Amazon. The Amazon Affiliates program is the only way I make anything for my work here (Google Ads are a joke). Using my link anytime you access Amazon costs nothing, but gives me a 4-6% commission for anything you buy. The depression has ruined us here at Casa McD, so every little bit helps. 

Let me have some feedback. Is there something you like? Don't like? Something you want to see? Shoot me a Twitter at StateofPlayBlog and let me know.

Thanks for your continued support.

VIDEOGAME DECISION: Two Stories, One Meaning

Exactly a year ago, I wrote the following column for the July 2010 issue of Maximum PC. I'm reprinting it here in light of today's Supreme Court decision.

Look, I’ve been on the internet since the internet was on. In those weird early days, I saw enough of alt.binaries.ohmygodicantbelievetheyredoingthat to illumine the darker corners of humanity.

            Thus, I was not at all surprised that some ostensibly human-like creatures get their kicks watching videos of attractive women crushing small animals to death under stiletto heels. It’s a fallen world, and any cursory glance at history or headlines shows us that men are capable of unspeakable depravity.

            I was surprised, however, when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that these “crush” and dogfight videos were, in fact, protected speech. In their April decision on United States v. Stevens, the court voted 8-1 to overturn a ban on the sale and distribution of these videos. Chief Justice Roberts wrote that, although the acts depicted are in fact illegal, the ban on images of these creates a “criminal prohibition of alarming breadth,” and violated 1^st amendment protections.

            Why is any of this of any concern to gamers?

            Simple: the Roberts court is about to get their first swing at the gaming piñata. In a case bearing the sublime name of Schwarzenegger v. Video Software Dealers Association, California’s laws banning the sale of violent games to anyone under the age of 18 have already failed to pass muster with various courts. Most recently, the notoriously liberal 9^th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the law was in violation of the 1^st and 14^th amendments, clearing the path to a Supreme Court challenge.

The Stevens decision, although not an exact analog, is a pretty clear indication of where the Roberts court stands on freedom of speech, with obvious applications to video and computer games. After all, if 8 out of 9 justices can rule that video recordings of illegal acts of animal cruelty are protected speech, then the court is packed with more 1^st amendment absolutists than the staff of Reason magazine.

Of course, what the VSDA and the development community should be asking themselves is, “How did our content become so depraved that we’re relying upon animal torture videos as precedent?”

Breaking News: Supreme Court Strikes Down Videogame Law UPDATED

No surprises here. This court is seriously--almost radically--against perceived curbs on the First Amendment.

Excerpt:

On a 7-2 vote, the high court upheld a federal appeals court decision to throw out the state's ban on the sale or rental of violent video games to minors. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Sacramento had ruled that the law violated minors' rights under the First Amendment, and the high court agreed. 

"No doubt a state possesses legitimate power to protect children from harm," said Justice Antonin Scalia, who wrote the majority opinion. "But that does not include a free-floating power to restrict the ideas to which children may be exposed."

UPDATE: Here's the complete decision, and it makes for an interesting read. As I warned it would last year, the court drew on their decision in United States vs. Stevens, which overturned a ban on animal torture videos. This is horrible company for the video game industry to find itself. We have reached a point where our entertainment is so grotesque that it winds up in the same legal category as animal snuff videos.

PopCap On Sale for $1 Billion?

That's what TechCrunch is reporting. The story is unsourced and PopCap isn't talking. $1 billion is about ten times their annual earning power, but PopCap (creators of Bejeweled, Plants vs. Zombies, and other mega-hits) is a proven entity. TechCrunch writer Jason Kincaid runs through the standard speculations about buyers: Zynga (boo, hiss), EA, and a Chinese company called TenCent. As long as we're just making up possibilities, it could be Apple, Walmart, or Papa John's Pizza. Nobody knows anything yet, so all we have right now is rumor and speculation. All of the stories out there--including the post you're reading right now!--are just reporting TechCrunch's initial story, so we'll have to wait and see. 

Guys? That's Not Cool [Chess]

A Canadian company is producing a War on Terror-themed chess set. The rook is shown to the right.

Since the company produces toy soldiers and other miniature militaria, they probably think this is a tribute or something. Memo from America: it's not.

And did I mention the Taliban Suicide Bomber Knight?

h/t Kathy Shaidle

Disney Forgets to Renew Club Penguin Domain

Oops!

Disney paid $700 million for Club Penguin, an online gaming site for kids, only 4 years ago. On June 13th, they lost their domain because they forgot to renew the registration for $10.

Yesterday, the site went offline, leaving 12 million angry little penguins who were unable to feed their puffles.

All the stories are saying that the problem was quickly corrected, but as I write this, ClubPenguin.com is nothing more than a dead domain screen. I snapped this picture on Tuesday afternoon.

REVIEW: Spot It!

Designer: n/a
Publisher: Blue Orange
Players: 2-8
Ages: 7+
Time: 1-2 minutes per round
Price: $14

This review is going to be short and sweet, just like the game. Spot It! is a remarkable little confection that works great as a warm-up game or just a quick bit of fun. It comes in a compact tin that contains a set of 55 circular cards. Each card has 8 symbols drawn from a set of 50. These are clear, clip-art-style images like scissors, bullseye, snowflake, pencil, dragon, etc. The images are scaled, so you may see a large zebra or a small zebra, but each tends to have a single dominant color. Between any two cards there is only one matching image. I'm not certain how they pulled that off, but they did, and it forms the heart of the gameplay.

The goal is to draw cards and spot the matching images. It's that simple. The size doesn't matter, so a large snowman can be matched to a small snowman. However, there will only ever be one match between two cards.

With this basic setup, Blue Orange offers 4 gameplay options. In The "Tower", players are each given one card face down, with the rest of the cards forming a face-up draw pile. Players flip their cards simultaneously, and the winner is the first person to announce a match with the top card of the draw pile. They place that card on the top of their own pile, and the matching continues until the draw pile is exhausted. The person with the most cards, wins.

"The Well" is like The Tower in reverse. One card is dealt to the center and the rest are dealt to the players. The goal is to shed your pile of cards by matching a symbol from your top card to an image on the center card. 

"Hot Potato" is also a shedding game, but this time players each hold a single card in their palms. The first person to call a match places all of his cards on top of the matching card, then draws another. Play continues until one person has all the cards, then a new round begins. The winner is the player who has the fewest cards once the draw pile is exhausted. This one plays better with larger groups.

The final variant is called "The Poisoned Gift." Each player has a single card, with a draw pile at the center of the table. The goal is to make a match between the top card of the draw pile and another player's card. That player then takes the matching card and play continues. The winner is the person with the fewest cards when the draw pile is exhausted.

If all this just sounds like a simple matching game ... well, it is. But it's also a whole lotta fun. It's much more entertaining than you might expect from a mere description. Play is lightening fast, with quick turns of fortunate and split-second decisions. You have to be observant and fast, and each player develops a technique of rapid observation in order to compare visual elements as quickly as possible.

If I just saw this game sitting on a shelf, I never would have bothered with it. It looks too rudimentary and seems to lack replay potential. In fact, repeated play only makes it better, as you become familiar with the images and the pacing. I must have played at least 100 games with just my daughter alone, and it still comes out as a 5 minute filler or a compact travel game. It's immensely clever and appealing, and scales quite well for different ages and group sizes.

You can try the online demo, but this really plays better with another person.

.

Legend of the Five Rings Gets Board

It's been years since I've played Legend of the Five Rings, but in all my many game purges, the original Wizards of the Coast collectible card game version of L5R is one I've kept. It's a great CCG with a lush setting and solid mechanics. It's good to see that AEG (the original developers of the game) are still publishing and expanding the game line.

Debuting in August at Gen Con is a new L5R board game by Fréderic Moyersoen (designer of Sabateur). Called NINJA, Legend of the Scorpion Clan, the game "features fast play, hidden movement, limited information, bluff and guile." The game is for 2-4 players, and comes with more than two dozen 28mm miniature figures, four pads of secret maps, 58 playing cards, and a full-color map. Here's the official line:

The game centers around one very dangerous night at a castle in the provinces of the Lion Clan. Honorable Lion samurai stand vigilant watch around the castle, protecting it from harm. The Scorpion Clan sends one well trained ninja to infiltrate the castle for nefarious purposes… it may be to assassinate an imperial guest under the Lion’s protection, or poison the well, or steal the daimyo’s war plans for the coming season. Whatever the goal, the ninja has vowed to accomplish it, or die trying. Worse yet for the Lion Clan, the ninja has an accomplice: a traitor among the ranks of the Lion samurai whose true loyalty lies with the Scorpion. 

Pottermore: Will It Be a Game?

The news has been trickling through the internet today about a new project from J.K. Rowling dubbed "Pottermore." All that exists thus far is the web site teaser and some wild rumors. We know what it's not, however, and that's an announcement of a new book. Rowling has made that clear.

Since everyone else is speculating, I might as well join the club and ask, "Could it be a massively multiplayer Harry Potter game?" I'm thinking the answer to that is a very firm no. Electronic Arts owns the interactive rights, and they don't appear to be involved in any of the filings for the domains or trademarking of Pottermore.

I'll just take a wild shot in the dark and guess we're looking at a broad-based online Harry Potter experience which may include light gaming, but also fan content, forums, news, and retail. More to the point, Rowling has already stated that she wrote a lot extra material while building the world and writing the books, and she'd like to make that available to fans. This may well be a conduit for that kind of content. I'm guessing it's a Disney.go kinda thing, with a more fan-friendly approach. We'll know for sure next week.

The site was teased with a viral game. Ten map coordinates were sent out to fan sites. These coordinates could be entered at secretstreetview.com. If you zoomed in on the location, you got a letter. If you found all ten, it spelled out "Pottermore". Here's an example:

Click to enlarge

Duke Nukem Forever: A Brief Public Service Announcement

This is not a review. I'm only able to tolerate playing Duke Nukem Forever for about an hour at a time, and then I have to take a shower to wash away the stench of the thing and maybe go to my Quiet Place and turn out the lights and listen to soothing music. Or perhaps play a little Portal 2 to remind me that games don't have to be this grotesquely awful, and that there is goodness and decency left in the world of PC gaming.

It's not that the game is vulgar, gross, sexist, crass, and stupid. It's certainly all those things, and deliberately so. It would be pointless to rail against the misogyny, omnipresent scatological references, juvenile sexuality, outrageous gore, or profanity. Those were always going to be signature elements in any Duke Nukem sequel. Complaining about them would be like going to Hooters "for the food" and complaining about the way the waitresses dress.

The only real point to be made about these elements is this: while the original Duke Nukem managed to be somewhat tasteless while still being a decent game, Duke Nukem Forever is grindingly, insultingly, nihilistically tasteless while simultaneously being one of the worst shooters I've played since Corridor 7. What was a send-up of 1980s action stereotypes in the original is now just self-referential, tired, and joyless.

The gameplay is ghastly. The level design is horrible and the game itself is boring, repetitive, and pointless. At one point Duke is shrunk down and tools around in a tiny car, and you wonder: did anybody even play this game after they made it? Did they enjoy the tiny-Duke level? Did they finish it and say, "Yes, by golly, this is something people will want to pay to experience!" Because if they did, then they really should be looking for work in some business more in line with their skill set; perhaps slop boy at a hog processing plant.

If this game was a person, he would be a paunchy middle-aged man with a bad combover and a silk shirt open to the waist to reveal the cornicello tangled in his matted, graying chest hair. It is so desperate to be Super-Alpha-Male-Plus-With-Extra-Testosterone-On-Top that it winds up merely sad and sickening.

And did I mention how bad it plays? Really, really bad. I have not finished it, but I've invested about 3 hours so far, and hated every single moment. I felt like someone was grinding my face into the gunk you find under a fridge. I didn't crack a smile once: not at the pee jokes, the cliched movie quotes, the quips, or the parade of bimbos. Everything about it was dreary and hateful. The graphics are just bad. The action is the worst possible blend of trite early-FPS shoot-n-scoot and modern pop-up shooter styles. Duke has to hide like a little girl when he's wounded, in order to have time to heal. Yet--bizarrely--the monster behavior and level design favors old-skool run-n-gun action. It's all a hot mess.

I will put more time into the game because I have to. It's my job. However, even with only a few hours under my belt, I can tell you without hesitation that you do not want to buy this game, download the demo, or look at the box. This isn't "bad in a good sort of way." It's bad in a soul-killing, suck-all-the-sunlight-from-your life sorta way.

UPDATE: I've been asked why I didn't write in detail about some of the game's most notorious elements in this post. I just didn't think I could even describe them on a site that tries to stay family friendly. I know there are kids who read this site, and I couldn't think of any language that could describe the content and still remain kid-safe. For that, I'll refer you to the review at Ars Technica, which explains just how bad it gets. 

New Arrivals: Godzilla, Catan & Pixies

Godzilla: Kaiju World Wars (ToyBiz, $70) unexpectedly arrived last week, landing with a mighty thud on the porch as the UPS guy ran for his life shouting "Aaaaiiiii! Gojira! Run!" I unboxed it, marveled at the lovely figures, marveled further at the hideous gameboard, and then sat down with the manual.

And there I was still sitting, an hour later, trying to search my mind for a game with worse documentation. I haven't tackled the gameplay yet, although I finally figured out that it's a pretty straightforward combat/destruction game, with Godzilla and three other monsters taking turns stomping the city and each other. The mechanics appear to have some potential, but I'll obviously need to dig more deeply before I can deliver a verdict.

The manual, however, is a disgrace. It's not merely that the gameplay, the pieces, and even the purpose of the game are poorly explained; it's that all of this is printed in teeny tiny print and without any color. The black-and-white illustrations are so dark that you can't actually tell what they're depicting. Thus, I'm not really sure what all the little chits are supposed to represent. I've heard that this was a cost-cutting measure, but if so it was the worst possible decision.

I'm a big kaiju (rubber monster suit) fan, so I was really looking forward to this one. I intend to give it every chance to overcome the poor initial impression it made.

The Rivals For Catan (Mayfair, $20) is a rebooting of Catan: The Card Game, which I haven't played in ages. I've been able to play the basic game twice, and enjoyed it both times. I want to get about 6 more plays done before I review it, but thus far it's proving to be a quick, enjoyable slice of Catan. It seems to be better balanced than the original, and it was certainly easier to pick up and play with a novice gamer. Stay tuned for a full review

Pixy Cubes (BlueOrange, $16) is another clever offering from BlueOrange games. Think of it as a cube-based tangram. The game comes with 16 dice-sized cubes, with each face depicting a different pattern. These cubes must be assembled to match certain patterns depicted on a set of cards. It has a couple of options for competitive play, but it works just fine as a solo game.

On the videogame front, everyone in the house has been spending a lot of time with this guy:

Are You Elite?

E3 didn't deliver a great deal of new information on Activision's plans for their new Call of Duty Elite service, but the company that makes billions from the pay-to-play online game World of Warcraft is super-double-pinky-swearing that Call of Duty multiplayer will not go pay-to-play. If you listen very closely when Activision says this, you can almost hear the pause where they mutter under their breath: yet.

Activision is making so much money from their Call of Duty games that they needed to take over Scrooge McDuck’s money bin to store it all. (Rumor has it that certain Activision execs get to swim around in the three cubic acres of cash contained therein.) Naturally, when faced with such a staggering success, the question any good publishers must ask is: how can we make even more money from Call of Duty.

The answer came upon them like a Blizzard: a monthly premium service!

And that’s just what Call of Duty Elite will offer. For a monthly feed (rumored to be $9), you get a lot of social networking features and some ill-defined benefits. There are four channels: Compete, Connect, Compete, and Improve. Career is just a summary of your gaming activity on all games supported by Elite. Connect is CoD social networking, so you can create a profile and find other players with similar interests and perhaps post photos from Cute Overload and links to laughing baby videos. Compete is the channel for online events, tournaments, and prize opportunities. And Improve is kind of a tips and tutorial section. There’s also connectivity for Facebook, Twitter, and mobile devices.

Activision has created a studio, dubbed “Beachhead,” to create the new system. CEO Bobby Kotick has this to say about the project:

"Beachhead will create the best-in-class online community, exclusive content, and a suite of services to supercharge the online gaming experience like never before. The platform will support in-game integration and bring online experiences and console play together for the first time. The platform has been in development for over a year and we're very excited about the increased value we can bring to the community."

Activision CEO Bobby Kotick

If this all looks like a fancy leaderboard mashed together with Facebook, that's because it is. However, Activision will probably sweeten the pot by including new map packs, early and exclusive access to betas and demos, and other bonus content as part of the subscription. Map packs cost about $10 to $15 dollars, so although that’s some incentive, it’s not much. What, then, is the long-term plan for Elite?

Activision, of course, also owns Blizzard, which rakes in about $2 billion (no, that’s not a typo) each year from World of Warcraft fees. The trick lies in transplanting the pay-to-play service of a massively multiplayer online game to the multiplayer action arena. World of Warcraft gets people to pay a monthly fee by offering something unique, and it’s never been free. Call of Duty multiplayer is not unique, and it’s always been as free as dirt.

And therein lays the problem. Activision makes money on the initial game sale, and some more money selling additional map packs, but they have yet to discover a way to monetize online action gaming.

Rest assured, that state of affairs cannot continue indefinitely. Each new Call of Duty game averages 18-20 million sales. About 7 million people play Call of Duty online, and they average about an hour a day. That’s more time than people spend on Facebook or Twitter. And after the initial $60 sale, there is no money to be made from those users unless they choose to buy bonus content. In-game advertising has proven hugely unpopular with gamers, so the only way to make multiplayer gaming profitable is to charge for it.

The Elite service may be Activision’s way of testing the waters for pay-to-play online action gaming. All game publishers are looking to cut out the retail sector (or at least diminish their role) and move to digital delivery direct to the consumer. I haven’t installed a PC game from a disc in a couple of years, opting for 100% digital delivery. The future of console gaming will be similar, and services like Call of Duty Elite may lie at the heart of it. You’ll no longer buy a Call of Duty game: you’ll subscribe to a Call of Duty service.

Frankly, if they keep the quality and updates at the standards set by World of Warcraft, then I don’t see people having a lot of trouble with that model. It will, however, take a tectonic shift in the way gamers perceive the medium, and that will take time. It will also be incredibly risky. Publishers will need to ease gamers away from the idea of owning a game bought in a box at a retail establishment, and move towards a model akin to streaming video.

The best comparison is with the “Watch Now” features of Netflix, which allow people to stream movies straight to their televisions for a monthly fee. Netflix (and now Hulu) is tightly integrated into all the gaming systems, so gamers are already get used to the idea of streaming content.

I simply can’t imagine free multiplayer action gaming continuing indefinitely. Someone, at some point, is going to find a way to monetize it, and the candidate best equipped for the task is Activision. The Elite service goes into beta this summer, and should roll out with Modern Warfare 3 this fall. It will include support for MW3 and Black Ops. Once we see it in action, we’ll start to get a better sense of the future of the Call of Duty series, the Elite service, and the shape of multiplayer action gaming.

The First Look at the New Wii U

The Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) is an annual trade show where game companies roll out new hardware and software. The biggest news so far is that a new Wii is on the way in 2012. It's finally hi-def, and has a crazy new wireless controller with a screen. Check out the official launch trailer:



And here's a closer look at that touchscreen controller:

And here it is functioning as a supplemental control screen for the new Zelda game:

I'm not at E3, but the word is that game journalists are scoffing at the new system. Maybe it's good or maybe not, but try to remember that these are the many of the same people who scoffed at the Wii. I read some article complaining that Nintendo was trying to jam an iPad into the Wii experience, as though the stupidity of that idea was self-evident.

Look, dedicated gamers hate the Wii. Except for a few titles, I'm not a huge fan of it myself. But it's not made for me or for people who go to E3.  It's made for everyone else.  It's a perfect family machine. It will not appeal to the teens or to the adult hipsters who cover games for a living, and it's not meant to. So, if you read a lot of negative comment on the Wii U in the upcoming months, take it with a grain of salt.

Frankly, I'm intrigued. Nintendo has been trying to work some handheld-to-console support into some games for years. As far back as 2004, The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Adventures connected a GameBoy Advance to a GameCube via cable, with the GBA functioning as a supplemental controller and screen.

Nintendo is going to sell this as a chance to buy a new Wii and get a portable iPad-style experience in the bargain. The controller can function independently of the Wii U, which means people get two game platforms for the price of one.

I showed this video to my resident ten-year-old and got four exclamation of That is sooo cool! and a concluding That looks awesome! All of the opinions you'll read about the Wii U are irrelevant in the face of that kind of reaction. Nintendo knows how to sell their product to kids and families. Guys who write about games are not their intended market.

REVIEW: Mythbusters: Hit The Target

 Designer: n/a
Publisher: Zimzala Games
Players: 2-4
Ages: 10+
Time: 10-20 minutes
Price: $25


Mythbusters is mandatory viewing at Casa McD, so when I saw Zimzala showing a Mythbusters board game, I knew I'd have to give it a try. Hopes were not high: media tie-in games are notoriously craptacular, and media tie-in trivia games usually occupy some spot below craptacular which we'll just call Bratz Twister. 


So it's a pleasant surprise that Mythbusters: Hit the Target works just fine as a light, fun family game. There's a bit of trivia, a dexterity element, and a touch of science, and it all comes together just fine.


Goal
The object is to answer trivia questions and hit a series of targets with a miniature rubber crash test dummy ("Buster" from the show) flung from a tiny catapult.


Components
There's no game board, but the targets and answer dials are made of thick, sturdy cardboard. The answer dials are circular pieces with a plastic arrow that can be pointed to one of five different answers: Confirmed, Busted, A, B, or C. Targets are round pieces with a target on one side and a picture of Buster on the other. 


The Buster-pult is made of fairly sturdy plastic with a rubber band to provide tension. It's placed on a cardboard base which allows the catapult to be shifted left or right in order to alter the angle.


I can imagine the rubber bands losing their flexibility and breaking, so it's good that some spares are included. Unfortunately, it's not a standard rubber band size, so after the replacements are gone you may be out of luck. Buster himself is made of soft, flexible rubber. The game also includes a box of cards with questions and answers.


Gameplay
Two to four players or teams take turns pulling a trivia card. Questions are a mixture of show-specific and general science questions with two different formats. There are multiple choice questions with three possible answers (A, B, or C) and direct statements with a "Confirmed" (true) or "Busted" (false) answer. 


For instance, "You can use sharkskin as sandpaper" would require a reply of "Confirmed" or "Busted". (Yes, sharkskin can be used as sandpaper.) One example of a multiple choice question is "If you get sprayed by a skunk, you can get rid of the smell by using: A. Beer. B. A mixture of soap, hydrogen peroxide, and baking soda. or C. Tomato Juice. (The answer is B.) There are some simple, general science questions, but most require some familiarity with the show.


Each player or team secretly chooses an answer using their dial, then places the dial face down. When everyone has chosen, they reveal their dials.


If you got the answer wrong, nothing happens. If you got it right, you roll a die and perform the action indicated by the roll. These actions break down into three categories: target placement, catapult adjustment, and launching. 


If your die shows the target icon, you can place one of your targets anywhere on the playing surface, or move a target which you have already placed. Targets are placed with the picture of Buster facing down. 


If your die has an "aim" result, you may change the aim of the catapult by 10, 20, or 30 degrees. The catapult begins in a central position, but as the targets begin to fill the table and spread out, players may want to shift the angle in order to reach a specific target.


The final option is LAUNCH. If you decide to launch, you place the little rubber Buster on the catapult, draw it back, and let him fly. Any target he hits gets turned over and counts as a point for that target's team. For example, if you're trying to reach your blue target and hit a green target instead, then tough luck: the green team flips the target and scores the point. Three points wins the game. 


Conclusion
I'm not a fan of dexterity games, but Mythbusters: Hit the Target provides a good mix of knowledge and dexterity. Finding the right amount of force is a matter of trial and error, so players should each have an opportunity to try a few trial flings before the game begins. (Maybe agree upon a fixed number of test-flights, perhaps 5, so everyone can warm up.) 


There's a mild tactical element involved in placing your targets. Do you spread them out or run them in a fixed line? Group them together or place them near the targets of someone who's a lousy shot? Since Buster can fly pretty far, the game demands either a long table or even some floor space in order to play.


Some questions may seem absurdly easy for adults. One example is "Which scientist came up the basic laws of motion: A. Pasteur, B. Newton, C. Galileo." Obviously, any adult will know that it's Newton, but this is a family game meant for both young and old. The mixture of easy and hard answers, and the inclusion of simple binary choices like "confirmed" or "busted," increases the odds that younger gamers will get a chance at the Buster-pult, which is really what they want to do anyway. 


Along the way, a bit of knowledge is conveyed, so there's certainly an educational element to the game. The blend of trivia and dexterity is just right for mixed groups of young and old. This is an easy recommendation for fans of the show.

UPDATE: The publishers let me know that they will send replacement rubber bands upon request.

Small World Underground

Designer Phillipe Keyaerts and Days of Wonder are taking Small World subterranean. Small World Underground features new races, new powers, and a whole new underground map. Keyaerts has this to say about the new Small World:

Thoughts of changing the landscape of Small World have been in my head for quite some time. A land filled with Mountains seems to require running water, and so now we have Underground rivers. There is a double impact of the river: being difficult to cross, it can protect your regions... but you can also navigate the river to cross the board quickly. Mountains also begat Volcano regions that can't be conquered, which of course leads us to a race (Flames) that can exploit them!

Another important idea I had in mind were legendary artifacts which can be transferred from generation to generation. While previously powers were specific to a race, now we have new strong powers but that can be claimed by different races. Some of those artifacts didn't need to move on the board so they became magical places which opened up my mind to even more ideas on how they could be used.

Even when a game is finished and published, it's not easy to stop working on the design. I'm really happy to have the opportunity to look back at some ideas and explore the Small World universe even more deeply with Small World Underground.

SWU is now available for preorder. You can check out the official website for photos and rules.