try ‘deus ex machina’

I’ve known about this game for awhile. I’ve never seen it in action.

The linguaphile in me WANTS THIS GAME SO BAD

Seriously this is like a birthday wish. I’d want a Nintendo DS to play it on though :P

the dark side

I’m posting this because if you look, the voice-work for the Joker is done by Mark Hamill

been working on your evil cackle I see, Mark

Meanwhile, Harley Quinn seems to be voiced by Fran Drescher from the Nanny

squeal.

bewildering

I’m a little confused about Transformers 2. It made a lot of money, which doesn’t surprise me, and lots of people enjoyed it (I liked it. translation: I laughed a lot.), but according to Life (which, as we know, is the bastion of investigative journalism) near sixty-seven percent of audiences polled it as ‘Excellent quality’. Some passer-by said he was impressed by how much attention to the story there was

‘Excellent’ in cinema is a term I associate with, uh, acting. And maybe a plot would be nice

It’s like I watched a completely different movie??

Fortunately ian cheong also thinks it was excellent. This guarantees that I am correct and it is a shitty show

Ian and I noticed that we disagree on just about every area of taste it is possible to disagree on. It’s a bit weird that we’re friends sometimes

The Last Guardian

Well it had to happen. Some cunning Japanese have finally made an action-platformer that takes full advantage of sentimental pet-owners who miss their childhood/dead dog.

Comments board seems evenly divided between those people who read (and liked) Old Yeller and those that didn’t.

Event: Rosencratz and Guildenstern are dead

Oh hey readers, some friends of mine are staging Rosencratz and Guildenstern are dead in the Arts House play den from the 16th to the 19th of July.

For those of you who don’t know, it’s an absurdist play based off Hamlet. You don’t need to have read Hamlet, but it works best if you know the rough plot and who Rosencratz and Guildenstern are. It’s a two-lead tragicomedy that’s very very much like Waiting for Godot. Or, like a literary Pulp Fiction, if that’s a better analogy.

For those of you who do know, you’ll also know that it’s an awesome little Stoppard play with good dialogue, some philosophy, and mucho stabbings. You will also know that (as far as I know) it’s not been screened here by anybody and probably wont be again for awhile.

Do drop by and see it

Showtimes:
Dress Performance on 16th July, 1900H. Tickets at $20.
Night shows on 17th, 18th and 19th July, 1900H. Tickets at $25.
Matinee show on the 18th, 1530H. Tickets at $25.

Website:
www.iwanthamlet.blogspot.com

Armageddon Empires

Ok, I’m gonna be a bit of a geek today, and highly recommend something long overdue:

Armageddon Empires

All you geeks out there (you know who I mean), you’re gonna love this one. It’s a card-based, deck-builder, turn-based, post-apocalypse, hex-grid epic smash ‘em up. If you understand all those terms up there, it means this is a game you will love to bits.

I’ve been playing it since ‘08 and it’s incredibly fun.

Cons:

First off: the UI sucks. You will be bewildered until you read the manual. There are no graphics except some spinning dice. There is only one resolution. It’s only ever solitaire: no multiplay or hotseat. But that’s about it for cons.

Pros:

The guy who designed this really loves his post-apoc. There’s barely a story but everything is atmospheric, from the really good card art (e.g. Giant Walking Laser Robot) to the throwaway unit names (e.g. ‘Zombie Launcher’).

4 distinct factions (Terminator-style Robots, Hive-type Aliens, Guerrilla Mutants, and John-Conner-esque Humans) with a distinct point-based card list you build from scratch. Each faction has a list of unique generals. It’s a completely random map each time so plenty of replay.

Meaningful decisions. Very rare for a strategy game. The post-apoc vibe is really evident here: you get very little resources and you must scrounge and scavenge for more. Collectors are valuable. Units are rare. If you lose a walking sixty foot tall laser robot, you lose a sixty foot tall robot. Careful play is encouraged. Action Points are also a resource. Here are some things you can spend your limited resources on:

- Research (from unit upgrades to *very expensive* nukes)
- Unit Building
- Unit Training (Quite in depth)
- Invest in ‘Tactics’ card for dice bonuses
- Winning initiative (which gets you more action points)
- Combat
- Espionage
- Assassination of Generals
- Base building
- Exploration/Movement/Recon
- Draw new cards

Which seems pretty standard until you realise you can only do maybe 2 things per turn, and it is rarely obvious what the best choice is. Things get really interesting in rare-resource maps. A sample win could be:

Your massive tank army is doing well until General Kost is assassinated. Leaderless, it is cut to shreds and a robot paratrooper team ( :D ) captures your forward base. Out of supply, the rest of your army is slowly ground down. However, wandering in the wasteland your scouts discover an abandoned nuclear submarine with a still-functioning Trident Nuke. Desperate, you burn all your resources to win initiative next turn. You send your single bomber on a last-ditch attack, burning through all your tactic cards to avoid anti-air fire. The nuke gets through. The robot base is wiped out in a mushroom cloud.

Fun.

-

It’s 30 USD online, which I admit is a bit pricey, but I’m still playing it today, which is more than can be said for those 80 dollar high-budget console games.

At least try the demo

Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex

I’m cram-watching the series. It. Is. So. Good. All you atmo-freaks (I’m looking at you ali) will really like this one. Take Japan’s penchant for futurism times one billion, add a healthy dose of blade-runner, secret government agencies, cyborgs, robot geishas, and some obligatory set battle pieces and you have a fun fun show.

I like how intelligent it is. The big themes of course are identity, and whether AIs can have souls, but you also have more subtle commentary on Japanese media society, the otaku, and dystopian post-WWIII. It’s always the little details that colour future dystopias, like the shot of industrial smokestacks lining the skyline in Blade Runner and the giant Jap-ad blimp that hovers over Harrison Ford in the abandoned tenement.

Here, we get throwaway references to WWIII, a huge battle on a rusted ‘abandoned anti-radiation scrubbing rig’ off Okinawa, and oh all those delightful future-tech roadside vendors who of course wear straw hats and peddle cheap Made-in-Taiwan cyberbrains. This is a universe that is real, and has a history.

Quite a guy-show though. Lots of un-necessary skin-shots, the title character’s uniform looks like a kevlar leotard (?) and there’s so much vice. Oh, and did I mention the set battle pieces? Still, the vibe it gives off is a subtle portrayal of seedy internet culture taking over the future, so it doesn’t feel too cheap.

And anyway, how can you say no to those adorable spider-tanks