GameRx: Hunter Hunted

When "platformers" come up in discussion, we often assume a certain degree of levity in atmosphere. While this isn't entirely fair, it's a reasonable assumption judging by the biggest, most successful early titles -- Mario, Kirby, Sonic, Megaman, et al. With the runaway success of these franchises, many console developers followed suit with their own light-hearted platformers to reach the same demographic. However, there was no such limitation on the generally older audience of PC gaming, resulting in some dark takes on the platformer format. If you're looking for something to break free from the cheery grind of mainstream platforming, Hunter Hunted may be just the game you're looking for. Released on Halloween of 1996 by the tragically defunct Sierra, this platformer for Win95 is incidentally the prequel to the Starsiege: Tribes franchise.

In the then-distant year of 2015, Earth has been attacked by a race of aliens, known only as "the Masters." Humanity has been largely destroyed in the ensuing war, and surviving humans are enslaved, enduring life-or-death challenges for the amusement of their new overlords. The human protagonist, Jake Hunter, is attempting to make a getaway while repairing the remains of an old car with post-apocalyptic scrap as he struggles to survive the Masters' gauntlet. Simultaneously, a similar fate befalls the tauren inhabitants planet Kullrathe as the masters herd the survivors into concentration camps. Put into similarly dire straits, the opposing Kullrathian protagonist, Garethe Den, has similar plans of escape. Who will you be -- the hunter, or the hunted?


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Prometheus: Connecting the Dots (Part 1)

After a personally mandatory re-watching of the first two Alien movies a few days back, I finally got around to seeing Prometheus with high expectations. The film delivered in exactly the way that I hoped. We get a glimpse into the events before the previous movies, finally revealing several missing pieces of the franchise, especially the original Alien. Each revelation kept me on the edge of my seat, and I left quite satisfied.

Of course, all the information present gave me the urge to figure out how all the movies connect together. A few flowcharts later, and I think I've connected most of it. A lot of these will be kind of obvious to Alien fans, but I figure I should leave a detailed list for the sake of completeness.

Of couse, there are many spoilers below. Continue at your own peril.

GameRx: Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri

"Einstein would turn over in his grave. Not only does God play dice, the dice are loaded."

  - Chairman Sheng-Ji Yang

A while back, I wrote up a review for Sid Meier's Colonization in a sort of celebration of the new Civilization V downloadable content coming out in the following weeks. Taking a brief hiatus with HyperBlade to change things up, it's time to continue with revisitations of Civ-likes with an old /vg/ favorite, Alpha Centauri. The game in the curious position of being the most praised game of a franchise as well as having fewest copies sold. This really is a shame; this game is that rare brand science fiction gold that I feel cements game-writing as legitimate literature. In complete seriousness, I'd put right up there with the likes of Heinlein, Aasimov, and Herbert. It's that good.

In the 22nd century, the United Nations assembles an effort to colonize on Alpha Centauri, called the Unity program. Things go horribly awry when a generator malfunctions, rousing the passengers and crew from their travel-stasis and severing all communications with Earth. The captain is assassinated by the panicking passengers, leaving a power vacuum on board the ship. Seven colonists stand out from the others as leadership figures, each with very specific principles that they feel should be priorities in the colonization effort. Unable to reconcile their differences, the seven leaders and their followers take seven escape pods to the surface of the planet Chiron, commonly called "Planet", in the Alpha Centauri system. I'd go on with a story summary, but I'd hate to spoil such a great game for anyone who wants to give it a try. Besides, we have much bigger and tastier fish to fry in this game.

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The Niche of E3: an outsider's look into E3 from afar

After some discussions with friends and new acquaintances on my Twitter feed and beyond, I've noticed that there's a bit of a debate surrounding what E3 is supposed to actually do. I decided this would be a great opportunity to explore exactly what E3 is from the view of someone who has never been. This will lead to some biases, but I'm just going to call it like I see it as I think of it. If anyone wants to provide some critique or counter-points, I'm more than open to discussion!

After some perusing, it seems that we need to remember that E3 is not a gaming convention, regardless of what past conventions have hosted. E3 is the "Electronic Entertainment Expo," a selection that includes much more than games. I understand that some big games have been released at E3 in the past, and that's all well and good. However, this does not necessarily make E3 a gaming convention -- rather, it is a convention where games are announced.

In a way, you can look at E3 (or really any convention) as if it were a football game. The players are the industry representatives that put on the show. The stadium staff are the people who make sure that the event possible, keeping the events together and providing service to the attendees. The press box is...well, the press box. This leaves the fans, ranging from the largely apathetic to the rabidly supportive. The part that seems to be lost in translation to the attendee is that the game exists for the players and coaches down on the field. The game down on the field is not yours in any way past the fact that you bought a ticket. You just happen to be watching the game.

GameRx: HyperBlade

"I went to a fight the other night and a hockey game broke out."

       - Rodney Dangerfield

Tronicus also seems to be an apt name.

Sitting at my desk writing this review, it's hard to figure out where to start describing this game. Made by Whizbang! Software Productions in 1996, HyperBlade fills a space in the under-appreciated niche genre of sci-fi sports games. It really defies explanation, but if I had to describe it in terms of today's games, I'd call it some sort of bizarre combination of Gears of War, ice hockey, and Tony Hawk Pro Skater.


The best part? It's so old that it's available here for free in a non-torrent format. You don't have an excuse this time, readers!


If you've enjoyed games like Monday Night Combat  and Blood Bowl, you should definitely hit the download above and give this game a look. It's small, fun, easy to learn, and is packed with plenty of high-speed action, and runs on almost any PC or Windows emulator. I got this little gem to play on my Win95 Toughbook, a behemoth of a laptop with absolutely minimal specs, where it still worked like a charm. Trust me on this one; if it works on that thing, you should be able to handle it. The only foreseeable complication is that the game might just be too old to run on your fancy-pants computer. If this is the case, just do a simple follow-up on Google to figure out what you need to do.

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GameRx: Colonization

GameRx: Colonization

With the new Gods & Kings expansion being released for Civilization V, it seems like as good of a time as ever to look back at the history of Sid Meier’s most popular franchise. Looking back at the older iterations of the game can give us a new-found appreciation for just how much this series has changed over time and the massive impact it’s had on the desktop gaming community. Today, we’ll be looking atColonization, a Civ-like game where you discover the New World, establish colonies, and revolt against your mother country.

This game comes in three basic flavors: ‘94, ‘03, and ‘08. More of you may be familiar with this title in its most recent form, released as a part of Civ IV in their new 3D game engine. The original came out in 1994, way back during the beginning of NAFTA and the end of Commodore International, and an open source clone of the game was initiated in 2003, piquing enough general interest to justify the Civ IV version of the game in 2008. The original 1994 version is really only viable if your current rig has DOSbox installed or if you happen to have an old beast of a computer gathering dust in the attic, like an Amiga or Commodore. If you have a copy of Civ IV, you should have your hands on the most recent version pretty easily. If you have neither DOS nor Civ IV, go ahead and download FreeCol before you spend money on it and see if you like what you find. Your mileage may vary on any of the three.

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GameRx: Sid Meier's Gettysburg!

One thing that has always really bothered me about modern RTS is that games are no longer based on tactical skill, but rather knowledge of the game engine and mechanics. In such games, knowledge of the game always comes before knowledge of tactics, where even a wonderfully planned assault can completely backfire if you haven’t bought the right upgrades or powerups for your troops. To me, this is pretty apparent in games like Starcraft -- any game where you measure prowess with “clicks per minute” seems like an exercise in tedium to me rather than a demonstration of strategic genius.

Where modern RTS’s largely fail to meet standard big-picture criteria, Sid Meier’s Gettysburg more than delivers. Based on the engine used in the game Sid Meier’s Waterloo, gameplay is reminiscent of games from the likes of Creative Assembly. One controls regiments rather than individual soldiers and moves them in formation across the battlefield, making an understanding of fronts, flanking, and the other essential parts of pre-twentieth-century strategy key elements in formulating your plans. Time passes more slowly, giving both players time to observe the field and react to each other’s movements, much like many battles of that era. Granted, this style of gameplay isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, but this is definitely a refreshing take on RTS for anyone with background in wargaming.

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Prognosis: The Day the Earth Stood Still (2008)

I remember going to see this movie in theatres, cautiously optimistic. I figured, hey, this could be great. The original, made in 1951, was a great little movie that I thought had the potential to make a solid reboot, giving a modern reinterpretation of the actions that take place in the film. While the posters and trailers of the older movie advertised the robot-attack as the feature of the movie, most of the film was a commentary that discussed peculiarities of human society from the perspective of an alien, such as family dynamics, societal norms, and war. In the end, it left us with a hopeful message of global reform to encourage a unified planet. A reboot would be an excellent opportunity to reinforce this message while reiterating more relevant modern societal issues.

Oh, how wrong I was.

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Concerning Star Wars Kinect

Honest, does this little shrimp look like you?

Now that exactly fifteen people have asked me if I've heard about the "disgrace" called  Star Wars Kinect since it came out, I'm going to put my full reaction here for the record.

I'll go ahead and say it; the fanbase response is patently ridiculous. Why should the fans even care? Is anyone forcing you to play this game? Is this game targeted at your demographic? Was this game somehow meant to expand canon? No, nope, and never respectively. Older, jaded Star Wars fans are just using this as another flimsy excuse to indulge in their favorite pastime - shitting on George Lucas. In all honestly, I find this reaction and the practice it stems from mortally embarrassing as a fan of the franchise.

Seriously. If you're over the age of 16, LucasArts gives exactly zero fucks about what you think of Star Wars Kinect. This is not your toy.

Off Topic: Oh no, not Miracle Whip again...

This post is a bit outside of the gaming purview of the blog, but it's something that's been bothering me. I thought I'd seen the end of this dumb marketing campaign ages ago. If you're in the states, I'm almost certain you know which ones I mean from the title -- a seductive female voice tells you about how cool and trendy Miracle Whip is for all you hip kids out there while attractive, smiling youths in fashionable clothes pose suggestively with jars of mayonnaise, all filmed with a shaky camera while abstract shapes float through the background. Classy stuff.

Needless to say, I was a bit disappointed when I opened The Onion today to find an edgy Miracle Whip graffiti splash sprawling over the top stories.

Avengers Tangentials: Whedon, Firefly, etc.

With the Avengers' movie coming out, I'm finding that I'm particularly more reserved regarding Joss Whedon compared to the rest of the geek community at large. Please don't misunderstand me here -- I like his stuff. He's got talent, his work is solid, and he's definitely been a hit with the geek crowd. I'm in no position to say he is bad in any capacity. However, it's his notably high popularity in the geek crowd that makes me wonder about his inclusion in The Avengers. I assume the movie will be fine, and that Whedon's style will fit well with the team-based story at work. I just can't shake the feeling that he was included so they could brandish his name around to attract more viewers. Again, this is likely not the case, but it's just that nagging though in the back of my brain.

I can understand that someone could say the same of George Lucas or Steven Spielberg, and I'd a agree to an extent -- especially in the former. Whedon and Lucas are both creators of highly popular franchises, so they both carry the associated baggage with their name from other projects. Maybe it's just because of the people I hang out with and the sites I visit, but Whedon's name always snags people's attention, almost instantly getting people to instantly wax nostalgic over Firefly and Buffy. The same applies for Lucas and Star Wars., although there is often a hint of animosity with the Star Wars "purists" (another post? I think so). Spielberg's name, while it gets your attention, isn't associated with any popular franchises* and instead gets you by individual titles, like E.T. and Schindler's List. Franchises just seem to be what sticks to the mainstream, which isn't a bad thing at all -- Firefly, Star Wars, Pokemon,  Twilight, Game of Thrones, The Avengers, and Batman are but a few modern examples.

Sci-Fi Ideas: Savoring the "New Toy Smell"

We all know the sensation -- that satisfying smell when you crack open a game for the first time, the lingering scent of a new car, opening a bag of Legos for the first time. It's that sickly sweet smell that permeates the air after opening a package, giving us the satisfying, sensual reward of spending our hard-earned money. We often use it as an argument against digital distribution of games and music. Consumers love it so much that they will actually purchase fragrances to make things smell as though they were new, which is made even more ironic given the nature of these fumes. So what's the deal with that "new toy" smell?

Naturally, part of this smell comes from our own projected expectations -- something about opening the mint copy of a game you've searched years for is different than opening a new copy of Microsoft Office for Windows 7. Still, there is a tangible element of the smell created by the off-gassing of plastics, including chemicals like formaldehyde, phthalates, esters, and industry-made fragrances -- for example, the famous "new car smell" is actually a product of the glue they use to hold parts of the cabin together. Multiple studies have shown that these chemical cocktails are detrimental to your general health, but that doesn't stop us from enjoying the scent of Sharpies or heavily scented candles. These chemicals mixed with our expectations produce a unique unboxing for any given car, game, disc, or toy.

My thought: what if box-opening eventually becomes something similar to wine-tasting? If you look at it in the broad sense, there are plenty of parallels. To me, it seems to all stem from the concept outlined in this XKCD strip. Even if it doesn't pan out in the real world, it's definitely an interesting sci-fi premise to explore.

Prognosis: Stay Alive (2006 film)

 
To say the least, Stay Alive is quite a... curious film.

For those of you who haven’t seen the movie, it’s a fairly formulaic horror flick with the now memetic tagline “If you die in the game, you die for real.” Essentially, a group of teens and twenty-somethings play a survival-horror multiplayer game together. As each character dies in the game, they die in an almost identical fashion in the next hour. It’s a neat idea with no big surprises here. What’s so disappointing about this movie is that it should have been pretty good. The premise was original, the late-movie twists were good, and there was lots of fairly creative direction. When you watch the film you can see that most of the pieces of a quality film are there. All things considered, this should have been a B- movie. Sadly, the final cut feels sadly more like a struggling D+ by the time you get to the credits.

So where did Stay Alive go wrong?

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"Avengers" Tangentials: the Hulk

I'm really excited for the new Avengers movie coming out this summer. Honestly, with all the buildup and foreshadowing they've had in the past several Marvel movies, I really can't help it. We get to see significant interaction between superheroes for the first time, the convergence of several very different plotlines, the first action role of Nick Fury, and generally a lot of exciting things.

While this is the case, it does bring several of my thoughts on the genre and the general state of science fiction to the forefront of my mind. It reminds me of how superheroes have contributed to the recent surge of nerd popularity, my general dislike for the Hulk, my impressions of Joss Whedon relative to the rest of the science fiction community, and how this massively successful genre has helped reshape how blockbusters are written, directed, and produced. I'll use the next few Mondays to use The Avengers to expand on these thoughts, starting this week with my thoughts on the Hulk.

Deus Specs: Concerning Adam Jensen's Glasses

While revisiting some of Yahtzee Croshaw's older Zero Punctuation videos on a slow afternoon, I pulled up his review of Deus Ex: Human Revolution, having forgotten most of his talking-points on the game and cyberpunk in general. When he brings up Adam Jensen's shades and how willingly they slide in and out of his skull, I began to wonder. Like he said, that's a ridiculously intrusive surgery for something that comes across in-universe as cosmetically badass at most. However, I think the shades are higher-tech than we can reasonably guess at first glance.

Quick disclaimer before before we start: I have played Deus Ex, but I have not played DE:HR. While this conundrum may already be addressed in the game and its supplements, my main goal here is to show you how close to this level of technology we actually are.These truly are exciting times we live in.

Regarding RTS Balance

To get things started, I figured I'd give a quick defense of my first GameRx review. After an associate of mine read my review of Dark Colony on the RSC blog, they mentioned that having identical sides shouldn't be a feature of an RTS. I agree with this to a point, but I also think that this overlooks some important changes in the gaming world over the past fifteen years, especially in the genre of real-time strategy.

Feel free to disagree, but I don't think this is a very consistent standard. It's not a perfect comparison, but I don't think anyone would call chess, checkers, or backgammon unfair or dull specifically on the grounds that both sides are evenly matched. Similarly, the first two Age of Empires have essentially equivalent teams with the exception of high-tier unit availability. The first two installments of the franchise are right up there with Dune II in terms of shaping the genre. Sometimes, there's something to be said for balance through simplicity.

Hello, world!

Doc Watson here from www.redshirtcrew.com, and it's nigh time this blog went up.

I started working with Chase (aka MaristPlayBoy) at RedShirtCrew in 2011, and since then I've found I have more things that I want to write about than he'll let me post! I'm setting up the GameRx Clinic to let me let off some steam away from the blog and get a little bit of rambling of my own done.

The stuff I cover will be pretty much the same as on the RSC blog. It'll be games, movies, history, humor, art, and whatever else you all want me to talk about, but being a little more open-ended than the articles I write for the blog.

For those of you who are worried, this is by no means a separation from my roots! My two review columns, GameRx and Prognosis, will both still be on www.redshirtcrew.com, along with a bunch of other swell writers. Be sure to give the site a look when you have the opportunity.

If you want to get in touch, go ahead and leave a comment or hit me up on Twitter @DocWatsonMD. I'm looking forward to hearing from you!