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Up until today, I hadn’t realised that I haven’t seen a tricked out car bouncing about on its lowered hydraulics on the television for quite some while. Guess it was something that quietly was left behind when things moved on. Now though Rockstar are planning to revive some of that car-dancing magic in GTA V with the next expansion to the game.
GTA Online: Lowriders will bring lowriders to the virtual streets, as well as a new customs shop in downtown Strawberry. Benny’s Original Motor Works is the location for a whole set of new vehicular customisations.
“Deck out your engine block with covers and air filters, coat your interiors with velour, leather and patterns, choose custom colors and designs for your dials, or add a new steering wheel and custom shift levers. Give your ride lift with hydraulics – the more powerful the pumps, the higher you can bounce. And boost your stereo’s performance with new speakers and subs in the back.”
There’s also new interactions added for opening the doors, bonnet and boot of the cars you drive around in now, so you can simulate a pimped-out car gathering with your friends in GTA Online! At least, until another player shows up in a helicopter and kamikazes into you all that is. There will also be new Lamar missions added, a forth residence to buy and new clothing, hair and accessories for your avatar.
GTA Online: Lowriders arrives on PC as an automatic update on Tuesday, October 20.
Firstly Dracucat has reached its target now with 12 days to go, so expect that game to be available at some point in the future; while Home Free has reached and passed the Dockland stretch goal and is very close to getting the Cat stretch goal met too. Aberford unfortunately is way off target with less than 3 days to go, so another method will need to be found to fund that game if Sketchy Panda decide to go ahead with it.
Every one of the four games covered last week still have quite a while to go yet and none are too close to their targets as of yet. However we know that the last few days of a Kickstarter can bring surges so this isn’t to say that they will fail, and we’ll update you as the weeks go by.
Starting us off with the sole card game this week, and I chose this one because not only does it sound quite silly; it’s another team based card game and I do enjoy some co-op play.
The game is an 12+ (normal deck) or 18+ (NSFW deck) game for 2-6 players, although there needs to be an even number to make the two teams balanced. The aim is simply to be the team who conquers 25 of the territories, and play is conducted through 3 assaults. The team who wins the best of 3 using their held damage cards get the territory.
GOAT ARMY currently has 36 days to go and has made €1,301 of its €2,000 goal, so I dare say this one will meet target.
This is a 2D adventure game with RPG elements set in a sci-fi future, using pixel graphics and a hand painted feel setting. Sounds promising.
The story follows a convict who awakes his deep sleep to find the orbital prison facility he was being held in has crashed on an abandoned Earth. With the aid of a ragtag group he finds himself trekking the wasteland of the planet to try and locate the nine cell blocks now scattered about the planet, braving the harsh environments as well as dangers both animal and sentient. The game is also on Steam Greenlight, so if you’re interested you might want to go find it to vote it up there too.
Wanderer has made $15,686 of its $70,000 goal so far with 26 days still to go.
This game’s a puzzler that might seem familiar at first, but this game has a neat little twist to turn it around. Literally.
Quatros is like a graphically updated Tetris. Except whenever a piece is placed the ‘board’ will rotate 90s degrees, changing the stacks and lines to keep you on your toes and alert. Each turn could mess up or make easier your task as you keep stacking blocks to form the lines to make them vanish and score your points. It’s simple but if you’re a fan of simple puzzle games, this one might be for you.
Quatros Origins has a target of €15,000 of which it has made only €515 so far with 26 more days to go.
Finishing our round-up today is a game with graphics that consist of school-book scribbles, which is a unique draw to say the least.
Scribbled Arena is a twin-stick shooter where everything looks like the pen doodles that you used to draw on or in your school books during class. It has both a singleplayer and a multiplayer mode, with customisation of armours and weaponry available. It’s already been successful on Android and is now halfway through development for the PC version and the Kickstarter page has a planned schedule of objectives and when they aim to be working on them which inspires a little confidence in backers if they want to know when they can expect to see certain things.
Scribbled Arena has made $1,178 of the $25,000 goal and has 27 days to go.
A post that isn’t a review? Yep, time for a good old fashioned opinion piece, allow me to go all White Goodman on you fine readers and hit you with some knowledge.
OK that sounded stupid. (just a little 😛 ~Lone)
A thought struck me recently: Why do we get so up in arms about sequels? In fact not just sequels; remakes, reboots and franchising in general.
Immediate Answer: Well we as fans of entertainment, don’t like to think of our favourite films/characters/heroes/intellectual properties being used solely for profit. We want new and original content and not just the same things rehashed and reused every so often.
OK, that’s fair enough. New ideas should be sought after and praised, of course they should. Humanity probably wouldn’t have gotten very far if we didn’t take advantage of new and exciting ideas (Christ knows where we’d be if the wheel hadn’t caught on), and don’t get me wrong, I am all for new ideas in films and entertainment but if I like that new idea why is it so bad that I want more? I’m always the first to ask for seconds and thirds at the dinner table when pasta is being served.
This train of thought really struck me when I saw a news article about Disney and how they’re going to extend the life of the Frozen Brand (Yes I know it’s a giant film and you probably can’t escape it, yes I know Let It Go is everyone’s favourite song right now, yes I can understand how so many people find the film overrated, just hear me out). The comments on the link to the article were what you’d expect,
“They’re just trying to make as much money as possible”
“Why can’t they come up with anything original?”
“Frozen was overrated anyway”
“Hey everyone, lets all just Let It Go”
Yet all I could find myself thinking was, “You’re all surprised? This is Disney we’re talking about”
This is the company that bought Marvel because they were raking in so much dough with all of their really, really good adaptations of their superheroes and we’re all surprised that they want to make more money of their most successful animated film ever? But I’m not here to talk about Frozen, not when I already did for my dissertation, (it made me enjoy the film even more).
Look I believe you can make a good film out of anything, if that means I get to return to Arendelle or fight some more Xenos then sweet, bring it on says I. BUT, having said that, I can completely understand why sequels/remakes etc etc are frowned upon. We all know why, say it with me everyone, “They’re never as good as the original”
Now that phrase is as subjective as it gets, how could it not be? But as for sequels never being as good as the originals? What about Aliens, Terminator 2: Judgement Day, Toy Story 2, Toy Story 3, Die Hard with A Vengeance, Hot Shots Part Deux, Blade 2, Empire Strikes Back, Shrek 2, Desperado, Hellboy 2: The Golden Army, Revenge of the Sith (Don’t give me that look), Spider-man 2, Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade, Star Trek II: Wrath of Kahn, Superman II, Back to the Future Part II, Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior or X-Men 2. We can probably agree that each of those are superior to their predecessors or at least on par with them.
But of course those are only a few, and a debatable few at that. But still proof that it can be done, it just majorly sucks that not many people took notice of how a good sequel is made, and more of how much money they brought in. Foul play indeed I think we can all agree. But saying that, we still shouldn’t be surprised (trust me I’m especially not trying to put myself on a pedestal here, I am as guilty of bitching about sequels and money grubbing studios as the next person), last time I checked the whole point of Hollywood was to make money wasn’t it? That’s why Film Studios have marketing divisions and accountants isn’t it?
In fact going back to Disney, people are annoyed that they’re going to be franchising Frozen right? Well why are we angry at that and not the Marvel Franchise? That’s one of the biggest franchises out there at the moment yet when Captain America 3 or Guardians of the Galaxy 2 gets announces nobody says a thing. Well that’s because the Marvel Franchise is praised as unanimously good of course. But so is Frozen, at the very least people thought it was good when they saw it, that’s half the reason it was so well received (aside from all the money it made of course).
In fact if you are so sick of a certain franchise, why not just stop giving it your attention? Turn the radio station over next time you hear Let It Go or turn it off altogether, this is sadly more difficult for parents since their kids are the target audience, sorry parents everywhere.
So when a large studio decides to make money off something popular we collectively smack our foreheads and bemoan it. Yet when they’re in the midst of franchising the shit out of something else that’s very popular…we all clam up? I guess I’m just yelling at a larger beast here, after all I’m just one person with a keyboard, hardly going to make a difference right?
I wish we would stop committing the above offence. Sequels and franchising are not inherently bad, it’s their execution that can be viewed as bad. But hey, this is all amazingly subjective and I’m sure a lot of people disagree with me on this. Do you disagree? If so I’d love to hear how. (Politely, mind you this isn’t YouTube.)
The best summation I can give is this, if you don’t like the look of something, be it a sequel, remake or whatever, just don’t give it your time of day, you’ve undoubtedly got better things to be doing.
What do you think? Let us know in the comments below.
Director: Ralph Hemecker
Starring: Grant Gustin, Candice Patton, Danielle Panabaker, Carlos Valdes, Tom Cavanagh, Jesse L. Martin, Rick Cosnett, Robbie Amell, Victor Garber
Major Spoilers Ahead
The Flash: Season 2, Episode 1 – “The Man Who Saved Central City”
It’s back. Finally. You know that phrase “waiting with bated breath”? Well I have been waiting with bated EVERYTHING!! I love this show, I really do. Ever since minute one I’ve found it to be so much more enjoyable then Arrow, which of course deserves major kudos for starting this DCTU (That’s the DC Televised Universe, trademarked I’ll have you know, maybe). But Season 2 has finally started and Episode 1 is off to a…well not stellar start exactly but about the same level that Season 1 started off with.
So after the Cliffhanger ending of Season 1 where Central City was being ripped apart by a black hole, we learn that Barry Allen aka The Flash has, for the last few months, been defending Central City all on his lonesome for fear of his friends getting hurt. The reason you ask? It turns out that Firestorm (a superhero formed from the merged personas and bodies of supporting characters Ronnie Raymond and Professor Martin Stein, don’t ask because science) flew up into the vortex and separated their bodies in order for the resulting bullshit techobabble to destabilise the wormhole and close it permanently. Thus Barry, who has been receiving a huge amount of media attention due to the endeavour has secluded himself from his friends and family because this is what every superhero does when their close friends step on anything bigger then a drawing pin.
Let’s all be honest here, does anyone actually enjoy this trope in superhero fiction anymore? Did we ever? To my knowledge Spiderman tries to pull this shit on a regular basis and look where that’s got him, retcons up the wazoo, tons of dead family and friends and an instance where he made a deal with Satan. Yes that actually happened! Now the Blue Beetle, there was someone who could protect his loved ones. Speaking of which when are we getting Ted Kord in the DCTU?….ANSWER ME DAMMIT!!!
But back on the topic, Barry throughout pretty much all of this episode is being your a-typical grump who keeps rejecting his friends offer for help even though its left him completely alone in Star Labs and most likely unable to operate any of its equipment which has usually been instrumental in defeating….every bad guy if I remember correctly. Even when it hasn’t been some do-hickey of the day it was probably some science babble given to him via radio from Cisco or Caitlyn, at the end of the day what we’re left with is that Barry clearly needs his teams support. The problem is that in order to convey that sentiment, the script states it through the filter of the aforementioned really tired superhero trope of “I must protect my loved ones by not letting them help me”. If they really wanted to put a new spin on this trope, throughout the episode we should have seen Barry gradually make the decision by himself to go solo and then right before the finale his friends grab him by the shoulders and convince him to go the other way, it would have been a very gradual progression that felt natural…and then would have subverted the trope entirely by having Barry see things from their point of view.
Having said that however, the rest of this episode is SOLID. The best kind of enjoyable in my opinion. You can really tell the effort that went into it from an acting standpoint. Despite the tired old trope that was utilised all throughout the episode (other tired tropes include starting with a dream sequence that includes everyone whose “died”, because lets face they ARE coming back) everyone was on top form for the start of Season 2. ESPECIALLY John Wesley Shipp, Jesse L. Martin and Danielle Panabaker. We also get some great cameos from Rick Cosnett, Tom Cavanagh and Robbie Amell, tons of great chemistry between Carlos Valdes and Victor Garber, who is fast becoming one of my favourite characters and to everyone’s surprise I’m sure, a really great turn by Adam Copeland as Atom Smasher who brings a tremendous physical talent to the role as well as being intimidating and able to make the word “Zoom” sound really foreboding. I really hope we see him in other things or just straight bring him back as Atom Smasher, he’d be a great recurring villain.
We also get some lovely starting points for the Season Requisite story threads that will develop over the coming few episodes. Zoom is name dropped, a very prominent Flash villain in the comics, we also see that the Particle Accelerator may not be the sole reason for all the meta-human activity, Atom Smasher reveals that it was Zoom who turned him into a meta-human. How you ask? Well you’ll have to keep watching won’t you. BUT the best reveal comes in the form of JAY FUCKING GARRICK!!! The Flash of Earth 2 made his debut in this episode and as cool as that is…it was actually really underwhelming. Ok that’s actually mean, I’m really freaking happy that this show is introducing the alternate universe angle this Season because that’s always been one of the most enjoyable facets of Superhero Fiction, what rustled my jimmies about his introduction was that it’s just him walking onto the scene and stating who he is. I was really hoping he would have blitzed onto the show in a spinning cylinder of lightning and speed, in fact the show really looked like it was going that way.
The final scene is after Atom Smasher gets defeated and the band is back together all congratulating Barry on getting over himself and welcoming his friends back into the fold, as well as getting his Dad out of prison. But the point is that Cisco and Caitlin start stating that Star Labs now includes upgraded security systems that should keep anyone out who shouldn’t be there, that’s when the lights should have started flickering and we hear this really ominous noise, a noise that almost sounds like Barry when he’s running, that’s when a swirling pillar of lightning appears in the room that seems to be draining Star labs of its power, we all stare in confusion until BOOM a man clad in red leather, a tin hat with wings and boots is standing there, he looks up at the cast and announces,
“My name is Jay Garrick and your world is in danger”
God…DAMN that would’ve been awesome. But alas we can’t have everything, if that were possible I’d be living on the moon in a bunker made of solid platinum being served an endless supply of milkshake by my staff of monkey butlers. Was there a point to that? Maybe, I don’t know, it’s very late. But the point I’m making is that even though it wasn’t as great an entrance as I wanted, it’s still great to have Jay introduced here. I seriously can’t wait for more Speedsters to start being introduced (Bring on Jesse Quick!) I’d also be stupid to not mention that we get two genuinely touching scenes in this episode, both towards the end that left me with a very big smile on my face, I won’t spoil those ones for you though, but trust me when I say that both are very well written and bring a good balance of light-hardheartedness and relief to that particular plot thread.
So in summation, whilst this episode gets dragged down by a tired and very overly played out trope, what really holds it together is the performance by the cast, a great villain to start off with and some killer reveals for the series to move forward to.
A few months back, Unknown Artifacts began popping up in various systems throughout the galaxy of Elite:Dangerous. Some transmitted in morse code, others just seemed to sit there. The collective player base scratched their heads and set out to find out what, exactly, these artifacts were all about. The forum thread detailing commander’s efforts to decipher these artifacts is long, impressive and worth a read if you have some spare time.
To make a long story short however, it was revealed that while some were in fact morse code scans of nearby objects others retained there secrets. Until recently when a player by the name of Mike Juliett Kilo fed a pre-recorded unknown artefact signal into a scanner in his cargo and got back the following image:
To those not in the know, this is a wireframe depiction of the Vulture spacecraft, the ship which Kilo happened to be flying at the time. As he said to the official Elite Community site at the time: “I was prepared to see an alien face or Thargoid warship. I certainly didn’t expect to see a Vulture, especially as I was flying one at the time! It sent shivers down my spine.”
Thargoids are the alien race that has featured in some previous Elite games, notable for being insectoid and thouroughly in love with blowing things up.
Frontier, of course has remained coy on the entire matter, stating that the artifacts are only the beginning. Of what, we don’t know.
