Sometimes, I'm reminded just how shit life can be. This week was a hell of a week for that. I don't understand people sometimes. Don't have much to say, emotionally drained from personal matters on top of some of this internet drama and some realizations. But I will leave with this link to a lovely roundtable discussion, between Chloe and Allistair. I wish them both the best.

*- Damn right you should watch Saturday Morning Hangover. Damn effin right.
*- Nihil is back, back again. Nihil is back, tell some men. Tell some men, tell some men.

A- A fantastic write up on life changes and Mass Effect 3. Which I just started playing again for the third... maybe fourth time? Then 7th run of ME2. Thank you Amazon.




I- Say hello to Vexingaura. She seems pretty darn cool and has some good points to make.
C- Bob summerwill wins a shitty award.
C- MrPlow8 has another blog on sexism for us.
E- That ignoring, hateful blue bastard is hosting another Rearend Warriors. Classy Smurf.
S- TriplZer0 shares a -wait for it...... wait for it.....
C- Coffeewithgames ponders NSMB Wii U's online status.

R- TheKodu reviews The Blitz.
T- Cody has a reason why RE6 didn't suck TOTAL ass. I still maintain, that's a decent horror/action/b-movie style game for $20. Just not a good RE. Mercs is awesome though.
R- DarthSnider has a re-review of Dust 514 for dat azz.










These caps have been brought to you, by the letter 'K'.

K


-PhilK

FPotD

Way back in January, when everyone was doing their Top Games of 2012 lists, Grethiwha chose Way of the Samurai 4 as his favorite game of the year, which intrigued me as I hadn't really heard much about the series until then. Well, it took me a while, but I'm finally getting into the series. I decided to start with Way of the Samurai 3, since it was cheaper, and then possibly get 4 depending on how much I liked 3. So far, I'm really enjoying 3 a lot! It seems to be slightly less wacky than the way Grethiwha described 4, but it's still a pretty silly game. If you look past the silliness, it's still a fairly solid samurai game. But the humor is where the game shines. 



The very first thing I did in the game was pick up a green onion off the ground, which turned out to be a weapon you could use. So obviously I equipped that deadly veggie immediately, and then proceeded to beat a thug to death with it. And with that, within a few minutes of playing the game, I was already in love with it. 

I continued into the village, where I helped a housewife chop vegetables with my vegetable, retrieved an old lady's lost underwear, and spoke to a beestung man who wished he'd been stung on his junk, so that maybe it would look bigger for the ladies. 

Silliness aside, the gameplay is kind of strange but actually pretty unique. If you die in the game, you'll have to start over from the beginning of the story again, but any items, points or unlockable content you obtained in that playthrough will carry over into the next one. Permadeath gives the game sort of an arcade-y feel, but since the game can be beaten in only a few hours, and most progress you make carries over, it doesn't really feel unfair. It might become tedious for some people to have to replay parts of the story over and over again if they die, but you can keep things interesting by choosing different actions, dialogue options or story paths each playthrough. It might take a while to get used to, but it can be very rewarding when you finally get it. 



So now I'm really looking forward to finding out what Way of the Samurai 4 holds. But in the meantime, I've still got plenty of thugs to kill with my trusty sideonion, while running around in my underwear, with a falcon on my shoulder.

* - So much truth in this blog regarding the Sagal/Pinsof fiasco. Thanks, GlowBear!

A - TitusGroan shares their love for Nintendo, and hopes you will too!

A - ClashOfPenguins finds EA's decision to forgo online passes suspicious.

P - This is the first I've heard of the Go For Rainbow podcast, but apparently it's their 7th episode.

E - TroyFullbuster's entry for the Next Top Streamer contest. That's not at all what I imagined Troy would look like.

E - PlayBoyMan's entry for the Next Top Streamer contest.

E - And with the final paragraph, this blog about God of War suddenly turned into a Next Top Streamer entry, I think? Or: How I learned to fuck off with this Dr. Strangelove shit already.

E - ScottyG's entry for the Next Top Streamer contest. Do it for the black Yoshi!

E - Morty's entry (?) for the Next Top Streamer contest. He wants to win because cats!

E - Redfish00's entry for the Next Top Streamer contest.

F - Friday Night Fights on the PS3 + Daft Punk!

F - Friday Night Fights on Nintendo + Nintendo Direct!

F - Friday Night Fights on the 360 + Yakko!

R - willza reviews Game Dev Tycoon, a game about making games and getting reviews. How meta.

T - Shuuda gives us an overview of Inquisitor.

$ - May 17th UK releases and bargains!





L - The results of acidtechnologic's drunken Nintendo Direct predictions/hopes.

C - scizzle64 is reviewing Mega Drive games, this time it's Batman Forever. I've never been a fan of straight reviews of very old games, there's so much more you could do with a series on Mega Drive games.

C - I'm very confused about what the point of this blog actually was. Maybe the point was that Jimmi likes looking at girls? Cool, dude. Rock on.

C - I'd have to agree with Alphadeus here, this list sort of felt like a cop out.

F - CaimDark refers us to a Gamasutra article... while it might be an enlightening article, I'd rather hear your thoughts on the topic, CaimDark.



- bbain

FPotD

So, last time on Young Just- Oh, wait. I promised video games, didn’t I?
Well then video games ye shall have!

First things first, though: as you saw yesterday in Strider’s caps, we’re looking for a new recapper to take on Sundays. I don’t want to alarm any of you, but if we don’t find one I have it on good authority that Phil will sadface. And not just a regular old sadface, but Phil will be all like:  
 


And nobody wants that.
So if you think Phil doesn’t deserve to sadface and/or magically transform into a pony, get off your lazy butt and cap Sundays! Just send a PM to any of us or the Recaps account. As the freshest Recapper of the bunch (so fresh you guys) I can tell you that it’s a lot of fun to do. My experience is that a good portion of every day consists of good blogs, with some okay-ish ones making up the rest, and one or two shitty ones for you to throw on the Fail pile. And as an added bonus to reading mostly good stuff, in your own exclusive –isms or –gasms you get to talk about whatever the hell you’ve been spending time on during your week.

Like Young Justice! Which, incidentally, I’ve been watching this week and got up to the second season in which Robin is now Nightwi-NO! BAD SHADE. VIDEO GAMES!

You wouldn’t know it, but I actually played video games over the past week(s). Genuine, honest to god video games. ‘magine that. For one, I finished Papo & Yo and Anodyne, both of which are really great. I’ve got a lot to say about Anodyne in particular, but I’m probably going to save that for a blog of its own. I bought and started Of Orcs and Men, which is another awesome little game, as bbain will attest to.
What I want to talk about now, however, is Primordia.

Primordia is one of the best point-and-click adventure games I’ve ever played. No hyperbole. The fact that this game had to go through Steam Greenlight is also literally the reason I lost faith in the Greenlight system. Sure it set an amazing record for getting greenlit, but it should never have been on there in the first place, especially since it came from a well-established dev. Still bitter about that.



It’s the latest game by Wadjet Eye, who previously did Resonance and Gemini Rue, both of which I’ve yet to play unfortunately.

This game takes place in an apocalyptic future, where the only thing left on earth are robots, most of which don’t even remember what “humans” are anymore. The ones that DO remember worship them as the deity called “Man”. The protagonist is one of those latter robots. He lives in the wastes with his witty sidekick friend Crispin, until the power core that’s providing them with energy gets stolen by some big laser-shooting ‘bot, who takes it to the robot-city Metropol. Cue Horatio and Crispin going into pursuit, and finding more than they bargained for.

What follows is a story that borrows a thing or two from 1984, but which places it in a universe that is very well fleshed out and absolutely brimming with atmosphere. In particular, I felt that all of the different robots you meet throughout the game are really well done. Every single one of them has a very unique personality intertwined with them, well…being a robot. There are robot-Britons, robot “sir, yes, sir!” soldiers, robot prophets, and even robot lawyers.
 


All of them, from the first to the last, absolutely nail their role. I mentioned this before, but while “robot prophet” may sound ridiculous, the dude completely sells it. And as for the main character? Horatio’s voice was provide by the Bastion narrator. Yeah. You get to hear that dude in a starring role. It’s bloody awesome.

Because of all of these peculiar robots, there’s a fair share of humor in the game as well. Crispin in particular has some great lines. I heard some people criticizing this aspect because they felt it clashed with the more suppressive and dark story, but personally I felt that the game manages to keep the right balance pretty well. It knows when to be dark and when to be humorous; I for one never found something that bothered me. Instead, I think it did both aspects pretty well indeed.

I haven’t yet seen all of Primordia’s endings yet (from what I hear there are 10) but I’ve at least gotten one I can be satisfied with. Most importantly, the ending I got featured the full backstory on the game’s protagonist: there’s really interesting stuff in there. It probably wasn’t the absolute 100% “good ending”, but that doesn’t matter to me. It was more of a middle-of-the-road type of deal where some things get solved while some don’t, and it reminded me of Bastion’s ending a little bit. I actually like these kinds of endings a lot better than the standard “everything is all sunshine and flowers now” ending. Primordia definitely leaves the door open for some grey areas, which only serve to make it more compelling if you ask me.

So yeah, if you like point-and-click, sci-fi, the Bastion narrator, or simply well-written games, check out Primordia. Do it.

* - This is a really interesting view on games journalism and the people who do it. Sure, everyone wants to get a job writing for Dtoid, but why should we want that in the first place? ccesarano gives an interesting view on the whole state of affairs.

* - I think the whole mess with Chloe Sagal hit Hairy Downstairs Kitchen pretty hard. Can't blame him. He's trying to deal with it the only way he knows how: by playing some games and giving some away. 

* - Always awesome taterchimp has a great blog about the things he loves about video games: specifically Halo.

A - Lewisgn understands Nintendo's new policy on Let's Play videos. If anything, I'm just happy Nintendo's not taking them down.

A - Are we 'gamers' here at Dtoid? Of course we are! CaimDark explains why identifying as a gamer isn't a bad thing. 

P - In today's Zero Cool Podcast, robots are taking over. Seems like Zombie Orwell is about to get some competition for enslaving the human race!

A - Should we really be talking about sex and gender in video games in the first place? Asterion thinks no.

E - I THINK this is an entry for the Next Top Streamer contest. It isn't very clear.

I - Not much of an introduction here. Maybe you guys can convince him to share more of himself?

S - We have a recordholder in our midst! Paul S has the largest collection of fighting games, but is really just looking for somebody else to claim the title.

F - PC FNF and Anamanaguchi. Listening to Endless Fantasy as I write this! It's good!

D - There's been some troubles over the Eternal Darkness sequel between Dyack and one of the Two Best Friends.

V - Some guys talk about technology and possibly the most voyeuristic game ever made: Night Trap.

V - A video on Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow.

R - TheKodu does a request review for Planetary Shield....the game isn't very good. In fact, it's very bad.

M - Music Worth Howling About: One of Anamanaguchi's songs in Scott Pilgrim vs. The World. It's a good song, so listen up!

C - This blog could use some fleshing out, but I like his analogy of microtransactions in games as being a regular in a strip club.

L - Here's what you get when you write down your hopes for the next Nintendo Direct...while drunk!

C - What's with this sudden problem of people posting text in ridiculously tiny font? Either way, once you copied it to Word and enlarged it, you'll find that Kalysren talks about Bioshock Infinite's difficulty spikes.

? - Not sure if spam, or...

F - Try again, but without the completely unwarranted anger next time. Read Lewisgn's blog for inspiration if you want.



                                  

- ShadeOfLight
May you always find water and shade

FPotD

Ok Strider. Three things to check off tonight: Weekend recaps, Injustice update, anime update.

Oh, and Animal Crossinggodmotherfuckingdammit.

So first off, ever since I first joined the Recaps team, I always found it strange that everyone recaps one day except the weekends guy. Is it because the Weekend guy has more disposable time? Because he really likes weekends? Because they're a glutton for punishment to recap two days worth of good and shitty blogs?

Well, I guess I should've vocalized my thoughts earlier because we're thinking of splitting the weekend recaps into Saturday and Sunday recaps because Phil is losing sleep over his damn deal.

So PM anyone on the Recaps team or the Recaps account itself to express interest in taking one of the weekend days off of Phil. He's specifically said he doesn't want to let go of his usual recapping position because he's so close to tenure. But two days for arbitrary reasons is a bit weird and we're fixing that. Because Animal Crossing.


Injustice update: I'm playing Green Arrow now. I played him all wrong on launch day. His keepaway is shitty because he needs time to load trick arrows to make his keepaway decent and even then, the need to load trick arrows lets other zoners outpace him. He's all about rushdown and pressure, though unfortunately he needs time to load trick arrows to become decent. The good news however is that his freeze arrow, the crux of all his good combos, is completely free. Sure Green Lantern and Superman only need one bar for combo extensions but one bar means a lot when you need to save for pushblock, clash, and armored moves too. Green Arrow on the other hand can load freeze arrows for free or even end strings with a reload. He also has a combo with a low/high/low built into it, which makes him way more interesting for my Can he block it? series. Speaking of Can he block it?



I'm tempted to post a new Weeaboo Corner blog but I want to briefly touch on what I've been watching on Crunchyroll. Because Animal Crossing.

Attack on Titan
Every dedicated anime fans' most anticipated anime for the season due to its critically acclaimed manga. Nearly every human on Earth lives in literally the last bastion of humanity, a massive walled fort that probably encompasses the space of Texas within its three walls. All to protect them from mysterious giants whose only purpose seems to be to eat and kill humans. As good as the action is going to be with humans equipped with fancy grapple machines to slice at the titan's weak spots (the nape of the neck), there's a ton of mystery involved as the humans in the show know about as much about the titans as the audience does, and the plot only thickens from there. The design of the titans are also consistently... unsettling.



The Hentai Prince and the Stony Cat
We love immature jokes here on Destructoid. Perhaps some of us are all about stupid jokes. Perhaps those people aren't their true selfs when they get up and go to work. They need a facade to function normally in society. But in this show, what if you lost your facade or whatever other emotional mask you need? The protagonist is a horn dog really, but feels sad that he can't be his true self in public. But the cat statue at the edge of town promises to take what you don't want and give it to someone else. Now the protagonist can't help but remark at girls' bras in the rain out loud.

While it might sound like any other ecchi comedy, I really must stress that this show respects its character more than you expect and you get a lot of great development in the characters. Honestly, I started watching this series on a whim and didn't expect much when I saw your usual pervert shenanigans but by the end of the episode, I was hooked on seeing how Yokodera, Tsukiko, and Asuza turn out in the long run.

Valvrave the Liberator
I thought it was going to be Gundam. It was Gundam with high school drama. Then three episodes after its hook of a pilot and it just became high school drama that happened to be in space with a Gundam. Not cool man.

Seriously, the titular robot was teased to have a mysterious curse. Something powerful enough to not only imbue the hero with the skills needed to pilot a powerful robot, but also bring him back from the dead to continue.

Instead, I get what is essentially Japanese Van Wilder. In space.




* - DMC's Limbo clearly doesn't get the praise it deserves for it's design and art, especially when juxtaposed against the philosophies at work at open-world games

* - C Turts returns with the buy it- the Play It/Avoid It Report

A - Tia feels the burn from Sony's ignorant gender views

A - AceOfSkulls really wants us to wake up and smell the DLC

P - Taco Tuesday is here to say bad stuff and not get arrested about it

A - Well SuperCrow still believes in BioWare and certainly nothing dampens my love of Tali, Garrus, or any Krogan ever

P - I want Animal Crossing the podcast: the New Adventures of Fapcast 14

C - YoungCovii wants the Elgato. Next up, the swimsuit competition

C - Hoss Delgado does not repeat himself. Which is why these recaps are here to recapsulate what he says for the contest

C - I am going to put this volatile discussion here. Not in topsauce and not in failtoid. There is a discussion blazing in it right now that deserves to be contemplated. But I do not support the idea of a man losing his livelihood over one mistake outside his profession when it's already happened to Adam Orth from Microsoft

T - Check out Data Dealer courtesy of Roberto Plankton. It sounds cool!

R - AndyLonn reviews Heavenly Sword after much introspection

R - Darkerman doesn't review Bioshock Infinite so much as he rags on it endlessly

R - Kenny C reviews Blade Wolf, the DLC with the coolest name ever

L - LEARN ABOUT  EGYPT MOTHERFUCKERS

V - It's certainly a thing that looks like it wants to talk about Under the Ocean






~ StriderHoang

FPotD

Rolling right off of last weeks Wrenchism, lets talk about another comic book icon clad in a stompy robot suit – Iron Man.

I Finally got out to see Iron Man 3 last night and I'm taking some time to digest it. For a Marvel action flick it was a very strange movie in some ways. I think I got a little head-faked by some of the pre-release chatter. When I heard the movie only had Tony in the suit for about 20-25 minutes, that he was coping with PTSD from the events in New York during The Avengers, the idea of the Mandarin being re-cast as a sort of Bin Laden/Bane character contrasting against the re-branding of the War Machine as Iron Patriot, I thought Iron Man 3 might be a slightly more cerebral or introspective Iron Man flick.

Suffice to say, it isn't. In fact, "a more cerebral Iron Man" sounds pretty dumb now that I think about it.

Not that it's a bad thing. I'm all for watching Robert Downy Jr fire off smarmy dialogue and blow stuff up with repulsor blasts. Just felt like they missed a few tricks. Not bad or anything, it just seemed like maybe they set some stuff up in earlier drafts that they got cold-feet on and back off of.

Have to give some credit to director/co-writer Shane Black for pulling off some stuff that sounds terrible in isolation. "Wait, your going to give Tony a kid-sidekick?" Yes, and it's actually going to be fairly charming. Black wrote the fantastic script for Kiss, Kiss, Bang, Bang another RJD classic, so it shouldn't come as a surprise that he can write some loveable characters with great back and forth repartee.

But then there are some other things. The climatic fight scene and some late-developments with Pepper Potts characters both stood out as "yeeesh" moments for me. I don't want to spoil anything so soon after release, but I'll be interested to see if some of the late-events in the film are ever referenced again in the next Avengers or Iron Man film, or left to drift into obscurity – just like so many abandoned comic book plot threads.



We are officially a week away from the big Xbox unveiling event. I imagine my next Wrench-ism is going to be MEATY. I can't wait to finally see what Microsoft has up their sleeve to take on the PS4. They've had plenty of time to adjust to Sony's hand, lets hope the next console generation is a real horserace to the coolest and least expensive system possible.

* - Get. Your. Pitchforks. This MONSTER hasn't played some of the same games you have, clearly the heretic must be purged.

* - It's amazing how the simple top-down view and fisherprice-esq characters of FTL can pull you into that world. Great blog, just needs some pictures to break up the text a bit.

P - Some sweet Communitoid action this week. Snatcher-themed werewolf game? I'm in.

A - Hurmp, OpiumHerz's latest instalment in the censorship series looks at a bizarre example. I would never think friendly fire in a multiplayer game would be such a hot-button issue with a ratings board.

A - Gather round and read the tale of SigfriedLion's brave Arisen and his adventures through Dragon's Dogma.

E - Joseph Ohagan wants that capture card!

E - Genki is Mr.Video, makes a strong case for winning the contest!

I - A lovely introductory post by MrRumblebee70. Nicely done!

R - You get what you pay for sometimes, and nothing proves the adage more than these "free" android games TheKodu reviewed.

R - A video review of Metro: Last Light by new blogger MrRumblebee70. Looks great, but I couldn't watch it for fear of spoilers!

R - SirAlex thought the Knife of Dunwall was pretty dull (doh hoho)


V - I've played a hell of a lot of weird obscure NES games and even I didn't recognize some of these crazy titles. Unlike a lot of "you never played these games" lists, some of these actually look like a lot of fun!

F - Viral advertising for bespoke arcade machines disguised as a blog. Not horrible offensive, but still spam. At least it isn't machine scripted. The sad part is if he just wrote up an article on the machines I'd probably sauce it, they look fucking cool. I'd love a cocktail style arcade machine to use as a coffee table.

F - Well, if this is the first and last one I better not miss the chance to fail it.



-Wrenchfarm
FPotD

Did you guys know Animal Crossing New Leaf is coming out real soon? Like, real soon. But there are plenty of other things Strider can talk about. Like Animal Crossing. I'm sorry, maybe design influences? Krieg the Psycho Bandit? More Injustice?

Yeah, I want to talk about Animal Crossing.



This is a description of Strider's solocast on episode 14 and not about his excitement for Animal Crossing New Leaf. There was a glut of good blogs and news plus even a few questions!

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News in this episode!

Xbox Infinity is a thing

Gamestop gives you a game for $10 when you trade two good games

Kotaku’s cute little editorial on dicks and butts is fascinating

Spies Vs. Mercs has been announced for Blacklist

Krieg the Psycho Bandit is coming to Borderlands 2

Cblogs in this episode!

Preaching to the choir about $60 game purchases

Neshoba’s autobiographical game is MGS

Voltech and the harmony of Eastern and Western game design

OpiumHerz hates your hate

taterchimp did a fantastic idea on dividing between gameplay and story

Where are all the good racing games?

Alder B. Dash is new and therefore, awesome

Shades incredible digital right’s property case

5 characters you should watch out for on Injustice

Aaron/Myx - Favorite mythological creature?

ZombieOrwell - #1: How many zombies would be needed to defeat Oaxaca? #2: Personal theme song?