Of course, running for public office is very tough today, because people have kind of noticed that the economy has not improved one bit since Change Fest ‘08. Apparently, the government’s plan of spending trillions of dollars they don’t actually have is not the best way to become financially stable. Who knew?

Needless to say, the Democratic and Republican parties have been disbanded due to gross incompetence. This election day, the competition will not be between Democrats and Republicans. Instead, it will be between Team Edward and Team Jacob.

GameCola has been asked to choose which Twilight team they prefer. It was a hard decision for us to make, because Team “Bella Learns to Stop Being So Overly Dependent Upon the Men in Her Life” was not one of the available options. However, after a lot of thought, we have come up with a list of pros and cons for each candidate.

Pros for Team Jacob:

• Jacob is a teenage werewolf.

Cons for Team Jacob:

• Jacob is a character in the Twilight series.

Pros for Team Edward:

• “Edward” sounds kind of like “Edgeworth,” the star of Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth. See, this article is totally related to videogames.
• Plus, Edgeworth kind of looks like a vampire.

Cons for Team Edward:

• Edward is a character in the Twilight series.

As you can clearly see, the cons outweigh the pros no matter which option you pick. Therefore, GameCola has decided to go with…drum roll please…Team GameCola! Because GameCola is clearly a better option than Twilight.

You can check the whole thing out here at the original post, or here on iTunes. Enjoy!

(Note: If you previously downloaded the podcast on iTunes, you’ll have to delete that file and download it again to get the full version.)

I just can’t help but think that there should have been more emphasis put on the fact that Mario and Peach are now a couple.  After all, this is sort of a BIG DEAL.  The world’s best-known videogame character has been given an official girlfriend?  That news should rock the videogame world, or at least make some sort of impact somewhere.

But…Super Mario Galaxy 2 just sort of ignores this information.  Instead of being a major plot point, it just puts forth “Mario and Peach are a couple” as part of the backstory, like it’s no big deal, like it’s something everybody already knows.  Compare this to 2007’s Super Paper Mario, which had a “Peach marries Bowser” plotline.  That game had about three pages of material on Peach’s romantic life; Super Mario Galaxy 2, in which she actually has a boyfriend, gives us three sentences at most, all of which comes from Lubba (the purple guy in the picture) because Mario can’t talk.

So I guess my question is, “Am I wrong?  Is this not a big deal?  Does the game not have to go into any detail about the fact that Mario and Peach or dating?  Or am I totally reading things into this game, and Mario and Peach are just friends, like they’ve always been?”

Recently, Telltale Games—developers of Sam & Max, Tales of Monkey Island, Strong Bad, Wallace & Gromit, and every other non-German adventure game made in the past three years—posted a survey on their site asking for fan input on what their forthcoming Back to the Future game should be like. They asked questions like “What characters should be in it?”, “What themes should it explore?”, “Should the Delorean be in it?”, and “How cool would it be if we did a crossover with Time Bandits?”

They also—welcome to the interesting part—offered a few potential storylines for the game, and asked for people’s input on them. Now, it’s possible that they won’t end up using any of these storylines in the final game, but it’s also possible that they will use one or more of them. Since I, personally, am literally dying to know what this game’s going to be about, I figured I’d take the opportunity to round up GameCola’s biggest Back to the Future fans and discuss these possible plots. The scenarios below are quoted directly from Telltale’s survey. Enjoy!

Scenario #1:

May 12th, 1986. After stopping Biff Jr. from getting in a fight with his time-displaced son, Marty leaves the dance floor and sneaks into Strickland’s office, looking for the keys to the detention hall. He doesn’t know how three teenagers from 2010 got their hands on a time-travelling Delorean, but the most important thing now is getting them locked up in one place before they mess up everyone’s future—assuming they haven’t already!

Concept art by Eric Regan.

Michael Gray (author of “Fabricated News,” “Oh, the Humanity!“, “The Ten Reasons,” and more):
The first bit of this premise could work for me. The game starts off with Marty and Jennifer at the the Enchantment Under the Sea dance, only the dance is interrupted by Marty Junior, Biff Junior, and a third teenager from 2010, who I can only presume is Carl’s Junior. Looks like Marty and Jennifer have beeen thrown into another adventure! Woo hoo!

The rest of the storyline makes no sense. Why is Marty’s first instinct to put the time travellers in detenion? And why would he unnecessarily complicate things by breaking into the principal’s office? Seriously, I’m going to have to trust there’s a good reason for this, and that they’re not just making up a random reason to duplicate the “Marty breaks into Strickland’s Office” scene from the second movie.

Elizabeth Medina-Gray (author of “testgame.exe: Making the Adventure“):
This concept seems like it might have some potential, assuming I understand this slightly confusing description… The way I interpret this, by “Biff Jr.” they mean Griff, who would be the same age as Marty’s son (we’ve never met any “Biff Jr.”, and I think we would know by now if Biff had a son Marty’s age). So that means the three teenagers would be Marty’s son, Griff, and an unnamed third character, all of whom have somehow traveled back in time from 2010 (when Marty’s son would be, what, 12 or 13 years old?).

This sounds like a pretty straightforward scenario, with the player controlling good ol’ familiar Marty a few months after the third movie ends. I’m intrigued, actually, by that third unnamed teenager, and my interest level in this potential game would increase significantly if this turned out to be a female character, and not Marty’s daughter (I’m not really interested in her). One minor concern might be that this concept doesn’t mention anything about Doc, but one imagines that with a flying Delorean on hand, these characters shouldn’t have any trouble meeting up with him soon enough. Also, I’m not particularly interested in hanging out with Marty’s son (who, if I remember correctly, is kind of boring). So my overall verdict on this concept is “eh” with the possibility of “OK, I’ll play it,” pending additional information.

Paul Franzen (Editor-in-Chief and author of “Minus the Pudding“):
Before I get started, I’d like to say that this survey makes me a little nervous by virtue of its existence. The game’s supposed to come out this winter, and…they haven’t even started working on it yet? Uh-oh. Telltale, listen: if you want to push it back, like, a year or two, I wouldn’t mind. There’s no need to rush what should be the greatest videogame ever made.

Anyway, Scenario #1. …Biff Jr.? Who’s Biff Jr.? The only Biff we know from the movies is Biff, period. They’re not talking about Griff, are they? Maybe Telltale needs a better fact-checker… That aside, I’m not really sure how “Biff Jr., Marty Jr., and Unnamed Teenager #3 steal a time-traveling Deloreaon in 2010″ makes any sense, continuity-wise, but I guess I’d be willing to give this one a shot, especially in comparison to the other three. I do kinda like how it ties the franchise to the present day—I wonder if 2010 in Back to the Future would have any of the technological advances of BttF’s 2015, or if it’d look just like real-life 2010.

Scenario #2:

November 5th, 2010. Working together, Teen Marty, Doc, and Present Day Marty finally corner the man who made off with Doc’s Time Train. While they argue about what to do with the well-intentioned time-hopper, a scary black vehicle appears out of nowhere. A familiar bulky presence steps out and confronts them. “Detective Tannen, Temporal Preservation Squadron. I’m afraid you’re all under arrest.”

Michael: This seems like a good opening cutscene. I repeat, opening cutscene. NOT THE CONCLUSION OF THE FIRST EPISODE. This sounds too much like the end of the first Tales of Monkey Island for my tastes. Seriously, it was pretty obvious they just threw in two minutes of plot at the end of the “game” in order to make sure people would stay tuned for the next installment. They do that on Days of our Lives all the time.

Hmmm…the game is being released this winter…the date tied with this scenario is November 5th, 2010…I think we just found a release date, everyone! This scenario gets my vote for the one that’s most likely to be used.

Elizabeth: This concept strikes me as the most promising of the four, and is my top choice given these limited options. A “Temporal Preservation Squadron” sounds like something that could conceivably exist in the future (perhaps even as the result of something that Doc or the train-bandit do?), and this could be an interesting way to get some new story elements into the game while still letting us hang out with the characters we know and love. I also like that this scenario sounds like it might act as a direct sequel to the third movie, especially if Teen Marty is the main playable character (which would be my preference).

Just one comment/criticism: What is a Tannen doing as a law enforcement officer? This feels pretty wrong to me, since every Tannen we’ve met has been on the wrong side of the law (and this series is all about the similarities among family members). Then again, maybe this is an opening for some interesting character development among the Tannens, which is something we’ve certainly never seen before.

Overall opinion on this concept: “OK, sounds cool,” but of course with the right to change that to “hmm… maybe not” at a later point.

Paul: I kind of don’t hate this one, because I like how it explores the characters interacting with their younger/older selves, which the movies actively avoided, just because it might possibly destroy the universe. (BTW, in this scenario, why doesn’t it destroy the universe? I hope they explain…) I also like how it continues the movies’ usage of the entire Tannen family tree as the series Bad Guy, and I think the time police concept almost sounds like a natural extension of the invention of time travel. I’m a little wary, though, about Telltale creating a new (possibly main?) character in this scenario, given their less-than-stellar track record in creating characters that aren’t boring stereotypes.

Scenario #3:

June 18th, 1938. Young Emmett Brown is about to announce his engagement to a gold-digging young woman, turning his back on scientific pursuits forever. If Marty and Doc can’t bust into the party and get a singular Jules Verne novel into his hands, Emmett will never invent the time machine, a possibility too horrible to contemplate. Maybe they can sneak in with the swing band!

Michael: OK, I think I understand why Paul is so upset about these plotlines. Getting Younger Doc to read Journey to the Center of the Earth does not sound like the most thrilling plot ever. I mean, getting kids to read is the goal of your local library, not a blockbuster movie series. (Support your local library, by the way!) The only possible good thing I can see in this scenario are scenes of Doc Brown swing dancing to Babyface.

This is the bad scenario they threw in just to make the real scenario seem better, right?

Elizabeth: I had an immediate and intensely negative reaction to this premise as soon as I read it, and I’ll tell you why: This is not how time works in the Back to the Future universe. In the rules of the movies, the only way a time-line ever changes is if someone goes back in time and actively changes it. So if Doc Brown had been planning on getting married instead of becoming a scientist, then that’s exactly what would have happened, and the Doc and Marty that we know now would never have even existed, let alone been able to travel back in time in order to change Doc’s original behavior. The only way that this scenario could possibly work is if some unmentioned evil-doer already went back in time and caused Doc to become interested in girls rather than science, and that just seems too [choose one: silly, improbable, boring] to have happened. I can’t even think about this anymore. If someone actually makes this into a game, I will just cry.

Paul: …What? What’s going on here? Where did the gold-digger come from? Why does interrupting Doc’s wedding to give him a book automatically fix everything forever? I mean, yeah, I get why, in BttF continuity, Doc would need to read that book (I guess), but I don’t understand the literal circumstances of this plot. Was this an episode of the cartoon, or something?

Scenario #4:

June 11th, 1968. Weaving their way through the peace protestors outside the courthouse, Marty and Doc surreptitiously use Doc’s temporal scanners to look for the missing objects scattered through time by the wreck of the Time Train. After a number of dangerous encounters with riot police and hippies, there’s only one artifact left: the remnants of the train’s flux capacitor… repurposed as a peace necklace.. around the neck of a VERY pregnant Loraine McFly. Marty suddenly remembers that he’s going to be born tomorrow!

Michael: Collection quest, ahoy! This means the whole game is going to be finding items that were randomly scattered throughout different times, right? That’s the same plot as Putt-Putt Travels Through Time! And since that is the best adventure game ever, this plot officially gets a thumbs-up from me. There’s just something undeniably fun about adventure games where you take items from one time and use them to solve puzzles in another time.

Elizabeth: I would most likely not play this game. From this description, it looks like we’re dealing here with a hidden object game, and my feeling about the hidden object mechanic in general is that it is extremely contrived and only detracts from the flow of the story. I much prefer my gaming mechanics to be a more integral part of the story, and no, even if the hidden objects are explained as the result of a horrible mishap caused by a train wreck, I will not feel like I’m forwarding the plot by poring over a static screen and trying to find the five hidden skateboards. Give me character interactions and problems to solve with items and logic instead, please. Also, I don’t see this story scenario going anywhere interesting at all. Final verdict: “No.” That’s all.

Paul: Please tell me it’s not going to be a hidden object game. I don’t think I’d ever be able to forgive Telltale if they took my all-time favorite movie—at one point, my cell phone’s ringer was Doc Brown shouting “1.21 gigawats?!” over and over again—and turned it into a hidden objects game. I’d quit videogames if they did that.

Assuming that’s not the case, and that it just really really sounds like a hidden objects game, I still don’t like this idea. It’s too generic. The “find all the temporally displaced objects” plot sounds like it could just as easily belong to a Pajama Sam game or an episode of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles as it could Back to the Future. I think I want Telltale’s writers to try harder than that; this idea sounds too much like it came from their Box o’ Yet-Unused Tropes.

Conclusion:

Michael: Call me crazy, but now that I’ve seen these plots, I’m more excited for this game than I was earlier. Now we’ve actually got some sort of idea of what the game’ll be like, and that’s something solid to work with. Sure, maybe the plotlines we’ve been shown so far aren’t the most thrilling stories ever, but hey, the premise behind the third movie is “Marty and Doc go to the old west.” That’s not a very thrilling plotline, either, but they made it work.

As for which plotline I think will actually be in the game, well…I actually think the second and the fourth ones will both be used in the game. They sound like they could be different episodes of the same series. I’d be happy if the first scenario was used, too. But as for the gold-digging swing-dancing novel-reading third scenario…I think I’ll take a rain check on that one.

Elizabeth: Of the four choices, the 2010 option is my top choice, followed by the 1986 story, and with the 1968 and 1938 stories trailing far behind (the 1938 scenario shouldn’t even be in the running). Overall, though, none of these concepts immediately jumped out at me as the best story ever, and I’m a little concerned that only half of the concepts sound like something I would actually consider playing. My hope is that Telltale was just throwing out these scenarios as sort of grab bags of ideas they’d been tossing around, aiming to get responses about the various aspects of the game (gameplay, time period/setting, mood, main characters, etc.) from as many people as possible, and that none of these are actually full concepts that they’re seriously considering turning into a game. That’s my hope, anyway…I guess we’ll find out soon enough!

Paul: My confidence is officially shaken. When I first heard that Telltale was working on a Back to the Future adventure game (which, incidentally, apparently wasn’t even true—they’re just planning to work on one), I was ready to declare it Game of the Year for every year, ever, based on Telltale’s pedigree, and based on my borderline-disturbing love for the Back to the Future series. Now I’m not so sure. The first two ideas sound kind of OK, I guess, but “kind of OK, I guess” isn’t exactly what I was hoping for. I know these are just ideas they’ve been tossing around, but if these are the stories they thought were good enough to warrant serious consideration, this game might be lining up for our “Most Disappointing” award, instead.

I reviewed Hyperballoid HD some moons ago (whilst it was only available in Europe), and since then, it has been released on the PlayStation Network in America. Alawar Entertainment has recently released brand-new downloadable content for the game, as well as a patch that enables the DLC and fixes a few of the issues that stifled the original game.

The aptly titled Original Worlds DLC adds a brand new world and a brand new campaign to the game, and it brings the total number of campaigns in this game to three. It’s 50 levels long and adds another two to three hours of gameplay, depending on the speed at which you play. There are new block and power-up types included in this campaign.

It is the first of many downloadable worlds planned for the American and European versions of the game. It’s currently only available in Europe, and it costs £1.59 (which is fairly low for downloadable content, roughly two dollars) and requires Hyperballoid HD to play.

Downloadable Content Review

I’ve obviously gone mad. I gave Hyperballoid HD a 6 back when I reviewed it in January, because it Arkannoyed me so much when I was playing it. I haven’t gone back to it in six months, and now I’ve shelled out the measly asking price of £1.59 in exchange for the latest downloadable content for it. Since going back to the game, I’ve noticed I’m a lot less peeved by its nuances. Nevertheless, even if I could change the score, I wouldn’t. Not even for GameCola to get a mention on the reviews page of the game’s website (how can someone give this game a ten out of ten? I smell LIES).

That said, there is one thing I’m very happy with. The patch, released at some point between my review and the DLC release, has fixed the sound bug that I’d previously pointed out. So our review obviously got read, or enough people kicked up a fuss. (Probably not the latter, because it seems everyone who was sent a redeem code, other than us, sugarcoated the game to try to appear on the reviews page.)

At least by having fixed the sound bug, I can promise my family members that future late-night Hyperballoid sessions with cringe-worthy 90s classics won’t awake them from their well-earned shut-eye.

Everything I said about the game is still true (that it stinks like a certain plumber’s dungarees). It’s one-hundred levels of the same thing, and there’s a lot of the old “ball-manages-to-avoid-the-last-few-blocks” that tends to happen in Breakout. Fun-fun-fun until your daddy takes the T-Bird away.

Having staved off the game since I reviewed it six months ago (only loading it once or twice out of sheer boredom), the DLC gives Hyperballoid a new lease of life, a generous act of giving that I don’t feel a strong need to sully. Just like the other two campaigns , you can load up from any level you’ve played up to, which is quite useful if you get a Game Over.

This DLC campaign doesn’t have the same visual “wow-factor” that the Ancient World campaign possesses, and it doesn’t have the brilliant musical “sweet-serenade” that the Planets World has—it’s subpar in both areas. Actually, this DLC doesn’t appear to have any music. It might just be a bug, but every time I’ve loaded this campaign, I’ve been greeted with silence. Oh well; I’ve still got my Atomic Kitten greatest hits on here, so I’m not complaining. That’s a big mistake to make, though.

The levels themselves are quite creative, even if they share the same problem as the Planets World—eye-bleedingly visceral to look at. They’re not as hard as the previous two campaigns, but still occasionally break down to those “ten bricks/one ball/no power-ups” moments that are all too common. Playing on harder difficulties does actually make the game go a smidgen faster, so if you feel you’re hanging around for too long, up the difficulty and stop being a wuss.

The downloadable content also adds a new silver Trophy, which is hidden. To unlock it, you have to complete all fifty levels in the new campaign. You probably will anyway if you buy the bloody thing.

All in all, for its small asking price, this downloadable content does what it sets out to do. It adds another big chunk of playing time, a new Trophy, new power-ups, new brick types, and more. The recent patch fixes the sound issues that plagued the original release. If you already own Hyperballoid HD, there is no reason why you should not grab this DLC.

DLC Score: 7/10

I haven’t heard anything about this game yet, so I decided to see if anyone has anything to say about it. Unfortunately, I made the mistake of using Google to look for a review. We have learned from countless installments of “Be Careful What You Search For” that using Google is never a good idea. Why? Because when I did a search for ”new Prince of Persia game,” this came up:

I’m going to hope this is just some sort of cruel prank instead of something that really exists. When will these Lego people stop torturing me with their onslaught of G-rated versions of non G-rated movies? Is Lego: The Godfather next? Why does every Lego game feature more grunting than Season Three of Dragon Ball Z? Why aren’t any of their jokes actually funny? I don’t know, and I wish the Lego people would leave me alone, because right now, I’m swamped by Lego videogame ads on every website I visit. Apparently Google (there it goes again!) says I’m their target audience.

Artwork by Colin Greenhalgh.

Conclusion: The new, realistic Prince of Persia game is called Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands. The new, unrealistic one is called Lego Prince of Persia: Please Let Me Forget This Ever Happened.

Now, Alan Wake was developed by Remedy, a company who’s known for naming protagonists after the primary feeling they encounter, often with hilarious results such as “Max Payne”. They have decided to keep with this time honored tradition with their new protagonist, Alan Wake (most likely an ironic name, because it’s the opposite reaction of what the average Xbox player would have while playing this game). Wake is a crime fiction writer who’s been going through a bit of a depression, having not written a book for about two years. He decides to go on holiday with his wife to Bright Falls, a town so podunk and hillbilly I wouldn’t be surprised if everybody’s family tree was just a series of straight lines.

As it is always, things aren’t as they seem—his wife gets kidnapped, and our hero sets out to correct right from wrong, saving the world and all that jazz.

You might complain that this has a resemblance to a certain pussy-whipped protagonist who happens to wander around in foggy areas trying to avoid a guy with a triangle for a face, but I would retort by smacking you upside the head, you critic. If the main character didn’t have a loved one currently about to be penetrated by Satan’s cock, then what’s to stop him from catching the first ferry ride out of town, rather than risking his life to put down an evil entity that currently isn’t doing anything other than fucking with some rednecks.

The story itself is pretty good, with its own set of twists and turns that lead up to a rather satisfying conclusion, but I do have a problem with the titular character himself: Alan Wake.

The problem is that he’s a Keven Spacey short of the usual suspects, if you know what I mean. The guy’s sort of a cunt, is what I’m saying.

Ok, so he’s supposed to be a writer, right? And supposedly he’s a pop culture icon who often appears on TV, as well as having many female fans. Pfft, fuck off, Remedy. I don’t know what magical fantasy world you guys live in, but writers aren’t very sociable people. In fact, most of them keep to themselves. Hell, even if you’re lucky enough to appear on Oprah, unless your name is J.K. Rowling, Stephen King, or maybe even Stephanie Meyer, you aren’t exactly going to be swarmed by fans when you walk down the street. Women don’t go for writers. A bitch would rather go with an artist than a writer, because the general consensus is that anybody can be a writer. Look, I don’t see Stephen King currently swimming in a pool filled with vagina, so what chance have you got?

That last paragraph was more for the setting itself, so all right, I’ll actually talk about Alan now.

For a writer, Alan isn’t very quick witted. That’s not saying he should be wise cracking at every opportunity, but he should at least be more interesting than a wet paper bag. He has this thing about narrating every action with such ham-handedness that it would make his noir cop ancestor blush. He describes EVERYTHING that is happening, like I’m in a bad Frank Miller comic and the audience is a blind mouse. Seriously, he’s like “I needed to get past this gate, there must be a generator around here somewhere” or “The darkness swallowed up the ground, I had to get to the streetlight fast” or “I was really hungry, I should probably get some chips. There must be some potato chips in the fridge—” SHUT UP WAKE I’LL GO FIND THE FUCKING CHIPS, JESUS!

The thing with Max Payne was that his inner monologues were par for the course in the universe he was in. All of the hard boiled detectives walking the beat would narrate and talk about this or that in a poetic way, sort of like Shakespeare if he got punched in the face a few times. But with Alan, it just sort of detracts from the horror of the events that are taking place. It would be like watching The Hills Have Eyes for the first time, but flicking on the commentary track.

Overall though, I feel like it’s a step in the right direction for video games. Forgive me for getting a little bit introspective, but I’m going to be using a lot of big words from here on out to describe my feelings of games as a medium. The medium is populated by nerds, like myself. As such, there is a certain cultural restrictiveness that forces games to only ever make games in the sci-fi, fantasy, or military genres. There seems to be no willingness to go deeper, to explore further into the human psyche or society itself because, well, as nerds, all we want to see is Kratos forcing a minotaur to give a terminal blowjob with his blade. I’m happy that there is some willingness to get away from that and start really exploring concepts beyond our understanding.

WHOOPS THERE I GO AGAIN WITH THE ART STUFF. Guess I’d better wrap this up before I start talking about how Dante from Devil May Cry represents the folly of man’s greed.

First, there’s this video of a hockey fight:

This video has absolutely nothing to do with the Nancy Drew article it links to, except for the fact that one of the guys in the fight is named Drew Bagnall. Nancy Drew, Drew Bagnall. So…that’s kind of a relevant kickback? Not really.

The second strange kickback comes from a group called ”The Ten Men.” They’ve got a list of random articles with the word “ten men” in the title, such as ”The Ten Commandments of Men’s Accessories,” “Men Are Stupid – Kill Ten Rats” and ”Ten-Man Addicks Punish Pilgrims.” They were kind enough to link to my Ten Reasons article for Mega Man 2, but I have no idea why anyone would want to keep track of all online articles written with “ten” and “man/men” in the title. Their website is just a list of links, too, so no explanation is ever given for their bizarre actions. Who are these ten men, and why are they so strange?

This is a picture I got from searching for "The Ten Men." I do not know if he is, in fact, one of the men in question, but I would not rule it out.

Lastly, there’s a Q and A website on which somebody in Florida is looking for reports from health inspectors. This links to an article about…wait for it…wait for it…Final Fantasy VI Advance. Can any of you readers see a connection between health inspector repots in Florida and FFVIA? Because I sure can’t.

12 Followers/Meteo Xavier – Five is Average

The first postcast to use this song will be #25, to be recorded this weekend and, hopefully, posted sometime next week.

For more music by 12 Followers/Meteo Xavier, check out his Facebook page here.