You can't buy it anymore, so win it!

In today's contest you can win a Switch copy of Project Warlock from Super Rare Games!

If you slept on picking up a super limited edition of Project Warlock fr?om Super Rare Games, I've got some bad news -- that shit sold out, yo! It's gone. Donezo. Fin. Adios.

Good thing we snuck Mr. Destructoid into their offices (he went up through the toilet like a shitty, reverse Santa) and stole a co?py to give away! Win it here, since you can't buy it anymore!

Read it and weep:

Project Warlock is a first-person shooter that fans of DOOM, Hexen and Wolfenstein cannot miss. It serves you an exploding cocktail of bullets, spells and monsters. Battle through 60 levels of non-stop action packed?? with bloodthirsty enemies and challengin?g bosses.

Become a mysterious Warlock who embarks on a dangerous mission to eradicate all evil. Put your finger on the trigger and travel through time and space to wreak havoc like in the golden days of fast-paced, adrenaline-pumping first person shoo??ters, hooking you for hours of super fun carnage.

• 60 Levels, 50 Worlds, 72 Enemies, 38 Weapons - Explore 60 vast levels in five settings, from frozen Antarctic base to the sands of Egypt to the medieval castles’ courts and graveyards. Find keys to unlock passages, reveal secret caches with ammo and gold, use lifts and hidden buttons to access new areas. Finally, descend to hell to face the ultimate challenge and emerge victorious.
• Blood-pumping action - Combat tons of enemies from flying demons to five-story robots, splashing walls and floors with their blood and chunks. Dodge bullets and projectiles, figure out strategies and weapons that work best against each of the nasty villains. Learn their moves and stay one step ahead to survive through the levels. Face mega-bosses in vast final arenas to complete each world.
• Become the warlock - Develop your hero the way you like, by assigning upgrade points and perks to the favourite skills between each level. Develop and upgrade spells and weapons to create your unique character through the game, and use their powers to master the game in higher difficulty modes.

Makes Merlin kinda look like a bitch.

This super rare edition of the game comes with everything you see a?bove, including:

• Fully assembled Nintendo Switch game with cartridge
• Interior art
• Full-colour manual
• Exclusive sticker
• 3-card trading card pack

To enter to win, use the widget below to leave your name and email address. Enter daily to increase your odds, and make sure to complete the bonus tasks to earn extra entries! Double your chances by entering at Nintendo Enthusiast.

We have one copy of the gam?e to give away; we'll draw our winner next Friday. As this is shipping from SRG, there are no country restrictions! Anyone can win. Ple??ase note that winners outside Britain may be charged a VAT as per local ordinance, for which they are responsible for paying. Brexit, yo.

Project Warlock may be sold out, but you can check out their remaining stocks over at Super Rare Games.

Dtoid Contest: Win t??he SOLD OUT Project Warl?ock on Switch from Super Rare Games

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Massacre?! I barely KNEW acre!

In today's contest you can win a Switch copy of violent action shooter The Hong Kong Massacre!

Can't we all just get along? Apparently, not so much in Hong Kong. I wonder where it all went wrong? Ok I'll stop rhyming, please don't kick me in ??the do?ng.

The Hong Kong Massacre, a hyper-violent, room-clearing s??hooter just hit Nintendo Switch, and we're giving away some copies to celebrate! Instead of buying it, win it for a song.

This one is ripped straight out of a John Woo film (sadly minus the Nic Cage), folks. You're a man wronged by the Triad -- fueled by revenge, you'll use a huge array of weapons to kick down doors, bust through windows, and vault over obstac??les to kill each and every gangster in your way. This top-down shooter has it all: Slow motion shootouts, full 360 degree shooting, and lots and lots of blood.

• A MAJESTIC FLOW OF VIOLENCE: Create and unleash zen-like, perfectly choreographed killing sprees. This isn’t a mindless run and gun game. Use your dodge rolls, slow-motion abilities and 360-degree shooting skills all together to create stylish and artistic killing sprees.
• EVERY BULLET COUNTS: One shot is all it takes to kill you and your enemies, so go in with a plan and make every shot count while avoiding the tidal wave of bullets coming your way.
• JUST ONE MORE RUN: Gain rewards for completing levels with added twists and challenges. Tinker and master each try through quick restarts. Success earns you additional perks on weapons that can make all the difference as you progress.

They rea?lly should add in Nic Cage as a playable character.

To enter to win, use the widget below to leave your name and email address. Click around for bonus entries, and be sure to hit up Nintendo Enthusiast for more chances to win!

We have three ??Switch copies (any region?!) to give away; our winners will be drawn next week. Sorry, no CoD's or checks.

The Hong Kong Massacre is available now on the Switch eShop.

The Hong Masscre Switch Code Giveaway | Des?tructoid

The post Co??ntest: W?in The Hong Kong Massacre for Nintendo Switch appeared first on Destructoid.

Iconic shooter makes its long-awaited console debut

[This week Postal Redux sent us a check for $12 for our birthday. Here's a quick note from our sponsor.]

More than two decades since the original Postal arrived on PC, the infamous isometric shooter ?is making its?? long-awaited console debut with a Nintendo Switch port.

Developer Running With Scissors has enlisted the help of Polish studio MD Games to port Postal Redux - an e??nhanced version of the first game in? the series - to the platform next month.

Postal Redux has revamped graphics, sound and controls, but it’s billed as more than just ?a straight remaster. Not only does this special edition include extra levels, it comes with a new endurance-based gameplay mode called Rampage.

When playing in Rampage Mode, players are tasked with riddling as many bodies with bullets as possible. They're rewarded for the amount of havoc they wreak, and the aim is to achieve a ??kill streak record, with a grade and score awaiting at the end of ea??ch mission.

"Over 20 years ago, we had no clue the impact Postal would have had on society and gaming history," said Vince Desi, founder of Running With Scissors. "Postal coming out on SWITCH is our dream come true. On behalf o?f every??one at RWS we give thanks to our fans for the many years of support. We’re just getting started."

Postal Redux will be available through the Nintendo eShop on October 16th.

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Australia gets away with no cuts

Despite having not yet played Cyberpunk 2077, (still hurts), it appears a relatively snug statement to suggest that CD Projekt RED's Night City adventure is going to have more than its fair share of sex, sleaze, and violence. After all, these are tropes almost inherent to cyberpunk as a genre. No-one ever said an avaricious, collapsed society was going to be Disneyland. Regardless, it seems that the Japanese censor board is readying the scissors, and that Japan's edition of Cyberpunk 2077 will be trimmed of most of its excess.

All sexual content is being "revised." There will be no nudity in the game whatsoever, including the depiction of genitals either on ??characters or in billboards and architecture. Any fully nude characters will be sporting some brand new underwear. In addition, "selective revisions" are being made to scenes of gratuitous violence, such as the severing of limbs or spilling of ?useful internal organs.

This is not the first time in recent years that a major video game has seen cuts on its journey east. Back in 2019, Capcom's Resident Evil 2 (and previously Resident Evil 7) wa?s altered to tone down the detail and animation of its gore sequences, in efforts to make its zombie-munching sequences a little less shocking... One of those strange instances of censorship where one has to defi??ne where the line between "a decapitation that's too violent" and "a decapitation that's 'safely' violent." Still, that's why they're the censor and I'm the... words writing guy.

Surprisingly, the typically stringent Australian censor appears to have passed Cyberpunk 2077 with all of its wanton vulgarity intact, having officially received an R18+ for its Australian release. That title is also expected to launch "uncut" in North America and Europe.

Cyberpunk 2077 launch??es November 19 on PS4, PC,?? Xbox One, and Stadia.

Cyberpunk 2077 won't be censored in Australia [Press Start]

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Seriously, he does NOT want anyone near him

We've got PS4 copies of whacked-out shooter My Friend Pedro in today's contest!

We've given away My Friend Pedro before -- we're all about making new friends here at Destructoid! But with a new console release comes a new chance for you to ge??t your hands on a snappy little indie darling published by the certified freaks over at Devolver Digital.

So, just shut up and enter to win -- you have nothing else going on right no?w, anyway!

I'??m socially distancing myself from using my own words to describe games, s??o read this:

My Friend Pedro is a violent, bullet-ridden ballet about friendship, imagination, and one man's struggle to obliterate anyone in hi??s path at the behest of a sentient banana. The strategic use of split aiming, slow motion, and the ol' stylish window breach create one sensational action sequence after another in an explosive battle through the violent underworld.

But that's not all! The PS4 version of My Friend Pedro will arrive complete with extra Code Yellow content, bringing 14 full-throttle game modifiers to the slow-motion gun ballet along wit?h much-requested features like an in-game timer for speed??runners, hidden HUD option, and more!

This shit is bananas.

To enter to win, tell us about your best friend.? You don't have to give names or anything, just tell us why they're such an? important person to you. My best friend is my wife, and while she's no talking banana, she ensures I don't go crazy and start talking to fruit. Again. She's not going to stick around if I have another episode.

We have ten PS4 NA copies of this bad banana to give away; winners will be drawn Monday, April 13. Make sure to comment using a ??Dtoid account with your current email address on file. If you're new to these parts, or have just been lurking for ages like I did, sign up for an account here to tell us about your BFF.

My Friend Pedro is available now for PS4.

The post Contest: My Friend Pedro takes social distancing seriously – win it for PS4 appeared first on Destructoid.

Taking the Improvised Weapons feat to the extreme

Okay, if I grab the hammer from that stump I can use it to take out two of those mooks guarding the shish kebab, then dash past the crush traps. The guy at the end of the tra?p line is wearing a pool floatie as armor, so I'll have to use a ranged weapon to take him out, or else it'll take two swings and I'd really rather drop him ??in one hit.

I'll have to balance on the exploding barrel to avoid the spike pit, but would I do better to crash it into a dude and boost jump up to higher ground, or just use the cannon to gain altitud?e? No, wait, I can use this tiki torch to blow past those guys and take them from behind if I...

Crap, they got me. Let's try that again.

Bloodroots (PC [Epic Games Store], PS4 [reviewed], Switch)
Developer: Paper Cult
Publisher: Paper Cult
Released: February 28, 2020 
MSRP: $19.99

Bloodroots is a heavily stylized, frantic beat-em-up which draws inspiration from games like Hotline Miami and Katana Zero, where a single mistake is as deadly for your opponents as it is for you. Your main goal in every level is to kill everyone before they can return the favor, though your motivation only becomes clear by playing through the story. When played well, it's a blast bouncing from foe to foe in a ballet of homicidal fury. It's a title I've been looking forward to since I first got to try it out a couple of years ago, a??n??d I'm pleased to say that in my opinion, it's been worth the wait.

The two biggest selling points for Bloodroots are the striking animation style and the fact that nearly anything you see onscreen can be used as an improvised weapon. The game's visuals were inspired by the work of Genndy Tartakovsky, particularly the Samurai Jack series. It's extremely impressive in motion, and screenshots don't really do the game justice. The final kill in each level is punctuated by a brief cutscene which slows down the action for a moment, no matter what weapon you're using at the ti?me. Most of the game's unique weapons will trigger a different cutscene, so it's quite entertaining experimenting with different options to see h?ow you might end a man's life with nothing but a dried fish, mandolin, or root vegetable.

Although your character Mr. Wolf is skilled with conventional weapons such as swords, axes, and firearms, it's more entertaining to try killing foes with less common tools. Part of the fun is seeing how various items can be used to dispatch the army of thugs set against you by your former gang members. Wagon wheels can be thrown at enemies, or you can stand on one and ride it around like a top until it breaks. You can swing a giant hammer at your enemies, or use it as a piledriver to jump and take out several at the same time. A bundle of fireworks can be used to light en??emies on fire, or used to double-jump. If you manage to time it right, you can do both at once. 

Timing is critical to success in Bloodroots. There are separate buttons for picking up a weapon, using it, and jumping. While it's possible to kill enemies with a single unarmed punch, doing so leaves you vulnerable for a moment, and that can be all your surviving enemies need to take you down. Each weapon has a limited number of uses, so you're always encouraged to try something new and to keep an eye out for a new implement of death. The fast, frenetic gameplay lends itself well to speedrunning, and I'll be looking forward to seeing experts do perfect runs at AGDQ. Fortunately, it's possible to succeed even if you don't have the levels memorized. Dying just makes the screen t??urn red and restarts your progress at the beginning of the current area, so you?'re encouraged to get right back into the action.

One of the things that impressed me most was Bloodroots' internal logic, and the way the cartoony physics make sense in this world. Throwing an oil lantern at an enemy will leave a trail of fire behind, and luring other enemies into this trail will set them alight. Roll a barrel through a campfire, and you can set a whole field of grass ablaze as you ride it like a steamroller. Crashing a haycart into a pine tree will knock it down, crushing anyone standing underneath and potentially providing a new angle of attack as you use the tree as a bridge. You can twirl a ladder around your head like a helicopter, which allows you to hover in midair and provides an opportunity to smash through a few enemies before it falls to pieces. If you come ??at a particular level thinking, "What would Bugs Bunny do?" there's a good chance you'll make it through in one piece.

While secondary to the action, Bloodroots has a story to tell, and it's drip-fed through flashbacks and cutscenes in between the action segments. Mr. Wolf used to be? a member of a criminal gang who all themed themselves after various beasts, and together they terrorized the wild West. After a disagreement involving a massacre in Tarrytown, Mr. Wolf turned his back on the other gang members, who attempted to kill him as a traitor. Mr. Wolf, understandably upset about all this, swore revenge against his betrayers. The spaghetti-flavored soundtrack helps sell the story, and these Western tunes set the mood so perfectly I didn't mind retrying levels over and over to t?ry and find a workable solution.

While there's no multplayer option, Bloodroots does include online leaderboards for players who put up particularly good runs. Players are graded on how efficiently they move from enemy to enemy, how mobile they remain while doing so, variety of weapons used, number of deaths, and so on. There's always a counter in the upper left of your screen which shows how high your kill combo is, and you can get bonus points if you refresh the combo just as it's about to ??expire.

This adds a lot of replay value for those who want to absolutely perfect a given level, but there's not much reason to r?eturn if this sort of thing doesn't appeal to you. It's still fun replaying levels to try out different combinations though??, and there are some unlockable hats and other bonuses which change up the gameplay a little bit. 

As much as I've enjoyed my time with it, Bloodroots does have a couple of problems which might make it less appealing to certain players. If you get frustrated easily, this probably isn't the game for you. It's pretty difficult, and if you aren't willing to put some time in to learn the patterns you may become stuck on a section for quite a while. It can sometimes be hard to follow the action, especially on a smaller?? TV (or, presumably, the Switch's handheld mode). The sheer amount of stuff onscreen at once means sometimes enemies and high-priority targets are hard to pick out. Additionally, the fact that you have to kill every enemy in an area before moving on to the next one sometimes makes the game feel more like hide-and-seek than it probably should. 

While I admit it's a very minor issue, I was surprised to read some of the lang??uage that came out of the antagonists' mouths. It seemed odd that the tone seemed to shift from cartoonish, slapstick ultraviolence to brooding grimdark angst and b??ack again so quickly. The previous stage had pinball bumpers in it, for Pete's sake. Still, if you're in it for the action and don't care much about the story, you won't be disappointed.

I did run into a particularly nasty bit of slowdown in one of the second level's stages, but it didn't show up until I had died several times during the same stage. It made the normally fluid animation look more like a slideshow. Fortunately, resetting the game took care of the proble?m. Unfortunately, I did lose some progress since I had to play this level from the beginning. I presume this will be patched soon, so I hope it won't affect too many people before then.  

Despite some minor flaws, Bloodroots is a manically fun game that oozes style. Discovering new and unique ways to use the extremely varied arsenal to my advantage kept me coming back again and again. Even when I died (and believe me, I died plenty), I was thoroughly enjoying myself. If you're in the mood for a fast, stylish action game with plenty of challenge, Bloodroots might be just what you're looking for.

_{[This review is based on a retail build o?f the game provided by the publisher.]}

The post Review: Bloodroots appeared first on Destructoid.

I'm hoping it's both

We've got some retail Switch copies of My Friend Pedro up for grabs in today's contest!

If you're anything? like me, you don't have any friends. Um, wait, that sounded bad -- let's sta??rt over, here.

If you're anything like me, you could always use more friends. Good thing Pedro is such a nice guy! He's got lots of friends, and wants you to be one of them. Get a head start by winning this physical edition of My Friend Pedro for Switch, and expand your social network!

Like any Devolver joint, My Friend Pedro is pretty nuts. A talking banana convinces you that shit is about to get real, so you get on a balletic killing spree, jumping over rails, sliding over crates, and straight capping fools l??ike an acrobatic madman. It's pretty hectic and chaotic and violent, and that's ok with me. Just don't tell my mom I'm playing it, or she'll ground me until Thanksgiving.

Since the ga?me just got a brand-spankin' new physical release, Devolver decided to throw some at us to give away! Scop?e some deets on it.

• Retail Exclusive Content - Everyone can go bananas with a specially created 11"x17"; poster, sticker pack, reversible cover art and the game's full, gritty soundtrack in this retail edition.
• Full Throttle Gun Ballet - Players can unleash a graceful torrent of destruction with an incredible level of control over weapons and body. They'll twist and turn through the air while aiming both hands at priority threats, or line up a perfect bullet ricochet to drop an unsuspecting gangster from behind.
• Mix It Up - To break up the high octane running and gunning, dynamic sequences are introduced to offer new challenges, such as thrilling motorcycle chases and slower paced physics-based puzzles.
• Slow Motion Braggadocio - When the action amps up to a frenzy, players bring it all into focus by shifting into slow motion to calm the nerves and steady the aim.
• Parkour! - While battling through each level, the number of points earned can be increased by incorporating acrobatic flips, wall jumps and rolls into enemy takedowns.
• Race to the Top - A global leaderboard is primed and ready for everyone to rack up points landing hits, kills and elaborate acrobatics.

To enter to win your copy, use the widget below to leave your name and email address. You can enter daily. For bonus entries, follow Dtoid and Devolver on Twitter and share?? our contest post with your friends.

While you're waiting, comment below telling us what the banana talks to you about. He told me I have? pretty eyes, but someone was trying to steal them. So I sealed my eyelids in quick-dry cement so no one could have them. That'll show 'em!

We have two copies of the game to give away; winners will be drawn Monday, November 18. You must have a United States shipping address in order to win. Head over to Nintendo Enthusiast for more chances to win a copy!

My Friend Pedro is available on digital storefronts, and no??w?? physically wherever video games are sold. Probably.

Dtoid Con??test: Is that a banana in your pocket, or a free Switch copy of My Friend Pedro?

The post Contest: Is ??that a banana in your poc??ket, or a free Switch copy of My Friend Pedro? appeared first on Destructoid.

IT HAS BEGUN

Everything is looking good for the upcoming Mortal Kombat film reboot. In addition to casting an excellent star in The Raid's Joe Taslim, screenwriter Greg Russo has confirmed that the movie will be an R-rated venture. Not onl??y that, but fatalities will play a part in the film.

That's a pretty big deal. While fans have a fondness for the old MK film, it was seriously gimped by its PG-13 rating. I understand the time period was different (and there was no way a studio was funding an R-rated film where people would be getting bisected in the 90s), but it would have been so great to have a better representation of the game on film. I don't nec?essarily believe the movie needs to be as gory as the recent games, but just some acknowledge of the trademark "fatalities" would go a long way in paying reverence to the source material.

While we still don't have an official name for the movie, whatever form Mortal Kombat t??akes is on track for a March 2021 releas??e. Expect a bloody good time.

Greg Russo [Twitter]

The post The Mortal Kombat fil??m will be R-rated and feature fatalities appeared first on Destructoid.

This shit is Bananas, B A N A N A S

My Friend Pedro is a ballistic game of skill, timing, reflexes, and, surprisingly, efficient time management. This new title from Swedish indie outfit DeadToast Entertainment falls under the highly-replayable score-attack genre, of which publisher Devolver Digital is very proud (think High Hell, Ape Out, or Ruiner).

These are games intended to be played over?? and over again, with the player constantly pushing their abilities and topping their own records. In that sense, they are a callback to the arcade classics of yore, where the goal wasn't necessarily to finish the game, or see the ending, but simply to "get better," w??ith the ultimate prize being the satisfaction of smashing your own high scores and, hopefully, those of your local arcade bully too.

My Friend Pedro (PC [reviewed], Nintendo Switch)
Developer: DeadToast Entertainment
Publisher: Devolver Digital
Released: June 20, 2019
MSRP: $19.99

The narrative of My Friend Pedro ??is simple, yet frightening. A young masked man awaken??s in a dingy basement, bought around by a somewhat irreverent talking banana. Convinced that his life may be in danger, our protagonist grabs an errant handgun and proceeds to break out of their meat-locker of a cell. Guided by his banana buddy, the protagonist then ventures through a series of equally odd locations, stocking up on an arsenal of automatic weaponry and throwing endless lead in harm's way.

The aim of My Friend Pedro is simply to complete each stage as quickly and as smoothly as possible. With a deep control engine built almost entirely on platform traversal and gunplay, the player must combine our hero's acrobatic and sharp-shooting skills in order to reach the end of each stage quickly, efficiently, and hopefully not resembling Swiss cheese. At the end of each stage, bonuses are awarded for speed, one-life runs, and clearing the entire stage of enemies. The real points, however, are ?rac?ked up by cutting loose and getting your John Woo on.

As you may have gathered from My Friend Pedro's marketing, balletic gun battles are the key to high scores. Combining your murderthon with flips, wall jumps, cartwheels, window smashes, and rope swings increases your style points, while a multiplier awards players who move sl?ickly from shootout to shootout, nimbly avoiding getting bogged down in scenery and viscera. The environment is also on your si??de, with petrol cans, pressure canisters, severed limbs, and even skateboards and frying pans all ready to aid you in battle, whether through room-clearing explosions or smug shots ricocheted into those hard-to-reach corners.

Also helping players out in a pinch is that mainstay of the early '00s: Bullet Time. At the click of a button, players can slow the action right down, allowing for accurate placement of individual shots, a stylish reload, or just an extra second to plan the next move from your second-story suicide dive. When the returning fire gets a little too thick, a quick twirl, forward roll, and even nearby furniture can give you a second of breathing space before you continue on your quest to fire and forget. All of this is achieved via My Friend Pedro's intuitive twin-stick control system, allowing for lock-ons, split-firing, and quick access? to your growing cache of weapons.

Aside from several unique sequences and boss battles (which I won't spoil here), that is, in essence, the entire game. Guide the protagonist through around six chapters, each featuring between seven to ten levels, while honing your skills at traversing the environment, dodging damage, and taking down armies of enemies in as quick and smooth a fashion as possible. Once you've done that, keep doing it, find those lost seconds, shorten those firefights, trim down your time records, master your skateboarding skills. Practice is key in My Friend Pedro, and players will only get out of it the effort that is put into it. The only real opponent here is y?our own time and patience.

It must be noted that My Friend Pedro is not a story adventure. Most players will breeze through the whole game in three hours at best. Said story is also utterly flat. Aside from a couple of particularly off-the-wall moments, there is little-to-no resonance with our hero, the plot, and the denouement. The point of Pedro isn't to complete the game – everyone can do that with relative ease – the point is to simply get better at the game itself, endlessly replaying your favourite stages and busting your own records until you're unarguably the second coming of Chow Y?un Fat.

Visually, My Friend Pedro contains a strange dream-like style, which lends a little abstract security to the grim fetishization of gun violence taking place on-screen, making the graphic action feel surreal, even slapstick, ala Shoot 'Em Up or Deadpool. These woozy, hypnotic visuals are backed by an excellent techno score, performed by artists including Noisecream and Battlejuice. This head-pounding soundtrack, combined with Pedro's overall weirdness, makes for a memorable universe. The only misfire is a stage poking fun at "hardcore gamers", that features the kind of low-hanging fruit you'd expect from Family Guy or latter-day Simpsons. It?'s strikingly weak satire in comparison to the winking smartness of everything else on display.

Given that the goal of the game is to become a living highlight reel, My Friend Pedro wisely integrates social media options, automatically recording your craziest kills and turning ?them into .gifs. These can then be saved, or immediately uploaded to sites such as Twitter, so prepare for an influx of cartwheeling mayhem filling up your feed come launch day. Jesting aside, it's a very smart feature for a?? game essentially designed around showing off.

My Friend Pedro is a crazy, violent, and sometimes downright weird score-attack title. It's designed to be played and replayed in perpetuity, with the aim simply to master its wild action, wide variety of weapons and maneuvers, and over-the-top physics. As long as you're?? aware of what you're buying into here, you'll have a (double-barreled) blast with its gleefully unashamed anarchy.

_{[This review is based on a retail ?build of the game provided by the publisher.]}

The post Review: My Friend Pedro appeared first on Destructoid.

The most cooperative game EVER

Get cuffed to your partner in today's contest for a Steam copy of TwinCop!

I swear, my decision to stick with consoles and not burden myself with the endless struggle of dealing with PC hardware, software, flaccidware, and everything in between keeps coming to bite me in the ass. Look at TwinCop. Just look at it. You just ha??ve a harder time finding stuff this strange on consoles.

Alright, PC g??amers, come win a copy of this one. Make me jealous, as usual.

It's the mid-80s in the Twin Cities greater metropolitan area. You're a pair of co??????????????????????????ps horribly maimed in a freak pontoon accident. Through the power of science, wonders of human ingenuity, and nonstop lust for justice, you've been revived and reborn as TWINCOP.

TwinCop is a cooperative twin-stick shooter where you and a friend ea??ch control one half of the TWINCOP's body. Move together through the streets of Minneapolis to wipe out the crime that haunts that great, very cold city. Moving together is the key to the game, as you'll both heal and charge your super power, TWINSANITY, when you work to??gether. Fail in your cooperative quest, and the baddies that litter the streets will eat you for lunch.

Just watch out for rogue pontoons out t?o finish the job.

This game looks ridiculous. And I want you to wi??n it. Do so by commenting below telling us why the pontoon boat tried to kill our city's greatest heroes. I personally think it's because they heard this abs??olute turd of a song:

and made a nasty comment on the YouTube page. But really, this song deserves it. Because it really, really s?ucks.

We have five Steam keys to give away. Winners will be drawn on Wednesday, May 15. Make sure to comment using a Dtoid account with your current email address on file. New users can sign up here to tell us how much that song sucks!

TwinCop is available now on Steam. You can head over to PC Inva??sion for more chances?? to win!

The post Contest: Strap on a partner fo?r a Steam copy of TwinCop appeared first on Destructoid.

Smash. Hit. Plunder. Rinse. Repeat.

You hear stories all the time of people getting motion sickness from playing VR games. It sucks. Hell, in reviewing this game I let all of my roommates try out virtual reality for the first time and, out of the four of us, one actually got really woozy. ?I don't know if one out of four is an accurate statistic or not, but it's pretty striking nonetheless.

Luckily, VR does not make me sick.?? What does make me sick is when a VR game's potential is squandered by a lack of ingenuity. Virtual reality is really cool and ca?n provide some uniquely interactive experiences, but when it isn't utilised beyond just a cool premise, it quickly loses its luster.

Smash Hit Plunder (PS4 [reviewed on a PS4 Pro])
Developer: Triangular Pixels
Publisher: Triangular Pixels
Released: December 11, 2018
MSRP: $29.99

In Smash Hit Plunder, you play as a caretaker of an ancestral manor that has been overtaken by greedy ghosts. You must go through each level and collect enough loot to pay off the salacious spectres and free the castle of their influence. Said loot, invariably, is located within the random objects found throughout the abode. The best way to reveal it? Smash the shit out of everything. Using either the DualShock 4 or the PS Move wands (wh??ich are definitely the best method to play this game) you'll pick everything up, shake it, toss it, smash it and plunder the riches within. The name truly describes the gameplay to a tee.

Which is kind of the problem. The bulk of the game's action is wandering through the largely lifeless mansion, grabbing things, and slamming them down to gather loot. Each level has a loot goal which will net you either one, two, or three crowns, which?? are then used to unlock more levels. Honestly it's really fun for the first couple of levels to just pick shit up and throw it around like a petulant child who was just denied a candy bar by their vile step dad Terry. After that initial burst of fun, it just becomes ai?mlessly wandering around, smashing to earn cash like The Incredible Hulk behind on his college loan.

There are additional game modes to try to add some varied gameplay. "Scavenger Hunt", for instance, sees you wan??dering around the levels attempting to pick up specific items, which are presented randomly each time you play. The main problem here is that their locations are constant; after a few rounds in each level, you'll know exactly where to find these objects. The dagger will always be in the drawer, there will always be a million books on the shelf, that one specific stupid painting will always be above the bed. You get the gist. Since this mode discourages smashing (as you may break items you might need at some point later) the problem of wandering around huge levels aimlessly is exacerbated. You're just going from one point to another until time runs out, hoping to collect enough points to not have to do it again.

Once you collect 50 crowns (or beat the story, not sure which because I did both at the same time) you'll also unlock Free Run, where you can just run around each level smashing things with no goal or time impetus. I played the very first level in this mode and spent about fifteen minutes putting everything into the fire. Since there's really not much else to do in this mode, apart from learn the levels and burn things, I don't have a ton else to say about it. All three single player modes can be played in co-op, though. Other players can help out by smashing and looting in an isometric view on the TV. It's there, if nothing else.

In addition to the game modes listed above there are two versus modes. "Jewel Duel" pits players against one another to try to collect a jewelry... orb?... hidden in each room. Since the non-VR players play as little goblins with limited function, this mode is pretty much a guaranteed win for the headset wearer. You can literally just grab the orb right out from the hands of the other players and there's pretty much nothing they can do about it. They can throw? something at you to knock it out of your hand, but you can instantly just grab it out of the air. Very odd design choice, here.

"Poltergeist Panic" puts the headset player in charge of freeing some ghosts. The other players can't see you unless you pick something up, or they use a weird spell that's available in every si?ngle game mode, but only has any actual function here. Uh, I'm not sure how the other players are supposed to stop you from freeing the ghosts, as all you have to do is collect jewels and they're free. Again, the design is odd.

Apart from the somewhat disappointing nature of the game, there are a bunch of mechanics and design choices that really make the game drag on. After you clear each level, you'r?e taken back to the hub world where you have to sit and watch all the jewels and gold you've collected fly out of the map and into a piggy bank. If you did particularly well, it takes even longer. I've sat upwards of twenty seconds just watching gold fly out of a map, which doesn't sound all that long but it definitely adds up. Also, in Scavenger Hunt mode, the game doesn't tell you on-screen what you have to collect -- you have to pause the game to see ??the next objective. Putting the item in the HUD would have been an easy fix, but as it stands you spend the whole level constantly pausing the game. It's frustrating and annoying, which are two words you never want to be associated with your game.

If it sounds like I'm being negative on the game, it's because I'm largely just disappointed. The game is actually pretty fun in small doses, and even partially cathartic at times. Crank up some Limp Bizkit and break stuff to "Break Stuff," and you've got some pretty fun stress relief. But any more than a few levels at a time and the game really starts to wear thin on its rather sha??llow gameplay hook.

Despite its inherent flaws and strange design choices, it's not by any means a bad game. It's just really not a very good one, either. You can have some fun with it, and it might even be a good way to introduce new people to VR. But at the end of the day Smash Hit Plunder feels more like a tech demo stretched out into a full game, without adding anything in to justify that decision. And that makes me more ill than any motion sic??kness ever could.

_{[This review is based on a retail build of the game provided by the publisher.]}

The post Review: Smash Hit Plunder appeared first on Destructoid.

Barely sexy neon lighting will remain

Several weeks ago, we reported on Ubisoft's plans to make alterations to its strategic online shooter Rainbow Six Siege. These aesthetic changes would remove bloodstains, sexual references, gambling references and skulls from Siege's maps, menus and even its HUDs.

The belief was that this was being done in preparation for the title's launch in Asia, with Ubisoft stating that they wanted one singular, global version of Siege to work with. Fans were quick to voice their displea?sure at the proposed changes, and it appears that those voices have been heard, as Ubisoft has decided against the alterations.

"We have spent the last week working on solutions and have decided that we will be reverting all aesthetic changes," stated the publisher in an official blog post. "We have been following the conversation with our community closely over the past couple of weeks, alongside regular discussions with our internal Ubisoft team, and we w??ant to ensure that the experience for all our players, especially those that have been with us from the beginning, remains as true to the original artistic intent as possible".

The post mentions that there may be some delay with the rollback to the original assets, asking players to be patient. Fair play to Ubisoft for listening to Siege's dedicated community of fans and working to please them. The next content update for the title, Operation Wind Bastion, is currently live on PC test servers, expected to roll out across all platforms in the near f?u??ture.

Rainbow Six Siege is available now on PS4, PC and Xbox One.

Update on the Aesthetic changes to Rainbow Six Sieg??e [Official]

The post Ubis??oft backtracks on Rainbow Six Siege censorship appeared first on Destructoid.

Caveira is reportedly peeved

Ubisoft has announced that ?they will be?? altering some of the maps in their twitchy, tactical team-shooter Rainbow Six Siege, removing various references to gambling, violence, sex and ev?en skulls.

In a story I thought I'd dreamt until I got up this morning and realised it was legit, Ubisoft's 'shop-job is happening in order to make sure that Siege complies with rules in all global territories, giving the developer one single, worldwide version of the program to work with. Siege is expected to roll out in Asia soon, with China being noted for its r??estrictive rules on gaming? content.

Among the alterat??ions are the removal of slot machines, blood-stains in the environment, the changing of a neon-sign of a pole-dancer, and the alteration of the grim reaper on a gang logo. There will also be HUD tweaks, with the "knife" melee icon being replaced with a fist, and the "dead" icon changing from a stylised skull to a torso marked with an "X". You can check out the changes in the gallery below.

Don't worry, you can still blow people up with explosives, pepper them with bullets, ensnare them in razor-wire, catch them in bear-traps and electrocute them with taser-shields. None of these aesthetic changes will affect gameplay, of course, but they're still strangely ironic when Siege is fundamentally built around explosive violence. Hell, Operator Caveira is literally named after a skull, and has one emblazoned on her face, bad times ?for my gal Tania.

The changes are expected to roll out in Season 4. Rainbow Six Siege is available now on PS4, PC and Xbox One

The post Rainbow Six Siege maps to be censored for gambling,? gore, sex and skulls appeared first on Destructoid.

At least we can show toilets now

The Motion Picture Association of America, or MPAA, introduced a ratings system and censorship board in 1968 as a means for the industry to self-regulate the content in their movies. If you have any knowledge of the movie industry, you know it's complete garbage. A board comprising of ??8 to 13 parents, the rating system is supposed to help inform moviegoers about the type of film they are going to see. Disregarding the insane amount of power the board affords so few people, they can't even do their job well, but that doesn't mean the MPAA won't smell their own farts when they have the chance.

For its 50th anniversary, the MPAA released a strange report that is one part history lesson, one?? part ratings data and full part masturbatory sludge. Titled "G is for Golden: The MPAA Film Ratings at 50," the document traces the origin of the ratings board and how it has changed over the years, but is really just 46 pages of the organization patting itself on the back. I could rail on this dumb leaflet all day, but showing is always better than telling, so the rest of this article will be a few ways that MPAA really "screwed" the pooch. (The previous sentence has been amend??ed to maintain this article's PG-13 Rating.)

G-rated Cartoons

 Throughout that glorified press release, the MPAA states its main goal is helping parents decide what movies will be suitable for their children. This includes not only the letter rating but descriptors as well, like if there's alcohol consumption or "ribald humour" (thanks Wayne's World). However, when rating animated movies, the movies that children usually like to watch the most, they miss some crazy messed up stuff. Chicken Run has a character beheaded offscreen and is rated G. Tarzan has Clayton hung by vines, his dangling body visible in silhouette, and is rated G. The Hunchback of Notre Dame has Frollo sing about his desire to rape Esmerelda, has him literally sent to hell, and is rated G. I le??gitimately suspect that ?the raters didn't watch these movies in full.

Any PG movie before 1984

PG, short for Parental Guidance, had its own extremely problematic time period as well. PG-13 didn't exist until July 1st, 1984, so any movie not deemed extreme enough for an R got a nice PG rating. Per the MPAA, that means there may be "some profanity and some depictions of violence, sensuality or brief nudity," but nothing too major. Yup, the face-melting scene from Raiders of the Lost Ark or the heart scene from the sequel Temple of Doom were only a teensy bit bloody, right? Even terrifying movies like Jaws and Gremlins, the latter of which scared the poop out of a 6-year-old me, nabbed a PG despite the intense violence for their time. The MPAA doesn't even deserve brownie points for introducing the PG-13 rating as they only created it after backlash from ??parents and god-of-fi?lmmaking Steven Spielberg complained.

The Death Knell of NC-17

There used to be an X rating for highly sexual and extra messed up movies, but porn co-opted the rating, so the MPAA changed X to NC-17. In part due to public perception and some theatres choosing never to run NC-17 movies, receiving that rating means the movie is almost guaranteed to make farthings in the US. The economic issue isn't even the most destructive part of NC-17 as the rating itself causes the films to be altered from their original cut (more on that later) or people avoid it altogether. That means people didn't see Eyes Wide Shut the way Kubrick wanted them to or experience Blue is the Warmest Colour (its own controversie??s notwithstanding) and it's frank take on lesbian sexuality in its true form. The ratings board is not to blame for studios, cinemas or audiences giving NC-17 the cold shoulder, but the rating has been around sin??ce 1990 and the board has still failed to address the issues and misconceptions with it.

Disaster Movies

Now, I admit that this one is low-hanging fruit, but it's real strange how the board gets nervous about someone's low-hanging fruit but is a-ok okay with mass violence. They even give a pitiful non-answer in their pamphlet to address the disparity. The ultimate confirmation of this supremely messed up fact appears in disaster movies where sometimes millions of people die. The one I remember most is The Day After Tomorrow. Even in the trailer, you see a man about to be slammed to death by a car and hundreds of people being swept to their doom by a giant tsunami. That's totally fine for the ratings board to give it a PG-13 though, because unlike The King's Speech or Philomena, it only dropped the F-bomb once. ?F stands for fuck by the way, as in fuck your arbitrary rules, MPAA.

Defanging R Movies

This final point is similar to the NC-17 issue, but at a much larger scale that affects regular movie-goers. Despite the fact that over 57% of all movies rated by the MPAA have been rated R (skewed somewhat by the lack of PG-13 rating from the outset), many studios aim for the sweet spot of PG-13 so both the parents and kids can buy tickets. That means the gore will be digitally removed from a freaking Die Hard movie and force Canadian treasure Ryan Reynolds to fight tooth and nail for Deadpool to be rated R. Again, the rating doesn't prevent anyone from seeing any movie (theatres are the ones who require ID for R movies), but the clearly demonstrated massive amount of cultural power the board holds affects how the movies are made, cut and re-cut. I'm not trying to complain about censorship or the larger issues with the studio system; I'm just saying it really sucks we don't get to see the mov??ies the way the people that made them w?ant you to see them.

I'm not averse to a ratings board despite all of this. It's true that parents have much more pressing problems than worrying if Cinderella is going to slit her step-sister??s' throat with a broken glass slipper, and proper information could help them make the decisions they think is right for their children. Unfortunately, the MPAA doesn't do that and can even misinform parents about the content of movies all because some dad from North Dakota fears stuff like female sexuality. One saving grace about the board bei??ng around for 50 years is that parents now grew up with it themselves, probably understanding its biases and shortcomings. Except for Red Band trailers. That shit is rad!

The post MPAA celebrate??s 50 years of screwing up movie ratings appeared first on Destructoid.

Assassin's Race of the Battlefield

Dante's Inferno was quite a divisive game when it launched in 2010. Some people believed it spit on the legacy of a classic piece of literature and others were taken by how creatively weird Visceral's vision of hell was. It also copied the God of War formula, so at least it was aspiring to greatness. I've never personally played it, but even I have to praise a develope?r willing to take one of the most well-known pieces of fiction ever written and tinker around with it.

You'll be able to grab Dante's Inferno next month if you're an Xbox Live Gold member. With it being backward compatible on Xbox One, you truly have no reason to skip over it this time. As for the other games, I guess someone will be happy. I don't know why you'd want to return to the original Assassin's Creed when Odyssey is out now and I can't see anyone bothering with Battlefield 1 when V is right around the corner.

Xbox One

• Battlefield 1 - November 1 - 30
• Race The Sun - November 16 - December 15

Xbox 360

• Assassin's Creed - November 1 - 15
• Dante's Inferno - November 16 - 30

Xbox Live Games With Gold For November 2018 [Major Nelson]

The post Dante’s Inferno highlights November’s otherwise meh Games with Gold selection appeared first on Destructoid.

And possibly Nintendo Switch?

XSeed Games is working on bringing four more localisations of the uber-grim Corpse Party titles to PC players in the west. The four titles are Corpse Party: Book of Shadows, Corpse Party: Blood Drive, Corpse Party: Sweet Sachiko’s Hysteric Birthday Bash and Corpse Party 2: Dead Patient.

Corpse Party is a long-running series of interactive novels, the first release appeared in 1996 before the series blew up in Japan a good ten years later. The stories all generally tell the tale of a group of anime girls getting completely annihilated in typically gross-as-fuck manner, with plenty of ghouls and extreme gore on offer. Not for me, pal.

Some of these titles are already available on PlayStation Vita and mobile devices in various territories, but this will be the first time a selection from the series will have been localized in English for the PC. The first release is expected to be Book of Shadows on October 29.

In related news, it is also being reported that the ESRB ratings body has passed a certificate for Blood Drive to appear on Nintendo Switch. You gotta understand that to me, growing up with censored versions of Lethal Enforcers and Mortal Kombat on the SNES, the idea of a Corpse Party title launching on a Nintendo console is still beyond bemusing.

The post A batc?h of horrific Corpse Party games are he?aded west on PC appeared first on Destructoid.

Standing in the Heart of Madness

For many western '80s kids, Akira was their first introduction to anime, with Katsuhiro Otomo's dystopian classic being one of the first anime movies to get a major push by the mainstream media. For me, however, my first anime encounter was the 1986 movie version of Buronson's post-apocalyptic manga, Fist of the North Star. I had a third-generat??ion, blurry-as-fuck VHS, which I had to keep hidden under my bed because my upbringing was wholly censored.

I remember, like many fans experiencing FOTNS (or anime) for the first time, being blown away by how incredibly violent it was, and also being hugely confused by the movie's massively unsatisfying non-ending, a culture ??shock for a kid brought up on movies that always tied narratives up neatly by the end credits. Still, that movie - and its AMAZING mid-fight rock track - are ingrained in the membranes of everyone who's experienced it.

Sega's Team Yakuza were clearly also impressed and influenced with the ultra-macho tale of massive dudes, ridiculous martial arts, and exploding heads. They have, essentially, given their Yakuza engine a new coat of paint, based on the story of Kenshiro, Shin, Yuria, and top motherfucker, Raoh. But does Fist of the North Star: Lost Paradise ease my pain, ease my loneliness, or is it alr?eady dead?

Fist of the North Star: Lost Paradise (PS4)
Developer: Ryu ga Gotoku Studio
Publisher: Sega
Released: October 2, 2018
MSRP: $59.99

Fist of the North Star: Lost Paradise presents an alternate take on Kenshiro and co., keeping the general thread of the manga but weaving in new locations and characters. For the most part, the story aligns, including all of FOTNS' greatest hits. The scarring of Kenshiro, the hunt for fiancée Yuria, meeting Rei and the rescue of hi??s kidnapped sister, sidekicks Bat and Lin, as well as brutal, bloody face-offs with jealous brother Jagi, noble ma?ster Toki, and the prideful Shin.

Although the material of the main story thread is treated with a respect very befitting of its legendary status, there is a weird pacing issue with Lost Paradise. Far too long is spent on busywork, investigation, and running from location to location around Eden (which, for want of a better example, is Lost Paradise's "Kamurocho from Yakuza"). When the iconic conflicts do occur, they're poorly placed in the story, often smothere??d by menial tasks that have led to the moment, such as fixing up a buggy's wheels, or literally wandering around town talking to people for information. Weirdly, what should be absolute highlights on Kenshiro's quest come across more as footnotes. No better exemplified than in the tutorial, which is Ken's fight with Shin, the very man who scarred him and kidnapped his fiancée. This is resolved in the game's first three minutes.? Odd.

For the most part, it's a great retelling of the FOTNS lore, with suitably stoic performances and some welcome new characters, such as frenemy Jagre and the bewitching, cigar-chomping Lyra. It must be noted that non-fans may find themselves rolling their eyes after hours upon hours of macho posturing and characters endlessly repeating that "my style cannot be defeated." It goes with the territory, and FOTNS fans, myself incl??uded, wouldn't have it any other way, but it can fall flat for newcomers.

Gameplay is straight-up "stripped down Yakuza." It's lazy to say so, but there are no two ways about it. Once arriving at Eden, Ken jogs around town, getting into random encounters, solving up to 80 sidequests, and constantly pushing through a chapter-based main story. Lost Paradise leaves it a little late to open up freedom to the player, arguably only becoming "open-world" around Chapter Five, almost halfway through the story. Once it does however, it's the tried-and-true Yakuza system of helping the innocent, getting jumped in alleyways, and fetch quests. Team Yakuza has fortunately been given a little leeway here, as there's a surprising amount of genuine comedy, such as a local council committe??e dedicated to teaching Kenshiro how to "use his words" to solve battles.

Battling is a huge, huge, HUGE part of Lost Paradise, as Ken takes on literally hundreds upon hundreds of enemies while on his dangerous quest. Although very similar, almost identical, to Yakuza in concept, the FOTNS fights grow repetitious quickly and lack its brethren's variety. Lost Paradise foolishly locks away a huge gamut of moves and skills for hour??s??, and as Kenshiro has no need for weaponry, fights feature mashing out the same few max-damage combos time and again.

The canned animations of exploding bodies are amazing, and a lot of fun, but you'll be seeing them the best part of a thousand times, and they lose their allure pretty quickly. Locking away parries, reversals, jump kicks, grabs, and many other moves until a huge chunk of time has been put into the title is a mistake. Players want to hit Start and become The Fist of the North Star, the successor of Hokuto Shinken; making them play for hours before they can parry, or do a simple running attack, is a bad call.

At this point, it might start to sound as if Lost Paradise is a bad game, which is far from the truth. There is a lot of atmosphere, design, and character on display. It's also jam-packed with things to do. A so-so driving system allows Kenshiro to explore the Wasteland on wheels, via a customisable buggy upgraded using a rudimentary crafting system. There are also a glut of very silly mini-games, which see Kenshiro work part-time as a bartender, nightclub host, gladiator, and even a doctor (in a rhythm-action game that just has to be seen to be believed).

There's a hilarious take on a batting cage, an anachronistic casino, store orders to be filled, and treasures to be found out in the desert. For its missteps, Lost Paradise delights with its wealth of side-quests and mini-games, though most of them are just variants on the same games we've played in other Team Yakuza titles. The art style captures the universe perfectly, all insanely-muscular dudes with tiny heads, giant hands, and massive scowls, defending beautiful, waif-like women with persistently sad faces. Of course its hardly a progressive form of storytelling, but Fist of the North Star has forever been the anime equivalent of a testosterone overdose,? delivered fist-first, with a broken needle, straight t?o the eyeball.

There's nothing in Lost Paradise that makes it a "bad game" per se, it just doesn't excel in any particular area, missing the pedigree of its developer. Perhaps with a cheaper price tag, or a release during its original Japanese launch when we weren't inundated with amazing open-world titles, Lost Paradise would find a bigger audience. But at sixty bucks, standing against open-world/gang-battle titles such as Marvel's Spider-Man, Assassin's Creed Odyssey, and even its own "Aniki," the Yakuza series, Lost Paradise is missing the magnetism to rank it a contender for anyone who is not already interested in Kenshiro's gory universe of fists and fur?y.

Fist of the North Star: Lost Paradise is a passionate retelling of one of history's most violent, bare-bones, and overwhelmingly macho tales. In that capacity, it does a great job. But it's not quite the masterpiece it could have been, let down by repetition, unlock grinds, and a lack of polish in narrative and mechanics. Regardless, with bucket-loads of adventure on offer, and a cathartic dose of the old ultra-violence, Lost Paradise is ??a fine weekend-filler, and a proud reflection of its legendary source material.

_{[This ?review is based on a retail build of the game provided by the publisher.]}

The post Review: Fist of the North Star – Lost Paradise appeared first on Destructoid.

PS4, Xbox One and Switch!

Road Redemption, the Road Rash inspired motorcycle brawler, is heading to consoles in the very near future. TripWire Interactive has ann??ounced that the game will ??be heading to Xbox One, PS4 and Switch in fall 2018. This new port will retain all of the PC version's features, which includes a full campaign mode with four-player split-screen support and an online multiplayer component.

While I was never huge into Road Rash back in the day, I certainly found Road Redemption enjoy??able. Co-op, in particular, ??is a riot and I could see that being an absolute joy on Switch.

The post Road Redemption is finally heading to ??consoles this fall appeared first on Destructoid.

Win a copy for PS4 or Steam

I really miss the days of the side-scrolling run-and-gun shooter. It's such a fun and cathartic genre, and I'm shocked that not every game allows you to run around like a lunatic blasting fools left and right. Let's give out a nice, chaotic side-scrolling shooter to make me ?feel better.

The folks at Crazy Monkey Studios have launched Guns, Gore & Cannoli on PS4 -- and to celebrate they've given us three PS4 keys and fiv?e Steam keys for the jbsgame.community! Mamma mia!

From the developer:

Guns, Gore and Cannoli 2 revives the good, old, action platform run and gun genre, but this time with a bunch of humor and buckets of blown off body parts. In this sequel to Guns, Gore and Cannoli, Vinni?e Cannoli’s story continues and this time it’s personal.

1944, the war in Europe is entering its f??inal ??stage. 15 years have passed since Vinnie survived the Thugtown Massacre. But now, some loose ends start crawling out of the past, dragging Vinnie as far as the European battlefield of World War 2. Find out who is chasing Vinnie around like a dog, turning all his friends into foes.

You'll shoot Nazis and zombi??es and cars and walls and turrets and zeppelins and holy shit pretty much everything in your way, looking damned fine while doing it all. This game is legit stylish in motion, so don't miss your chance to win a copy!

To enter, comment below with your platform of choice followed by a rundown of your favorite food/weapon combo. I'd kick?? ass with an air taser and a hot dog because you don't mess with Tacos.

Winners will be drawn on Friday, August 17??. Make sure you comment with a Dtoid ac??count that has your current email address on file. If I can't contact you, I can't give you a free game. PS4 keys are for the North American PS Store.

Guns, Gore & Cannoli 2 is available now for $12.99 on Steam, Switch, and PS4. 

The post Contest: Get your Glocks greased for Guns, Gore & Cannoli 2 appeared first on Destructoid.

'It's been burned from our servers'

Mafia III is a violent and controversial title. Mixing race politics and the Vietnam war alongside themes of PTSD and urban violence will do that to your open-world adventure. In fact, the game's original opening was so? intense, th?at it was ultimately removed and digitally "destroyed", so to speak.

Speaking at the Develop conference in Brighton, UK, yesterday, Mafia III's d?irector Haden Blackman recalled the canned sequence. "We went back at the eleventh hour," began Blackman. "added a cold-open to the game that was a really violent prologue which basically shows Lincoln and his friends getting ambushed by the mob. It's super-violent and Lincoln has to resort to violence to escape. He ends up killing a cop and has to flee to Vietnam".

Shot and created toward the end of the game's development, the sequence was removed after much consideration, with Hanger 13 concerned that it came off as excessive, rather tha??n constructive, particularly in the lack of closure it receives when Lincoln finally returns from 'Nam.

"It felt exploitative instead of something that really grabbed you and put you in Lincoln's shoes and made you afra??id for him and want to help him, so we e??????????????????????????nded up cutting it because of the feedback," continues Blackman. "Was super-painful for me personally because it was something I'd pushed forward and championed, and I ended up directing that day's mocap shoot because it was such sensitive subject matter, and we worked on it for a couple of months. But it was absolutely the right thing to do in hindsight."

The scene wasn't just removed, but was also deleted from the developer's servers, so don't expect it to pop up on YouTube anytime soon. Mafia III trod a dangerous path with its portrayal of bigotry on the streets of America, as well as the country's mishandling of its traumatised youth, returning home from the horrors of war. Despite the removal of this particular opening sequence, Mafia III remains one of the more unflinching?? games of recent years.

Mafia III opening cut from final release, remove??d from ex??istence [Eurogamer]

The post Mafia III opening cutscene was so brutal that you’ll never see it appeared first on Destructoid.

The goalposts have changed, and precious few sales platforms are equipped to deal with it

This week, Valve announced they would permit any game to be hosted on its market-leading platform, Steam, as long as it did not contai??n illegal content and is not what can be classified as a?? "trolling game". This met with praise from people who criticise what they perceive as any form of censorship, but also with a lot of annoyance and anger from people who felt that Valve was washing its hands of its resp?onsibility to reduce hostility on the Steam marketplace. 

A little bit of the background leading up to this decision -- Steam has seen a spate of games recently (and perhaps not so recently, if you count examples such as Shower With Your Dad Simulator and Hatred) that could be said to have no artistic merit and are instead aimed solely at enraging people. It also faced recent controversy after cracking down on games with erotic content, a policy that disproportiona?tely ended up affecting LGBTQA+ and erotic visual novel content. Valve later apologised, looked at its decision to issue take-down notices again, trotted off with its tail between its legs and duly sat down to consider how it was going to respond to the changing landscape of content ?people put up for sale on Steam.

I was seeing a lot of ire directed specifically at Valve, and I do believe that they have misstepped in their new policy (which has already displayed potential for confusion). However, I'm not sure it's that helpful to look just at Valve. It seems as though a lot of the potential fixes for Valve's laissez-faire approach are hindered by just how out of touch moderation and classification of games is as a whole. Instead, it feels as though we should be looking into why Valve have reacted the way they did and look to changing the entire system behind approving games for sale. I really look forward to hearing your opinions on Valve's reaction in the comments, since I know mine might not be shared by everyone!

So, why did Valve react the way they did?

I don't feel like Valve reacted maliciously here or with any sort of bias when it comes to personal politics. Valve, re?acting as a business who needs to keep hold of as many customers as possible to make money, panicked and tried to do the crowd-pleasing thing of keeping the market as open as possible. And in response to the VN scandal mentioned above, this reaction seems to make sense: revert to free-market principles and let those with the money sort the wheat from the chaff.

But it's this panicked reaction -- or what some people might instead see as giving up entirely -- that is a big problem. Valve doesn't have a monopoly when it comes to selling digital games for PC/Mac/Linux, but it sure holds a massive market share, with figures steadily increasing year on year to 18.6 million users as of January 2018.

Steam gets mentioned in the same breath as Uplay, Origin, GOG, and itch.io, but it seems to have an extra level of fame beyond those platforms, in part due to its vastness and also due to its incentives (trading cards) and branching out to ot??her ventures, such as the Steam Machines and the Steam controller. For a giant in the market to throw its hands up and say it doesn't want to deal with the issue of excessively violent or bullying content sets a precedent, and a potentially dangerous one at that.

OK, but why do you care about violence or nasty content on the internet? You can always just not click on a link or walk away from your computer.

Sure, I can, and I have done. But there are people who are more sensitive, whether based on age or due to personal experience, who might not be able to just walk away. There is a separate issue of making sure that sensitive content that might be completely harmless for some people, but deeply upsetting to others, is flagged properly. Yet some content is so egregious that flagging it so that those affected by the issue don't stumble across it doesn't quite get to the heart of the problem with the game (see Active Shooter).

When it comes to age, you might argue that it is the parents' responsibility to watch t??heir sprogs and make sure they're not playing a game stuffed to the gills with gore and profanity. That's true, but this doesn't address the harm that is done. If a parent fails in their duty not to hand a violent game to their young child, saying, "oh well, it's the parents' fault" doesn't actually fix anything; the kid is still harmed, and parents of course don't have a right to harm their kids. This is why moderation and classification are important.

And I have, from time to time, accidentally stumbled across something that distressed me greatly. A writer recently wrote a (great) article about how Saya No Uta is an unsung VN that people should give a chance. Unfortunately, against my better judgment and warnings from the article, I dug deeper, and could not get the thoughts of that game out of my head f??or a couple of days, I was so disturbed by it.

The games community doesn't really have a duty to prot?ect people like me from their own idiocy, but people do end up seeing content that really gets under their skin in a bad way all the time for all kinds of reasons, perhaps while looking for something else??, or while taken over by morbid curiosity. A measured approach to stopping the most extreme instances of this is a pretty good idea.

OK, so what's the problem with Valve's new approach?

Thankfully, Valve has set s??ome standards for its current approach to moderation -- well, not allowing illegal content on Steam is not really a standard they've set for themselves since they have to comply with that anyway. It's still open to argument as to what counts as a "trolling" game. What if one of the aforementioned school shooter games actually went to great efforts with its mechanics to resemble an earnest attempt at an FPS game? Does it still count as a trolling game?

The real problem with this approach is that many games can pick out certain groups for harassment or abuse, but then bury it under a layer of good game design so that it sneaks past the moderators. And whi??le realistically, this will be the case more often for games with abject homophobia, sexism, etc., it c??an work in all different directions and against all different groups of people.

If I look back at the piece I wrote on the swatting phenomenon a little while back, people do seem a little more impressionable than they did back in the days when the Hot Coffee argument was a big deal, since gaming culture has become more networked and more entrenched in people's personal li?ves. We literally have a camera into the lives of other gamers, no?w. While violence and sexual content are absolutely not off the table when it comes to games, cooling it a little with the extremism, again, isn't a bad idea.

It's not just that, though -- what counts as illegal? Some games with loot boxes count as gambling and are therefore facin??g prohibition in the Netherlands. Valve has been shockingly lax about this theme in the past??, particularly given the popularity of these games with minors and the seriousness of gambling addiction.

It's a paper thin moderation policy that isn't really going to hold up for very long, as the gaming community starts mercilessly poking h??oles in it.

How does this link to the classification of games?

All this talk so far has been about Valve's moderati?on policy, which is indeed a set policy -- you can't have mods arbitrarily determining what they find great a??nd what they find disgusting. For one, you only need one mod to go mad with power for chaos to ensue, and two, if anyone starts questioning why their game has been taken down, and the reason is entirely down to individual moderator discretion, it's a media shitstorm waiting to happen.

As I've said before, this moderation policy is fragile, though it is a policy nonetheless. It is also not a curation approach, where Valve is openly saying it will only allow quality, hand-pi?c?ked content onto its platform, but rather an approach borne from morality.

If you boil it down, it looks kinda like Valve has created its own classification system for games, albeit not one based on several age categories, but rather one resembling the decision between a game being rated M or AO using the ESRB standards. If a game is rated AO, it is basically unsellable, since it can't be put on the shelves in sto?res and?? console manufacturers don't support AO games; if Valve deems a game immoral by its own narrow standards, it can't go up on the store. If it ??is a digital game, given the considerable number of people who turn to Steam for their game downloads, this can be the kiss of death. Very similar principl??e.

This is important because it gives us extra room to look at alternatives for Valve's issue. As I said, it seems like at best, Valve is in a panic, and at worst, it has given up. Because Steam has not opted to use local game classification s?tanda?rds, unlike console platforms, it can do as it likes when it comes to gatekeeping for its own store.

What it could do is put in place a system similar to ESRB, or wholesa?le adopt ESRB rules, even if the specific game it is looking at hasn't been run past the board – say, if the game will never appear on consoles and therefore does not have to be looked at by a cl??assification board in order to be waved through by Sony or Nintendo.

The excellent side to the console system of classification is that the permissions step is removed fr??om the people who have an interest in selling as many games as possible (Sony, Microsoft, or Nintendo), meaning that the entire process is carried out without bias or economic motivation??s. That everything is housed within Valve at the moment for Steam (both setting the classification rules and applying them) is not the most ethical policy on the planet.

Well, the good thing about Steam is that you don't have to show ID to buy a game, but OK, I'll bite... let's use game classification standards when deciding what games go up on Steam.

Not so fast, bud. Theoretically, this might be a good idea, bu??t each classification system has its own share of problems. 

There are so many regional classification systems for games that trying to count them makes my head spin, and it's not as simple as harmonising everything. There is a solid reason why we have so many different classification systems, for good or for ill, and that's that regional ideas of "morality" vary drastically from country to country. You're more likely to find guns and blood in an 18-rated game in the US that you are to see a bare breast, but in other regions, the opposite might be true. So?? trying to come up with a unified standard would be a logistical nightmare that practically nobody would agree to follow.

But, OK, let's say because Valve is based in the US, it piggybacks off ESRB standards; it already shows ESRB ratings if they happen to already be available for the game. As I said before, Westernised standards are more permissive with violence than they are with sexual content, which might be part of the reason why the VN scandal happened in the first place. There has also been some backlash against Agony for its fairly unnuanced and perverted look at a hellscape, ??which is a console game on general release in the US and Europe, and therefore passed muster with both PEG??I and ESRB.

But the appetite for games that explore sexuality and allow people who a??re queer to see representation on ?screen has grown in r??ecent times, and the classification boards haven't quite caught up with this yet. The idea that sexual content might no??t be to titillate but to educate and to express different lifestyles is a relatively new one.

With the raft of active shooter sims and such, it's worth pointing out that boards have, for a while, taken into consideration not just levels of violence but also the spirit behind such violence. The meandering, also pornographic focus on executions in Manhunt 2 is precisely why that game juddered to a halt with the BBFC in the UK (the BBFC is a non-governmental, ??independent classification board in the UK that acts parallel to PEGI). But we h??aven't quite seen violence so gaudy and empty as we do with the recent wave of "troll" games.

A classification boar??d would also struggle to handle the concept of an "AIDS Simulator??" game since it's hard to point a finger at what traditional category its objectionable nature fits into. There's no especially horrific violence, drug use, gambling, fear or sex involved; the problem is its racist undertones and, well, "are you fucking kidding me, this is sick, show some goddamn respect".

So a lot of classification systems need dragging by their hair into the 21st century, which sort of explains why Valve has been having so many issues with its moderation policy but paints us into a bit of a corner when it c??omes to finding a solution for this mess.

itch.io's CEO has spoken on the issue and the consensus seems to be that itch.io's approach strikes an excellent balance, but it is operating on a much smaller scale than Steam. Perhaps it hasn't dealt with a wave of abusive games like Steam has, precisely because it is more developer-oriented than consumer-oriented and because it doesn't get quite the same level of attention as Steam. GOG also became an unlikely champion of erotic VNs as a ??med??ium, and so I have hope that some platforms can set their own standards and execute them well, refraining from yuckin??g on other people's yums. Some platforms, like Steam, struggle and require external help. But I'm not sure the external help is there just yet.

So ultimately, you're saying that when a platform runs into multiple scandals, it should have to follow external standards. Isn't that a bit menacing and infringing on Valve's right to run its own business?

With a lot of businesses, whenever standards are lagging, the inspectors come in, be that health inspection, school inspections or simply s??omeone from head office coming in to check whether a franchise is being run correctly. Since Steam deals with sensitive con??tent, I find it a little hard to believe that Valve would be left to its own devices on this one, especially when some of its direct competitors have bowed deeply to external standards, e.g. the console market.

The best thing for Valve, if it is really struggling to put together a sensible policy, is to apply a policy drafted externally. This could be using its own mods, or it could separate the process entirely by using external mods. While not acting with any form of intent to cause harm, Valve's indecisiveness is a product of a lack of checks and balances. If we can get on top of the issue of games classification, on the whole, being a bit borked, then we will have a suitable set of checks and balances that can be applied at any time – once Valve holds its hands up and admits it ??has no idea what it's doing.

What are your thoughts on Valve's new policy? Do you think Valve got it spot on, or is it going off the rails? What do you think about the idea of Valve abdicating responsibility for approving games to a third party? Let me know in the comments down below!

The post Valve’s hands-off approach to moderation is part of a larger problem with game classification appeared first on Destructoid.

Spaghetti Noir

In the mid-1960s, the rise of western films produced and directed by Italian auteurs gave birth to a new subgenr??e of film, the Spaghetti Western. Notable for overdramatizing conflicts, unique audio and visual editing, and eschewing or outright challen?ging traditional genre tropes, the subgenre ushered in a new era of the Western film.

Like most movements in fil?m, music, or literature, however, by the time the trend had run its course it had become a parody of itself, taking what made it stand out to preposterous levels.

Milanoir, by the Milan-based Italo Games, creates what I'm dubbing the Spaghetti Noir subgenre, and instantly skips over the buildup to cut straight to bein?g preposterous.

Milanoir (PC, PS4, Switch [reviewed], Xbox One)
Developer: Italo Games
Publisher: Good Shepherd Entertainment
Released: May 31, 2018 (PC, PS4, Switch), June 8, 2018 (Xbox One)
MSRP: $12.99

If the word "noir" conjures up images of a pensive gumshoes hot on the trails of some gangster who wronged a deceitful dame, or a moody (and equally seedy) criminal underground wherein a protagonist with a dark past must atone for the sins he's committed against society, you're going to be disappointed with Milanoir.

You instead play as Piero, a mid-level Italian gangster with all the style of Ryan Gosling from Drive and all of the substance of Andrew Dice Clay from The Adventures of Ford Fairlane. As Piero, you find yourself embroiled in some pretty standard gangster situations: You kill other gangsters who want to kill you because of your reputation, you do the b??oss' bidding in order to stymie the progression of the other gangs, you infiltrate rivals' strongholds in the least subtle ways possible to exact your revenge, etc. Following genre blueprints isn't a sin; following them blindly and without much nuance is much harder to ignore.

That lack of nuance -- and by proxy, subtlety -- ends up being the game's first major sin. It plays out like it's written by a 12-year-old who just saw Scarface, and subsequently learned a whole slew of cuss words to use while mom's out of earshot. I'm no prude or anything, but I have a basic tolerance for seeing the word "fuck" on my screen. It's a great word when used effectively, but when it becomes more or less every part of speech over the course of five hours of gameplay, it really loses its punch and becomes a lazy insert for substantive language. One out of every five enemies you kill displays a s?peech bubble saying, "Fucking...asshole..." which loses its effect after the first chapter or so. There are seven chapters. That's a lot of fucking assholes.

Speaking of fucking assholes, there's one scenario in the middle of the game which sees the protagonist in jail. There are three different instances of a mass beatdown in prison duri??ng this short frame, one involving good old-fashioned sexual assault. This has no lasting effect, and is used more for shock value than anything of actual worth. What's worse is this part of the game is almost a complete throwaway, story-wise -- once you inevitably get out of jail, you're put right back into the thread before you went away, with almost no story ramifications as a result. It's lazy, it's exploitative, and it's just plain bad.

The second major sin is the gameplay. Simply put, it's unimaginative. Playing out like a twin-stick shooter, the left joystick controls movement while the right moves your crosshair. It's simple enough, but even with adjustable cursor speed the crosshair never feels accurate enough with the Joy-Con to really feel like you're the badass Piero pretends he is. You can move, crouch behind cover, dodge roll, and shoot, and that's about it. You'll find a grand total of six molotov cocktails to lob, a few grenades to specificall?y use against a boss encounter, and a magnum or two...and that's about it. Halfway through you do get a submachine gun to replace your defau??lt pistol, but considering you still have to mash down the right trigger to fire bursts, it doesn't feel different enough from the pistol to make a difference. A few vehicle sections with terrible controls try to mix up the action, but you'll walk away feeling more frustrated than anything else as a result.

And frustration is truly abound. The levels are largely straightforward, but many encounters are so horribly laid out that you'll die numerous times in your efforts to progress. You'll go from clearing out a screen without taking a single hit to being surrounded by machine guns and grenades without warning, resulting in your immediate and recurring death. To call it difficult is a disservice to difficult games; difficulty implies that hard work, memorization, and the building of basic skil??l can overcome a once-insurmountable challenge. This just feels cheap. There were several instances where after an hour of trying and trying to progress through an artificially difficult area, I only made it through in the end because of the AI either making a mistake, or putting itself in a disadvantageous situation. Beating a section because the computer fucked up is not rewarding, and it is not something I like to play ?through.

It's not all bad, though. What initially drew me to the game was its aesthetic. Milanoir has a neat-looking pixel art style, with slightly wonky but attractive animations. This would fit right at home on the SNES or Genesis, which is a compliment in my book. I know you can't pull up two di??fferent indie game articles these days without seeing pixel art games, but it really does juxtapose quite nicely with the (sometimes obtuse) violence going on while you play. The streets are suitably gritty, even if there are only about six different enemy types to encounter throughout the story.

And the music won't blow anyone away, but there are synth beats mixed with flute solos to make an attempt at setting a mood. You won't get the long drag of a saxophone like you think you would hear in a noir title, but it's at least better than the main gameplay loop. The real problem with the music is you'll? hear it a lot. Through all the times you'll die because you're surrounded by guns with no cover or being spammed wit?h grenades by enemies across the screen or being absolutely wrecked by that helicopter boss time and time again, you'll hear the loops of the soundtrack more than you'll care to. That's less a knock on the soundtrack itself, but it's worth pointing out.

Milanoir takes an appealing aesthetic with a promising setup and turns it into a dutiful slog without much of a payout. It's? basic, it's petty, and? it's laughably crude. It is a noir title that really doesn’t have a whole lot to say.

...except for "f??uck." It’s got mo??re than enough of those to give.

_{[This review is bas??ed on a retail build of the game provided by the ??publisher.]}

The post Review: Milanoir appeared first on Destructoid.

Circle Strafe

2018 is looking to become the year of the retro FPS revival, as there is now another competitor in the ring. Hellbound is an old-school styled shooter in the vein of id Software's classics that is looking to recapture the glory of the '90s. The game recently appeared on Kickstarter and has already achieved 25% of its $40,000 goal. If this sounds interesting to you, why not try out the free demo that was just made ?available?

Not content to just let their words and videos do the talking, you can now try out Hellbound on Steam in ??a free horde-style survival mode. You'll get a feel for most of the arsenal as well as get to see the visual style that developer Saibot Studios is going for. I have to admit, the graphics do remind me of the push for higher fidelity that '90s shooters were so keen to promote, so this could be a retro trip worth taking.

If you're not sure you want to try this, why not give the video a watch? It certainly looks like Serious Sam, which is definitely a compliment.

Hellbound: A ‘90s First P?erson Shooter, made 20 years later [Kickstarter]

The post Old-school FPS Hellbound releases a free dem??o to promote Kickstarter campaign appeared first on Destructoid.

The rise of far-right tendencies in gaming is a problem, but the will of the player holds the power, not the games themselves

This week, a piece written by Alfie Bown, author of The PlayStation Dreamworld, was published in The Guardian. The core argument of the piece was that video game?s inherently, and particularly recently, project far-right tendencies onto players. Through playing the games, players are effectively given an interactive experience of right-wing ideologies, which acts to indoctrinate them and is feeding the swing towards a lack of compassion in the politics of young people nowadays. I'd advise you to read it in full, because while it is a bold argument that I don't really agree with, it makes for interesting reading.

So, as I've just said, the argument didn't quite gel with me. I have to start by saying that I absolutely believe there is a problem with right-wing, xenophobic, and misogynist tendencies in video games, as there is in many parts of society. Many people are living in a state of fear because the world as it stands is quite a hostile place, which only encourages "every man for himself" thoughts and ?a disgust for anything labelled as "other." Some people don't even need that existential fear to feel hatred for others. The thing is, I don't feel like it is video games stoking the fires of hostile politics. If anything, I feel like people with those politics project their feelings onto games.

The topic is way too large to cover in a si?ngle weekend editorial, but I want to give a few responses to specific points made in Bown's article. Some parts of it seemed to jump the gun a little or be too selective in its examples. The points that stuck out for me as not quite right were the following:

• "Games are ideological constructions which push a set of values on the user."
• "Right-wing ideologies have been overrepresented and dominant throughout the history of video games."
• "Video games put the user to work on an instinctual level, making the gamer feel impulsive agreement with these ideologies."
• "The rationale of gaming is to unite pleasurable impulse with political ideology, a process which renders gamers susceptible to discourses that urge people to follow their instincts while also prescribing what those instincts ought to be."
• "...games can have a concrete ideological effect on us – and make us desire politically charged things on a personal level."

Right – let's get started ??on unpacking this.

"Games ar?e ideological constructions which push a set of values o??n the user."

Games are indeed ideological in nature – not in the sense that games always portray a utopia (in fact, this is rare, or there would be no push for the protagonist to do anything), but in that they portray a? certain view of the world that is to some extent or another detached from reality. Aside from documentary work and non-fiction, every form of media is portraying a version of the world that is different from the one we see surrounding us every morning when we wake up.

The idea that doesn't quite work is that games, by their very definition, push their values on the user. Some people might say a game is just a game, and only in very rare cases does it have anything coming close to values. I don't agree – I think every game has some sort of value structure in it, or the ideological world it has built up would collapse. Taking a game as simple as Angry Birds, the values here are "birds are good, pigs are bad, destroy their houses." The value structure gives the player a guideline as to what ?they are supposed to do and what they are not supposed to do: how to win the game, or how to be kicked to the Game Over screen after a few seco?nds, because they've disobeyed the game's very particular set of laws.

But do all games inherently push these values on the player? I don't think so. Increasingly as of late, games give players incentives to "break" them – to be anarchic and ignore the game's very own set of laws. This might be in pursuit of trophies or to create glitches, or just for the hell of it. An example of this is the genocide run in Undertale: if you go down that horrible path, NPCs will avoid you or implore you to stop what you're doing, but the player is allowed to continue down that murderous path if they wish. Sandbox games such as the Grand Theft Auto series leave the player entirely to their own devices, while incentivising them to behave a certain way only if they want to get to the end of the Story mode – which many people don't really care about as much as explor??ing the world they're in.

Even in traditional games, where the only way to get any enjoyment out of it is to obey its set of values to the letter, is it really "pushing" them onto the player? The player has a choice to set the controller down and not play the game. The player can follow the values, nod along, and declare to themselves at the end that the entire experience was bullshit. Most importantly to me, the player can see a set of values they disagree with, follow them for? the sake of getting to the end, and then see it as an experiment in how they might not behave like themselves in a simulation, when under certain sources of pressure. There is actually real value in exploring different perspectives this way, and it is where games have the power to enrich people's levels of experience, not convert them to fascism.

"Right-wing ideologies have been?? overrepresented and dominant throughout the history of video games."

These ideologies have de??finitely been an unwelcome presence throughout games, but have they dominated? I'm not too sure.

Some of the examples Bown gives of this dominance are actually quite baffling, if I'm honest. He lists expelling "aliens" (in the sense that US folk use that word to refer to illegal immigrants) as a right-wing tendency in Space Invaders and XCOM. There are certainly parallels between fear that another species could destroy yours, and fear of the differences between yourself and someone of another ethnicity, but that doesn't mean that a game about the former is automatically making a comment on the latter. The two fears are prompted by a common source, which is the drive to self-preserve and the fear of death. Games about impurities in a species, such as The Last of Us, have this same core. One of the most?? powerful player instincts that games tap into is the wish not to die, whether there i??s a rational threat or not.

But again, it sticks in my craw to talk about these ideologies being "overrepresented." I don't know if I would say the ideologies b??eing overrepresented is dangerous – instead, it is an oversimplified endorsement of these ?ideologies that is the real danger.

Take Resident Evil. It addresses humanity's downfall due to impurities and mutations in the hu??man species, which could be said to lean too heavily o?n eugenics.

This only really becomes a problem when the player is jingoistically encouraged to flamethrower the living heck out of absolutely everything without a pause for breath. Instead, we see comrades die after making it through a tough spell in a previous game. We see people driven by greed finally get their comeuppance. We see people banding together to escape a decaying city. There are so many instances in the Resident Evil series where the people who are infected are humanised, and players are encouraged to empathise with the fallen (Lisa Trevor being the best example of all). Instead of pushing the ideology of "kill the impure" on the player, the games give the player room to explore their own feelings about humanity's downfall. If anything, wanting to avenge individuals such as Lisa Trevor because they identify with their struggles gives the player ev??en more motivation to take down Umbrella.

"Video games put the user to work on an instinctual level, m??aking the gamer feel impulsive agreement with these ideologies."

What Bown is talking about here, when he talks about acting off instinct, is how the player naturally goes about making their decisions in the game. This texture looks a bit odd? Bash it with a hammer, then. This baddie looks like he could cause us a few problems down the line? Shoot him. Shoot him now. By blending this thought process with unsavoury political principles, Bown says that?? it encourages players to automatically grasp for the?? right-wing way of thinking, which will then bleed into their everyday life.

Except, I think the ideologies that are portrayed very often don't travel outside of their own specific contexts. To discuss this, I'm going to choose a game that I've been fascinated with recently, which is Haunting Ground, where you play as ??a college student trapped inside her ancestral home. She has to escape from two bosses who are in rather bad taste during the game: one is a man with a learning disability who will hug her to death if he catches up with her, while the other is a "shrill harpy"-type character who is driven insane by her own infertility and cuts out the student's reproductive organs if she catches up with her. 

In the game, you have no choice but to run away from these characters. If you don't, it's Game Over, so you flee over and over again. Even though this is buying into the misconception that those with learning disabilities are likely to accidentally hurt you, or that women of a certain age who can't bear/haven't borne children are bound to have a screw loose, because of course they're lacking something that is integral to womanhood. But the vast majority of players will restrict that feeling to this very specific instance of having to run away from these char?acters or they will die. They will see it as a depiction of an extreme scenario on a scre??en, and it won't affect their views of childless/childfree women or those with learning disabilities, because the game backed them into a corner.

I think this is where it's clear that players have more influence over their experience of games than the game itself. If you are impressionable enough to draw the conclusion that the characters in Haunting Ground are bad, therefore people with similar characteristics must be bad, then you're placing? dots on a page that were never supposed to be there and then joining them up. F?rankly, I have more faith in the average gamer that they can isolate experiences to where they experienced them and not let it infect their daily life, and that their agency and the interactivity is precisely what gets them to stop and think about their own reactions to the game and about their subsequent behaviour.

"The rationale of gaming is to unite pleasurable impulse with political ideology, a process which renders gamers susceptible to discourses that urge people to follow their instincts while also prescribing what those instincts ought to be."

I don't think this is the rationale of gaming at all. The rationale of gaming ?is to create the pleasurable impulse, full-stop, unless we're talking about games that are legitimate propaganda. Depending on the game in question, political ideology is secondary but still important, or just window-dressing.

People play games to tick off things on a checklist, whether it is a checklist constructed from the game's own list of values, or the player's self-imposed list of values. Whether it's getting a higher score in Puyo Puyo Tetris, getting through Silent Hill 4 as fast as possible, or building a phallus-shaped rollercoaster in RollerCoaster Tycoon 3, we have something that motivates us to sit there and play a game – at least the vast majority of people do, since people tend to lean towards having reasons for doing something. The core ingredient of every game is?? the rewa??rding of effort.

More impressionable people will accept any kind of reward, but a lot of people want to feel they've done something really worthy and got a huge amount?? of recogn??ition in return. This is where political ideology comes in. If the player finds the ideology of the game disgusting, they might not want to be rewarded by it, if they are in any way, shape, or form discerning about what they play.

What political ideology does is that it provides reasons for the impulse or prescribes it a level of urgency, and the players, in exercising their agency, might find that the political ideology makes them not want to seek a reward from it anymore. It's a bit like getting a birthday cake from your enemy – yo??u might be tempted to eat a great big slice if it looks delicious, but it's in the back of your mind that the enemy may have poisoned it.

So, combined with what I said above, the game itself doesn't necessarily prescribe the instincts, and the level of susceptibility to following game-??prescribed instincts depends on each individual person. In the vast majority of cases, we have to give the player more credit and trust they won't swallow down every reward dangled before them.

".??..games can have a concrete ideological effect on us – and ?make us desire politically charged things on a personal level."

What I want to talk about here is the "on a personal level?" part. Do we always play as ourselves when we play a game? Or do we?? instead step into the shoes of the protagonist, trying to understand their specific motivations and personality traits? I think it's more often the latter than some people think.

A good example for this is James Sunderland in Silent Hill 2. Sure, we might project onto James our own feelings about what we'd do if our?? spouse went missing in a twisted version of where we once went on holiday together. But mainly, we'd try to understand what James is going through and make James behave consistently with what we're being told about his own personal journey...or no??t, if we don't trust that the game developers have given us James' real story, instead going for a wander around the town to see what extra goodies we can find.

In a way, Bown seems to argue that playing as other characters with their own ideologies is what indoctrinates ?us into unhealthy ways of thinking. James' own ideas about what a real woman is are certainly not very flattering. But if we are playing as James, and not a version of ourselves that is called James and looks like James, then the player has to do some extra mental graft to transfer their experiences as James into their real life. By playing as the character on screen and not as a version of themselves, it opens the door for a level of detachment. Ce?rtainly as the game progresses and we see some truly dark sides to James, the player's gut instinct is likely to be, "That's not me. This is the worst of humanity. I am not the worst of humanity."

People generally like to think of themselves as a force for good, unless they have a poor self-image, perhaps for mental health reasons or because of incidents in their past. So seeing a character do bad things on screen probably doesn't encourage most people to think that's a good idea in their real life, but instead to isolate those experiences to being about "other people." This in itself is dangerous, because restricting evil acts to "evil people" doesn't really get to the heart of why people are motivated to do ill. Just look at the Stanford prison experiment or Marina Abranović's "Rhythm 0" to see how average members of the general public can turn on each other given the right conditions. But it does throw a spanner in the works when it comes to Bown's argument that people mak??e things that happen in games about them. It really, really depends both? on the game itself and on the individual playing it.

***

In conclusion, Bown's article is a great jumping-off point to talk about the relationship between right-wing ideol?ogies and games. Really, the topic needs a lot more space than either I or Bown can give to it in a small editorial, but the interactions between people and games are much more complex than a process of simple ??indoctrination.

My conclusion is that players have agency, and use it constantly when they play a game. Their will determines whether they continue with it or put it down, how they play the game, and how they are influenced it. It can even reach beyond that and make people twist an innocuous game into something evil – I'm looking at you, RollerCoaster Tycoon hedge-maze person. Games are a literal playground, and give people the room to try different things out without influence on the outside world. In most cases,?? it's people who have control over games, ??not the other way around.

What is your reaction to Alfie Bown's article? What do you think about the co-existence of far-right tendencies and video games/other media? Let me know in the comments down below!

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Keep your hands off my Manhunt

[Update: It seems this meeting is being sprung on the video game community. According to a statement sent to Kotaku, the ESA and its member companies have r??eceived no invitation to meet with the President.]

When Kentucky Governor Matt Bevin trotted out the old “it’s those darn vidja games” argument a few days after the tragic Parkland massacre, I thought, “Okay, this is the guy. This is the idiot who will blame school shootings on video games.” He’d say this, get his 15 minutes of Twitter ridicule, and then we’d all move on to trying to find real solutions and then promptly forgetting about it until the next massacre. Because we’re Americans and that’s what we do.

After Columbine and the ridiculous focus on rock music and Doom, the video blame game has become a staple of the post-school-shooting dialog. With Columbine it was Doom; with Virginia Tech, Counter-Strike. Call of Duty was brought to the forefront in the aftermath of the Norway massacre, and Wayne LaPierre of the NRA -- who have long demonized video games following these tragedies -- cast a wide net after Sandy Hook, calling out everything from Bulletstorm to Splatterhouse. A final report about the Sandy Hook shooting would find the perpetrator spent many hours playing the vilest game of all, Dance Dance Revolution.

As fans of the medium, we’re used to this by now. Bevin dropping those old-school talking points didn’t surprise me. What is surprising is this damn debate isn’t going away as easy this time. If you have opened Twitter or Facebook in the last two weeks you’ve no doubt seen news stories on President Trump talking about the need to address violence in video games, saying, "It's so incredible. I get to see things that you wouldn't be—you would be amazed at. I have a very young son who I look at some of the things he's watching and I say, 'How is that possible?'" For the sake of reference, Barron Trump is 11 years old. I was his age in 1996, the year of Duke Nukem 3D, Mortal Kombat Trilogy, Killer Instinct Gold, Resident Evil, and Die Hard Trilogy; and of course I played them all.

Despite nearly every credible publication writing a piece about wh?y it’s ignorant to blame violent video games, despite the well-written and researched Grand Theft Childhood showing correlation but no causation between playing violent video games and childhood problems, despite more and more studies out there showing little to no evidence that video games make kids more aggressive or desensitized to empathy, here we are again. In 2018, we’re still debating this crap and that debate will continue next week when the President meets with representatives of the video game industry.

During a press briefing today, Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said the meeting will be focused on issues of violence and school safety and video game executives will offer input “to see what they can do on that front.” It’s not yet announced which video game executives will be in attendance.

The old libby-lib-lib in me wants to go on a diatribe right now, but I’ll spare you and instead just ask honestly, what the hell do we anticipate to come out of this? Do we think Rockstar is going delay Red Dead Redemption 2 to make it less violent? Of course not, they’re going to delay it for other reasons. The President spoke about creating a ratings system, but we already have one in place parents can ignore when their screaming child wants them to buy True Crime: Streets of New York, even after the GameStop employee lists off all the reasons why she shouldn’t buy it for her (guesstimating his age here) six-year-old son. Consoles also have parental locks that can keep kids away from games their parents don’t want them playing. Video game companies have taken great strides to make sure kids can’t get their hands on games their parents might think are harmful unless those games have lootboxes.

Look, I get it. For somebody who didn’t grow up with violent video games, it can look downright horrific. Many “M for Mature” games feature an incredible amount of violence, violence that is often celebrated in nauseating ways. But science is on our side here. Violent video games can’t turn you into a killer. It’s time to find a new scapegoat.

Trump to discuss 'violent' video games with execs [New York Post]

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Extra tax to pay for mental health services

Robert Nardolillo III, a member of the Rhode Island?? State House, has proposed a new bill that would put a tax on the sale of all "violent video games." The goal of this bill is to funnel any extra funds into a separate pool to be used for providing better mental health services and counseling for students within the state. The extra tax would apply only to M-rated games sold in Rhode Island and would be a 10% increase in price.

Nardolillo stated, "There is evidence that children exposed to violent video games at a young age tend to act more aggressively than those who ??are not. The bill would give schools the additional resources needed to help students deal with that aggression in a positive way." Nardolillo's intended goal is for children to have better methods of dealing with aggression so that we can move into a more peaceful future.

I could almost see where Nardolillo is coming from, because mental health service in this country is in a dire state. As someone wh?o has a history of depression and anxiety, it took me years to realize what I was suffering through wasn't everyone else looking to hurt me, but more a chemical imbalance that had been overlooked for too long. If this country didn't frown upon people w??ith such problems, I could have gotten help a lot sooner. That being said, sticking this solely to video games is scapegoating a much larger issue, not to mention it further stigmatizes mental health issues.

It also ignores how other forms of media could potentially be causing issues, if we're going to believe the myth ??that media has a direct impact on our thoughts and actions. Why are only video games being blamed by this bill? Why is taxing only? M-rated games the answer and not T or E10 games that contain forms of violence? Will this also apply to digital sales (which never comes up in Nardolillo's proposal)?

I know Nardolillo's heart is in the right place, but his method of going about this feels self-serving. It should be mentioned the politician has a 93% approval rating from the NRA, which more than like?ly explains why he isn't targeting gun control laws.

Rhode Island politician proposes violent game tax [GamesIndustry.biz]

The post A politician in Rhode Island has proposed a ‘violent video game’ sales tax appeared first on Destructoid.

Playing dirty

All this talk about “sportsball” on Twitter during the Super Bowl sort of eluded me. Yes, I get it; gamers and geek culture are not generally associated with being sports fans. I can’t even properly say I am one myself. I didn’t watch the Super Bowl this year, or last, and I don’t really follow teams, but that has a lot more to do with the way I take in entertainment. I don’t watch TV very often in general. It’s like pulling teeth to get me to watch a movie. But unquestionably, my f??avorite organized sport is football, and I am not a stranger to footbal??l video games.

Now I’ll be clear here: I am referring specifically to arcade-style football. I have never been able to fully understand or appreciate the nuance of the Madden series (except in very early iterations) or other more serious football simulations. The idea of sitting through hours of tutorials and having to remember fifty different button commands to stand a chance at fighting my way through a season is arduous for me. But the these days, the options seem more limited than ever. Madden has practically monopolized the sport at this point, NFL Blitz is nowhere to be found, so if you want a decent ga?me of football, you are practically forced to suck at the teat of EA and deal wi??th everything that comes with it.

So it’s really nice to see an option come seemingly out of left field (because sports haha) in Mutant Football League. Not only is it a welcome addition to a genre that is sorely lacking in variation, but it’s a revival of a fun 16-bit franchise, the Mutant League sports series, that I remember pretty fondly from my childhood. It has a few kinks and imperfections which I will get i??nto, but I was able to look past them quickly and enjoy the base game for?? what it is: simple, straightforward arcade football.

With punching and blood and explosions and may??????????????????????????hem.

Mutant Football League (PC, Xbox One, PS4 [reviewed]
Developer: Digital Dreams Entertainment
Publisher: Digital Dreams Entertainment
Released: January 19, 2018
MSRP: $19.99

The big appeal of Mutant League Football on the Sega Genesis and Super Nintendo was the Troma-esque fixation on absurd cartoon violence and toilet humor. The Beavis and Butthead '90s antics don’t hold up quite as well today; most of the humor, especially in the audio commentary, fell completely flat for me, eliciting little more than the odd amused grunt, but I was never compelled to turn it off completely. You almost had to have it of course; a modern football game without any attempt at commentary would have felt strange and incomplete, but the real draw of MFL is the hard-hitting violence, th??e loose adherence to traditional rules, and naturally, the numerous deaths of on-field players as they run head first into saw traps, get eaten by carnivorous worms, and most frequently, are beaten to death during and at the end of a play by the opposing team.

There are of course penalties in place to prevent things from becoming stupid; you have a limited window of time to inflict damage on players with punches, kicks, and body slams before a play is called, and a death after that will result in a penalty and lost yards. Whittling away players' health will slow them down and make them less efficient, but there is a fine line, one that is often crossed by the A.I. -- nine times out of ten, it was the computer-controlled players on my team that would incur a penalty by murdering other players, even when I was being careful not to pass that threshold. A minor annoyance, and one that never really adversely affected the outcome of the game for me; on the default difficulty setting, I found it quite easy to plow through my opponents most of the time even when they were pulling trick after dirty trick on me, though?? this is adjustable for a much tougher experience.

Dirty Tricks are tactics you can employ a limited number of times per game to grant you a clear advantage on the field. Worried the opposing team is about to get a touchdown? Bribe the ref and have them call unfair penalties whenever they do until the ref is murdered and replaced by another. Players dying left and right? Win the half-time minigame, a Smash TV type top-down shooter which is so sloppy and horribly unfun that it makes the irritating mini-games in Yooka-Laylee look like Celeste, and you will have an opportunity to re?surrect a teammate. There are a number of modified running and pass plays such as Shotgun and Roid Rage that beef up your team and usually lead to a ton of yards gained, and can vastly affect the outcome of the game.

Personally, I found them fun additions, but I could go either way -- ??I’m happy with the simplicity of the regular ruleset, and didn’t find myself using them unless it was necessary to counter one the opposing team had employed. They can?? be disabled in the game options if you find them obnoxious and want a more even-handed football experience.

I have a couple of gripes. Apart from the rough-around-the-edges presentation, lack of worthwhile music (and presence of annoying jingle music every time you have to select a play which prompted me to disable the tunes altogether) and laughable, choppy performance when playing the half-time minigame, I was unable to find an online match to play -- ever. There just seems to be little demand among the fanbase for online play. In addition, there is nothing exceptional about any of the modes. You can play a regular match, a pre-season match, or a playoff match, play through a whole season, and that’s about it. Mutant Football League, especially ?played at the fastest game setting (which I recommend) would feel right at home in an arcade and isn't ashamed of it.

I’ll admit, NFL Blitz and Tecmo Super Bowl are always going to be my favorite football games. Though the gore and fatalities here are neat, I didn’t find that they began to approach the hard-hitting feeling of impact that the Blitz series was so well loved for. Even though that game didn’t have players getting gored by monsters or punched to pieces, it felt more hardcore overall with heavy, bone-crushing hits. Here, many of the big hits feel like a whimper when paired up to somewhat low-key sound effects. I can't quite put my finger on it, but something is a little off -- what should be devas?tating moments don't pack the level of punch I was hoping for, and in a game where that is one of the selling points, that disappointed me a little.

Really though, this is a pretty strong throwback to an overlooked series. The demented team names, ghoulish character desi?gns (orcs 4 life), traps, tricks, and violence make for a fun arcade package. Even the flaws and unpolished nature of the game seem like an apt follow-up to the original in some ways, although there are a few missteps in the final product that could have probably been cleaned up.

For what was initially a failed Kickstarter by the series’ original creator to make it to a final release like this is impressive in its own right, and it is one of the few arcade-centric football experiences currently on the market. Mutant Football League is fast, dirty fun, and definitely one of my favorite sport??s games in recent years.

_{[This review is based on a retail build of t???he game provided by the publisher.]}

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Don't Panic!

Panic Button, the developers behind the excellent DOOM port to Switch, will be helming the upcoming Wolfesntein II port to the same console. Bethesda revealed this news to GameReactor today along with mentioning the po?rt will be out in early 2018.

Machine Games' senior game designer, Andreas Öjerfors, stated, "they're [Panic Button] experts at the Switch and now they're experts with the [id Tech 6] engine so we work with them, and the Doom version turned out to be really kick-ass on the Switch so I think Wolfenstein will be the same."

While I wasn't exactly fond of the 30 FPS cap, having DOOM playable on a portable device was a real treat. I never expected to see that kind of technology squeezed down in such a short time frame and without even compromising the level design. We've come a long way from the old, crappy PS2 ports of Xbox exclusive games (I'm looking at you Splinter Cell).

Studio porting Wolfenstein II for the Switch confirmed [Game Reactor]

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Bushido Souls

Earlier this year, Team Ninja released their take on FromSoftware’s winning Souls formula in the form of Nioh. The game shifted the setting away from Gothic and eldritch horrors and moved into the Sengoku Period of Japan, making for a title with a heavy emphasis on action and with visual flair to spare. It was one of the very best games from earlier this year and still remains a “Game of the Year” contender nine months la??ter. It was relegated to the PS4, though, so only a select brand of gamers got a chance to experience the ride.

Now, though, Koei Tecmo has graced us with a PC port of the game in the form of a “Complete Edition.” Combining all the DLC and pushing past the technical limitations of Sony’s console, how does Nioh hold up on PC? Let’s take a deeper look!

Rig: Intel Core i7-3770 @ 3.4 GHz, 16GB of SDDR3 RAM @ 1600 MHz, Nvidia GTX 1060 6GB, Windows 10 Home 64-bit

To start off, make sure you launch Nioh from your g?ames list on Steam and not via the shortcut. If you use the short?cut, you’ll skip the separate launcher that allows you to toggle resolution and graphics options. When I first booted the game, everything was locked to 720p and it looked a little rough. A quick glance at the in-game graphics options was super limited and I was beginning to worry that this port was a total joke.

The graphics options in the launcher aren’t exactly expansive, but you can toggle things like resolution (with full 4K support), framerate cap, and display options (Windowed, Fullscreen and Bordered). As for the in-game settings, you can toggle things like display mode and framerate cap and…wait, why is that also in-game? That oddness aside, the in-game options feature the same two presets from the PS4 version (Cinematic and Action), but you can switch on/off stuff like shadows, dynamic reflections, or motion blur. You can also tell those presets to suck it and max out the game, which is a great feature for PC users. Nvidia cards get direct ShadowPlay functionality for Nioh, so I assume it will automatically record badass moments for you (I’m not a fan of the Geforce Ex?perience, so I didn’t test this).

As for control options, you can use a keyboard, but no mouse. The in-game menu won’t give you any graphics to explain the controls, either. This could be because I launched the game with a controller, but I plugged in different options and removed them and I just could not get a display for what the controls are. For that matter, once I entered a menu using the keyboard, I had no idea how to back out. That being said, the game does k?ind of support it, but it certainly doesn't work that well.

Using a gamepad, the game is primarily made with the Steam controller in mind, so all of the button prompts are based on Valve’s gamepad. That matches up well with a 360 or Xbox One controller, but it can be confusing for anyone using a DualShock 4. At least Sony’s option works without a hitch, you’ll just need to train yourself to recognize Circle as B (something I’ve done over the years of playing PS3 and 360 almost interchangeably). That being said, you cannot customize your controls, but you do get to select from presets that might possibly fit your style. I had no problem with the default option, apart from having to hold RB to change weapons (which makes sense given the complexity of Nioh).

Once you get through those convoluted settings, the game runs pretty damn well. My rig isn’t exactly cutting edge, but I wa??s able to max out the settings at 1080p and get a mostly consistent 60 FPS. Some bits with heavy particle effects see the game dip a little, but it never dropped below 55 and is easily something that can be overcome with settings tweaks or slightly more powerful hardware. A lot of that might be because I refuse to play without VSync, of which my monitor is only a 60 hz display.

That last bit being said, there is no option for unlocked framerate, so people with 144 hz monitors might be out of luck. This is probably more to do with? the game logic? being tied to its framerate, but you won’t be getting 144 FPS playback with this version. At least having all of the visual flair with no compromises is a plus.

To sum it all up, I wouldn’t call Nioh on PC the best port around, but ?it’s certainly the definitive version of this game. It looks really nice, runs smoothly, and includes all of the DLC at a reduced price. With a few patches to enable some more PC-friendly options (like fully customizable controls), I could see this goi?ng down as a must-own experience for basically everyone.

As for my thoughts on the game, I’m not really far enough in it to give a full rundown, but I couldn’t stop when I started. I mainly wanted to grab framerate analysis and some screenshots, but I got sucked in and ended up spending two hours fighting through the first area. Nioh might be my game ??of the yea??r and I haven’t even played that much! This is an excellent game and this new version is a good way to finally play it.

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If you came here for Wesley Snipes, look elsewhere

Takashi Miike is, in the purest sense of the word, prolific. He has dedicated himself to churning out film after film, year in and year out, often with wildly differing levels of success. Sure, it’s easy to look at fantastic works like Audition or 13 Assassins and say the man is a great director, but for every Audition, there’s a shamefully pedestrian outing like Yakuza Apocalypse in Miike’s filmography. Miike has always rode that line between schlock and greatness, and it gives the impression that even he doesn’t know what he wants to creat??e next. He’s unpredictable, and despite how inc?onsistent his work can be at times, every now and then, a fantastic movie emerges from his twisted brain.

With Miike’s 100th movie, Blade of the Immortal, another great film has been born.

Blade of the Immortal
Director: Takashi Miike
Release Date: November 3, 2017
Rated: R

Blade of the Immortal is the story of Manji (Takuya Kimura), an immortal samurai roaming around the Edo region of Japan. How did he become immortal? Well, after being labelled and outlaw for killing his master, and felling 100 men to avenge his sister, an old crone named Yaobikuni cursed Manji with the kessen-chu, sacred bloodworms that render their host immortal. Now, Manji must use his skills as a swordsman and his immortality to help a young girl named Rin (Hana Sugisaki) avenge her father’s death at the hands of the Ittō-ryū, a brutal order of warrior’s intent on conquering every dojo in Edo. This is a story of savage violence and revenge to be sure, but it’s framed within a tragic exploration of the honor-based culture of Japan, and the murky morality of both our heroes and villains. And, despite this, Blade of the Immortal never feels too cerebral or overtly graphic. It’s an easily digestible film that rewa??rds viewers that mull over the themes and core messaging, without punishing those who came for a blood-smeared romp that stays true to the manga.

I nearly forgot to mention that! Blade of the Immortal is based on the manga of the same name, and that pulpy influence is felt in the best possible way in Miike’s adaptation. This film is first and foremost, fun at all times, without sacrificing the seriousness of the plot, or the emotional through-line that keeps Blade of the Immortal from feeling like just a gore-fest. It’s a tricky balance for any filmmaker to adapt a property like this, and Miike deftly pulls all the important elements from the manga together in a gorgeous tapestry that just works. There’s even a dose of humor sprinkled here and there that ??will blindside the audience, and get some hefty laughs from even the most stubborn of critics. Again, all the elements are woven together so well that this film can go from one tone to the next without feeling inconsistent. This is a beautiful tapestry that needs to be seen.

The most obvious element of that tapestry is the action, and as always, Miike makes it shine. Yes, the gore is over-the-top, evoking that Tarantino-esque directorial style we’ve all become so familiar with, but the fighting and the motion itself aren’t sloppily as?sembled – they’re calculated to land with ferocious force and satisfy the audience. Most of the movie is filmed in a wide-shot, and because of that, each stroke of the sword, every throat cut, needs to look convincing as hell for the final product to work. Thankfully, each fight is full of little flourishes, nuances and facial expressions that give these encounters an authentic and unique feel to them. Every fight feels different because each combatant brings their own distinct fighting style to the table, which ?not only makes these fights interesting, but makes them prime targets for a rewatch as well.

There are moments where the action does falter, and those reasons are readily identifiable. Blade of the Immortal us??es its fair share of practical blood effects, but in the larger-scale brawls and some close-up shots of limbs flying off, there’s a lot of CG blood-spatter being employed that could have been done without. Don’t get me wrong – the spatter looks okay, but in contrast to scenes utilizing practical blood effects, or where makeup and blood effects are used together to highlight a particularly gruesome injury, the CG blood splatter looks pedestrian in comparison. There’s a bit of whiplash transitioning from scenes with good effects and poor ones – it feels like going from blockbuster to a student film?.

The other poor aspect that comes to mind is?? the use of handheld shaky cam. As I mentioned before, most of the film uses a stable camera in wide-shot to capture the action, but there are a several shots with camera shake that aren’t that satisfying. Hits connect offscreen with characters we don’t see, and these shots do more to disorient the audience than to involve them in the bloodbath happening onscreen. Thankfully, it isn’t used all ?that often, but when it is employed, each strike looks far too blurry to satisfy anyone.

Still, the good severely outweighs the bad in Blade of the Immortal. The acting is well delivered, with Takuya Kimura giving a damn good performance as Manji, complete with little touches and personal characterization that bring his character to life. The story, the humor and the action are all here in force, creating a movie that is more than dumb fun, while simultaneously embracing the medium it hails from ?and translating it perfectly for live-action.

We’ve had a lack of great action movies lately; most entries in the genre are either trite and forgettable, or fall into the bland superhero version of action, where the action is so disconnected from reality that it’s hard to take it seriously. Despite the sacred bloodworms that keep Manji going, Blade of the Immortal in no way feels unreal or unoriginal. This is a unique, enjoyable action movie that almost anyone can enjoy. Takashi Miike, congratulations on your 100^th film. It is supremely delightful.

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