PIXELS (1 out of 10) Directed by Chris Columbus; Written by Tim Herlihy and Timothy Dowling; Based on the short film by Patrick Jean; Starring Adam Sandler, Kevin James, Josh Gad, Peter Dinklage and Michelle Monaghan; Rated PG-13 for some language and suggestive comments; Running time 105 minutes, In wide release July 24, 2015.

Few things in life are worse than a wasted opportunity. Based on the excellent 2010 short, “Pixels” had every reason to be one of the best summer blockbusters, but because of the laziness and shoddy work of everyone involved, it’s easily one of the worst films of the year.

The year is 1982, and arcades rule the world. Pac-Man, Donkey Kong, Space Invaders and other iconic video games are making their debut, and everyone is going crazy over them, and none more so than young Sam Brenner and his best friend Will Cooper. Sam has a gift of being able to pick apart the enemies’ patterns in the games and enters a world video game championship to show off his skills. The contest is filmed and shot into space in a time capsule by NASA in an attempt to eventually communicate with alien life.

Skip ahead a few decades and Sam (Adam Sandler) has given up on his dreams and resigned himself to work for a Geek Squad knock-off while Will (Kevin James) is now the very unpopular President of the United States. So all is not well when the aliens that got the time capsule finally come calling. Unfortunately for earth, the aliens mistook the recordings as a declaration of war and start attacking us using pixelated armies based on the games they have seen. President Will enlists the help of Sam, conspiracy theorist Ludlow Lamonsoff (Josh Gad) and ex-gamer/current prisoner Eddie Plant (Peter Dinklage) to train the worlds’ militaries to repel the attack and drive off the invaders before it’s game over for everyone.

By all accounts, this should be a rollicking and entertaining movie, yet Adam Sandler and company have somehow managed to squeeze all the fun and joy out of it.

Sandler and James are completely bored with their characters and have no interest in the movie they’re creating. Sure they’re known for playing apathetic losers in previous films, but it’s incredibly apparent all they’re doing is waiting for the director to yell “cut” so they can run to the bank and cash their paychecks. Sandler’s so lazy, a stunt double was hired to moonwalk for him in a two second scene. Even when taking on Space Invaders or a giant Pac-Man, it’s painfully obvious they don’t care so why should anyone else?

On the flip side, Peter Dinklage and Josh Gad are so frenetic they border on absurd. They’re like hyperactive toddlers who overdosed on sugar and caffeine before being set loose on the set with no script or direction. Every moment they’re on screen is agonizingly annoying.

The role of woe-is-me woman falls to Lt. Col. Violet Van Patten (Michelle Monaghan) who is simply on hand to be ignored and insulted until she finally “gets” to be rescued and fall in love with Adam Sandler’s character.

Q*Bert sleeps with Josh Gad, and it’s as disturbing as it sounds.

Director Chris Columbus fares no better and films this like a first year arts student. He has no idea how to handle his actors or how to effectively set up action shots, and scenes that should have been tense and exciting are boring and lifeless. He hobbles along from moment to moment as if he’s run a marathon and only has enough energy left because he can see the finish line in the distance.

There is absolutely nothing here worth wasting time on. “Pixels” is racist, sexist, homophobic, boring, lazy and even finds a way to make people hate Peter Dinklage. The worst thing is it could have been incredibly fun and cool in the hands of talented people who actually enjoy their work. Instead, this is a cheap cash in that only exists to line Adam Sandler’s pockets with more ill gotten gain in a further attempt to put one over on worldwide audiences.

Lance, Tom and Steve are joined by Rico Cordova of Rock Solid Box to discuss their new kickstarter campaign, “Rage of Dragons”. The crew then waxes philosophical on what they’re currently playing, and what’s coming up.

Haleetron is back, with a look into the future of the Penny Arcade Expo. Also known as, PAX Prime. 

Well, the end of August is approaching fast, which means that it’s time for another Seattle PAX Prime! Has it been a good year? Is the next one going to be better, for the video game lovers? Allow me to gaze into my crystal ball and see what the future holds. Hmm… Let’s see…. I’ve taken my highest dodonpachi dai ou jou score, written it down on a page of the Bible, dipped the point of my sharpie in three drops of vegetarian blood and drawn a pentagram, the green paint is freshly dried on my cosplay of a lawnmower fringe with shattered xbox cases dangling higher and thither, and now I shall cast the score into the flame of the black candle. Everyone close your eyes!

. . . I see…  That game made by the people who made “Alien Hominid” where you battle with blocks on display again- looks like it’s coming along fine.

…..I see…  The Nintendo banner is hanging over a new character mashup racing game called “Love Race”, where classic Nintendo characters pair up and do a cross country scavenger hunt, looking for the best deals on antiques. The Relationship Stress Meter shows in the corner of the screen as Donkey Kong’s face (dressed as a marriage councilor), expresses emotions from pride to disgust. Samus and Kirby seem to be in the lead, while Icarus and Gumshoe are still back at the gas station fighting over a snack. Whoa, who just pulled up! It’s the dog from duck hunt and-whose that – the purple dinosaur from Primal Rage? I didn’t even know he/she was Nintendo’s! OK, moving along, I see the new Zelda- it’s Picasso Zelda, it looks like he’s got a magic sax, and if he plays the right notes (utilizing the proper fingerings on the wii U), he walks all four directions at once, and whatever grass he cut on the way goes into your inventory, which is used to make a “grass ark”, which is needed by link to fulfill his mission of going on a long sea voyage. – – – and what’s this!! A new Castlevania?! Awesome! It looks like there’s two main gameplay sections here: the first one sees the Original, Simon Belmont, sitting across the table from a robed merchant, playing a kind of “connect four” with icons that represent different inventories, and there are a lot this time! The Soldiers Shoelace and the Cashmere Scarf appear repeatedly, in what seems like some negotiation game. The Jewel Of Lasitude seems to the prize– tuning forks seem easier to acquire- Simon already has 13 tuning forks. The second section is an action packed melee Round. It is a first person perspective battle through some of the regular locales,..  I see a static image of Simmon’s arm at the bottom, and it looks like you control the ball at the end of his whip with your wiimote as you eliminate screaming ghosts and hunchbacks. Yes! He made it to another shop. Oh, I see, his whip has been infused with the “Spirit of the Ball”. That’s why he was holding his arm out like that. I’m so glad they’re keeping the Castlevania spirit alive with these innovations. Anyone who’s forty will love reconnecting with this. Oh, I’m about to see the title…  “Rhumba of Recalcatrance”…  Yes!

Now, into the Sony zone.

….. I see… OMG, it’s an enormous raised platform with steps leading up to it, and totally constructed from old REAL playstation 2’s! And standing on a raised dias in the center isTom Cruz– wait, it’s not Tom Cruz, it’s a large flat-screen display with the guy from Assassin’s Creed and he looks so real! I think he’s just skydived through a cloud, because you can clearly see water droplets standing out on his perfectly textured skin. And that’s the buzz: Assassin’s Creed has new fog and low hanging clouds that you can parkour through and water droplets will accumulate on your skin and EVERYWHERE. Try and get your disguise to work when the guard scrutinizes those water droplets! Try and get through the bakery undetected now!  Hint: water and flour don’t mix.

There seems to be a level where you play as an ancestor during the middle ages, named Kom Kruz, and you have an enormous list of people you have to assassinate, but you have to rush to reach them before the black plague claims them or else you don’t get any points. Heavy parkour! Oh no, my view is fading,..  I see the Xbox encampment approaching…

….. I see….  Hey, I’m seeing all the same things, I think that all this stuff is also coming out on the Xbox. Oh, wait, there’s something special… It’s a single screen on a corner kiosk, and it’s cycling through an advertisement for some shmups that came out a few years ago. Oh.  My.  G. I didn’t think shmups were allowed here! I guess that this single ad must have slipped through the cracks somehow! Awesome, I’ll just watch the ad cycle a few times and then catch up.

Alright! I’m back!  Where are we?  I don’t recognize this place…

….. I see …. I think this must be a museum of minecraft closeup screen captures. Every screen has these big stylized single pixels on them, and they’re moving around, hold on, it looks kind of like Atari squares,.. Maybe extra bad Nintendo…  I’ve never seen this in minecraft. Oh duh!!! I’m in the independent game section! I think some of these giant pixels are being arranged in the “arena-shmup’ formation. I can tell those ones are in a “contra”  formation. Those ones are just moving Willie-Nilly! I can’t tell what’s going on, the squares are too big! That one has gravity I think. That one looks like a puzzle. I sure love to see young programmers taking the time to make these squares move around in innovative ways instead of ways I already like. You’re ideas are great! Good job, guys! Although, to offer some helpful criticism, I really don’t know hot your Tom Cruise-ish character and plot are going to be integrated into this.

Oh, it’s getting dark, I think the end of the day is coming and the crystal ball is going to need some more vegetarian blood to show me more, and I chewed a fingernail during the parkour visions, so I’m no good.

I can’t wait to drive out to Seattle and see it all for reals!

-Haleetron

Vourtron returns with his…Proposal for the first baby steps into “The Matrix.”

1. First off, I’d like to say that I consider these things to be “cyberspace”- video games, social media (just Facebook, really), and actual goggle-wearing cyberspace, which no one does.

2. I had an idea one time for an App, or Program, as I’d like to call it, called something like “AD WARS”, where ads would pop up, and then if you thought that you could really blast a friend with a good add, and they had the same app, then you could make it pop up on their phone. Once it popped up on their phone, they would either have the choice to kill it (if death was all that it was worthy of), or if there was anything about the add that they liked, they could click a “similar to” button, or a “send on” button, or something, to either retaliate with a more deadly ad or to explode the add onto multiple people’s phones.

Hmmmm…. Does that sound stupid? Well, you haven’t thought through the consequences. In this environment, ads would become very aggressive in their outrageousness, to avoid destruction at first appearance, and the whole experience would be a “pickle surprise”-esque “everything is horrible” type festival of ads whose purpose and function would be to go viral, and there would be an infrastructure to do it.

You could get points based on how many ads you could send to your friends that didn’t get destroyed. There could be bonus attacks where you fill their screen with popups. Instead of checking all the time for “likes”, you could check for new ads.

3. Another video game that I haven’t thought through, but am aware that there is an incredible “latent demand” for, is one called “Facebook Player”. The goal of this one would be to see how right-wing, left-wing, gay, Christian, cop-block, Monsanto, cute, misogynist, pot, Isis, or plain vanilla busybody you could get your feed to be. With a point system for extremes as well as perfect balance, and bonuses with things like extra clicks in secret places to open new realms of politics, depravity, or friendship.

 Now, the points of these ideas are:

1. I play shmups. When playing shmups, It’s very much about the journey, rather than the destination, for me. But the whole experience is ALSO immediately quantified by another thing that is right there, all the time- the score.

2. You think these game ideas are to silly?? I think that the things that those apps handle would be incredibly easy to score. I think the play mechanics would be fun, creative, and rewarding, and I think that most people would agree with me, if they really thought it through, that the non-scored versions, which arbitrarily TOTALLY DEFINE our cyberspace experiences, are…. boring? Leave us wanting more? Make us feel not-in-control, like commodities that our robot and corporate overlords are exploiting for thumb-press energy, while fooling us with the promise of a “real” virtual-reality where we can interact and express ourselves, pretty much just like in “The MATRIX”?

I can express myself on Twitter, Instagram, and other social media that pretty much just passes on my messages to my network. And, on the flip side, ironically, in another medium, where I exist within contexts so restrictive that the only thing there are rules that cannot be broken, outside of a (by comparison) indescribably tiny narrative, I can express myself-particularly, to myself (which is the ultimate cyberspace), by playing video games.

So BAM! In the ISHThole of 2015 cyberspace which is Facebook, Android, Apple, Microsoft, streaming TV, companies selling devices with the sole intention of owning you more and more after you’ve bought it- please let me still express myself within your fake-ass virtual reality. Let me play them as games. Let me have a score.

3. I’m still addicted to virtual reality. I think you should celebrate diversity, and “virtual reality” is it. But that lack of control, that inability to interact in a meaningful way- to feel like you can express yourself (I’m just talking about Facebook), has led a lot of my friends to “take the pill” (which means to turn off their Facebook).

And, remember how MySpace blah blah blah Facebook blah blah blah and “what is the next social media experience going to be”? I think that what I’ve described here- I’ll call it “the game oriented participation with 2015’s very real ‘matrix’ of virtual reality”- could be a viable answer.

4. *BONUS*

I should also add, that while these games are already being played by the corporate world with Facebook and advertising everywhere, (with us as the sprites instead of the players), the gravity of this new virtual reality isn’t lost on me. The points of view, love, hate, truth, lies, good, bad, of Facebook’s (not to simplify this article, but to describe the scale of an individuals insignificance in the equation, I guess I’ll also add “and all of our corporate overlords”) ……the points of view of Facebook’s and all our corporate overlord’s 2015 Virtual Reality are heavier, more dense, and more diverse than …. cable TV, satellite TV, all news stations, and radio combined. It really is a matrix, and it’s an incredibly important and new one. And it’s secretly getting boring for lack of ways to interact with it (the way to interact with TV, the old way, was to hold still and observe. Then go shopping). And it sucks. And I want more.

-Vourtron

“Pixels” is due to hit theaters next week, and we wanted to give our readers a chance to go see it for free and before anyone else. Not only that, but the winners of this contest will be put on the guest list which means they can show up and walk into the theater like a VIP – no waiting in line to redeem passes!

To enter, all you have to do is send an email to ADAM@BIGSHINYROBOT.COM with PIXELS in the subject line. The contest will run until Thursday, July 16, and I will contact the winners on Friday. Ten (10) people will be added to the reserved list, and each is allowed to bring one (1) guest. The screening will be on Monday, July 20 at 7 PM at the Gateway.

Best of luck to all who enter, and we hope to see you there!

Zeros N’ Heroes 079 [EXPLICIT CONTENT]
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In this episode we cover video game “One Finger Death Punch”, the graphic novel “The Alcoholic” the beautifully crafted game “Lumino City” and more! This episode was made possible by Paul Cox of the Cotton Ponies and Twitter user @FredTegge

Trent Hunsaker is the owner/opperator of Death Ray Comics in Logan, Ut. He is the program director for the A Part of Him Podcast Network and cohost on NetHeads – a live, weekly geek/pop culture show, on Kevin Smith’s SModcast Internet Radio.

Dolanbot returns with a review of Vlambeer games, Nuclear Throne…

Picture a desolate ocean of sand where radiation has transformed scorpions into giant venom spitting monsters and bandits scour the land. They’re unpredictable, but so are you.  Thanks to the nuclear apocalypse you are now a fish capable of rolling six feet through the air to dodge whatever comes your way, a revolver on your belt, your gills pulling in the dusty air. Your mission is ultimate power, to travel through sewer, scrapyard, labs and crystal coves, to claim the nuclear throne for yourself. To undertake this quest is certain death, for there are monsters far more capable than you, but they lack conviction.

At no point does this game become intuitive, even when you learn to dance among the bullets, your palms are sweaty and the adrenaline is high.  With every portal to the next level, an impossibly difficult game gets harder. With every level your character gains by killing enemies and collecting radiations (rads/experience), you gain passive mutations that can be combined in seemingly unlimited combination. The weapons grow in intensity and power until you are overwhelmed in particle effects. And all it takes is two to three bullets, or one charge from a snowbot, and your progress melts into radioactive sludge.

You can choose from up to twelve unique playable mutants that each possess passive advantages/disadvantages, one active ability, and two unique ultra-mutations you acquire later in game. My personal favorite: a samurai chicken that uses his katana and bullet time to deflect projectiles back at the enemy. The perks of a chicken is that when you lose your head, you have a few extra seconds to look for a medpack to bring you back from the dead.  

Play defensively, sniping from a distance, mutate to magnetically attract medpacks and ammo towards your cover or raise your maximum health.  Or throw caution to the wind and charge headlong into the enemy guns blazing, and trading out weapons dropped on the ground without even lifting your finger off the trigger. Mutate to increase your fire rate the lower your health gets and increase the chance mobs drop supplies upon meeting their bloody end.

Every level is randomly generated for unlimited re-playability. In addition, there are crowns to add an extra challenge and bragging rights. In particular, the crown of blood is perfect for the sadistic gamers out there. It raises the amount of enemies and decreases the rads they drop, making the normal game seem like a cakewalk. For the achievement-hungry game perfectionists, look far and wide, for there are more secrets to this game than you can wave a screwdriver at.

Among the little early access seedling games planted, Nuclear Throne blossomed into a terrifyingly fantastic game, sure to cast a large shadow in the realm of shoot-em ups and roguelike-likes alike. I first played the work of art cringing, white-knuckled, and enjoying every second at their station during PAX Prime 2014. One year later, it’s practically spit-polished with the promise of 4-player coop just on the horizon. Have a gander at Vlambeer’s Twitch channel to see them working live and taking questions every Tuesday and Thursday.

“Star Wars: Uprising” is the new mobile game in the “Star Wars” universe designed to bring audiences from the events of “Return of the Jedi” to “The Force Awakens.”

The game comes out sometime between now and the release of “The Force Awakens.”

Here’s the official blurb that came with the footage:

Create the Hero the Galaxy Needs

Choose from a wide range of special skills, species, visual customizations and classic Star Wars™ gear to become the next Han Solo, Boba Fett or entirely unique hero of your own design.

Shape the Future of the Game Universe

Join players worldwide in massive sector-wide battles to dictate the expansion of in-game content, including new planets, exclusive gear and unique crew members.

A New Chapter in Star Wars

Play the first mobile game in the Star Wars universe that takes place between Star Wars™: Episode VI: Return of the Jedi™ and Star Wars™: The Force Awakens™.

Real-Time Co-op Against the Empire

Explore the secrets of the sector, build a powerful crew with allies, and play alongside friends in synchronous cooperative play.

Brave Challenges on Classic and New Worlds

Battle your way through missions on Hoth, Cloud City and more, fighting against powerful bosses led by an ominous new adversary.

You can sign up to pre-register for the game and vote on new in-game content at their website, Play Uprising.

A.I. – Artificial Intelligence. The imitation of life, choice, and behavior. A.I. is programmed into almost every aspect of a video game, from the way non-playable characters (NPCs) act, interact, and react in the world around them to the paths birds fly across the sky. As video games become more and more complex and with the robust AI capabilities of current-gen consoles, A.I. systems follow suit.

I was on the ‘Entertainment Is Dead’ podcast recently and we spoke briefly on the ‘Alien: Isolation’ video game that came out in 2014. I like to call it ‘Luggage Jump’ or ‘Hiding Out In Lockers.’- kidding. I REALLY liked ‘Isolation’, IMO…it is easily the best ‘Alien’ game to date. Still, Progress gets to be insanely slow as you’re constantly hiding/dying from the Xenomorph (no spoilers.)

Good AI makes you feel like you’re playing, I dunno, tug of war with an equal opponent.

Strong AI is like playing tug of war with Superman.

Patronizing AI pretends that the two year old is stronger than Superman.

The line between “patronizing AI” and “strong AI” is also heavily dependent on skill level. To a newer player, the AI’s failure to beat you might seem believable, but as an experienced player becomes familiar with all the mechanics and the layouts of levels, they become hyper-aware of the options open to the AI, and if the AI consistently fails to take advantage of reasonable options to win, then immersion is broken.

An “adaptive” concept is a nice idea but in practice can easily be broken. You are essentially asking the AI to “read the player’s mind” to figure out whether they want a challenging or pandering experience, and what skill level they are at, which simply has too many variables. Many players will not “try” to play well if they challenge in front of them is clearly dead simple, leading the AI to read them as poor players and not ratchet their difficulty up.

Good AI is found in proper balance, which is then adjusted over difficulty levels—Halo, for instance, provides new tactics to AI based on the difficulty. So scrubs fight scrub AI on easy, and on it goes. It varies from difficulty to difficulty.

Difficulty and good AI are not the same thing.

In practice difficulty often comes down to damage and health scaling. You can take more hits and it can take less. 
Making a player invulnerable to death or removing save restrictions isn’t a good way to set difficulty yet its the way that they go for because its easier.

Good AI is relative to the player.
 That while for some players the strength of the AI is the deal-breaker there are an equal or larger number of players that would derive more enjoyment from other aspects.
 Difficulty settings do only so much. And they’ve highly subjective from game to game.

A good indication of a well designed game is a game that will respond to you as a player (much like another player would) – it sets the difference between following a pre-defined path or a responsive intelligence.

Do all games exhibit this level of what passes for “intelligence”? No, they don’t. Games like ‘Uncharted’ and ‘Uncharted 2’ are challenging on Crushing Difficulty, but the frustration level was 150% less for some. Perhaps it’s the nature of the games, sure, but ultimately I think it’s because of developer prowess. I don’t mind a good challenge if you’re pitting my wits against yours (the developers’), but if you’re pitting me against try-fail cheat scenarios with less health and insurmountable odds, that’s when I throw my controller.

-Dagobot



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Video game developer, Tale Of Tales has announced that it is no longer planning to work on video games, the decision made because of low sales by it’s recently launched ‘Sunset’ title. Two of the most artistically minded developers have decided that “We did our very best. And we failed. So that’s one thing we never need to do again.’ It’s worth reading the entire blog post that Michael Samyn and Auriea Harvey put up: Http://tale-of-tales.com/Sunset/blog/index.php/and-the-sun-sets/

‘Sunset’ was met with generally positive reviews from critics and the press alike. So the question begs to be asked. What does it mean when an artistic, engaging game resonates with the press but can’t find an audience?

It’s a difficult dilemma since it involves one thing that the world economy is having great issues with: Money. The video game industry certainly doesn’t exist in a void or “other space” separated from the global economy, and unfortunately, money is needed in some shape or form to make any work of art a reality.

The issue at hand here is How BIG of a work of art do you want to make and How MUCH will it cost? Is a developer making a game for themselves: a game that they want to make, or are they trying to make a game that they want to be enjoyed by as many people as possible.

Is the purpose of the game trying to spread a message out to other people (like be good to Earth)? Or is financial gain the developer’s motivation to make their game?

Does it matter to the developer if the game is fun or not?

Can the developer pull off what they want to pull off in their game with the budget they have available, or will it require a lot more money?

Is the game going to push technical envelopes or unique new means of game play? Or will it play like other games but have one thing or another to it that makes it unique?

Right now, I’m looking at Yu Suzuki. The man is a game creator who has been working in video games for decades. He was a HUGE name in SEGA and designed some of their best hits. His work allowed for immersive arcade experiences in the 80’s, helped create the 3D fighting game (Virtua Fighter), and Shenmue. When Shenmue first came out back in 2000, it helped push technical limits even further to show that video games could pull off blockbuster level production and art. It became a major influence into how stories could be told through video games.

He disappeared for a while but now…Yu Suzuki is essentially trying to do what is nearly impossible. Create a game that is an enjoyable work of art that ALSO costs a ton of money. If Yu Suzuki tried to make Shenmue 3 on a shoestring budget, it would more or less take away some of what makes Shenmue what it is. In the current market and economy, a game like Shenmue is highly unlikely to sell that well, no matter how much advertisement or hype it generates leading up to release day. Even though it’s a return to form for many game players who remember the days when single player games were the most important part of a game, today’s games seem more focused on the multiplayer aspects before they even consider factoring in a single player campaign. But still, Sony and SEGA are backing Yu Suzuki on this, and he’s already crossed the $3.5 million mark on Kickstarter which will help with funding more content that would have been left out. It’s clear that Sony and SEGA are willing to open up their coffers to let Yu Suzuki create what he wants to create, especially with such a successful Kickstarter that shows off how people felt.

You can make a game as a work of art if you want, but depending on what it is you are trying to accomplish through your art, you may be better off approaching a different medium. Discussing video games as an artistic medium is distinct from discussing them as a product. A discussion about Van Gogh’s artistry with oils, his incredible brushwork, is not the same discussion as how much an original Van Gogh’s pulls in at Sotheby’s.

If the merit of a work of art is solely based on its popularity (i.e. sales) then critical review of a game serves little purpose. Market forces are the sole determinant of artistic value, therefore Call of Duty: Pick your Poison is of greater value than Portal, Journey, Gone Home or virtually any other game you care to name. Posterity will remember Madden 2012, not Spec Ops: The Line or Papa and Yo.

-Dagobot



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