Big Red Barrel

Big Red Flix 63: Goldschlager Nostalgia

Dave — Thu, 23 May 2013 18:27:19 +0000

Welcome back for another episode of Big Red Flix, BigRedBarrel.com’s movie podcast. This week Dave Jitterbug, and Yoshifett discuss, This Is 40, Silver Lining Playbook, Iron Man 3, Django Unchained, and the future of comic book movies. They didn’t have time to get trailer trash, but it made great bonus content for BRB app users.

Check back next week for an all new episode of BRB Flix as the gang starts gushing about Pulp Fiction.

Here’s the RSS feed. Leave an iTunes review and subscribe here. Download the show here.

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Big Red Barrelcast 12: Ouya Money

Dave — Thu, 23 May 2013 17:53:05 +0000

The Big Red Barrelcast returns to tickle your ear drums! The show might be a little late, but Dave, Kev and Pacman pontificate about video games and video game accessories as usual.

This time, they ramble on about:

The Wonderful 101
The Fuse demo
Nintendo gets “Let’s Play” money
Nintendo’s E3 plans
EA isn’t developing Wii U games
the Ouya at E3… sort of
GT 6
Dark
EA gets rid of online passes
And some healthy bonus content for those lovely individuals amongst you that bought our App

We’d love to give you all some sort of incredible hug immediately followed by a polite conversation about how cool you are, but frankly we can’t afford the travel expenses. So, while we save our pennies, cents, and whatever the heck Canadians use, we’ll offer you some download links to help bide the time. Subscribe here. Here’s the RSS feed. Leave an iTunes review here. Download the mp3 here.

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GRID 2 – The IndyCar Pack

Richard — Thu, 23 May 2013 10:29:04 +0000

In this gameplay video Codemasters show the Dallara IndyCar racing at the world famous Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

The IndyCar Pack — featuring two extra routes at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Circuit plus the Dallara IndyCar and Indy 500 Pace Car liveries for the Chevrolet Camaro SS and Corvette Z06 Centennial Edition.

This is good news if you like DLC coming out within days of the game, it also comes as part of the GRID 2 Race Day Special Edition along with the GTR Racing Pack.

http://youtu.be/WyN6yL7BBMA

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Call of Duty: Ghosts Reveal Trailer

Richard — Thu, 23 May 2013 07:25:42 +0000

It’s been ten years, you start to forget the things you should remember. And you can’t stop remembering the things you should forget. We’ve always had the power, but not anymore. All we have is each other. We’re Ghosts, fighting for something that can’t be killed. Soldiers stand against their enemies, but Ghosts hunt them. We are all we’ve got.

Pretty serious stuff eh? The game’s written by the guy who wrote Traffic, so it should be pretty reasonable storywise. Plus there’s a rad dog, so it’ll probably be game of the year.

http://youtu.be/_IK0j8E-c4s

Forza Motorsport 5: Announce Trailer

Richard — Thu, 23 May 2013 07:24:15 +0000

Forza Motorsport 5, from Turn 10 Studios, is the latest edition of the highest-rated racing franchise of the past 10 years. Forza Motorsport 5 sets a new bar for racing games. With the power of Xbox and the cloud, no game better delivers the sensation of being behind the wheel. Available exclusively for Xbox One at launch.

The trailer basically follows some very pretty cars as they go very fast around a track. It made Dan squeeee though, and he likes driving games, so I guess if you do then you will too?

“A new age is here.”

http://youtu.be/r46D1lRpO1k

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Quantum Break – Trailer

Richard — Thu, 23 May 2013 07:21:50 +0000

The trailer for the first official Xbox One exclusive is here. Complete with creepy girl and her teddy bear, along with some fabulous next generation graphics the trailer’s an odd mix of filmed and computer generated footage.

“Time is the fire in which we burn”

http://youtu.be/_64IZNgxPKsic

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Xbox One – Unveil Video

Richard — Thu, 23 May 2013 07:20:25 +0000

In a real “up your’s Sony’ moment here’s a close up video of the new console from Microsoft.

So tell me, is it the One you want?

http://youtu.be/TP_E6Bn6fWM

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Xbox One Reveal

Richard — Tue, 21 May 2013 19:25:21 +0000

Did you miss the Xbox One Reveal? Or perhaps you just want to watch it again? Don’t worry, Big Red Barrel has you covered.

Whilst you’re watching, be sure to have a look through our Live Blog, just start at the bottom and work your way up as the video goes on.

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Xbox Reveal – Live Blog

Richard — Tue, 21 May 2013 16:38:04 +0000

Tonight’s the night that Microsoft finally step up to reveal the next Xbox and your friends here at Big Red Barrel are going to live blog the living heck out of the announcement so that you don’t have to. You can watch along with us here.

You can read our reactions as they happen, as we liveblog the event below. You can also add comments yourself just below that.

Starting Times:

Liveblogging preamble from: 5.45pm (BST) 9.45am (PST)

Livestream due to start: 6pm (BST) 10am (PST)

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Review: City of Remnants (Board Game)

Oli Smith — Mon, 20 May 2013 22:49:09 +0000

Post apocalyptic gang warfare that features more paperwork than pounding.

• Designer: Isaac Vega
• Publisher: Plaid Hat Games
• Number of Players: 2-4
• Playtime: 2-3 hours
• Release Date: Available Now

City of Remnants is a game that turns playing it safe into a strength. A medly of mechanics pilfered from similar games are combined to create an experience that- whilst not altogether original- is both functional and fun, making for a surprisingly relaxing afternoon of mini-empire building amongst the ruins of a dead city.

At the start of the game each player takes control of a unique deck of cards that represents their gang and their goal is to earn respect by advancing onto the board from their designated edge, holding areas and then developing their territory.

Every turn each player may perform four actions that range from buying equipment from the black market, founding small businesses that take up tiles on the game board, selling the products those tiles produce, bidding against others to recruit new gang member cards into their hand, reshuffling their hand or moving gang members onto and across the board- during which they may participate in a battle.

The battle mechanics of the game are simple but extremely tactical, with players rolling dice based on the number of figures in or adjacent to the contested area and bolstering these rolls with gang member cards from their hand. Gang member cards also possess special powers that can be used at any time during a player’s turn to boost the performance of other actions. So, the player must carefully balance which cards they should discard for their powers and which they should hold onto to attack or defend their territory. This is made additionally complex by the involvement of the police, who sweep across the board in a Battleship style-salvo at the end of every turn, destroying anyone foolish enough not to hold any cards in reserve.

Player actions are relatively quick and alternate to ensure that no one is ever waiting around for too long, and whilst the mechanics seem to be a check-list of the designer’s favourites from other games, they all make sense within the narrative of the game.

My only issue is with how the narrative actually flows in practice.

Because of the power of adjacency when it comes to controlling squares, as well as the need to hold onto developments you create, to receive an appropriate pay-off, our game boiled down to each player holding their own mini-empire along the edges of the board – creating an impenetrable fortress that could withstand anything but the most time consuming of attacks. Skirmishes over the more powerful and rewarding central developments did occur towards the end of the game, but in general our fights were with the police more than each other. For a game that is meant to be about street gangs wheeling and dealing through the remnants of a shattered metropolis, this is a little too neat, too solitary and too polite a game.

We played a second time with a couple of changes, namely allowing players to have multiple battles go on at once, and to hop over each other during their movement. These small tweaks meant that districts changed hands multiple times, with profits snatched quickly before the areas were abandoned for a more defensible position. It was a small and no doubt incredibly unbalancing alteration, but in that play through more than the first the theme really shone.

And the game really is in love with its theme. Despite the primitiveness of the artwork and the rather awkward short story in the rule-book, the sheer enthusiasm for the world building really shows through. It’s an earnest game and because of this I would suggest overlooking the flaws and enjoying an afternoon of casual empire building that isn’t going to have players flipping the table over if their best laid plans suffer a few minor dents.

Passionate design

Familiar mechanics done well

Poor artwork

Not quite thematic enough

City of Entrepreneurs.

Review copy provided by Esdevium Games Ltd.

Official Game Site

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