Steam Cards: A beginner's guide.

So everyone who's dropped by steam's summer sale has probably noticed some new stuff popping into their "inventory." I had steam for 2 years and didn't realize I had one. Valve obviously knew that and has decided to make the functionality of it's social network more interesting. That thing is cards. Trading cards fashioned from some of the more popular games. I tried compiling a list of those games, but they're so many, and more seem to be added every day. So I'm gonna try my best to tell you what I've made of them so far and what they're ultimately used for.

Play the game. Get Cards.

From what I've seen, buying the game nets you about 2/3 of a game's cards. But don't expect them to show up all at once. My best guess is that you get one card per 20 minutes spent with a game after card support went live. Except I got all three of my Handsome Jacks for Borderlands 2 instantaneously, so maybe I don't have a clue. 

But I don't have all the Cards!

No you won't, that's kind of the whole point. Trading! Steam wants you to form friendships of convenience across many different games and gamers to get a whole set from a single deck.  The logistics of which I'm not sure of. But I've never been a card trader, so maybe this could work if you know what you're doing.  Steam talks about "Booster Packs" but I wouldn't count on ever getting one, nobody seems to know how they work.

I got em' all! ...Now what?

Now you craft a Badge! (what happens then?) Coupons! How's that for a pat on the head? Collecting cards and crafting badges to personally invoke Valve's greatest super power: Steam Sales. Better yet, your own personal Steam sale! I'm not sure how powerful these coupons are (I'll probably never finish a deck) but the idea they'd try something like this is really heartening. It's Valve, if there's one thing we know they're not, it's stingy.

Oh, and every card is a wallpaper.

Just browse them in your inventory, zoom in, copy the URL and copy/paste:

That's some damn fine Photoshop.

The Steam Summer Sale is Upon Us!

It's that magical time of year where the doldrums of summer give way to credit shattering deals you won't find half as good anywhere else. The truth is I used to hate steam. In 2008 it was the dumb thing I needed so I could play Half Life 2 to see what all that fuss was about. And then it became that stupid thing that kept me from playing New Vegas so profusely I had to crack the damn thing for six months.

I know, I was disappointed in myself...please don't ban me!

 But all was forgiven once I saw all the carrots on sticks they had for my loyalty. I mean, I got the complete Saint's Row The 3rd for 7 bucks. That's nuts, that's just so much nuts I love it. So hop in, see if there's anything you like for the next two weeks... Whoa, the Bit Trip Runner 2 character pack for $1.50?!!!!! 

I'm outta here.

Ratchet and Clank: Into the Nexus, AKA, I Friggin' Knew It.

Insomniac Games has had a ROUGH couple of years. Resistance 3 disappointed at the market so much the whole series was iced. The Ratchet and Clank brand has fallen into disrepair after two failed attempts to make it translate to a co-op shooter and a tower defense thingy. Last and certainly not least, FUSE was the first new IP they launched since 2006. At first it looked like the Incredibles sequel we always wanted...but someone, somewhere (I'm not saying it was all EA's fault) turned it into the drab, uninteresting shrug it is today. Oh right, and looked like they were jumping ship to Microsoft with the Left 4 dead-Borderlands hybrid Sunset Overdrive:

But fear not, it's finally happening. A brand new feature length Ratchet and Clank is headed our way this fall and it looks more than promising. It will have been 4 years since a Crank in Time when that releases, and I hope its the last great lombaxian hurrah that CIT came this close to being. So how does it look? You tell me:

Darker tone? Anti gravity? Someone who sounds like Juanita?  Orchestral-ASS soundtrack? You had me worried there for a few years guys, but I think we can do business again. Wait...Thugs 4 less is back too?! UNCLE, Insomniac, UNCLE!

Crackpot Theory: Who Shot The Lone Ranger?

Lone Ranger's 4th of July came and went...and I promised myself I wasn't going to make a train wreck joke but come on, what the hell else would you call it? The critics slow roasted it, and the box office ignored it. But why? How did Johnny Depp (bein' WACKY!) open to less than $50 million? To less than $31 million. I think I have an idea, actually I have a couple, see what you think.

Who the Hell is The Lone Ranger?

This guy was the cream of the crop in the mid 50's. There was Davey Crockett and there was the Lone Ranger. But nobody under the age of 60 has an idea about any of this. The character died out with a whimper 8 years before I was born. No one was going to see this movie having been charmed by the character's legacy... not even parents of teenagers. So why did they do it?

You could make the same argument about Pirates of the Caribbean's cache before Disney struck gold with that number. But I'd disagree. At least they had a beloved ride that reached children for decades before that movie was made, all the ranger had was a made for tv movie in 2003. Yeah, I have no idea what they were thinking... wait, yes I do. The idea was that Depp could turn straw into gold. Speaking of which:

Depp's Tramp act is played out.

Everybody loved the first pirates movie. It was fun, refreshing, delightfully both self aware and deprecating. They bottled lightning with Jack Sparrow and couldn't keep a lid on it. Over the course of three more films Mercutio killed the play, so to speak (which is a Shakespeare reference to overexposing a character I probably screwed up somehow). I wasn't bored of Depp as an actor, but he seemed to just be on auto pilot for ten years after that. What with pedophile Willy Wonka and the Mad Hatter, he didn't seem to give a damn any more.

Its as if he resigned to being the clown for the sake of the industry and stopped caring about the craft in the process. I think a lot of people are sick of it too...or they just want him to be Jack again. They probably just want him to be Jack again. But I'd be remiss if I didn't bring up Rango. I thought he'd break free after that. But no, it looks like the guy is back in the salt mines making faces. Instead of subversive, intelligent, comedy for all ages.

The Popular Western is Dead...again.

What else is there to say? Its sad sure, but what was the last really good movie western you remember? Appaloosa? 3:10 to Yuma? Those were a long time ago guys, and they made peanuts. This isn't because they're played out, I mean they were, but there's been an entire generation since. The western should be fresh again, it should have found new ways to reach audiences. I say it did in terms of the popularity of post-apocalypse fiction. I'd be pretty comfortable calling The Walking Dead this decade's great western. But it looks like the classic flavor is radioactive to these times as well.

No one is more upset than me, I stopped watching HBO for 5 years after Deadwood. God, I am still so friggn' angry about fu**ing Deadwood. Either way, if it wasn't dead before, it sure as hell is now. Why you would spend $240 million on any movie is beyond me, but they barely made 30% of their investment back during one of the most lucrative holidays on the American calender. It's absolutely finished.

The next great western will show up where all great new cinema inevitably shows up now: on TV. Because you won't see it again on the silver screen for years. Consider the big budget western the Bikini Islands. Its not the end of a genre, but the wake up call for it to try harder.

S'all good, man! Better Call Saul Spinoff moves forward...kinda.

According to an interview with The Wrap, Vince Gilligan (Breaking Bad creator) has figured out what he wants to do next. A spin off involving Walter White's "criminal" lawyer, Saul Goodman. That's all I need to hear. A Coen brother-esque comedy about a shady trial lawyer? Come on, you know you've never seen that before. Gilligan is willing to make it as flexible as possible. Even the running time isn't set in stone

"There’s a way to do both versions of the show. There’s a way to make it a half-hour show and make it a little more — I don’t want to say sitcom-y, but a little more traditionally half-hour comedic. Or there’s a way to do it where it fits more snuggly in with the “Breaking Bad” universe, in which it’s an hour-long show. As you can imagine with Saul Goodman as a character, a show like that would have to have plenty of humor to it. But also because he works for some pretty scary clientele sometimes, there’d be a bit of drama in it as well. We’re trying to nail that down. As of yet, we haven’t completely figured that out ourselves."

I'm personally sold on the prequel angle, You could have just a smidge more of Gus (who doesn't want more of that guy?) and you'd definitely see more of Mike. I think we could all use a little more of Mr. Ehrmantraut in our lives.

Isn't he just?

 So Gilligan is throwing his weight behind a slightly more mainstream version of BB. I can see where he's coming from. He's not content to make the next gritty suburban crime drama, he wants to branch out and try something lighter hearted. I think we should encourage him. No network has signed off on it, but I seriously doubt that's going to be a problem for much longer. As much as the public has ignored this show, folks in the industry eat it up. Conan had Gilligan on his show for Malverde's sake! Name another show runner that gets a late night interview. Exactly. So this sounds like money in the bank so far and I'm seriously looking forward to it.

Orphan Black, Season 1 Review: Rich Girl, Smart Girl, Crazy Girl, Thief.

Sometimes its hard to articulate what you like about something. Ask me why I think Breaking Bad's so great and I just shut down, I mean where do you even start with a question like that? But sometimes a show makes it easy. Sometimes when someone asks me "What the hell are you watching?" I can pause, point to the screen and say that woman is playing three roles in a single frame. Tatiana Maslany is a once in a generation kind of actor. Even if the light sci-fi caper plot of Orphan Black turns you off, I promise you (like, totally pinky swear) her performance of all three principle characters will keep you in your seat.

I've been burned by interesting up start BBC shows before. I wanted to wade through more of Misfits than I did (its still pretty good) and Being Human was just...kinda lame. But Orphan Black is different, and I'm not talking about it being on BBC America. I can see the version of this show that's mediocre quite clearly. At a glance, it's absolutely nothing special, aside from spearheading the ethical quandaries of the future of genetic research.

On paper it looks like the half baked progeny of one of Abram's disciples. Like Alcatraz. Seriously, I loved that show only for the drinking game I made up for it. A shot of gin every time Sam Neill looks like he wants to kill either himself or his co stars*. Orphan Black could have turned into something like that. A soulless procedural that may have had a spark of originality at some point, but assumed audiences wouldn't have time to care about it's characters and never bothered to develop them.

But OB knows what it's working with, it knows Maslany is dynamite, it knows it has to put it's characters first and it's conspiracy second, and it knows it has to pay off cliffhangers eventually. OB succeeds in spite of it's occasionally trite plotting  because you come to care about Sarah and her..."sisters." If you can make it through the rough patches you are gonna be in for such a treat, man you don't even know. But I guess I could tell you.

Sarah Manning is not an anti-hero, she's actually just plain awful. A product of the foster care system, she's a mother who hasn't seen her daughter in over a year, and her latest scheme to see her again involves stealing cocaine from her drug dealer boyfriend (Micheal Mando, who does a spectacular job with a character that goes absolutely nowhere...and he was Vaas). But just before she goes through with her plan, she sees a woman in a suit taking off her shoes and putting her purse down on the train platform next to her. She looks exactly like Sarah, and gives her one hell of a look before throwing herself onto the tracks.

Of all the train stations in all the world...

She runs to her foster brother Felix to tell him what she saw. Together they conspire to figure out who she was, to get into her apartment, and to empty her bank account. Things get exponentially more complicated when she's forced to pretend to be a homicide detective and begins to see just how many of "her" there are.

I could go on to ruin the differences between the other Sarahs and how easily I forgot the same actor plays them all, but I think that's best left un-discussed. The good news is how spoiler proof this show can be as the twists themselves aren't ever as impactful as the character's reactions to them are. In fact, my favorite parts are in the down time between earth shattering revelations, where the Sarahs are off stewing in their respective lives. Its here the show's character building skill is strongest and it's humor shines though. This can be a damn funny show, in fact, the finale has the funniest murder I've ever seen.

The real question is, where can you find this if you don't have BBC America? So glad you asked. I dipped my toe into Amazon instant because I really wasn't sure about it. But I would have saved 3 bucks if I had jumped in with both feet. So please, check it out if you have another free weekend, its less than the price of two movies. Think about it, get on board before Maslany inevitably drowns in her collection of Emmys and Oscars.


But before you go, check out it's jaunty opening theme:

So JAUNTY!!!

*To be fair, the flashbacks to the prison's last year were stupidly good. $50 says that's what the original pitch was about.

Freshly STEAMed: Bully Review. "That's why it works, Jimmy, because we're all bastards.”

Let me ask you a question.

What if Ennio Morricone scored a brat pack movie?

That's pretty rad isn't it?

Well as it turns out, the red headed stepchild of the grand theft auto games is exactly that. Pretty rad. I first played Bully years and years ago and had a great time with it on my ol' PS2. I had thought I finally had an idea of what everyone saw in Rockstar games. I was never super into GTA III (arguably the most influential game ever made) but Bully got me on board. I played San Andreas next and loved it to bits, though as soon as I had heard the last from Tenpenny and James Woods I was done. The progression in both of those games were amazing. Just when you thought San Andreas was winding up, boom: AIRPLANES. Just when you thought you'd be stuck at Bullworth Academy for 14-some hours, crrrreeeeeek: the front gates open and the surrounding town is yours for the taking.

 Years went by, GTA IV finally skulked its way back to the PC and I thought I could bottle that same magic again. For a while I did...but after its riveting first act, things took a turn. The plot stopped developing, the characters I enjoyed had vanished from the story. I no longer cared about some guy Niko came to America to kill because he obviously didn't care anymore. He'd hem and haw at the revolving door of random Italian mafiosos to help him find that guy, but then he'd let it go because he jus' wants de money. Over and over again with the money.  

To paraphrase a recently deceased film critic, I hated that game. I hated, hated, hated that game. GTA IV exacerbated the issues I had with both earlier games to almost comical degrees. It wanted to be taken more seriously as a narrative. So I tried to take it more seriously too. The story began to become the game people had turned GTA into: just a bunch of fun, unconnected, random things. If the game was going to let the plot go, if it was just going to be a daisy chain of short stories, I could respect that. But the finale comes out of nowhere and throws the cadaver of the first act back on the stage after it was left to rot for 15 hours and expected me to give a damn. No. San Andreas had Samuel Jackson dropping by at regular intervals, but for some reason IV's villain had more important sh*t to do than to be part of his own story. He'd seriously call you on your cell phone every 5 hours begging you not to forget he existed. That's. Crap. Storytelling.

"You done buddy? You want some cheese with that whine?"

Sigh...sorry. That's been on my chest for a while now. I'm just frustrated. I'm frustrated at how much people care about IV when contrasted with how little people even remember Bully. Because after jumping in to it for the first time in nearly 8 years its amazing how much fun I had. It's remarkable how much fun it is. I'd like to go on the record and say it's the most fun game Rockstar has made to date. Red Dead was a fantastic game to be sure, I'd say it's their best game, but it's nowhere near as fun or as focused as Bully. That's another rarity for them, focus. See, you're on the clock in Bully. You have classes to attend and curfews to mind. That sounds like the antithesis of what makes a good RS game, but bear with me.

It makes the moment to moment game play that much more compelling. You have so many objectives pulling you in so many directions, you always have to have a plan. Do you want to build your character with the buffs you get from passing classes? Do you want to buy some new clothes or hairdos? Do you want to train your CQC with the homeless Korean vet who lives near the shop class?  Or do you want to dig deeper into the resident sociopath's plan to eventually puppeteer every clique on campus? Time's a'wasting, make up your mind.

"If I had some black lipstick and eyeliner...Rockstar already made that game?! Damn."

Even for an 8 year old game that was given a bare bones face lift for a port 6 years ago... it could look better. In fact, the steam guide has a link to a replacement exe. file that lets the game run in 60 frames per second. You're really gonna want that. The fact the port crew couldn't bother to put that in themselves is embarrassing. But the core experience does eventually shine through...but it will take a while to get a keyboard set up that works for you.

The trails and tribulations of Jimmy Hopkins will eventually hold your interest. Jimmy himself slowly evolves into a much more rounded and likable person than he seems at first blush. The central villain has a standout performance, though this game also suffers from a previously mentioned RS game affliction: D.V.D. (disappearing villain syndrome). But you won't care, the deep roster of cliques and characters isn't as bothersome as it was in GTA IV because you will see those characters all the time. The students on campus aren't the faceless droves of Liberty City, they are all people with names and personalities. They're broad and hammy personalities, but still, the effort is noticed and deeply appreciated. If you join the year book club, you can snap pictures of them and build what is essentially a trading card collection. How cool is that?

"I'm thinking about starting a conflict, a conflict with caramel."

Bully is a wonderful game that makes a lousy first impression. The character models are ancient and the script and compressed sound is hard to listen to sometimes, yet I'll admit the animation holds up surprisingly well. Once you get in a groove, pass a few classes, make a favorite outfit, and nail the wonkier control prompts, Bully will have you eating out of it's palm. This is an aging gem that deserves to be remembered as well as learned from. This is old school Rockstar at its very finest.


The scholarship edition (which is what I picked up) is available on the 360 and Wii. But Steam has it for a paltry $15... and would you look at that, they stuck the whole soundtrack in the root folder. Those guys are the best. 

Oh! And just in case you were curious, this is what starts playing when you punch a nerd: