Alex Riviello

Birth.Movies.Death.

Tue, 18 Jun 2013 13:30:22 -0400

I’m going to be contributing to the Alamo Drafthouse’s new magazine, Birth.Movies.Death., along with a bunch of other Badass Digest writers. Absolutely can’t wait. There’s something about seeing your words in print that makes it that much more exciting, especially when your words will be placed in Alamo Drafthouses across the country.

You’ll be able to read the magazine online here for free when it finally hits. The first issue is Kaiju-themed in honor of Pacific Rim and I haven’t had the chance to read the other writer’s stuff yet- can’t wait!

Night of the 1001 Murdering Maniacs

Thu, 09 May 2013 13:30:16 -0400

In sixth grade at my new fancy private school we were instructed to make a dust jacket for a fake book we had authored. This is what I ended up with- it’s still one of my favorite things I’ve done.

Front cover

Back cover

Inside flaps

Not bad for an eleven year old on his parent’s lousy typewriter (we couldn’t afford a PC yet).

Bad. Ass.

Tue, 05 Mar 2013 03:53:53 -0500

I’ve signed on as Gaming Editor for Badass Digest. Incredibly excited. Love the site and everything about it- its voice, its readership, the incredible writers they already have on board, who are all experts in their specific fields. I’ve been bouncing around from site to site the last couple of years so for me to have a steady home like this means everything to me, and I can’t wait to be able to write about things I really want to write about.

Can’t wait to really get things started.

Identity Crisis

Wed, 09 Jan 2013 12:00:08 -0500

Well, I’ve gone and moved to New Jersey. It wasn’t something we planned (is it something anyone plans, really?) but an opportunity came up for a great apartment that’s twice as big as my last one for 50 bucks more… and well, we needed the space. Two kids in a one and a half bedroom wouldn’t have worked for very long. As a native New Yorker from the Bronx it’s just weird to live in a place that I’ve done nothing but mocked for 30 years. Every single time I’ve ever traveled here I’ve gotten lost and pissed at everyone and everything in it.

But the neighborhood we’re living in is beautiful and clean, and we’re just a quick bus ride away from the city whenever I decide I need a quick whiff of bum piss or other human interactions.

There’s certainly good from here- Lou Costello, Springsteen, The Sopranos, E-Town Concrete, Chiller Theatre, The Toxic Avenger. But still- Jersey.

This is going to require a lot of soul searching.

End of year lists!

Thu, 27 Dec 2012 17:51:49 -0500

I wrote two lists this year, both about games!

For Tapsauce I wrote a list of the Top Ten iOS games. My iPhone 5 has been getting a helluva workout the last month, and I’ve got it loaded with something like 60 games right now. These are my favorite ones of this year.

http://rocksaucestudios.com/tapsauce/post/top-ten-mobile-games-of-2012/

Badass Digest asked me to supply a Top Ten Videogames list so I kept it mostly retail games for consoles. Lots of great games came out this year, but I decided to spice it up with a few fun awards at the end.

http://badassdigest.com/2012/12/27/alex-riviellos-top-ten-games-of-2012-and-more/

My life right now consists of wrangling babies and packing boxes, because I’m moving out in a few short days, both from my apartment and from NYC. Crazy stuff, but more on that adventure later…

Weeeooo Weeeoooo

Mon, 19 Nov 2012 10:00:20 -0500

Six years ago, the Wii was released. I waited on line in the morning for a couple of hours in the freezing cold to pick it up after staying up all night for a party, coming home exhausted only to break it open and play Wii Bowling all day, with more friends coming over at night to keep things going. I wrote an article about the experience that pretty much kicked off my career writing about games.

Yesterday, the Wii U was released. I stayed home.

Hands-on with Aliens: Colonial Marines

Tue, 16 Oct 2012 09:11:45 -0400

My plans for this year’s New York Comic Con fell through magnificently, but I did manage to attend an event for Gearbox Software and Sega’s Aliens: Colonial Marines. Sadly I wasn’t too impressed, even though I got to see Lance Henriksen and play the enjoyable multiplayer.

Full article is up here at Badass- http://badassdigest.com/2012/10/15/gearbox-softwares-aliens-colonial-marines-hands-on-nycc-preview/

A few words on August Derleth and The Cthulhu Mythos

Fri, 12 Oct 2012 09:53:30 -0400

I’ve been reading August Derleth’s Cthulhu Mythos stories for the first time (I know!) and really enjoying them. For those unaware, Derleth was a contemporary of H.P. Lovecraft who basically became the caretaker of his work after Lovecraft’s death in 1937, even expanding upon the Mythos in a series of stories. That Elder Sign, the five-pointed star with the eye in the middle that’s supposed to keep the Great Old Ones at bay? That’s Derleth’s. (Lovecraft’s description of it looked more like a stick.)

Besides being a prolific writer August Derleth was a publisher, and he founded Arkham House simply to publish Lovecraft’s work. That such a great admirer comes off as almost fanboyish when writing in his favorite author’s style- the author and his novella Call of Cthulhu is even mentioned and praised in one story- is no surprise. Even though they’re trying to ape Lovecraft’s style they do manage to be quite entertaining, even if the stories get repetitive when read one after the other.

The book I’m reading is called Quest for Cthulhu and it not only contains the Trail of Cthulhu novel but also The Mask of Cthulhu, a collection of his short stories. I’ve only read Mask so far but I’ve loved them- they’re much less dreamy and vague than a lot of Lovecraft’s work, but the extra campiness lends itself towards the material, and it’s great to see references to events from other Lovecraft tales. The bombing of Devil’s Reef (from The Shadow Over Innsmouth) is brought up quite frequently, for one.

But even then it’s fun to see how much that we’re familiar with actually came from Derleth, including the very term ‘Cthulhu Mythos’. As someone who’s obsessed with Arkham Horror and Elder Sign Omens it’s easy to see that the more pulpy, guns and monsters style actually owes a lot to Derleth. Each short story in Mask focuses on a different Great Old One, where someone accidentally stumbles across forbidden knowledge and just barely makes it out with the world saved. Of course, the main character’s sanity doesn’t always emerge intact, and the world will likely be in danger once again in no time. Much fainting ensues.

With some genuinely great moments of dread and horror, what do I find the best part of these stories? They almost all end with these crazed italicized paragraphs, where the writer tries to impart just how utterly insane this last revelation is, truly, a twist that will unravel your mind, much as it has the author’s! Likely, the menace that the author described has not been killed or banished, and it’s only a matter of time before it will be summoned again, through forces alien and malevolent! Ia! Ia! Cthulhu Fhtagn!

Video Game Review: Dishonored

Tue, 09 Oct 2012 16:52:52 -0400

These days it’s almost refreshing to see a major new vdeo game without a large number at the end of it. Thanks to Bethesda Softworks we have a new IP from Arkane Studios (Dark Messiah), a studio who once worked on an unreleased Half-Life installment called Return to Ravenholm. It feels like they finally got their chance at something similar with Dishonored, a game that meshes the dark and ruined world of a Half-Life or Bioshock with the stealth right out of Thief. It’s just amusing that the first original game we get in a while is such a mash-up of others.

Read the rest here: http://badassdigest.com/2012/10/09/video-game-review-dishonored/

Life! Taking Over!

Tue, 02 Oct 2012 03:48:18 -0400

Man, there’s nothing like caring for kids to sap your creative energy. My youngest is three months right now, my oldest two years and change. Working nights and watching them both a few days out of the week is incredibly draining. I’d never change it for anything- how many men can say they spend so much time raising their kids?- but it’s really getting brutal as far as my creative output. Sometimes when I sit down to do some serious writing my brain simply won’t work and I end up just staring at the screen, my mind blank. It’s frustrating and infuriating all at once, even more so when I’m content to do things I don’t usually do, like sleep, whereas before I was writing like a insomniac madman. I haven’t lost that drive but I just have less and less time to be able to let it loose.

Fortunately I’ve got a few projects in the wings, including covering beer fests and the New York Comic Con, and I’m still working steady on my weekly Tapsauce review column. That last one’s been a great gig and thanks to it I’ve played dozens of games I never would have tried, but I really need a new damn phone. My Droid X is falling apart, most recently becoming completely useless as an actual phone. If I call someone it sounds like I fell down a well. I love Android but I’m looking at picking up an iPhone 5 merely for gaming. (Google Play’s catching up but every developer prefers the app store.)

Besides that I’ve also been doing much more beer brewing and some great praise from my friends who say the beers have been getting better and better. That might be the alcohol talking but I’m definitely learning more and more about the craft.

I’ve also gotten ridiculously enamored with board and tabletop games over the last couple of years. I still play video games but for a guy who doesn’t get to go out much my best chance at socializing is by inviting people over, and I’d much rather scream at my friends over a table than over a headset. It’s been a blast to explore this new world- all kinds of games from Arkham Horror and Battlestar Galactica to Small World and Risk Legacy. I even started up a Pathfinder campaign a few weeks ago. Getting geekier in my old age and loving it.

But family takes up most of my waking hours and right now I’m looking for something to ease my schedule. I’ve been working nights for two years now and it’s starting to really get to me. We’re trying to get my wife to be able to stay home (she works part-time) with the kids, so the job search is on…

Inversion- when games copy other games.

Wed, 01 Aug 2012 09:44:00 -0400

I’ve had a copy of Inversion sitting on my shelf for a while now. I hadn’t heard anything about it and hadn’t really anticipated that changing, but a couple of days ago I decided to fire it up. It may have been late and beers might have been involved. But it was nice to find out that it’s certainly not a bad game, although it’s a familiar one. A very familiar one.

Let’s see here.

A catastrophic event takes place where the planet comes under attack from an alien menace that burrows up from under the ground, destroying whole cities.
A beefy man and his ethnic sidekick fight back against them, grabbing rifles that have giant bayonets at the end.
Cover-based combat that lets you dive from waist-high wall to waist-high wall.
Brutal close-up executions, including curb-stomps.
An engine that apparently isn’t the Unreal engine but sure looks like it.
A character searching for a missing family member.
Melodrama laid on thick as can be.

Yeah. It’s frustrating to see how much it apes Gears of War because it’s a solid third person shooter otherwise. The engine offers some nice destruction, a few of the bigger enemies are fun to fight, and the protagonist’s quest to find his missing daughter works well enough, although not nearly as well as I Am Alive. I’m going to play through the whole campaign, something that couldn’t be said for a couple of other titles I recently gave up on. (Just in case you were wondering the Battleship video game is not good. Sorry to ruin your day.)

The cover of Inversion hints at it but the big gimmick here is that the world’s gravity can change. Soon into the campaign you’ll find the Gravlink, a device that lets you control gravity, or at least send opponents and cars flying around like you were imbued with Jedi powers. The world can also change its gravity, forcing you to traverse the ceilings or sides of buildings, which are conveniently covered with signs and structures to take cover behind. Once in a while you’ll even enter a zero-g environment which allows you to jump through the air… to cling on from cover to cover. In other words no, the gameplay never changes.

But it’s hard to shake how much they’ve stolen from Gears of War, from the UI to the characters and enemies to nearly every single weapon. (The first guns you get are a Lancer, Double-barreled shotgun and Hammerburst. Not those names of course, but…) It’s all enough to pull you out of the game and ruin the whole thing, to make you wonder why the company wasted years putting together this game that’s not even trying to hide what it’s doing. Why would anyone get the copy when they can just pick up the real thing?

And then I think about a title like Darksiders, which completely ripped off The Legend of Zelda’s formula, and wonder why it was so easy to get over that fact and simply enjoy the game. Perhaps it was the post-apocalyptic theme which was so removed from Zelda’s cartoony world, and thus felt new even though it was the exact same thing we’ve been playing since The Ocarina of Time.

Perhaps setting is key… as long as you change up the look enough it’s easy to ignore the lack of innovation?

I’m reading Catching Fire (second in the Hunger Games)...

Sat, 21 Jul 2012 08:24:00 -0400

I’m reading Catching Fire (second in the Hunger Games) which is even more disappointing than the first so far, but my buddy’s notes in the book are keeping me going.

Video Game Review- Lego Batman 2: DC Super Heroes

Fri, 20 Jul 2012 04:41:54 -0400

I wrote this review before I sold it, figuring I could place it with one of the usual sites I freelance for. That week one of them decided that they’re not going to be featuring game reviews anymore and another was broke from Comic Con. So here it is- another great installment in the Lego franchise. Just when you think you’re out…

Traveller’s Tales keeps cranking out those Lego games, but it’s to their credit that they keep honing the experience. While there were bound to be a few missteps when there’s been a new installment or three every year, nearly every title adds new features that helps keep people coming back. Lego Harry Potter Years 5-7 (my review) was perhaps the pinnacle of the series thus far but Lego Batman 2 manages to build on that and add some completely new gameplay experiences. (Look, up in the Sky!)

But the first major change to the Lego series may shock you - the characters can talk. That’s right, instead of the usual gibberish and pantomiming there’s full voice acting, and since this is Batman in the vein of the old TV show you can imagine how campy and fun it gets. It will take a few cutscenes before you get used to it but you’ll soon wish they had done it a long time ago, since the story is so much more full and entertaining this time around.

It’s fun even though the story is somewhat cliched, as it sees The Joker freeing all the usual madmen and women of Gotham and trying to stop Batman. This time he teams up with Lex Luthor from nearby Metropolis, who comes to help with a gun that can disintegrate even the most well-built Lego structures, like all of Batman’s wonderful toys.

Since the villains are from many different DC comics you won’t just play Batman and Robin. You’ll also control Green Lantern, Wonder Woman, The Flash, Batgirl, and even Superman. Superman is by far the most fun, since you’re able to fly, emit lasers from your eyes, freeze water with your ice breath, use x-ray vision and pull apart obstacles with his super-strength. Batman’s gadgets are cute in comparison. Jump into the air as Superman and fly into the sky and you’ll hear the famous Superman theme kick in, and if you speed off into the distance (to the the crack of the sound barrier being broken!) you’ll soon realize you’ll never want to travel around the city any other way.

It doesn’t hurt that the Man of Steel is nigh-invincible, of course, but you can’t just do everything with Supes. Lex and the Joker are powering up their new weapon with Kryptonite, which means there’s more of it laying around than he’d like, and Batman helps out quite a bit. Their relationships make for some great interplay between the jealous Batman, the arrogant Superman, and the swooning fanboy Robin.

The main gameplay of the Lego series hasn’t really changed. You’ll still go through levels constructing lego blocks, collecting Lego studs (as in the little single-piece Legos, not good-looking Lego men) and fighting enemies. Batman and Robin can put on different outfits to get new abilities and you’ll need to swap between the available characters to solve simple puzzles and get to the end. With a friend the co-op is just as much fun as ever although instead of sharing a screen it’s now split-screen so that you can explore the open world together.

There’s the second big change for the series. The game’s a massive, open world, and you’ve got all of Gotham at your fingertips. It’s damn impressive the first time you jump into the Batmobile and speed off into the city with no loading whatsoever. Missions are started by travelling to the location in question, whether it be an Amusement Park or the Axis Chemical Plant.

Past Lego games have allowed you to use the studs you collect to buy characters and vehicles for use in Free Play, a mode unlocked after beating a level. This time you can purchase characters and vehicles as usual but the method of doing it is built into the story. Vehicles can be found around the world, and generally offer a little checkpoint mini-game that will net you a valuable Gold Brick, of which there are 250 to collect. A massive roster of DC villains, everyone from General Zod to the laughed-at Killer Moth, are playable after you’ve hunted them down in the world and battled them. Add to that a plethora of secrets to find, people to save (Superman will hear people crying for help while flying over the city!), and places to explore and you’ve got a world that might be more fun to visit than the Gotham in Batman: Arkham City.

It’s not all great, though- the game does occasionally have hiccups. Twice I got stuck in scenery and had to restart my game, and while flying with Superman is a blast he has a hard time sticking a landing. The flight controls are so simple and intuitive that it can work against it and The Flash might be too fast, but these are still minor quibbles.

The level design is impeccable, the campaign even offering up some chase sequences every few levels to keep things interesting. As with every other title you’ll keep playing this game long after you’ve beaten the main story. If you’re not absolutely sick of the series by now, and if you’re a fan of DC Comics, this game’s well worth your money. If it makes you feel better you can consider it the first great Superman game ever created, which should be worth something right there.

Evil Dead 2 done in claymation. After this and his version of...

Mon, 16 Jul 2012 10:48:58 -0400

Evil Dead 2 done in claymation. After this and his version of The Thing, can we just hire Lee Hardcastle for every upcoming horror remake?

100 Greatest Games Ever

Fri, 01 Jun 2012 11:50:24 -0400

I’ve spent the last few weeks researching and writing a massive, 101-article list for Guyspeed.

It was a ton of work, but incredibly fulfilling. Finally, my lifetime of playing videogames paid off. For about a week I walked around with a notebook jotting down games whenever they came to my mind, eventually ending up with a list of about 120 entries. After I had them all down in an excel file and had started to organize them a bit I started looking at some game ranking sites to make sure I hadn’t forgotten any obvious ones… it wouldn’t do to write a list like this and forget Pac-Man, or something. But I’d done a pretty good job, although I soon realized that I’d really stocked it up with way too many PC adventure games and obscure 16-bit titles. A few got the chop that broke my heart (I’m sorry, Chakan! Please forgive me, Broken Sword 2!) but with the help of my great editor and in the interests of making a list that represented every genre, era and system, I think I managed got a good mix.

Before I wrote the entries I replayed as many of the games as I could. I went into my closet and dug out my big box o’ games (as pictured on top), hooking up some of the old systems for the first time in years. Nomad! Saturn! N64! …Virtual Boy! (Shockingly, no Virtual Boy games made the list.) Even the Wii, actually- which according to the internal calendar I haven’t played in about a year and a half. But it was worth it to find the Wii remote just for Okami.

Really quite the trip, and it made me happy to see that so many of the older games are still readily available in downloadable form. Great games never die.

Love to know what you folks think! You can start in on the list right here - 100 Greatest Games Ever.

A great soundtrack while you’re reading this? Here’s some stuff I blasted while writing this-

Minibosses. Always. And their album Brass is a free download!

Random and Lost Perception’s Black Materia.

Adam WarRock, who just released a great hip hop soundtrack to Bastion.

Video Games Live, whose second album got played on Spotify on repeat.

Ugliest game box of all time?

Mon, 21 May 2012 13:32:13 -0400

Regardless of the quality of the game, this is pretty hideous.

Oh yeah, I'm supposed to blog here!

Thu, 10 May 2012 06:24:00 -0400

I used to do that! I’ve been incredibly busy working a project that’s been sucking a lot of my time away. I’ve still been able to start a new homebrewing blog (New York Home Brew!) and get a bunch of reviews written, though…

The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings Enhanced Edition

I unabashadly love this game. I just picked up the first book from the series that inspired the game and am doubly impressed by how faithful a translation it is. Fully plan on going back through it on the harder difficulty, and I barely ever do that.
Review on Guyspeed

The Walking Dead

I’m loving that this game is finally getting some attention with mainstream press, including a massive article in the New York Times this week. It really is a great game, and both that increasingly middling tv show and Telltale’s Jurassic Park disaster seem to be convincing people not to bother with it. Their mistake- it’s one of the most exciting zombie properties in years.

Review on Badass Digest

Death Worm

Fun little game, even if there isn’t much to it. The Lite version was fun enough to earn my buck- I was just sad to find out that I’d already experienced all it had to offer. But hey, closest to a Tremors videogame we’ll ever get.

Review on Tapsauce

Sniper Elite V2

The most brutal Nazi destruction since Inglourious Basterds. I ain’t kidding when I say this one is pure, violent catharsis. I really, really need that DLC that lets you assassinate Hitler.

Review on Guyspeed.

Twenty pounds of stuff for my next #homebrew just arrived. Going...

Thu, 12 Apr 2012 14:04:36 -0400

Twenty pounds of stuff for my next #homebrew just arrived. Going to be brewing a Brooklyn Chocolate Stout clone! (Taken with instagram)

Anomaly: Warzone Earth review

Wed, 11 Apr 2012 04:22:58 -0400

Really love this one. This and Sine Mora in a few weeks? Xbox Live Arcade’s on a roll again. Not too sure how smart they were releasing it on Good Friday/First Day of PAX, though. Especially since most Xbox 360 gamers are used to Arcade titles hitting on Wednesday. Of course, it doesn’t help that the console’s new Games Marketplace is absolutely awful at letting you find anything. What a shitty redesign.

Anyway, definitely go for this one if you’re a Tower Defense fan. Plus, it’s only 800 fantasy points!

Full review at Guyspeed.

Interview: Mass Effect 3 Developers talk about curing the genophage

Fri, 06 Apr 2012 03:51:10 -0400

Had a nice half-hour chat with the three guys behind the Shroud level on Tuchanka in Mass Effect 3, a spoilery interview that shows just how much your choices matter in the game. Indeed, how much they’ve mattered in every single game in the series- you might be surprised to see all the things that can change depending on your actions.

Really proud of this interview. You can read the full thing here- http://badassdigest.com/2012/04/05/the-badass-interview-mass-effect-3-developers-talk-about-curing-the-genopha/