Author Archives: Ryan McCaffrey
Babylon’s Fall: The First Preview
With the ongoing popularity of “Games as a Service” titles, more and more companies are trying to create their version of the model that will gain traction and grow over time. In collaboration with renowned developer Platinum Games, Square Enix has att… Continue reading
Halo Infinite Multiplayer Arrives Early! – Unlocked 521
Xbox creator Seamus Blackley joins us for a special episode commemorating the 20th anniversary of Xbox. He shares stories from the early days of building the Xbox at Microsoft, discusses what he thinks of Xbox and the gaming industry now, and much more!
Subscribe on any of your favorite podcast feeds, to our new YouTube channel, or grab an MP3 download of this week’s episode. For more awesome content, check out our special Xbox 20th anniversary episode, featuring a candid interview with Xbox creator Seamus Blackley:
Oh, and you can be featured on Unlocked by tweeting us a video Loot Box question! Tweet your question and tag Ryan at @DMC_Ryan!
For more next-gen coverage, make sure to check out our Xbox Series X review, our Xbox Series S review, and our PS5 review.
Ryan McCaffrey is IGN’s executive editor of previews and host of both IGN’s weekly Xbox show, Podcast Unlocked, as well as our monthly(-ish) interview show, IGN Unfiltered. He’s a North Jersey guy, so it’s “Taylor ham,” not “pork roll.” Debate it with him on Twitter at @DMC_Ryan.
Xbox Creator Seamus Blackley Talks 20 Years of Xbox – Unlocked 520
Xbox creator Seamus Blackley joins us for a special episode commemorating the 20th anniversary of Xbox. He shares stories from the early days of building the Xbox at Microsoft, discusses what he thinks of Xbox and the gaming industry now, and much more!
Subscribe on any of your favorite podcast feeds, to our new YouTube channel, or grab an MP3 download of this week’s episode. For more awesome content, check out the last time Seamus was on Unlocked, back on the legendary episode 201 with fellow Xbox bosses Peter Moore (Xbox 360-era) and Phil Spencer (present-day):
Oh, and you can be featured on Unlocked by tweeting us a video Loot Box question! Tweet your question and tag Ryan at @DMC_Ryan!
For more next-gen coverage, make sure to check out our Xbox Series X review, our Xbox Series S review, and our PS5 review.
Ryan McCaffrey is IGN’s executive editor of previews and host of both IGN’s weekly Xbox show, Podcast Unlocked, as well as our monthly(-ish) interview show, IGN Unfiltered. He’s a North Jersey guy, so it’s “Taylor ham,” not “pork roll.” Debate it with him on Twitter at @DMC_Ryan.
We Build The LEGO Titanic (LEGO Iceberg Not Included)
“Does it come with an iceberg?”
When I’ve told friends and colleagues I’ve been building the LEGO Titanic, this is the response and joke I’ve gotten in return, every single time. I can’t think of a person I’ve told who hasn’t made this joke, to the point that I’ve started to wonder if, at least from some of my acquaintances, the question is a serious one.
To be clear, the answer is no. The only non-ship thing that comes with the LEGO Titanic is a name plaque. But to me, the question illustrates how much emotional distance we have put between ourselves and the most infamous, tragic maritime disaster in history, in which 1500 people died.
Now, LEGO’s made a toy out of it, albeit a building toy for adults. And unlike my friends, the company has elected to de-emphasize the tragedy which made the ship famous. There is no mention of its sinking on its official LEGO page; the closest we get is “fateful maiden journey in 1912.” Look at this text from a different page on LEGO’s site, discussing how one might want to display the completed set:
This feels willfully evasive, as if the writer is doing everything he or she can to avoid the elephant in the room. What are the chances we’d be talking about the Titanic today, let alone building a LEGO set out of it, had it not sank and killed as many people as it did? There’s a dissonance to write glowingly about the ship’s specs, while omitting the numerous ways that the ship’s construction and dimensions contributed to its demise.
The instruction booklets (there are three of them) discuss the different amenities on board and the ship’s interiors. But finally, in the third book, in a brief paragraph discussing the shortage of lifeboats on board, the writer indicates that 1500 people died in the ship’s maiden voyage. Nothing else in the set’s literature indicates this.
Perhaps, LEGO wanted to avoid accusations of ghoulishness, of making profit off a tragedy. But the decision to release the set in the first place was the right moment to grapple with that. Once the decision is made, acknowledging the tragedy up front would have felt less exploitative and more respectful than de-emphasizing it.
But all this meta-criticism is concerned with the promotion and marketing of the set; the set itself is unimpeachable. This is a rewarding, relaxing build, ideally spread over the course of three to four weeks. That the designers took painstaking effort to recreate the ship’s exterior and interior is testament to how the RMS Titanic has captured so many people’s imaginations, for better and for worse.
The LEGO Titanic comes in a massive box that houses three smaller boxes; they roughly correspond to the fore, midsection, and aft of the ship. Inside each box is an instruction booklet and numerous, individually wrapped plastic bags filled with bricks. They are numbered sequentially from Steps 1 through 46. There are no stickers; every one of the set’s textual elements is printed directly onto the pieces. The set contains two bendable, plastic rods to construct the deck railing. The set also contains numerous bundles of cord wrapped in masking tape, which substitute as the ship’s riggings. Lastly, there is a plastic sheet with perforated cutouts for three flags, which hang at the set’s extremities.
Building the set is more idiosyncratic and involved than you might initially think. Longtime LEGO builders will be happy to hear that none of the bags are overstuffed with tedious, redundant filler. There is a linear, logical progression from one step to the next. One bag builds the ship’s foundation and infrastructure; the next bag reinforces the ship’s foundation with additional sideplating; the last bag adds surface details and decorative elements. Then the cycle repeats itself.
LEGO typically anchors its massive sets with LEGO Technic rods and pins, which are a quick, sturdy way to establish the set’s general size and proportions. The Titanic set does not do this, and instead opts for a more brick- layered approach/ First you build the bottom of the boat. Then, you work around the edges of the build, adding gradual layer after layer, until the contours of the ship take form. Imagine a pottery artist creating a vase via the coiling technique. It’s the same, general principle.
The instructions are easy to follow, owing to the clear division between steps; you are never overloaded with more information than you need at any given time. The set’s stately exterior hides an explosion of color right beneath it, which helps you easily locate the piece you need while you’re rummaging through the pile.
I had several hiccups during my building experience. Three of them concerned missing pieces, which I later found packaged into a different bag (i.e. a piece I needed in Bag #30 was packed into Bag #31, or a piece that I needed in Bag #35 was a spare piece in Bag #29). The moral of the story is to hold on to everything. If you have a spare piece, reread the instructions to make sure you didn’t miss a step. And then save it, because you might need it later down the road. Or if you don’t have a piece you need, make note of it; you might find it several steps later.
There were only two pieces that were truly missing. Midway through the build, I needed two flat 6×1 pieces. Instead, I got a single 12×1 piece, almost as if the two 6×1 pieces were stuck together. It is exceedingly rare for LEGO to make a mistake like that. It’s rare enough that I checked numerous times to make sure I wasn’t missing something.
Fortunately, the missing pieces were neither rare nor uncommon. They were a standard color and shape. And if you’re enough of a LEGO fan to buy this set, you probably have enough loose bricks at home to easily find duplicates. They were not visible in the final build anyway, so color mattered not.
Barring that, LEGO customer service is excellent. The couple of times I’ve asked them about a missing piece, they’ve shipped it immediately at no extra charge and no questions asked.
Several of the build’s components are modular. The iconic smoke stacks, for example, are a separate, miniature build that is then anchored to the ship’s deck with pins. LEGO also continues its inventive strategy of reusing older pieces in new contexts. A decorative element in one set becomes a functional step ladder on the Titanic. A connective building element is painted brown and turned on its side, creating a facsimile of a wooden bench on the ship’s deck.
Unlike LEGO’s other massive builds, such as the Star Wars Imperial Star Destroyer, this is not a “hollow” set; you are meant to separate the ship into three sections and admire the cross sections. You can see the dining room and swimming pool. You can see the differences between the first class lodgings and those of the steerage passengers. You can see a reading and smoking lounge. On the deck, you can see cargo cranes, and a limited number of lifeboats on the deck’s edge.
The final build is a 1:200 scale model of the original ship. It has a height of 17.5 in. (44cm), a width of 6 in. (16cm), and a length of 53 in (135cm). There are several interactive elements; you can turn the propellers and the ship’s piston engines will turn. You can turn a crank to tighten the ship’s rigging or give it some slack. The entire build sits on a sturdy facsimile of a wooden stand, which is anchored to the bottom of the ship, and makes this a beautiful display in your home or office.
The ship has also given me a great avenue to discuss history with my seven-year-old son, who is my trusted assistant on all of my builds. The Titanic is our modern Tower of Babel — a perfect storm of hubris, outdated safety standards, and frigid waters that resulted in the deaths of over 1500 people when the Titanic sank into the north Atlantic. This LEGO set has captured the grandeur of the original ship. Now, it’ll be up to me to capture the humanity of it, and of those who perished on April 15, 1912.
The LEGO Titanic, Set #10294, is composed of 9090 pieces and retails for $629.99. It was designed by a team, led by LEGO design master Mark Psiaki.
Farming Simulator 22: The Final Preview
There’s no denying it: there is something strangely satisfying about riding a massive tractor through a ripe field in the Farming Simulator series, but with Farming Simulator 22, the developers at GIANTS Software aren’t contenting themselves with a shiny new coat of paint. Instead, they’re adding features that up until now have only ever been supported by a passionate modding community; chiefly, seasonal cycles and production chains. Now, before I was able to hop on my rig and get that delightful crop-collecting payoff, I had to devise a plan for how to best utilize my time, space, and resources that extended far beyond the barley field.
It’s hard to overstate just how big of a deal seasonal changes were in my time with Farming Simulator 22 — gone were the days of the eternal August weather ripe for farming. Now I had to get creative, plan which crops to grow during which seasons, and make sure I harvested everything before it withered on the vine. The hot summer months, for example, were a great opportunity to grow wheat and stock up my reserves for colder months, while the snowy winter season called for building greenhouses to grow strawberries in the inhospitable weather.
Seasons forced me to think completely differently about running my farm, and only by carefully planning ahead was I able to turn a profit, acquire new land to work, and expand my ever-hungry produce empire. And that added a strategic element to a series that, until now, has mostly been about driving big machines. Don’t get me wrong, though: you’ll still drive plenty of enormous marvels of engineering around and it’s just as awesome as it’s ever been — there’s just a lot more to it now.
A perfect example of how the series is evolving can be found with its other major addition: production cycles, which involve you in the refining, distribution, and finally the selling of your goods. In one scenario, I harvested wheat, brought it to a factory to be turned into flour, then brought that flour to a bakery to be cooked into bread. And in another, much more elaborate sequence of events, I spent an entire in-game year figuring out how to grow or harvest strawberries, sugar, milk, eggs, and butter just so I could manufacture and sell cakes.
Expanding my business by purchasing production facilities became an addictive part of making money to feed my ever-hungry farming operations (in addition to the ever-hungry animals and people I was literally feeding). Why just sell my crops when I could own the businesses that make use of those crops and get some of that sweet, sweet vertical integration going? My thirst for success as a farming tycoon led me to acquire a good chunk of the midwestern locale of Elmcreek altogether.
And of course, as my operations expanded and my cash reserves grew, I was able to afford bigger and better farming equipment that let me seed, fertilize, and harvest my crops in classic, zen-like fashion. Farming Simulator has always had these beautiful machines in spades and this game is no exception. There are some pretty beautiful models too, like the Fendt Katana 650 and the New Holland Braud 9070L.
It’s been a few years since the last Farming Simulator and so far it seems that GIANTS Software has not been sitting on their laurels. I’m excited to embrace my inner farm tycoon when it releases later this month — and yes, also to drive around big machines.