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20cc reviews: V

2009-11-03T21:11:00.008-05:00

Recently, I've decided that multiple APs, College Applications, and other school related responsibilities have failed to eat up enough of my time. To cope with this boredom, I am reviewing the pilot episode of a new show, the background of which I know little about, which is a reboot of a miniseries that I've seen part of. Obviously I should be considered an authority on the subject.

The series, for those who didn't read the title, is V, based on an 1983 miniseries. The basic premise of the series is that aliens arrive above Earth, calling themselves the Visitors and offering the secrets of their advanced technology in exchange for a particular chemical that can be easily obtained on Earth, but of which the Visitors' planet is starved. It also happens to be a giant metaphor for the resistance fighters in Nazi controlled Europe.

The remarkable thing is, in many ways, the original series was more subtle and suspenseful than the new one. I don't know why this surprises me, given the average modern American's inability to perform complicated procedures like independent thought. Perhaps I'm simply biased, based on the fact that the '80s produced something in the area of absolutely nothing of value. (This is of course hyperbole, since several noteworthy graphic novels and a few good movies are indeed from the '80s, but that decade's crimes against music significantly outweigh the positives.)

For instance, it was some time into the miniseries that we discovered that the aliens are trying to take over the world and that they are--spoilers--actually reptiles with manufactured skin to make them appear human. Granted, the discerning viewer should be able to figure this out much sooner since, obviously, the planet spanning, super advanced empire couldn't be all good.

Sadly, today's viewer is not expected to have this presence of mind, so the Visitors' great secret is revealed in the pilot episode.

That flaw aside, I honestly don't have all that much to complain about. The show falls prey to a few typical character stereotypes, but in reality, that is preferable to the '80s stereotypes we were forced to endure in the original. The main characters are, so far, a little less likable, but this could easily change. Furthermore, there are a few things that appeal to the easily pleased sci fi lover in me. A couple of instances showed some very impressive special effects--something I feel is almost pointless to complement in an age when just about any show with a decent budget can have near flawless special effects. Also, Morena Baccarin and Alan Tudyk (from Firefly, for you poor uninitiated) both have semi lead roles.

All things considered, it's a show I'll keep watching, if for no other reason than I'm easily attracted by portrayals of alien technology, i.e. floating spy orbs that fire volleys of crystalline spikes. Should make for good times.

Just another note

2009-10-31T15:11:00.002-04:00

So, I know it's been a while, but I was feeling bored today, waiting for the spookiness tonight, so I'm deciding to post now. The first thing I want to talk about is the DSi XL. Yes, Nintendo is a money making machine who is caring less and less about their costumers, but I never bought a DSi, so this might be a good update for me from the lite =D. I don't play the DS much these days, but maybe if I get a flash cart... well, lets just say I love me my classic GBA games, and I don't like carrying around a bunch of cartridges.
Second thing I wanted to talk about is Linux. Recently I have installed Ubuntu with the intent of dual-booting it with Vista... but Vista refuses to boot. So, for the past few weeks I've been stuck with Ubuntu exclusively, but it hasn't been too bad. There's a bunch of games which have Linux versions, like Toribash, World of Goo, Lugaru and Tee Worlds (an online 2D CTF game) as well as many which work inside Wine, such as Knytt, Runman (which you should all get!), and I'm sure there's others which I haven't tested yet. Oh, there's also flash/java games and emulators, which I would only use for the most legal of reasons, of course :). I have really been missing Steam though, I've installed it through Wine, but I don't have enough space on my Ubuntu partition to download TF2 =(.
Anyway, hopefully I'll get Vista up and working soon, or replace it with Windows 7 (which I've heard is "less bad than you expected") in time for the TF2 Halloween special (they have special maps and stuff, and they're selling the game for $2.50!). That's about all I have to say now, I hope this blog isn't totally dead, it should still be manageable as a place for the authors to share ideas with each other. So, I guess from now on I'll be the indie games and Linux guy, oh and maybe I'll throw in some classic games too (ones that were released in America). Sorry for any spelling or grammar errors, I've gotta go now, I hope you guys start posting about some stuff too.

Leaked Indiecade Finalists

2009-09-22T08:26:00.002-04:00

Yesterday Edmund McMillen (creator of Aether (one of the finalists), and Time Fcuk) leaked a list of Indiecade finalists. Looks ligit to me, and I trust the guy, here they are:

Aether, Edmund McMillen and Tyler Glaiel
Akrasia, Team Aha!
Classic Night, Akarolls
Cogs, Lazy 8 Studios
Closure, Tyler Glaiel & Jon Schubbe
Dear Esther, The Chinese Room
Deep Sleep Initiative, The, ARx
Eliss, Steph Thirion
Everybody Dies, Jim Munroe
Global Conflicts: Latin America, Serious Games Interactive
Gray, Mike Boxleiter & Greg Wohlwend
Maw, Twisted Pixel Games
Mightier, Lucas Pope and Keiko Ishizaka
Minor Battle, Andre Clark
Moon Stories, Daniel Benmergui
Nanobots, Erin Robinson
Osmos, Hemisphere Games
Papermint, Avaloop
Path, The, Tale of Tales
Radio Flare, studio radiolaris
Ruben & Lullaby, Erik Loyer
Shadow Physics, Steve Swink & Scott Anderson
Sowlar, Odd Man In
Spectre, Vaguely Spectacular Team
Train, Brenda Brathwaite
Tuning, cactus / Jonatan Soderstrom
You get me, Blast Theory
Zeno Clash, ACE Team Software
Modal Kombat, David Hindman

We are also delighted to be featuring two invited social games:
Urban Bingo, David Jiminson
CBCG, The Copenhagen Game Collective

Also some of the finalists have posted videos about their games
(Aether = http://edmundmcmillen.blogspot.com/2009/09/indiecade-2009.html)
(Closure= http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F0k4SKEGBlw )

----

please post this information places so people go.
-Edmund

That's a direct quote from his post: http://edmundmcmillen.blogspot.com/2009/09/im-leaking-indiecade-finalist-list.html

As far as I can tell this is the only place that these have been posted so far. I also recognize most of those names (a lot from IGF), so I don't doubt this list. I might be completely wrong, but this is a small blog and I'm sure a mistake like this doesn't matter that much. Anyway, thanks Edmund! Everybody should check out those games and two vids.

~23

Extra Life by Sarcastic Gamer

2009-09-17T23:13:00.002-04:00

There is a wonderful cause out there to raise money for children with cancer known as Extra Life. All you have to do to raise money is complete a marathon. Sound hard? Well, it's probably the easiest marathon I can think of, and I haven't been running in a few years. All you have to do is get some people together and play video games for 24 hours. I know I'll be participating in it, and hopefully my co-writers, 20cc and 23 will join me in this. To learn more about this cause, and how to sign up, visit extralife.sarcasticgamer.com.

GERARDAMO is writing a review?

2009-07-16T17:25:00.002-04:00

Well... No.

I was all set to do a review of BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger this week, but in a 20cc-esque turn of events, not only was that not available from my GameQ on GameFly, the first 11 games on my list weren't available. So was next? Animal Crossing: City Folk. No, I don't remember how it got there, but it was anyway. Well, GERARDAMO, why can't you just return it and get another game? I was all set to do that, but I give any game I get the benefit of the doubt and play it anyway. It has now been 5 days and I'm still playing it. How very disappointing. In fact, I would probably do a review of it if it wasn't from last year, but alas, it is. For sake of getting a review up, I'll write a quick 2 sentences.

GERARDAMO Reviews - Animal Crossing: City Folk (Nintendo Wii)

Animal Crossing: City Folk is the Wii's version of Animal Crossing for the Gamecube. Does that sound like weird wording, let me explain it better. Animal Crossing: City Folk is the exact Animal Crossing that you played on the Gamecube, and also the same exact game that you played on the DS. The furniture is the same, the neighbors are the same, everything is the same.

Originality: 0/50

Innovation: 0/50

Overall, Animal Crossing: City Folk scores a 0/100

Okay, joke review aside, this is indeed the same game that I saved my allowance for months for way back when I was in middle school. I'm not entirely sure why I haven't returned it yet. But if I ever do, I should have a review up for BlazBlue sometime soon. For now, I have to get back to mailing my neighbors the garbage that I found fishing.

Sometimes, Actual Walking Can Be A Bit Overwhelming

2009-07-10T14:29:00.002-04:00

Have you ever had the thought, "It's a beautiful day outside! I'd love to go out walking, but that's just too gosh darn difficult!" I know I have! Lucky for you, Konami is here to save you from the trouble that is going outside and walking with their latest project, Walk It Out!

Okay, seriously, time to end the Splenda-sweet sarcasm. Walk It Out is Konami's latest adventure into "exergaming." Using a Wii Balance board, you can get all the excitement of real walking without leaving the house! You can also use the Hottest Party/Mario Mix (I mean... Mario Mix? What's that. It never happened. Continue reading.) dance pad, and if even THAT seems too daunting, you can go ahead and use your Wii-mote and nunchuk. Now, it seems to be at least PART rhythm game. You have to walk in time to what is promised to be over 100 songs. So, maybe if DDR seems too difficult as well, this two direction version might be more appealing? Still not interested? Yeah, good luck with this. Maybe Liz, the personal trainer will get you more motivated to walk in place.

If nothing else, that trailer is pretty hilarious. As far as I know, there is no release date set yet. I hope we can all manage to hold back our excitement to walk in place until this comes out.

So This One Time It Was Summer...

2009-07-05T22:37:00.004-04:00

Yeah so it's been a month or so since anyone posted anything. But don't worry, we haven't forgotten about you. In fact, we've been working hard to revolutionize the world of aB (all five of you people out there who pretend to care). We've got some new ideas that might freshen things up a little bit, and GERARDAMO put us a website together.

That's right, we're actually moving. Remember when we first mentioned the possibility back in March or whatever? Well it should actually be up and running soon, which means I can unleash the power of my ocd on the limited-but-slightly-less-so-than-a-blog posibilities of a low budget website.

Also we have a Twitter, which none of us will ever use (except maybe GERARDAMO), but it'll keep all you posers from pretending to be us and saying things like "Today I saved three newborn infants from falling out of a tree into a hole that led into the firey pits of Hell." Who wants that kind of shit on their Twitter? Seriously.

23 preview: No Quarter

2009-05-21T18:15:00.017-04:00

Exclusive Preview: No Quarter

This is the title screen, sorry about the lazy crop, for some reason NQ doesn't like full screen screen captures

You may or may not have heard about Edmund McMillen and Alex Austin's newest project; No Quarter. No Quarter is going to be a game compilation that will play with 6 different games, or "tracks," much like a music CD. The game is still in fairly early beta, so I'm just telling you of what it's like so far, which may be very different than the final version. So, I managed to get my hands on a copy of the indiecade beta, with my awesome indie games press skills, and here's what I think of it so far.

Sliding on a platform while shooting zombies out from the air... yeah, this game is pretty awesome

The first track, Hitler Must Die!, is a 2D action/shooter/platformer. In this game you play as a Russian agent assigned with the awesome task of killing hundreds of invading Hitler clones. After the opening scene (done in stills) explaining this, you start right in the middle of an open, rocky terrain in the middle of the night. The art style is completely black and white, except for the blood. The moon shines in the background, occasionally getting blocked by the foreground. Light shines from the moon and from lightbulbs and windows inside, the lighting engine is as good (if not better) than that of Gish's. The game play is kind of slide-y and squishy, but that makes it perfect for sliding through halls filled with retarded Hitler clones while mowing them down with your Uzi. You get 4 guns (so far), your pistol, the Uzi, the shotgun, and grenades, all if which have infinite ammo (for now). Expect there to also be a flamethrower and to get these items randomly from enemies in the final version. One of the main features that makes this game really stand out is the physics system. When you kill an enemy, they don't just die, they fall (or if hit by a grenade, fly) backwards. This is very rewarding, especially with enemies that fall off ledges or get shot midair. So far, this is the high point of NQ, fun, addicting, and unique. Also, it has a good sound track.

GOOD COMBO!!! woohoo! ...these are common when you try to play as fast as you can...

The second track is Trivium. (20cc says: That's a band!) Trivium plays like Tetris with physics. The point is the connect 3 of the same type blocks and they will disappear, with new types of blocks appearing each level. So far it's fun, but a little slow. The bouncy physics make for a semi chaotic experience, controlling with the arrow keys gives you enough control to put the blocks where you want them, but still is inexact enough to always keep them moving. And, once again, this game also has a nice sound track, sort of a techno version of the Tetris theme. If you want to play it's already in a released beta version of NQ, and there's a very similar game Alex made a while back named Triptych. Oh, there's also a high score board to keep track of your scores.

THWOMP! The red center is a explosive, but hard to get to, also for some reason this one covered the toolbar

The third track is Epic Flail. EF is pretty early in development, but the concept is still established. You play as a small spaceship which has a huge bolder attached to it by an extending cable. You use the bolder to smash the one huge piece of space debris, eventually reaching the exploding core. The goal is to smash the falling debris into small enough pieces that it will burn up in the atmosphere, and not destroy the city below (or move the falling pieces far enough away from the city). In my opinion, this is the second best game of the track, and after it gets multiple levels, ships, and debris, it's sure to shine.

So... I filled in the outside... even playing on the small board can be tough

Track number four is Hext. Hext is very similar to Scrabble; it's a word game where you use your given letters in spaces on the board to make words. There is one very big exception though; all the pieces are 6 (hex) sided. The end objective is to fill the whole board with letters that combine to make as many words as possible and have the highest score (based on which letters you used). There is a handy in-game dictionary in case you want to check to see which words the game recognizes (almost all words are accepted), or to plug in some letters and see if it's a word. This game has a small and large board size, and also features a high score board.

My very unimpressive tree... atleast it didn't tip over

Track five is Seedling. So far Seedling is just a toy in which you build and grow a tree. It does it pretty well, although it's hard to make a sturdy tree that actually looks like a tree. The mechanics work fairly well, although you are able to make severely messed up trees. It's surprising how well a bunch of triangles can represent the growing of a tree. Anyway there isn't much else to say about this, because there isn't much there; build a tree, triangle by triangle, make it grow, and give it leaves and roots to catch sun and water. Hopefully this game will eventually emulate the life and hardships of a growing tree, full with competing wild life and environmental effects.

This is after the shuttle has split up in to three parts... believe it or not, this is what NASA uses...

The sixth, and last track of NQ is a work solely created by Alex. It is called Odyssey. Do you remember that game from way back when, the one where you had to land the spaceship on the moon? Well, this game is a lot like that, only that it feels like a bigger scale, and it's been updated with better physics and the idea isn't just to land, but to also drop off the rover and return to the base (i think). It's a lot more forgiving then the original (or the dozens of versions made with the same mechanic), and I think with the right music it could turn in to a very atmospheric, space-y, and somewhat lonely game.

So that's No Quarter. For all the beta testers, expect to see this version in about a week, and for everyone else, well, lets hope they release it by, idk, before the end of the year? Anyway, this game looks like it could be a real winner, hopefully it will get the attention it deserves when it comes out. Expect to see more footage up once all the testers get it!

P.S. Here are some more Hitler Must Die! screens for being a good reader and getting all the way to the end of the article!

Battle for Wesnoth, by BoltAction

2009-05-11T16:46:00.007-04:00

Battle for Wesnoth
Real-Time Strategy for the Thrifty and Fun-Loving

Battle for Wesnoth is an open source strategy game available for download here. While I'm not a huge TBS fan, I was drawn to this simple and unpretentious strategy game pitting fantastic medieval armies against one another over a hex-grid. Gameplay is simple enough: you have a leader who sits in your castle, recruiting troops that hop around the board grabbing villages for income, slaying baddies for experience, and taking enemy castles in your name. As your units reach experience thresholds, they advance, becoming more specific and effective troop types, often far better at what they do and frequently just a bit worse at everything else. For example, a human spearman is a general unit, capable in melee and passable at range. Its upgrade options include javelineer (tough shooters that retain melee combat capability), swordsman (eschew first strike options for heavier damage), and pikeman (no ranged capability, but first strike and front-loaded attacks). Swordsmen upgrade further into royal guards, and pikemen into halberdiers, further specialized in their forms of attack. Units have their damage split up over multiple attacks, which they trade in the course of one combat, meaning that while the royal guard deals the most damage over his five strikes, the halberdier is much better at disposing of an enemy without being wounded himself, dealing only slightly less damage but using only two or threee attacks.

The mix of terrain and time-of-day options adds more interesting ways to play than just overwhelming an opponant. Chaotic units, such as undead, are more effective at night, while lawful ones, such as humans, are better during the day. Needless to say, elves are better at fighting in forests, and so on. Some units, such as the undead shadow and elven ranger, gain additional options depending on terrain and time of day, which encourages flexibility of play style and awareness of positioning based on the battle conditions. Of course, all too often the campaign simply ends up as "I've got a ton of experienced troops from previous scenarios - let's roll over the enemy like a steamroller over a turkey!" One quip: why is a side dependant on its leader's hanging back in the base recruiting units when logically he should be mopping the floor with the blood-soaked corpses of his enemies? Especially for orcs, the idea of an administrator-lord seemed inappropriate.

The game's graphics are a little bit cartoonish, and the plotlines of its many campaigns are fun, if not very original. Though these slight faults can diminish enjoyment for the connoisseur, the multitude of campaigns, sheer number of online scenarios, and variety of units and factions combine to give Battle for Wesnoth excellent replay value. The game's simple play style makes it fun, accessible, and, unlike many of the strategy games out there, transparent. On the whole, well worth the brief download and install time.

Gameplay: 18/20
Storyline: 16/25
Graphics: 1/5
Streamlined: 10/10
Innovation: 7/15
Fun: 18/25

Overall: 70/100

For the Optimists:
-Fun, comprehensible strategy game
-Cute + free + simple = kid-friendly
-High replayability

For the Pessimists:
-Graphics unimpressive
-Story uninventive
-Not very exciting

Recommendation:
I, BoltAction, recommend Battle for Wesnoth if you're into open source games, like turn-based strategy fantasy, or are just looking for a simple, free game to suck up some time.

20cc's New Policy

2009-04-22T17:36:00.004-04:00

I know I have yet to deliver that promised Prince of Persia review (that no one cares about 'cause the game's already been out half a year) but I've been very busy lately. Because I have basic pattern recognition abilities, I recognize that this isn't likely to change in the near future, so here's the deal:

In the coming month and a half or so, I have the SAT, NYSSMA, AP exam, finals, SAT IIs, and ACT. At some point in there, I have to open my summer house, and somehow avoid failing my classes in the mean time. What this means is that I hardly have time to hunt down every game on my list when Gamefly (unavoidably) fails to ship the right one. (Their latest feat has been to send me Fable 2, from LA, (the other side of the country) because they don't even have that in at my distribution center. It should be obvious that Fable 2 was not high on my list, but apparently they can't get a hold of anything from later than last October.) What this means to you, is that you're going to start seeing some holes in my publication schedule. I will try to keep getting games, and reviewing the ones I can, (and want to) but I can't promise they will be anything you'll give a shit about.

I will try hard to get back into a constant schedule as soon as possible, but that may not be until mid to late June, and even then it may be a bit off, since I'll be away from my video games and Internet almost every weekend, and some weeks. I assure you, however, I will be back.

Also, if any of you follow Abnormality, it will likely suffer even more, because I sure as hell won't have time to come up with good ideas for it. i don't feel quite as bad about that, however, because I never pretended to keep a schedule for it.

23 preview: Spewer

2009-04-21T23:18:00.002-04:00

Spewer: puke, eat, puke some more

Today, Edmund McMillen was kind enough to let me try the Spewer beta. Now, Spewer hasn't had a lot of attention, but I think that will change once it gets released. Spewer was made by Eli Piilonen, the programmer, Edmund McMillen, the artists, and Danny B. for music, and Jordan Fehr for sound effects. Right now it's only in beta, but it should be released in about a week (4/28/09).

Spewer is about a cute little...animal(?) that, well, spews. It regurgitates and consumes his own vomit to solve puzzles on a course laid out for him by The Doctor. Puke, eat it, swim in it, use it to boost jumps, it's all about the spew; he pukes more than a frat boy at his first frat party. You only have a limited amount stuff at the beginning of each level (represented by the puke bar at the bottom of the screen), but you can re-consume it throughout the level to use it elsewhere (in the same level). That about covers it for game concept, eventually it gets a little more involved (after chapter 1).

As for the art, it's similar to a lot of other of Edmund's games, which personally, is a style I really like. Edmund himself says it's a mix between Triachnid and Aether. To me, the basic premise of Edmund's style is this; cute, yet utterly disgusting (to most people). The game makes me a little bit nauseous when I play, I mean the whole idea of this cute little organism recycling his own vomit is a little unsettling, but it looks very cute. The background consists of The Doctor, a comparatively large figure who looks like a mad scientist. He seems to be the one who has made you and is creating the challenges, but seeing how there isn't much of an intro, and there's no ending so it's hard to tell the storyline (which there will be, along with cut scenes, in the finished version).

The game play is fun and original, providing the player with challenges that show them new skills and test those skills. To be good at the game you have to learn fast and be kinda lucky. Sometimes game play is inexact, which can get frustrating. Then again I kind of suck at these kind of games, and there's still a week until the release, so a lot can change. So, with a little polish, which it's getting, this game could really turn in to a stellar little game. For me the game lasted about 2 and a half hours, but I take long on beating games, so more realistically you can probably finish it in under 2 hours, which is a good size for a flash game, and they might add more before release. I played the game all at once, there wasn't any save feature yet, which there will be in the final.

When this game is finally released try it out, you'll have fun and there might be an interesting story. The art style and physics are very enjoyable, and you'll probably be compelled to play the whole thing. Besides the main campaign there's also the level editor, with all the pieces in game (there's a lot of different tiles) to add some game play, and I think there are some unlockable levels for once you beat the game.

23 reviews: Spelunky

2009-04-10T15:51:00.012-04:00

Name: Spelunky
Author: Derek Yu
Version: 0.99.8 (oh so close to final)
Platform: Windows
Price: Free!
Players: 1
Website(s): Official topic thread, Direct Download(8mb), Spelunky Wiki
Video: Featured

So, it might have seemed like I ran away forever, like a drunken and abusive father who you barely know, but no, I just drank myself in to a stupor while wasting my money on strippers, only to eventually remember my bastard child and decide to visit again, just to ask for more money... metaphorically of course. In reality, between school work, games, and just being lazy, I haven't posted, but now, after months of waiting, here is my almost decent review of Derek Yu's highly addictive and exceptionally fun game Spelunky. Oh, and before you continue, if you decide not to read my rambling and seemingly intoxicated opinions you might just want to skip to Rock Paper Shotgun's great article on this little gem. Anyway, if you're still reading, I have no idea why you would, here's the review:

Title screen, and I'm on top!

Spelunky is what might happen if you squished Mario, Indiana Jones, and Awesomeness into 8mb of pixels and chiptunes. Take the dungeon exploring, cult killing, gem stealing ruggedness of the Indiana Jones series (the earlier ones, that is) and mix it with the frenzied risk taking, goomba jumping, coin collecting cuteness of Mario and you've got the basis of a Spelunky. In Spelunky you are a small spelunker (explorer of caves) spelunking (exploring caves). Why is not completely clear, but what you do know is that there is gold and gems for collecting, traps and creatures for avoiding/killing, maidens for rescuing and a door at the end of the level. Now Spelunky is slightly deeper than this, but as far as story line goes this is about it.

What makes Spelunky special is how it handles gameplay. Spelunky is a very challenging game. This isn't necessarily a negative. Unlike newer games which handle difficulty by kicking you back a few minutes or even hours of gameplay, or by not punishing you at all, (20cc says: I'll have a lot of this is talk about if I ever get around to reviewing Prince of Persia) or like back in the NES days, when challenging meant memorizing levels so you wouldn't get caught by unexpected surprises, and if you died too many times then oh well, back to the beginning for you. You could say Spelunky is more like older games in that when you die you go back to the beginning, the very beginning, but it isn't really the same beginning as before.

Instead of making you memorize each level, Spelunky forces you to actually become good at the game. How do they do this? Randomly generated levels. And it does it pretty damn well. Every level is unique. Unlike some platformers that tell you to jump there, avoid this, kill that, Spelunky makes you figure it out. You have to decide for yourself, "How am I going to get to the exit." Now this may sound simple enough. Plan out an escape route and go with it. But you can't see the whole stage, only a certain section where you are, and while you're exploring there's tons of baddies and traps to take away your 4 points of life. To add to the mayhem, you only have 2 minutes and 30 seconds to complete each level before an invincible ghost comes out and kills you. Yeah, did I mention that Spelunky was tough? (You do get items and weapons to help you on your journey though, I'll let you find out what and how).

Me getting hit with an arrow trap as i fall to my death on some spikes... yeah, you'll see this screen a lot
(btw, that's the damsel in the upper right corner, and that red stuff is blood)

*minor spoiler alert* Every time you die you lose everything, except for your highscore, your death/win count, and your shortcuts. Oh, what's this? Shortcuts? Yes, well, instead of rewarding you for exploiting cheats to find shortcuts (like Super Mario) Spelunky makes you earn them. See, Spelunky is split up into 4 areas, each with 4 levels. The shortcuts, which cost lots of money (probably at least 4 playthroughs worth), will give you special doors to the beginning of each area. Now for the other part of what carries over: Your highscores are made up of your amount of money, kills, and maidens at time of death (not necessarily all in the same session). I'll post a picture below for the highscore room. You might notice the doors, those are minigames (supposedly) that open when you achieve a certain level of awesomeness, (time game is completed in, kills in single session, and highest amount of money at any given point) and yes, the game can actually be won. You might also notice that I have died over 400 times and have not won a single game, but that's okay, because Spelunky is so fun, and every time I die it's either because of recklessness, a mistake, or a new enemy in a new area that I didn't know was deadly, but I get a little better and (hopefully) get a chance to give more money to the shortcut guy, and maybe ever get a new high score!

408... 409...410...When will it stop?!?!

I'm sure you'll have a great time with this game. It's challenging, but rewarding, and every time you play it's a new experience, you're exploring an endless chain of caves, and slowly getting better at it. This game has a strange addictive quality. It never gets boring, and there's always something new, so you won't mind wasting large quantities of time on it. This game isn't perfect, some of the random level generation is strange (such as the damsel being created in a contained square around a spike trap, making it impossible to save her) but mostly it works pretty well. In most of the levels you can reach the exit without using a single bomb or rope. And the traps are comparatively fair, because the enemies can be killed by them too.

Bottom Line: download this game, it is well worth it, before you know it you'll be hitting 100 deaths and might even still be stuck on the first area. Don't be discouraged though, like any good skill, you just need to practice. I'm highly looking forward to the final version of this game and maybe being able to talk to the creator; Derek Yu (I have yet to contact him), who has also made Aquaria; a completely different, but yet good, game.

Alright, I guess that about does it for my rant/review. Hope your eyes didn't burst in to flame, and if they did, you can't sue me. Next up: Finally getting around to compiling the Venbrux interview, and maybe a review of Gish, once I beat it. Keep on gamin'!

P.S. I finally beat Spelunky!!!!! The ending was kinda neat, I won't ruin it for you, but after viewing the credits it kind of gives you an accomplished feeling, as well as being impressed by how few people made it (there's about 5 people total in the credits, excluding the beta testers). I shall post my new stats here: Me: 1 Spelunky: 719

20cc reviews: Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X.

2009-04-08T10:23:00.007-04:00

With Gamefly's inability to deliver Weapons of Fate in time for this week's review, and the fact that I'll no doubt have to take next week off for travel, it seems I'm looking at another month or so without a break in the release schedule. WoF and The Godfather 2 are already out, and before I've finished them I'll have Velvet Assassin to contend with. I may end up cutting a couple games out of my schedule, depending on their continuing interest level.

In WoF's absence, I had planned on writing a completely irrelevant Prince of Persia review for this week, but Gamefly couldn't get that in time either, so I was left to find something at Blockbuster for my review. (It goes without saying that they didn't have WoF in stock either.) I settled on H.A.W.X.

For a little background, I've had a rather sporadic relationship with Tom Clancy games, and flying games in general. Every so often, one catches my interest, but only for a little while, and I've never been particularly good at either. It may in part be that I played most of these games when I was younger and sucked at games, and over time came to ignore Tom Clancy games because they're pretty much all the same. And yet here we have a Tom Clancy flying game. How refreshing. My aversion to this genre would have kept me from playing the game, but a friend suggested it to me, and I ended up getting the demo on XBL, figuring I had nothing to lose. (And nothing else to play, since Gamefly fails at shipping.)

It turns out, the game is fun. I would go so far as to say addictive. They accomplish this, first of all, by making it ridiculously easy. I say ridiculously because I finished the game in a day, and as I said before I'm pretty terrible at flying games. Combat, realistically, consists less of pulse pounding dogfights with opponents firing their cannons blindly, hoping to wing their enemy and maybe chip off a little health, and more of blowing the shit out of helpless ground targets. Less realistically, while most fighters might carry two to four missiles, H.A.W.X.'s fighters regularly came equipped with 200 Joint Strike missiles, 40 multi targeting air to air missiles, and rocket pods (just to give a possible weapon load). In addition to the typical flight mode, H.A.W.X. adds an alternate “assistance off” mode (referred to as OFF, in capitals, for no apparent reason) that makes for easier dogfighting. What it does, essentially, is removes most of the HUD, such as the altimeter and speedometer, disables the ERS, (the “enhanced reality system,” basically an advanced targeting system) changes to a camera angle that makes targeting a pain in the ass, and disables the failsafe that prevents the plane from slowing too much and stalling out. While that seems to be mostly negative, it really is worth it to be able to cut the plane's engine, spin around 180 degrees and fire a couple of missiles into the face of that enemy jet that thought it was going to get away. Also, admittedly, it's pretty fun to stall the plane and then pull out a second or two before hitting the ground. (Tangentially, the game would have been better if the player could use a Mechwarrior-style customization system, perhaps selecting weapons that fit into a weight limit, instead of choosing from preset options.)

As far as missions go, the gameplay consists of a combination of area defense (boring), escorts (frustrating), ground support (the closest to realistic of all the mission types), and infiltration (rare but fun). Like GTA4, the game really doesn't stray from its model, except in a couple minor cases, for instance an escort mission in which the player's targeting and ERS only works while near the escort target, (an AWACS) or a defense mission that ends with the player having to intercept cruise missiles before they reach the target. Despite maintaining a strict model, the gameplay remains fun because of the graphics, and the feeling of power that comes as a result of watching a multi targeting air to ground missile wipe out a tank platoon.

But you knew I would have to talk about the story, didn't you? I can't say I know exactly what role Mr. Clancy took in the writing of this game's plot. However, I was under the impression that his stories were popular because of their realistic, near future disaster scenarios that incite the public's fears because of the possibility that it could actually happen. In H.A.W.X. (According to Wikipedia, this stands for High Altitude Warfare eXperimental squadron, a typically contrived acronym that is also inaccurate, since, as a support unit, the H.A.W.X. squad spends most of its time at a rather low altitude. I don't think the acronym is ever explained in game, but then I did stop listening to the dialogue about halfway through.) the protagonist is a decommissioned Air Force pilot who is hired by the upstart PMC Artemis Global Security. The early part of the game sends the H.A.W.X. to put down rebellions and such, and ends with Artemis signing a contract with Brazil and supporting them in a war against an alliance of South American states called Las Trinidad. The flaws in the writing are minor at first, like the fact that Artemis is not only angry but for some reason surprised that the U.S. tries to intervene in a full scale war between a friendly nation and a vocally anti-American alliance. My personal favorite quote comes up during the defense of Brazil's capital, when a fellow pilot remarks, “Las Trinidad is going for the throat. This is a coup d'état!” A coup d'état is a military revolution, and requires someone inside the country to be rebelling. A war between nations is something very different. However, I became convinced that this character was simply mentally challenged, since he also has a tendency to repeat the same line every goddamn minute.

About halfway through the game, however, in a fit of terrible predictability, Artemis gets a better deal from Las Trinidad, defects, and declares war against the U.S. Somewhere along the line, Artemis apparently confused the definitions for “company” and “terrorist,” because I really don't see how such a plan would be profitable. Whatever Wall Street's current condition, America remains a major economic and military power. A war with the U.S. would first cause Artemis's stock to crash, and then cause all of their soldiers to die. However, because we've long abandoned any sense of realism, this six year old private company manages to actually stage a surprise attack that disables America's defense network, takes several military bases, and sets up a jamming system that disables electronic targeting systems nationwide. There isn't much of a change in gameplay however, since with the protagonist's defection, Artemis's previously advanced forces are replaced with the same tanks and dated fighters that the rebels were previously using.

(Here's a video of someone who apparently doesn't know how to dodge missiles.)

I couldn't honestly say that I didn't enjoy my day with H.A.W.X. Unfortunately, it seems that all of the games I've played of late have been fun without any real valuable content. About a year ago I read an article about the improving condition of video game writers. Why haven't I seen any indication of this? The last game I played with a convincing plot was Silent Hill 2, which is now going on a decade old. Before that was Kane & Lynch, which has been overwhelmingly criticized for its graphics and the fact that the characters “swear too much.” (Whoever wrote those reviews have apparently never been in the real world. The characters in K&L swear less than my friends or my parents.)

What I'm saying is that I like games to be enjoyable, but I would also like to feel that I'm doing less to contribute to America's deteriorating intellect. It's really not that hard to write a convincing plot. All that's required is that the writer asks himself three questions: “Are my characters realistic? Is my plot fresh and plausible? Am I not a flaming idiot?” If the answer to any of those questions is no, it's time to get outside help. Please people, have some standards. There's a difference between games like Saints Row that are cleverly written and lack plot only because it's meant to be a parody, and games whose writers assume that we can't tell the difference between characterization and bullshit.

20cc reviews: Resident Evil 5

2009-04-02T18:06:00.005-04:00

I have never played any of the old Resident Evil games. As such, I won't be able to judge the new game's plot in the context of its predecessors. My experience with the series is as follows: I saw part of the movie on TV once, played Resident Evil 4 at a friend's, rented (or something) the first and second movies, watched them, watched them again with Biscuits, and pretty much forgot about the whole thing. I took two main things away from my experience. First, if the older games are like 4, they would probably be pretty fun, but I'm too lazy to find out. Second, Albert Wesker is a very cool villain.

Then the new game came out, and I thought it would be a fun way to get some cooperative play in. Unfortunately, I didn't really get to try the coop, because it took about two days for me to figure out how to work the split screen. (Here's a hint. You start a single player game, and then press start on the second controller. Unfortunately, like CoD5, the two screens are letterboxed, which wastes a lot of space. I've heard it said that this has something to do with the resolution setting of the TV, but I'm not about to mess with that, because I would then have to recalibrate the screen and I don't really know how to do that.)

So now that I've finished the game, I've got to think that someone meant to get a hold of the unused ideas folder from RE4, but it turned out that they accidentally used the ideas that had been used already. For one thing, the two games play exactly the same. I won't complain about that so much, because I liked RE4, but the similarity persists. Not only are almost the same breeds of Plagas present, but several enemies return that would not be expected to, realistically. The chainsaw-wielding Dr. Salvador makes an appearance, though slightly reskinned, and JJ the Gatling-gunner returns, red beret and all. There are more subtle similarities as well, such as the Reapers (very much like a more dangerous version of RE4's Novistadors) and the test subjects discovered at one point in the game (which have a lanky appearance somewhat similar to the Regeneradors). El Gigante even returns in the form of a disgustingly easy boss creature named Ndesu. At first, the only apparent change is that Leon Kennedy has been replaced with another returning RE character, Chris Redfield. He's a lot like Leon, except less attractive, less intelligent, and ripped like a fucking tank. (They did that so that they could include a ridiculous scene at the end in which Chris knocks over a boulder... somehow.)

Unfortunately, good enough can never be left alone. It would have been acceptable to just make a direct sequel to RE4 and call it a day. But Capcom wanted to add a partner for Chris to talk to, and Sheva Alomar was born. And as no one apparently tried to come up with new enemies, no one bothered either to try and program an acceptable AI. It wasn't so much an issue with the enemies, who were expected to be not particularly smart. However, when Sheva decided to stand behind me and try to shoot through me to hit the enemies, a problem manifested. It didn't hurt me, but when Sheva has 12 shots left, and I'm expected to resupply her once she's out, I found myself wishing she would wade into the water and get eaten by a crocodile rather than waste any more of my ammunition. However, there is then the issue of the inventory. If it were possible to kill off my dead weight partner without failing the game, I would have half the space to carry my stuff. Unlike the relatively intuitive space based system of its predecessor, RE5 uses a slot system, where each partner has nine slots, and each item takes up one slot, be it an egg or an RPG-7. Furthermore, armor—of which there are two kinds—take up a slot in the inventory. Therefore, if you want both characters to be protected as thoroughly as possible, you'll have bought both Chris and Sheva the melee vest and the bulletproof vest, be out 40,000 dollars or so, and have only seven slots left in either inventory. Wouldn't you think the characters might be wearing their armor, rather than carrying it?

And then there's the racism issue. RE5 always bothered me because of all the people who complained that it was racist to be kill black people in a video game. I can't understand that. If a black person plays a game that involves killing Caucasians, is that racist? The game takes place in Africa. The people there are African, meaning, unless we're in South Africa—which I doubt—they will be black. If all of the enemies were white, it would be not only racist, but stupid. No, my problem with the game was Sheva. Apparently, since the sole reason for a female partner is the sex appeal, and since Americans don't find Africans attractive, Sheva had to be not quite African. So instead she has Caucasian features, a complexion about as dark as an Arab watered down by a generation or so of white parents, and a voice that fluctuates between British and “spoiled American bitch.” This falls into the racist and stupid category I mentioned before. Early in the game, a guard stops the pair and tries to search them. Not only does Sheva not respond in Swahili, which you'd think would be her native language, but she gives him her best pampered American princess, “Get your hands off of me!” Wouldn't a trained soldier understand that a guard would have to search them for weapons before they enter a sensitive area? I suppose this scene was included so that we would understand early on that Sheva is a bitch, so we wouldn't develop any emotional connection with her. So many problems would have been solved if the guard had done his job and shot Sheva just then. Alas he failed, and left Sheva to torment me throughout the game by, for instance, walking out into the open as Wesker is preparing his one hit kill attack.

As I suggested before, Capcom's ineptitude was not limited to programming AI. They also managed to hire some of the worst voice actors available. Sheva is a perfect example, though not the only one. I accept that a lot of the blame rests with the writers, for expecting the actors to deliver such juvenile lines. However, there are a few characters that couldn't make Whitman sound convincing. Excella Gionne, one of the main villains, (It's really not a spoiler, because if you couldn't tell she was evil from the first or second time she was mentioned, you probably need to be told.) is another graduate from the failed African impersonators' school, and goes through the game with a Latina accent. Only one character in the game pulls off an African accent and I can't remember his name, because he has about fifteen minutes of screen time in the whole game.

The game isn't all bad, however. I was actually surprised by how well the game used its graphics. While most new games showcase their graphics by demonstrating their ability to make everything as dark and unintelligible as possible, RE5 actually uses lighting effectively. There were a couple parts in the earlier levels that actually looked downright pretty. Unfortunately, since there is so much more sunlight than in RE4, the creators had to justify Las Plagas being in sunlight. Supposedly, the researchers found a way to increase Las Plagas' resistance to sunlight, which leads me to wonder why flash grenades still kill them.

And then there's Wesker.

What really made the game for me was that Wesker was actually involved in the plot. I've decided that he's the only character in the game worth caring about, despite having a voice actor who, while not exactly bad, sounded so stereotypical it hurt my head. The rational part of me wanted to hate him, for his silly voice, for looking like the character designer used exactly the same outfit as J.C. Denton from Deus Ex, and for being everything typical of a Japanese series archvillain, but the rest of me couldn't quite do it, because he's just so cool. However, a lot of the coolness wore off during the second stage of the boss fight, partly because he looked a little overdone, and partly because it took some running, a single bullet, and a button mashing sequence (not quite a quick time event, since I believe it was only one button) to defeat him.

Also, they insist on continuing to say the Las Plagas. This translates to the The Plague. I don't even speak Spanish, and you're telling me not a single person at Capcom can figure that out?

20cc reviews: Eagle Eye

2009-03-26T19:12:00.004-04:00

I know I had planned to review Resident Evil 5 for this week, but I would like to get the rest of the way through, to try out the cooperative mode, and to see if the story is somehow salvaged at the end.

However, my conscience won't suffer me to take the week off, so I'm throwing together an Eagle Eye review. I know it's not exactly new, and I wasn't actually watching it with the intent of writing a review, but it did raise some interesting talking points.

As an overview, Eagle Eye is about an uninspired loser (Shia LaBeouf (I still can't get over how similar his name is to “the beef” in French)) and an overworked single mother (Michelle Monaghan) who are contacted by a mysterious woman and forced into working for her to an unknown end. The woman seems to know everything about them, and manipulates their surroundings to assist them, by opening train doors, changing traffic lights, etc. Meanwhile, an FBI agent (Billy Bob Thornton) is hunting LaBeouf, unaware of his situation, and an Air Force investigator (Rosario Dawson) is looking into the accidental death of LaBeouf's brother, a lieutenant in the force.

As expected, the movie showcases the often absurd feats of technology the mysterious woman utilizes to aid her pawns. In some cases, it makes for an interesting commentary on the dangers of our culture's technology. Others were a little too far toward the unrealistic side. For instance, everyone's favorite image enhancement trick, whereby an investigator zooms in several hundred times on a sector of an image, and then commands the techie to “enhance the image.” You can't create pixels from nothing. Someday I want to see the computer operator attempt to photoshop the image.

As far as the writing went, it was nothing terribly spectacular. Occasionally, I got the feeling that the characters were too clichéd, but it wasn't a huge issue. Unfortunately, most of the bigger issues I have with the film involve the ending. That being said:

SPOILERS BELOW

-------------------------

YOU ARE WARNED

To catch you up, it is revealed that the mysterious woman is in fact an advanced reconnaissance computer called ARIIA. Because of a poor decision made by the president at the opening of the film, ARIIA decided that the executive branch is a threat to the good of the American people, and devises a plan to destroy it. This plan involves smuggling a military-developed crystalline explosive into a concert attended by most of the chain of succession for the presidency. The crystal is shaped into a necklace and given to Monaghan to wear to a concert, and then triggered by a certain note at the end of the song. (Yes, that is how Get Smart ended, except it's even less logical, because instead of using the ending cadence as a trigger, it's only a single note, forcing us to conclude that there is only a single high F in The Star-Spangled Banner.) This ending works very well for a comedy, but fails a little when it tries to be taken seriously.

In the end, the plot is undone when LaBeouf sneaks into the concert, disguised as a security guard, climbs onto a table and fires into the air, disrupting the concert. The security detail, having failed at keeping LaBeouf from mugging one of their own to sneak in, shoot him several times. I thought this salvaged the rather silly plot. Although clichéd, I thought it worked well to see LaBeouf, a deadbeat who never accomplished anything, sacrifice himself to save not only the president, but Monaghan, with whom he had become close.

Unfortunately, there was another scene afterwards. Apparently LaBeouf actually survived the shooting, (and the legal and political feeding frenzy that would have followed) and is shown attending Monaghan's son's birthday party, where the two have a touching heart to heart and kiss. (Monaghan, that is, not her son.) The movie had managed to pull a satisfying ending out of a juvenile premise and then somehow throw away any credibility it had. My theory is that the last scene was attached because it was decided that the American public was too simpleminded to accept the first ending. While that may be true, it is no less unfortunate.

And so what we have here is a movie that is undoubtedly fun to watch, but only if you're willing to suspend a whole lot of disbelief. There are fun fight scenes, fun special effects, but little in the way of artistic value. Also, at the risk of sounding simpleminded, I would like to suggest that ARIIA seems very similar to GlaDOS, from Portal. It's just a suggestion.

23 preview: Indie week on Steam?

2009-03-19T18:49:00.004-04:00

So, I've noticed that Steam has been adding a bunch of indie games lately, as in within the past few days. Now, I also happened to notice that all these indies happen to be IGF finalists... (except for The Path, but that just got released.) Now, I'm not saying that I have any sort of inside info that hasn't really been reported yet... *winkwink* but it' definitely looking like Steam is getting friendly with the indies.

Now some of you probably haven't heard of IGF, so, I'll explain that now. IGF stands for the Independent Games Festival. IGF is an event where hundreds of indie games are submitted and only a few of them get picked out by some judges to get nominated for certain awards and then they announce the winners at the event which is held from March 23-27 in San Fransisco California (damn i really wish I could go). The judging has been criticized by many, so not everyone is happy, but the awards have some big fame and money attached to them, so this is a pretty big event. It's happened once a year and this is the 11th year. More info about the IGF here.

Ok, now for the real news. Steam is having a 50% off sale on Zeno Clash for 24 hours, so if you like first person hand-to-hand combat games go pre-order it now while it's $10, it looks great! Also expect some more IGF nominees to be posted soon, I sure do! Maybe Steam will officially announce this soon instead of being so subtle...

Oh, also, it's my birthday 3/23 and expect Coil to be on Steam within an hour or two...

20cc reviews: Killzone 2

2009-03-18T19:23:00.003-04:00

When I was younger, I never used to finish video games. For some reason, I never really saw games as something to be beaten, just played for a year or so and eventually abandoned. Those were the days when I bought games for no reason other than that they were on the system I had (a Nintendo 64), or because the box art was pretty. I didn't follow gaming news, and I had no concept of what made a good game. I believe the first game I ever finished was Metroid Prime. After that may have been Gauntlet Dark Legacy. I don't actually remember, but I didn't really think of games as something to be played all the way through until around the time I got my Xbox.

As sad as that sounds, I do have a point. I was realizing this earlier today as I was considering the fact that I spent four hours of last Thursday, and maybe three more on Sunday, finishing Killzone 2. My eleven-year-old self would be shocked that I finished a game in fewer than twelve hours. Suddenly I find myself playing through one game each week, whether or not I like it.

With Killzone 2, I didn't want to finish the game. I would have rather read a book, or listened to music, or possibly played music, but I felt my journalistic integrity would have been compromised if I didn't make every effort to finish the game before I reviewed it. Ultimately, I finished it, at the cost of my health and my weekend, and really I'm not sure it was worth it.

I did not have a whole lot of personal interest in Killzone 2. I rented it because it new and relevant. My experience with the game beforehand was limited to an interview I had read, and the only thing I remembered from it was that Guerrilla Games was “putting a lot of work into the guns.” That is not a direct quote, but the closest I can remember. This intrigued me, because I always enjoy when a game works hard to look good, not just in the graphics, but in the overall presentation. As time went on though, I forgot that original interest, and began to feel the same thing I feel whenever a game I know little about gets a lot of hype. We'll say that I had mixed feelings going into the game. Similarly, it gave me mixed results, with parts of the game meeting my expectations, parts exceeding them, and parts failing.

The good:

Starting the first level, one thing immediately struck me about the game. The graphics were superb. It's hard to get me to say that about a game, because so often people say a game has broken into the next generation of graphics, and so often the games look just like every other one. Killzone 2 is something new though. Maybe it's just the PS3's superior hardware, but I'm still in awe. As a result, however, the characters suffered from exposure to the uncanny valley. Every imperfect movement was amplified, so cutscenes often looked somewhat unrealistic, near perfect graphics or not. Also, I eventually noticed that it doesn't really matter how good the graphics are, eventually they become normal. By the end of the game, I was no longer noticing the graphics, especially since I had been looking at the same things for hours. But that is a point best left for the next section.

The bad:

When I heard that Guerrilla was focusing specifically on the guns, being the things you look at through the whole game, I may have had too high expectations. Killzone 2 failed here not because of any technological limitation, but because game designers still disagree with me about which details are important. One thing that I know I've said before, and will no doubt say again, is that shooting games need to have more than one reload animation. It's not difficult. I don't insist on anything fancy. When you empty half a magazine and reload, that character takes the magazine out of the rifle, and inserts a new one. When the whole magazine is empty, he would have to pull back the bolt. That's all it would take. There were other problems too, about which I may find more sympathy. The weapons were all very much the same things we've seen before. As I'm actually discussing with 23 at the time of this writing, game companies make money by selling a product, and exploring new territory isn't a safe bet, financially speaking. Also, as I began to discuss earlier, the game isn't very creative with its level design. For the most part, every level looked the same, and even toward the end, when they started to change, they had the same feel. The complexity of the graphics may have something to do with that, since it somehow drained the character from the levels. Another cause may have been the fact that each level has the same objectives, specifically, kill the Helghast and avoid their bullets.

The ugly:

In one aspect, the game exactly met my expectations. This is perhaps the most important aspect of a game, the creative aspect. There was no plot of any value, as I expected, every twist was forecast an hour ahead, as excepted, and every character was a walking cliché with no depth, and generally only one real purpose in the story. While this was exactly what I expected, it didn't make the clichés any less painful, or the story any less dreary. I suspect that Guerrilla set out with the objective of making a pure shooter, and they came very close to that. While this is admirable in its own way, it does not excuse them from making something of value.

So what we have here is a game that does everything that it tries to do. Unfortunately, it doesn't try for the right things. As beautiful as the graphics may be, a game needs substance to be worth the money, and Killzone 2 falls short there. Overused weapons, a juvenile plot and unoriginal level design make for an overall unremarkable package. If bland shooters are your kind of thing, or if you just desperately need something to play on your PS3, then rent it. Don't pay full price until you're sure you like it. But then that's my philosophy for all games. Let me also say that Biscuits finally contributed to anyButton by rubbing the game on his balls before I played it. Whether that speaks positively or at all about the game, I leave to you to decide.

I've included the game's intro video. If you watch it in high definition, it should give you a sense of its graphics, and also of the quality of its plot.

23 news: 3.17.09

2009-03-17T18:38:00.006-04:00

So, I haven't done one of these in a while, so obviously there's some news, but most of the stuff I'm going to talk about probably took place within the past week (if not day). So, if you follow any other blog you've probably heard half of this but, don't leave yet, the other half should all be NEW STUFF you probably haven't heard (cause they're by smaller developers :P).

Behemoth releases trailer for new game: Behemoth, the developer of Castle Crashers and Alien Hominid (both very good games) has released a trailer (posted here) of a new, unnamed game they are in the very early stages of working. It kind of looks like a 2D platform/adventure version of Castle Crashes (with the same art style and hectic atmosphere). So check it out, looks pretty neat.

Flashbang starts work on their new game: Flashbang Studios, the developer of all things Blurst (many fun physics based games, including raptor safari, and their newest game Blush) has released a video of them talking about and demonstrating a prototype for their new game entitled "Crane Wars" (possibly a temporary title). So far this game is very early in the prototype phase and they're still working out the basics, but it sounds (and looks) like it's gonna be fun!

Steam now has DLC: Vavle's famous video game distribution program, Steam, officially announced and released Dowloadable Content (DLC) (and yes the L is just part of downloadable i guess). This isn't anything new to most console gamers (especially 360 and PS3), but for PC games this has yet to be implemented very well. Steam started it's DLC service with 2 extra levels for the new PC game The Maw. Hooray, now they can sell us games bit by bit!

Minor stuff:

Alex Austin posts a new video of No Quarter. Edmund McMillen posts some of the charecter design of the hero for Super Meat Boy, he also shows us a vid of his awesome birthday party and talks about some of the games which are degrading video games as an art (I'll probably talk about this later). Indiebird releases Pandora's Gear Box. The Escapist, GameSetWatch, and Braid Blog post some good interviews with developers. I find out about AWOMO, a game download service that lets you start playing before the game is folly downloaded, is still in beta (free tomb raider!). GameSetWatch does a cool opinion piece about the personalities in TF2. Jesse Venbrux (expect that interview up some time) goes to Japan, also, I hear he's working on a new Karoshi game...but don't expect it very soon, I think he doesn't have access to the internet for a while. 2D Boy posts a multi-part post production developer journal about World of Goo, check it out for a cool aspect of how it was built including downloadable prototypes!

Ok, that's it for 23 news this time. I'll post more if I find any, but meanwhile, check out that stuff!

P.S. Nameless mod for Dues Ex finally got released after 7 years, so if you have Dues Ex, get this mod!

Game Releases for the Week of 3/15/2009 -Nope, nothing this week either-

2009-03-16T16:31:00.003-04:00

Late again! There's still nobody reading this. Who cares? There's NOTHING coming out this week!

Monday, March 16:

Nintendo Wii:

MotoGP 08 (Wait... We're in 2009 now.)

Tuesday, March 17:

XBOX 360:

Heroes Over Europe

PlayStation 3:

Heroes Over Europe

PlayStation 2:

Naruto Ultimate Ninja 4: Shippuden

Sony PSP:

Air Conflicts: Aces of World War II

Resistance: Retribution

Scrabble

Nintendo Wii:

Marble Saga: Kororinpa

Pro Evolution Soccer 2009

Ready 2 Rumble Revolution

Rune Factory: Frontier

Nintendo DS:

Black Sigil: Blade of the Exiled
Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars

I Heart Geeks!

Scarbble

Suikoden: Tierkeis

TrackMania DS

Valkyrie Profile: Covenant of the Plume

Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's Stardust Accelerator (You know, in case you haven't played any of the other 76539 releases. SPOILERS! The cards are alive, and the interface hasn't changed since the first game!)

PC:

Runes of Magic

Spore Galactic Adventures

Friday, March 20:

XBOX 360:

Wheelman

PlayStation 3:

Wheelman

PC:

Wheelman

Well folks, it would seem that we are now beginning the long drought season of gaming. Don't worry, come November, your wallets will be empty yet again.

20cc reviews: Watchmen

2009-03-14T22:43:00.013-04:00

Once upon a time, a company called Remedy Entertainment made a game called Max Payne. This 2001 third person shooter was a revolution. It was one of the first (if not the first) games to use the bullet-time effect popularized by The Matrix. Since then, countless games have used a slow motion combat system, including one I just reviewed, and occasionally it is even referred to in game as “Max Payne style.” The game's plot was an intentionally over the top, film noir style story of policeman Max Payne, whose family is murdered by junkies, and whose search for revenge leads him into the darkest criminal underworld and up a ladder of conspiracy far beyond any he imagined.

In 2008, 20^th Century Fox released a Max Payne movie, starring Mark Wahlberg. I had high hopes, Wahlberg being one of my favorite actors, and the game being such a perfect candidate for film. Unfortunately, the movie was terrible. So terrible, in fact, that I immediately went home and played several hours of Far Cry 2, a game I don't even particularly like, just to make myself stop thinking about it. I couldn't imagine how the movie could have been so remarkably bad. The answer? Director John Moore changed almost every aspect of the plot. Aside from a character named Max Payne, a drug called Valkyr, a single slow motion fight scene, and a dark filming style, the movie was completely unrecognizable.

My point here is that interpretation is a dangerous thing. Of course, I count myself as an artist of sorts, and am in no way opposed to artistic license. I certainly don't expect a book or game made into a film to be the same as the original. Things must be changed, for clarity and conciseness as well as to express the director's personal style. When I saw the “Valkyries” in the trailer for the Max Payne movie, I accepted it as a reasonable interpretation of the story, and a pretty cool one at that. However, it's necessary to take care when negotiating the territory between “interpreting” something and “fucking it up.” Clearly John Moore came too far toward the latter in this case.

Enter Watchmen, a 1986-1987 graphic novel series that tells a chilling, alternate history in which costumed vigilantes are the main deterrent to crime, and the U.S. are on the brink of nuclear war with the Soviet Union. The story begins with the murder of a government employed vigilante known as the Comedian, and follows a number of characters as they try to negotiate a world weeks away from self destruction. The story was written beautifully, and the characters were astounding in their psychological complexity and depth of character. Furthermore, I was already a fan of writer Alan Moore for another of his works, V for Vendetta, which was made into a movie in 2005.

Last week, the film of Watchmen was released under direction of Zack Snyder, the director of 300. Let me expound. I didn't like 300 at all. The story was juvenile and historically inaccurate, and the whole thing came off as an excuse to show a lot of slow motion violence and sex scenes. (Yes, I did mean to say slow motion sex scenes.) However, my problems with the film had more to do with the original story, and I admit it was well directed. What I really admire about Mr. Snyder in this case, was that he was able to recognize that he didn't need to change the story. Alan Moore (Perhaps somewhat like Julian Casablancas: A very talented artist, whether or not he's a good person. Yes, I recognize that comparing the man who wrote Watchmen to the lead singer of The Strokes is a fairly weak analogy. However, I'm tired, I was just listening to The Strokes, it's late on Saturday and I'm trying very hard to get this finished while it's still “this week.”) had already crafted a near perfect story, and Mr. Snyder had only to guide it onto the screen and reap the undoubtedly massive financial boon.

As I am supposedly a layman's critic, I'll have to assume that my audience has neither read the book, nor seen the movie, so I'll avoid anything that would spoil the plot. I'll focus my review instead on the artistic aspects of the film, and what was changed from the book. It seems to me that the movie would be more enjoyable for those who have read the book. While both of my co-authors at aB liked the movie without having done so, I've heard many complaints that the movie is difficult to understand without previous exposure to the story. After seeing it a second time, I am coming to agree more with that viewpoint. I admired the movie for staying so faithful to the original, with entire conversations copied word for word, and yet I'm beginning to see how my experience with the book may have caused me to imagine context that wasn't necessarily given in the film.

What was changed from the book can be fairly easily divided into two categories: stylistic changes, and necessary changes. The former were mostly minor details, like the slight changes in quotes or the alterations in a character's costume. For instance, my personal favorite line from the book, in which Rorschach writes, “The accumulated filth of all their sex and violence will foam up about their waists, and all the whores and politicians will look up and shout 'save us!' And I'll look down and whisper 'no.'” was changed in the movie by omitting the words “look down and.” I don't really understand what would prompt such a change, whether to achieve a more desirable sound in the director's opinion, or to try to make it seem as if the movie wasn't directly copied from the book, but either way it doesn't much effect the final result. As for the costumes, I mostly agree with the changes that were made. The exception is Ozymandias. In the book, he wore gold and purple, symbolizing his relationship with his namesake. In the film, the purple—traditionally a color for emperors—was removed, and the gold is largely replaced by black. I'm not entirely sure why this change was made, but I feel it was a bad one.

The parts of the film that I had more problems with were the changes made from necessity, and I can hardly blame those on anything but the constraints of the film medium. After rereading the book and watching the movie again, I noticed many more changes, but I consider it a positive that I didn't notice them the first time through. The film did a very good job of altering small details without damaging the film as a whole. A lot of the back story that was given in the book through conversations, or through Hollis Mason's fictional autobiography (excerpted at the end of a few of the volumes) is compressed into a montage sequence of the rise and fall of the Minutemen, put to the tune of a fitting Bob Dylan song that I don't know the name of because I don't listen to Bob Dylan. Several other sequences were condensed, and suffer slightly from it, but it couldn't have been done otherwise.

The biggest change, and the only one that actually diverged from the original plot, was the ending. Most of you will have already heard complaints about the change, and most other sources would have likely gone on to spoil one ending or the other. I will say only that it was a big change. Biscuits said that he liked the movie ending better than the original. Personally, I wouldn't go that far, but I do understand why the change was made. It would have taken probably another hour of development to make the original ending seem plausible to a film audience, and that couldn't be done with an already 163 minute run time. The new ending is a lot easier to understand, more modern, and slightly more realistic, but I still hold to the original ending.

Aside from the already amazing story, the thing that struck me the most about the film was the maturity with which it approached the violence and nudity. At no point in the movie did I feel that it was violence for the sake of violence, or nudity for the sake of nudity. It all served the story in some respect. The two really gruesome scenes in the movie (the alley fight and the kidnapping case, for those who know the story) were both included for the sake of characterization, to explore the vigilantes' motivations. As far as nudity goes, there is one moderately graphic sex scene, hardly unusual by today's standards, and it was at an important turning point in the story (though it was less obvious in the film than in the book). Also, the movie stayed true to the fact that Dr. Manhattan was naked for the greater part of the story. Frankly, I was surprised and pleased that Mr. Snyder didn't shy away from it. After all, the classical artists understood that there is nothing shameful in the human form, and it would have been a slight to change that aspect of Dr. Manhattan's character. I suppose it would have been possible to avoid showing anything through clever use of camera, but that would have been limiting, and I'm glad to see someone challenge America's gymnophobia.

My responses to some of the biggest criticisms I've heard are as follows:

1. How can Zack Snyder call himself an artist, when he practically copied the book in its entirety?

-It wasn't copied in its entirety, but in answer to the spirit of the question, I didn't expect Mr. Snyder to be an artist, I expected him to make Watchmen into a movie, and he did that well and with minimal interference.

2. It looked old.

-I'm not entirely sure what is meant by this. If you mean that the film was grainy and occasionally sepia toned, that's because it takes place during the 1980s, and at times during the 1930s. It was a stylistic choice that I though fit pretty well. If you mean that the special effects were sub par, I don't think we watched the same movie.

3. Dr. Manhattan was nude throughout the whole film. Was such gross pornography really necessary?

-Grow up.

And finally a few more trivial notes.

There's a funny little 300 reference at the beginning of the film. The Comedian is living in room 3001, and a coffee mug thrown during the fight knocks down the 1.

Snyder's 300-style use of completely unecessary slow motion appears once, during the burning building scene (once again, for those who know the story).

There's an interesting example of circular storytelling in both the book and film. Twice, Rorschach speaks the line “Fine like this.” The first time, he is rejecting Daniel's offer to heat some food. The last time, he is rejecting Daniel's offer of warmer clothing. The connection is more significant after you read or see it.

If my review seems awfully similar to Tim Buckley's (I won't link to it, because he has spoilers. If you want to read it, you can look it up.) it's only because we apparently noticed similar things about the film. I'm less ashamed of that now that CAD has started to improve again. There was a while when he tried to introduce “plot” to his comics, and it failed terribly. I seriously considered giving them up. Hopefully, he has since realized that his gift is in making clever jokes about video games, and not in constructing a compelling story.

Rorschach is awesome.

All of the characters are awesome, but Rorschach is the best.

Game Releases for the week of 3/9/09 -RACIST ZOMBIES!-

2009-03-10T12:41:00.002-04:00

Yes, it's late, I realize that. Nobody reads this anyway.

Monday, March 10:

Nintendo Wii:

New Play Control! Mario Power Tennis

New Play Control! Pikmin (Because remember, Nintendo, unless your new idea pertains to casual family audiences, it's a bad idea. Real gamers just want to keep playing the same old game over and over. That does seem to be the mindset of Nintendo fanboys, actually.)

Tuesday, March 11

XBOX 360:

Trivial Pursuit (Yeah, that's it.)

PlayStation 3:

Trivial Pursuit (Yeah, that's it.)

PlayStation 2:

Trivial Pursuit (Yeah, they still make games for this.)

Sony PSP:

Samurai Showdown Anthology

Nintendo Wii:

Escape the Museum

MadWorld

MySims Party

Trivial Pursuit

Vacation Sports

Nintendo DS:

Docomodake BOING!

Monster Band

My English Coach (Spanish Edition) (Does it teach English or Spanish)

MySims Party

Zubo

Wednesday, March 11:

XBOX 360

NCAA Basketball 09: March Madness Edition

Friday, March 13:

XBOX 360:

Resident Evil 5

PlayStation 3:

Resident Evil 5

20cc reviews: Braid

2009-03-10T10:41:00.008-04:00

Alright, so this may not be a new game, nor is it my typical area of expertise, but then it isn't often I find an indie game that I'm willing to pay money for. So yes, there's one question answered, it's not free. It's on the Xbox Live Arcade for 1,200 points. I happened to get it when it was on sale for 800 points, but unless you grabbed it then and haven't played it yet, that isn't much help. Also, in response to its age, my justification is that the PC version is coming out at the end of this month. This can be an early review for those planning on gettting it then.

Braid is a difficult game to review. In fact it's difficult to wrap one's mind around, especially once finished. It's advertised a 2D platformer with gameplay focused on time control. What isn't mentioned is that, on the surface, the game is essentially Mario. Yes, there is of course the similarity in that they are both platformers, and as such share similar gameplay mechanics. However the comparison runs deeper. For one thing, the two most prevalent enemies in the game are a small brown head that waddles around on attached feet and is defeated by jumping on its head, and a fanged, Venus Flytrap-like flower that protrudes from a green pipe in the ground. Sound familiar? Furthermore, the objective of the game is to find and rescue a missing princess. Lest you think less of the game because of this, I assure you it's allowed to take ideas from Mario, because it's better.

[Collective gasp.] Did he just say that?

Yes, I did. Maybe Mario is a staple of the game industry, and a universally recognized character, and a legend in game development history but you know what, so was Pong, and that doesn't make that fun, no matter how many Flash artists try to renovate it.

Of course none of this should go unqualified, so let's get to the actual review. Braid opens without introduction, and shows the main character, Tim, in a sort of castle. Running across a drawbridge, Tim arrives in a room with five doors. Through these doors, you can find five alternate worlds (named 2-6, I won't tell you why.) that must be searched for the missing Princess. The catch is, in each of these worlds, time functions somewhat different than in ours. Some of the concepts are cumulative, like the ever present rewind function. Others are specific to a particular world. The story is told exclusively through a series of books at the beginning of each world. These books introduce the world with an anecdote from Tim's life, which also serves introduce the new time power introduced in the world. The names of the worlds each hint at the power as well (Time and Decision, Time and Place, Hesitance).

Once inside the world, gameplay is simple and addictive, but can become infuriatingly difficult in later worlds. The objective of each world is to find a number of puzzle pieces to reassemble a scene from Tim's shattered life. Each puzzle that is completed adds to the ladder that leads to the attic, where something else interesting awaits. At the end of each world, Tim finds a castle and is greeted by something like a stuffed dinosaur that tells him that the Princess is, invariably, “in another castle.”

The game's graphics are charming, with a sort of watercolor look. In some areas, there's a feel of simple beauty, while others impart a feeling of loneliness and desperation bordering on psychosis. The music fits the game perfectly, and consists mostly of calming acoustic tracks. Here's the part that made the game for me though. The music, like the world, is affected by Tim's time powers. When you rewind, the music rewinds. When you pause, the music stops. When you slow down time in world 6, the music slows to a crawl. This effect adds a higher level of immersion, and also adds to the general feel of the game, that Tim is somehow alone in these worlds that he functions mostly outside of, and that can never understand him.

If what I've said so far hasn't made you want to play the game, then I offer this: The ending will drive you insane. I can't say why, because that would spoil it, but the ending alone makes the game worth the... however the hell much 1,200 points is. There's much more to be said about it, but I really can't without giving it away. Maybe the suspense will make you buy it. Trust me, you want to.

I hate to put a walkthrough up, but really that's the only kind of video there is for Braid, unless it's just a video of someone walking back and worth in the same level. This is from world 4, Time and Place, in which time only goes when Tim moves, and flows in the direction he moves.

I noticed that GERARDAMO tried out a numerical grading system on his Onechanbara review. I find them to be rather simplistic, but they're also fun, so I thought I'd give it a try. I can't promise I'll stick with it, but here's my attempt at a per cent grade.

Gameplay: 70 (Simple, but bolstered by complex time powers)

Graphics: 65 (Not impressive, but they serve the purpose and fit the mood)

Sound: 95 (Music is relaxing, mood fitting, and reacts to time control)

Story: 85 (It's Mario with a twist. A really huge twist.)

Overall: 78.75

23 on: Augmented Reality

2009-03-09T18:17:00.009-04:00

So, today the VR geek blog (that's Virtual Reality) posted this great video made by Bruce Branit about a guy who makes a virtual world for his lover... in 60 minutes. I've embedded the video bellow, and you should watch the whole thing (all 9 minutes worth) because it's really amazing. Branit uses some great CGI to produce a scenario that demonstrates the application of advanced virtual/augmented reality. Not only is it visually spectacular, but the video its self tells a very compelling story and arouses some deep emotions with absolutely no dialog. So, seriously, watch it.

World Builder from Bruce Branit on Vimeo.

Now, you might be saying to yourself "that's all fine and dandy 23, but isn't this a gaming blog, and aren't you the indie guy?" Well... yes and no. We blog about whatever we want (see past posts about music etc), and I do more than just play indie games (although, that does happen to take up a lot of my time). Anyway, don't worry, I'm gonna tie all this back to video games.

Today The Escapist also happened to blog about new Augmented Reality baseball cards that are in the works. There's a video to show you how it could be applied, on the French VR company (Total Immersion), who are making them, so just clicky that linky for the vid.

Now, the Augmented Reality we have now is no where near what you just saw in Branit's video. In fact, it's in it's infancy. If you have a webcam you can check out some of today's top Augmented Reality programs at: washington edu and one last thing before we get into talking about the video game applications, a definition of Augmented Reality. By my understanding Augmented Reality is exactly what it sounds like, some how augmenting (changing, usually for the better) reality, which usually means replacing a real life object with a virtual one on screen.

Ok, now, to the application in video games (I'll have more of the non game related stuff posted on bluGrey later). So far, I've seen some games for camera phones in the works where you put down a marker (usually some sort of black and white symbol on a piece of paper) and on your phone's screen you see a monster or pet where the marker is. This is kinda neat, especially when you are able to tell your critter to do stuff or more around, but it isn't very exciting. What will be exciting is when we use virtual glasses and 3D tracking to fully immerse the player in a virtual world. I admit, this is a while away, the closest we have so far is AR pac man, but hopefully, soon, we can implement all these technologies to make something spectacular. If we use 3D body/head tracking we can immerse a player totally in an environment, have them walk around fluidly with a moving floor, and even have them fell pain. (I would post links to all these technologies, but seeing how you probably won't click them, I decided not to waste my time, but if you do want them, just say so in the comments.) Anyway, we have all the technologies to create a full environment for a person (without plugging them full of wires like in the Matrix), and even technologies featured in Branit's video could be achieved with some fantastic intuitive AR creation tools and nanobots (maybe). All these technologies (I hope) will be developed, or at least be in the works, in about 10 years (that might be a bit ambitious). Anyway, look out for more AR tech, it's neat stuff!

GERARDAMO Reviews: Onechanbara Bikini Samurai Squad

2009-03-08T14:00:00.000-04:00

First, I apologize for taking this week off (again) and writing my review right after 20cc. I suppose I could have written it earlier this week, but this week hasn't exactly been sunshine, lollipops, and rainbows. So, in an attempt to make it seem like I'm not trying to steal 20cc's thunder, I'm going to wait until Sunday to post this up, sometime after the release schedule.

Alright, Onechanbara Bikini Samurai Squad seems like it should be a good game. I mean, seriously, look at the name, look at the idea behind it. It has everything:

1. Hot Japanese girls in bikinis with giant samurai swords and guns

2 Violence

3. Zombies

4. Violence

5. Unbelievable amounts of blood

6. Lots of violence

So, Onechanbara SHOULD be a good game, right? Well, it seemed like it at first. In fact, the first hour I played it was a total blast. You run through the streets slashing up zombies, splattering blood everywhere, giggling at the laughably bad breast physics (Apparently, dual-booby bouncing means that one bounces up while the other flops down. This is very hard to describe, and I'd say you're better off playing it to see them, but...). However, the second hour was like the first, and the third hour was like the first, and the fourth hour was like the first, and so on. I'd actually have to say that each consecutive hour was actually a little first, as you start realizing the game's many flaws, like: These graphics are slightly sub-par compared to most games today. This combat is just as dull as any other hack-and-slasher. Those zombies walked up to a fence and got stuck AGAIN, and so did I.

There are 3 characters to play as, Aya, Saki, and Annna (Yeah, 3 n's.), along with some downloadable characters (Well, pay-to-unlock characters. One of them is free, and she's pretty badass. Definitely my favorite out of the four characters I had, but I could only use her in free-play and not story.) Even Aya and Saki, who both fought with just swords had very different feeling moves. However, they could all be done by mashing the X button, but at least they tried. There's a tag team feature that allows you to switch between two characters, which is fun.

It would be nice if you could use it strategically and switch characters when your health was low, but the zombies never seem to attack you. Instead of zombies that move towards you (I'm not saying run at you. I still don't like Left 4 Dead.) and demand "BRAAAAINS!" these ones just kinda... Stand at you, and ask, "Brains? Please? Maybe just your arm? Actually, I'm not even hungry. I'll have a salad." This is one of the main reasons Onechanbara falls flat. Zombies don't seem to be very aggressive at all. In fact, they seem quite civil. They just walk around the city and go about their business, and for some reason you walk up to them and kill them, just because they're zombies. There's a strong political message there.

I give the game props for sticking true to it's Japanese roots, but I realize I'm a small audience when it comes to this. The game is only lightly translated. The text is in English, but all of the voice-acting remains in Japanese. This lack of English, however, leaves out some much needed explaining in things. How come once you kill so many enemies, you get angry and your life starts depleting and then you die? Who knows? The game never tells you why. But, it's quite frustrating when you're fighting off hoards of lazy zombies and all of a sudden, one of the game's few meters fills up and your bikini-clad samurai gets angry and eventually kills herself. It's like that was placed there so you had SOME way to die, since the zombies certainly won't kill you.

The game has split-screen co-op, and it's hard for me to find bad co-op mostly because I never play co-op with anyone who takes games seriously. I played the first few missions with my younger sister who never plays games, and we had a good laugh at just how... Well... Bad the game was. However, I guess there is such a thing as bad co-op, because the split-screen co-op had an AWFUL frame rate, and it's not like there was too much for the game to process because the graphics certainly couldn't have been too hard to render, and there never were that many zombies.

Onechanbara is filled with glitches, and they aren't even entertaining glitches, they're just annoying. You'll have to clear a certain area of zombies, and fences will pop-up around the perimeter. This is already frustrating enough, being limited to a very small area to slash out of. It's more frustrating when zombies will wander into the fence and get stuck and become invincible to attack, making it near impossible to get out of the area. Sometimes, you might even get stuck in the fence yourself, and you're left to sit and wait to be devoured by the only slightly irritated zombies.

Alright, time to finish this up. Onechanbara was a game that had promise, everything was going for it. However, it's lack of explanation and depth and overload of glitches makes it fall flat on it's bouncing breasts. It holds SOME simple, guilty pleasure, but after about 2 hours, you're bound to grow tired of the X-button, and there are better boobs in better games. Rent it if you're really desperate for a game, but otherwise, you're better off with just about anything else.

(And for those who only like numbers:

Fun: 15/40 (Shallow, nothing to comeback to.)

Graphics: 5/15 (They look VERY dated)

Controls: 5/15 (MASH X! I forgot to mention that the camera moves unplayably slowly. You'll need to find a spot to stop and rest in order to just see anything.)

Story: 10/20 (It TRIES to make a decent story, and it almost is. Maybe it could have been interesting if I could have brought myself to finish it.)

Sound/Music: 0/10 (The music sounds like something from a gay night club. I had a much more enjoyable time playing it with the accompaniment of bands like the Yeah Yeah Yeahs (Heads Will Roll even fit more than the in-game soundtrack did) that actually had the energy to make this game feel somewhat exciting, and the voice-acting just seemed lazy.)

Final Score: 35/100

20cc reviews: F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin

2009-03-07T20:43:00.011-05:00

I was discouraged when I saw that Yahtzee reviewed F.E.A.R. 2 before I did, and no doubt did a better job of it. However, he reviewed Web of Shadows this week, even later than I did. I suppose we all fall behind at some point.

So here we are. Monolith has finally undone all of the evil that Sierra wrought on the F.E.A.R. series with the release of Project Origin. We can finally forget the horrible incongruities and plot holes, and the terrible abomination that was Perseus Mandate. Unfortunately, nothing ever seems to be quite as good as hoped.

The game began promisingly enough, and I was happy to see that the controls had been translated properly to the Xbox. The graphics have of course improved significantly since the original. The combat system remains fast paced and fun, the environments were often creepy, and I was happy to see many of the old Replica skins return from the first game. However, none of the old weapons return, which seems an interesting choice, since the two games take place at the same time, in the same city. Apparently the ATC troops and Replicas sent after Becket and his team were issued different weapons than those hunting the Point Man, and yet the weapons all work like those in the first game. It may seem minor, but these are the design choices that can ruin the immersion of a series. Similarly, there was one problem that I hoped we had seen the end of with Perseus Mandate. In the Sierra expansions, there were a number of weapons (the laser, minigun, grenade launcher and perhaps lightning cannon, though I don't remember) with no aiming animation. When the aim button was pressed, the screen simply zoomed in a little, and the weapon stayed in the same place. This raises the question of what exactly the Point Man is doing to aim. Unfortunately, the new (again reskinned) laser in Project Origin suffers from the same graphical oversight. On the other hand, it's a terrible weapon overall, so there isn't much lost. The old game's fast paced combat is complimented by a new cover system that allows the character to flip over tables, desks, filing cabinets, and other objects to use as cover, much like the Replicas did in the first game. While it adds to the look of the fight scenes, it's next to useless tactically. Several objects can only be interacted with from a certain side, which isn't necessarily the side on which you want to take cover, and most of the time the toppled objects are too short to provide cover for much more than your knees. Even crouching, your head is clearly exposed to fire.

I noticed that the game remained consistently both easier and less frightening than the original. Combat is much easier without reflex time, but this is balanced by the fact that you don't have as much reflex time as in the original. The game keeps the difficulty fairly consistent throughout the game until one level, which is both very difficult and rather terrifying. (Spoiler alert: it's the schoolhouse. Doesn't it seem like the scary parts in games and movies are always in either schoolhouses or hospitals?) After that, the rest of the game is not very frightening, and only slightly harder. The difficulty did increase steeply right at the end of the game, with an actual boss fight. Such things are rare in shooting games these days, and while it was a gimmicky fight, it was less so than is often the case.

The main talking point is of course, the plot. The first game was rather hit or miss. I personally liked the story a lot, but I understand that it could come off as convoluted to someone who doesn't want to like it. Games like F.E.A.R. often have problems with plot, because of the terribly fine line between surrealism and nonsense. I spent most of the time with Project Origin feeling a little unsure of the plot. Without going into too much detail, it has a much different feel from the original. In turns, I felt that it was more logical than the first game's, or that they were really reaching for something new. Of course I was elated to see that Monolith found a new excuse for the Replicas reawakening that didn't involve Paxton Fettel arbitrarily being ressurecting.

Aside from the obviously new story, there are a number of stylistic differences. After the Origin Facility meltdown, the young, red clad Alma that appeared throughout the first game is replaced almost entirely by the older, emaciated Alma that appeared at the end of F.E.A.R. While I understand the symbolism, I rather miss the younger Alma, because, well, little kids are creepy, and her appearance underscored the influence of Japanese horror films on the game. There was also a thematic shift when it came to the protagonist's Alma-induced hallucinations. In the first game, the visions were of bloodstained hallways and hospital rooms, but in the sequel the material involves more natural imagery. There is one repeated image of a tree on a hill with a swing, and on several occasions, black roots spring from the ground to drag away Becket's unfortunate allies. It seems to me that, now that Alma has escaped Origin, her attention has turned to something more than simply freedom. She finds herself drawn to memories of her life before her imprisonment, and the hallucinations reflect this shift in focus.

I thoroughly enjoyed the earlier stages of the game. Unfortunately, as is so often the case (Condemned 2, for instance), the plot started to become unbelievable and the levels began to repeat. There were quite a few beautiful vistas of post-meltdown Auburn, but I started to get bored of them after I had spent an hour or so driving exo-suits through the streets and chasing a certain wayward teammate for three or four levels. I would have forgiven this slight staleness if the ending had been something really remarkable, but it wasn't. At some point before the climax, Project Origin crossed that line I mentioned earlier, and the ending was entirely nonsensical. I'll refrain from spoiling it, as I'm sure there are still some who would take offense, and I can't stand people who spoil stories. However, it seemed to me that Monolith was really being unnecessarily cryptic. The ending offered no closure, and it isn't even clear if Becket's objective was accomplished. It really isn't even clear how much of the ending actually happened, and how much was a hallucination, or rather there is really a distinction to be made between the two. Maybe they're trying to leave their options open for a sequel, but I personally believe there is no good way to end this story. This is probably as good as it will get.

I am again reminded of Youtube's failings. This is about the best video I could find for F.E.A.R. 2's psychological and combat aspects. Unfortunately, the resolution is too bad to make sense of the horror scenes, and the person playing is too bad at it to give a real feel for combat.

For my next horror experience, I'm considering the Penumbra series, a first person survival horror game available on Steam. It would be nice if those games could deliver a gem in modern day survival horror, but I remain skeptical. Of course I can still return to Silent Hill 2 every once in a while. I'll beat it some day.

Next week I should have a review of the Watchmen movie for you, and maybe also of the indie game Braid.

Game Releases for the Week of 3/1/2009 -TV In My Video Games-

2009-03-01T11:40:00.003-05:00

Monday, March 2:

XBOX 360:

Brave: A Warrior's Tale

Damnation

Don King Presents: Prizefighter (Hasn't this already been released a year ago?)

Heist

Major League Baseball 2K9

PlayStation 3:

Damnation

Heist

PlayStation 2:

Samurai Showdown Anthology

Sony PSP:

Brave: A Warrior's Tale

Nintendo Wii:

Brave: A Warrior's Tale

Don King Presents: Prizefighter

Nintendo DS:

Don King Presents: Prizefighter

Gardening Mama (Yes, as in, Cooking Mama in a garden)

PC:

Damnation

Heist

Tom Clancy's EndWar

Tuesday, March 3:

XBOX 360:

Eat Lead: The Return of Matt Hazard

Halo Wars

Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X.

PlayStation 3:

Brain Challenge Deluxe

Eat Lead: The Return of Matt Hazard

MLB 09 The Show

Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X.

PlayStation 2:

MLB 09 The Show

SpongeBob SquarePants: Happy Squared Pack

The King of Fighters '98: Ultimate Match

Sony PSP:

MLB 09 The Show
Phantasy Star Portable (I would be excited for this if I had a PSP.)

Nintendo Wii:

Grey's Anatomy: The Video Game (Now you too can have sex in a hospital, all in the comfort of your own living room!) (And apparently, yes. You can be in two places at once.)

Sonic and the Black Knight (Because Sonic REALLY needed a sword.)

We Ski and Snowboard

Nintendo DS:

Grey's Anatomy: The Video Game

Littlest Pet Shop Spring

MLB 2K9 Fantasy All-Stars

SpongeBob vs. The Big One: Beach Party Cook Off

PC:

BattleForge

Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X.

That apparently seems to be it for this week. I'd offer a game reccomendation for this week, but there's really nothing that I'm personally excited for. Plus, we all know everyone's going to be buying Halo Wars or one of them thar Tom Clancy games that make me dizzy (Though I suppose EndWar would be fun if I had a computer that could run it.) Oh well, I'll be too busy singing that one No Doubt song they forgot to put in Rock Band as DLC before this week. What was it again? Oh yeah, New.

GERARDAMO: Game of the Week 6

2009-02-28T13:39:00.000-05:00

Alright, I'm back after my lazy week off. If this seems like a half-assed post, it's because I'm writing it in the hour I have until I go out for the night and I still feel lazy, but you'll be assured that I'm doing it right.

My game this week is once again a music game. This one comes from Sega. It's Space Channel 5 for the Sega Dreamcast. This half DDR, half Simon Says game is actually quite unique, not for it's gameplay, but in the style that it's presented. Set in the near future, Space Channel 5 is filled with plenty of 70's retro-chique throwbacks, from main character Ulala's tank-top and mini skirt outfit, completed with go-go boots, right down to the groovy dialogue. I was going to try to add some of this quirky dialogue to the post, but if you couldn't tell from that first one, it would sound awful.

Space Channel 5 puts you in control of Ulala, news reporter for "Ulala's Swinging Report Show!" The plot of the game is quite silly, and the game really just seems to laugh at itself the whole time. Aliens are invading the earth, forcing everyone on the planet to dance, with hopes of... Well... Maybe annoying them? Or starving them to death or something. It's never really made clear why. Somehow, they'll take over TV and the planet that way. Only you, Ulala, can save them by dancing back! Gameplay is simple, aliens (Called Morolians) will jump out and shoot directions in an attempt to attack you! You need to remember these directions and shout them back, because that apparently will stop them. You don't just remember the directions, though. It's all set to music, and you have to remember the rhythm pattern they followed, because what's a dancer without rhythm? You'll also need to shoot the Morolians and rescue the dance-crazed civilians by shouting "Chu!" (Shoot) or "Hey!" That's really all there is to the gameplay.

As I mentioned, Space Channel 5 is a rhythm game, and it easily has my favorite soundtrack. (I hope I didn't say that last week about IIDX as well, because I like this better.) It's very future-jazz-ish, and totally sets the mood for the game. It's one of the few games I have the soundtrack to and can listen to without playing the game. It's hard to describe without actually listening to it, so make sure you turn up the music when you watch the video at the end!

Easily, the most memorable thing about the game is the greatest cameo apperance of all time. Michael Jackson lends his voice to the game as Space Michael, and you need to rescue him, and he doesn't really say anything except for, "Thanks, Ulala!" However, in Space Channel 5: Part 2, he has his own entire level, and it's fantastic, because everyone dances around in an epic dance battle doing Michael Jackson moves (And yes, they do the Thriller.) and then he takes out a singing robot by... More singing. It's got to be the best level in either game. (There's only a Space Channel 5 and a Space Channel 5: Part Two. Well, there was also Space Channel 5: Ulala's Cosmic Revenge for the GBA, but let's forget that that ever happened.)

Space Channel 5 is still rather easy to find. It was re-released on the PS2 as Space Channel 5: Special Edition and comes with both parts, each on their own seperate disc. It's practically identical to the Dreamcast version as well. No unnecessary changes to be seen here. I bought a new copy of it on eBay for 10 dollars, so it's really cheap if you're interested in playing it, and with a price like that, I highly reccomend that you do, if nothing else just for the humor in the game.

The video below is of the first level of Part 1. If it looks easy, that's why, but it does get plenty trickier. The song playing in it is my favorite song out of any game, and that's why I chose this video.

Video by VirtuaPlayer

23 keeps current: 21 Prototypes

2009-02-24T18:38:00.002-05:00

Jesse Venbrux, maker of the Karoshi series (as well as other good, but less famous games), started a project last week called 21 Prototypes. His plan is to spend an hour a day to create one prototype. That includes thinking up the game, programming it, and making sure it's playable. So far he has 8 days worth with 1 or 2 a day (after the first couple days). So far I've been pretty impressed with what he can do in one hour, and my favorite fun prototype is 5_1 (the transporting box/ball one) and the most artfull one is 4_1 (the one about long distance relationships).

Expect an interview soon that's composed over some of my conversations over the net with Venbrux over the past couple weeks. So, stay tuned with that project for some neat little ideas and check out the rest of his games for some more lengthy and meaningfull enjoyment.

20cc reviews: Saints Row 2

2009-02-23T18:30:00.005-05:00

Yes I know, SR2 came out in October. I'm lazy though, and I can't get F.E.A.R. 2 until I return SR2 (or buy it, because I've got a discount deal on Gamefly and quite a bit of gameplay left).

I can't claim this to be a completely objective review, since I have yet to actually finish it, but my conscience is hurting after taking off last week, so I'll just do the best I can.

On first impression, Saints Row 2 is Grand Theft Auto 3.5. After three or four days of gameplay, I feel pretty much the same way. However, while that fact has remained the same, my overall opinion of the game has improved with time. If any of you follow game news and reviews, you'll probably have some idea that SR2 is a bad game, mostly because it has “bad graphics.” Of course most real gamers will have some perspective, and recognize that these “bad graphics” are flabbergasting by the standards of two years ago. Of course they aren't up to GTA4's standards, but I've come to realize that that isn't necessarily a fault. GTA4 suffers from a severe case of “graphical modernization,” as demonstrated by the fact that the game is dark and gritty to the point of being unintelligible. SR2 strikes a nice balance of color while still being realistic. Some of you will be perplexed by that statement, but look at it this way: The world is not entirely made of mud. The sun shines, buildings and water reflect that light, grass is green. Darkness does not necessarily go hand in hand with a lack of clarity. I'm currently sitting in a relatively dark basement, and can still see clearly into the completely dark pool room some distance away. Sure the nights are still dark, but you don't get the same problem with GTA4 where you leave a dark building and the bright sunlight causes your screen to... get darker.

You will also likely have heard that SR2 is chock-full of bugs. Honestly, I never had a problem. Compared to Web of Shadows, the game ran like a dream. Like GTA4, it had the same AI path finding glitch where, upon receiving the order to enter a vehicle, your character decides that an obstacle is in the way of the door, runs around to the other side of the vehicle, and then decides that the other door would have been a better choice after all. Frankly, it happened less often than in GTA4.

My main problem with the game is the control scheme. Being used to GTA4, it took me some time to get used to especially the driving controls. SR2 doesn't do as well with what I suppose I'll call simulated realism as GTA4. I say this because obviously the driving and collisions in GTA4 weren't realistic, but they felt very close, putting aside the fact that you could slide at fifty miles an hour into a telephone pole and emerge unscathed. I at first was irritated by the driving system in SR2, but I've since gotten used to it and realized that, while simpler, it can be just as effective. Furthermore, each vehicle has a more individual feel than in GTA4. There is a much wider gap between the good cars and the bad ones, and you'll find that you'll soon start choosing which vehicles to jack based on something more substantial than the paint job.

On a related note, the customization is in all ways an improvement over GTA4, and not only because of the fact that there was none in the latter. Of course there is in the beginning a character customization screen, allowing you to choose from different skin colors, genders, body types, weights, voices, movement styles, combat styles, insults and compliments. Once in game, you can further customize your character and add to your “style value” by buying clothes, jewelry and tattoos. Also, there are a number of cribs to purchase. Some are just for vehicles, such as docks and one airport hanger. Other cribs can be customized with beds, bigger TVs, and decorations. All of these things add to your style value, which gives you a respect bonus upon completing activities.

I realize that this is in a rather illogical order, but it fits together in my head, so I'll continue.

The aforementioned respect system is used to unlock missions. Each time you want to play a campaign mission or a stronghold (side missions used to kick gangs out of certain areas), you have to spend one respect bar. The respect bar is filled by performing stunts in driving and combat (two wheels, near miss, gang kill, slice n dice, etc.) which are ranked based on the duration of the stunt with one to three stars in either bronze, silver or gold. For instance, spending some time driving in the left lane will give you a bronze star in the opposing lane stunt, and staying there longer will add another star, and then a third, and then one silver star. Similarly, killing an enemy while holding a human shield will give you a bronze star in shield kill, and each subsequent kill within the time frame will add another. More stars means more respect.

The better way to gain respect is through activities, however, and this is where SR2 shows its true stripes. What really makes it an improvement over GTA4 is that it doesn't try to take itself seriously. This manifests itself in a more interesting plot, more colorful characters (both literally and figuratively) and most importantly, truly absurd activities. These include Septic Avenger, which calls for the character to devalue property by spraying sewage on houses, Insurance Fraud, which involves getting into violent car accidents to collect health insurance, and Fuzz, a parody of the show Cops, in which the player disguises him or herself as a cop and commits random acts of police brutality to be caught on film. These activities each have six levels, with each subsequent level granting more cash and respect, sometimes up to two or three full bars. At present, I believe I have nine bars, but I recently had thirteen.

I'll wrap up the review now, as I fear it's become too verbose. I will add that my sole real complaint about the game is a lack of split screen cooperative play. Sandbox games would always be vastly improved through a coop mode, including Assassin's Creed, GTA4 and SR2. It seems foolish to me that Volition would decide how I play my coop, since of the best friends of mine that play video games (pretty much the people on anyButton), only two of them have 360s, and neither of them have Gold XBL accounts. Games are often improved by adding a social component, and that's always better done in person than online. Setting this complaint aside, I have ultimately decided that I agree with Yahtzee's assessment. SR2 is so far a more enjoyable experience than GTA4, and it seems that it will have more replay value once I finish it. I may very well buy it.

One last thought: Why isn't there an apostrophe in in the title?

Okay here's the last one: If you're one of those people who reads a page and skips over all of the hyperlinks, make an exception and check out Yahtzee Croshaw's Zero Punctuation. Seriously, he's a critical genius, and my personal idol when it comes to reviews.

Xbox Marketplace is running out of space! Everything must go!

2009-02-23T06:10:00.003-05:00

It seems Microsoft will now be offering discounts on the Xbox Marketplace to all Gold members. Discounts will range from 25 to 50 percent off of downloadable goodies such as DLC, XBLA games, and Xbox Originals. So what's this discount this week? It's Braid at the reasonable price of 800 Microsoft Points. If you managed to miss this game, now's your chance to finally play it. I know I would be buying it now, but I'm too damn lazy to subscribe to Gold again.

Later this month, you can also expect discounts on the still totally relevant DLC for Ninja Gaiden II, Project Gotham Racing 4, and the Xbox Original, Fable.

Game Releases for the week of 2/22/09 -It's puzzling-

2009-02-22T15:07:00.002-05:00

Tuesday, 2/24:

XBOX 360:

50 Cent: Blood on the Sand (Because the first 50 Cent game was so good.)

Puzzle Quest: Galactrix (This is, unfortunately, your best bet for the week)

Shellshock 2: Blood Trails

Ski Doo: Snowmobile Challenge

Star Ocean: The Last Hope (I'd actually play this if I knew the rest of the story to Star Ocean. I need another J-RPG)

The Godfather II (I guess this could also be good. I've heard good things about the first one.)

PlayStation 3:

50 Cent: Blood on the Sand

Shellshock 2: Blood Trails

Ski Doo: Snowmobile Challenge

The Godfather II

Sony PSP:

Nothing all week, so sad.

Nintendo Wii:

Dead Rising: Chop Till You Drop (This game is still relevant, and this version screams quality game)

Yes, that's it for the Wii this week.

Nintendo DS:

Avalon Code

Blue Dragon Plus (Apparently, they still think people want to play this game.)

Imagine Family Doctor (Imagine SEXY Doctor)

Puzzle Quest: Galactrix

PC:

Codename Panzers: Cold War ("I'm gonna launch a missle!" "No, I am!" "Nuh uh!" "Yeah huh!" Hours of entertainment to be had.)

Drakensang: The Dark Eye

Shellshock 2: Blood Trails

The Godfather II

Friday, 2/27

PlayStation 3:

Killzone 2

GERARDAMO did it first

2009-02-22T13:40:00.002-05:00

Hi all. I took the week off, so that's why there was no Game of the Week this week. I didn't even play much of any new games this week either, because I didn't even get Cooking Mama from Gamefly until yesterday. It's not that I wanted to get Cooking Mama, I wanted to return it for bikinis and zombies. Alas, my week off is over, and next week I'll be providing you with more games that you don't remember.

Just so I don't feel left out, I too have my own personal blog over on LiveJournal, and if stereotypes on content you find on LJ are true, I highly suggest that you stay away from my personal blog. It's private, so you're going to have to add me as a friend to read it, and it's important to know that because if you don't, you'll I haven't updated it since last May with a post that's rather silly. So, yes. I have one, too, but I'm going to leave it up to the readers to find it on their own, mostly because I don't want them to. (Trust me, it'll be SO hard because I totally don't use the same name as my username on every website and as my Gamertag and PSN name and like everything else. SARCASM OVERLOAD!)

In regards to the "personal" blog I have here, those were just a few copy and pastes of my less angsty LJ entries. I gave up on it.

20cc is ripping off 23

2009-02-21T23:33:00.003-05:00

Sorry I haven't posted much lately. As I mentioned in an earlier comment, I've had Saints Row 2 instead of F.E.A.R. 2, so I haven't been able to review it as planned. I may actually review Sainsts Row 2, late as it is, and I'm currently contemplating whether I should wait and return it later, or pay Gamefly's keep it price, and just get F.E.A.R. 2 now.

Either way, I haven't had time to write that review yet, and will hopefully have it done for next week. By the time I'm caught up on all this, Watchmen will be out, and I'll be able to review that.

What this is really about, is that I've taken a leaf from 23's book and started my own side project, for more trivial news and rants. Don't worry, I'm not abandoning aB. I've just realized that with the stream of good new games so thin, it would be nice to be able to write about some other stuff. However, alot of that stuff might not be apropriate for aB. Therefore, it seemed logical to make a little room on the side, so at least I'll be able to keep writing on a regular basis.

So check it out if you've got the time. It should be amusing, if nothing else. I'll be back next week.

23 interviews: Cryptic Sea

2009-02-20T14:45:00.002-05:00

23's interview with Edmund McMillen and Alex Austin from Cryptic Sea

Both Edmund and Alex have had various projects with game development, but together, they make up the team of Cryptic Sea. Together they have made Gish and Blast Miner, also listed on the site are Alex's works Bridge Building Game and A New Zero. They've been working on, and hopefully complete in due time; Gish 2, and No Quarter. They have very different styles, both very unique, and together they create exceptionally unique and entertaining games. So, here's the interview :)

Who are you, and what company(s) are you apart of, and could you give a brief explanation of both?

Alex: I'm a designer/programmer, right now I release my games under the Cryptic Sea label. From 2001-2005 I was a part of Chronic Logic.

Edmund: Edmund McMillen, i make games. im an design and artist for Cryptic sea and my own personal side projects.

How did you get in to making games?

Alex: I've been making games since I was a kid, I was always fascinated by the possibilities of computer games. I started making money from games when my friend Ben and I started Chronic Logic to release Pontifex.

Edmund: I had been doing basic interactive flash projects from 2000-2003 and started working on a game with Tom Fulp Called Cereus Peashy. Shortly after starting the project i got a job doing freelance art for Chronic Logic, a company that alex founded a few years earlier.

How did Cryptic Sea/the partnership between Alex Austin and Edmund McMillen start?

Alex: Edmund and I started working on Gish when he was doing art for Chronic Logic.

Where did the name Cryptic Sea come from?

Alex: Originally it was a name I was going to use for some music projects I was working on.

Who are some other people you've worked with?

Edmund: Ive worked with quite a few, Jon Blow, Kyle Gabler, Tom Fulp, Tyler Glaiel, Florian Himsl and Alex Austin to name a few.

What games have you made (I know there's a very long list, so, just some highlights/series would be good) also, how would you describe your style?

Alex: Bridge Builder, Pontifex, Triptych, Pontifex II, Gish, Blast Miner, most of the games I've done involve phyiscs-based gameplay.

Edmund: Gish, Meat Boy, Aether, Coil, Triachnid and Blast Miner are the games im most known for. Id describe my style as "awesome".

What are some of your influences? (Other games/outside of gaming)

Alex: I'm definitely influenced by Sid Meier's games, the Ultima series, simulation games from the 90's, and NES games like Super Mario Bros or Zelda. My non-gaming influences include music like Boards of Canada, Godspeed You Black Emperor, Aphex Twin and Pink Floyd. I've been really interested in Stanley Kubrick recently, not just his films but his approach to the creative process also.

Edmund: Game wise ive been influenced by all the classics, Zelda, Mario, Street fighter 2 and so on. outside of gaming id say my major influences come from film makers like Rod Serling, David Lynch, Alejandro Jodorowsky and Lloyd Kaufman and Comic writers/artist like Jack Chick, R Crumb and Sam Keith.

What's your favorite game (if not answered in the last question)?

Alex: Civilization.

Edmund: Probably the first Zelda.

What's your favorite game that you've made?

Edmund: Right now its Aether.

What game(s) are you working on now?

Alex: I'm working on No Quarter, A New Zero, Pontifex III, Gish 2, and a few other ideas.

Edmund: Im currently working on 2 flash games, No Quarter, Super Meat Boy and Gish 2.

How do you feel about your fan base?

Alex: I don't think I really have a fan base, unless it's like the Flight of the Conchords fan base, except without Mel.

What are your future plans?

Alex: It depends on how No Quarter does, if it does poorly I'll probably look for a job.

Do you plan on making any games or ports on a console?

Alex: Yes.

On Gish/Blast Miner:

Who came up with the idea for Gish and how?

Edmund: Gish himself came from this strange demon i had been working on for a local magazine. He was origionaly made of smoke and had small arms and legs.. he kinda de evolved into how gish looks today.

How is Gish 2 coming along/when can we expect to see a final product or at least a beta?

Alex: Not for a while, we haven't been working on it much lately.

Are there any plans to make a Blast Miner 2?

Alex: Nope.

On No Quarter:

When is the planned release date?

Alex: Late March or early April.

When will you post a new video?

Alex: Probably not until it's finished.

How is the game development and beta testing going?

Alex: Some days it's good, some days I feel like quitting.

When will you get the next beta out?

Alex: In the next week or so, we'll probably add another game into the next beta.

How much will the whole CD cost?

Alex: Not sure yet.

Is there any way to pre-order it?

Alex: Nope.

For Edmund

How was the Global Game Jam?

Edmund: i wasn't actually a part if it, we just talked at UCSC to a few of the teams that where working on games for it. I decided to make a game for it a few hours before it was over. Tyler and i finished AVGM in about 3 hours, the game is a joke... it really isnt to be played.

What's the story with you and Tyler Glaiel, you two seem to be working together a lot?

Edmund: Technically we have only worked on 2 games together now, Aether and AVGM. But tyler has a great mind for games, and good eye as well. Its fun working with him because he works really fast and is basically up for anything :).

Where do you get the idea for such strange games?

Edmund: I just look around, everything in life is strange. Its strange to me that my stuff is even considered strange or weird these days. i mean look at us.. we are these delicate sacks of flesh that eat shit and reproduce... isnt that strange? we dont know what happens to us when we die, that's pretty strange. Life is strange, im just mirroring it.

Do you plan on making more art games (like coil) or more fun games (like meatboy)?

Edmund: Yeah, Ive been writing this game called Huck for a few months now. its a simple design that would be probably considered an art game, its another auto biographical piece like aether. The game im working on with florian might be considered an art game, its a social experiment.

When can we expect Super Meat Boy and how is it going?

Edmund: Late this year, we are still in the very very early stages of development.

Can you tell us anything about your current and future projects like spew and your untitled game that you're working on with Florian?

Edmund: Other then they will both becoming out in about a month, no.

For Alex Austin (sorry for doing yours second, no prejudice)

When can we expect a finished product of A New Zero?

Alex: I'm not sure, I'm not working on it full-time so the development has been slow.

How is Golf? Going/when can we see an update or final product (you are part of that team, right?)?

Alex: Golf? is pretty much dead right now, I was doing programming and design but at this point it doesn't look like it will ever be finished.

What's your role at Chronic Logic?

Alex: I'm no longer a part of Chronic Logic, but some of my games are still sold through there.

You seem pretty hard to get information on, is this on purpose, or am I just missing something?

Alex: It's not on purpose, it's probably because I haven't done many interviews lately.

Do you plan on making A New Zero playable over the internet instead of just LAN?

Alex: It is playable over the internet.

23: oops... I guess nobody has been on much lately...

How did you develop such a unique style?

Alex: I'm not sure I have a style really, but I create graphics and physics engines for each game which I think helps make them unique.

Is there any hidden games (other then what's on Cryptic Sea and Chronic Logic, and Golf?) that you've made or are working on that you can tell us about?

Alex: I'm working on a puzzle game called Shadow that I might release in the next few weeks.

23 interviews: Nifflas

2009-02-16T12:16:00.007-05:00

23's (abridged) interview with Nicklas "Nifflas" Nygren

a very squished map of Knytt

Nicklas Nygren, also known as Nifflas is a Swedish indie game developer who has made such great "exploration platformers" such as Knytt, Knytt Stories (KS), and Within a Deep Forest (WaDF). His games are very well known in the indie gaming community, and his current project, Night Game, is a nominee in this year's IGF for both excelence in design and the grand prize. For more on the basics of Nifflas' design watch Wolfire's design review of knytt stories, as well as reading this, and trying out his games for yourself (all of which are free).

In Within a Deep Forest you play as a bouncing ball (he can't swim)

Here's his response when asked about some of his favorite games and influences:

Nicklas Nygren (Nifflas) (NN): I'm mostly into very atmospheric games. I really wish there were more of those

NN: An "Ico" isn't released on a regular basis

23: yea, defiantly, the only one I can think of like it are abstract puzzle games

NN: Ah, those can be great

23: they can, but it's defiantly a different feel, usually art games, I see yours as more... a mix between the art and fun games (for lack of better terms)

NN: heh, a bit like the Shellblast / Acidbomb games.... Basically a slightly more complex take on Minesweeper, but the atmosphere makes it so exciting

23: yeah, definatly
23: you mentioned "Ico" before, what is that?

NN: It's a PS2 game. I guess my fans are tired of hearing that whenever I'm asked to mention a favorite game, I mentions that. It's an adventure game that lacks almost everything a good game is supposed to have. It features minimal dialogue, almost no music, only 3 or 4 enemy types, almost no weapons, no stats or levels...
NN: so you pretty much explore a large castle, solve puzzles, and enjoy an awesome atmosphere
NN: It's still the game that have affected my own games most.

23: cool, sounds neat
23: I'll have to look it up

NN: It's neat, because they took almost everything away from what a game is expected to have, and still made something really beautiful

23: I love when games can do that, also, what else do you consider your influences?

NN: I take a lot of inspiration from places around where I live
NN: mostly the sounds, deep forests 'n stuff

23: that defiantly explains the relaxing and isolated yet not lonely atmosphere

NN: Yeah :)
NN: Personally, I think that if you get away from the city and either into the forest or to the ocean around where I live, either at early spring or fall, the atmosphere should be a bit similar to Knytt somehow :)

The basic design of knytt; colorful environments with ambient wildlife (you play as the mouse)

How Nifflas became an indie dev:

NN: I don't know.... I've always been interested, as a child I used to make drawings that I pretended was video games
NN: At early school I learnt qbasic and attempted to create some ASCII games (all failures)
NN: Later with Visual Basic (also failures)
NN: Then my parents gave me Klik & Play
NN: and well, I failed for a series of years to create games with that too (I upgraded to The Games Factory and Multimedia Fusion 1 during this period)
NN: I basically tried to create too large games, that I never had a chance to finish
NN: so I gave up completely, and started to create music instead until many years later when I decided to try creating small platformers instead of huge RPG's and adventure games X)
NN: ...and well, since then I've released games at a quite regular basis (although NG is taking a little longer than my previous games)

Even though it's a very peaceful environment there are dangerous enemies (you play as the girl)

On the topic of how he would describe his games/style:

23: so, how would you describe your games? (or at least knytt)

NN: The main focal point of my games so far have been atmosphere
NN: Hmmm
NN: Basically, I want the games to feel more like a place than a challenge
NN: if that makes sense :)

23: hmm, yeah, alright, it definitely feels that way

NN: So far my games have been non-violent and have a rather cute and helpless (but brave) character exploring a large world.
NN: I don't know why, but that express me best

Jump Knytt, jump!

Where the name "Nifflas" came from:

23: so, where'd the name Nifflas come from?

NN: Well, I once sat in a car with my uncle and his girlfriend, and a debate started between me and my uncle about how to spell my name
NN: As everyone knows, I spell it Nicklas, but on the paper it's actually Niklas
NN: so my Uncle doesn't fully agree about that extra c, thinking it makes it sound like "Nisklas" or something
NN: So my uncle's girlfriend got tired of our debate and told us to spell it with f
NN: and well, it was nailed pretty instantly

23: haha, that's pretty funny
NN: :)

The origin of the names and some charecter designs:

23: so, where do you get the names for these games?

NN: That's always problematic. I'm really horrible with names, but it have still always worked out somehow.

23: haha, alright, I think they fit pretty well

NN: My ex-girlfriend designed the Knytt characters, and named them Knytt from Tove Jansson's children's books.
NN: so I didn't name Knytt
NN: and it took me months to figure out that I could call the second one "Knytt Stories"

More charecter design:

23: so, you mentioned that your ex designed some of the knytt characters, did she design all of them?

NN: She designed around half of the characters in Within a Deep Forest
NN: And those from WaDF that I used in Knytt were hers
NN: She didn't draw any characters specifically for Knytt, but she did the patterns for the Knytt startup screen and credits screen
NN: both with are lovely :)

23: yea, who designed the rest?

NN: I designed most of the game, but I also asked at the forum for help with character designing. In the game credits list, a few people are mentioned who created extra characters.

23: cool, it's a nice and unique design

NN: Evil-Ville, TheoX and Mr.Monkey
NN: regulars of either my forums or music communities I've been into

And finally, what he plans for the future and end:

23: alright, and do you have any plans on what you want to do after your current projects?

NN: I have, at this moment it's all pretty secret
NN: but I sure have :D
NN: (and it's game related)

23: alright, that's good
23: I think we would all like to see more games from you in the future

NN: :)

23: alright, well, I think that pretty much covers it
23: do you have anything else to say?

NN: Not that I can think about, but it was great doing the interview! Thanks :D

23: yea, thank you
NN: no problem :)

You can find the whole transcript at this post on bluGrey if you want to see more. So go to his website and download your own free copy of Knytt, Knytt Stories, and Within a Deep Forest. You can also go here and get some of his older, less known, works. Expect a review of Nifflas' games soon and then an interview with Alex Austin and Edmund McMillen from Cryptic Sea. Have fun!

Game Releases for the Week of 2/15/09

2009-02-15T02:00:00.002-05:00

Monday, 2/16/09:

Nintendo DS:

Fire Emblem: Dragon Shadow

Tuesday, 2/17/09:

XBOX 360:

Disney Sing It: High School Musical 3: Senior Year (That's right, they fit two colons in one phrase)

Grand Theft Auto IV: The Lost and Damned

Street Fighter IV (I never much cared for Street Fighter, but this appears to be the best game coming out this week. Now get out there and kick some ass with Sakura! She was always the best.)

PlayStation 3:

Disney Sing It: High School Musical 3: Senior Year

Street Fighter IV

PlayStation 2:

Disney Sing It: High School Musical 3: Senior Year

PSP:

Petz Saddle Club

Prinny: Can I Really Be The Hero?

Nintendo Wii:

Battle Rage: The Robot Wars

Cradle of Rome

Disney Sing It: High School Musical 3: Senior Year

Little King's Story

Roogoo Twisted Towers

Nintendo DS:

Dragon Quest V: Hand of the Heavenly Bride

PC:

Mystery Case Files: Return to Ravenhearst

Penumbra Collection

Thursday, 2/19/08

PSN:

Noby Noby Boy (This is by the same guy behind Katamari Damacy. I still don't know what it's about, but check it out if you like Katamari.)

Doesn't look like much of anything is coming out this week except for Street Fighter IV, and it's still a series I don't care much for (I'll stick with Namco and huge breasts, thank you very much.). Maybe I'll get around to trying it out anyway. I mean, it does have Sakura in it.

Well then...

2009-02-14T12:49:00.002-05:00

Things are not going as I had planned this week with Gamefly and my week off. While I was originally planning on starting off with Onechanbara and writing a review on it, it seems they just sent me Cooking Mama: World Kitchen for the Wii instead, which is great because I don't even remember adding Cooking Mama to the list of games I wanted. Oh well, c'est la vie. Maybe I'll do a review on it, but probably not. I won't have it until at least Monday now, so by the time I send it back and get Onechanbara, the week will be long over.

23 news: 2.13.09

2009-02-13T17:49:00.002-05:00

Here's some news, all indie, that I've seen lately (mostly today). Anyway, hope you find it informative and interesting!

ThatGameCompany releases Flower: ThatGameCompany (yes, that's really their name), makers of flOw, released a very unique and tranquill game yesterday (2/12) name Flower (you might have seen this on GERARDAMO's release date list) for the PSN (Playstation 3's downloadable content). This game looks beautiful, and so far has had fairly good ratings. I personally would like to see ThatGameCompany do more for PC and Wii, but that might just be because I don't have a PS3.

Plain Sight's beta extended: Plain Sight, an indie game made by Beatnik Games, has decided to extend their open beta testing for just a little bit longer. I highly advise grabbing up this game (even if it is a beta) before they take it off-line (or however they decide to close the beta). Plain Sight is a 3rd person action game with robots and points and blowing yourself up, so, really, there's no reason not to try it!

Half-Life 2 gets an indie live action series: Purchase Brothers have made the one thing all Half Life 2 fans have been waiting for (well, other than Half Life 3 and their own companion cube). Anyway I'll embed it below, because really, for a $500 budget for the first to episodes (according to escapist), it's really amazing. I admit the gun fights could have been a little better, but really the special effects and filming are amazing, so, just click the play button!

"Violent" computer games can help with fire safety: According to Science Daily people have actually realized you can mod Half Life, who woulda thunk it! Seriously though, researchers are starting to use FPS's such as Half Life 2, CS:S, F.E.A.R, Doom 3, and more for use in training fire fighters and civilians for dangerous fire situations. Anyway, I'm glad these games are being used for more than entertainment, I think education in any field could vastly improve by implementing some of the numerous technologies available (I'll probably end up talking about virtual reality and improved computer interactivity in the class room in a later post). Anyway here's the citation, to make us look all official n' stuff:
Durham University. "Violent Computer Games Have Role In Fire Safety." ScienceDaily 13 February 2009. 13 February 2009 /releases/2009/02/090203192427.htm>.

Expect more links to be added within a couple days as well as maybe a couple more stories if I find anything

23 interviews: Nabi Studios

2009-02-12T22:14:00.005-05:00

23's Nabi Studios Interview

So, you might remember my review a couple weeks back of the game Toribash. Well, Hampus "Hampa" Soderstrom, the maker of Toribash and CEO of Nabi Studios, let me do a little interview. While this one isn't as extensive as my last i think it provides some pretty nice information about Hampa and Toribash. Some of the questions may seem repetitive, but it's hard to predict the answer of the last one, so I try to cover all my bases. Anyway here's a pretty picture and a nice little review:

Some call it art, some call it brutality, either way you look at it it's really fun!

Could you give us a brief introduction as to who you are and what company you're a part of?

Hi, I am hampa. I work at Nabi Studios where I develop and run the online game Toribash. I am originally from Sweden, but enjoy the weather and food of my current residence Singapore.

What games have you made?

I've made Toribash, an online turn based beat-em up.

How did you get in to making games?

I did software development for a couple of years. Being a programmer making a small game is a fun exercise that I recommend everybody to do.

How did you come to work at Nabi Studios?

Having a company to run the game makes things much easier. It is really a necessity when you start dealing with payments, contracts and staff.

Have you worked for/with any other game developers?

Nope, I worked with other IT related work, such as telecom, before gaming.

Nice logo, eh?

How would you describe Toribash?

Toribash is an online fighting game featuring full body dismemberment and cartoon blood.
If you could place Toribash in one or more genres, what would they would be?

Best described as a beat-em up.

What are some of your influences? (other games/outside of gaming)

I am a fan of the books by Ayn Rand.

What's your favorite game?

The game I have played the most besides Toribash was Quake World.

Why did you decide to make a fighting game that wasn't just another button-masher? (question courtesy of GERARDAMO)

I just thought the game mechanics would be fun to play with. That most other games in the genre are button mashers didn't really concern me.

Who came up with the idea of Toribash and how?

I came up with the idea but since then it have evolved quite a bit and many people and players have been contributing to making it what it is today.

On my spare time I enjoy practising Judo, having a hobby besides a gaming can be good when coming up with ideas for games.

Off with his head!

What project(s) are you working on now?

Toribash for Wii

What new features are you planning to put in the next version of Toribash?

Version 3.7 (release feb 2009) has a new particle system and some GUI updates.

How well are your current projects coming along?

At a steady pace. I want the game to be perfect, and that doesn't always go hand in hand with good enough for release.

How do you feel about your fan base?

It is a nice mix of highly creative and fun individuals.

What are your future plans?

I am mostly concerned with finishing the current project we are working on.

Do you plan on making any games other then Toribash?

Yes, I have a prototype for a game called GlitchRacer. It is great fun and I hope to be able to release it some day.

Do you plan on making any games or ports on a console?

Yes, Nintendo Wii coming up!

Alright, well, that raps it up. You can check out Toribash, Nabi Studios, and Glitch Rider for more information. Once again we would like to thank Hampa a lot for the interview, and we can't wait for more Toribash!

P.S. Thanks for GERARDAMO and Kevin from It Came From /dev/null for editing and helping coming up with questions! Also, expect one more question to be posted soon that I forgot to ask.

Final question:

Why did you decide to give Toribash away free of charge?

We tried donationware, shareware, trialware, crippleware, velvet rope ware and addware. All of which more or less requires you to spend time making sure people can't play your game instead of making sure they are having fun. Selling virtual items for Toribash is both fun and supports the cost of further development.

Check out the Toribash blog, they actually blogged about us! So, if you're coming from there, thanks for the visit!

I sue, you sue, we all sue. Why? Who cares!

2009-02-12T20:36:00.005-05:00

(I sure did pick a good week to use IIDX as my game of the week, didn't I?)

Early last summer, Konami, developer of music games such as Guitar Freaks, Drum Mania, and Beatmania IIDX filed a lawsuit against Viacom's Harmonix, developers of Rock Band, claiming that Rock Band violated two of Konami's controller patents (Hmm... PROBABLY guitar and drum controllers, since, well... What else could it have been?).

Now, yesterday, Harmonix decided that they would sue Konami for a patent infringement. Wait, what? Didn't Konami make the controller first? Yes they did, but according to Viacom's patent, filed Dec. 2, the Rock Band controllers are not ripoffs of Guitar Freaks/DrumMania controllers, but rather improvements on even older music game controllers, like Beatmania. So, Harmonix is borrowing the design from Konami, and Konami is stealing that borrowing from Harmonix, which means that Konami is stealing from an influence by... Konami? No, that is a terrible argument from Harmonix.

I hate to sound like I'm taking sides but Bemani games will always have a special place in my heart. Yes, with the exception of DDR, Konami did a terrible job of pushing their games to the States, but they did do it first. Yes, it's silly that they sue the pants off of everyone and still don't try to make decent US versions of their games, and that's why I'm okay with these other "ripoffs" coming out (I still hate Guitar Hero.), because it's all we Americans have. However, when a company like Harmonix decides to sue the company that basically gave them the idea for their game, that's not cool.

It'll be interesting to see how this turns out, but why can't we all just get along, guys?

Full story available here

23 optimizes: Google Analytics

2009-02-12T10:09:00.002-05:00

So, I decided to add Google Analytic to anyButton. What this mean is that I can count the view count, by day, how many unique visitors, where they're from, what pages they visit and so much more. I know this seems kinda creepy, but it reveals no personal information about our readers and helps us recognize how popular the site is. So, if you have a site and want to track some info I suggest to check it out, also, while I'm promoting Google I might as well mention GMail, Google Reader, and, of course, blogspot.

Anyway expect some more interviews and reviews to be posted soon, I do like to stay on our front page :P. Expect interviews of Nicklas Nygren, Jesse Venbrux, Hampa from Toribash, and Edmund McMillen (Some of his stuff is NSFW), and reviews of some of their games within the coming weeks!

20cc has a weakness for metal.

2009-02-11T14:33:00.005-05:00

Sonata Arctica is making a video game. If any of you out there asked, “What is Sonata Arctica?” then I have two pieces of advice. First, find something blunt and hit yourself in the jaw with it. Next look them up. Allow me just to clarify that I am not so much of a fanboy that I expect this game to be awesome. It's a game inspired by an obscure Finnish power metal band, and developed by a company that has never made a game before (Zelian Games). However, I still intend to follow it slavishly, because SA is doing the soundtrack, and they're one of the best bands ever.

The game is called Winterheart's Guild, named after SA's breakthrough 2003 album. It was originally intended as a post-apocalyptic action RPG, back in 2006. Videos and screen shots suggested a setting in a cold, tundra-like area, perhaps representing a nuclear winter. There was little to be seen as far as gameplay, but it looked like a typical third person, Elder Scrolls-esque RPG. Also there were wolves (little surprise, if you know much about SA's image).

It seems that at some point in the past, however, Zelian became concerned about the game stagnating, and diverted their attention into a new game, xOrbic, to test their ZelianX engine before using it in Winterheart's Guild. This apparently signaled a genre shift for the game into puzzle RPG territory. When I learned about this in the SA forums (earlier today) it concerned me. I've never been a huge fan of puzzle games, and I certainly don't believe I've ever payed for one. However, being the SA zombie that I am, I decided that I would hold out hope. So I wandered over to the Winterheart's Guild website and downloaded the xOrbic demo.

It turned out to be, as I described to GERARDAMO earlier, “Fun, in a flash game sort of way. Not the kind of fun that I'll pay thirty dollars for.” It had a relatively engaging RPG leveling and inventory system, and a combat system that's somewhat reminiscent of Bejeweled. The player is required to match certain tiles in order to attack the opponent in a turn based battle. I didn't actually get that far into the game, mostly because the only time I had to play it in was the fifteen minutes in between Physics and Music Theory, but I saw enough to know that unless the system is modified significantly for the final Winterheart's Guild, I probably won't bother paying for it. As it stands, I'm most excited about the new song that SA is writing for the game. Of course, by the time it comes out, I certainly hope they'll have a new album.

Ripoff Hero: The Activision Game

2009-02-11T14:00:00.003-05:00

That's actually a really rude title. I know I still give Activision a hardtime for ripping off Guitar Freaks, but it's just as much Konami's fault for not pushing their Bemani games.

Now, info is starting to come out about two new games... DJ Hero and Scratch: The Ulitmate DJ, by Activision and Genius, respectively. However, instead of arguably making the game more difficult as was the case between Guitar Freaks and Guitar Hero (The addition of two more buttons), this time, instead of the 7-button layout you all should know about by now, they will be returning to a simpler 5-button control, because apparently Activision and Genius couldn't think of two more colors (Yes, the color scheme is, AGAIN, Green, Red, Yellow, Blue, Orange, in that oh so familiar order.) It looks like it could be interesting; it looks pretty. Genius just confirmed the first tracks in it. They include artists like The Beasite Boys, The Black Eyed Peas, The Gorillaz, Run DMC, Nelly, and Kanye West, but I ask you, do any of those sound like they could be better than Lovely Trans Pop? (No.) DJ Hero and Scratch: The Ultimate DJ are both set to drop more of the same colored beats on the PS3 and 360 later this year.

20cc reviews: The Lord of the Rings: Conquest

2009-02-10T21:11:00.010-05:00

Last week, I signed up to Gamefly. As reluctant as I am to actually pay money for something, I realized that the monthly charge is probably a better deal than the slightly ridiculous Blockbuster rental fees, and the library is substantially larger. So I got an account and ordered LotR:C to play with Biscuits. I was at first impressed with the game. It felt much better playing alongside a friend, and the game seemed more promising in a real level, rather than just the tutorial. The feeling didn't last very long, however.

Although it continued to be amusing, the game was too full of problems for me to enjoy it for more than five minutes before thinking, “Wait, how does that make sense?” The plot was a convoluted mess, that was not only inconsistent with the books and films, but didn't even hold true to itself. This became first apparent in the second level, when Gandalf kills Saruman during the destruction of Isengard. Then, at the beginning of the evil campaign, Sauron arbitrarily “resurrects” every evil hero that had been killed, including Saruman, the Lieutenant of Barad-dûr, and the Witch-king of Angmar. He also summons Balrogs on several occasions, which should have been well beyond his power.

Of course, I can't focus exclusively on the plot, because then the review would be over, and you (anyone reading this) would be feeling betrayed and bitter. Or not. Regardless.

Ignoring the holes in the plot, the game actually managed to be pretty enjoyable. At least enjoyable enough that I felt like picking it up again after I had put it down. It did, however, have a somewhat rushed feel. This game, like Silent Hill: Homecoming, had been on my radar, slipped under it, and then released much sooner than I expected. Also like Homecoming, it suffered from the quick release. The campaign mode was very, very short. I picked it up late Friday night, and we beat the good campaign in a few short hours, went to sleep, woke up on Saturday, and beat the evil campaign in a few even shorter hours. Each level felt the same, and none of them had the replay value of Star Wars: Battlefront, Pandemic's magnum opus. I was interested enough to make it through the campaign, but I can't see myself ever going back.

The classes were interesting, but not particularly original. There's a warrior, archer, scout, and mage. The scout actually looked like the most noteworthy, but it didn't fit my play style well enough. You would have to talk to Biscuits about that. Otherwise, the archer felt slow, the mage felt weak, and the warrior felt overpowered. One thing that struck me from the demo was that the warrior is given a set of special attacks that cause his sword to glow with fire and give the player an absurd edge. Also, the enemy ranks are bolstered with the “grunt” class, which isn't playable. This seems to defeat the purpose of the Battlefront style game, in which the player is no more or less powerful than the enemy. Also, it meant that once I got to the point in the game when I was fighting real enemy warriors, it was infinitely frustrating that they block almost every attack I threw. It could take two minutes to defeat a single enemy. Biscuits also complained endlessly about how useless the scout's cloak ability was, even though enemy scouts seemed to become completely invisibly. In addition to the base classes, either side has a “vehicle,” for lack of a better term. For the Alliance, this unit is the Ent, and for Mordor it's the troll. The two play the same, with a heavy attack, a light attack—which is just as good for splattering little infantry units all over the ground—a health regeneration ability, and the ability to pick up enemy units, crush them, and then use them as projectiles.

Then of course there are heroes, which all felt exactly like the base classes, but with more health. Their special attacks were changed aesthetically, but not functionally. They are mostly modified warriors, except Gandalf, Saruman, the Lieutenant of Barad-dûr and Legolas. The three wizards are perhaps my favorites, because they combine the basic mage's spells with an actually functional melee attack. Of course there are a couple of super heroes (pun intended): Sauron and the Balrog, both of which are amazingly fun, just because they make people go splat.

In summary, the game is short, the replay value is nonexistent, the plot is scattered, the classes are broken, and the evil heroes include the Lieutenant of Barad-dûr, the Witch-king, the Balrog and Sauron. Make with that what you will, though since Gamefly asked, I gave it a 4 out of 10. Just don't hold me to that.

Tales of GERARDAMO's Fangasmia

2009-02-10T20:41:00.002-05:00

I know I promised my co-authors that I would stop reporting on silly news stories, but this one makes me SO happy. You know that Tales of ______ Series that I'm always praising? Probably not, as I haven't made much reference to it here, but the Tales of series is my favorite series of RPG's out there. Anyway, you might know that Tales of Symphonia got an short anime series based on it in Japan. Well, the most recent entry in the series, Tales of Vesperia, is getting a freaking anime movie! It's going to be released this year and is being directed by Kanta Kamei. Get your subtitles ready! It's gonna be awesome.

Full story available in Japanese.

GERARDAMO: Game of the Week 5

2009-02-08T17:51:00.004-05:00

In a choice that will surprise not only my co-authors who I have been talking with about my choice for this week, but myself as well, I have chosen an arcade game as my game of the week this week. It's suprising not because it's an arcade game, but because it's a series that's not dead yet. It's Beatmania IIDX (Insert any style here) for the arcade/PS2.

Beatmania IIDX (Known from here-on only as IIDX, pronounced TOO-DEE-ECKS) is probably my second favorite game series, only to Dance Dance Revolution because I'm exponentially better at that than I am at IIDX, and I started playing it first. Also, it has better music. (Arguments to start... Never, because I doubt anybody capable of starting such an argument reads this.) So, why not DDR instead of IIDX? Uh... Because if you don't know what DDR is, welcome from your coma. It's the year 2009, and somehow you've stumbled upon this wonderful thing known as teh internets. IIDX is a DJ Simulator of sorts, in the same way that DDR is a dance simulator... It isn't. (Oh, you should know that DDR and IIDX were both created by Bemani, a branch of Konami that solely creates music games that use awesome controllers.) Those parenthesis bring me to my first point. Holy freaking crap the IIDX controller is the coolest damn contoller you will ever lay your pathetic little eyes on.

(That's the Japanese console controller.)

7 keys and a turntable. (It was orginally 5 keys in Beatmania and Beatmania III, which is strange considering III came out after IIDX) Dual-colored, flat rectangle notes fall from the sky, and all you have to do is press the corresponding button and spin a little plastic record. Each key also makes a sound when you press it, but they all change over the course of the song, so you aren't just limited to one key going "THUMP, THUMP, THUMP" to the bass and the other six just playing synth and the turntable doing the crash cymbal. (Actually, on higher difficulties, that's pretty much all it does). However, unlike our crappy American music games, instead of your guitar just making a foul noise... Er... Instead of not making any sound when you press a key when you aren't supposed to, you can still play the sound that each key is assigned to, so you can, in a sense, remix the song as you go. It tends to sound quite terrible.

But, it's not just as simple as hitting the right button at the right time and keeping your "Groove Gauge" from emptying. Well, actually, it is, however, just finishing with some points left in your Groove Gauge is not enough. It has to be filled AT LEAST 80% of the way or you fail. You could have full comboed a chart up until the very end and still fail just because you missed a few notes in a row, despite having gotten a new high score. You don't fail when your Groove Gauge reaches 0 either. You could actually just sit and wait through half of a song and then decide to start playing and still pass, despite having ignored most of the song. I can honestly say that I have done both of these (But mostly the first) MANY times. It makes the game quite frustrating.

The music, as you would expect in a DJing game, consists mainly of thumping trance, techno, and house music, but there is definitely a variety in the genres available. Whether you like eurobeat, hip-hop, or cheesy in-house covers of Toxic (Yes, the Britney Spears song), it's safe to say that there will be at least ONE song you find yourself enjoying as you play. Unlike most music games, though, you won't have a clue as to whether or not you'll actually like a song until you actually play it, because there's no song preview. Instead of a little 10-second clip of the song or something, you get to listen to the same loop over and over and over until you finally pick a song, or until the timer runs out, then you're just screwed into playing something considered Library Rock. That's actually another one of the game's charms. Every song is assigned to its own genre. While, as I already mentioned, most songs are assigned to the standard Epic Trance, Hardcore Techno, or Gabba, as the Japanese like to call it (You probably know it as Gabber... Or don't know it at all.), some songs have totally bizarre genres... Like Education, Cuddlecore, Lovely Trans Pop, or Tri Euro Fantasia (Though that is apparently a very good genre, judging by the whole one song I've ever heard of being placed in it.)

So, sounds like a party, doesn't it? No, not really. Don't get me wrong, I've brought my turntable and several Styles (Each new version of the game becomes the xth numbered Style, though every style after 10th ditched the "th Style" at the end each has its own unique subtitle. IIDX RED, Happy Sky, DistorteD, GOLD, DJ Troopers, and Empress, respectively. If you can't count, we are currently at 16 styles) to friend's houses, and we've had a great time with it... Well... I'VE had a great time with it, and they thought the concept was neat, but you'll need to devote more than just a couple of hours to the game just to start passing songs. This learning curve is STEEP like a... Well, I can't think of a comparison, but this game is hard like a- Oh... No. Even on the easiest setting, you'll probably spend your first few attempts struggling to make anything that remotely sounds the way it's supposed to. Plus, there's a distinct lack of familiar songs, so nobody is really going to go too crazy to play a song called Bitter Chocolate Striker. Don't get me wrong, I've yet to met someone who didn't at least slightly enjoy playing this game, but you're not going to have the party of the century with this game unless you happen to be a Bemani nerd and so do all of your friends.

Video by ST0iiC

For someone playing on Normal, he wasn't that bad. I was hoping to find someone who might have messed up more, just so people could see what it looks like, but it was suprisingly hard to find a high quality video of someone who sucked at it. Just for giggles, this next video is the hardest song I've ever passed (I'm still learning how to play and I've been playing for about 2 years now. It's ranked a 9 out of a maximum of 12 for difficulty) It's one of my favorite songs in terms of music as well, and you can see how awesome the music videos are. Well, okay, you can't really see the video too well in this video, but believe me, for a PS2 game, the graphics that accompany songs are awesome!

Video by Xythar

Now, if you promise to be good until the end of the review, I'll show you two more videos of what used to be the hardest difficulty, and the now hardest difficulty. Trust me, they'll make your head spin and your eyes explode.

IIDX is a pretty difficult game to find outside of Japan. If you have the proper connections and practice in sketchy activities that are frowned upon by copyright laws that I will not confirm I involve myself in, then it might actually be pretty easy to find. However, for the good people, you're gonna have to pay a whole bunch o' money and some import charges on top of the cost of a turntable controller, which'll run you from $30-$60 depending on where you look just to be able to play, unless you're one of the really lucky people who have access to an arcade version of IIDX, in which case I hate you. It should be noted that as with all console versions of their arcade counterparts from Bemani, console versions of IIDX have all of the new songs from the Style they are based on, along with a healthy portion of older songs. Each mix contains about 85-95 songs that clock in at about 2 minutes each, so you can practically get the arcade experience in your own home, just like it says on the box!

In 2006, Bemani finally listened to their North American fans and released a US version of IIDX, simply called Beatmania, as it featured both 5-key and 7-key gameplay. This mediocre attempt to throw fans a bone was... Well... Mediocre. There were only 58 songs available in this mix, despite that it was released after 9th style and really just a collection of songs, sort of a Best Hits (More like, "HEY GUYS! Remember DDR? Lookee! DDR songs!" But we'll save that nerdy rant for... Never, really.) It wasn't even a matter of cost since IIDX has never really used many licensed songs ever, though this was the mix that the cover of Toxic premeired in, which actually got a quite enjoyable Another chart in IIDX RED (I feel like I should mention that the three difficulties of IIDX are Normal (Formerly Light7), Hyper (Formerly 7-key), and Another (Which has always been known as Another). There's also a Beginner mode which lets you play on Beginner difficulty, wimps. The one good thing that we got from this half-assed mix was an improved turntable controller. This one actually has spring under the buttons so they don't get stuck, a problem faced by several Japanese players. (Ha ha) It was the first version of IIDX I played, and as a newbie, it was quite fun. If you see it anywhere, definitely pick it up. You can get the bundle for teh cheap now, and it's totally worth it, even if the mix itself sucks. (Be warned: Do NOT expect to get passed anything harder than a difficulty of 5, or maybe Colors Normal. The biggest gripe for this game was that there was no good set of transition songs to help get players from newbies to near decent players. Believe me, a good year and 9 months of my playing of this game was consisted of me struggling to follow anything rated 7 or higher because there were no good transition songs. It wasn't until recently that I started playing Japanese versions, and it wasn't until then that I could start passing 8's and 9's consistently. Yeah, still not very good at this game, and I tend to be pretty damn alright at most music games. It's hard.)

So there you have it. The Beatmania IIDX series by Bemani. It's definitely one of the most fun, creative, original, and frustrating games you'll ever play.

As promised, here is a video of the Another difficulty. (This is one of my favorite songs from IIDX and it's bound to get stuck in your head. Hello, 20cc)

Video by BeRevoPLAYER

And here is the newest difficulty, introduced in IIDX 15 DJ Troopers, some Japanese character that I can't type, or Black Another. (It's also a great example of how someone can have a Groove gauge of 0 percent at one point and still manage to clear a song.)

Video by djkc2dx

Game Releases for the week of 2/8/09

2009-02-08T02:05:00.000-05:00

I don't know if it's just me, or maybe it's just the after Christmas game drought upon us, but there doesn't seem to be too much stuff being hyped up for release. So, I figured I would start keeping track of what games are coming out each week, so you might be able to find something to be excited about that isn't the DLC for GTA IV or something. Yeah, who knows. You might actually find a new franchise to follow that doesn't focus each release on the new tea-bagging controls. (And yes, I will be trying to cover EVERY release for the week. This means there are going to be some terrible titles on the list, but hey, everyone could use a good laugh.)

Monday, 2/9/09:

Wii:

Deadly Creatures

Totally Spies! Totally Party (Like, totally!)

Tuesday, 2/10/09:

XBOX 360:

Bionic Commando (I'm excited for this :D)

F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin

Onechambara: Bikini Slayer Squad (This will be my reccomendation for the week)

Sonic's Ultimate Genesis Collection (I also highly reccomend this. I believe it's a collection of 40 Genesis games. GREAT deal ;) )

X-Blades

Playstation 3:

Bionic Commando

F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin

Sonic's Ultimate Genesis Collection

X-Blades

PSP:

LocoRoco 2

Nintendo Wii:

Fantasy Aquarium

Nascar Kart Racing

Onechambara: Bikini Zombie Slayers

The House of the Dead: Overkill

Nintendo DS:

Jake Power: Fireman (This game sounds like it could be dirty)

Jake Power: Policeman (This game also sounds like it could be dirty)

Legacy of Ys: Books I & II

Little Magician's Magic Adventure

My DoItAll

Retro Game Challenge

PC:

Bionic Commando

F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin

X-Blades

Thursday, 2/12/09

Playstation 3

Flowers (I believe this is a PSN game)

Saturday, 2/14/09

XBOX 360

Sacred 2: Fallen Angel

This week looks alright, anyway. Two games I'd like to check out (Onechambara Bikini Slayer Squad and Bionic Commando), and I'll probably pick up the Genesis Collection sometime once I get the extra money, unless it just turns out to be a collection of Sonic, Golden Axe, and Vectorman, which it probably will be, in which case I'll just have to dig up my actual Sega Genesis.

LittleBigWardrobe

2009-02-07T12:14:00.002-05:00

Actually, that title refers to the wrong console. Remember how Rare mentioned unlocking avatar clothing a la achievements? Well, maybe you don't want to work for your clothes. Maybe the developers don't actually feel like making those clothes, either. Wouldn't you rather make your own Master Chief outfit? (No.)

Now Rare is talking about adding user-made content to the wardrobe of your avatar. Art head of Rare Lee Musgrave added to this, "Creativity is going to play a big part in the development of the Avatars."

Oh, Avatars. We'll find practicality in you yet!

Story by VG247. Full story available here

Studies show that college males play violent video games, watch porn, and that water can quench your thirst.

2009-02-06T14:37:00.002-05:00

In a recent study by the Journal of Youth and Adolescence, it has been PROVEN that college males play violent video games, and they also watch pornography! No way! Hard to believe, isn't it? Check out more on this fascinating, important, needed study here.

23 shows you: Overgrowth alpha

2009-02-05T08:39:00.002-05:00

So, Wolfire has posted a couple videos lately showing off the Overgrowth alpha. The first one is a tutorial for the map editor and the second is just showing off the graphics with a very nice sounds track. Anyway here they are, embedded and all.

20cc reflects on: Advent Rising

2009-02-04T11:13:00.011-05:00

I was hoping to have rented Lord of the Rings: Conquest this weekend, to play with Biscuits and review for this week, but... well I suppose I won't bother with my weekend story. I didn't get around to it, and that's that. Maybe next weekend, though if the XBL demo is any indication, there isn't much to look forward too.

In lieu of doing a review that's pertinent to, well, anything, I've decided to look back on a rather under appreciated game from back in '05.

The hook to Advent Rising is that the story was written by the well known sci-fi author Orson Scott Card. This didn't mean much to me, however, since I've never actually read any of his books. Really, the plot isn't anything all that special. It's well done, but the idea has been done before. In short form, the human race, living on some planet that I can't remember the name of, is visited by an alien species called the Aurelians. The Aurelians worship the humans as gods, and have been searching for the last remaining human refuge to pay homage. Unfortunately, they have been unwittingly followed by another race, called the Seekers, who are trying to wipe out the human race. I won't explain why, but it does get rather interesting by the end. There are a couple choices you have to make that will affect the ending in small ways, and a very interesting scene after the credits, so don't you dare quit when they start rolling.

The game's real greatness comes from its gameplay. Once again, it's nothing terribly new, although you can dual wield any weapon in the game, including rocket launchers. However, after a couple levels, the Aurelians help our protagonist unlock the innate potential that apparently makes humans worthy of being worshiped. Essentially, you become a Jedi, and its damn fun. Every few levels, you unlock a new ability. Each ability has two forms, and the game maintains the two hand system, so you can equip a power to either hand, or two forms of the same power, or a power and a weapon.

Powers, weapons and combat skills are leveled up through use. If you're in the mood, you could max out most of the weapons, the jump ability, and your melee skills, in the first level. Of course that's hardly efficient, but it can be fun on a second or third play through. And yes, you will play it a second and third time. It's certainly fun enough, and the simple leveling system is just enough to allow players to customize their playing style. You could play through the game using only the plasma pistol and assault rifle, or you could max out Lift and Surge by the time you reach Aurelia, and never switch powers again.

The game has very pretty, if not really realistic, graphics in the cutscenes, and otherwise they're acceptable by today's standards. The environments are varied enough to be interesting, the powers look cool, and occasional use of slow motion highlights the cooler attacks and abilities. The characters are also fairly well developed, especially compared to the cardboard cutouts that infect most big games nowadays. Unfortunately, Advent Rising had a very small budget, and it can be seen in the number of glitches there are. Most of them are easy enough to overcome. However, if you've played through a couple times and want to feel more powerful, be advised that the cheat console occasionally causes the game to crash.

The game is great fun, and easily worth the $9.99 it costs on Steam. Be warned however, it ends with a terrible cliffhanger, and it's no longer likely that a sequel is ever going to made, because of the poor critical and popular reception. I've never been one to take a critical viewpoint, or especially a popular one, as the final word. If you're looking for some inexpensive fun, and you don't mind fighting through a few bugs, you should definitely take a look at this gem. Don't expect it to change your life, but it will certainly stay with you longer than, say, Gears of War.

It's apparently really hard to find a good gameplay video of Advent Rising. Here's a trailer that gives an okay presentation of the powers and combat system. It's a little too heavy on the cutscenes, but it's better than most of the other options. Also, in case you're wondering, the contest mentioned at the end of the trailer was canceled, so don't bother.

P.S.: It occurs to me that I should mention, apparently the Xbox 360 hasn't been updated to support Advent Rising, and probably won't be. This means that if you don't have an old Xbox, you'll have to get it on PC.

23 interviews: Wolfire

2009-02-04T09:56:00.006-05:00

23's Wolfire Interview

That rabbit could kick your ass

Wolfire, the makers of Lugaru (the last game i reviewed) were nice enough to actually let me send them some questions, which actually isn't very surprising seeing how they have a very open communication with their fans. The questions aren't the best (especially the first one), but John managed to meet them with some pretty good answers. So, read the review, and maybe pre-order Overgrowth, or even just check out some of the links, cause these guys are pretty cool. Anyway with no further adieu, here's my first interview:

First I'd like to thank you for accepting my offer of an interview. I know that anyButton is very small right now, and Wolfire is very big (over 1000 followers), so this will probably benefit us more then you. So, lets start with the intro.

Who are you and what company do you stand for?

Hehe, that's a pretty intense sounding question. Is this an interview or an interrogation? :) I'm John. I work for Wolfire Games and we stand for making innovative games and being very open with our community. We definitely appreciate you taking the time to arrange an interview.

They sent pictures!

How did Wolfire start and who are the members?

Wolfire was started by our fearless leader David Rosen. We recently posted a picture on our blog that shows David using a computer at age 3. By age 7, David had made his first game in Hypercard. It was a stick-figure, choose-your-own-adventure war game complete with gunshot and explosion sound effects that David made himself by blowing on his computer's microphone. I had the good fortune to be going to school with David at the time and watched in awe as his game became very popular. Unfortunately his game spread to the library computer cluster and was then quickly banned from school. Librarians aren't too receptive to the sounds of gunfire and explosions going off in their library.

From there David went on to make a series of games with increasing complexity. He switched to pong, realized it was boring, and made Firepong which added fireballs and razor blades that could punch holes in the paddles or cut them in half. Next came GLFighters, then Black Shades, then Lightning's Shadow. The Wolfire site as you see it today was born when David decided to make his award-winning games available online in one location.

David made his most ambitious game Lugaru, 5 years ago, all by himself, while he was still in high school. He has since been recruited by companies like Crytek but decided he would rather start his own company where he maintains creative control.

After graduating from college, David is joined by his twin brother Jeff who is a web coding guru and has been selling commercial software since high school, Aubrey who is an amazing all around artist that has worked with David on previous projects, Phillip who majored in computer science and did his senior thesis on computer graphics and me who majored in economics and am focusing mainly on the business side of Wolfire.

Pretty clouds

What are some of your influences (other indie game developers, mainstream games, etc.)?

Working for a game development company does entail some competitive analysis. It's funny to think that playing games counts as work in this industry (as long as you don't do too much research on the competition). David has been playing, breaking and dissecting games his whole life. That's why we're really glad that he started doing design tours. So far people seem to really appreciate the way he thinks about games and game design.

David has stated that Lugaru's influences were the viking deathmatch game Rune and the 3rd person shooter/close-quarters-combat hybrid called Oni. David took his favorite parts of both games, added a bunch of his own new features and produced the wonder known as Lugaru. Recently we really enjoyed Little Big Planet and used it as inspiration for Phillip's map editor features.

Our indie hero at the moment is probably 2DBoy, specifically Ron Carmel who made time to come visit us for lunch. He and Kyle took a simple concept, polished the heck out of it, and broke into mainstream. The story of 2DBoy's success is very encouraging to indie developers everywhere.

This is more detail then most high budget games

What game are you making now and how is it going?

We are currently making a sequel to Lugaru called Overgrowth. While Overgrowth will inherit the essence of Lugaru's tried and true combat system, it will also be benefiting from every cutting edge feature that Wolfire's brand new Phoenix Engine has to offer. With better graphics, better physics, more moves, more characters, huge mod support and multiplay, Overgrowth promises to be Lugaru on steroids.

ooo, pretty...

Development is coming along well. Overgrowth looks better and better everyday. We recently made an Overgrowth alpha map editor tutorial video that showcases all of Overgrowth's latest features. You can check it out here.

The Overgrowth logo

How do you feel about your followers/why do you choose to be so transparent in your development?

Without the support of our fans, we would drown in the noisy and crowded space of the internet. We have been in awe of how much help the community has given Wolfire.

Perhaps the first major demonstration of the power of fan support was that even though David designed Lugaru with virtually no editing tools, fans went in and created two entirely separate single player campaigns (Empire and Temple) that rival the quality of Lugaru's original story. Since then it's been clear to us that our fans are too smart, creative and capable to be kept out of the loop.

For Overgrowth we've rallied fan support in our Overt Ops program. Visitors from around the world have helped us translate the Overgrowth fact sheet into over 20 languages and have gotten us exposure on foreign news sites and even Europe's biggest magazine.

Also because we make the weekly alphas available to preorderers, they have already been using the map editors to build things. One of our proudest moments was when our fans created the Wolfire and Overgrowth logos in engine (see them here).

Probably our biggest recent fan success though is the Overgrowth ModDB page. Not only is the page itself a demonstration of our commitment to mod support, but it has been fan-run for a few months now.

Actually a screen shot from the Overgrowth alpha

What makes you/your games unique?

All of David's games tend to have design elements that make them stand out. Firepong wasn't just pong, it was pong with weapons and magic spells. Black shades wasn't just an FPS, it was was a procedurally generated city system that kept the player on the edge of his seat guessing as to where the next enemy would come from. Lugaru became so popular because of its streamlined movement and fighting system. Overgrowth will be recapturing Lugaru's fluid movement and intuitive combat and adding a lot of fun new content.

As a company I think Wolfire is in a very interesting position. We have both the agility of a small company yet enough raw developing power to create high end assets.

Yes, that is lens flare

Why did you decide to charge for your games?

Well if you're planning to make game for a living, the bills need to be paid somehow. By charging money, we can afford to put 12 hours a day, 7 days a week into Overgrowth, make it a much higher quality product and still be able to put food on the table (we hope :) ). Preorders have definitely been helping.

Aubrey is a really good artist

Do you have any plans for the future of Wolfire?

We mainly want to focus all of our efforts on Overgrowth at the moment so we don't want too spend much time thinking too far ahead of ourselves. When we finish Overgrowth, then we will think more seriously about what our next step is.

Thank you for taking the time to interview me.

Bonus question:
23: oh, and I think I left out one important question: How did you get the idea for Lugaru?
John: oh I'll try to remember to add that, David Rosen came up with idea
23: yea, it seems kinda strange the whole idea for an anthropomorphic adventure/fighting game (that's the best description I could come up with)
John: so there are a few things going on, David wanted to create a universe that wasn't cliche like barbarians or space marines, he wanted to avoid the "Uncanny Valley" by using non-human characters
John: also you can make things really violent without them being as traumatic
23: hmm, good point

Now the show's really over. Till next time!

GERARDAMO: Game of the Week 4

2009-02-04T08:29:00.006-05:00

Alright, in honor of Groundhog's Day, I've picked Clock Tower, for the SNES/PC, as my game of the week this week. Okay... Groundhog's Day has nothing to do with Clock Tower at all. Clock Tower is a pointin-n-clickin, survival horror, good time. I haven't played many survival horror games that aren't Silent Hill 3, but Clock Tower is easily the most terrifying game I have ever played... Period. (Maybe it's just because most games on the SNES seemed to scare me, nothing against the SNES, it's just the way the graphics are.)

You play as Jennifer, a poor orphan girl who nobody seems to love. You and your other girly friends are adopted by Mr. Barrows, who you never really meet. Kinda sketchy isn't it? You get sent away to his appropriately named Clock Tower. So, yeah, it's a point-and-click adventure. You click around to move, find clues, and not die. However, EVERYTHING in this game kills you. Not kidding. Walk up to a mirror, a hand pops out of it and strangles you. Oo! Pretty bird in a cage, walk up to it, and it flies out if its cage and pecks you to death. So, the genre of this game pretty much defines the story. No, not point-and-click... Survival horror. Just, don't die. You'll come across a few antagonists who all want to kill you. The one you'll encounter most often is the Scissorman. He's a small, midgit looking man who you later learn is just a nine-year-old. He chases you around with a giant pair of scissors, and, you guessed it, he tries to kill you! Everyone tries to kill you! Not much else to say about this game, but the video has commentary. I realize that it's kinda boring to watch because, well, there's nothing happening. But, this is the scariest I've played, because when you're the person playing, you have no idea what the hell is going to pop out and kill you. There were... 3 sequels, I think. The American versions have really different titles than the Japanese versions, so I'm still confused. There's also rumors that there will be a movie adaptation of this game, and I highly support any such thing, provided that it's actually a horror movie and not some torture porno. It definitely is one of the few games that could make good movies. (That and Indigo Prophecy)

Video by Couldagonemad88

I realize that these classic games aren't probably the most entertaining thing to read, but they aren't really meant to be informative reviews on what's good and bad about the game. Obviously, the games I choose are all going to be games that I enjoyed, and I'm not going to actually write a review about a 14-year-old game. Think of them more as reccomendations for games that I'd rather you people get your own opinions about since you may have missed them instead of me telling you that I really like them.

Achievement Unlocked: Plus 1000 dresses

2009-02-03T09:09:00.005-05:00

Everybody likes the new 360 avatars, right? Feel free to not answer that, but maybe you don't like them because you can't dress them up. Art head of Rare said, "In time... games will be able to give away clothes and accessorites just like Achievements." So, look out, Xbox Live! 5 million douchebags are gonna start wearing Gears t-shirts!

23 updates: A New Zero

2009-02-01T11:02:00.003-05:00

Yesterday Cryptic Sea released a new version of A New Zero, version 0.74. The main features of this version are no towers, option for player control of turrets, and added support for penalties and removing team killing. Lack of towers is a bit annoying cause now people can just run in and bomb your base. They definitely are on there way to making a great multiplayer game, and I suggest you try it out, even if your computer isn't the best, you can turn off the fancy graphics, and the installer is less then 1mb. Be careful though, I have noticed a glitch in some computers where when you try to run the game it just restarts your computer, but try it out, and if it does, oh well, see if you can play it on a different PC.

GERARDAMO: Game of the Week 3

2009-01-31T16:39:00.001-05:00

Alright, this is kind of late. Actually, I'm not even posting this in the right week anymore. (But I actually editted the date I posted this so I could write my next game without looking like I did a double post) I was just going to skip this week entirely, but it's 10:30 in the morning, and society has broken the rule that is "Don't wake the Gerard before noon" by having the asshole next-door start revving up his truck, only to realize that his penis is still the same size anyway. So I write this from bed as I'm still trying to wake up.

I had trouble thinking of a game this week, mostly because instead of playing any old games this week, I clocked in about... 30 hours of IIDX (Google it, YouTube it, whatever. It's FUN, but also too new for me to use as a game of the week.) Do you know what it is now? Good. So I was in a techno-y, trance kind of mood this week, so I've decided to highlight Rez by Tetsuya Mizuguchi. Rez was originally released on the Dreamcast. It's the strange combination between arcade shooter and music game. The entire game is made up of vector graphics (Again, if you don't know what I'm talking about, Wikipedia can also be your friend.) and it looks freaking awesome. Rez doesn't have much of a story, but none of my favorite classic games do, for that matter. Apparently, there's some big computer virus that... I don't know... Threatens to make everyone stop using PC's and ruin the world of computers as we know it or something... It's REALLY not important at all. 5 levels later you find out that the virus just wants to be loved, and I'm pretty sure there's some innuendo for sex in there somewhere.

Anyway, the actual gameplay in this is nothing short of an experience that I truly believe everyone needs to, well, experience. It moves like a typical rail-shooter, you know, move your camera around and shoot, that simple. However, you can lock on to up to 8 viruses and shoot them. Every level starts in an empty, black abyss with a bass drum quietly pulsing in the background. A few viruses fly by, and make for easy combos, and then some tiny box flies by. Shoot that box 8 times. The level will then start to develop. Nothing too much, maybe some cubes will appear in the environment, and a synthesizer will start humming something. You'll start to see more complex patterns of enemies. And you keep going on with this. Enemies fly by, shoot them. Box flies by, shoot it a lot. The level starts to become more detailed until you see vectorized architecture everywhere, and the background music transforms into an absorbing, thumping trance track. This game just sucks you in.

Of course, what would any rail shooter be without things shooting back at you? Most of the viruses do, and since you're not invincible, it will do damage. If you get hit, you level down. You'll go from an almost human looking thing to a less looking human thing to a less looking human thing etc. to a sphere, and then you die. But there is hope! You can level up, too. Viruses drop powerups, and if you collect enough of them, you can level up back to your human form, until your human-type thing reaches a state of enlightenment and becomes a pulsing amoeba of trancely awesome.

That's it really. The game is stupid simple. You don't play Rez for the challenge, you play it for the experience. Interesting note of trivia. When Rez was released for the PS2 in Japan, it came with a USB device called a Trance Vibrator. It was an oval-y shaped piece of plastic that, as the name suggests, vibrated. It had stronger vibrations than the DualShock2 did, and it was designed so it could be held on to, put in your pocket, or my favorite (In terms of where this trivia is going!), sat on. Yes, they advertised that you could sit on it. So, once you had your Trance Vibrator wherever you wanted it, it would pulse along to the music, pulling you into the game even more. However, vibration feels good, and you don't think I would have said Vibrator that many times just because it tickles my lips to say it, do you? Yes, as you would have expected, there were several reports of Trance Vibrators being used as... Well... You know... OTHER vibrators.

Rez is available on the Dreamcast and the PS2. In 2008, it was re-released on XBLA as Rez HD, with super shiny awesome new HD graphics! It still remains my favorite and most played Live Arcade game to this day (That's right SoulCalibur, maybe you should have given your XBLA port a better widescreen, instead of a Windows 3.1 wallpaper border!), and I HIGHLY reccomend, no, DEMAND that you stay on your couch and make the best 10 dollar purchase you can ever make, or at least just get the demo. You have no excuses anymore as to why you can't play this game.

This video is from Rez HD. Video by cktg

20cc reviews: Spider-Man: Web of Shadows

2009-01-29T19:08:00.012-05:00

Yes yes I know, I'm going backwards. If anyone out there has an idea of a new game for me to review, let me know. I guess really it would have made more sense chronologically to review this one last week, but I wrote last week's review before I realize that WoS came out in October, probably because I just played it. I get it, I'm supposed to be reviewing new games, but don't worry, I plan to have opinions on F.E.A.R. 2, InFamous, and the Watchmen movie soon after they're released. Specifically, they better all be awesome or I'm gonna be pissed.

Back to the game at hand. The Spider-Man games have always been one of my guilty pleasures. I really don't want to like them, but they're just so much fun. It seems to me that as I've gotten older, the games too have changed to fit my tastes. I've played and enjoyed the N64 port of the 2000 Spider-Man game, the 2002 Gamecube version, Spider-Man 2 on the Xbox and on DS, and Spider-Man 3 on PC. Granted, the latter two were less than satisfactory, but putting that aside, Spider-Man: Web of Shadows is a well worthy addition to the series.

In my mind, what's made these games so fun since back in Spider-Man 2 is the addition of physics, and the introduction of a sandbox style environment. The ability to leap from the roof of the Empire State Building, plummet through the air, and catch yourself with a web line seconds before you splat on the pavement added a whole new level of enjoyability. Suddenly, it wasn't just about beating the levels. Just getting around was fun.

WoS is another improvement on this model, in that it's no longer based on the film series. The plot is actually fairly interesting, in a decidedly comic book kind of way. I won't go too far into it, but following the return of Venom, the Symbiotes try to take over New York, and Spider-Man is once again infected with the symbiotic black suit. Your job is to stop the invasion, the only way Spider-Man knows: by punching stuff.

There are two major innovations in this latest installment. First, the ability to switch between the red and black suits on a whim. Second, the renovation of the combat system to account for Spider-Man's trademark acrobatic style. These two combined allows for particularly asinine players, like myself, to switch to the overtly destructive black suit and wreck havoc among the unsuspecting city goers. The combat is remarkably simple, and, if you wanted, you could beat the game with only one attack button. This button allows the player to web zip at an enemy, tackle them, and vault off of their head. However, a punch button, suit specific attack button, and special attacks allow you to vary your fighting style, and can also be used to modify the web vault attacks.

There isn't much else to say about the mechanics of the game. As for the story, if you're a comic book fan, you'll probably like it. Otherwise, you probably won't. Several times throughout the game, I suddenly became aware that I had chained attacks through the past twelve enemies using nothing but the Y button and a little timing. Then I realized that I didn't care, because it was still really damn fun.

Unfortunately, as I remember was the case with Spider-Man 2, WoS is plagued by glitches. The web zip sound occasionally disappeared, and on one occasion, all of the game's sounds suddenly vanished for about a minute. On another occasion I jumped into the river and died, but instead of getting a game over screen, I sat and watched Spider-Man drowning in the river until I restarted the Xbox. The most annoying glitches were that occasionally, the targeting system had problems, and the citizens often failed to react to me appropriately. These two facts combined made it very difficult to save the assigned number of civilians from [gang wars/super soldiers/symbiotic monsters]. That's probably okay though, since I didn't tend to bother with those missions. On another note, the realism is slightly broken in that the web lines don't necessarily always attack to buildings like they did in 2 and 3. However, the camera is usually clever enough to keep you from seeing that.

That's about all there is to say. I may be wrong about that, but I'm certainly out of ideas. The game's great, if it's the kind of thing you're into. I'm aware this isn't the greatest piece of writing I've ever produced, but I'm pretty tired. I may add to this later. Until then, have fun.

Here's a video. This guy is pretty bad, and there isn't much action, but it does a pretty good job of demonstrating the look and feel of the game, including the destructible building facades, and the often irritatingly cheesey dialogue.

23 reviews: Lugaru

2009-01-28T20:50:00.006-05:00

Name: Lugaru: The Rabbit’s Foot
Author: David Rosen (Wolfire Games)
Version: Final
Platform: Windows, Mac, Linux
Price: $20
Players: 1
Website: Lugaru page on Wolfire
Video: Quicktime Video posted on the site

Intro
Lugaru is 3rd person, anthropomorphic, adventure/fighting game. With a solid story and unique and intuitive fighting system, this game stands out in the indie world for quality, playability, and a fun, but difficult to master fighting system.

Game Modes
The game has two modes; campaign and challenge. In both modes the goal is to kill all the enemies on the level. In the campaign mode you play as a rabbit, named Turner, whose world is being taken over by wolves and corrupt rabbits. I won't ruin the story too much, but I will reveal that it's a tale of honor, revenge, and betrayal. Also your whole village gets brutally murdered at some point. The story is told via dialog with semi-cut scenes, and levels of combat.

The other mode; challenge, is where you can improve your skills (and your score) in story-less challenges which you progress through one-by-one. In challenge you can go back to any level and play it as many times as you want (unlike the story mode). With 14 challenges, each with increasing difficulty, there’s great replay value and the opportunity to go back to any particular challenge and try to complete it flawlessly.

Game play
The game play is defined by the engrossing fighting system, as well as the challenging AI (Artificial Intelligence) to pit your skills against. The whole fighting style is based on the context of button presses. The controls use WASD for directional movement in relation to the camera, which is controlled by the mouse. The left mouse button controls all your standard attacks, but don’t think that this is “the attack button”, the fighting system is controlled by timing, button combinations, and the context in which they are used. This makes the controls feels less like attack buttons and movement buttons, and more of a streamlined, intuitive system. For example crouch (default shift) is not only used for crouching and sneaking around, but also for fast running, flipping midair, and blocking, all of which are defined by the conditions used. This may sound kind of confusing, but once you go through the simple tutorial it becomes much clearer.

You also have weapons at your disposal on some stages. The weapons include a short dagger, that you can throw at enemies for one hit kills (on most of them) or use to cause extra, permanent, damage, a staff, which has a very long range and is pretty powerful, but breaks easily, and a sword, which is the most powerful weapon in the game, it is unbreakable, and one good hit on an enemy can potentially kill them. The AI can also use all these weapons to their full potential (except throwing the dagger).

The AI in this game, while being confined to mapped out paths, is well built. The AI is very challenging, which can be viewed as a downside or a perk. Fortunately the game is designed so when you start (for both your campaign and the challenges) you fight against a small number of basic opponents. Later these opponents change to become harder and they are more numerous.

Knowing how to fight well isn’t the AI’s only expertise; the NPCs (Non-Playable Characters) have a fairly instinctive alert system, as being able to rely on each other. The alert system is mostly visually based, so if they see you, or a dead body, within a certain range, they will start attacking, but they also can be alerted through ‘sound’, and ‘smell’. NPCs will also alert other enemies; if they are close to death in a fight with you they will potentially run off and get others (if there are still some un-alerted enemies on the stage).

Another neat feature is that the AI actually punishes the player for using the same attack too much. While the AI does get a chance to block/counter your attack normally, if you use the same attack 3 times in a row it is guaranteed to be blocked, and possibly countered, which really forces you to be a master of the fighting style.

There are 3 main fighting styles to this game. You can creep about, trying to score stealth kills, which are triggered by sneaking behind an enemy, undetected, and attacking them with either a knife or no weapon. You can also decide to charge in and take on everyone at once, which is helped by the fact that your attacks have the potential to hit more than one enemy at a time, but hindered by the pounding you’ll receive from everyone on the stage. Then there’s the main style of fighting that seems to be promoted most in Lugaru, alerting one enemy, having them chase after you to a more private location, and killing them, then repeating with all the enemies until you win, because if you can get into a 1 on 1 fight, you have more of a chance at winning and less of a chance of dying. By the way, there is also no visible health bar, although your character does accumulate scratches and scars over the course of fighting, also when you’re low on health the screen will start to blur.

Art style
The visuals on this game are decent for an indie made in 2005. While not nearly comparable to any of today’s games (especially mainstreams), it still is not hat bad. The music is what is really timeless about this game, it provides a subtle background when needed, but kicks into a fight track when you alert an enemy, which is very useful because otherwise knowing when an enemy sees you can be very subtle, or they might even be out of your camera angle. Even though this game features anthropomorphic animals as the characters don’t expect a kidsy Disney style feel, this game is very graphic (for it’s graphics) and mature (I’d give it a Teen rating). The blood is animated and the deaths can be gruesome, so, be prepared if you where expecting something a little more light hearted.

I admit that this game isn’t perfect, the gameplay can get annoyingly difficult, the game doesn’t have a huge campaign, the graphics aren’t perfect, and there are some glitches occasionally with a flying camera after death, and disappearing enemies, but these are very few and far between. The game play is very enjoyable game if you have the time to get good, and the replay value can be more then doubled if you take the time to download some of the mods.

End
Now, with all this in consideration, would you believe me if I told you that it was made by one guy, in high school? Well, it was. David Rosen made the whole thing, back in 2005, as a hobby, so the graphics are more than forgivable. Team Wolfire has grown out of that, now on the alpha stage of their first game together; Overgrowth, the sequel to Lugaru, and it already looks great. Lugaru is absolutely amazing considering all of this, and truly is worth the $20 (although their free promotions are a great deal, and if you use that (or even if you don’t) I advise pre-ordering Overgrowth for $30 to check out the alpha and support Wolfire). With an expansive development blog with great posts on gaming in general and game development it'd be a good idea to check out their blog too. So try the free demo, see if you like it, and maybe buy the game, which is money well deserved.

Lugaru has a huge fan base, so I highly advise checking out the wiki for some great advice on playing the game, as well as on how to mod the game and even some mods for download. I really look forward to Overgrowth and expect me to post my interview with Wolfire, once it’s finished.

Civilization IV: Colonization, by BoltAction

2009-01-28T11:55:00.006-05:00

Civilization IV: Colonization
Freecol gets a Facelift

Those of you that have played Freecol will recognize Civilization IV: Colonization (hereafter referred to as Civcol) as a remake of this game, using the engine from Civ IV instead of that of Civ II, with updated gameplay and graphics. Those of you that have not (sad, sad folk), will find a simple but addictive game modeling the development of civilization from unclaimed wilderness. Except for the fact that the land was already claimed by Native Americans. But then, that's what muskets are for!

The player starts off with one ship, one soldier (i.e. colonist with gun) and one Pioneer (i.e. colonist with tool). As the game continues, the player establishes cities, harvests rescources, manufactures goods, and sells them to Europe. Them comes back with guns and slays some natives. I enjoyed the simple mechanics of starting the colony. Colonists are defined by what they do. Men with guns become soldiers, men with tools become pioneers, and since there are no women, the game uses an accurate expression of the origins of life as percieved by scientists of the time, with new colonists springing fully formed formed piles of wheat.

As the colony develops, more and more people will be required to produce liberty bells, which build rebel sentiment and increase production efficiency. The player also recieves members of the continental congress, which provide special bonuses to things like production, religion (which inspires immigration) and the cost of goods.

Colonists harvest resources from the squared around their cities, and then create goods in the buildings in the cities. Since any colonist can do anything, the game has a freeform, organic feel. Wanna buys a ton of guns from europe and create a roving army of former criminals? Go ahead. Want to establish a trade empire based on tobacco manufacture with farms run by converted natives? You're free to do so! Build up tons of rebel sympathies and declare war on your former owners? "NOT GONNA HAPPEN," cries the king, right before he sends a buttload of professional soldiers to stomp on your uppity, wigged ass.

My complaints about the game are few, and this is one of them: the only way to win the game is to declare independance and then fight off the royal expeditionary force, perhaps a subtle jab at Canadian foreign policy. And this must be completed by the yea 1776, which is a problem, because the game does not implement the Civilization IV policy of slowing down time as the game progresses, which means that you have a paltry 384 years to complete the monumental task of establishing a colonial empire, developing an army, and breaking away from a vengeful European monarch. This is especially difficult in a combat system that seems to be incredibly faulty (veteran soldier in fortess defeated by indian brave on horse? What???).

Aside form this, a number of the problems that plagued freecol have been fixed, such as natives not showing up in the foreign policy screen. Overall, the game is an excellent improvement, both graphically and in gameplay, of freecol, and a fun management/strategy.

Gameplay: 15/20
Storyline: 10/25
Graphics: 3/5
Streamlined: 10/10
Innovation: 5/15
Fun: 20/25

Overall: 63/100

For the Optimists:
-In-depth but easy-to-learn system
-Open-ended for a strategy game

For the Pessimists:
-Faulty combat system
-Continenetal congress a bit confusing

Recommendation:
I, BoltAction, recommend Civilization IV: Colonization if you like economically focused strategy games.

And you thought LEGO Star Wars was cool

2009-01-28T11:48:00.005-05:00

No, this story did not catch my eye just because it was Sega. However, it IS Sega, and they are developing a new arcade game. No, you won't play it with a joystick or some buttons or a dance pad or anything like that. You'll control it with Legos. Block Pipo by Sega looks like it will be controller by stacking blocks up in front of the screen and getting your character to climb up said blocks. It looks like it could be very interesting. They can at least get props for coming up with an original arcade game.

There aren't too many details yet (In English anyway), but this game is scheduled to be released to arcades in Japan this summer. It's also set to make its first appearance at AOU 2009.

Story by Siliconera. Full story available here

WOAoR: A Traditional Review

2009-01-28T11:13:00.008-05:00

Alright, alright, I'll go back to the more traditional review format, but only for the sake of comprehensibility. Yes, it's a word. Deal with it. :-P

Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning
A vast improvement of the MMO experience

Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning is an MMORPG set in the world of the tabletop fantasy wargame, Warhammer. The game pits Order, consisting of Dwarves, Elves, and the Empire (Humans) against Chaos, composed of Orcs, Dark Elves, and Chaos (Really Unpleasant Humans). While it follows the traditional MMORPG model with standard "kill this many of this thing" and "go find this person and talk to her" quests, it offers a more varied and serious play experience than other MMOs. And by "other MMOs," I am, of course, referring to World of Warcraft.

For one thing, the graphics are more realistic than previous MMORPGs, going for a grittier feel and starker imagery. This goes well with the game's main theme: war. The player in this game is not some magnificent hero or chosen one. She is a soldier, like everyone else, and her job is to get to the front lines and do some killing. Sure, there are quests, but they feel related to the war effort, especially such inventive quests as "Go nail x enemy players." Overall, the focus is on the Realm vs. Realm combat, to which each area has a substantial amount of space devoted. RvR provides opportunities for characters to earn Renown (which can win them special abilities) and Influence (which can be used to purchase special items). Despite the game's focus on RvR competition, players tend to be surprisingly mature during RvR play. In my time playing the game, I've seen very little grief and even less complaining about unfair play. That characters incur only small penalties from death encourages them to get back to the war.

The game's public quests provide an alternative to simply "grinding" for experience. Each quest has a few stages, in which anyone in the area can participate in return for influence (special items) and XP. This encourages people to group, as these quests are exceptionally difficult to complete without the support of other players. Rewards upon completing are given based on level of contribution.

The game has some notable flaws. Setup requires the user to create her own shortcut - a wonderful experience, especially when the WAR.exe file isn't the one you're looking for (it's the patching file). Also, there is so much cash to be earned that even after purchasing the best equipment available and dyeing it your favorite color set, you're still probably going to be loaded with gold, silver, and brass (no, I don't know why brass either) coinage.

These flaws, and the obvious fact that WOAoR is an MMORPG aside, it presents much more engaging and varied experience than other MMORPGs.

Gameplay: 19/20
Storyline: 15/25
Graphics: 4/5
Streamlined: 5/10
Innovation: 8/15
Fun: 24/25

Overall: 80/100

For the Optimists:
-Mature and developed Realm vs. Realm combat
-RvR and Public Quests provide variety and reduce "grind"
-Class variety and special mechanics differentiate play experience by race and class

For the Pessimists:
-An MMORPG, need I say more?
-Setup is cumbersome
-Not enough cash sinks

Recommendation:
I, BoltAction, recommend Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning for you if you like a more serious and mature MMORPG experience.

23 news: 1.27.09

2009-01-27T10:18:00.008-05:00

So, i figured that i should do a wrap-up of some of the news in the indie gaming world. These posts might be weekly, maybe monthly, or maybe just whenever I feel like it... But I felt that I should keep all you up to date on the new stuff, as well as introducing you to the good stuff. Anyway here's some news from the past, oh, i don't know, lets say... month:

Edmund announces Super Meat Boy: Edmund McMillen (creator of Gish, and various other good games) finally officially announces Super Meat Boy for PC and WiiWare. Although the news of this game has been floating around the internet for a while, Edmund gives the official press release, as well as the official website/blog.
Original Meat Boy, Official press release, Official Website

Nabi announces Toribash for the Wii: Toribash, the first game I reviewed here, is finally coming to a console. Toribash has been around for a while, always with an active community, but it's always stayed on the computer, but now you'll soon be able to download it from Nintendo's WiiWare channel on the Wii. (lets hope it's free!)
Blog post, YouTube Vid

IGF mobile finalists are announced: IGF (Independent Gaming Festival) has been around for a long time (pretty much as long as indie games), and every year (since 1999) IGF has had an indie games competition, picking the best of the year (and nominees) in various categories. They have the main section, for official developers with finished and unfinished games (not always on PC), the student section, for gaming design students who's games are for class projects (like Toblo), and a couple years ago they introduced IGF mobile.
IGF main site, 2009 finalists, 2009 student finalists, and 2009 mobile finalists

Pixeljam and Cactus get a new sites: Pixeljam Games (makers of Dinorun, and some pretty cool music), as well as Cactus Software (the very strange maker of Clean Asia! as well as a wide variety of other oddities), have both renovated their websites. While this is nothing too ground breaking, these are some great developers you should check out, and Pixeljam has some really great music free to download!
Pixeljam Games, and Cactus Software

I make my own blog: Ok, ok, I realize that's a bit of shameless self promotion, but if any of you want to see some more about indie games, the internet, and me, feel free to check it out (and maybe subscribe...). It's in it's infancy, so it's even smaller than anyButton, but I plan on doing daily updates.
23's Personal Blog

Okay, so that about wraps it up right now, I might add more later if I remember. Hope you're almost as excited as I am! Expect my review of Lugaru (and Black Shades) to be up soon (as well as maybe a little chit-chat with the developers...)

Additional:

Blurst announces Blush: The indie game developer Blurst (run/owned(?) by Flash Bang Studios) announces a new, more serious game, entitled Blush. The gameplay looks like it still has to be worked out, but the main concept and art seems to be there already. They already released their first video and it looks great. With Blurt's physics engine this looks like it will be a very nice game. Anyway check out the vid and Blurts' other stuff (which is a little high end, so, be prepared if it laggs on a crappy computer.)
Announcement with video

23 reviews: Toblo

2009-01-26T17:21:00.004-05:00

Name: Toblo
Author: 5 students at Digipen
Version: 1.2
Platform: Windows
Price: Free!
Players: 1-10(?)
Website: Official Toblo homepage
Video: Video found on youtube (and one on the website)

Toblo is a student made capture the flag physics game. The environments are made of various size blocks, which you throw at your opponents from the other team to knock them out and bash their base. You play as either the “Cloud Kids” (little blue angels of virtue) or the “Fire Friends” (basically forum trolls), yes, it is a little childish, but the design is colorful and very fun. The objective is to take all three of your opponents flag blocks and return them to your base. You can only carry one flag block and you can not throw any blocks while carrying the flag block. As well as the special flag blocks and normal blocks the environment is built out of, there are the bomb blocks, these create explosions when thrown and can cause massive damage to the opponent’s base and/or knock out multiple opponents at a time, these are very useful for breaking into and/or completely destroying the enemy base.

This game is very easy to understand and play, as well as fun enough to play again and again and use new strategies. This game can be played over LAN, and comes with 5(?) maps but new maps can be added and created if you have enough technical savvy and effort to try it (the tutorial is on the main site).

The physics in this game are very impressive (it's sorta like playing Boom Blocks), and the design may be fairly simple, but it fits the feel and is very friendly towards young, old, and anyone in between. Definitely download this game and give it a try, you might be surprised by how fun it is and how much you’ll get attached to the design, your teammates, and even your opponents. Even more personality is added to the characters with little snippets of text in a bubble that fit the situation that occasionally pop up. If you like these slightly less fancy pick up and play games with unique game play try visiting digipen and checking out their massive collection of student made games, or even IGF's nominated top student made indies.

P.S. Toblo was the 2007 winner of the IGF's Best Student Game award. And it's as fun now as it was back then.

Boats are fun. Rocket powered boats are even more fun!

2009-01-23T23:10:00.004-05:00

If you were living under a rock from the 90's until... Well... Now really, and you've never, EVER set foot in an arcade or picked up an N64 contoller, you might not have heard of one of the most fantastic racing games ever: Hydro Thunder. For all you normies out there, you know that this game is absolutely brilliant. As an avid fan of most arcade games, I needed a change of pants after reading that Midway was FINALLY developing a sequel to this masterpiece, to be called H2Overdrive. Here is a video of the watery fangasm (Ew.) that is soon to result.

H2Overdrive 'Hong Kong Buoy' gameplay

I chose this video because it appeared to be the most reminscent of the original.

Video by 1UP. Full preview and more videos available here.

GERARDAMO on: Windows 7 (Beta is clearly some strange accent on Better)

2009-01-23T22:46:00.007-05:00

So I installed the Beta for Windows 7 on my computer today after being infinitely frustrated at Vista constantly crashing on me while I was working on important documents. Yes, I still heart Windows. Anyway, this clearly was the logical thing for me to do, because nothing says stable upgrade like running the Beta version of a Windows OS! (Sarcasm for those who can't hear my tone through text.) I have to say, I think it's damn fantastic software.

First, oh my god, my computer is running so much faster now. I have 4 gigs of RAM and even that struggled with Vista and all of it's resource eating. Yes, Windows 7 still has about 60 processes running in the background, but... It works.

Second, it sure is tidy. All the shortcut icons in the right-hand corner of the screen have all been brought into a neat little hidden window that only pops up when you need it too, and the number of times Windows lets you know that it needs to download a patch to add a new font to that version of Office that you aren't using has been reduced to almost none. The only complaint I have about it is my lazy-ass sometimes doesn't want to open that little window to exit out of AIM. But definitely an upgrade from Vista's constant nagging. Actually, speaking of nagging, one of the best features I've noticed that was removed from Vista was the "Are you sure you want to delete this empty folder? Really? Are you really sure? You're probably gonna want to be an administrator to authorize such a dramatic change. Really? Really? REEEEEEALLLLLLLY?" feature. Yes, that's right, that random .txt document that's cluttering your desktop can now be removed hassle-free.

The one feature I was somewhat skeptical about was the WindowSX taskbar. Instead of having a nice, sleek, little bar at the bottom of the screen, you have a somewhat larger one with icons that are locked onto it. They are run by clicking them from there, and the only way you are made aware that they are running is the glow that appears around them. Sound like a certain OSX? Well, yeah. They're pretty similar. However, you can see what you have running in a program group much like you could in older versions of Windows just by highlighting the icons in the taskbar. I have to say, I like it a lot. It gives the computer a much more organized feel, and it lets you open other programs without having to go back to the desktop. (The button for that has also been placed in the far right hand corner, allowing for easier access, unlike its awkward positioning next to the Start button in Vista.) Not to mention, this ability to minimize Windows and have them become practically unknown is especially nice when certain nosy people are looking in your taskbar when you're... Say... Streaming pornography.

Er... What?

Windows 7 is essentially what Windows Vista was supposed to be, actually providing useful features instead of just a facelift (Though Windows 7 IS gorgeous). There are lots of little features that I haven't gotten into yet, like a Device Station that lets you know what device is plugged in (Though why wouldn't you know that already?) and the features of that device. I know I'll definitely be getting the final version of this when it's released, and I would highly recommend that anyone reading this download a copy of the Beta themselves at Microsoft's site.

Seriously? It's windows.com

23 reviews: A New Zero

2009-01-23T18:36:00.005-05:00

Name: A New Zero
Author: Cryptic Sea (Alex Austin)
Version: 0.71
Platform: Windows
Price: Free!
Players: 1-16
Website: A New Zero homepage
Video: Official trailer

A New Zero is Cryptic Sea's “bomb the other base” game. You play on either the gold “Condor” team, or the blue/grey “Eagle” team. You choose from 3 vehicles; a jet, a missile boat, and a gunboat. The objective is to destroy the other team’s base before they destroy yours.
The gameplay, controls, and concept is simple enough for a beginner to get the hang of, but the content, LAN play, and strategy keeps the game new and fun for hundreds of hours. Each team has a spawn base, and 5 destructible buildings; two towers (right now, only used to protect the capital), two factories (which generate money at a certain rate, needed to buy/spawn more vehicles) and a capital (also generates money, and if destroyed the other team wins the game), as well as some destructible turrets to guard each structure. Each building (besides the base, which is invincible, and the two towers) has a green core, which if hit (with either a bomb or a missile) will explode and destroy the whole structure with a huge explosion. Each vehicle is designed with a cube on the top which represents the player/camera. While in first person view the camera will be shown from there, but a third person view is also available for a wider view. The camera does act as a tangible object, so if it is hit (and struck from your vehicle) not only does your vehicle get destroyed in a small explosion, but your camera flies off, taking the first and third person view with it, while your vehicle just keeps on moving in the same direction with none of your control.
The games’ design is a very simple and sleek geometric/cubic design, with destructible environments (all structures, beside the base, are destructible, including wings and tail fins of the planes), the colors stay in a kind of golden/yellow sepia feel, which the haunting and unnatural music accents nicely. Not only is the game beautiful but it also has a very nice physics engine. This game does have very nice graphics, so a higher end machine is suggested to fully enjoy it, although the download itself is slightly under 1mb.
A New Zero is still in beta, so it lacks any form of true online play (other than LAN), campaign, and only has 3 vehicles, also the settings (such as full screen on) don't save over game plays, and it crashes my other computer, but it already is a very fun game, and I highly anticipate the final release and hopefully they will add online play. I expect that the final product will be even more polished and enjoyable then it is now, especially looking at Cryptic Sea’s other works, including Gish, blast miner and Golf?, which are all very fun games and very well polished, but those are games for later reviews and, hopefully, maybe an interview. I’ll be sure to post an update next time a version is available, meanwhile, enjoy!

20cc asks: Are you afraid?

2009-01-23T18:01:00.008-05:00

It's back. What's back, you ask? F.E.A.R. is back. I'm aware that this is somewhat preemptive, but I just downloaded the demo on Steam, and it's brought the game to the front of my mind.

I'm not counting this as a review, since I only played a little of the demo, partly because it was damn scary, and partly because as soon as I tried to move, my computer started screaming in pain and flailing with protest. Apparently it's a problem that my processor is roughly half as powerful as required. It seems I'll be buying it for 360 when it comes out.

More on topic, I've been harboring high hopes for F.E.A.R. 2 since Sierra butchered the plot in Extraction Point and Perseus Mandate. From what I played, it's hard to tell if the plot is any good. However, it has retained the feel of the first game. Since most of it takes place in Auburn after the Origin meltdown, I imagine it will be rather more, as they say, fucked up than the original. The Replicas make a return, and I found myself fighting hordes of semi-visible creatures resembling the psychic monsters from Perseus Mandate, except more human in shape, and harder to see.

Unfortunately the interface has been streamlined quite a bit, and I'm not convinced that's good. The numbers have been removed from the health and ammo displays, and in general the layout has been simplified. The graphics look promising, but it's hard to tell when I have the settings turned down so low. I could say more, but I want to save some stuff for a full review once I get my hands on a copy of the full game. I just hope the 360 version doesn't eliminate the action button and force you to melee open doors, like F.E.A.R. Files did.

GERARDAMO: Game of the Week 2

2009-01-22T11:32:00.006-05:00

My game of the week this week is probably one of the most addictive games I've ever played. It's No One Can Stop Mr. Domino for the PlayStation. The game's protagonist is (GASP!) Mr. Domino... Or Ms. Domino, or a small variety of other dominos. The point of the game is to... Well... Lay dominoes. You run around on a two-and-a-half D plane laying down a trail of dominoes in order to trigger switches, that will activate somewhere else on the stage, and they can keep your chain going if you set it up right. The switches start out as little things, like making a stack of dice fall down or just raising up a little tiny slope, to bigger things, like triggering a roller coaster or summoning a tank. It's not as easy as it sounds though. You have a limited number of dominoes, so you can't just lay them down wherever you feel. You have to use them sparingly if you want to set up a chain ranging across the level. You do get your dominoes back, though, after you knock some over. (You knock them over in some hot domino-on-domino action. Well... Mr. Domino just runs into your dominoes and knocks them over.) You have a time limit as well. Overtime, your domino gradually fades to black and slows down. (You'd think turning black would make him run faster, wouldn't you?) This game has very simple gameplay that's easy to learn and difficult to master. The balance between action and puzzling is absolutely perfect, but hard for me to explain, so I'll have YouTube do it instead. As with most of my favorite games, this game has a very strong Japanese personality that doesn't appear to have been translated... At all. (The menus have been translated, but this game is obviously VERY Japanese.)

Video by WTFOMGMyNameDoesntFi

This game has great music too. I would have put up another video that came with the music, but this was the only one I could find.

20cc reviews: Left 4 Dead

2009-01-20T18:31:00.009-05:00

It's very sad how few games worth notice have been released lately. And this is in the aftermath of the Christmas rush. It seems like we should have something to play, and yet so little of what there is is any good. I had high hopes for so many games at the end of last year, and so many were disappointing.

Essentially I'm trying to justify writing about a game that's been out since November.

The first thing I will say about Left 4 Dead is that it's a Valve game. This means two things. First, that I had very high expectations for it. Second, that I had to wait more than a year after the originally scheduled release date to play the damn thing. I understand Valve's commitment to quality, but generally it results in my forgetting about the game by the time it's finally released. This was the case with the Orange Box, and Left 4 Dead. I followed it faithfully for several months, and then when Valve continued to ignore the release date, I lost interest.

Well, it's out now, and I've played it, and I have to say it's pretty good.

I'll give a summary, for those of you who don't follow Valve's work as closely as I do. Like so many of their games, Left 4 Dead is inspired by, or rather blatantly copied from, a mod made on Valve's Source Engine. This was true of Counter-Strike, Portal, Team Fortress and, I believe, Day of Defeat. In other words, all of Valve's games except Half-Life. I don't hold it against them, though, because they tend to greatly improve on the third party games.

In the case of Left 4 Dead, the inspiration was an entire line of mods, themselves based on the omnipresent and seemingly inexplicable human fascination with zombies. There isn't much of a plot, since the game is designed mostly for the multiplayer. This is a problem for me, since I don't like playing online most of the time. However, unlike Counter-Strike or Team Fortress, Left 4 Dead is still fun to play alone. The player selects one of four campaigns and is then thrown into the shoes of one of four survivors, lost in a zombie infected city or countryside, depending on the campaign. The objective is simply to fight through the endless hordes of flesh-starved monsters to reach the next safe house. A safe house marks the end of each of the four levels within a campaign. After the forth level, the players reach the extraction area, and are required to hold off the horde until help arrives.

Valve has taken this amazingly simple, quadricentric format and made it into something undeniably addictive. For one thing, the zombies themselves are fascinating to watch. Those of you who know the game will probably wonder why I chose to mention this before the Director. Because it was the first thing I noticed. When you watch from a distance, the zombies stumble around, rest on the ground or, strangely, with their foreheads against walls, even fight and kill each other. When they hear you, you can almost see the recognition on their faces, the sudden dawning comprehension, and when they run at full speed toward you in a meticulously lifelike sprint, it can be really terrifying.

The next thing about the game is the aforementioned Director. This is what gives the remarkably short game such good replay value. It was made with a program that observes your progress and factors in your life, ammunition, speed, and other values. It uses this information to decide where to put weapons, medkits and ammunition, where to spawn zombies, and when to bring the horde to harass you. This means you will never play the same level twice. You can never count on finding a new weapon in the same place. You may reach a box in which there used to be a medkit, open it and discover only a bottle of painkillers. It isn't the kind of game in which you can peek around each corner and snipe each zombie, since if you move too slowly the zombies will decide to come looking for you.

In addition to the cannon fodder zombies are four (surprise) “Special Infected:” the Hunter, the Smoker, the Boomer and the Tank. These four don't abide by the normal horde rules and instead move around the edges of the level, actively hunting the players. In online Versus mode, other players take control of the Specials, and each one comes with a special abilities. The Hunter moves quickly, pounces and survivors, and tears at them with its claws. The Smoker has a long tongue that it uses to catch and throttle survivors, and it releases a cloud of smoke when killed. The Boomer vomits a pheromone-laced bile that attracts the horde, and explodes violently when shot. The Tank is big, and it throws things, and not at all easy to kill. Just to add a little more fun, there is one more Special that cannot be controlled by humans in Versus, the Witch. The Witch sits quietly in a corner and cries. If you shine a light on it, or shoot it, or walk too near it, it gets up and kills you. Don't screw with the Witch.

There are, however, a few problems with the game. For one thing, the graphics aren't quite up to the level of the current generation. That's not so much a problem for me, however, since I'm running it on my laptop with a 1.7 GHz processor that can't handle the game at high quality anyway. The bigger problem for me was the way they designed the weapons. When I first heard what weapons were available in the game—a pump shotgun or Uzi at tier 1, an automatic shotgun, M16 or hunting rifle at tier 2—I was impressed with the way they seemed to be trying to use weapons that would be relatively easy to find in the case of a zombie apocalypse. However, this attempt at realism is negated by the fact that you can carry so much ammo, it doesn't really matter which gun you're using. Zombie just within sight? Carrying a shotgun? No problem, take the shot. If you don't hit it the first time, take another shot, you can spare a couple shells. If you do manage to run out, which will probably happen only if you're playing on Expert difficulty, then you can switch to your pistol, which has unlimited ammo. I recognize that Valve makes shooters, as a rule, but that doesn't mean you should be able to enter every room guns blazing. The rest of the inventory is well designed to create a feeling of desperation. You can carry, in addition to your two guns, one medkit, one bottle of painkillers, and one thrown weapon, either a Molotov cocktail or a pipe bomb, on the occasions that you find them.

The game is definitely worth the price, my only wish is that they had limited the pistol ammo, and lowered the ammo cap a tiny bit.

As a closing comment, if any of you are too cheap to buy the game, or are just interested in seeing some of the third party zombie mods, I would suggest you take a look at Zombie Panic. It's free, can be downloaded from Steam (If you're into PC gaming and don't have a Steam account, I highly recommend that you get one. You can get them at <http://store.steampowered.com/>, just click on the button on the left side of the screen for a free client download.) and is a good deal of fun. It has a tense, quick paced feel, a good variety of interesting weapons—like a golf club or computer keyboard—and a weight-based inventory system, something that is generally reserved for the the RPG sphere. I would play more of it myself but, for some reason, my computer seems to have a problem with multiplayer mods.

23 reviews: World of Goo

2009-01-20T08:35:00.005-05:00

Normally I would save reviews for these larger and more well known (and not completely free) games for later, but, seeing how they just released the soundtrack for free i thought i should stay on the ball and link to the soundtrack as well as review the game. Anyway I hope everyone watches the inauguration today and I hope you enjoy my second review!

Name: World of Goo
Author: 2D boy
Version: Final
Platform: Windows, Mac, and Wii (via WiiWare) (Linux coming soon)
Price: $20, free demo
Players: 1 on PC, up to 4 on Wii
Website: http://2dboy.com/games.php
Video: http://www.dailymotion.com/video/k10vs5hKabZJgMNNRc

An engineer's dream, that's simple enough to be picked up by anyone. 2D boy presents his first game, a real time physics/engineering game with interesting puzzles and an amazing art style. When I first saw this game, as Tower of Goo (http://www.fun-motion.com/physics-games/tower-of-goo/ ) I was impressed by the design and how fun it was. The game has taken leaps and bounds since that (although it did keep a side game that is somewhat similar to that game). Although it kept the same basic game play the art is much more beautiful, the puzzles are much more challenging and the game has tons more personality.

In WoG you play as, well, it's not exactly clear, but your job is to manipulate goo balls that stick to each other to create structures to get to the pipe at the end of the puzzle. Originally you start out only using the black goo, which has no special properties; they just stick to each other when put together and stays there, and moves around when free. Eventually you get many different types of goo which you have to use in order to solve each puzzle.

The puzzles always have the same end goal; get as much goo (sometimes of a specific type) to the pipe as possible; the way of doing this, though, varies dramatically throughout the game. Although most puzzles require you to build some sort of budge or tower you have to use the right goo in the right situation. The puzzles are varied enough to keep you interested, and challenging enough to keep you engaged. The challenge level of this game can waste a lot of your time, but it's not anymore challenging then it should be, so it is highly advised for both avid games and casual gamers with some time to play, be prepared to actually think about each puzzle though.

The art style in this game is amazing. I absolutely love the intentionally imperfect yet still awesome, unique art style. The music for the game fits well, with tracks long enough and ambient enough not to get on your nerves, even if you are stuck on a puzzle for a prolonged period of time. Each song has a unique personality to go with the just as unique level. Speaking of the sound track 2D boy is offering it for absolutely free at: http://kylegabler.com/WorldOfGooSoundtrack/ and it is defiantly good enough to download and listen to even if you haven't played the game, and if you have played it it's a great way to invoke those friendly memories.

The story telling is great, it meshes seamlessly with the music and art style, it just goes well with the whole feel of the game. The game is split up into different chapters, each with slightly varied styles and feels, this provides a great way to add a little cut scene at the end of each to move along the story as well as providing the player with a sense of accomplishment. Other then the cut scenes (which are short and sparse, nothing more then whats required to tell the story), level design, and music, the story is told through signs posted in each level which give you hints on how to complete the puzzle, tidbits to unravel the story, and a little humor, all of which are signed by "the sign maker". The plot has many twists and turns to keep you engaged, so I wont ruin any of the story, as well as a lot of meta comedy to keep you smiling.

World of Goo is intuitive, fun, unique, and extremely enjoyable. I highly advise this game for anyone who wants to face some serious puzzles (each one with an "OCD" challenge for, well, the OCD people who just NEED to finish the whole game, or anyone looking for more difficulty), which can be solved multiple different ways , or just looking for a fun game with a great design and story where you get to make some cool stuff. Defiantly at least download the demo (available off the site) and give the first chapter a spin, it should be enough to have you fall in love with the game, and it is well worth the $20. Let's hope that 2D boy continues on their path of greatness, because this is definitely one of the best indie games of 2008.

BoltAction: Intro and Warhammer Online

2009-01-19T22:33:00.011-05:00

For all of you who know me, the vulture flies not when the cafe is unoccupied, so bring a deck of cards. And for those of you who don't know me, I'm BoltAction, lover, gamer, senator, postal worker. As to my gaming tastes, I enjoy good roleplaying games, strategy games of all varieties, engaging puzzle games, and anything new and interesting. My approach to reviewing is as follows: video games are like lovers. Each has her own distinct personality, complete with convictions, mannerisms, and faults, some lovable, some less so. Almost all are worth meeting, and many an enjoyable afternoon or weekend can be spent on them, but only a few will really jive, commandeering thoughts and devouring time, energy, and, often, money. Thus, I will present games with a list of vital stats, and a more in-depth paragraph describing overall feel and personality.

That said:
Warhammer Online, Age of Reckoning (WOAoR)
Hair: Dark brown, mid-back length
Eyes: Hazel, red w/contacts, or black-rimmed glasses
Skin: Pale European
Body: Thin but strong
General Appearance: Mousiness and innocent appearance belie a dark beauty and violent sexuality
Turn-Ons: Wrestling, good music, storms
Turn-Offs: Sickness, poorly-written poetry, primness
Favorite Sex Position: Against the wall of a scalding shower
Kids?: Ugh - not even thinking about it until after I finish my BA

Personality: Though WOAoR resembles WOW on an artificial level, those that know her cringe at the comparison. Her intellect is better developed, and her tastes more mature. She enjoys competing with her lovers, and seeing them compete, but always on a friendly level. As content to be a lover as "one of the guys," WOAoR nevertheless takes herself more seriously than WOW. Her art is more intense, her stories more compelling, and her attention more demanding of cleverness and sensitivity. She's good at making a guy, even one with little experience, feel comfortable with her, and makes sure her other lovers treat him with respect and companionship. She never loses sight of the fact that guys hang out with her to have fun, but when asked if she'd like a more permanent and committed relationship, she responds with a resounding "Lemme think about it." WOAoR is a complex person, but one who neither needs to understand everyone else, nor seeks to remain incomprehensible.
Good For: Friendly competition, mental stimulation, fun, "summer love"
Not So Good For: Long-term attachment, passion, your wallet

We're moving!

2009-01-19T21:11:00.002-05:00

That's right, after this whole one week that you've had to get used to our URL, we are moving to our own server at any-button.com. By the time you read this, it should be up. Bare with us for a while as we set it up, as it's going to be sort of a rough transition while we figure out just what we're doing, but we should have a layout that works more the way we intended for it to, one that can't be provided by Blogger. Plus, it's nice to have our own .com. I will, and I hope my co-authors will, continue to also post here for a short while as we get used to the switch, but stick with us as we jump to our own part of teh internets! It's gonna be awesome. And don't forget to tell all your nerdy friends about us. It'll help us take over the internet.

GERARDAMO

23 reviews: Toribash

2009-01-17T21:29:00.003-05:00

First I would like to say that my reviews will be coming majorly in two forms; reviews of individual games and reviews of indie game companies. Also, expect more than just reviews, I'm planning on doing top 23's, news, and, well, whatever else I decide on. Enjoy:

Name: Toribash

Author: Hampa of Nabi Software

Version: 3.96

Platform: Windows, Mac, Power PC (old mac), and Linux

Price: Free!

Players: 1-2

Website: http://www.toribash.com/

Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lzjl0Cu9HgM

If most video games are mindless violence, then Toribash is mindful violence. Toribash is a free turn based hand-to-hand fighting game between two controllable rag doll models. As far as I know there is no other game like it; the unique play style and graphics set it apart from the rest. The game play is based on two roughly human shaped models contracting, extending, and relaxing their 20 muscles to deal damage to the other character; see a game play video and it'll all make sense. Toribash is playable either offline versus another controllable dummy (basicly just playing against yourself or a rag doll, although there is an AI possibility, which isn’t especially smart), or online versus a live person. The online matches, 1 vs 1, are played through servers of usually between 2-10 people. Other players wait in the queue watching the games; every match the next person in line gets to play the winner (or there’s a rematch if there’s a tie). Some of these servers are organized into ranks, so while you’re a noob you will be pitted against other noobs, even though you will probably advance through the ranks fairly quickly, reaching the semi pro level, if you play often.

Toribash also features a very large mod database (mod is a general term to refer to a modification of the game, usually to make the game slightly different while maintaining the same basic gameplay). Mod matches can also be done online, but only if a server is hosting one, or you create one that uses a mod and people actually join. This game has a decent user base from all around the world, whom you can communicate with through the text chat while waiting in the queue, or out of game through the toribash forums. There's enough players to be available when you want to play, but also few enough not to keep you waiting in line all day.

I highly advise this game, although it does have a fairly steep learning curve (which can be slightly lessened if you use the ingame tutorial and the toribash online wiki) and not everyone will love it, but once you know how to play it is really fun to pick up for either a few minutes or a few hours. With a nifty rank and point system, which earns you “credits” to buy model characterization either through the in-game store, or the website hosted free market. So give this game a download, take some time to learn how to play it right, do some cool moves, join clans, and pwn noobs, or if you don't feel like playing online you can just mess around and perfect your technique offline.

Oh, also, you can save all your matches as replays, the game comes with a list of hundreds of replays for you to see the awesome stuff u can do in toribash, the game also comes with hundreds of mods, oh and did I mention thats it's all FREE?!

P.S. Turn on the damn shaders!!! (if your computer can handle it)

Biscuits!?!? About me.

2009-01-17T19:56:00.002-05:00

I don't have a lot of time right now so this will be in bullet format. I'm Biscuits and here are some things to expect from me.

--Rare updates.
--Poor grammar ie practically no commas. I don't believe in them.
--Extremely Rare updates.
--Rarely will my updates stay on topic.
--Practically no updates.
--STDs.
--This could very well be my last update.
--Extreme laziness.

GERARDAMO on: Sonic Unleashed

2009-01-16T11:12:00.004-05:00

Wait, what? GERARDAMO does reviews on new games? Damn right I do, I just seldom play them. Now, I realize that this game has been out for a small while now, but most of the other reviews I've seen for this game simply write this game off as another Sonic game, and therefore bad. Well, it is a bad game, probably because it is a new Sonic game. But, where all of these other reviews couldn't find anything decent in this game, there were parts of Sonic Unleashed where I couldn't help but turn into a grinning doofus from the plain, simple fun the game offered. Well... For the 1/3 of the game that was fun anyway.

The game is split into 3 different parts: daytime levels, nighttime levels, and looking around for the levels. The daytime levels are reminiscent of the Sega Genesis trilogy, but it also innovates on that classic game play by... well... Being new. There are also 3D sections that play like the Sonic Adventure series, just a lot faster. Sometimes it can be too fast. Your little blue blur will be running along, and suddenly, he'll disappear, and a few seconds later, you'll have realized you fell in a hole, but it will have been too late. Minus 1 life. Speaking of lives, I've noticed that many people are complaining about the life system, calling the game out for using a trail-and-error system. I say, isn't this what games used to do anyway? Have gamers really gotten so bad at games that don't involve shooting down squads of terrorists and dropping the fag-bomb over Xbox LIVE that they resort to throwing hissy fits when a game is too hard and punishes you by making you start over because you just plain fucking suck? That's just sad. Yes, it's frustrating when you die, but learn from that mistake and TRY GETTING PAST THE OBSTACLE SOME OTHER WAY. Anyway, yeah. 2D part is very fun. The transitions between 2D and 3D are fantastic, and there are times when they will be combined, feeling very reminiscent of NiGHTS into dreams... (Which is quite possibly Sega's greatest game ever.)

Unfortunately, some moron on Sonic Team decided that Sonic needed to take a break from all that running... A loooooooong break. So, they decided that Sonic should turn into a werewolf, a stretchy werewolf, a stretchy werewolf in a bad beat 'em up platformer. Well, it's not that bad. If it weren't in a Sonic game, it probably would have went over very well. It has a rather deep combat system to prevent the monotony that comes from most beat 'em ups with the regular "PRESS A OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND HE DEAD NOW YAY" gameplay. But... It's Sonic. For one thing, he's a hedgehog, not a werewolf. For another, nobody wants to play a slow Sonic game... Nobody. Get it right, Sega.

So, that's another 1/3 of the game. Wait, Gerard, that's only 2/3, you suck at math. No I don't. The other 1/3 simply consists of trying to find the damn level you want to play. This is not enjoyable at all. I don't want to get rewarded for playing a game simply by getting to actually play it. It can take upwards of half an hour to actually find the level you're supposed to play, and because of that, I could only stomach about 4 hours of this game before I quit. You go around trying to find some towns person to talk to, and they might tell you where the level is, or they might just try to sell you a hot dog, or ice cream, or mushrooms, which would probably be a good investment and make this part of the game stomachable.

So, when the majority of gameplay in a game is bad, yes, it's a bad game. It's sad, because the part that Sega got right is fun. Really fun. Really really really really really fucking fun. Sega did take a step in the right direction, and I have high hopes for the next Sonic game they might be releasing (When's the last time that happened?) After all, they did develop an entirely new engine for this game, I doubt they would use it for one game. Hopefully, Sega will learn from these mistakes. They're so close to fixing a problem that they shouldn't have had in the first place, but as an avid Sega fanboy, I'm not going to give up on Sonic. No, Sonic 2006 is still a terrible game that I'll never, EVER play, but it looks like Sega is starting to finally get things right. It's just a shame that if they had just shortened Sonic Unleashed and removed all of the shit that didn't belong in it, it would have been a perfect game.

20cc on: Myself

2009-01-15T21:42:00.005-05:00

Since my co-authors have posted short personal biographies, I thought I should follow suit. This way, anyone reading will have a better idea of where my interests lie. I've often found it nice to know what kind of preferences a reviewer has. That way, if I'm reading the review and I think, “This guy is a tasteless lemming.” I can read into it and realize, “Aha! His favorite game of all time was Star Fox Adventures. That explains everything.”

Hopefully most of you will find my taste unobjectionable. If not, I will at least strive to be funny. If not, at least occasionally clever. At the very least some of you can find amusement in a little self deprecating humor. If that's still too much to ask, then feel free to leave angry comments. Any publicity is good publicity, as they say.

I digress.

For the purposes of the blog, my name is 20cc. My greatest passions are writing and video games. A game reviewing blog seemed the logical conclusion. My tastes tend to be rather varied, and as a result I don't have much of a specialty in any particular area. I'm interested mostly in games that mix elements of shooters and role playing games, though recently I've been trying hard to find a good new action/platforming game.

As an amateur author, I like to think that I can judge storytelling and character development aspects fairly well. Also, as a consumer, I am willing to occasionally sacrifice the finer artistic aspects of a game for what is probably the most important aspect: fun.

Admittedly I tend to fall victim to pre-release excitement. This can lead to my convincing myself that I like a game, for instance, The Witcher, only to discover a month or two later that I don't. As a result, I will make a point of not reviewing a game immediately after first playing it. Also, I would like to think that, as a result, when I give a game a negative review, it would carry a little more weight. I am aware that by trashing Call of Duty 5 in my first review, and subsequently Perfect Dark Zero, Frontlines and Jericho, all in one review, I may have nullified that power a little. However I maintain that all of those games were truly terrible.

My favorite game developer would most likely be Monolith. F.E.A.R., Condemned, and AVP2 will all keep special places in my heart, and I can honestly say that I have never played a Monolith game that I didn't like. (Actually those may have been the only three I've played, discounting prequels and sequels.) However, I remain open to any developer's works, without any preconceptions. Though I tend to be skeptical of EA.

I'll also review movies, or whatever else catches my eye. I hope you find my writing informative and, more importantly, amusing. That is what I'm here for. That and to indulge my probably unfounded belief that people care what I think.

23 presents: 23 and indie games

2009-01-15T18:52:00.001-05:00

Seeing how this is my first review I see it suitable to introduce myself. I’m 23, as you can see, and although 20cc did a pretty good job of telling you who I am, he left out a few things. Firstly I will probably also be reviewing webcomics and tech (mostly open source), because, like indie games, I am addicted to them. I spend a lot of time searching the internet for indie games, webcomics, and general cool stuff (mostly science-y, because, well, I am a geek). I also am still a student, so, posts may become less frequent when I get a lot of work, (or more frequent, depending on how much I procrastinate =P). We are not professional here at anyButton, so don't expect regular updates, stellar writing, or exclusive reviews. What you can expect is some interesting insights, a place to get some cool reviews and info, and a little bit of humor. But enough about me and the blog, I'll now explain what an indie game is, for any of the noobs (that means newbie in gamer talk).

An indie game is a game developed by an independent company with no publisher, and usually very little funding or man power (see the Wikipedia entry for more information) (20cc says: "indie=independant, if you didn't get that yet."). If you didn't know that (or even if you did) you’re probably in the right place, I will be introducing even the most famous and well known of indie games, so veterans and noobs alike can enjoy, and no one is left out. Even if you're a veteran indie gamer who's played all the big (and small) names out there, or someone who's never even heard the term before, you are welcome here.

Now you might be wondering why you would want something which isn’t supported by a multi million dollar business, but made by your average person (well, as average as game makers get). The most simple answer for that is this; because they don't have limitations. And the little longer answer I have; because the game is then made for the sake of having fun/whatever objective the author has, and is not necessarily appealing to mass audience, and is not conforming to the standards, but rather made for the sole purpose of the game. The author doesn't have to worry about the game bombing, because they usually make little to no money on it, they just are making the game, well, to make the game, compared to all major games which have to sell, and aren't necessarily unique, creative, and fun.

If your wondering where you can get these magical games, they’re mostly (if not exclusively) downloadable from the internet. A lot of indie games are also freeware/shareware games, which means they are absolutely and completely FREE, that's right, all you need is a computer (usually one running windows, but a lot of the games I'll be presenting also work on mac and/or linux) and an internet connection to download them. Thats right, a game that is completely free and legal, all you have to do is click the link! Some other indie games are sold for moneys, usually to support the author and cover the production costs, and they tend to be very cheap, and usually have free demos (usually under $30 for the whole game).

In the following posts I will be talking mostly about indie games. But, calling these “reviews” is not completely accurate, because a review tells you whether something is bad or good and what makes them that way, but these first reviews will only be of good games (to give you something to play). Later on, once I get a good list on here, I'll venture into some of the potentially less enjoyable games, but that doesn't mean it's all downhill from here, oh no sir, I'm going to deliver everything, including more obscure titles and maybe some flash games, a little something for everyone... well... eventually, so, stick around, we've got tons to offer!