| The Ultimate Anger Issue: Journal Of An Eccentric Fuckwit |
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| I Gotta Start Writing More |
[20 Nov 2009|08:26pm] |
I'll admit that I've been playing a load more Giana Sisters DS since hearing of the recent passing of the series co-founder Armin Gessert. Having just beaten the game again, the level design has had this weird effect of replacing the initial excitedness I previously felt with a sense of...relaxation. Giana DS isn't the toughest platformer out there (It's still tough enough for the kiddies to dislike it), and save for one level, it isn't monotonous, either. It's....How to say....just right. And once I have finished a gaming session, I don't feel nearly as stressed or as fearful that my gaming skills are atrophying before my eyes. Calmness is something I haven't experienced much of in recent months, but if even for a little while, playing an obscure German DS platformer makes me feel...alright.
Blockbuster Video's desperate attempt to bring people into the store yielded a card in the mail the other day. This card allows two dollars off videogame rentals, so I took advantage of it and rented New Super Mario Bros. Wii. It's the first time in years that I rented something from Blockbuster, but never have I rented a game where the disc was in excellent condition. That's gotta say something about the lack of people going to Blockbuster nowadays. 15 years ago a game like NSMBW would've been gone the first hour and not seen again for the next month!
Ah, Blockbuster...So many memories...I once ranked 8th at my store's Genesis competition...And I bought my copy of Earthbound there....
*cough* Oh! Where was I? Oh yes! New Mario Wii.
So yes, so far it's pretty good. I only beat the first world thus far and...well...it's difficult for me to explain if it's better than the DS game. It's sorta like the Lost Levels to the DS version's Super Mario 1. Similar style, but all-new levels. The similarities between SMB/SMB2j and NSMB/NSMBW pretty much end there, as there are also changes that were done on the way to the Wii. There are the obvious audiovisual upgrades...Going to hi-def is kinda odd to me, probably because this really is the first time any of us has seen a 2D Mario platformer with all of that extra screen-presence. As far as gameplay mechanics go, it's pretty much the same, with the exception of 1) two new powerups and 2) the use of Super Mario 3's power-up stocking system over the DS version's Super Mario World variant.
Another nice addition here is...well...more variety in what you can do as you play. Instead of fighting Bowser Jr all the time like in the DS game, the Koopa Kids are back, and heck, so is Kamek, which means even more madness when trying to beat the Bowser brats. Toad retainers also get kidnapped in hidden in stages now, and rescuing is the way you gain access to extra mushroom houses now. The star coins...which were originally used to gain access to the mushroom houses...can now be used as currency to access bonus video on how to skillfully complete levels or gain extra lives! It's pretty nifty. Apparently dying enough times also activates a Luigi 'Super Guide' mode, but I haven't been that bad enough to see yet.
I couldn't even say yet if there will be more things to do in the later levels, but already having this extra stuff to do while playing through the levels keeps thing fresh enough for me to wish to continue playing. I sort of remember the last time playing the DS game getting bored with the idea of having to play through it again. I actually blame the game forcing you to spend more time finding alternate routes rather than just beating the damn levels. I hate having to go to later levels just to find the one necessary power-up that will help me gain access to the alternate route and complete the world proper. I have enough trouble focusing on those blasted star medals!
Anyway...New Super Mario Bros. Wii still manages to feel refreshing, if that's at all possible. Part of me wonders if it is the (Not-really) hi-def upgrade. But I find that reasoning to be pretty shallow and unacceptable...
Still, it's the only reason I got right now until I can think of a better one.
While I play NSMBW, my sister is enjoying Assassin's Creed 2. I think I've already spent enough time talking about one game, so I'll save AC2 for another post. But I'll say this: It's Assassin's Creed, with 50% more better!
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| Empty-Headed Mind Dump |
[14 Nov 2009|02:31pm] |
- Sis's copy of Lost Odyssey returned after having sent it to a friend for six months. Man, everything is so much more legible on an HD screen...and the load times after install! It's like rocket-powered or something!
- Returning to The Beatles: Rock Band after a couple of not playing the game is almost like returning to an old friend...a friend that still kicks my ass on "I'm Looking Through You" in Expert mode.
- I finally tried Tomb Raider: Underworld, and it's tough! The environments blend in with the platforms too well, and it's difficult to know where I'm supposed to jump next! Don't feel bad for me, though: Sis was playing Alone In The Dark the past week! Eugh!
- I should get to finishing Rocketbirds: Revolution. I'm pretty close to the end. RIDE THE WHIRLWIND, ASSHOLE! RIDE IT!
- Since I won't be getting the...uh...new New Super Mario Bros right now, I started playing the DS version again instead, and oddly enough, I'm enjoying it. Last time I played the game, I really wasn't feeling it, so it's an odd experience to actually WANT to play something again after I've grown tired of it. Only a very select few games hold the power to do that to me.
- I beat Rabbids Go Home, only to open the option to perfect every level. What prize waits for perfection, I cannot be sure, BUT I'M NOT DOING IT!
- I bought a swapdisk mod kit for my PS2! I hope it allows me to play PAL games like the Dreamcast could (Some DC games could detect the TV you were using and switch modes accordingly. Shenmue 2 did this). I'd love to play ICO for the Watermelon ending! Ooh, and Polaroid Pete, too! Any other imports you folks could suggest? Mojib Ribbon? Any of the Pop'n games? Maybe a good place to download this stuff?
- Been hearing about Microsoft bringing the banhammer down on a lot of people. Doesn't effect me, though; I've feared modding online-heavy consoles since I noticed you could see what games OTHER people are playing. I feel, ironically enough, that if you're going to go online and blatantly show other people that you're playing modded games, you deserve t....
- ...Ooh, Lunchtime! Chicken Corn Chowder? Sounds yummy!
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| Armin Gessert, A Great Giana Brotha |
[11 Nov 2009|05:20pm] |
So it was brought to my attention by my sister that Armin Gessert passed away earlier this week.
None of you will know who he is...heck, of the three people responsible for the Euro-popular Great Giana sisters, only Manfred Trenz strikes me as familiar. But Armin was not only a part of that controversial group, he and his company, Spellbound Entertainment, also worked Giana Sisters DS, which now serves to be the final completed project Armin ever worked on.
Sadly, Giana Sisters DS remains stuck in Germany and Australia, so if you don't know anyone in either of those areas to help you import the game, R4 may be the only way to go. The classic original (The Commodore 64 version Gessert was responsible for programming) can be found just about anyplace you make an effort to look for it. So why not spend a few minutes and play one of the better Mario clones out there in his memory?
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| Dreamin' And Gamin' |
[10 Nov 2009|09:09pm] |
I had this weird dream the other night.
Yeah, so that's how most dreams are, right? Except when I relayed it to my sister, she insisted that it should be converted into a short sci-fi horror story.
Thing is, my writing skills have atrophied so badly over the past year I don't think I have what it takes to make the proposed short story, but I'm more than glad to offer bullet-points to the dream here, and someone else can write the story accordingly.
So here's what I remember...:
- It was set on-board a ship in deep space.
- A meteor or some other physical anomaly has damaged the ship's engines, effectively turning it into a floating vegetable. The engines are so damaged that there's no ETA to when it'll be fixed.
- One-by-one, members of the ship start disappearing. People begin to expect foul play.
- A surviving Engineer discovers that the physical damage also effected the computer in the ship's warp-transporter room, setting the transporter to warp people out of the ship at random intervals. The location of the warp is unknown, and could be anywhere in space (This is never answered for horror factor. These people could wind up on an abandoned planet or in mid-space without proper equipment).
- The race begins with the Captain, his CO, and the Engineer trying to reach the warp room before it's too late, but on the way, the Engineer is warped out.
-The Captain and CO reach the room, and notice the entryway is blocked with rubble. They begin moving things, but the workload suddenly gets harder. When the Captain looks to see where the CO is, he's missing, presumably warped out.
- The Captain tries to find more help on the ship only to discover that, by random luck or cruel fate, he is the last surviving member. Just as he realize this, he, too, is warped out.
- The ship floats silently in space, a lone distress beacon blipping seemingly for eternity.
...
...Yeah, this dream scared the shit out of me. But there're your important bits.
I also had this long-winded rant regarding Square Enix deciding to rename Eidos "Square Enix Europe", how the whole thing reeks of a once-great company becoming so bloated and shameless that they can't even go five minutes without hearing the sound of their own names on singing cash piles! Seriously, I didn't mind when they grew too big for Hironobu Sakaguchi's britches, or when the Squaresoft/Enix merger turned them into a soulless, multimillion-dollar game-droid, but when you've become convinced your name carries so much power that you're willing to destroy a previous company's history just to relabel it, you've become way too greedy, and are on the road to imploding on yourself like some kind of giant warehouse chain.
For once in my life, I actually hope it happens to them. It's Mistwalker from here on out, baby!
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| D'aaaah 2.0 |
[08 Nov 2009|06:00am] |
So, after three games with Rayman in the title, the Rabbids strike off on their own title in "Rabbids Go Home".
For starters, it's not a minigame collection, and on this front alone, it's an improvement.
What Rabbids Go Home is, however, has more to do with Katamari Damacy than WarioWare. This time, Ansel's crazy bunny-creatures are aiming to reach the moon, and to do that, they're going around trying to collect as much random crap to make a junk-pile high enough to leave orbit. A cute premise to be sure, but what this means is that you'll be spending each level moving a pair of Rabbids around with a shopping cart as they attempt to collect everything they see.
Which isn't a bad thing, but what can be annoying...for the perfectionists, anyway...is that it's also one of those games that checks off whether or not you've collected everything in a particular stage, and if you miss anything, there's no indication, once returning to the level, what exactly it is you've missed.
This has been my only major complaint with Rabbids Go Home so far. I don't mind that each stage has the same premise (Collect as much shit as possible) or that the hub level is severely lacking in any practical use (You can collect junk in the hubs, but this serves little purpose since you can collect even more in the main levels themselves). Heck, I'll even admit that losing the minigames makes the Rabbids seem...well...not as random. Oh yeah, they're still funny as all get-out, and watching their antics as they pick up a new item or get a crazy idea regarding sanitation beds or jet-engines show just how delightfully dim-witted they remain to be. But in an attempt to create a coherent game, the Rabbids are also forced to be a little more consistent from the norm, and so watching them jet around with the same shopping cart the entire game seems....I dunno...boring by comparison? Say what you will about Rayman Raving Rabbids, when it was fresh, it was randomly hilarious. They could've also shown more originality with the transitional video sequence of the Rabbids running down the sewers on an old mattress, since you're forced to watch this clip and numerous variants of it every. Single. Time.
But at least the game controls well, and getting a working tally on how much stuff you've collected does offer a sense of satisfaction, especially when you've collected enough to reach the next stage or bonus area.
I also forgot to mention the Rabbid Channel, which you can opt to install separately from the game itself. In the game, you'll eventually get the option to paint, stamp, and mangle your Rabbid character into different designs and styles. You can then upload these styles to the Rabbid channel and, in turn, download other Rabbid styles and use them in your game. It's a lot like the Mii Channel, except for Rabbids, and is perhaps the first Wii channel that you can get from a game to have online connectivity. Bravaa, Ubisoft Montpelier. Let's see if it remains practical a year from now.
But yeah, so far Rabbids Go Home has managed to hold my interest, especially when nothing much else has succeeded to as of late. Only time will tell if this remains to case.
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| That Blobby Feeling |
[03 Nov 2009|07:35pm] |
A Boy And His Blob continues to hold my interest, with stage 2-2 beginning with a direct homage to the NES game's opening house and city-skyline. No vitamin shops though. Ah well.
I played the demo to Rocketbirds: Revolution earlier today, and loved what I saw: A poultry-fied cross between Flashback: The Quest For Identity and Blackthorne, complete with those ever-so-popular 'animated cutscenes' that were so popular back then. Seriously, any game that touts '10 minutes of animation' as a bullet-point feature takes me way the hell back to the days of Working Designs Sega CD games. Man, I miss knowing how much game is actually game and not video. Okay, so I love digital cell animation, too. Very clean, very pixelly!
But where was I? Oh yeah, Rocketbirds. The demo offers a nice taste at what the full game is about, and the full game itself can be unlocked for 10$. It's pretty slick for a flash-based game, and all the scene-loading and game-saving is done server-side...possibly to detract torrent-hoarders.
Seriously, I felt kinda guilty having to download Ballance for the third time a couple of weeks ago. I love the game, but had never officially owned it. Seriously, you can find new copies for as cheap as 60 cents now, so there's NO reason not to get this game, what I still consider the best 3D marble videogame ever made! I finally got myself a for-reals copy, and the game works wonderfully in Vista, so I'll be damned if Windows 7 fucks it up at all. Just keep the video sync option off if you don't want any of that screen skippiness.
When I'm not playing videogames lately, however, I'm home getting over a nasty bug, one that floored me all of Monday. I was a wreck, had hallucinations, nausea, headaches, diarrhea, the whole works. It was an adventure, and one that, as of this writing, has since been reduced to a minor cause of stomach discomfort. Just gotta keep chugging the kaopectate 'till I'm fine, but I fear my sister's come down with it too. =\
Also, not that I'm involved with either, my buddies have signed up for this year's NaNoMangO and NaNoWriMo challenges. Go take a look at their works and cheer 'em on!
Fheh! I just completed two levels in Half-Minute Hero and forgot to save my progress! Great going, Freako!
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| While On Topic... |
[31 Oct 2009|09:37am] |
So I got to play the first couple of levels of "A Boy And His Blob" this morning, and found myself liking it quite a bit.
For starters, this isn't the NES game you know and ______. It isn't made up of a single huge cavernous area and a chintzy alien world. No. This is more of a typical level-puzzler: Use the items at your disposal (Jellybeans, natch) to get to the end of the level. On the way are hidden 3 treasure chests in each level. Find them to open the challenge level, and beat the challenge level to open up concept art and other neat little bonuses. Repeat this process about forty times.
Reading the Metacritic reviews for the game, I have to comment on some of the reasoning behind the scores, particularly of IGN's 7.6. Not a bad score, but they gave Muramasa: The Demon Blade an 8.9 and failed to mention how that, too, didn't use the gimmicky functions the Wiimote is known for. I'm not kidding; IGN docked AB&HB points because it didn't use the Wiimote the way they wanted! They also complained about how the controls were difficult to make sense of, and in this case I sort of understand. Thing is, AB&HB's controls are...how you say...'complex in its simplicity'. Learning the buttons are simple enough, but they're not what you would call 'intuitive'. Using the classic controller, I found the analog stick to do the moving and the D-pad to be a combination of camera movement (Left/Right) and Blob actions (Up/Down), made a little more perplexing by adding ANOTHER blob action...the 'call' command...to the X button. The hug command...assigned to up on the D-pad...is cute, but doesn't seem to have any practical function. The manual mentions that the left D-pad controls 'transformation direction', but I can't figure out what that means. Holding the L button gives you the choice of selecting a jellybean, while R or A throws it. Once you have chosen to throw a jellybean, you can't cancel it, but thankfully Jellybeans are now unlimited. You're also shown what the Jellybeans do to the Blob, so that concept of experimentation from the NES version is gone. I suppose that's why Gamervision found this Wii update "a little too simple". Yeah, You know what the Jellybeans do now, so let's add difficulty to the button mapping! There was even a time when I found myself stuck at the treehouse map screen, because I couldn't move the characters. Turns out, you need to push the analog stick directly up or down to move, and if you move the stick in any other direction, you won't be able to move the characters until you've centered the stick again. This may sound really nitpicky, but it can trip you up into thinking the Analog stick is broken when you experience this the first time.
*Exhale*
ALL THAT SAID...Learning the controls feels like only a matter of time, and once that happens, everything I've just said in the rant above will be moot. Like I said, the controls seems simple enough, but their placement on the controller is questionable. I will offer two more valid arguments, though:
- Each level (Excluding challenge levels) have three treasure chests to find. This adds a nice little sub-goal to otherwise-straightforward levels. Problem is, if it's a particularly long level, you'll probably be too busy avoiding bad guys to remember if you've picked up one treasure chest or two, and you won't be given any indicator to what you've collected until you're back and the treehouse map. It would've been easy to offer a treasure chest collection indicator on the pause screen, but this is a minor gripe at best, and I have bad short-term memory.
- Loading times. Normally I don't bring this issue up, because, as one magazine mentioned many years ago, as long as there is disc-based media, there will be loading times. Oh, there are games that have gotten better at hiding this stuff, but titles like AB&HB prove it's not a permanently-quashed issue, as there are loading screens in-between levels. Do any of you remember how surprisingly load-free Suikoden for the PSOne was? Yeah, you'd think a 2D RPG would be a fantastic example of how well a game like this would be able to handle itself. *sigh* Oh well.
Anyway. I think I'm gonna watch my sister polish off Brutal Legend before getting back to the world of AB&HB.
So. How many times have I abbreviated the name, anyway? I lost count and I can't be bothered to proofread my crap.
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| New Icon, Yes? |
[30 Oct 2009|10:46pm] |
Sis surprised me with a copy of "A Boy And His Blob" today, and I absolutely adored the Blob image on the back of the (Incredibly short) manual.
So, icon.
May you observe on a rare occurrence, people; I've never had an icon with "Squee" in the image before, and I don't plan on making it a common hobby.
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| Force-Fed The Future |
[25 Oct 2009|10:34am] |
There are still certain things I don't get about what is registered to an Xbox 360, and what is simply assigned to a harddrive.
For example, this new firmware update preview that's making the rounds.
Now, I didn't sign up for it (Twitter updating? Don't I already have two ways to do that on my computer?), but my sister did, and got the update. She's liking it so far, particularly the Last.fm radio thing. But things got a little complicated when, after making the update with her 360, she moved her HDD to MY 360 to play some Brutal Legend.
Later, when I switched my HDD back in, I got a message saying that the update my sister received isn't available (...duh!), and because of this, I'm not allowed to connect to Xbox Live (...duh!?).
I called Microsoft, and the guy on the phone probably couldn't understand my American-English accent, as the fix he sent me only works if you haven't moved to the NXE update yet. Blah!
So, it seems if I want to continue playing online, I'll need to move my HDD to my sister's 360. Fine.
I install the HDD, and the system prompts me for an update. Okaywhat?
I update the firmware...I think...and on a whim, bring my HDD back to my 360. And now I can go back online again! Huh!
No, I don't have all the new firmware upgrades. THat's the weird thing. Somehow my 360 detects that I have the latest firmware upgrade, but I don't have Twitter or Last.fm or that other stuff. I wonder if this'll affect me when the update makes its full release.
But it still complexes me how DRM works between consoles. I think the common practice with Xbox material is that if your HDD is attached to the system you DID NOT download the material from, then you must be online to continue accessing that item. If the system you have the DRM on gets fried for any reason and Microsoft can't repair it, or you just happen to get a new 360, there IS a means of switching DRM material to the new Xbox, but it can only be done once, like, every 8 months or something. Least, that's what Larry Hryb says.
Maybe it's clearer in my head than I lead on, but it takes me some time to sort out the how and why. All I know now is that my Xbox is detecting that I DO have the latest update, even if I don't have access to said update when I'm on a 360 unit other than my sister's.
Whatever, I'm back online.
So I started over Shadow Complex (And I should point out that I always think of "Shadow Of The Colossus" or "Shadow Madness" when I try to remember the name), and was quite surprised to see the Proving Ground medals weren't saved to the profile. I say surprised, because this isn't something an Epic Games-branded title is known for; Almost everything in Gears Of War titles are saved to your profile, meaning that any cog chains you find in the game are permanently acquired (Unless you start a new profile, which I'm sometimes keen on doing). But Shadow Complex...nope. Achievements obviously notwithstanding, you start everything from scratch...and I like it this way. I love clean-slate gaming. It gives me the opportunity to use my memory to find and do everything I did when I beat the game the first time. If Castlevania: Symphony Of The Night permanently kept the map mode uncovered in future play-throughs, I don't think I would've ever bothered to memorize all 200.6% of the damn place! You just know that if Beyond Good & Evil were a 360 game, you wouldn't have a second opportunity to locate and collect those hidden pearls.
Tonight I'll be going to Video Games Live for the second time. I can't say I'm nearly as excited as I was the first time. Maybe because I was just reminded about it after my sister bought the tickets, like, three months ago. Or maybe I just don't want to be in the same building as Tommy Tallarico.
Yeah, I'm missing the grand scheme of things here...Being in a theater with my game-going peers. Last time I went, I was embarrassed about not having a game-related ANYTHING to wear. This time...hm...Well, at least I have a Scribblenauts button. =\ Seriously, The Nintendo World Store isn't even that far away, and they don't sell shirt sizes above 'Anorexic'.
I finally beat my first game in awhile. Admittedly, it was "Crash Bandicoot". I continue to feel my gaming skills deflated, as I eventually found myself spamming the savestate key in pSX to get through the tougher levels. Oh yes, I remember cursing up a storm when I first played the game twelve-some years ago. I also remember getting good enough that this was no longer an issue. Maybe it's just me, but I really don't remember Crash being so uncontrollably floaty in his jumps. I'm still on the fence about doing the other two Crash games. I recall always losing interest in Crash 2, but Crash 3 was everything about the series done right.
Ah, Naughty Dog...I find them to be such an odd studio. Usually when an unknown developer gets money thrown at them (See THQ or Acclaim), they have even less of an idea what to do with it. Naughty Dog, for all accounts, should have vaporized after "Way Of The Warrior", but then Sony came around and...Holy hot shit, did they take off! Naughty Dog went from another humdrum typical 90s 'American' developer, to one of my favorite teams currently making games today. I'd like to think Amy Hennig is being the voice of reason there, otherwise they'd reach a Denis Dyack level of arrogance in their product (Uncharted 2 got endless praise, while Too Human...didn't). Really, Naught Dog's the team I'd get a PS3 for.
Well, and anything Fumito Ueda puts out. Just keep that self-righteousness in check and we'll be the best of friends, Ueda-baby!
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| Spring Cleaning? Autumn Dusting! |
[21 Oct 2009|08:52pm] |
So I followed a bit of Dia's advice and did some cleaning...
Well...cleaning of game data, anyway.
So many incomplete games...I've decided to just take a recycle bin to a bunch of titles, including Batman: Arkham Asylum, Brutal Legend, and Muramasa: Demon Blade. Right now the only games whose saves I've retained are Shadow Complex, LostWinds (The sequel dropped this past Monday, so now I'm going through both titles), and Crash Bandicoot on emulator. Not even Half-Minute Hero survived the trip...
...But knowing the immense amount of time I've put into Dissidia, I'm more reluctant in deleting that...
Speaking of Dissidia and Half-Minute Hero, I've decided to save for a new PSP. This is also a thinly-veiled attempt to see if I can refrain from buying shit the moment the money enters my wallet. But also...I really hate screen scratches. Despise 'em. And when you have a portable system with a screen as openly exposed to the elements as the PSP, it's difficult to bring out out in the open and not get it banged up. Back during the system launch, PSPs came in a slick-looking sleeve, but that's no-longer the case. What I need...is a HOME PSP. One I can keep away from the weather and pocket lint. Sounds a bit excessive, yes, but I really want to enjoy my games without scratches or dirt-specks that are on the inside of the screen. The DS (And previous to that, the GBA SP) had a wonderful idea in its clamshell design, but the DS's touch screen sort of defeats the purpose of having scratchless screens.
And in case you're wondering why I spend so much time complaining about screen scratches, you should see how OCD I get with my HDTV! "OMG DEAD PIXEL IT'S RUINED!!"
Speaking of dead pixels...hmm...nah, too easy. That Cave Story port, as a whole, just isn't a funny topic anymore.
ANYway...I think that's it from me for now. Oh! Those OddWorld games should drop on PSN tomorrow. If you haven't tried them before...well...They still LOOK good, anyway. Be weary of the difficulty, folks!
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| What's On-Plate |
[08 Oct 2009|02:50am] |
Alright, so I'm still officially on hiatus, but I did want to offer the list of games I've been going through as of late.
Jump! (XBox Live Indie Games, 240 MSPoints) - Nice arcade-style idea. Later levels give a practical use to the cash you collecting, as getting enough money will allow you access to the bombs you need to defuse. My only problem is the lack of saving in the main-adventure mode, but once you complete the game, the challenge levels open, and those CAN be saved.
RunMan: Race Around The World (Windows, Free) - One of the folks who worked on the game also made the amazing "An Untitled Story" (1st game in the 3rd row). RunMan is everything Sonic should've been for the last 10 years, minus the loops. Get ready to go fast!
ASCIIpOrtal (Windows, Free) - Yep, it's like that 2D portal game floating around, except in ASCII! Ooooh! Admittedly, making maps purely from text files is rather ingenious.
Star Guard (Flash, Free) - So what if Berzerk was a sidescrolling platformer developed by the Vid Kidz? It'd probably look like this. Great controls, nice level design, simple yet difficult...My only complaints are the infinite lives and the lack of anything special for collecting all the diamonds or killing every monster.
You, Me, And The Cubes (WiiWare, 1000 Wii Points) - Remember that old game, Topple, where you added pieces on a precariously balanced board in hopes that it doesn't...uhm...topple over? Well, imagine if that concept were tossed in a blender with obscure PSOne game Intelligent Cube. It's as fun as it sounds, and just as difficult. The worst thing this game could do was name the creatures you toss onto the playing field "Fallos", made worse by the fact that you have to shake your WiiMote to 'create' them.
Muramasa: The Demon Blade (Wii, $49.99) - Okay, yeah, it's a commercial game, but I'm tossing this up there. Another 2D game from Vanillaware, features the same excessively-awesome 2D work they're known for, but sorta scales back the RPG-ness found in Princess Crown and Odin Sphere. The game also features a kunoichi princess, so you know where this one's going.
In other, totally different news, I'm gonna go see a one-screening-only RiffTrax movie with my sister. It's gonna be fun...It's Plan 9, dudes!
More to come soon.
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| GBA Gorf Complete! |
[22 Sep 2009|01:31am] |
The first release-candidate version of Jess Ragan's GBA GORF can be grabbed Here. I'm not certain how well the game will work on flash cart (Some report no trouble, while one case reported bricking!), but it runs flawlessly on Visualboy Advance 1.8.0 Beta 3. And the BIOS ROM is also supported now, so knock yerselves out!
I may write a more in-depth review of this sucker later on. It really needs more support than it's getting.
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| Are You An Indie Or An Outie? |
[21 Sep 2009|01:30pm] |
There have been a few independent games that I've been playing over the past couple of days. Allow me to offer my opinions:
Icycle (Flash, Free) - I like this one. It's a platformer where you're a controlling a naked man on a bike (...), yet what makes it stand out is the environments; there's this very small air of "Out Of This World" to the game, where your ability to cross chasms may be affected by what occurs around you, i.e. A building may collapse an tumble over you, but if you know where to position yourself, you can use the momentum of the falling building to your advantage. This puts the game squarely in the 'trial-and-error' bracket, but I love those kinds of puzzles.
Pixel Man (Xbox Live Indie Games, 80 MSpoints) - This...is a minimalist gamer's minimalist game. A platformer where you have to guide the little pixel man to the yellow goal through 30 levels. The crazy thing? It's only 300k!
Bailout (Xbox Live Indie Games, 80 MSpoints) - Talk about a caricature of economic times! This "Kaboom"-style arcade game has you collecting money and putting it in a safe before the falling stockbrokers can hit you. At points, 'homeless people' will try to approach you from the side. Kick them out of existence and keep collecting that cash! When time expires, you can use the money you saved to increase time, expand your wallet, and so on. Not too deep, not too shallow. Perfect for killing a few minutes.
Fishing Girl - (Xbox Live Indie Games, 80 MSpoints) - Yeah, a lot of Xbox indie games lately, huh? If the experience of Fishing Girl wasn't so short, it would be up there with Miner Dig Deep as a prime choice off the service. You fish to gain money, which you then use to by better equipment and lures to catch bigger and more valuable fish. The goal is to reunite with the boy trapped on the opposite side of the water, which you do by buying longer fishing rods until you can reach far enough to hook the island. The game has no qualms with how quickly you'll complete it, as you have 10 minutes to rescue the boy before its game over. You can choose to shut off the clock, but there really is no point. There are also achievement-like 'badges' you can earn, but other than that, you can clean this game off in a few minutes.
Time Fcuk (Flash, Free) - Edmund McMillen...Creator of one of my more recent indie faves, Aether...recently dropped this interesting-looking puzzle/platformer. The idea is to switch between time and dimension to reach the goal at the end. Not at all a bad game, but I kinda wish he'd get around to Aether 2.
Uhm...That's about it. Keep cool, everyone.
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| The Ever-Growing List Of Games I Wish To Return To |
[17 Sep 2009|05:28pm] |
Blah. The Beatles: Rock Band has taken up all the time between sis and myself! And with a new microphone arriving in the mail, we can both rest assured that the game will not be getting a break for the next couple of days!
But because of the unyielding attraction to the music of John, Paul, George, and Ringo, there are other games that I've put on the backlog, and it's going to take awhile to get to each.
In the order I wish to complete them...:
Shadow Complex - I must put about 40 minutes into this game each night, after Matrarch has gone to sleep and the both of us are Beatled-out for the day. I'm really taking my time with this, mainly because I, as of late, have only really wanted to experience shorter, more mindless titles, like Tetris, Spelunky, and...conveniently enough...GBA GORF (Latest Beta is out now! PLAY IT TODAY!!).
Prototype - Honestly, It's still a toss-up whether I want to go through Batman: Arkham Asylum first, or Prototype. Prototype's been on the queue longer, and I did love Hulk: Ultimate Destruction, so there isn't much of a reason to continue avoiding it...except for the above reasons I mentioned with shadow Complex.
Batman: Arkham Asylum - I did enjoy what little I played of this, but I think when I return to this one, I'll just start a new game. I didn't get too far into it anyway, so maybe it would be for the best.
Tomb Raider: Underworld - Surprise! Matrarch found a copy of this one for...like...7 bucks, and having enjoyed Crystal Dynamics' take on the series up to this point, I'm still willing to give the game a shot. It's doesn't appear to be the worst entry in the series critically, but the development team's outspokenness and the recent firing of certain members have given this game an increasingly tarnished reputation.
There are also Portable games that I've also been playing on a regular basis, switching off between the DS (Scribblenauts) and PSP (Dissida: Final Fantasy), so to say the very least, my plate is full.
In completely different news, I have learned that Geocities...one of the earliest-known free servers, is closing October 29th. It appears Yahoo's getting a little greedier, and if you don't pay them 5$ before the shutdown date, you'll lose your account and everything that was one it. Pff...As if 15 megs of space is worth anything in this era of 140-gig harddrives!
My very first website was on a Geocities account. It started out as a generic website/blog, and was eventually converted to a fan-translation site before unofficially abandoned in 2002.
As I proceeded to back up my materials, I was looking at things I hadn't seen in nearly 10 years, including write-ups and drawings that look like utter shit compared to what I write now. The upside is, they're considerably less emo. Huh.
Well, who knows? I may just use some of those older images elsewhere. I'm reminded of a Before/After meme I saw some time ago that I've wanted to try out...
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| RegGORF! |
[15 Sep 2009|09:49pm] |
My good retro-buddy, Jess "Mneko" Ragan, has just released the first complete beta of his Gameboy Advance port of the arcade classic GORF! He's been working hard on this one the entire summer, so please give it a try!
For those who don't know what GORF is, it an arcade shooter released in 1982, which blatantly combined levels and sprites from Space Invaders, Galaxian, and...to a certain degree...Tempest. It also tosses in some unique features like a 'boss' level and digital voice samples to make one of...if not THE...best shameless copyright-infringing clone that arcade rooms ever had. Of course, this means the aliens and levels borrowed from these other games make modern-day ports damn near impossible.
So leave it to Jess to port this lost gem to the Gameboy Advance with relative accuracy. But it's not just a near-direct port of the arcade, oh no...There is also a Crazy Box-style "Mission Matrix" mode, which challenge players to meet certain requirements in order to unlock photos of cabinet art and memoribilia, as well as other options and modes that I will not spoil here.
You can get the ROM file here Visualboy Advance runs the game perfectly, but if you're using a BIOS, make sure it's turned off.
And let a little GORF into your life...Space Cadet!
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| Scribblenauts: Pondering Preview |
[15 Sep 2009|02:30am] |
Okay, I believe I've played enough Scribblenauts to offer a first-impressions of what I've played. I've only managed to beat both the puzzle and actions stages for World 1, so I'm still technically scratching the surface.
The first chance you get to interact with Scribblenauts comes in the form of a 'toybox' mode on the Title screen. One has to wonder if Scribblenauts started with this simple structure: A place where you can conjure up whatever may be in the game's internal library without fear of getting killed. Not that the game's protagonist, Maxwell, can actually 'die' in the real game, per se, he sort of flips and drops to the ground.
But as mindless as the toybox mode is, it's not entirely useless. Certain words you come up with will unlock certain backdrops that you can play in. And while this is fun, it's also permanent: Yes, another game where the option to do a complete save-data format is impossible! Grr!...This is why I use my R4! At least you can delete the puzzle-game data, which is good, since that's where the meat of the game is.
So there are two types of stages you can play in each world, summing up the overall total of Scribblenauts stages to somewhere past 200. Very impressive for a game with a memory size equal to launch-period DS titles.
It is my experience that action stages tend to be tougher than the puzzle. Where the puzzle stages usually require you to help someone out or meet a certain requirement, Action stages focus more on putting obstacles in your way and telling you to do something about it. There was one level where, in order to open a door, you had to push a switch. This is made difficult because the switch is mounted on the wall, and so must be pressed from the side. Now, you would think it would be as simple as creating a person and have him hold the button, but it doesn't work that way, since the guy will just walk in place like an idiot, and you can't command him to do anything. There probably is an easier way, but I had to manipulate a boulder to stop the right way in order to keep the button pressed. To add longevity to these levels, once you have completed it the first time you are given the option to 'master' a level to earn a gold star rank. The challenge: Find three different ways to complete the level, and you're not allowed to reuse the same items for each solution. And each level has a par, so you can't just create items all willy-nilly.
So far, there have been two noticeable problems I have experiences in my playing. One is the controlling of Maxwell himself. I never liked the idea of controlling characters with the stylus. I didn't like it in Mario 64 DS, I didn't like it Zelda: Phantom Hourglass, and I don't like it here. Sure, Maxwell seems real easy at first, but there was one stage where I had to be careful with trip-wires lest the Starite fall out of reach, and when you create an object, it appears in the center of the screen. If the object is small, there's a good chance that the game won't recognize you choosing the item and make Maxwell walk instead, tripping the wire and dropping the Starite. Moving certain objects with Maxwell is also clunky, as he sort of jumps back and forth in one place before you can convince him to move the damn thing.
The other problem is the camera. Oftentimes there are points where I need the camera to be viewing a certain part of a level, so I can create the item and put it in its place, but when I do that, the camera snaps back to where Maxwell is standing and I have move the camera back into place again. This happens way too much. And I'm left-handed, so that means I have to put down the stylus pen to whenever I need the D-pad to move the camera. I've lost levels where I'm trying to pick up an item, only for the camera to move me out of range and accidentally move Maxwell into a precarious situation! Argh! Maybe a zooming function would be nice, too. What's the point of having a Cthulhu/T-Rex battle when there's no room on the screen for the both of them?
At least the actual 'typing' function of the game is done well, and that's a good thing, since it makes up the meat of Scribblenauts. 5th Cell realized the DS's letter recognition system is broken, and added a keyboard interface to make things easier. Thank you, guys!
Now, I suppose I still need to figure out what everything does, but I'm really questioning why you can create people when they're not going to be smart enough to help you. If I put a truck next to you, then perhaps I'm telling you to drive the fucking truck! And you don't ask questions when a truck magically appears next to you. You get the hell in and hit the gas pedal!
But this is all based on about an hour's worth of play. I honestly didn't think the concept had the flexibility for 30 puzzles, let alone 200. So we shall see. Even Henry Hatsworth had an interesting concept. If only it had been easier...
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