Best Half-Life 2 mod? Absolutely!
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gallery about rss archive| Friday | September 18th | 2009 |
Best Half-Life 2 mod? Absolutely!
| Thursday | September 10th | 2009 |
I’ll be honest here, I don’t really care what Apple’s up to with their big press conferences and the like. I’ve been swept up in the “OH MY GOD WHAT’S NEXT” hype before, but ultimately it boils down to shiny reflective slide-shows, white anti-aliased text, and a very hypnotically assuring voice.
However, today you may have heard that Apple has officially entered the portable gaming war with some pretty amazing statements regarding the iPod Touch in comparison to the DS and PSP. Let’s take a look at some bullet points.
iPod Superiority - What Other Devices Lack
Seriously, that’s one of their slides.
Now, I’m not a marketing genius, but I can smell something in the air… WAIT HERE IT COMES—
PSP Superiority - What iPod Touch Lacks
See, that wasn’t so hard. OH HERE COMES ANOTHER—
DSi Superiority - What iPod Touch Lacks
As you can tell, it’s pretty easy to come up with a short list of proprietary and trademarked features that may be arbitrary inclusions but are oh so important.
I’m not even going to touch their number wars as far as number of “games” goes: 21,178 games? Really? Really? HAVE YOU PLAYED THEM ALL MISTER APPLE NUMBERMONGER?
Okay I’m done. Good night!
| Wednesday | September 9th | 2009 |
Friday September 4th, 5:00pm
I’m sitting in the corner of a relatively low-traffic area of the Seattle Convention Center, taking advantage of the gracious free Wi-Fi. A couple of scouts from Team Fortress 2 walk by, chatting. Across the room, a wall of windows gives way to the Seattle skyline. In front of it, a plush green-clad Prince from Katamari Damacy bobs around energetically in a circle with other enthusiastic attendees. It’s the 2009 Penny Arcade Expo.
A floor below me, a hundred people are sprawled out on beanbags with laptops, PSPs, DSes. Where I’m sitting is probably the only free space to let my legs take a breather.
Four hours earlier, legendary game designer Ron Gilbert—creator of games such as Maniac Mansion and the first two Monkey Islands—spoke to the packed main theater. He shared memories of days where he had a piecemeal computer yet no games. He solved this conundrum by watching arcade games, taking meticulous notes, and created versions of them himself at home. He spoke in praise of the indie games movement with its increasingly public presence, relating them to the early days of creative game design where seven people could sit in a room and make a game without need of market research or investor consultation.
Several hours before that, I wandered through the packed show floor and began to make my way through the future releases on display. A stop at the Sony booth began with a brief glimpse of the bizarrely cute EyePet being demonstrated on a table flooded with back-light so as to function in the darkened hall. The little critter scampered around on screen in its doppelganger world being captured by the PSEye observing the table.
Toward the back of the booth was a single TV that caught my eye: a hands-on demo of Heavy Rain, Quantic Dreams’ anticipated PS3 adventure game. I watched the attendee ahead of me as he confronted the situation that the demo presented him: While searching a convenience store for clues to a serial murderer, the player—controlling a classic gumshoe detective—must deal with what happens when the store is held up at gunpoint. While the clerk and thug argued at the front of the store, the detective made his way to the front of the store. Along the way, precariously-shelved goods threatened to fall off their shelves. Carefully, with analog control, he replaced said items to remain stealthy. Too fast, the presenter noted, and he might attract the same attention dropping them would cause. Successfully sneaking up behind the thug, the detective was able to knock him out after a brief struggle.
My playthrough wasn’t as stealthy. Choosing to confront him head-on, I approached the thug from a distance. Upon being noticed, he trained the gun on me and shouted to put my hands up. I did, holding both shoulder buttons. As I slowly advanced toward the thug, nervously blurry options began popping above the detective’s head, thoughts swirling about how to deal with the situation. Through carefully chosen topics, I eventually convinced the thug that he was better than this, to put the gun away and go home. Another successful outcome.
Other games at Sony’s area included an intense encounter in Uncharted 2, one that I was precariously thrown into after another attendee put the controller down after reaching a particularly difficult shootout. It took me a while to get the hang of it; enemy soldiers positioned both down the street to my front and in the alley to my right. There were probably at least five or six deaths while I plotted the perfect take-down. Enemies fell, a tank burst into the street, and I found myself in an almost impossible standoff. That’s when the game stepped in to pat me on the back for surviving, triggering a cinema where new girl Chloe appears heroically on car-top, figuratively punching the tank in the face with a rocket. Great acting and animation abound as the two plot their next move through the city. And scene.
At this point, someone I knew spotted me and we began to chat. Look for more post-PAX impressions soon!
| Tuesday | July 14th | 2009 |
It’s ancient history in Net Years (circa 2007), but The DM of the Rings is a fantastically funny read. Using screen captions from all three LOTR movies, author Shamus Young imagines Tolkien’s plot as if it were being played as a D&D campaign.
Noble causes? None. Clever plots? Nope. Remembering basic information? You wish. Aragorn, Gimli and Legolas go off in search of booty, babes and notoriety, wreaking havoc on NPCs all across Middle Earth, leaving their hapless DM to grind his teeth and consider “lightning rolls.”
| Sunday | July 5th | 2009 |
Adventure games were once a staple of the PC gaming scene. For me, actually, it was the solid basis of all things PC game. Whether it was getting absolutely boggled by the puzzles in Myst, or getting freaked out by the ambiance in 7th Guest or The 11th Hour, or laughing my ass off to the Secret of Monkey Island, or being blown away by what simple imagery and brilliant storytelling could do with The Longest Journey. It’s a shame that the art form of the adventure game has fallen by the wayside in recent years.
Thankfully, there are some independent developers out there such as Amanita Design that are putting their all into crafting new inventive point and click experiences. Machinarium is one such game that looks absolutely breathtaking. Set in a grungy futuristic robot world, it apparently is the story of a little guy thrown in the trash heap, adventuring back into the big city to find his robo-girlfriend. Along the way, he can squish or stretch his mid-section to various heights to aid him in solving all kinds of puzzles to proceed on his way.
So far the game is looking great, and in motion absolutely backs up its painted look; one fear I had since seeing the screenshots. Also of note, especially in the preview video, is the music. With all luck, the game will be releasing this October, and I’ll be sure to play it through and report back on how it holds up!
| Friday | July 3rd | 2009 |
About four and a half years ago, one guy (Daisuke Amaya) nicknamed Pixel put together an entirely self-made retro action-adventure game called Cave Story. Through the great efforts at Aeon Genesis, an English translation patch was made with the blessings of its original creator. About a month ago, I finally realized its existence.
One thing particularly striking about the game is how it melds its personality through the combination of its various elements: gameplay, story, visuals and sound; all created by the same person. In the same way that Everyday Shooter was a personal reflection on Jonathan Mak, its creator, Cave Story is certainly a reflection of Pixel. Though the characters are small and cute, its music up-beat and catchy, there’s a smart story being played out between the various creatures that populate the game’s scenario. It’s not just a series of progressively more difficult levels with bosses at the end, but rather an evolution of Metroid’s game design fused with a memorable cast you might find in an RPG.
When considering independent games, it’s easy to get caught up in the notion that it’s all amateur acts until someone gets noticed and consequently published. Certainly a lot of the crowd populating Xbox Indie Games (formerly Community Games) doesn’t help kill this notion; most of the popular titles I see rising to the top consist of programmer graphics and sound in need of a better ear. Yet, this is the image of indie games that is becoming popularized due to the ubiquity of console gaming. However, there are gems like Cave Story that suddenly appear and become classics among gamers in the know.
If Cave Story had been released either on the NES or SNES in their eras, I believe that we’d be seeing a huge following today with a multi-faceted franchise backing it up. It’s one of those games that you could have sworn you’ve played years ago. The music is instantly recognizable and hummable the moment you come back to the game after a few days away. It’s everything that makes me appreciate games, and for some miraculous reason it’s also legitimately free. If only there were more people of such high standards of creativity and generosity. Absolutely support Pixel and give his game a shot!
| Friday | June 26th | 2009 |
| Saturday | June 20th | 2009 |
It can be a tempting thing, on YouTube, to fall into the trap of oh… it’s just a bunch of shitty Vlogs and regurgitated content from various other media sources.
Thankfully, user garudoh has been proving us all wrong for the past year with his enormous collection of game music retrospectives. At the link above are three playlists containing a total of 500 games worth of music and gameplay samplings. While yes, it is a bit of reguritation, it is a very apt collection that obviously took a lot of effort to compile. He also knows what he’s dealing with, including some very rare gems that either never made it to the US or were so obscure that they didn’t get much attention.
While 500 videos at 8-10 minutes a piece is a daunting task, give it a browse… Maybe you’ll find some tunes from that old game you used to play but forgot existed.
| Sunday | June 14th | 2009 |
A common ramble of mine is to go off on some tangent about how big-budget games are drifting more and more away from what made them great, and how game composers in the west are more and more being drafted from TV composers, film composers, and existing recording artists.
Well, please allow me to retract that statement just a little bit and make a sole exception.
Ever since I started watching Battlestar Galactica, I looked at the credits and thought “hee, the composer’s name is Bear”. But then as the seasons went on, I realized just how awesome the music was. There are certain key episodes where the soundtrack just wowed me beyond anything I’d heard for a TV show before.
That said, when it was announced that Bear McCreary was writing the music for an upcoming game I’m looking forward to called Dark Void, I was torn. In the same way I was for my other favorite TV composer Greg Edmonson being called on to write Uncharted. However, seeing Bear’s announcement blog post about it all totally shed any of that away. The guy knows games, and their history.
Not only is he not totally alien to the concept of games, he’s a huge Megaman nut, even naming and labeleing all his hard drives as characters from the series! And then, to seal the deal, he goes and creates an 8bit Megaman-style version of the Dark Void main theme. You’ve sold me, Mr. Bear. Write for as many games as you please!
Also of note are three samples from the actual game… one of which features an Ondes Martenot! Doubly sold.
| Thursday | June 4th | 2009 |
Alan Wake
Game looks pretty spectacular when it comes to pure mood of it all. The gameplay demonstration showed off some very interesting combat that, on first glimpse, looked pretty remeniscent of Silent Hill. However, Wake himself looked much more agile and apparently wields a power over the ghostly creatures with his flashlight.
Project Natal
For me, my first impressions and final thoughts coinsided more than when I tried to think into it. Upon its reveal, I started laughing intensely at the lifestyle trailer associated with it, noting that no actual games were shown and the “ideas” given would honestly not lead into actually fun games. Tech specs were given: how it sees and recognizes your body movements, apparently has facial and vocal recognition, how it does “live motion capture” with your body… But, honestly, I came back down and realized it was all mostly pie in the sky thinking. The truth of the matter is that Microsoft showed off their version of the EyeToy and souped it up with impressive sounding tech that could most likely be done software-side using Sony’s PSEye. I wasn’t too far off…
Milo
The grand showcase of Project Natal is something that both intrigued me and absolutely frightened me at the same time. The demo was obviously highly scripted, and the amount of sheer AI trickery needed to pull off an actually believable human child is I think beyond Molyneux’s team unless they spent the next 10 years working on it or got access to SkyNet. Now, if they took that kind of tech and applied it to perhaps NPCs in the next Fable game, I would be impressed. Actually interacting with real-esque characters would add a new layer to single-play RPGs that I would absolutely call revolutionary. Waving your hands in a virtual pond next to a scripted AI kid? Not as much.
Halo Stuff
As I am not very invested in the Halo universe, I honestly couldn’t care less about Halo ODST and Halo Reach. They’re also both hilarious names. However, I do have a brief point: How long are Halo fans going to be sated with the world development that doesn’t involve either Master Chief or traditional Red VS Blue multiplayer?
Left 4 Dead 2
Quite possibly the quickest turnaround for a Valve franchise ever concieved. And, seeing gameplay videos of it thus far I’m not very sold. It basically looks like what should be a level pack for the original game, other than the new survivors introduced. Second contention point: The original game’s survivors were iconic. To throw them all out and start another cast of four is, I think, a terrible idea. To introduce new survivors is as if to say hey, the stories of these people is finished. I don’t think it is. As with any valve game, their efforts to personify simply people you run around shooting with are unmatched. Now, looking at the new troupe, I have no idea who they are and why I should care about them. A bit overthought, perhaps, for a simple survival shooter… But, it’s what came to mind for me. Perhaps I’ll eventually warm up to the new crew. At least there’s a guy named Nick. If our ‘herder Nick doesn’t play as him every game, I will be very confused.
New Super Mario Bros Wii
New SMB for the DS was an interesting game in how it was refreshing yet tediously old at the same time. Classic characters, enemies and tile sets were given a not-quite-ideal 3D rendering and set against nearly infinite lives and a very forgiving difficulty. However, the concept of taking something like that and turning it into 4player co-op is an idea I’m surprised didn’t come sooner. Having played it in person, I can verify that it is indeed a very fun game. However, it still seems a bit “off” to me in the same way the DS game did. Regardless, it is definitely fun.
Super Mario Galaxy 2
Some people seem pretty down on this one for whatever reason. Yeah, it’s another game using the Galaxy engine… But why is this a bad thing? I loved Mario Galaxy and would love to have more levels and worlds to zoom around in. The inclusion of Yoshi totally sold me, as honestly he’s never gotten a good rap in 3D yet… Mario Sunshine was the only one, and he was just a tool to get around town faster rather than being involved in gameplay.
Metroid: Other M
Absolutely one of the most unexpected announcements of the show was that Team Ninja of Ninja Gaiden fame would be inheriting the Metroid franchise. While no direct gameplay footage was shown, the snippets cut throughout the trailer indicated something inherantly Metroid that hadn’t been present in Retro’s first person Prime series. While it looks to be taking the story out of the control of players more than previous titles, it is a welcome reboot for a franchise that perhaps strayed a bit much from its essential gameplay roots.
Uncharted 2: Among Thieves
The first thing, rightly so, that Sony showed off at their conference was the gorgeous Uncharted 2 and a gameplay chunk that was obviously designed to be both bombastic, entertaining, shootery and platformy to create a memorable demo presentation. The game looks to be every inch of an improvement from the already-impressive original title.
ModNation Racers
Following LittleBigPlanet’s originating ethos of “Play. Create. Share.”, this new game definitely impressed me with its application of the ability to create and customize everything, but within the kart racing genre rather than platforming. Being an adamant fan of Mario Kart’s wacky racing fun, this one has the potential to be just as entertaining as LBP’s shenanigans.
PSP Go
While the price could, in my opinion, be lower, the Go looks like a very welcome modification to the basic PSP design. According to people that have had hands-on time with it, the buttons and analog feel very comfortable and even more precise than its predecessor. While I won’t have my UMD-bound games available, the ability to stow all games on the device really delivers upon what I am still interested in from the DSi — albeit on a larger scale; 16 gigs versus 256MB.
MGS: Peace Walker
While I was a big fan of the console MGS titles, the Portable Ops games never really struck a chord with me. However, Peace walker looks to be a more console-style experience with its events taking place directly after MGS3. Additionally, after seeing four Snake clones acting wacky in the tail-end of the trailer, I’m calling it now: four-player co-op.
Motion Controller
While Sony’s glowing orb based motion tech didn’t have the “omg liek wow” power of Microsoft’s Natal lifestyle trailer, the actual demonstration did impress me greatly. While obviously not appropriate for every game type, the incredible accuracy gained from the PS Eye tracking the glowing orbs seems to be a serious step up from Microsoft’s amorphous solution that depends a lot on conditions remaining constant. Writing with whiteboard-esque accuracy and being able to adjust certain elements of a skeleton dummy with the tip of a sword really went a long way to assuring the precise nature motion controls need to be successful in my eyes.
The Last Guardian
While Team Ico’s Project Trico has been a known quantity now since their internal video leaked onto the internet a few weeks ago, their newly polished and extended trailer seriously blew my mind with how gorgeous and potentially thrilling the experience will be… I can barely wait for even more to be shown.
Final Fantasy XIII English Trailer
The first bit that excited me greatly about FF13’s presence at E3 is the announcement that the US will be getting it sooner rather than later: Spring, even. Equal news was seeing the brand new english-voiced trailer, assuring us of several things: The voices, while not FF12-calibur in their casting, are being handled very well. Taken out of context of their models, the voices are all very well acted in the snippets of scenes shown. However, some lip-synching work still definitely needs to be polished up. Kingdom Hearts still epitomizes how well an english sync can be done, so hopefully the localization team can spend some extra care on what looks otherwise to be a spot-on transition.
Final Fantasy XIV Online
As my previous Final Fantasy MMO compatriots can attest to, I was very much sucked into the online incarnation of this popular franchise for several years. The announcement of its spiritual sequel (well not really so much spiritual as it is taking the original world’s races and adapting them for a new setting) excited me to no end. If the development team puts in even half of the lessons it’s learned from the 7 years of FFXI’s life (has it really been that long?), then every MMO or Final Fantasy fan has a lot to look forward to. Additionally, Nobuo Uematsu making the return to soundtrack duty marks his first full Final Fantasy game in 9 years! If anything, look forward to it for this!
Castlevania: The Lords of Shadow
The announcement that absolutely blew my mind, perhaps moreso than Team Ninja doing Metroid, was this one: Former-Jericho developers teaming up with Hideo Kojima to create the best looking attempt at a 3D Castlevania to date. It looks equal parts God of War and Castlevania IV, with lots of whip flailing, platforming and general wonder to the scale it presents. Add in voice work by Patrick Stewart, Jason Isaacs, and a myriad other talented actors and you have my interest VERY piqued. Isaacs as Dracula perhaps? Given his role in the Harry Potter films, it wouldn’t be much of a stretch!
Scribblenauts
5th Cell has my honest respect out of any game developer out there: They know how to create fun, new ideas and put them into game form. Their next idea looks to be the best so far. Combining platform puzzling with the ability to create nearly any physically possible object in the world makes up a seemingly impossible blend of potential that surprisingly works. Do you use a bulldozer to save a beached whale get back to sea? Or do you tie balloons to him and push him in with a fan? While many games tote the buzzphrase “limitless possibilities”, this is one game where I think that absolutely applies.
| Thursday | May 28th | 2009 |
This is amazing! Words are failing…I want to play this so badly. Two player mega man!!
Mega Man 2.5D - Trailer (via wartwartx)
| Wednesday | April 29th | 2009 |
The fourth game from PixelJunk just recently got a trailer reveal. If you’re not familiar with them, the PixelJunk series are an awesome line of artsy independant games from a team in Japan headed up by Dylan Cuthbert (who contributed to the original Star Fox, among other games). 1-4 is their latest adventure, a cavern-dwelling shooter/puzzler with water and lava dynamics as you try to save your fellow explorers, avoid missiles, and over-exposure to extreme heat.
The game is currently title-less, but they are holding a naming contest for the very thing! If you think you’ve got a good idea, why not give it a shot?
| Thursday | April 16th | 2009 |
Trine is a sidescrolling puzzle-platformer for PS3 and PC. Created in Finland, it definitely seems to bring with it an otherworldly quality to its fantasy that vibes well with me. Perhaps it’s the music.
The game can be played in one of two ways: Solo, it’s much like the classic Lost Vikings where one player can swap out the three characters (warrior, ranger, mage) at will to solve the puzzles necessary to progress. In multiplayer, two to three players can choose their class and work cooperatively to traverse the terrain.
This is one I’m most definitely looking forward to.
| Tuesday | April 7th | 2009 |
As a whole, I usually don’t promote MMOs due to their dependent nature on audience and the like… However, this is a rare exception for two sole reasons:
Dark days are coming indeed. I for one can’t wait to hop back into the parallel worlds of Stark and Arcadia. Check out the (somewhat skimpy on details) interview with Mr. Tornquist here!
| Monday | March 30th | 2009 |
Mega64 does a lot of things amusing, but their best always comes out around GDC time…
(And in case you’re missing the references, the special guest stars in this short are Hideo Kojima of Metal Gear Solid fame and Cliffy B of former-id-ness and Gears of Waritude)
Also, watch last year’s Mario-themed vid which is basically the preqel to this one.
Leif writes words, music, code and bug reports; somehow he's still sane.
Nickherder is a science and engineering kind of guy, but we forgive him for it.
SaRRa is using her fancy university degree to blog.
Legal Drug makes the coffee, eats the food and drinks the booze.
Layout & design by Leif Chappelle.
Logo by Sam Lewontin.
Unless otherwise expressly stated, all text in this blog and any related pages, including the blog's archives, is licensed by the authors of Cloudherder under a Creative Commons Attribution License.
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