The text based adventure game is an antiquated genre largely forgotten in today’s world. I’m not a fan of the genre myself and it would take nothing less than an absolutely stellar and compelling game to pull me in. I have found that game.
Hold on to that feeling, big guy!
JUMP WITH ME FOR THE REST
This man has harnessed the incredible power of V Neck t-shirts to cover the Pokemon theme a capella. Pokemon is pretty awesome and v necks are comfortable. Winning combination. He definitely has some talent so watch this video.
Crytek released a new trailer for Crysis 2 and hot damn is it gorgeous. They are finally moving away from making games in the jungle and joining the masses that enjoy destroying New York. Despite the change they don’t fail to impress visually. The game looks absolutely stunning. There’s just one problem – the enemies.
If you’ve played Far Cry, Crysis, or the Warhead expansion for Crysis, you definitely know that Crytek can create a fantastic gameworld, lush environments, fun human enemies, and then shit the whole thing up by putting in some monster that no one enjoys fighting at all. In Far Cry it was the Trigen though I did learn to stop entirely hating on them after a while. More relevantly, in Crysis it was the aliens. As soon as they showed up in an otherwise very enjoyable game about reenacting Predator to a bunch of North Koreans, everything ceased being fun. As soon as they started showing up, my feelings toward the game turned as icy as the jungle environment they were ruining. No one has anything nice to say about them except for those that think they look neat. Firefights with them never felt intense but just tedious. Regardless everyone played on hoping the game would turn fun again like Far Cry did after the initial Trigen encounters but it was not to be. They were generally only near the end of the game, but here they look like they’ll be present throughout and the primary enemy.
Crytek is entirely capable of making a stellar game. With any luck they’ve taken in the criticisms they’ve received and will actually make these guys a blast to fight against. I’m being cautiously optimistic because if nothing else it’ll at least be pretty to look at. It’d be a shame for this to not turn out well.
Sony definitely had a pretty decent showing at E3 this year, showcasing some great upcoming games and features. However, one thing they really tried to highlight was their implementation of 3D technology into games being released as early as of the end of this year. It feels far too early to be pushing this tech though as 3D in the home entertainment center is not nearly popular enough as of yet to really justify a marketing push like this. While it is a neat concept, it’s too impractical as of right now for many as such a feature requires a television that supports 3D, which are currently very new and quite pricey. For the general public it’s just not feasible right now. To really get the audience at E3 excited for it, they did show a trailer for the upcoming Killzone 3 game.
On November 4th of this year Microsoft promises to make gaming on your 360 more clumsy and awkward than ever before. They will be launching Kinect (formerly known as Project Natal), a motion sensor controller that will let you interact with games via body movement and shouting orders at your television.
Microsoft has rented out the Bagger 288 in anticipation of all the upcoming shovelware en route to the 360 this November.
Judging from the launch titles alone, Microsoft would appear challenging Nintendo in the race to see who can push out more shovelware on their system. The lineup includes the following (list courtesy of Kotaku):
The list includes games where you can exercise, race, play sports, and raise cats. Now before you get too excited, let’s take a look at Kinect in glorious action by a commercial family.
GOOD JOB, MOM! THIRD PLACE!
This is the demo video that’s supposed to make Kinect look appealing to the general public. Every game in this painful to watch video looks absolutely awkward to play. The only redeeming part of it is watching the dad pull a Minority Report while watching a movie to skip to a point where a fat girl complains about being with her family, possibly because her family hasn’t experienced the joy of Kinect.
One of the upcoming Kinect titles is a Star Wars game where you’ll get to play as a Jedi who uses the force to randomly flail around and gently knock over Stormtroopers with a lightsaber.
Which in your living room will look like this.
And yes, I know everyone has already seen this video.
Early reports indicate this gimmicky device can be yours for approximately $150.
I suppose I can try to end this on a positive note. Despite not really showing much in the way of gameplay, Ubisoft’s Child of Eden looks like a total trip and gives off an uncontrollable urge to get under the influence of anything really. Seen by many as a spiritual successor to another trippy game, Rez, we can only hope that in the spirit of being more interactive with games it will also include a vibrator like Rez did. Girl gamers deserve a break once in a while.
In real life, children are precious and adorable. In video games however they are the most annoying things you can possibly deal with (Heavy Rain comes to mind). Most of the time we are forced to sit and endure them (Heavy Rain comes to mind). Sometimes we get to fight back. Here is a best of list that was so hard to narrow down we had to have 6 titles.
6. Black and White (PC)
Peter Molyneux and Lionhead Studios created one of the more sadistic god games out there with Black and White. While the game certainly felt like it was lacking in many areas, it really let you dish out a few verses of the Old Testament on the populace. See that fresh faced little youngster, full of life and ready to take on a new day? Well, your powers are running a bit low and sending that little scamp to the sacrificial altar is sure to put a bounce back into your step!
Perhaps you’ve just had a long, hard day of godding around and just can’t seem to get any obedience out of the some of the villagers. The solution is to take a page from the book of Exodus. Knock on the home of a particularly unruly family and they’ll all run outside, ready to greet the deity who has taken the time to visit them personally. Snatch up the first born male, throw him into the sunset hard enough that he’s just a speck in the horizon, take a breather and resume your godly duties.
It’s also worth mentioning that you can set up your dream battle between a 50 story tall magical bear and a little girl. Leash them together and just let nature happen. Goldilocks will think twice before eating anymore goddamn porridge.
Bear prepares for his upcoming bout. Goldilocks thinks the flame is too hot. Bear thinks it's just right.
Despite there being even more methods of dispatch, this game only hits spot 6 on our list due to the relatively low level of resistance these kids put up.
5. Deus Ex (PC, PS2)
Deus Ex is hailed by many to be one of the greatest games ever created. You take the role of JC Denton, a nanotechnology augmented counter terrorism agent with UNATCO out to kick ass, uncover conspiracies, and wear his sunglasses at night in a dystopian future. This game put a great deal of emphasis on dialogue and choice, and upon your first encounter with a kid it’s clear that the children of the future are little cretins with no manners.
Here one of the little brats is beyond flat out rude to a member or law enforcement. He both threatens to sick the terrorists on our hero and insults his wardrobe. In the video the player then makes the choice to teach the boy a lesson he won’t soon forget. Fun fact about doing this – if you kill terrorists in the first areas of the game, certain members of UNATCO will berate you for your brutality and withhold items. If you kill kids, it’s pretty much shrugged off.
To further cement the fact that no one in the future gives a damn about kids, take a look at that. You take out a Chinese Laser Sword, duel a prepubescent, and a fully armed bystander who actually employed and liked the kid just shrugs it off and only seems to find your actions somewhat rude.
For the apathetic reactions alone from adults in the world of Deus Ex, this game grabs the number 5 spot on the list.
4. Fallout 2 (PC)
The Fallout series has produced one of gaming’s favorite post apocalyptic worlds. It’s an absolutely engrossing and desolate landscape spotted with the occasional town that’s just barely scraping by. One of these towns is Klamath, filled to the brim with a bunch of pint sized kleptos who nab at your hard earned inventory to take to a shop to sell right back to you for an unfair price. This has infuriated pretty much every wasteland wanderer, and everyone’s impulse is to take out a sledge hammer, chase the little buggers down and smash them square in the groin. This isn’t any kind of hyperbole. Fallout had a fantastic (though now archaic) combat system where you could individually target parts of your enemies, and these little dudes weren’t any exception to this.
Unlike Deus Ex, people did actually take notice when you commit these acts and you actually get the title of “Childkiller” attatched to yourself. In a world with a dwindling population, lowering the chance of the world having any kind of future is seen as a very bad thing. Bounty hunters in power armor will actually start to hunt you down in random encounters and generally try to make your life a living hell.
This icon was originally supposed to be for Childkiller but was dropped from the final release. http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Childkiller
There is a loophole to let the kids rob you, exterminate them, and not get penalized for it at all. You load yourself up with nothing but armed and ready timed explosives and take a stroll through town. They’ll hop over, relieve you of your burdens and scurry off to admire their newly acquired prize. Count down a few second and presto.
The children in this game actually pose a viable though minor threat in some way to you, and lands Fallout 2 at number 4.
3. No More Heroes 2 (Wii)
Suda51 is no stranger to including absolutely ridiculous moments in whatever he does (as should be expected as he goes by the name Suda51). He adheres to his tradition of weirding out everyone who plays his games in No More Heroes 2 which features two of the more messed up bosses out there – Mimmy and Pizza Batt Jr.
She is literally too anime.
The only context really provided for this anime monstrosity is that Travis’s brother, Henry, falls asleep and dreams of this. Mimmy begs him to to stay in his imagination world forever, and Henry tries to convince her to come to the real world so she attempts to kill him. That’s pretty much all there is to it. It’s ridiculous, it’s stupid, it’s anime. God bless.
That is a horrible colour scheme.
After Travis Touchdown cuts his way through a multitude of assassins in his journey to be Number One, everything comes to a head where the big reveal hits and the final boss is a nasally voiced bald boy with a pizza tattooed on his head and Elton John glasses. He tricks Travis into believing that all his friends are dead by presenting their (fake) severed heads to him on silver platters, keeping with the stereotype that children are liars. The little runt is a rich one, charging around in daddy’s luxury hovercar to combat Travis, and later taking illegal drugs to try to combat him mano a mano.
Both of these are certainly memorable characters and Pizza Batt Jr actually provides a challenging boss fight. For this they are granted spot 3 on the countdown.
2. Bully (PS2, Wii, 360, PC)
Despite being one of Rockstar’s more tame titles, Bully has garnered a lot of flack from all over about the content of the game. There aren’t brutal fatalities in this game and much of the action is fairly tongue in cheek, but the title alone led many to believe it was just a game about bullying kids until they develop mental disorders. It was actually a well made game where you could be a good guy and help people out and the missions themselves were well written and fun to play.
Jimmy is kicking a butt. Jimmy is doing well.
Why does this game rank so high on the list? Easy. In this game you square off against a prep school of opponents as just another kid. You’re just Jimmy Hopkins – a ginger with an attitude. The game features a pretty in depth fighting system and you can pick a fight with literally anyone. Our red headed step child protagonist can either be a hero to the geeks of the school, a bully, or just an overall prick to everyone storming around punching random people and then making out with some lads. Welcome to number 2, Jimmy. You get a B.
1. Splatterhouse 2 (Sega Genesis)
In first place today is Splatterhouse 2, a game that isn’t exactly renowned for its gameplay. Like others in the series, the focus is generally grossouts, disgusting enemies and brutal ways of dispatching them. Gameplay is relatively simplistic with the player controlling Rick, an average guy who has put on the “Terror Mask” to become a Jason Voorhees knockoff so he can save his girlfriend from demons. It won’t win a Pulitzer, but the set up leads to a boss battle that never seems to get mentioned ever – the fetus fight.
Rick gets pro active with his stance on pro choice.
Rick enters a room and is greeted by a demonic fetus just hanging out from its umbilical cord down from the ceiling. It recedes into the ceiling and disappears as a pair of hedge clippers and a chainsaw float up from the ground and assail our hero. The fetus is telepathic. The only way to stop the weapons from flying at you is to punch them repeatedly. That’s right – the only way to stop a flying functioning chainsaw is to punch it directly in the spinning chain until it stops. Problem solved.
Not really. Now 4 demon fetuses drop down from the ceiling and they’re not happy that you broke their toys. Joke’s on them though – the chainsaw still works. They show their disapproval by dropping in and out like ninjas and spewing all over the place. The game then lives up to its name as Rick charges in and starts up a fetus filleting frenzy, sending green and red mess splattering all over the floor. Evidently chainsaws work just as well as coat hangers. Namco employed some sick sons of bitches back in the day. This whole fight is just wrong in retrospect.
In conclusion if you hate children as much as we do, then these games are for you! (Honorable mention goes to Flash game Dad ‘n Me – you just beat the shit out of kids left and right in this one!)
On June 9th the XBox Live Arcade is getting hit with a remake of one of the most wacked out platformers of the SNES/Genesis generation. A month later, the Playstation Network and Wii Ware will also gain access to it. This game is Earthworm Jim, a fantastic platformer originally by the good people at Shiny (who brought us such classics as the MDK series and Sacrifice) and now remade in high definition by Gameloft. Just looking at the trailer got me nostalgic, and when I found out they were adding new stages and a co op mode I got flat out excited.
Earthworm Jim is the story of a simple earthworm who had a robotic suit fall from space directly onto him one fateful day and turned him into a hero. His mission is quite simple – to save Princess What’s Her Name from her twin sister The Evil Queen Pulsating, Bloated, Festering, Sweaty, Pus-filled, Malformed, Slug-for-a-Butt, who quite possibly has both the longest and most ridiculous name for any nemesis in any game. Packing a ridiculously fast firing plasma blaster, Jim must venture forth to defeat a rogue gallery of villains ranging from a goldfish, a bungee jumping piece of snot, a scientist with a monkey for a head and more through a variety of worlds, each wildly different than the last which leads me to another reason I loved the original – its originality. Every stage is a journey through an irreverent cartoony world that has its own flavor and flair that make it stand out and be memorable. From what I’ve seen in the trailers, they’ve really managed to touch up the levels to make them look so much more smooth and crisp.
It’s also worth mentioning that Earthworm Jim comes from a time when games were ball bustingly hard and rather unapologetic about it. You need to make tricky jumps while swinging Jim’s worm body as a lasso, fend off enemies charging in from every angle, and navigate that god damned water craft in that one stupid part of a level over and over again (a low point in an otherwise fantastic game). You will die repeatedly and you will have a good time (unless you’re in the fucking water craft Jesus Christ how was that part supposed to be fun). When you make it through the stages you actually feel accomplished. It wasn’t the absolute hardest game of its generation, but provided quite a challenge that felt frustrating, yet doable so you always wanted to give it one more go unless you were in water.
Writing this made me remember one little thing about this game. In elementary school a bunch of my friends would lend games to each other, and we all took stabs at Earthworm Jim. I’m the only one who enjoyed the game because I was the only one with enough spare time to finally beat the watercraft level, and I’m glad I did. Eventually they did discover cheat codes and did actually get to have some fun. It really sucks to know that there are a lot of people who have played this awesome game who never got to experience the majority of it because of one poorly designed part of a level early on in the game. The rest of the stage was actually quite fun.
I’m really hoping this remake turns out well and am seriously keeping my fingers crossed. If you missed the original and this remake actually turns out solid, I highly recommend you give it a spin. It’s an old school game that I feel has enough charm and fun gameplay to stand the test of time.
Here, enjoy the trailer.
Now enjoy what appears to be a new enemy in the game as seen in the trailer.
A resident considers moving out of Home.
No doubt dozens of PS3 gamers are moderately excited over news that Sony’s social disappointment Home finally coming out of beta. Contrary to popular belief that Home is a waste of time, Veemee’s own Kirk Ewing has come to the game’s defense, stating “Most people think that Home is shit. I’m here to say that it’s not.” This comment has firmly put the gaming public in its place as they realize they were in fact wrong this whole time. Veemee is the developer that has created a large range of content on Home and is likely not happy with the reaction it has received from the gaming community.
Erwing would go on further to defend it by stating that, “One in three owners use Home. There are 1.7 million repeat users each using Home for around 53 minutes on average.” He of course neglected to mention if the 53 minutes averaged over a week, month, or lifetime. If PS3 users are averaging under an hour playing altogether before dropping the control, it’s pretty clearly an abject failure.
There’s no word if the official release will include actual activities for bored residents to participate in.
Everyone’s favorite PS3 cutscene marathon is now in the works to become a movie. Gamers who have endured the 12 hour FMV will be elated to know that soon they will be able to experience the world of Heavy Rain once again, condensed into a 2 hour film. Unique Features production company owned by Robert Shaye and Michael Lynne, is the company looking to pick up the rights to this. The two producers have a long list of movies between them including The Lord of the Rings trilogy, the Nightmare on Elm St series, and the Golden Compass. As this is a video game based movie though, this project is not expected to do remotely as well.
Sega has rather excitedly announced that it’s upcoming Sonic 4 title would be delayed. Sega claims this delay is to make sure that the game “is a game worthy of bearing the weight of its name,” which should be easy enough considering the direction the series has taken over the past few years. To do so, the development team has been taking to heart internal suggestions, as well as fan suggestions. Most of these suggestions are assumed to generally be fans begging for them to do a decent job for once.
Sega also mentioned that Sonic 4 would be released on the Apple iPhone and iPad, then concluded this announcement by saying “there are rumors that something very special relating to Sonic 4 is coming around a special date this June.” This is most likely happening on June 23rd to coincide with the anniversary of the first Sonic the Hedgehog game. Sega however was unable to confirm if the rumor that they started is even true.
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