When you spin a piece, it doesn't move... everything else does. If you get motion sickness from FPSes, you should probably stay away. I got to level 1, died, then decided I was too dizzy to try again.
Not cause it's that great Cause of the inventiveness And fun graphics too
Super Mario Bros. + Tetris = Tuper Tario Tros. Play as Mario for as long as you can/want, then switch into Tetris mode to drop blocks. You get points for creating long rows, and they can help you climb over huge gaps/unscalable walls.
I only played through it once, and couldn't beat the end 'boss', but I anticipate procrastinating a lot with this one.
Jump, jump and rotate New Will and Beyond feature? Yay for game mashups
I know. I've been away for a long time. Finals at NYU have been absolutely destroying me, but now that they are almost over, I have enough time to make a post here. Don't worry though, I haven't left this blog and I'm still keeping up with my blog at Table Salt Games.When I haven't been working on my game for game production class, or making a Little Big Planet level/film, ir writing essays and blog entries, I've been playing games on Kongregate like crazy. Will introduced me to Kongregate, mostly by demanding that I give links to Kongregate when I link to flash games in my Flashy Friday segment.
In the past 3 months I played the Wii for a collective 3 hours or so. However, the thought never occured to me to sell it. Not until Kevin sold his. He outlined his reasons on Table Salt Games. I agree with him to some degree, but it was more of the issue that I just never played it. My Xbox 360 pretty much dominated my video gaming time.
On Craigslist I put up: Wii, 4 Wiimotes, 3 Nunchucks, Manhunt 2, Rampage: Total Destruction, Red Steel, Resident Evil 4, Splinter Cell: Double Agent, Trauma Center: New Blood, Wii Play, and Wii Sports for $550. Retail on that came to about $520. I didn't expect to get it, but Dianna talked me into posting it that high at first. After 24 hours I lowered it to $500, then after 72 hours I lowered it to $475. At some point I realized I didn't actually have Trauma Center anymore, so I lowered it to $450. This was as low as I was going to go.
I got one real offer while it was at $475, but the guy never got back to me. At $450 a guy offered to buy it, and we agreed to meet at my house at 1:30pm; I would take a break from research, do the trade, then come back to campus. The asshole didn't end up showing 'til about 3:15.
I found this video on Kotaku the other day showing all of the fatalities in the new Mortal Kombat vs. DC game.i expected to see some brutal killings, full with blood and guts and stuff that would make me go "oh snap." The video, shown below, is extremely disappointing, as almost all of the fatalities are uninspired and not nearly as gruesome as they could have been. I hate that Midway cut so much blood and gore just to get the somewhat family friendly "teen" rating from the ESRB.
Move over Gamespot. Move over IGN. A new gaming site called Crispy Gamer is out that is more informative, more hilarious, has better writers and most importantly, is committed to being unbiased.
My friend Matt introduced me to this site a couple weeks back and at first I thought nothing of it. Sure, it's another gaming site, what's so special about this one? For one, the writers are really good. They don't act like 13-year-olds like Kotaku but they aren't as uptight or serious as Gamespot. When they write reviews or features, it feels though a peer is writing it, both informatively and casually.
This site probably will not be short-lived either. They have $8.25 million in funding from advertising groups NOT related to gaming. The New York Times highlighted this site for its unique advertising plan.
"They’re using their community’s coveted demographics (males ages 18-49 with average household incomes of $60,000-plus) to attract non-game advertisers, like movies and fast food. By refusing publisher ads and fostering a stable of opinionated writers, their reasoning goes, they’ll build up gamer trust — and eyeballs."
In fact, I started reading reviews far less when it hit me that all of review sites I have gone to have gaming ads all about them. An article on Gigaom said it best: "From this point forward, gamers will doubt the word of any reviewer on a site heavy with publisher ads, and reviewers will begin self-censoring, fearful of being too forthright and potentially suffering Gerstmann’s fate."
Crispy Gamer heard these pleas for decent journalism and is dedicated to making a site that can at least make a strong case for being unbiased. So if you want unbiased gaming news despite my site at Table Salt Games, then I suggest you go there.
New site: Crispy Gamer
Unbiased journalism
This gamer reads it.
New video game consoles have a trend of coming out about every five years. For Nintendo, the NES came out in 1985, the SNES in 1991, the N64 in 1996, the Gamecube in 2001, and the Wii in 2006. For Sony, the Playstation came out in 1995, the PS2 in 2000, and the PS3 in 2006. For Microsoft, the Xbox released in 2001 and the Xbox 360 released in 2005.
Judging by that pattern shouldn't we see a new gaming system coming out around 2010 or 2011? Well... yeah!
I spotted the Nintendo article first randomly and my initial thought was... why? The system is selling so well right now and there is seemingly no point in releasing a new system. However, judging by the timeline, 2011 sounds about right. Three years from now, people will probably own all of the systems they want from this generation. Heck, I know I'm not buying another system (sorry Xbox).
So don't be surprised if you hear information about a new gaming console at next year's E3 or even the Tokyo Game Show that's coming up in the next couple days. And if you're still on the fence about buying a new gaming console after hearing about all the great games that are coming out soon, then you should probably wait a couple years. An investment in a video game system next year will be outdated within two years after your purchase, assuming history repeats itself.
New gaming consoles
Coming to you very soon
Five years is too short
Think of the most popular and addicting MMORPG. You thought of World of Warcraft, didn't you? Now think of the most popular and addicting casual game. You might have thought of Bejeweled. Now combine the two. Yes, bejeweled is now in World of Warcraft.
Really, this isn't a joke. Two games that are completely unrelated have teamed up in World of Warcraft world to create an addictive universe. The gamers version of crack is finally here. Players can now play Bejeweled in World of Warcraft as a mini-game at any time. The game pops up on the side of the screen while your player stays on screen.
This sounds all fine and dandy but the reason why Bejeweled is in World of Wacraft is kind of funny. There is a ton of downtime in World of Warcraft and bejeweled is meant to be played during that downtime. Doesn't that admit that World of Warcraft has a flaw in its design? Blizzard (the creators of WoW) has made a game that needs a mini-game to fill up the gaps that are boring.
Is this a fault of World of Warcraft? Partly. MMORPGs rely on the participation of many users, so if the users are slow, the game may be slow as a result. Waiting for people to get online is hardly a fault of the developer. However, waiting is a fault of the genre and it should be the responsibility of game designers to try and counteract this flaw.
Installing an already popular mini-game is a horrible copout to fix the waiting issue. Not only did Blizzard fail to make their own minigame, they are actively trying to cover up the most glaring problems with MMORPG with something completely unrelated to their game.
Adding Bejeweled to World of Warcraft sounds like you're getting added content but, it really isn't. World of Warcraft runs in a windowed format, so you can play other flash minigames while playing (or waiting) in World of Warcraft. Bejeweled and World of Warcraft may have been combined for some players for some time now, since Bejeweled is easily accessible. Bejeweled is right here if you want it right now.
I gave up on World of Warcraft a long time ago. I also gave up on bejeweled after 3 minutes, since it was so repetitive. I prefer gameplay that doesn't involve standing around for hours, or gameplay that grows tiresome after a couple of minutes.
Such repetition
World of Warcraft and Bejeweled
Such repetition
There have been rumors on Kotaku lately about the prospect of two very big companies getting into the gaming industry: Apple and Google. Both certainly have the capital but, they both lack the connections with developers and neither of them have known in-house game developers.
The juicier story but far more unlikely rumor is that Apple is creating a gaming console. I say unlikely because the gaming market is very saturated right now. Everybody is making money in the industry but consumers, for the most part, are happy with the consoles they currently have. A recent GameFaqs poll said that 73% of gamers do not plan on buying a new console at the end of this year. Not that Gamefaqs is representative of all gamers, but 73% is very high.
The Apple console rumor came via Kotaku, but apparently this Apple rumor has been around for awhile. A similar story was published also in Kotaku in 2006. Two years and no real development from Apple? I think that definitely smashes the rumor.
The rumor about Google getting into the gaming industry is a bit more believable. This rumor spawned out of a Forbes article that looked at the assets of Google in relation to gaming. Google apparently has a gaming-esque program called "Google Lively" that lets people that avatars and interact with other, similar to Second Life. Though not popular, is definitely is a game.
Google's main problem however is that they don't have the big in-house game developers to become a third-party publisher or developer. The only available big-time developers that Google could buy would be Take-two and Valve and both have shown that they do not want to be bought out. Take-two rejected EA's offer and Valve denied any connection with Google.
The rumor stays alive though, because Google has other assets that they could use for gaming. The Forbes article suggests that Google could make an awesome flight simulator using the satellite images from Google Maps as the terrain. Imagine having a virtual dogfight over New York City? Sick. It's a great idea too; the flight simulator genre is untapped for the most part. The only recently successful flight simulator I can think of is Warhawk for the PS3, which came out over a year ago.
So don't be surprised if Google gets in on video games. Be surprised in Apple makes a console though.
Google and Apple
Rumors in video games
Google might do it.
I found something peculiar on Kotaku today, something that made me very happy. Independent gamers and programmers are "demaking" games. Instead of upgrading graphics in older games on new consoles, some people are taking new games and demaking them to play on consoles such as the Atari 2600 and the NES. They aren't making the cartridges; they are just writing the code and releasing it to work on emulators for free.
The first game I found actually would work extremely well on an older console: Portal. For those who don't know what Portal is (shame on you), it's a 3D puzzle game where you can shoot portals that you can walk though. It's crazy fun and you can really mess around with the game's physics.
The demake though, is for the Atari 2600 and is strictly in 2D. Awesome name too: Super 3D Portals 6. From the screenshots, it looks vaugely similar to Flash version of Portal that I talked about before at TableSaltGames. Right now I'm using a computer on the NYU campus so I can't download the Atari 2600 game and emulator and try it out just yet. But I definitely will once I get home.
This story pleases me for two reasons. One, the game is completely free and made by an independent developer. This tells me that a fan made this game for fun and not for profit, which is nice to have every now and then. Selling this game might be a little cheap, since demakes take other developers gameplay mechanics. Still, the code is all from the independent developer; so there was a lot of work put into this project.
Secondly, it great to see that gamers and developers are appreciating old-school style games. Despite being made 23 years ago, Super Mario Bros. is still an enjoyable game. You don't need stunning graphics and deep engines to make video games fun. Some developers even admit that some of their games work better in older consoles, as evident by Capcom making Mega Man 9 in a NES style.
Super 3D Portals 6 isn't the only demake out there. There's actually a whole list of them here under postings. If the thread says "FINISHED" then it's available to download. Demakes I plan to try are Let's Roll Up [Katamari Damacy demake], and Large Scale Vehicular Stealing [Grand Theft Auto demake].
If you have some time, I highly suggest you download some of these games. They probably won't be the best games ever, but you'll probably feel confused when you realize you're feeling nostalgia off a game that was recently released.
Next-gen to old-school
independent games, awesome.
Is this nostaligia?
