First Impressions: Moon (DS)

No, this isn't a DS take on the 2009 film of the same name, which actually came out in the same year.  Moon is an science-fiction FPS game developed by Renegade Kid and published by Mastiff in the US and Gamebridge in Europe.

So yes, Moon.  Just Moon, nothing to do with Harvest Moon or anything to do with the Blue Moon people, but the Blue Moon Agave Nectar Ale is quite delicious.

But back to Moon.

I started this game back in March and I've since put in just over 9 hours, I only have three stages left and I'm just now putting down my "First Impressions."  I've been playing on "Normal" out of three total difficulty levels; the others being, surprise-surprise, Easy and Hard.  The game controls very well and I have absolutely no issues playing it on the 3DS.  Actually, seeing as how the game originally came out on the DS and I'm playing it on the 3DS, which has the joystick/pad-thing, I find that moving/strafing/looking is very smooth.  The only thing, as far as controls go, is that because my hands are somewhat large, I have to rest my left hand (which is the one holding the system) against my knee or a table when firing (with the L button) so my hand doesn't cramp up, but I'll put that one all on me and my man hands.

As far as the storyline, the year is 2058 and in that future we're able to send astronauts to the moon armed with a super assault rifle, which is the name of your main weapon.  I feel that's about as cheesy as the game gets.  Depending on how serious you need a science fiction FPS that takes place on a newly discovered subterranean "alien" base on the moon inhabited by aggressive/defensive robots.  The majority of the game is spent going through hallways and rooms shooting at and being shot at by a defensive security system "manned" by different types of robots.

I should also point out that your main weapon, the Super Assault Rifle has unlimited ammunition.  Regardless of the difficulty setting, you can hold down the fire button for the entire game, never letting up and never run out of ammo.  I wanted to get that out of the way because I know some people might be turned off by that.  I happen to be one of those people, but in this case, I don't mind at all.  Yes, I am a hypocrite.  The point is, yes, your gun will never run out of ammunition, but doesn't mean you're going to be hitting everything you fire at.  The recoil on the SAR is about as bad as the fire spread on a Klobb.  I still use the SAR out of the other five guns that I have as I tend to horde all my special gun ammunition for the boss fights.

One other thing that, at least I feel, sets Moon apart from other FPS is that you are in control of a Remote Access Droid.  When controlling RAD, you command a small roving droid about the size of a shoe box and "armed" with a shock cannon of sorts.  The cannon doesn't damage any of the enemies, but it does stun them.  What's the point then?  Using the RAD, you're able to access areas that you in your bulky astronaut's outfit cannot, so you can then open force fields for your human counterpart can then pass through.  I've actually gotten quite attached to the RAD and I often think of it as it's own "person" and not a machine that you're controlling.  One nice thing, is that any damage the RAD takes is immediatly "healed" upon picking it back up.

The "one," criticism cited on Wikipedia, is that the game lacks a multiplayer.  That's a reason not to buy/play/give it a whirl?  Could there be multiplayer here?  Sure.  I guess.  This reaction, of course, is coming from someone who doesn't really look for multiplayer-ness when I buy games.  It's not something that I need in a game, but if it's there and there are others who want to play, sure I'll give it a go, but it's not even close to being a deal breaker.

I don't know what else to say.  Moon is a really fun game which happens to be from a company that I really like.  Some of the bosses are a bloody pain in the ass though (again, I'm playing on Normal difficulty and I would like to think that I don't totally suck since I made it "that" far).  The point is, is that if you have a DS/3DS and enjoy FPS', pick up Moon and an added bonus for you the consumer, is that it's pretty decent price wherever you look, some places will obviously be less than others.

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian

I Go To Extremes

Another-Another Humble Bundle of Awesomness

Yo, how's it going?  I'm just stopping in really quick to mention that my sister Mz is in town, and so I'm going to be a bit distracted and won't likely have any posts ready any time soon.  She rode her bike sixty miles yesterday, which is pretty badass.

I also want to mention that the Humble Bundle 8 has some games that I like and have reviewed here.  So, you should go there and give them some money for games.  You should probably have already done this, and signed up for their mailing list, and thus - already know about the Humble Bundle 8.  But I didn't really have a post ready, and so I thought I could talk about that.  Humble Bundle 8 includes games: Dear Esther, Thomas Was Alone and Proteus.  All excellent games.

In addition, there are other games, which I don't know anything about.  They might be good, they might be excellent.  Gee, maybe I should buy the Humble Bundle 8.  I guess I could buy it for a penny or something.  Normally, I make it a point to always exceed the average and get the full bundle.  The average is usually like 8 bucks.  No big deal.  You can afford it.

Alright Dear Reader, if you go and get this bundle today, you will have made this purchase with just under 14 days remaining.  Unless you are from the future, which you more than likely are.  Days, Weeks... Years?  If you're from about six months in the future I'd like it if you could answer a series of questions for me. 

First:  Did the Giants make it to the playoffs?  Second:  Did they win?  Third:  Do you still enjoy your Humble Bundle Purchase?  Fourth:  Do you think it was worth the money you paid for it?  Fifth:  Is 'The Wolverine' any good?  I really hope it is, but this will be the fifth time Hugh Jackman has played Wolverine, and I can't help but wonder how long this can go on.  

Alright, I'm out of questions for those of you from the near-future.  I'll have to come up with some new questions for long-future readers.  And some way to read the responses without having to wait around until the day you finally post them.  Until then, remember back in May, 2013?  Gee, seems like just yesterday,

-D

The Xbox One Reveal & Demo Time

The video game blogosphere was all a-buzz last week with Microsoft's announcement of the Xbox One and all that it can and is designed to do.  When I first saw the pictures of the system and controller, I liked it.  I thought it was a classy looking approach to a video game console that didn't shout out, "I play video games!"  I thought it looked a lot like a DVD player or cable box.  And I'll be honest, in that brief moment, I actually considered the purchase of the One.  That was before I watched the video on Kotaku (via Darkbeatdk) telling me all I needed to know about Xbox One.

Then, I remembered that I really/probably/most likely don't want one, what with all the "everything needs to be on" thing, and the Xbox Live pay accounts.  One last (amusing) thing about the Xbox One reveal, was the mention of the "newly redesigned D-pad." Wait, what?  Directional pads like that have been around since the mid 80s, and I personally, haven't liked the tinkering that was done for almost every non-Nintendo D-pad (Dreamcast aside).

That's all I'm going to say about this since I'm very much out of my league when it comes to most/all things related to the Xbox; I can honestly say that I've played/used an Xbox less than ten times.  Ever.

A couple of months ago, I did an article about the Castlevania: Lords of Shadow - Mirror of Fate demo with the header of "Demo Time."  I would really like to turn this into a "thing."  While some games may not warrant an entire article, there will be times when I combine a couple of games that have similar themes or feel like two games are one-in-the-same, just with a different pair of underwear on the outside.

There will be some games that are obvious as to why I would play them, while others I won't fit within a single target area of a game's demographic.  The point is, there have been some games that I've been surprised by and others that I thought I might like and turned out to be a boring slice of dried cheese.  I will state thought that I may or may not play every available demo.

I currently do not have any plans to release Demo Time posts on any day in particular, but they will appear here and there.  Possibly when I don't have anything else on my plate or if there is a particularly engaging demo that I feel the need to share.


Lastly, I don't feel that it's any surprise that my goto for what a video game blog/article should be is Penny Arcade.  For a long time, I thought the phrase at the end of Jerry/Tycho's posts were little cryptic sayings that had to do with the article, even when they were labeled "instrumental;" in my head there'd be a dramatic movie music cue ready to go.  That all changed (last year?) when Jerry started actually hyperlinking the end phrase to a song, which is what the phrases were related to.  

Yes, I'm copying on some level, although I did something very similar with in-office emails when I worked for the State (of California).  I would have little taglines, something like "The marmots are really just framing the ferns until someone notices."  Nonsensical things with the intention of making people scratch their heads.  It's not as funny when you don't work with "professionals."  Although, back during the Myspace era, whenever I wrote a note/blog post, I would use a mozilla extension (FoxyTunes I think it was) to paste information on whatever song I was last listening to when I finished the posting.  For a while here I've been doing something very similar, although I would usually alter the song title or some of the lyrics to better "fit" at the end of a posting.  I will continue this practice and now, I too will hyperlink.

I've used too many words and should probably stop tippa-tapping now.

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian
He, The Aethyr

Ultima Exodus: Graphics and Exploration

So, given I'm not really playing any other games at the moment, (though I did take some time out to play Among the Sleep - it's awesome!)  I'm just going to continue talking about Ultima for a while.  This series gets a lot of love on the Internet- mostly for the PC versions, though the NES versions of Ultima III and IV get their fair share as well.  Which I appreciate, since the NES version of Ultima III is the one with which I have the most experience. 

I want to take a moment to site a couple of significant elements outside the challenge of the game.  First is the party construction.  In Exodus, you are allowed up to 20 characters, each of which can be custom created.  You form a party of four of these characters each time you play.  These characters level up independently during play.  This element really lent itself to some of the household participation I experienced with this game, as 20 characters was more than enough for everyone in my family to have their own party of four.  That way we could contribute to a greater whole, while still remaining independent.  And we could just have fun creating custom characters and stocking the barracks, as it were.  That way different classes can be available to the main players who are out accomplishing goals and progressing through the game.  

Another thing I'd like to point out is the music.  I think it's pretty damn good for an NES game.  The songs tend to be long and varied, much more so that their contemporaries.  There aren't a lot of tracks in total.  I think that Exodus is often forgotten about in the annals of NES music.    

Finally, the graphics.  Sure, they're pretty crappy (though still way nicer than the PC version IMO).  But one graphic design element that I really like is the line of site shadowing.  Opaque objects such as walls, or mountains or deep woods, will hide portions of the screen in shadow, because they cannot be seen through, so the characters don't know what's on the other side.  I think this really deepens the sense of exploration in the game.  I'd love to see what Final Fantasy, or even better, Dragon Warrior would play like with this design aesthetic.  

In parallel to that, I'd also like to point out that the general map design in Exodus is nice.  There is a progression of wilderness that informs travel decisions.  The party starts out in a plain, where movement is unhindered.  Winding rivers creep in from the sides.  Bordering the plain is some heavy growth roughage, where movement gets a bit slower, making the party more vulnerable to attack.  Beyond the roughage is deep forest, which obscures visibility and beyond that are impassible mountains.  

I feel a definite sense of danger the farther I wander outside of the open plain.  However, it is clear that I will need to explore the darker, more confined spaces of the game if I am ever to get anywhere.  I think these elements add up to a more active world map, rather than a passive one of many of Exodus' NES contemporaries. Though the Exodus map is rather small, in comparison. 
 

Exodus is not without its many flaws.  Of which, I forgive all. I am happily biased, and give the game the benefit of the doubt at every turn. After all, this was an important and formative game for me, and I wouldn't have it any other way. But hey, just for fun, I'll list a few of these flaws and make excuses for each of them.

Most of the character classes aren't worth playing.   But they're still fun to build, and I appreciate having the option to explore the strengths and weaknesses of a class. The map is small, but well designed.  The objectives are confusing, but the challenge to explore is its own reward.  The story is non-existent, sort of.  The difficulty at times seems as though its from bad design.  Which is in the eye of the beholder,  bad design can be viewed as another challenge to be overcome, if you so choose.  And I do.  

-D     

Read Part 1 of my Ultima Exodus review.  

Full Review: GoldenEye 007 (DS)

This review will refer to the 2010 remake by n-Space of the 1997 classic by Rare.  When the re-make of GoldenEye 007 was first released, I had a hard time, near impossible time actually, trying to locate a review for the DS game as everything I came across was for the Wii release, before the PS3 and 360 versions were released.  Everything I found was all about the Wii release, which made me sad because I wanted to know about how the translation to the DS was.  Even the Wikipedia article mainly covers the Wii version, only briefly mentioning the low GameRankings and Metacritic of 68.8% and 64/100 respectively for the DS version and the involvement of n-Space.

This post probably should have been one of my first reviews posted since, I feel like that I want to post things that I would want to read, and a review for a game that I was interested in, but couldn't find, that's something I'd like to read.

So on with the show.

If you don't think that is Pierce Brosnan's hairline, you'e right.  It's Daniel Craig's.  Maybe that'll sell more copies of the game?

The DS remake of the N64 Rare game GoldenEye 007 doesn't feel so much of a remake as it does as a re-imagining and sadly, not a very great one at that.  Believe it or not, the DS is a pretty good platform for FPS' regardless if you're right or left handed: you look around with the touch pad, move with the directional pad or ABXY buttons and shoot with either the L or R button.  I've played a number of FPS on the DS (Dementium: The Ward, Dementium II and Moon) so my general dislike for the game is not related, as one might think, to playing an FPS on the DS.

I'll be honest when I say that what I was hoping for from this game was a slightly revamped and beautified edition of Rare's amazing game.  Instead what n-Space delivered was a decent looking FPS with, among other things, horrible enemies.  I say "horrible" not because their AI was something ferocious, but because unless you killed them with a head shot, they did not go down very easily.  The enemies, whom all looked identical (just to note, but  not really a criticism) would take a handful of hits, stagger then keep on firing.  If you were lucky they would drop to one knee and then continue firing.  

Your life in the game was again represented by the red/yellow bars along with a set of blue bars when you had body armor equipped.  Now, apparently life regeneration is a current thing in FPS games and it is a thing in this edition of Goldeneye 007.  That's something I don't really like.  It almost makes the game too easy as all you have to do is come out from behind a corner take a couple of badly aimed shots, get shot yourself and move back behind the wall to regenerate while the enemy remains stagnant, patiently waiting for you to come out again.  So either the AI is very smart and holding their ground or really stupid and forgot that someone was shooting at them 3 1/2 seconds ago.  Oh yes, and your Walter PP7 has infinite ammunition.  I know that it's done in the Left 4 Dead series, but there you're fighting hordes of zombies and not stand-still Russian soldiers.  Maybe I'm just an old fuddy-duddy.

Maybe I'm just being too harsh, considering that GoldenEye is one of my favorite James Bond movies and GoldenEye 007 sat unmoved in my N64 for almost nine months so I am kind of attached to what I know and love.  It's true that the 1997 GoldenEye 007 expanded on the story that was in the movie, filling in the nine year gap between the mission in Arkhangelsk and the stealing of the Tiger Helicopter in Monte Carlo.  The storyline too is something that bothered me as the DS re-make didn't do this, but simply took events that happened in the movie and reworked them to be plausible to have happened in a short-ish amount of time, like a Dan Brown novel.  I liked visiting Severnaya while it was still under construction and the missile silo  in Kirghistan before the Goldeneye satellites were launched.  Things that made the original game feel like it took information from a pre-existing book that the movie didn't have the time or money to fit in.  That feeling of an expanded universe/story just didn't exist in this re-make.

Another thing the game was lacking, and maybe I'm just nitpicking here, was the massive amount of playable cheats.  Yes, there were some but you had to purchase them after they became unlocked.  The other "special feature" for this game was collecting document files throughout each level.  With each file you were awarded a puzzle piece to put together an image from. . . something?  Concept art?  I'm not sure.  I only unlocked the tank busting through the wall in St. Petersburg.  I don't know who Activision and/or n-Space's target audience was for this, but it sure wasn't people who played the original GoldenEye 007 or anyone who would play this game.   

The re-make also didn't take the same approach that the original did when it came to stealth.  In the original, ducking behind boxes or walls and taking out security cameras was essential if you didn't want to get into a firefight, while in this game, I don't remember taking out too many, if any, cameras at all.  It felt more of a run-and-gun game.  Maybe that's what they were going for, but then why bother calling it GoldenEye 007?  Oh, probably to try and capitalize on how awesome the first game was.  It's not like it's been done before, right?

I should probably also mention that the game touts a six person local online multiplayer.  That's all I know.  I can't say how well it plays or how fun it is because I simply haven't met anyone else who owns the game to play it with them.

After all that, was there anything that I liked about the game?  Well, the game didn't look half bad and the spoken dialogue was a nice touch, although I couldn't tell you if Daniel Craig or Dame Judi Dench actually did the voice work, but whomever did it, didn't do too bad of a job with their lines.

Oh, and I didn't like that you couldn't duck if you were not behind a crate or box.  Just wanted to throw that in there.


~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian
Atrocious Humanity

P.S.  To note, I bought this game in the hopes that I would enjoy it as much as I did as the 1997 release AND because it came with a copy of the film GoldenEye on DVD, all totalling something like $24.99.  I decided that even if the game was bad, at least I would finally own a copy of one of my favorite James Bond films.  So I would still like to think that I have come out on top.

Emulator Hour: Real Ultima NES challenge!

After bouncing around between some 8-bit RPGs, I've settled on Ultima: Exodus (III).  This game has its hooks in me, and I find myself thinking about it when I'm not playing.  At any given time, when I've been gaming, I have these sort of nebulous game ideas floating around the borders of my consciousness.  These are usually influenced by what I've been playing lately, and there is definitely a distinctly Exodus flavor these days.  I probably spend more time daydreaming about this game than I do playing it. 

But I am determined to play it and to make substantial progress in this very difficult NES game.  After playing through a bunch of Final Fantasy, Ultima:Exodus is refreshing in its non-linearity, party customization and challenge.  And boy, is it challenging.  It really takes time to get some momentum in this game, and it makes Final Fantasy games appear to be positively coddling to the player.  For example: Inns.  There is one Inn in Exodus, and it serves only to save the game.  No free life points.  For that you have to shell out 200 gold to a doctor who will, in exchange, heal *one* of your party members.  This is a stiff contrast to Final Fantasy where Inns are in every town and cost pocket change to heal your entire party.  Oh, and did I mention nearly every treasure chest is booby trapped?  So even if the enemies are easy, you can be killed claiming your reward.   

Much of the early part of Exodus I have spent slogging around the overworld map, grinding, exploring and trying not to die. I routinely check each town to see if there's something I missed, some useful piece of the puzzle.  But as far as I can tell, my only mission at present is to rack up gold and xp and buy armor, so that I will be ready for the new slew of super-tough enemies when I level up. 

In this game the only way to level up is by cashing-in experience points with Lord British. 

At which point, I will need to find a new lead on gold, because killing enemies just doesn't do it.  I think what I need to do is hit the dungeons which are scattered around the map, and see if there isn't some loot in there.  Of course,  when I've paid these dungeons a visit, I haven't made it out alive.  I'm hoping that the boost to HP I will get when I raise my levels up will give me what I need to survive. 

I realize that I am accustomed to a JRPG pace, which is extremely steady.  Go out, grind a while, come back stay at the inn. Grind some more, buy weapons and armor, when your strong enough, move to the next area.  Repeat.  That is the basic JRPG progression, and as far as I can tell, it's been universal since the original Final Fantasy.  (I would say Dragon Warrior, but there was actually a bit less linearity to that game).  Ultima is much different.  The game guides you very little, and much of it is discovered through exploration.  And patience.  oh, so much patience.  

But I am resolute.  The very challenge of the game is what keeps me slowly moving forward.  I don't know how long I can last, but there are milestones that I'd like to achieve.  I'd like to get in and out of a dungeon and live.  I'm thrilled to say I just reached Ambrosia.  Next I need to collect some flowers and raise some of my stats.  Then start collecting marks, which means deeper dungeon success.  After that, I'm not sure what I need, but I'll most likely be consulting strategy guides along the way.  One step at a time, there's no getting ahead of yourself in this game.  If you get ahead of yourself, you will die.  Simple as that.  

Maybe I will play it until the end.  Maybe I won't.  But for the time being, this is the game that has occupied my attention.  I don't know what I'll be playing next, but I'm thinking about Planescape: Torment,  another Western RPG that gets lots of love. 

-D

Protips:  

• Cyclo DS Evolution is a great NES Emulator system for the Nintendo DS.  It's how I play all my old favorites.
• Use the 'Open' spell to avoid traps from treasure chests.  
• Also, press 'select' when the menu is open to see a different set of options, including ones that let you share food and gold.  
• And for God's sake, read the instructions!  

Papers, Please [Beta] (PC)

Hmm, how to describe Paper's Please.  To say that it's a post cold war era simulation game where you play as an immigration official from a fictional Eastern European/ Soviet Bloc state would be a very wordy description. The "official" description from creator Lucas Pope, is that it's a "dystopian document thriller."  If those descriptions don't sell the game to you, the game trailer probably will:

There's something very odd about this game.  You sit in a booth looking over passports and travel documents while a national/foreigner stares at you, while you are deciding whether or not they can be allowed into the country.  You earn 5 credits for each person you let into the country or turn away, so one of the goals is to see as many people as possible.  If you admit someone who wasn't supposed to be or turn away someone who could've been admitted, a print out warns you not to make that mistake again.  You also do not get paid for seeing that person.  On your second or third mistake (depending on which day), you are docked 5 credits, which means that you really lose 10 credits for your mistake.

I first heard about this game a couple of weeks ago from Jerry Holkins' twitter.  I don't remember exactly what the wording was, but it somehow compelled me to play this odd bit of programming.

Playing this game as a co-op actually enhances the feeling of dread from an oppressive government and fear that you might make a mistake.  There were a number of times while playing that Conklederp was sitting next to me and I felt nervous that I wasn't moving people fast enough through my little box/world and thus not keeping it interesting enough for her to be watching and accidently let someone through whom should have been denied entry into the great country of Arstotzka.  So if you have someone to watch you play, who doesn't mind watching you play a video game, it could/will enhance the feeling not to fuck up.

There are a number of other little things that this game does that I love.  At the beginning of each day, after you read the headlines of the daily paper, you walk to work. 

It's not "go to work," but specifically "walk."  As if you're either too poor or not a high enough position in the government to be afforded a car.

Another thing is that there are events/people's stories about reuniting with a family or trying to escape from an abusive strip-club owner and while you can follow what your heart tells you is right, if it doesn't follow the law, you don't get paid, and when you don't get paid, there are real consequences

Now, this game is only in beta and only advances through the eighth day.  Currently there is nothing programmed to penalize you for the death of a family member, which kind of makes the game even more sad.  That after the death of, let's say, your son, you still have to walk to work where your meager earnings may only cover the price of rent and heat, but not food.  Life is sad.

Like I said, it's a very odd game that shouldn't be as fun and as addictive as it is to play.  Who wants to sit in a box for hours on end (minutes in game time) and go over papers hoping to not make a mistake so that you can earn enough money to only feed half of your family, not to say anything about funeral costs when/if they die?  This guy, that's who.

Glory to Arstotzka comrade.

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian
Happiness

Undood.

Hello there, welcome to blogland, let me take your coat.  Before we begin, I want to mention a funny quirk of the google blogging software that I discovered yesterday.  It seems that Blogger has its own 'undo' button.  And it seems that the memory of this undo button extends beyond an individual blogging session.  

Let me explain:  I came to this conclusion yesterday when I was editing a post for publishing.  As I was typing and arranging the post, I decided to try something different, and proceeded to press ctrl+z a few times to go back to an earlier stage in editing.  I watched as bits of writing appeared and disappeared, backtracking through my edits, when suddenly, *poof*  ...  the entire posting disappeared.  Startled, I checked the menus to see if 'redo' was an option (I don't know the hotkeys for that one).  I didn't see a 'redo' and so, I closed the post, hoping that I hadn't saved the changes.   Sadly, no, the changes had been saved, and I now had a blank posting.  

In my frustration, I searched for answers, wondering how this could have happened.  I noticed that the post editor has its own 'undo' and 'redo' buttons.  Odd... then I realized that I had composed the bulk of this post in Notepad while on lunch break at work the previous day.  Of course, I hadn't saved it, the posting was safely copied into blogger.  Or so I thought.  I concluded that I had actually 'undone' the initial copy/paste of my writing, which I had performed more than 24 hours earlier.  Suffice it to say, this experience, combined with the delicious chili dog digesting in my stomach, robbed me of any further motivation to post something yesterday. 

A few hours of Twin Peaks and a good nights rest later, and I think I'm ready to say something about video games again.  But I just really felt like I had to share this with y'all.

-D

P.S.  I intend to do some experimentation with blogger to see if my initial conclusions are true.  In the meantime:  BEWARE the Blogger Undo Button!!

First Impressions: Among the Sleep: Pre-Alpha (PC)

No, thank you for letting me play!

With Krillbite Studio's Kickstarter (which has less than 24 hours remaining) for Among the Sleep fully funded, the public now has access to a pre-alpha release of their game.

I just played the extent of what was released on Wednesday, May 15th.

It. Is. Awesome.

I can't really say much about the storyline for the game other than you're a toddler, a two year old I believe, your crib topples over.  Oh, and your teddy bear seems to be sentient.

In the beginning, you're just wandering around your house.  Keep in mind you're a two year old, so you're visual perspective is from that of a child who both crawls and walks.  And, and, AND!, you can see yourself:

Yes, at anytime you can look down, see your little bebby belly getting a good scratch.  This looking down perspective comes pretty handing though when walking across platforms, which I won't talk about aside from here so that I don't give anything (much else anyway) away.  This looking down and seeing yourself is one of many little things that was included, that didn't have to be included, that make this game amazing.  

What's that?  You can't make out what that writing says?  Of course you can't, you're two years old.  You can't read.  Yes, you can make out individual letters on the blocks (as in the above picture), but those are individual letters, not words, which your brain probably can't even comprehend yet.

Another thing, when you press Esc/pause, you cover your face with your hands.  Fucking_Brilliant.

Onto other things now.  How does the game handle?  It handles just fine.  I didn't have any problems with the controls.  I did change the mouse to inverted controls and the only other thing that doing that might have affected was which way you had to move the mouse in order to open up doors, drawers and cabinets.  For instance, to pull open a drawer, I had to click the drawer and push the mouse forward.  After figuring this out on the first time, I was perfectly fine.

And remember, you're playing as a toddler.  You can't reach that door knob, so you have to find something to pull over to that door, climb up on said object and then open the door.  This type of perspective was one of the major draws to the game for me.  I play a lot of horror games, but playing one from a toddler's perspective, seeing the world through their eyes, albeit with an adult's mind and how to interact with the world, it's like seeing things as brand new all over again.  I don't remember the first time I ever saw a washing machine and I can almost guarantee that my little brain couldn't process what that big white thing did.  It might've even frightened me somewhat.  That's what Among the Sleep did to me.  It made me wary of a washing machine that was running at night.  That's something.

The music, what little there was that wasn't there for atmospheric purposes was very nice, but the sound editing was great.  A lot of the ambient night time noises that you'd hear around a house in the middle of the night seemed amplified, especially the ticking of that damned ominous clock.  The lullaby too, that the mother sings to you as you're falling asleep, reminded me of the lullaby from Pan's Labyrinth: beautiful and motherly with a very slight undertone of foreboding.

The playable pre-release demo-esque of Among the Sleep played for about 20-25 minutes on my initial playthrough, but a lot of that time was spent just looking at my surroundings and seeing what I could interact with.  On subsequent playthoughs, when I was going around getting pictures, but trying to also see how fast I could finish, it took me, maybe 10 minutes.  You and all your friends with a computer should really go to the Kickstarter page and download the pre-alpha demo-game-thing and play it.  Then, play it again.  I'm really looking forward to sometime around December when the full game is released.

Lastly, I'd like to leave you with this little nugget from the game, when shit began to get weird:

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian
A Long, Long Time Ago. . .

Browsing The Horrors of Steam's Greenlight District

Because I feel that I haven't talked enough about horror related video games in the last post, I'm going to be bringing them up all over again, but this time in a slightly different light.

Around the end of last week I was browsing Steam's Greenlight section upon realizing that I hadn't looked at any games since the area was first launched.  I will admit that I'm a bit shallow in that if the thumbnail title and title of a game doesn't look/sound interesting I won't click it to find out more about that game.  I admit that it's not the best way of finding new and interesting games, but that's they way my brain happens to work and it's a little hard to try and rewire to look for and think differently.  I feel like this is the argument for bigotry, but that's something else entirely.

Back to video games.  Horror-esque video games.

The first game I came across was Among the Sleep.

After finding out more about the title, font and art, Among the Sleep is an POV horror game where you play as a two year old in a world that seems to move in and out of a dream world.  That alone sold me to support their project.  At the moment they are $16,329 short of their $200,000 goal and have four days remaining.  Check out the video and support if you think the game and people warrant/deserve it.

The second game was Darkwood.

Darkwood is a top down adventure horror game in a randomly generated open world.  The game is also permadeath, which could understandably be a turn off to a lot of gamers, although the creators say/hint that some of what you do will be carried over in subsequent playthroughs such as looting your corpse.  The game trailer, which is "pre-alpha" looks pretty damn good and terrifying.  The group is currently fundraising over on Indiegogo and they're 23 days out and have 23% of their goal, so a pretty decent start and plenty of time to go. 

The third game is titled The Forest and doesn't have so much of a title screen as it does a logo:

The Forest can be found on Steam's Greenlight page and is an action/adventure/simulation/horror game.  I don't feel like there are enough of simulation/horror video games out there and come to think of it, I can't remember ever seeing a game described as "simulation/horror," but I tend to be somewhat sheltered so that may be the case.  The trailer give glimpses of things that you can do in-game, such as cut down trees to build a shelter and it feels like this is just the tip of the iceberg as far as the simulation part goes.  I have hopes, high or otherwise, for this game and I hope to see it "greenlit."

The one game that doesn't fall under the horror genre that I looked a bit at was a game called Realm.

Realm is a point-and-click game that looks absolutely beautiful.  In their promotional video, the creators point out several things that people do a lot of in point-and-click games, such as "CLICK ALL THE THINGS" and trying out everything in an overloaded inventory to see if it has an effect on the object.  I like their approach and I would hope that their game gets fully funded on Kickstarter, but with only eight days remaining and the project still needing £131,152, (that's $200,551 for us Yanks) the end doesn't look too good at the moment.

Lastly is the "sequel" of sorts for Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem that I brought up last Tuesday, Shadow of the Eternals, which now has an official Kickstarter campaign going.  This will bound to cause a bit of confusion as there was already an existing crowdfunding campaign going directly through the company.  The official word is to donate (if you want to and haven't already) through the Kickstarter campaign, which as been adjusted to include the amount already taken in from the first week of crowdfunding.  

That's it for me, for today.  Friday I'll have up my review for the free-to-play-download game, Papers, Please so come back for that and everything else that we'll be posting during the week.

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian

Time Again

Miscellaneous Links

I've been collecting links for a while now, and they're piling up.  I'm going to run through a few of them, so that you, dear reader, may benefit from the delights they contain.

Featured Game: Jumpman

http://runhello.com/
This is a site of a creative fellow with lots of projects.  The most immediately interesting being jumpman (a free game for download, see the video above).  It is my intention to go back and check out his other projects.  

Game-creator resources:
http://www.pixelprospector.com/the-big-list-of-game-making-tools/
The big list of game making tools.  self explanatory.  One of the best things this page has is links to examples of games made with each featured game making tool.  Some I've played or heard of before, and others look cool.


http://youcanmakevideogames.com/
Another self-explanatory link along the same theme.


http://www.diygamer.com/
DIY gamer.  Great website, I may have linked to it before, but it bears repeating.  This stuff is truly DIY, from stuff that you or I could put out, to other things that take serious work and talent.  I guess I'm mostly trying to convince myself to hunker down and make a game.  I guess.  

Free Flash Games:
http://www.lorenbednar.com/Excitement/
Excitement.  Neat Atari arcade style game.  very simple, nice graphics.  The controls are pretty loose.  With some tightening, this could be a really addictive game.  plays in-browser.

http://var.i.brainworth.net/main.html?level=introduction_to_actions_moveforward
Var and the Vikings. A game where the whole purpose is to program character AI.  Start with teaching them to move forward.  Then to jump, then to do both.  If this sounds interesting, give the demo a look.  Plays like a puzzle game.  plays in-browser.

http://thotep-7dfps.s3.amazonaws.com/index.htm
Modern shooter.  A wild west shooting game that has entirely keyboard inputs.  This game is a rush-job, but it is worth a taste.  Plays in-browser.

Gaming Editorials:
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/130063/game_design_essentials_20_.php?page=1
Article listing the top 20 hard video games.  Lots of old games here, you might see some favorites.  The purpose of the article is to examine game design choices through the difficulty of these games.  


http://www.brainygamer.com/the_brainy_gamer/2012/09/index.html
The brainy gamer is my new favorite video game journalist.  Here he uses a bread metaphor to talk about the idea of the 'mother dough' as applied for video games.  Example:  Donkey Kong laid the groundwork for basically the whole platforming genre.  Wolfenstein 3d - the FPS.  But what did these games take from even earlier games? 


http://indiegames.com/2012/12/top_10_indie_games_of_2012_2.html
Indie games weblog does top 10 indie games of 2012.  A bunch of them are paid games, but I should take a look at the free ones.

http://zeboyd.com/2013/01/31/a-better-classification-system-for-rpgs/
Guys at zeboyd games discuss genre classification for RPGs.  I like this subject.  Some of the comments are good too.

http://www.indiegamemag.com
Indie Games Magazine.  This is a nice little site.  I actually discovered it when I was searching through the Google Play Store on my phone, looking for indie game information.  This is the only publication that came up.  So, while there is a website, I primarily browse Indie Games Magazine on my phone.  I enjoy being able to disappear into the world of game journalism while away from home.  Which reminds me...

Rambling, why doesn't this guy shut up?
Surely by now, you've heard that Valve is releasing a home console called the Piston, or Steam Box.  Which is all fine and dandy, even downright neat.  I encourage others to get into the console world, shake up those console wars a bit.  Ouya is another neat new console-thing that is happening. (both are designed as tiny cubes- huh.    Anyhow, I realized the other day that what I really want is to be able to play my steam games while on the go.  Away from my home PC.  

I don't even own a TV, so console systems all come with the price of a TV attached to them.  I may get one some time, but for the time being, my PC serves as my all-in-one machine.  Except when I'm on the go.  Then my crappy Android phone or my outdated Nintendo DS have to suffice.  I would like a powerful portable gaming PC.  Is this possible?  No, I don't want a laptop, I want something to compete against the 3DS and PSP.   Hell, I would buy one of those systems if you told me I could access my steam library on it.  I've heard nothing to this effect, but then again, I am generally out of touch.  Moving on. 

Oh, wait, I'm done?  Yep, all done.  Enjoy the links :)

-D

A Thought About Horror Games

Now, I don't intend to either diagnose or cure what I think the issue/trouble/problem with video games that fall into the survival horror genre, I just want to talk about them, partly because of two of the games that I'm playing right now are Cry of Fear and Dead Space.

The first game I played that fell within the survival horror genre, probably along with a lot of other gamers was Resident Evil on the PS1 when I lived with Dr. Potts, The Jestre and handful of others in a pseudo-stereotypical 1st College Apartment-type setting back in 1999.  It was an amazing game and very different than most games I had played up to that point.  (I was able to get the ending where you don't fight Tyrant and thought that was an absolutely brilliant ending to such a tension filled game; very anti-climactic but such a departure from stereotypical/Hollywood ending.  This was before I found out there were multiple endings).

Now, rather than go through a history of all the survival-horror, fps-horror, adventure-horror, et cetera games that I've played, I want to get down to brass tacks.  I have found, for myself at least, that horror games run a pretty high risk of becoming frustrating, annoying boxes of frustration.  There have been games that I love that have dipped into the pool of frustration.  Take Resident Evil 4 (A game I enjoyed but didn't love mind you) and the knife fight with Krauser.  That battle was all about reaction time and not much else.  There was some muscle memory involved, but which button to press changed between a couple options with each playthrough.  One misstep and you had to start over.  I appreciate boss fights, but this fight alone took me out of the horror atmosphere from everything that came before.

More recently in Amnesia: The Dark Descent, in the second area where you're wading through water and on boxes, attempting to avoid an invisible creature who's stalking you, I very quickly became frustrated.  Most due to the fact that I had run out of oil for the lamp (which was it's own frustration throughout the game) and I couldn't tell if I was backtracking through the area or if I was heading in the correct direction.

I get it though.  Video games are supposed to be challenging, that is why difficulty levels exist, but not in all games.  Often times, harder difficulty levels means that you will find less ammunition and the enemies take more damage.  In Resident Evil 2, if you play on Easy, you start off with a sub-machine gun with infinite ammunition.  Infinite ammunition in any Resident Evil game immediately takes away any sense of fear that the creatures are trying to have the gamer experience.  At the moment, in Dead Space, I am playing the game on Medium, which I feel is about the average person would play the game on.  I could easily see how Hard difficulty would obviously make the game harder, but for myself, it would also mean having to restart frequently and conserving my ammunition to the point where I would reload if I miss-fire because I am wasting a much needed resource.  I don't want to play that kind of game and have that mentality when playing.  No, I do not want to be spoon fed bullets so that I don't fear like I'm constantly running out, but I also do not want to play a game where there is an allotment of bullets for specific enemies.

In Doom 3, I played through the game on Marine, which is one above Recruit and then below Veteran and Nightmare.  I was able to play the game very successfully (without the flashlight attachment) on Marine with the exception of the fight between either between two Hell Knights or the Guadrian, I can't remember which.  After many attempts, I handed the game over to Vorlynx, who has much more FPS experience than I.  It was something that brought my enjoyment of the game to a standstill, but I thankfully had someone who knew their shit and could get me through to the other side.  The rest of the game went well.

One game that I had to give up on due to missing an "optional" weapon that turns out is pretty damn important, was Dementium: The Ward for the DS.  In Chapter 12: The Cleaver's Return, there's an area where it is beyond beneficial to have the buzz saw.  There are multiple banshees flying at you and the buzz saw is necessary if you don't want to die, which I kind of don't.  I had to give up on that game (at least for the time being) as backtracking is not an option.

The last game I want to bring up is Slender: The Eight Pages. It's a simple game that is pretty difficult to complete, but I can only play it two or three times before giving up.  Not because I get so frustrated and only being able to find four or five pages, but because after a couple of plays, the fear of being spotted by the Slender Man wears off, and I don't want to play the game if I'm no longer afraid.  The game loses what makes it fun to play.

In these games, there always feels like there is a point when the horror becomes routine and not scary anymore.  For me, this happens when the game become so difficult that I'm not experiencing a scary and intense story, but playing a difficult video game.  Playing a game on Hard/Insane/Nightmare/Jedi, as I can see it, doesn't make the game scarier, but only serves to give bragging rights, which I guess makes achievements and trophies so desirable.

So give me a horror game and I'll play it, partly because I enjoy being scared without the fear of actually having my body quartered and partly because I enjoy the "fear of the unknown."

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian

The Filth of Mankind

http://www.precursorgames.com/shadowoftheeternals/