ms paint adventures

This is something between a comic and a game.  Check it out.

www.mspaintadventures.com

In The Northwest, Every Precipice in Rainslicked

For the life of this blog, I probably won't be talking too often about games before they're released.  This is primarily because I don't have enough information that isn't already "out there" and if I'm talking about a game before it's release date, I can almost promise you that half of what I'll say will sound like, "This looks really awesome; I can't wait to play [insert game title here]; I liked the first two games, but I don't know why the developers are taking this direction, I guess it might be alright; This looks to be a fun game, but as I don't have the necessary system, I probably won't play it unless someone else I know buys it."

However!

Penny Arcade Aventures: On the Rainslick Precipice of Darkness - Episode III comes out this Monday, June 25th, 2012.  I played the first two games much later than nearly everyone else (as in ~3 years after they came out) and thought they were hilarious and kept in the spirit of the creators and the comic characters.  This third installment is a taking a different direction, artistically from the first two games (since they've moved away from Hothead Games and are now using Zeboyd Games (the people who created Cthulhu Saves the World and Breath of Death VII).  The first two games looked like a souped up version of the NES game Who Framed Roger Rabbit.  Wait, you're saying you didn't play that game?  It looked something like this then.  Well, my memory just failed me, because it didn't look much like Who Framed Roger Rabbit, just watch part of this and you'll get the gist.  

So, now that the context is set, my point can be made, even if it's in a different paragraph than the one where my point was mentioned.  Rainslick...III is not like those games.  It's more like Final Fantasy III/VI, at least the visuals and artwork are.  I can't say that they're trying to capitalize on some 16 bit hipster fan-boy thing since the people who wrote the game grew up playing these games when they were first out.  But anyway, just go have a look for yourselves at the trailer here:

I'm just really excited because I loved the story, style and humor of the first two games and like anyone who enjoys a series, I want to play more of that series.  And, and, and, AND!!!!  When/if you decide to purchase this game (through Steam), you will earn yourself a copy of Cthulhu Saves the World! Sadly, I already have the game (have yet to play it though) and I can't gift it to someone else.

That's all I'm going to say on this matter as again, I'm just a part of the gaming community, not part of the industry and I don't know anything about the game save what the trailer just told me.

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian

The Sounds of Silence are Excited Too

Currently Playing 3: Abobo's Big Adventure

http://abobosbigadventure.com/

Abobo's Big Adventure is Awesome.  It's hilarious.  And it's actually pretty goddamn hard (in true NES fashion).  Please play it, so that you will no longer be missing out.
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Oh, did I mention that it's FREE?!

The trick to playing Abobo's big Adventure is to download JoyToKey and play it on a controller.  The creators actually suggest playing it on an original NES controller using a converter.  This sounds awesome, but I don't have any NES controllers available to me, so I didn't bother looking it up.

Currently Playing:

I do enjoy the box art

Cthulhu saves the world.  It's a fun distraction, bordering on a complete waste of time.  Which is how I would describe a lot of games, to tell you the truth.  But right now I'm little irritated with Cthulhu saves the world.  It's a funny game, and the first couple of hours are good for some snickering and old-school RPG nostalgia.  But by now, I'm 5.5 hours deep, and it's really not going anywhere.

Granted, this game is a parody of 8 and 16 bit era console RPGs, so it's not really out to impress anyone.  And as a part of the parody, there are some interesting gameplay modifications.  For example, the ability to fight all of the enemies in a given dungeon, and then walk freely after that.  Or how, after a given battle, the party is healed to full.  This streamlines the game, however, that's where some of the problem is- the game is too streamlined for the genre.

Neat Volcano

 As I said, 5.5 hours in, and I'm on the other side of this volcano.  I got here by finding a cure for a plague which had plagued the poor port town on some other island/continent.  The dungeon where I went to find the cure was pretty boring, and the town I landed in before the volcano was boring.  I think it was when I was searching all the bookshelves and drawers in the town, and one of the responses made fun of me for doing this- this is when I became suspicious that this game was falling into the 'suck' territory.  

I think it's funny that the narrator made fun of me for looking in every f-ing drawer.  But the thing is - there is NOTHING in any of the drawers.  Just jokes.  Lots of them, which I appreciate, but the game has basically no items, so there isn't much to find.  So, after wandering a useless city, I go to the volcano, and I am back in another dungeon, after only 5 minutes of time between dungeons.  It's just too soon to be in another damned dungeon.

BoD VII has boxart too!

I recommend playing Breath of Death VII first.  It's by the same makers, and it has many of the same themes and gameplay elements.  It came out before Cthulu, and features 8-bit style graphics.  BoDVII is much shorter, and I think it is a better game.  Cthulu tries too hard, but somehow without trying hard enough.  If you play Breath of Death VII and really like it, then go ahead and play Cthulu.  (Oh, I guess I should mention that I bought both of these games as a "two-fer" on steam, for 15 bucks.