Archive for March 23rd, 2010
7 items.
So, we are going to daily fig it up this evening. Mostly because Brooks didn’t want to look at the last article on the front page anymore. Fortunately we have an outdoor exploring Nanoha Takamachi fig that makes me remember that in the “outside world” it might be Spring. Well at least for us northern hemisphere folk. The rest of you will have to find some depressing figs to symbolize Fall. Like anything from Fate/Stay Night, which I have continued to curse ever since finishing. DAMN YOU FATE/STAY NIGHT.
source: figure.fm
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I got to say, I have a hard time keeping an open mind about any product with a price tag larger than the product’s name. Of course, I may be exaggerating. I didn’t actually calculate the surface area. I just sort of eye balled it. But enough of that, this comes from Karnndmin, the developer of Karnn Age, and looks to be a four player fighting game thats big on blood and gore. Tokyo 2029 A.D is aiming for a mid April release, so we should know soon enough if it’s better than its price to title ratio implies.
Let me just first start by saying two words “Ninja Robots.” Do I really need to say anything else about Plain Sight? Beatnik Games is on the home stretch of development of the title, with a release that was scheduled for yesterday. Unfortunately its release has been moved back two weeks for “unforseen circumstances” (read ninja assassin) The title will be initially released for the PC and then make its way onto PSN and Nintendo WiiWare. Below is a list of features and a gameplay trailer set to some snazzy jazz music. The video is a little slow, so give it some buffering time.
Key Features:
- 13 Multiplayer maps
- Battle up to 20 players
- 5 self-destructive gameplay modes:
- Deathmatch
- Ninja! Ninja! Ninja! Robozilla! – mini ninjas unite to bring the gargantuan Robozilla down to size!
- Lighten Up – Detonate on a target area with as much energy as possible, the best detonation wins the points for that round.
- Team Deathmatch / Weakest Clink – Play a standard Team Deathmatch or up the stakes by having a communal score bank.
- Capture the Flag – Well, it looks more like a beacon… but the gameplay is the same.
- Level the playing field with in-game power-ups
- Spend your experience points on 30 different robot upgrades
- Perfect your skills in offline practice mode
- Ships with dedicated server software
Two XBLIG titles have managed to sneak out since our last update, both of which highlight important military fundamentals: avoiding missiles is good and being bent on world domination is also good. You know the drill soldier! All descriptions of the following games are those of the game’s respective developers and our commentary will be in bold.
Missile Escape |
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Missile Escape is simple : go flying, evade many missiles and unlock new fighters along the way ! Warning : Fighter pilot spirit required.
Developer: Maximinus Price: 80 Microsoft Points Interesting little game, has a wrap around world like classic Asteroid which sort of throws your brain for a loop. The controls also feel a little strange, probably because of conditioning from games like Geometry wars that give you crazy mobility. All said and done, I wasn’t overly impressed with the demo. |
World War Toon |
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Inspired by board games of old, World War Toon is a re-imagining for the digital era. This quick-paced turn-based strategy game is simple to play, but difficult to master. Use the abilities of infantry, tank, and rocket launcher units to your advantage as you conquer the world. Featuring random maps every game, no two games are ever the same.
Developer: JeBuS Price: 240 Microsoft Points Risk style turn based world domination game. The demo was fairly amusing, so it may be worth checking out if world domination is your thing. Personally, it just sounds like a job with no opportunity for advancement. |
I hope you’ve got an active tetanus shot, because you’ll be blowing off work to gathering scrap metal in today’s Productivity Killer, Condition. This one’s a little 2D side scrolling flash game by abielins and Lycheesoup featuring a pixel art spaceman who receives a distress call from a nearby ship. Upon investigation, it is discovered that the ship is under siege by blob like creatures that must be dealt with to salvage some splendid parts. Oh! and save the crew of course.
You can play this browser based game over at Newgrounds.com.
Thats right people, you can now give apps as gifts on iTunes. In other words, let the gag gift giving begin.I’m thinking Brooks will really appreciate this “Golf Swing Doctor” application. Here’s how it works:
To send an iTunes Gift:
- In iTunes, click iTunes Store in the Source list.
- Find a song, album, audiobook, video, app, or iPod click wheel game that you want to give to someone.
- Click the arrow to the right of the Buy button; in the resulting menu, choose the Gift option.
- To gift an iPod clickwheel game, choose Gift This Game below the Add Game or Buy Game button.
- Once you’ve clicked Gift, you’ll either be asked to sign in with your account name and password, or you’ll see a “Give a Gift” page. You’ll need to fill in your recipient’s (and your) details, such as names, email addresses, and a personal message. It doesn’t matter which screen you get first, you will get both.You can send along a personal message with your gift in the “Give a Gift” page—be sure that you enter a valid email address too.
- Once you’ve successfully signed in and completed the gift form, you’ll be brought to a page to review your purchase and confirm it.
Your ship’s busted and you’ve been forced to make an emergency landing on an alien planet that seems to be in the midst of an emergency of its own. Armed with only your wits and a gun, you must gather up all the parts you need to fix your ship and get the hell out of Dodge. This is Dysnomia, the lates twin-stick shooter from independent developer Team Mango available now on XBLIG.
Story
Dysnomia’s main overarching plot is served up in a traditional opening sequence. This sequence explains that your ship is on the blink and you’ve located an outpost nearby where you may effect repairs. However, this isn’t necessarily the real story the game seeks to tell. Instead, Dysnomia’s real intent is to explore the events that have unfolded on the planet prior to your arrival. Unfortunately, everyone that could have simply explained to you what kind of crazy shit had gone down is either dead or missing and all that’s left are creepy crawlies and message terminals.
The terminals are located throughout the game and contain email correspondences between the personnel stationed at the outpost. The use of emails as the plot delivery method creates a player experience that can best be described as a narrative jigsaw puzzle. This is a result of the game’s fairly non-linear structure and can be explored through a variety of different paths. That isn’t to say the game’s story is necessarily in flux, just that the bits and pieces aren’t disseminated as part of any sort of fixed sequentiality.
In addition to the piecemeal style of story telling, the emails also had a humanizing effect on the events. In typical email fashion, thier are senders and receivers of all the messages in the game. This creates a situation where you can approach a terminal and read through the personal emails on it, and then fight through half the game and come across another terminal that happened to be the sender or receiver of the original terminal’s messages. I’m not really sure why, but this little touch somehow manages to add weight to the messages. Perhaps because it implies a certain level of community that existed before the disaster.
Gameplay
As a twin-stick shmup, Dysnomia controls much how you’d expect with a couple of variations on the typical. Firstly, the right trigger is used begin firing, rather than simply automating the firing based on the right stick’s orientation. Secondly, the other buttons are used to pick up, activate/deactivate, and insert/remove main boards.
The objectives of Dysnomia is to find the various parts needed to relaunch your ship as well as investigating the happenings of the mining colony. The item hunt and the investigation go hand in hand since the bulk of the items needed can be collected from the message terminals themselves. The remainder of the items are found on bosses or laying about on the ground where you’ll also find health packs and weapon items.
Speaking of weapons, a shmup with only one gun would be boring. Thankfully Dysnomia has five firing modes that are made available by picking up unique power cells. Once obtained you can easily switch between the various firing modes by using the shoulder buttons. There is, however, a bit of a balance issue with the five modes, as once you receive the explosive shots you really don’t want to use any of the others outside of situations where ammo is at a premium, for example during boss fights.
On the topic of bosses, there are several scattered throughout the game. The bosses are not necessarily essential to progressing through the levels, but are required to complete the game. What this means, is that you can fight the bosses in any order you want. The difficulty of the bosses is a bit wonky, as the only two that present any real challenge is the second and final encounters — which I am almost convinced is the head and ass of the same boss. All the other bosses can quite literally be kited around their chambers and shot to death with little to no risk of death.
Death in Dysnomia isn’t too big of a deal. The game allows you to save any time you wish and will auto save any time you load a level. This keeps frustration to a minimum on some of the more challenging swarm sections, unless of course you screw up and save your progress in a bad place. At which point you could be seriously boned. If you find the game lacking in difficulty, there are four difficulty settings that appear to throttle the spawn rate of the creatures. I found that the hard mode’s pacing gave me a good sense of really tearing things up.
Really the gameplay is very solid. The controls are nice and tight and I experienced no crashes during my play through. I did, however, encounter one annoying issue that involved the audio bugging out on bosses that fire lasers. The laser sound effect would get stuck and play continuously until it eventually irritated me enough to restart the game.
Audio Visual
Dysnomia’s graphics are quite nice for an XBLIG offering. The environments are well developed and filled with an endless supply of creepy crawlies that are both creepy and crawly. The creatures come in numerous shapes and sizes and are spread throughout the various levels with only the most basic models being reused. My personal favorites are the security droids who are basically laser wielding Roombas. Honestly, they could have only been better if cats had been riding them.
The menus and dialogue windows containing the email information are all well designed and easily read. The title screen is especially nice with its view of the planet and a window showing a bit of a gameplay preview.
On the audio front Dysnomia is adequate. Its music is definitely good but I found its sound effects to be a little lacking. The little clicks of the spider like alien’s walking down the hall is certainly creepy sounding over the low key game music, but they could have taken it all a little further.
I think with a little more emphasis on dynamic effects, the game could have created an atmosphere that really got you going. For example, the game’s atmosphere could have taken a turn for the creepy if the sounds of the spider’s tapping feet grew louder as they approached or if the game’s ambient lighting had been turned down putting more of an emphasis on the mining colonies emergency lighting. But these are really minor things that I only suggest because I love.
Summary
Dysnomia features two player co-op, about five hours of play time, and four difficulty modes that can be adjusted on the fly. I really enjoyed my play through of the game and think fans of twin stick shooters should certainly check it out for 240 Microsoft Points on the XBLIG Marketplace.
Summary
