Jun
1

Summer Time Adventures

In case you hadn’t noticed, the Earth is doing its northern tilt twoards the sun thing, and that more or less means it’s getting hot. I think it’s 427 degrees outside right now, which incidently happens to be the melting point of my resolve. What this also means is that it’s time to load up the wagon with supplies and set off on a cross country adventure of the family visiting type. If your mind is racing through your vast Rolodex of various Oregon Trail text style deaths, you’ve pretty much got the picture.

Of course my inevitable struggles against famine and dysentery are but the tip of the proverbial iceberg. The real struggle will be managing to survive without my consoles. In addition to the slow exceedingly painful withdrawls from console gaming, I’ll also have a difficult time doing any sort of posting. Likely I will be relegated to posting a brief poorly thought out rant of sorts about whatever I feel like ranting about. This could potentially be the best and worst thing ever, mostly for you, the reader.

I will, thankfully, have my iPad along, which will be the only real internet connection available. I actually bought the 3G model specifically with this yearly excursion in mind, since ten days away from the Interwebs typically results in greeting Death. I may also need to Google something important like “how to escape from bears.”

It’s pretty likely you don’t care where I’m going, but I’m going to tell you anyways. I’ll be cutting a swath through the American heart land driving from Tulsa, Oklahoma to a small town in Illinois called Pecatonica, which is near Rockford, which is a couple hours from Chicago — no, fortunately, I won’t be seeing a Blackhawks game.

This more or less concludes my public service announcement, be sure to look for our oddball content over the next ten or something days, or mark your calenders for when its safe to come back for your indie game goodness.

5 Replies

XBLIG Update: The Apple Jacked Edition

It’s been a few days since we had an update. Fortunately for me, it seems the developers took it easy over the weekend and didn’t go nuts releasing games. That said, we did have a fair amount to get checked out and below you’ll find the creame of the crop. As the title suggests, we do have a favorite in the group that is very deserving of your attention. The descriptions of the games below are the handy work of the games’ respective developers. Our commentary is prominently displayed in bold.

Solar Hoops

For an unknown reason, you are trying to catch a fiery meteor as it falls through a maze of stars into a waste basket being pulled by a spaceship.

Developer: Shawn Ryan

Price: 80 Microsoft Points

A surprisingly fun combination of a Peggle like game and a puzzle game. Seems like a solid game to mellow out with.

Kubrik 3D

Kubrik 3D is an addictive 3D take on a block stacking classic. Rotate the falling shapes then drop them into place to clear layers. The object being to prevent the blocks from reaching the top and to survive as long as possible. Featuring colourful 3d graphics and exciting fast paced gameplay, Kubrik 3D takes this style of puzzler into the next dimension !

Developer: Mr Zilog

Price: 80 Microsoft Points

The game is more or less three dimensional Tetris. It plays fairly well but I think it would have benefited enormously from having a drop shadow helping indicate block placement.

Plasma Spheres 2

Plasma Spheres 2 is a retro arcade game where players navigate a bouncing sphere through a bizarre world. In the campaign, players must collect items and experience to survive waves of diverse enemies including Zombies, Pirates, and Ninjas. In battle mode, a myriad of weapons, items, and objectives make for a wide array of multiplayer fun. A full physics engine makes every match unpredictable.

Developer: abnormalsoft

Price: 80 Microsoft Points

I like it, I don’t know if it is actually any good, but I like it anyways.

Apple Jack

Ever felt the urge to throw a washing machine at a panda? Apple Jack is a platform/puzzle game in which you DESTROY enemies by picking them up and HURLING them at each other! Journey west through five counties and 100 levels on a quest to rescue your beloved dog from the icy summit of Mount Snowdon!,

Developer: My Owl Software

Price: 80 Microsoft Points

Like platformers? I think you can go ahead and pick this one up. I haven’t gotten to spend any sort of meaningful time with it outside of the demo, but just from a quality of feel I think this one is likely to be well worth the 80 points.

Avatar Paintball

Take your very own Avatar into the battlefield and compete online in Avatar Paintball. Play online with up to 16 players, in a fully 3D world, complete with weapon unlocks, battlefield power-ups and portals! Compete with the rest of the world with the global high-score list.

Developer: DigitalDNA

Price: 240 Microsoft Points

I hate avatars, but I really like the world the developers have created for this game. It just has a lot of character. The over the shoulder camera angle is pretty annoying though. I would recommend trial playing the game before deciding to buy.

Rock A Block

An original racing, puzzle, platform game. Rotate your colored block to match the roller coaster of primary colors as you race up to 5 opponents along a brain twisting track of twitch gameplay or go head to head in 2 player. Alternatively take on the championship mode. Nine unlockable maps, five unlockable opponents and 9 unlockable add ons that give your racer boosted attributes

Developer: diskyoz

Price: 80 Microsoft Points

Game looks good, the play is fairly shallow but may have some good party game benefits. It’s ability to appeal to that audiance is limited however, by it having a maximum of two players.

3 Replies