Blizzard has announced that Diablo 3 is on the way!
And from the looks of it, this is going to be one of the most visually rich dungeon runs you've ever been on!
One of my buddies mentioned this to me last night on World of Warcraft, but I had not gotten an opportunity to check out the official site until this morning.
If you're a fan of the Diablo series, I'd definitely recommend giving the website a look - Blizzard has released a large collection of screenshots (which I've got hosted here as well, in a gallery at the end of the post), as well as some wallpapers, concept art, lore, and a lot more. It's a great way to kick off what looks to be another triple-A title.
I'm a big fan of multiplayer dungeon-run games like Diablo and Dungeon Siege, and though I like the pre-made levels available in these types of games, I've always reserved a special place for those that can generate dungeons randomly as well. Random dungeons give the player a sense of discovery that's simply not possible when they run the same levels over and over, and I love the idea of working my way through a dungeon that nobody else may have ever seen before. From what I have read about Diablo 3, this game will include this feature and that, coupled with the amazing graphics and the classic Diablo gameplay, is just about enough to get me to put in a pre-order right now.
Hopefully we'll be learning more about the world of Sanctuary soon - I'm especially looking forward to a release date. The fact that Blizzard is posting job listings for Diablo 3 on the website makes me believe we won't be playing this anytime really soon, but seeing as the game is far enough along to deliver these amazing screenshots, it couldn't be that far off, right? Maybe a holiday release? Please?
In any case, I'm going to have to round up my current batch of unfinished games and get through them so I have time for this... but then Spore will be out later this year, as well as Gears of War 2. And possibly C&C: Red Alert 3. And then there will be more updates to Team Fortress 2. And the World of Warcraft expansion.
Ah, well... sleeping was always such a waste of time anyway, right?
Look at that beast. Just take a moment and look at it. In that gooey pile of nacho goodness rests a quarter bag of tortilla chips, several handfuls of shredded Mexican cheese, three quarters of an avocado, a heap of sour cream, and a whole can of refried beans.
This, folks, is a still-sizzling plate of super nachos, whipped up by yours truly.
Believe it or not, I ate the entire thing last night... I guess that's why I wasn't hungry for breakfast this morning (or lunch, for that matter).
After a few well-deserved days off, I'm back on the mean streets of California, choking on the smoky air, navigating the dense freeway traffic, and cranking my air conditioning up to 11.
I bet you didn't even notice I was gone, did you? (Don't answer that!)
I had a great time though, and I wanted to post a bit about it here before I return to the doldrums of my normal updates... and before I get back into working on my competition entry, which I'll be showcasing on the blog as soon as I can.
Anyway, my girlfriend had to do some traveling up north for her work, and seeing how we both love it up in Seattle (and we both needed a break from the California heat), we decided to make an extended weekend out of it. Our legs are sore from all the walking around, but we both had a great time, and got to see and do a lot of cool things on the trip.
Fremont Summer Solstice Parade
Our first stop, after dropping off our bags at our hotel and grabbing a bite to eat, was the Summer Solstice Parade in Fremont. My girlfriend, having lived in Seattle for a few months some years ago, had already been to the parade before. I had not, and was pretty excited about it. Watching a throng of crazy people parade down the street is always fun, right?
Turned out it was. The parade, which was founded on the principle of being entirely human-powered, was filled to the brim with neat ideas for floats, interesting costumes, and awesomely-demented people. The Fremont street fair, a large gathering of local crafters and merchants, was equally cool, and was about ten times larger than the last time I'd seen it, presumably because of the number of people at the solstice parade. I liked the "art cars" they had there as well.
One thing that took both my girlfriend and myself by surprise (in a good way) was the pre-parade bicycle cavalcade. Admittedly, this probably doesn't sound very exciting - until I mention the fact that 90% of the people riding these bikes aren't wearing anything but some body paint and a smile. All I can say is that public nudity is kinda awesome.
Bainbridge Island
On the west side of the Puget sound is Bainbridge Island, a small bit of land accessible via only one bridge to the north, and by ferry from Seattle. Though neither my girlfriend or I have ever explored the island in its entirety, we always manage to find something fun to do there, and usually some good eats as well. For this most recent trip, we made it to Doc's Marina Grill for some excellent fish & chips, and then walked up the hill to the Bainbridge Pavilion to rest and catch a movie. We ended up watching Kung Fu Panda.
I actually really enjoyed Kung Fu Panda, for a few reasons. Probably the first things you notice about the film is that it's a visual splendor. The backdrops are beautiful, the animation is slick, and the characters are amazing - there isn't one scene in the entire movie that isn't a complete treat for the eyes. The all-star voice acting was also very well done, especially Jack Black's performance as the panda, Po, who leads the film. Also well done is the story, which is somewhat predictable, but which is told so well that it manages to stay just fresh enough to be interesting.
Kung Fu Panda is definitely a children's movie, but I liked it a lot, and would see it again. I actually feel somewhat inspired to create a stylish Kung Fu-type game now, but I need to finish my competition entry before I start something like that. Kung Fu Panda was a great movie though, and I highly recommend it.
Dinner with Gunner McJack
If you've followed Reflect Games since its beginnings, you probably recognize the name Gunner McJack - a hardcore firearms master, and a professional ass-kicker. The fictional Gunner McJack is derived from a character a friend of mine and I created back in college. I got to grab a bite to eat with my buddy, who's taken on the nickname of Gunner McJack, which was fun. Not much more to say about that, except that I still do plan on making a Gunner McJack game one of these days.
Experience Music Project
One of the last things my girlfriend and I got to do in Seattle was visit the Experience Music Project, or EMP, which houses some really great exhibits on the history of rock 'n roll, as well as the Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame.
I wish we would have had a bit more time to look through both sections of the EMP. The collection of historic items from rock history was impressive, and the current exhibition, a Jimi Hendrix retrospective, was amazing. The compendium of related items was fun to look at, and even included pages from Hendrix's diary detailing a few nights of gigs. Also on display was a large collection of historic guitars, spanning the range from awesome to eccentric. Upstairs from the main floor are a series of booths where you can learn the basics of playing a variety of instruments, audio mixing, etc. There's also large media room where you can listen to and watch audio / video clips of artists discussing their songs and performing. I'm not an audiophile by any means, but I could have spent at least a few more hours looking at everything.
The Science Fiction Museum also had a great exhibit called Robots: A Designer's Collection of Miniature Mechanical Marvels, which contained a large number of robot models and toys, including various Transformers, Mechagodzilla, and other gun-toting, plastic automatons. It was a great way to end the tour through the museum itself, which housed a fine collection of science fiction memorabilia from every era since its inception. I'm not sure if most of it was replication or original, but it was awesome to see artifacts like the original Star Trek costumes, the gun Bruce Willis used in The Fifth Element, and the E.T. spaceship. It was also quite enlightening to see how entrenched our culture is in science fiction, and I think that even my girlfriend, who isn't really into science fiction much, got a kick out of some of the show.
And Now I'm Back
So yeah, after a whirlwind of activity in Seattle, I'm back. I'll be picking up production on my competition game again tonight, and probably getting in a little gameage on the side too. You'll be able to read about all that here, and I'll try to get some images (or maybe some video!) of the new game uploaded soon. It was a great vacation, but I'm glad to be back, too. After all, being at home and getting things done now is what makes vacation in the future so much more enjoyable!
Thanks for reading, and if you're up in the Seattle area, check out some of the stuff I mentioned above, if you can.
Clichéd as it is, let me start this with a few definitions:
Mundane-adjective
2. common; ordinary; banal; unimaginative.
Uninteresting-adjective
1. arousing no interest or attention or curiosity or excitement.
Stupid-adjective
2. characterized by or proceeding from mental dullness; foolish; senseless.
Mundane, uninteresting, and stupid. These three words perfectly describe one of the newest internet cesspools, Twitter.
If you took MySpace, dropped it into a special machine designed to wring out everything but the superficiality, narcissism, and lust for attention, and then you took what was left, put it into some bullets, and then fired them at the internet with an automatic machine gun, you'd have Twitter. And probably a few dead bystanders.
For anyone out there who is not familiar with Twitter, it's a lot like having a blog, except instead of taking the time to think about and actually write a cohesive collection of sentences, your updates consist of one-liners and simple thoughts. To better illustrate my description, here are some example Twitter entries:
"its already 10:30???!?!? when did that happen??"
I dunno, maybe while you were sitting there posting stuff on Twitter?
"Speaking of food.....lunchtime!"
Nobody was speaking of food.
"At the hospital waiting on Labor and Delivery."
It really sounds like you've got more important things to do than Twitter.
"Why do I hear windchimes in the office?"
I dunno, but you should get that checked out.
"confused by backpack"
Average Twitter user.
"I can't stop eating DORITOS!!! mmmmmm"
Perhaps the first advertisement on Twitter?
"i started a juice fast yesterday... i now think my stomach is eating itself!"
Yes, that rare feeling us humans call "hunger".
Twitter users call these small messages "tweets." I refuse to do that.
There's a reason why I don't speak aloud every little random thought that goes through my head, let alone post them in my blog. It's because, like everyone else, most everything I think about throughout the day (and most of the stuff I do, for that matter) isn't interesting enough to share with people. And the same goes for everyone else, regardless of who you are.
Nobody cares if you're eating Doritos. Nobody cares about your momentary confusing over a backpack. Nobody cares if you hear windchimes in your office. These things are not important.
And yet, thanks to Twitter, the internet is bombarded with a constant stream of similar garbage. I honestly can't think of a bigger waste of time - sitting around posting and reading things on Twitter makes a full day of World of Warcraft seem like an exceedingly productive thing to do. It gives a bad (worse) name to social networking on the internet, and cheapens somewhat more legitimate outlets of information, like blogging.
Twitter annoys me worse than lolcats, and I think that given the chance, I would purge every memory of its existence from the collective consciousness of mankind. If you use Twitter, please just stop. You're ruining the internet for everyone.
In all my excitement over the Spore Creature Creator and trying to fit my game playing/creating time into the remainder of the day, I nearly forgot that Valve had announced a Team Fortress 2 update, along with the release of a new character vignette!
Meet the Sniper is another brilliant clip introducing the playable character classes from TF2, this time, quite obviously, for the sniper. The short video follows the sniper around his "workplace" as he guns down and machetes enemies, drives his truck, and... talks on the phone with parents (who, by the sniper's own admittance, don't like his job).
The camping scene and the ending are also fantastic, but I won't ruin it for you - watch it for yourself, below.
As I mentioned in a previous blog post, these videos are the result of a fantastic promotional campaign for Team Fortress 2 by Valve. They shine with the kind of polish that can only be obtained via confidence and respect for one's work and considering how great of a game Team Fortress 2 is, and continues to be with each class update, Valve has a lot to be proud of.
I've yet to play the updated flame-thrower, but I'll be sure to report back here when I do.
And for one last note - don't forget to download Firefox 3 if you haven't already. It's hardly been 24 hours since its launch, and the new browser has already been downloaded over 7 million times! That number seems a bit bloated, but - wow! Congratulations to Mozilla - there's no doubt their little browser is a big hit.
After having read about countless people playing with the Spore Creature Creator (and watching the number of creatures added to the online database jump by the thousands with each page refresh), I finally got a chance to try it out myself... and it's pretty fun!
I also made this goofy blue dragon.
I haven't had a chance to give this a really lengthy go-round, but from what I have played so far, it's intuitive, easy, and fun. Taking your creature for a test-drive as you develop him is awesome, and the features the team has built into the game for taking pictures, creating videos, animated avatars, etc. is great. I'm still going to reserve final judgment for the final release of the game, but just from this small taste, I think Spore is going to turn out great.
As with the Mii channel on Wii, half the fun will be to see what kind of creations people can make that resemble existing creatures. I've already seen a Murloc creature floating around, and it was a pretty damn good recreation.
Anyway, I'm going to get back to playing around with this, as well as working on my YYG Competition 3 entry - be sure to try out the Creature Creator though and let me know what you think!
There's much ado with Marty - here's the low-down on what I've been up to, and what I've got planned for the week.
YoYo Games Competition 3
I've been bouncing around an idea in my head for the third installment of the YYG game competition a while now, and I think that when I get home from work today, I might just start putting together an engine. The idea I have is for a puzzle game, and is somewhat basic in design, but even with simple rules, I think that a complex and fun game can be created. I'll be posting more about this later in the week depending on how things turn out. About the only thing I'd like to give away for now is that the graphic style I have in mind is akin to something like Out of This World. And it's probably going to have robots in it.
Reflect Games
I know, I keep saying that I'm working on a site update, and nothing comes of it - well, there is actually quite a bit going on with the beta version of the new site, and though I've been off the project again for a few weeks, I'll be dipping into it again soon enough. I've also got a few things to sort out with the Reflect server code itself, so I might be re-writing that too - if the problems the Adrenaline team has been having with it turn out to be a Reflect issue.
World of Warcraft
Despite my best efforts not to play that much WoW, I put in a fair amount of time with the game this weekend... and now I've got my epic flying mount, which makes traveling around the game, mining, and questing a lot more enjoyable. For anyone outside of the Azeroth loop, much of your time in the game is spent traveling to and from where you need to go... so the faster you can get there, the better. There are a multitude of solutions for this - mages can make portals to towns (like Diablo), you can pay for rapid transit from town to town via flying beast, and eventually you can buy all sorts of mounts of various breed and speed. An epic flying mount is about the fastest ride you can buy, and combined with my Paladin's Crusader Aura, gives me a speed increase of 456%. Needless to say, this makes traveling around the World of Warcraft a lot less time consuming, and the game much more enjoyable.
I'm now currently waiting for Blizzard to unlock a new set of PVP gear for purchase, so I'll probably be spending a bit less time playing until then.
Web Work
I've also been helping out my buddy "D" to get his gaming news blog off the ground. I've re-skinned it and added a lot of cool plug-ins and customizations to help the site look its best. Check out DLB-Network.com to see how it all turned out.
The Rest
There's not much else going on for me at the moment - my girlfriend is out of town for most of the week. I finished my lunch-time book a few days ago, so I have nothing to read today (I'll probably just listen to the radio). And I'm not sure what I want to eat for lunch... hmm.
Anyway, that's all. Who else is working on a game for the next YYG competition? Post a comment, I'd like to hear from ya! And as always, thanks for reading.
Ever get absolutely lost in a game's soundtrack? With the increased capacity of game media, like DVD and Blue-ray disc, it's become much more commonplace for games to include epic, fully performed / orchestrated music. Of course, there's been great game music in all periods of gaming history, whether the music was a masterfully sequenced chip tune or prerecorded by a live orchestra.
Over the years I've found myself drawn to many games by their amazing music, and I'd like to share a few of those games (and their music) here so that you might also find some enjoyment in them. I've actually found so many game soundtracks that I like, I've collected them in a series of installments from different eras of video game history, starting with 8-bit systems and below.
Many of the soundtracks for the games listed below can be found online and can be listened to as MP3's or via a plug-in for Winamp, and I've provided links to these resources where possible. Plug-ins for Winamp which allow you to play the raw music files of games can be found at Zophar's Domain, which is an excellent source of a lot of different video game utilities.
Sega Master System Not a particularly strong performer in the music department, the SMS had a few games that really took music to a new level among the other games on the system. Though repetitive, and not particularly lengthy or diverse, the music on the SMS could be catchy at times, and like all good game music, would often get stuck in your head long after you'd finished playing. Here are a few of the stronger performers, from games I've played long, long ago - you can find the raw music files for at least one of these games in the GMS section of Zophar's Domain.
Aztec Adventure
Penguin Land
Nintendo Gameboy My library of games for the Gameboy was quite small. Despite this, I thoroughly enjoyed the games I had, and even found that a few of them had some fantastic tunes within. The GBS section at Zophar's Domain includes links to music files for both of the games listed below.
Super Mario Land 2: Six Golden Coins
Super Mario Land 3: Wario Land
Nintendo Entertainment System
The NES seemed to have a better sound system inside than the SMS, but the tunes included in most of its' game were all just as repetitive, short, and above all, catchy. Whether we bought the games or only rented them, my brother and I bumbled through a decent portion of our childhood constantly humming the music from many NES games. Perhaps that's why I can still remember half of the music from these games, almost 20 years later! You can find files for many of the games listed below in the NSF section at Zophar's Domain.
Chip & Dale's Rescue Rangers
Ducktales
Maniac Mansion
Mega Man 2
Super Mario Bros. 3
Tetris
That should do it for my list of favorite 8-bit music! Feel free to mention other game soundtracks you've enjoyed in the comments below and be on the lookout for the next post sometime in the future, which will cover my favorites from the 16-bit era.
Back when the Xbox 360 was on its way in, I was convinced that Microsoft was making a huge mistake. The original Xbox never quite seemed to catch on, and with only a 4-year lifespan, it hardly seemed to have been given a chance. So in 2005 when the Xbox 360 was launched in North America, I looked on with only casual interest, with no intent to buy. I've always maintained a decent gaming PC anyway, so I never felt like I was missing out on much.
When Gears of War was released however, I stepped into Wal*Mart with plans to buy the game for my brother for Christmas and was so impressed with the game, I walked out with a brand new system instead - and I've never regretted it since. I've now got a solid library of games, and use the machine almost every day. Turns out that the Xbox brand is pretty good after all.
The console has been about for almost 3 years now, and the time is approaching to start thinking ahead. When the inevitable next version of the Xbox rolls into town, how can Microsoft ensure that it will be at least as big of a success? By following my list of suggestions, of course!
Better hardware
Not only should Microsoft work to ensure that the next Xbox has less instances of hardware failure than the Xbox 360, but it should also include a few upgrades to the current 360 hardware. These include:
Blue-ray disc drive (preferably a quieter drive than the 360's DVD drive as well)
Built-in wireless (not essential, but would be nice for some
There's not all that much that really needs to be added, and if it makes the cost of the system skyrocket, I'd prefer they stick to the same scheme they used for the Xbox 360 - keep the extra components as add-ons which can be bought and used as needed.
Keep It Simple
One thing that I really like about the Xbox 360 is the fact that it works, and works well, right out of the box. There's no huge set up, and no need to configure the system much before you jump right into the games. This is a small, but important detail, and one which I hope Microsoft doesn't skip over for the next Xbox - especially if more advanced hardware is included in the package.
And even though I'd like to see some big upgrades to the innards of the next Xbox, I'd rather not have the machine try to be an all-in-one home entertainment solution. Microsoft has done well keeping their gaming box relevant and fun by making it primarily about gaming, and I think that's a smart course to take, especially considering how poorly all-in-one devices have done with consumers in the past.
Good Value
I believe that one major attribute to the success of the Xbox 360 was the fact that system prices were kept within a reasonable range, via price cuts and varying SKU's. Sony's initially ridiculous pricing for the PS3 didn't hurt either. If the next Xbox is to succeed again, it should be carefully priced to avoid seeming cheap, while staying within grasp of people who earn an average income, between $300 and $400.
Value also comes from what's inside the box, and the improved hardware mentioned above could mean additional worth. Backwards compatibility is also important to this - I'm a lot more comfortable with replacing my current game system with a new one if I can play most of my old games on the new rig. It should go without saying that Xbox Live Arcade games, Gamerscore, and Gamercard should transfer over to the next system with nary a hitch.
A good game lineup is also an important part of the value for any system, and as long as Microsoft keeps up a good relationship with quality developers, either via special treatment or other means, they should have no shortage of good games moving into the future.
Give It Time
The final important factor in making the next Xbox a hit has a lot to do with the current Xbox 360, and how long the system is kept alive. I think Microsoft should extend the life of the 360 well into 2009 or 2010. The 360 is currently having no trouble keeping up with rival PS3, and the extra time should give the Xbox team room for making good improvements to the next system's hardware and software, testing, and nailing down a solid, stable release. This could ensure that there's no console shortage fiasco (or at least, not such a big one), and could also give manufacturers time to get component pricing under control - which could mean lower initial prices.
Sony is Microsoft's biggest competitor right now, and they've pledged a 10 year lifespan for the PS3. This gives ample time for Microsoft to put together an awesome, inexpensive gaming rig without casting the Xbox 360 aside too quickly.
I'll be looking forward to the next Xbox, and because of the success of the Xbox 360, I'm sure many others will be as well. Here's to hoping for a bright future!
This weekend I tried my hand at 6 Xbox Live Arcade games, and here's the lowdown on each one. Are any of them worth your time, or for that matter, your money? Read on to find out!
I kicked off my game demo bonanza with Assault Heroes - a top-down shooter that throws waves and waves of enemies at you as you progress from one place to another. As the name implies, this is the second game in the series, and this time the assault heroes are given a new locale, a few new vehicles to drive around in, and new enemies to dispose of.
For anyone who's played Geometry Wars (or the first Assault Heroes, for that matter), the controls will be easy to pick up. The left stick moves your character around while the right stick fires your weapon. You're given a single button for switching weapons, and a single button for entering and exiting vehicles. Play is a simple matter - fill your enemies with bullets while avoiding being filled with bullets yourself.
Visually, Assault Heroes 2 is a treat. There's oodles of bad guys, tanks, buggies, helicopters, explosions, and collapsing buildings, all on an exotic background of snow-covered mountains, rain forests, space, and more. Though it was, at times, slightly hard to follow all the action on my SDTV (and sitting about 10 feet away), I could usually follow my character and all the bullet tracers well enough. I don't think I would have had any troubles with this if I had been playing the game on my computer monitor.
I always kind of wanted to buy Assault Heroes, but since the game is best enjoyed with multiple players, and none of my friends seem to own it, I never did. I'm afraid that the same fate will befall Assault Heroes 2, but if you've got interested friends, I'd definitely recommend it.
Though I wouldn't call myself a Sudoku master yet, I do enjoy the logical challenge presented by the typical Sudoku puzzle, both on paper and in games. For those of you who haven't really gotten into the whole thing, here's a brief explanation.
A typical Sudoku puzzle is a grid of 9 squares by 9 squares, broken into 3 rows and 3 columns of 3 by 3 grids. Each 3 by 3 group and each row and column in the the overall puzzle can contain the numbers 1 through 9 only once. The puzzle has a few numbers inside it when you start, and from those, you use logic to determine where all the other numbers should go. It might sound a bit confusing at first, but it's easy to get into, and hard to quit!
Like most other games of the casual persuasion, Buku Sudoku is big on bling. The presentation, while not the greatest I've seen, is mostly strong. The game comes dressed in a variety of themes, and plays soft background music in the menus and while you play. In my first game, I found the song that the game defaulted to (a kind of Asian-ish thing) somewhat annoying, but the second wasn't so bad. The few themes I saw looked good, though you're probably going to be looking at Sudoku grid most of the time anyway.
Gameplay was just as you'd expect - you put numbers on the grid, and the game tells you if your input is correct. The controls in the game were passable, though I would have preferred a different way to change / enter numbers. I think I might just be spoiled by the touch-screen implementation in Brain Age (DS), though.
Overall, Buku Sudoku would be a good buy for someone looking for thousands of puzzles (and who really likes Sudoku). The demo didn't seem to have any major flaws, except a few flubs in presentation and control. I might purchase this someday when I've got nothing else to do, but for now, I'll continue working on the puzzles in Brain Age.
The best way I can describe TiQal is by likening it to Lumines - the two are essentially the same game. Puzzle pieces of various colors rise from the floor, and your job is to counter this by dropping similarly colored pieces to make groups of 4 (2 by 2), which are then wiped from the play field after a certain amount of time. You can score combos by adding to the stack of squares that are already marked for demolition, and the game is over if you let the stack get too high. The few differences between this game and Lumines include a more forgiving failure system, puzzle pieces that don't come in duo-colored squares, and a Mayan theme.
I liked TiQal's graphics, mostly. Some of the transitions between story and play areas were a bit dull (I don't really care for sliding large graphics on and off the screen), but the backdrops were vibrant and I liked the effects. My only squabbles were that block colors are sometimes a little too similar, resulting in a few accidental missed combos, and that the backgrounds are a little bright in some places, making it hard to discern what's going on in the play area. These problems may have been related to my viewing arrangement, but for a puzzle game, it's important to consider these things.
As a minor fan of Lumines, I felt TiQal was a decent enough game to borrow so heavily from the game. If I didn't own Lumines already, I might have been more interested in purchasing TiQal, as I liked the gameplay and the presentation (despite how over-done the whole Mayan theme thing is with casual games).
Probably the most stylish game I tried out on my Xbox Live Arcade trial weekend, Ikaruga is the anticipated shoot 'em up (SHMUP) direct from the Japanese arcade scene. This game is a great example of what you can get when you cross tried-and-true play mechanics with "next-gen" hardware, and like many current SHMUPS on the PC, you'll find yourself (and probably others) mesmerized by the action as you blast your way through the waves.
Ikaruga is cinematic and stylish at once, and everything has a very sharp, clean look to it. The backgrounds you fly over as you battle are breathtaking, and enemy ships will weave in and out of elements below you before making their way to the foreground. Ships and bullets are fun to look at and easy to distinguish. Even in playing the trial game, you really get the sense that the developers of Ikargua truly cared about making sure every last bit of the game was as polished as possible.
One unique twist that Ikaruga carries over similar games is the polarity system Treasure Co., Ltd. have employed. Each enemy you face, and all the bullets they fire, are of either red or blue polarity. You can change your ship's polarity at will, which allows you to absorb bullets of the same polarity and do extra damage to enemy ships of the opposite. This adds a very interesting depth to the game, whereas an impossibly navigable array of bullets can turn into a field of super-weapon in the blink of an eye. As would be expected, this also ads a bit to the learning curve, but once you get used to it, you're good to go.
I enjoyed the feel of the game, and the simple controls made it easy to get into. Controlling the ship with an analog joystick is a little strange after using a keyboard on PC SHMUPS, but I think I will get used to it.
I've not yet bought Ikaruga, but once I give the trial game a few more plays, I might just throw the MS points down and take the plunge. Ikaruga is one of the best (and only) Japanese shooter experiences you can find on the 360, and for fans of SHMUPS, it simply shouldn't be passed up.
Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness: Episode One [Link]
Out of all the games I tried out this weekend, Penny Arcade Adventures is probably the one I spent the most amount of time with. It's also one of the larger games available on Xbox Live Arcade, as well as one of the most expensive (1600 MS Points, or $20). For those not deterred by the price, however, there's plenty of good fun to be had.
PAA follows the hijinks of the Penny Arcade web comic protagonists, Tycho and Gabe, as they romp through a 1920's era city named New Arcadia, kick robot butt, and attempt to solve the mystery behind the destruction of the town. The game employs a simple RPG style of play, where you move around the world via entering and exiting different panels (like a comic book), fights begin when you encounter monsters, and each character waits for action meters to fill up before he can attack, use items, or use a special ability. When you're in the overworld, you can smash garbage cans and chest to pick up special items, and as you play you collected experience points, which level your character and make him (or her) stronger.
Fans of the comic and newcomers to the series alike will find a lot to enjoy in PAA. The graphics are done in a comic-outlined style very reminiscent of the Penny Arcade comic (and other web comics in general, I'd say), the audio is good, the RPG elements are light, but still interesting, and the humor is great. It's really fun game to look at overall, and the production values that go into a more expensive Xbox live Arcade title are evident.
Right now I've got a few more games on deck than I like, so I'm holding off, but I'll definitely buy Penny Arcade Adventures at some point in the future. I like the RPG play, as well as the presentation of the game itself, with the cartoon graphics, comic-panel level design, etc. Though I'm not a regular Penny Arcade reader, I usually find the comics funny, and the humor Hothead Games has injected into the game is similar, which is definitely a plus.
It's slightly disappointing that, as harsh critics of the video game industry, the guys behind Penny Arcade couldn't have come up with a better overall game, but what's here seems solid enough to warrant a buy for me. If the episodic adventures get better as they progress, we should be in for some great times ahead with the PAA crew.
In an attempt to round out the multiplayer trivia options found on Xbox Live Arcade, Hidden Path Entertainment has unleashed Wits & Wagers, a game-show type game where you and a group of other players take a stab at answering questions, and then vote on the answer which seems closest to the truth. Expectedly, it's a test of both your wits and your wagering skills.
To be fair, I didn't spend as much time with Wits & Wagers as I probably should have to give it a decent write-up, but what I did get the chance to see was fun, though slightly dull. In order to make answers to trivia questions all conform to one type of answer (to make them easier to compare for wagering), each answer is numeric. Once the question is posed, players are given a short time to dial in a number by pressing up or down on the left stick, to indicate all sorts of data, from years, miles, weight, and more, all depending on the nature of the question. Answers are ordered from high to low, players place their bets, and the real answer is revealed. Points are awarded to the player who came closest to the correct answer without going over, and to the players who wagered wisely.
I was distracted by my girlfriend at the time (she was trying to get me to get up off the couch and go outside, I believe), so I wasn't able to concentrate much on the questions... I did have some fun with the avatar system though. Using one of the analog sticks, you can make your on-screen avatar throw it's arms and body around to dance, wilt, cheer, etc. Simple, and stupid - but fun, even with a group of computer players moving spastic around with me. I imagine this, along with the rest of the game, is a lot more fun playing online, with a group of friends.
Like Assault Heroes 2, I don't think I'd purchase Wits & Wagers unless I had a small throng of friends ready to buy and play along with me. It's got some neat quirks, but it all seems just a little too simple for me, unfortunately.
Final Thoughts
History has taught me to expect less from the offerings on Xbox Live Arcade, so even though there were a few games in this stack that didn't quite fit the bill, I'd say that overall, I was pleasantly surprised. There's definitely some good stuff up there (and they'll be easier to find once Microsoft starts de-listing underperforming games).
I'm not sure when I'll be doing another Arcade roundup, but I enjoyed this one and hope the next few weeks of games raise the bar in quality like these games have. Thanks for reading, and don't forget to try out some new games yourself!
