Does willful ignorance allow you to overcome otherwise insurmountable challenges?

Why is total darkness so terrifying?

When will gaming grow out of this emo phase and get a haircut?

Closure is another artsy puzzle platformer in the vein of Braid or Portal. In the interests of evangelizing this little indie title I’m tempted to gush at length about the startlingly cool game mechanic, but spoiling the experience of discovering it for yourself would just ruin the fun. What I can say is that if you enjoyed the new directions Portal explored in terms of first-person jumping puzzles, you’re likely to be pleasantly surprised by what Closure does with traditional key-hunting platformer motifs.

Unfortunately Closure isn’t nearly as polished as either Portal or Braid (you get what you pay for) so unless you really fall in love with the art style or game mechanics it’s probably not a Flash game worth finishing. There is a story (though it’s so subtle as to be almost unrecognizable) that slowly unfolds as you traverse from one map to the next, and you can expect to perish at least once figuring out every new puzzle. Death is cheap in the minimalist world of Closure, so don’t fret or play any longer than necessary trying to hold out for some big narrative payoff; the game does one thing (innovative puzzle-platforming gameplay) and does it well. Check it out.

Boot this game up and you’re treated to a surprisingly detailed world of dark fantasy, where steam-powered trebuchets share the battlefield with lumbering behemoths and demonic servitors. The graphics are comparable for a game released in 2008, and more importantly they’re optimized for smooth gameplay in multiplayer matches. The rest of the game is technically sound if a little uninspired, and generic fantasy scores will serenade you as you ravage enemy cities.

An experience system means every player starts out as the basic unit of either the Human or Beast side, and you can only progress your character by accomplishing objectives or destroying enemy players on the field. Humans tend to be a bit tougher and perform better at ranged, while the Beasts feature a number of useful stealth and mobility abilities that allow them to capitalize on their strengths in melee. With enough experience any player can rise above the battle and assume the role of commander, where they can direct the flow of battle from a birds-eye perspective.

But what does the commander do when all your units have minds of their own? Beyond allocating resources to upgrades and laying out construction orders for buildings (one of the most influential aspects of the battle) the commander can promote units on the field and suggest orders for individual players. I say “suggest” because there’s no impetus for player cooperation beyond an experience bonus for accomplishing objectives, leading to an interesting game dynamic where the commander is just as beholden to his team’s goodwill as they are to his allocation of their precious resources.

Savage 2 is a solid play experience with a classy combination of the RTS and action genres that was built around online multiplayer. Unfortunately most people aren’t ready to believe in the fantasy of a deeply strategic online game that’s entirely free to play, so the player base isn’t nearly as large as something like Quake Live. The only way to change that is to spread the word about unique experiences like this, so grab the client here and give it a shot.

Turns out that most of the people I know did not pick this game up, and there are good reasons for this. Normally I don’t like to give a review on something until I finish the game, but its just killing me. This game is not really that hard, in fact its to easy. Most RTS the units just do straight damage, in this game its a rock, paper, scissors match. The biggest problem is that you are a rock and they are always scissors, and you have a big rock. The funny thing is all you have to do is make marines. That’s it. just run around with them and kill everything. I have found my only reason to have vehicles is if they give them to me.

I also think the controls are not intuitive for this platform. This really just needed to be a PC release. To select units you can select al, select local, or use the painter. 90% of the time you will move some units one way and then select all units by accident and mess up your whole plan. I have found that if I just bunch them all up into a large mobile horde, they kill faster and its less frustrating. The game has programed events that no matter what you do, X will happen. I thought we got past that point 5 years ago. This game has taken the genre back to the original command and conquer, which in my opinion is a better game.

If them made the interface more like End Wars it would have been a better game. It did not even need the voice command, just the general controler layout and level layout. I think I will eventually beat this game, but I just don’t really want to play it. Maybe ill go play some Gears of War 2, they have a new DLC at the end of the month. I will also write a second look when I beat the game. Who knows maybe it will grow on me.

It’s difficult to describe (so I really recommend you hop in and give the game a shot,) but essentially you move little Death around the field with your mouse and control your weapon with the left mouse button, occasionally triggering a special bullet time or rage effect (you gain money to improve your character’s abilities and weapons) by tapping keys on the keyboard. Rather than determining your firing direction with a second input source independent of movement Death fires continuously in a direction determined by how you move him, and you hold the left mouse button to lock in your firing direction and keep it constant.

See what I mean? What that means for you the player is that after a few minutes of practice on the first level you’ll find yourself at the helm of a quirky and thoroughly enjoyable sh’mup with great music, plenty of colorful explosions (the game displays 40-50 enemies on-screen in a Flash player with no slowdown, an impressive feat) and the freedom to play with one hand. What you do with the other one is up to you.

Oh hey, if anyone’s interested I’m Seraph621 on Quake Live. Let’s get together and eat some buckshot, suck down some plasma, ride some rockets and generally try to couch a deathmatch in the most homoerotic terms possible.

Apparently, Microsoft has been doing some major R&D into using old computers to create “Personal Assistants”. Again, what the hell does THAT mean? Well, MS wants to create a somewhat watered down AI program that can sense things. It can help you schedule things and offer help on others and even book airline tickets. Okay, how scary is it that MS wants to do something as innovative as this? Well, until it becomes used and shows major usefulness in many areas, I’m not really gonna worry about it. If Cyberdyne happens to be created within the next 20 years, then we can sh!t our pants.

I never would have thought the CPU would have limitations. I know companies have some major ordeal making things smaller for whatever reason, but the more things you cram into a small space, the more its going to expand that space whether you like it or not. Oh well if a CPU has to be bigger than an inch and a half if it helps with making it more effective at what it does or needs to do. I honestly wouldn’t have an issue having 2 separate units doing separate things. If I could have my CPU going 8 GHz because other things can be done on another processor on the board at 1 GHz, then so be it!

In the future, the GPU will become more effective and almost more needed if things are progressing the way Microsoft thinks and is showing it can. We’ve only barely touched the tech pool with what things can do. I think it has to do with the fact that engineers and programmers have “tunnel-vision” and see only one component being the answer despite the multiple abilities of everything else. It’s actually a great thing to see unused processor power being used for something other than nothing. Too bad it didn’t happen sooner.

After signing up for a (free) account, Quake Live requires the prospective player to download a small plug-in for their browser of choice. Once they’ve completed this one-time installation the player can log in and jump directly into the game. To keep downtime to a minimum the basic game files install in the background while the player creates a character and personalize details like control schemes, model skin and the appearance of weapon blasts.

Once you’ve put the finishing touches on your hellspawn of choice you’re confronted with an optional brief training match; for Q3 vets it’s not much use but if you haven’t played in a while give it a whirl, if only to see how the controls have been updated and to ensure you’re matched against players of consummate skill. That’s right, the game features a matchmaking service which automatically ranks displayed servers based on your performance and recommends the top three for your gaming pleasure.

In addition the game offers a hub system from which players can launch multiplayer games, find friends and check out player profiles to keep abreast of each player’s stat log. The service puts powerful emphasis on building a vibrant community, and offers the opportunity to view the statistics of friends and recent rivals. If community gaming isn’t your thing (or you just want an opportunity to refresh your skills before jumping into a pulic match) Quake Live offers practice matches with customizable bots to round out the teams.

The game has suffered from the expected post-launch delays and technical issues (stat tracking is currently disabled to streamline the playing process) but plays surprisingly smooth after only a week of public operation (I noticed no noticeable lag in about four hours of play.) However, there is currently no support for user mods to the base Quake engine; this is troublesome, as when I think of all the great experiences I had playing Quake III in high school they were mostly with mods like Action Quake and Assault. Can vanilla Q3 (even a free version) keep player interest for more than a month or two?

In 2005, a little game known as We Heart Katamari came out. My sister told me the premise: Roll shit up in a ball. Sounds easy, and guess what, it is. You start with a ball and you roll things that are smaller than you into it. Anything smaller, nailed down or not. Then you get bigger and can roll more things into yourself. If you can manage to get within the time limit, you can roll up clouds, islands, anything.

But that isn’t the best part. If you just plopped that game in front of me, I’d be confused as to why anyone would want to get in on it, but this is a game that was made for the Japanese. Go do a google image search for weird things in Japan and you’ll have your answer as to why this it the greatest game ever.

You star as the prince of the Cosmos. All the planets, stars and other heavenly bodies disappeared in the last game for some reason, and now you have to make new ones. Your father, the king of the cosmos, stands over you absentmindedly speaking about things that make little sense until he remembers that you need to make a katamari. He lords his giant package and toned muscles over your dimunitive form, orders you to earth and then you roll.

Then the music starts up. I have the entire soundtrack on my iPod, and it is for good reason. It’s catchy, never the same J-pop which will delight, then annoy, then begrudgingly become good again until the subliminal messages start to bore into your brain.

The first few levels are small, and you aren’t just doing whatever the King tells you, it’s people wandering around a meadow that make the requests of you. Either they are too lazy to make their child clean their own room, or they see a Katamari as a ball of tinfoil for them to grasp at while repeating the phrase “want the shiny!” Some want to see big ones, some want fast ones, and some are just assholes that don’t want to do work.

As you roll, you hear plopping sounds as you pick things up. Some things have their own sounds, such as animals and humans as you take them in, which can be entertaining if you like the pathetic sounds of cats as they are forced into your Katamari. Remember, all of this will be shot into space, so if you really aren’t a fan of cops, clarinets, sumo wrestlers or any other kind random object, you can take pride in knowing that all of these things will be turned into a ball of superheated gas that will be flung into space, or have the gravity of their own mass crush them into a planet in the open vacuum.

Once you finish, and there are many different ways to finish, depending on the level, you take the Katamari back to dear old Dad and listen to him wander aimlessly with his words for a few moments until he realizes he is holding a compressed ball of humans, animals and all kinds of other things. I have yet to get him to say that I did a good job. Apparently I could always be doing better, thus completing the transition of this man being just like my father. Except the spandex, though just because I’ve never seen my father wear it, doesn’t mean it hasn’t ever happened.

If you fail at your mission, voices displeasure and gets all shadowy as he shoots lasers out of his eye at you. I never really understood this part, but it is fun to try to dodge as he takes child abuse to a whole new level

Again, just like dad, but that isn’t important right now.

What is important is that this game is nine kinds of awesome for the ADD sufferers and the really, really stoned. There are cut scenes in between some of the levels that tell the story about how the King and Queen got together and started making weird headed babies, and there are other things to pick up, such as presents and cousins. You can play as the different cousins after you snag them, but it doesn’t do anything for you, and the presents are little more than strange accessories that show the people of earth really have no idea how to treat a deity that can shoot lasers out of his eyes.

]]> http://thegaminggrid.com/2009/03/the-day-late-and-a-dollar-short-gamer-we-heart-katamari/feed/ http://thegaminggrid.com/2009/03/street-fighter-the-legend-of-chun-li/ http://thegaminggrid.com/2009/03/street-fighter-the-legend-of-chun-li/#comments Wed, 04 Mar 2009 21:01:00 +0000 David http://thegaminggrid.com/?p=498 … wasn’t all that great, to be honest.

Anytime I see a movie or series dealing with Street Fighter, I usually cringe, especially if it’s made in America. I know a lot of backstories and how characters intertwine and who is what and everything else, but the people who should know it, the writers, just take character names and make up a story. A prime example is the first live-action Street Fighter movie with JCVD in it. Guile, who is solely American, is played by a Belgian actor. I have to give it to him on two aspects: 1) the Flash Kick he manages to pull off twice and 2) he’s the only one who pronounces Ryu’s name correctly. When I saw it at the theater, I knew stuff was all messed up. E. Honda is now from Hawaii and not Japan like he’s supposed to be. Balrog is a good guy. Dee Jay is working for Bison. Chun-Li is a news reporter. Cammy is helping Guile instead of being with Delta Red. T. Hawk is a moron. Blanka is made up from Guile’s friend Charlie. Charlie is called Carlos Blanka. Dhalsim is the guy from the Temple of Doom and never fights anyone and never uses the Yoga noogie. Fei Long doesn’t exist. Ken and Ryu are thieves or something. Vega wasn’t bad, but needed blonde hair. Raul Julia did a good job acting as Bison, but his voice was too high for the part. Zangief was well conceived, but again, he works for Bison for some reason.

So there’s the nitpicking on the first SF movie ever done. I had major issues with it and even with this new Chun-Li movie, I still have them. Watch out for spoilers if you don’t want to know anything and plan on wasting $10 to go see it. I know I did…

The story is this: Chun-Li’s father is some very important businessman and not a Hong Kong police officer as he really is from her actual back story. He apparently is very influential and Bison kidnaps him to identify other CEO’s families so he can get them to do what he wants. Chun-Li’s mother, who actually died when Chun-Li was born/very little, has some disease and dies when Chun-Li is a teenager or whatever age she’s supposed to be in the movie. (That never comes up.) After her mom dies, she receives some scroll at a piano recital (another thing that’s odd…) and goes ot the city to see what it means. Some lady tells her to go find Gen and off she goes to Bangkok for some reason.

Basically, the movie is about Chun-Li running around slums and stuff looking for Gen. Gen is played by Robin Shou (Liu Kang from Mortal Kombat). Why? I’m not really sure. Yes I know he’s Chinese and is a martial arts expert, but Gen is supposed to be an old man with white hair and a long beard. In this movie, Gen is buff and doesn’t really have an issue moving around since he’s not old. Once she finds him, he helps her train while Bison kills a bunch of guys to get his way.

The fights in the movie don’t last long at all. Vega and Chun-Li’s fight lasts about 2 minutes, if that. He dies from being hung by his feet. At least, that’s what it looks like. Balrog fights Gen and gets killed by a steam pipe being injected into him. And the final battle… Bison fights Gen and then fights Chun-Li. She supposedly kills him and everything is fine again.

Charlie is in the movie, but doesn’t look at all like his character and is played by Chris Kline. He could actually be eliminated from the movie completely and it wouldn’t affect anything. At the end, Liu Kang, I mean, Gen, tells Chun-Li there’s a tournament posting (in the newspaper) and he’s going to look for Ryu (but says it like RYE-YOO and not REE-YOO). She doesn’t want to go along as she’s back home at her house with no parents… Although she’s not through with fighting.

I didn’t gain anything from the movie except that no one seems to grab the concept of the Street Fighter characters (or ANY video game, characters or not) at all. I think all they see is that these characters fight each other and some die. If there’s ever a video game movie that gets the characters AND their stories straight, I’d be amazed. Mortal Kombat ALMOST did that except they combined MK1 and MK2 characters together in the first movie.

You have been warned about the content of the Street Fighter: Legend of Chun-Li movie, so go see it at your own risk to your wallet. Man, I wish I was a director…

So check it out. Vote!
Awards 2008

I owned the SP and loved it. Now I love tactical turn based squad games. The story was decent and the game play was really well done. One thing I love about these style games, is that the art work is usually better than most other games. They don’t have to put to much time into 3D rendering, so they can put that time into other things.

One of the cool things that I see with this, is the duel screen which is awesome, but also the multiplayer. I think having a quick reference on your second screen can save time, and help you from making those silly mistakes. The multiplayer may be great, depending on what kind of units you can field. Now not owning one I’ll have to steal someones to play this, But what I would think would make a great multiplayer experience, is that you can unlock characters through the single player to start with. Fighting either co-op or vs. you can level them your own way. Unlocking additional character through multiplayer gaming. This would allow for great variety and game play.

The Nintendo site says that you pick character you have raised from battles, but not sure if these are the guys you start off with or what. If you like Turn based Tactics, I would pick this up for the DS. If you do I’m Jealous.