Wednesday, November 30, 2005

Weird Game


If you want a refreshing break from the same old games, try "Weird Worlds: Return to Infinite Space".

My boss brought this game to my attention, and when he showed it me I cannot say that I was too impressed. It took me weeks to load it up, and when I finally played it this afternoon, I was pleasantly surprised. Perhaps this was due to my lowered expectations, but after tinkering with the game for a while tonight, it's obvious that the game is a solid title in its own right.

Funny, but Weird Worlds contains many elements that I usually don't like: confusing space maps, lots of text, strategy-lite gameplay, resources to worry about. But here's the deal: the maps are not confusing (they just look confusing), the text is entertaining (and pretty clever), the strategy parts are fun (if a bit unbalanced) and the resource management is super simplified (no credits to worry about). The drag-and-drop interface is really intuitive and easy to use, and best of all, you can play a session in about a half hour and walk away satisfied.

The general idea is: you are a captain of a space vessel. You travel from planet to planet, gathering weapons and items, meeting strange alien races, upgrading your technology, enlisting new allies and blowing the crap out of hostiles. Every time you play, the map generates randomly, so there's a lot of replay value. Plus, it seems that your missions and goals change as you play, although I have not gotten far enough to determine what the pattern is.

Interestingly, the game is an independent release, so it probably gets no mention in the mainstream press and certainly no shelf space in the mass retail outlets. How a game like this survives is beyond me, but I guess word of mouth (like this post) helps. I hope some gamers read this and decide to give it a try. It would be nice to see more games like Weird Worlds break out of obscurity and carve out a little niche for themsleves amidst the landscape of sequels and big-budget titles. There's room for all kinds of cuisine in the gamer's daily diet.

You know, like giant space snails.

Tuesday, November 29, 2005

Slimes Have Appeared!


OK, so like I've never been into RPGs or anything. But I just finished playing the Dragon Quest VIII demo disc and, boy, was I impressed! Great! I've often said that "Dragon Warrior" (for the NES) was the last proper RPG I can remember playing, and that was a looong time ago. So it seems appropriate that Dragon Quest VIII (as the series has always been called in Japan) would be the game that would make me sit up and take notice. The reviews have been calling it "old school RPG gaming at its finest" and so on and so on. Whatever it is, it sure is fun!

The demo took almost two hours to complete, which was quite a meaty demo, as far as I'm concerned. The monsters are hilarious.

Note that the commercial version of Dragon Quest VIII also contains a playable demo of Final Fantasy XII, if you care about that sort of thing.

Friday, November 18, 2005

Thursday, November 17, 2005

Absolutely Fantastic

A black tie event attended by Mike Tyson ended in an all-out brawl. Unbelievable! This guy could spark a fistfight in a kindergarten.

Friday, November 11, 2005

Strike a Phoon

Come on...you know you want to.

Thursday, November 10, 2005

Far Cry from Great


I'm playing Far Cry Instincts for the Xbox right now. The game had a lot of great buzz when it was released for the PC, and got some good reviews. Here's my take: Far Cry is a curious combination of Awesome and Not Awesome, so ultimately it's a wash. Which is a disappointment, considering how great the game starts out.

You land on a lush tropical island (gorgeous graphics!) with no weapons and very little understanding of the environment around you. The levels are huge, which gives you lots of of options. You can crawl through the jungle if you want, which is very dense and gives you a great feeling of protection. But at the same time, you don't know where your enemies are and it's diffucult to see, so you also feel vulnerable. The first third of the game requires a lot of sneaking and careful progression to stay alive, which was totally fun. I had a great time with this and really felt like I was "immersed" in the role of the character.

Then you gain animal powers, and the game's vibe does a shift. Suddenly, you're a lot more powerful, so you can run into most situations with guns and claws blazing. The difficulty level takes a sharp dive, and actually, it's for the better. Because it's suddenly so much easier to take out your enemies, you really feel the power of your new abilities. I thought this was really cool and subtle, but whether it was intentional is questionable. Because as you gain more powers, the game fails to keep up and starts using some really cheap tactics.

By the end of the game, Far Cry Instincts is suddenly not much fun. The bad guys become supremely powerful and pick you off instantly if you're not careful. The environments become dark and murky, a cheap ploy to force you to use your "feral vision". Even the jungles, once lush and protective, become a nuisance. The level design gets sloppy and in the last few stages on the island it becomes very easy to get lost or run up against the edge of the world. Not to mention the introduction of the worst kind of enemy: suicide bombers. You know, the ones that make a beeline for you and explode. Arrgh. I know the game's balancing act is shoddy, because suddenly armor pickups and first aid kits are everywhere. It's like the game starts to expect you to fail. I'm at the final boss fight right now, and I don't even know if I have the stomach to complete it.

In the end, Far Cry serves up some amazing fire fights, some cool action sequences and really gorgeous graphics (for the most part). There's also some fun to be had with weapons and options for how you want to tackle the missions. (Take the jet ski and deal with floating mines, or swim underwater and sneak up on the baddies with your silenced pistol.) I hope it gets a sequel, and that they put a little more care into the enemies and game balance.

Wednesday, November 02, 2005

Arj and Poopy

A funny cartoon for you to try.

Hell Is Other People


So I went to see Doom last night, instead of playing in my usual low-stakes weekly poker tournament. I have to say, I was quite pleased with the film. (Then again, I didn't have very high expectations.) Surprisingly, the beginning of the movie was plodding, but once the action picked up there were a few nice setpieces. The art direction did the franchise justice, as there were a lot of details carefully lifted from the games. For instance, I really liked how all the security panels on the Mars outpost looked just like the ones in Doom 3.

If anything, I was disappointed that the "portal to Hell" aspect of the game was downplayed. No pentagrams or demonic voices or anything, which was a shame. As a result, zombie trope monotony begins to set in towards the end of the movie ("Ohmygod, that dead body was right there. Where did it go? LOOK OUT BEHIND YOU!" etc.) instead of what should have been some serious hellspawn action. All told, not a bad movie, as far as videogame films go. The FPS sequence was pretty cool as well. But I still liked the first Resident Evil more.