Archive for tag Videogames
May 24, 2008 at 09:04 PM · Posted under videogames
Do you enjoy Lucasarts Adventure games?
RPG adventures with clever battle systems?
The artistic style of Mike Krahulik and prose of Jerry Holkins?
Silly Infocom style humor, e.g. Planetfall?
If you answered yes to any of those, then should should definitely check out the first Penny Arcade videogame: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness. It’s available for Windows, Mac, Linux, and XBox 360’s Live Arcade so if you are reading this you really have no excuse not to at least check out the demo. (Obviously I prefer XBox 360 version because of achivements and gaming on the big screen.)
The game is witty, amusing, gorgeous, and (so far) a ton of fun. The combat system like typical Final Fantasy combat with a twist of real-time action. I am in love with the art style of this game. I’ve just written and deleted three sentences trying to capture it (Comic book paneling cut scenes mixed with 3d adventuring in a 2d world with comic styling. Does that make sense?) but can’t really.
Buy the full game, check out the demo, or at the very least browse through Rain Slick’s gallery.
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March 11, 2008 at 06:11 PM · Posted under math, quicklinks, videogames
Calculus in Donkey Kong
Mario’s jump moves are derived from basic physics of motion, and the calculus-based equations are in the source, nicely formatted
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February 17, 2008 at 10:54 AM · Posted under movies, tech, videogames
Happy Valentine’s weekend everyone!
Sarah and I have been enjoying a leisurely move back into our “new” house. So leisurely that this is the first time that I’ve booted up my laptop since it was packed away downstairs over two weeks ago. I’ve been online of course, but only in bits and pieces: at work, at home on the XO, on the powermac connected to the tv. There is a big difference between using any computer and using my computer though. My computer at work is awesome, but it’s at work. The XO is also a fine machine, but only for its niche of cool programs and easy interface. The powermac is great, but even connected to our beautiful 40” LCD television it’s still a little squinty for use from seven feet away. My still-kicking 800Mhz G3 iBook is where its at (ergonomics be damned).
We are seriously loving our bamboo floors. It is ever so nice to be able to look in any direction and see elegant reflections and soothing wood tones instead of dingy carpet. The leisurely move is also quite fine and well recommended. Since we had to clear everything out of every room (including artwork) except for the kitchen and bathrooms and everything was moved into the basement and garage we have the opportunity to start the house over with a blank slate. We are only moving it what we need or want, just pieces at a time, and really making sure that we keep the house nice and neat while we are doing so. Every other move we’ve had has been a regular “move out and in as fast as possible”, but this is the way to do it. It also really helps to be ruthless with your culling of stuff. We have sent boxes and boxes to good will or the dump so far and don’t even really remember what exactly we’ve sent. As two packrats it was hard to get started, but after the initial break we’ve really gotten into the “use it or lose it” mindset.
Speaking of using it (oh man, I am awesome at segues): Sarah got me a Playstation 3 for Valentine’s day! With the HD-DVD format quickly dying after Warner Brothers commited exclusively to blu-ray it was time to get with the true HD movie bandwagon. After a couple days of playing with it I am forced to admit that the better format won. Whereas HD-DVD movies felt like an HD hack of the DVD format (slow menus, buggy discs, etc.), blu-ray really feels like a next-gen movie format. Of course, that impression could stem from the fact that we have a sony television and have been brainwashed by its subliminal messages (and supraliminal, it does force our XBox360’s HD-DVD player to 1080i afterall). Either way, Ratatouille and Casino Royale look gorgeous in high definition. It is a little weird to have a videogame system without any videogames, but all the best games for the PS3 are also on, and done better by, the XBox360. The 360 features better graphics, a much better controller, and achievements! It will be nice to be able to pick up the ‘Darth Vader’ version of Soul Calibur IV though. But without the achievements I might not even do that.
The PS3 doesn’t even have a single “must have” game. There are six contenders: Resistance, Motorstorm, Rachet and Clank, Heavenly Sword, Uncharted, and Ninja Gaiden Sigma. Two of those have really short playtime (perhaps good enough for the bargin bin though), one is a remake that I’ve already bought twice, and three are rehashes of game types done better by other games on other systems. The PS3 needs its own ‘Dead Rising’, ‘Mass Effect, ‘Super Mario Galaxies’, or ‘Metroid Prime 3’.
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January 14, 2008 at 10:53 PM · Posted under videogames
Mass Effect is, in large part, a superb remake of Starflight, one of the greatest space opera videogames.
I’m still impressed at how excellently the pieces of the game fit together. It is astounding that we are able to play a game that can so adeptly become so many games. Tonight I played some Gears of War, some Starflight, and a fun new game I like to call Offworld Offroad Mining Survey Action Racer: all within Mass Effect.
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January 14, 2008 at 02:01 PM · Posted under videogames
Sarah bought me Mass Effect over the weekend. I spent most of Sunday afternoon having a great time running around this huge space station and wowing over the graphics and having a great time with the story.
Let’s talk graphics. Lush, is a word that comes to mind. You can really tell that the game designers had a lot of fun adding tons of detail to their game world. Characters facial expressions and eyes are singularly impressive. I’ve played Bioware games before (Knights of the Old Republic, and Jade Empire) and always ran into the edge of believability pretty quickly due to the lack of graphical quality. This was, of course, necessary due to the fact that their environments and game scale were so huge. Thankfully, such dark ages are behind us. This game is space opera at its most grand.
The gameplay is pretty amazing as well, it ties together the elements of a shooter action game with those of an adventure game and role playing game very nicely. I went in expecting them to get the RPG right, the adventure aspects (e.g. conversation branching) ok, and the shooter passably; but all have been quite impressive.
So anyway, there I am having a blast and thinking that it can’t get any better. Then I get to the point where my character is given a ship, a crew, and millions of stars to steer her by. Yes! Via the ships interface my character seems to fall into a gorgeous galatic map with familar features such as the horsehead nebula and I get to pick a point and say: let’s go there!
From the galaxy view I was presented with a dozen or so destinations. Nice enough I thought, but then I drilled down through that beautiful galactic map and found that each of those destinations had more than one solar system (whoa) and then that each of those solar systems had more than one planet! I was expecting just a one system, one planet type of space exploration (Star Wars, Star Trek, etc.) but no, this game has bigger plans. I pick a planet of interest (say we are getting faint distress call reading from an uncharter planet) and get dropped onto the surface in my airtight Mako vehicle that looks like they modded the personnel transport from Aliens for offroading action (and added a kickass gun turret). I literally said, “Wow,” when I first started driving around under the green sky of the windswept, dust filled, desolate landscape of an alien planet looking for the source of the distress signal beacon. Amazing! The planet was about 3/5ths Earth gravity so I careened about the landscape like some superpowered Mars rover, jumping dunes, climbing mountains, and racing down into valleys.
Check out this Mass Effect trailer featuring galactic exploration to see what I’m talking about.
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January 01, 2008 at 01:27 PM
Only two more aught years until we enter the future.
The Ball Family had Christmas II over the weekend (mainly Saturday) which was remarkable because all five of us siblings were all at home at once with all of our respective significant others and children (that’s fourteen people!). This literally hasn’t happened in years and it was awesome. We all played a lot of Rock Band, which turns out is the best party game ever made. It allows four people to play simutaneously: one on drums, one playing guitar, one on bass, and one singing and playing tamborine or cowbell. During C2 Rock Band was pretty much running all the time and everyone got in on the action. What’s even better is that we all got our own copies of the game, so we’ll all be able to play over XBox Live!
Here’s a few things I’ve recently learned:
- Rock Band is the best party game
- The ScanGaugeII automotive computer actually works and works well. We’ve already used it to get the code from a ‘check engine’ light in the Jetta (P0678). Combined with a handy TDI club listing of all Volkswagen engine and transmission error codes we now know the problem is that one of the glow plug circuits is open.
- a Breville Juice Fountain makes tasty juice
- Super Mario Galaxy is practically tied with Portal for Most Mindbending Game
- Metroid Prime 3 defines a new control scheme for first person shooters that can’t be beat
- Timbuk2 makes an awesome backpack
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December 26, 2007 at 10:33 AM · Posted under quicklinks, videogames
video of a hacked version of Super Mario Bros. — hilarious if you’ve ever played the original
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December 23, 2007 at 11:56 AM · Posted under recently, videogames
Review: 4/5
Absolutely superb graphics. The game world is fully realized with three sprawling cities (Acre, Damascus, and Jerusalem) as well as miles and miles of connecting countryside (explored on horseback!) in the year AD 1191. With each cities tumultuous streets packed with citizens going about their business (giving loud speeches against this or that public figure, hawking wares, carrying goods, begging for money, etc.) the game does a great job of creating the illusion that the game world doesn’t revolve around the player/character. You truly feel as though you are an intruding outsider, a sword in the crowd waiting for the chance to strike. The assassinations are tense and exciting but for me the true fun is the exploration of the vast game environments.
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December 18, 2007 at 09:23 AM · Posted under quicklinks, videogames
Desktop Tower Defense – a highly addictive flash game wherein you design a layout of towers to stop creeps from crossing your desktop. The creeps (except flying creeps) can’t move through or destroy your towers so they have no choice but to wind through the maze of towers you construct. The game prevents you from sealing the creeps into an unsolvable maze. Seeing a stubborn creep manage to wind its way through your maze only to be done in by your last killzone? Priceless.
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November 26, 2007 at 10:30 PM
It was a great Thanksgiving! A mountain of tasty food, perfect OBX weather, and fun time with family.
Did I mention the perfect weather? We had really nice warm sunny days and then a cold front came blowing through the house (literally, it slammed doors) on Thanksgiving night leaving the days crisp and cool with a strong breeze blowing in off the bay.
Andrew, Jenn, Lewis, Sarah, and I (and briefly Jess) relaxed, played videogames, card games, caught a repeat of the final game (UNC vs. FSU) of the women’s ACC tournament, and played with Mom and Dad’s two new kittens.
The women’s soccer game was good, especially since we already knew the outcome (a UNC win of course). We just had a loss in the 3rd round of the NCAA tournament on Saturday. They played a decent game, we played a bad game, and the calls were not exactly accurate. Our team will be amazing next year.
The kittens were extremely cute, as curious and playful as can be. Since they were sequestered away in Lewis’ room to keep dander as isolated from Sarah as possible we would see tiny paws darting out from under the door trying to get some attention. Aww.
The videogame sessions were great. Some Assassin’s Creed and Guitar Hero III on the XBox 360, plus some old school action with The Lost Vikings and Super Bomberman on an old Super Nintendo. They both held up quite well. Well enough that when I got home I browsed around the Wii virtual console and found Super Mario Bros III and Castlevania II, although Assassin’s Creed continues to hold my rapt attention. I bring death to those that deserve it, but something connects these men that perish by my blade….
Baby update soon, Sarah and I get to see it again at the ultrasound tomorrow.
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November 12, 2007 at 02:29 PM · Posted under recently, videogames
Review: 4/5
Great graphics, good story with a couple of great twists, interesting environment, chilling atmosphere. There were even a couple of genuinely scary moments in the game.
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November 09, 2007 at 02:06 PM · Posted under recently, videogames
Review: 4/5
This would have been a 3/5 for length and from feeling like Half-Life 2-lite except for the absolutely amazing inclusion of Alyx. A non-player character (NPC) who is with you for practically the entire length of the game and actually feels like an equal fighting alongside you. You are never burdened by her, but she isn’t an unstoppable, mindless killing machine either. She really comes across as a thinking, feeling, and genuinely emotional character who amplifies the game instead of weakening it. There are literally dozens of little touches that make her a great and endearing character. That’s saying something because I’ve always been one to hate escorting NPCs in games.
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November 07, 2007 at 02:18 AM · Posted under recently, videogames
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