Articles

The beginnings of a Culdcept addiction

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I first saw Culdcept a while back, when it was just released. The back of the box made it seem pretty interesting, but the price just wasn’t right for the game – I’d seen maybe one review and it was lukewarm at best.

The other day, though, I saw it for $10 and thought, “Perfect.” I snatched it up and I think I’ve found a new addiction.

What makes this game most interesting is, naturally, the gameplay. It’s perfectly suited to the card-collecting aspects of Magic: The Gathering (or pick your favorite new CCG), while it retains some of the feel of classic board games like Monopoly. The artwork on the cards reinforces the former, while the cartoony feel on the game board complements the latter. →  The King of Articles 2002: Unlimited Match

Frets on Fire

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You knew it was going to happen eventually. Just like DDR before it, Guitar Hero has inspired people to emulate the game on the PC. Frets on Fire is an open source GH project for all major Operating Systems, and tries its best to emulate the basic structure of the game, as well as support song creation. You’ve probably heard about it on some game site or another. I’ve known about it for a few months now, but I never gave it a shot because of one huge, glaring problem; the basic game requires you to use the keyboard, holding it in place like a guitar.

Simple, but workable

I don’t think I need to tell you that this is the Stupidest Idea of 2006. →  Today I consider myself the luckiest reader on the face of the earth.

Best Game Ever – The history of puzzle games leading up to Baku Baku

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Some day in the far off future, Tetris will be played with six screens. One screen will feature the gameplay while the other five will show images of unrelated games being automatically played. All five other games will be superior to Tetris.

Once upon a time there was an evil Communist engineer named Alexey Pajitnov. Don’t bother asking Alexey if he is an evil Communist because, like all evil Communists, he signed a blood oath with Stalin (and possibly Hitler) to hide his menacing ways should Soviet Russia ever fall. Anyway, Alexey was a genius and in 1985 he bestowed upon the world a video game he liked to call Destroy American Freedoms. This was later renamed Tetris.

The premise of Tetris was to line up American freedoms in order to destroy them. →  All this can be yours, if the read is right.

The One Year Delay

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The holiday season is upon us, and this time its not just a few big games coming out; we’ve got two new consoles as well. I’d like to try a little experiment. Would you like to help?

I hate making accusations against big name game journalists, because I’m trying to write myself, but there is one trend that I notice among them that I just can’t stand, and I’d like to see if its just me, or if it really is true. I call it the One Year Delay, and it works like so:

– A big, hyped title is released, and gains huge scores and heaps of praise when the reviews pour out. We here about it in blogs, editorials etc. →  Start your journey now, my Lord.

Weekly News We Care About Wrap Up – 10.27.06

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The proud owner of four Xbox 360s.

360 breaks all sorts of records in Australia
Watch out Master System, there’s a new kid in Australia. By selling over 100,000 units, the 360 has become the fastest selling console down under. The first European settlers in Australia were criminals and we have Australians to blame for those rambunctious reptile lovers, Crocodile Dundee and the Crocodile Hunter (“that’s not a terrible accent, THIS IS A TERRIBLE ACCENT”). Clearly Microsoft must take these facts into account before celebrating the good news.

Gamasutra interview Clover’s Inaba
Prepare yourself for an only marginally related rant. Oh, and read the interview, it’s interesting.

The way the games media goes from one golden boy of creativity to the next is pretty odd. →  Rayman Reading Rabbids

A Luminous Experience

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As of now, my job as a QA tester is becoming dreadfully boring. They don’t have any games for me to test anymore, gosh darn it! This has lead me to pull out the ol’ PSP and get some Lumines sessions going.

I bought this game when I first got my PSP over a year ago, and it’s still one of the system’s best games. Tetsuya Mizuguchi is a true pioneer in what I like to call “audio games.” He puts far more time and effort into the audio presentation than anything else in his games. Go back and play Rez and you’ll see what I mean.

The cool thing that I recently discovered with Lumines is the menu’s background techno music. →  Snap! Crackle! Read!

How we remember games

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Our long-term opinion of a game may have little to do with how good a game actually is. How we remember games is almost as important as the games themselves. The way we remember any medium greatly shades our opinions, whether it be a game, a book or a movie. Games, unfortunately, share certain properties of the other two media that make each prone to being colored by memory.

First, I will explain what about books and movies are different from video games in regards to how we remember them. Books are highly personal experiences; no one can walk by and share some of a book with you. All of the action, drama, character’s introspection and so on happens in your mind and in your imagination. →  Keep it warm.

Chris loves Jesus part 2

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Continued from Part 1

The casual (or obsessive?) reader may ask, “How does one foster a personal relationship with Jesus?” The best way for me was to translate it.

Don’t look at it too long or your brain will melt.

Long, long ago in a mindset far, far away I decided to translate a Famicom game by the name of Jesus: Kyoufu no Bio Monster. Despite all the difficult aspects of both translation and ROM hacking, I managed to create a patch that (I hope) carries across much of the feeling of the game.

The first task, naturally, was to figure out what in the hell was happening in the game. I could figure out the basics between context and the words I already knew. →  Do a barrel read!

Oh, Aren’t You an Adorable Little VG Cat!

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If anyone has paid attention to Joystiq’s weekly WebComic Wrap-up, you’d no doubt run into a comic named VG Cats. I love this webcomic. The style is great, and the humor is right on key. The guy doesn’t go too deep into the whole video game lore thing (there’s a lot of Zelda and Final Fantasy VII commentary), so you don’t have to get out your Ultimate Videolamer’s Guide to Everything About Gaming and Dating(tm) to understand it.

He’s got 215 comics on his site, and most of them are hilarious. If you were looking for a great comic strip on video games, you can do no wrong with VG Cats.

And before I get bullied, I will say that I also love Penny Arcade. →  NiGHTS into REaDS

Chris loves Jesus part 1

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I’d like to tell you all a little story about me and my friend named Jesus. No, not that Jesus… This Jesus doesn’t save. It uses passwords instead.

I like women who match their bedrooms.

When it comes to obscure and unknown games, it takes a lot to get much less known than Jesus: Dreadful Bio-Monster. Although it came out on several systems in Japan, it saw no English release. Despite the – somewhat recognizable – name, the game bears no teachings, or indeed any characters somewhat resembling, the well-known founder of Christianity (in fact, the name refers to a space station in the game). There is a bio-monster, however, and it inspires dread.

Jesus is an adventure survival horror game developed by Enix and published by King Records. →  You had me at read more.