Reviews

Review – Office Purks

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christian says:
About a month ago I played The Shivah. Although it was made in something simple like Adventure Game Studio, it had fantastic production values, a lot of craft to the graphical design, and some decent gameplay hampered by a lack of originality. Bottom line was that for the five five dollars I paid for it, I got a great little game that showed a lot of personality.

To me, this is what indie gaming is all about. Yes, I love to see innovations and new ideas floating around. But if an indie developer can get personal, to use their game to show us something special to them, then they’ve used their avenue of development to the fullest, because its something you just can’t do very easily within a big time studio.

Which brings us to Office Purks, an example at the other end of the spectrum. This is an nothing more than a Pac-Man clone with style and humor that’s been done to death since the film Office Space became a cult classic. →  Read it your way.

Review – Super Swing Golf

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After playing my first round of Wii Sports golf I couldn’t wait for a developer to make a golf simulator for the system. I’m a huge fan of the Tiger Woods and Links series and an actual real-life golfer and the possibility of getting a solid golf sim on the Wii was quite exciting. Until then, I’ll have to make due with Super Swing Golf.

The primary thing that makes Super Swing Golf practically unplayable is the swing controls. If you’re going to put out a golf sim you’d better made sure your swing mechanics are rock solid. I don’t care that it’s a pseudo-rpg. I don’t care about the cutesy graphics and plot. I don’t care about fantasy courses. I want to swing my Wiimote like a real golf club and get real club-like results.

Sadly, this isn’t the game for that. In order to even get ready to hit the ball the player has to zoom out to view the course, select a club and spot to aim for, exit that view, return to the swing camera, use the Wiimote to hit a small “Swing” button on the left of the screen and then pretend to address the ball. →  Michigan: Article from Hell

A manifesto on Manifesto Games with a review of The Shivah for added value

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Greg Costikyan’s name comes up a lot when it comes to indie game development. Apparently, the man has worked on a few games and written some fiction in his life, and somehow he has become a major voice on independent games. He seems to believe that indie games can and will crush largescale publishers and end their greedy and bullying practices. To help do this, he has created Manifesto Games, a place where indie developers and fans can join together to buy, discuss and promote the best in indie gaming.

I have a lot of respect for Costikyan’s ideal, but every time I read anything written by him, I can’t help but feel that he’s batshit insane. Maybe that is too strong of a phrase, but he certainly reminds me of college students who worship indie anything like a religion and still think that communism can actually work (after all, his site is called Manifesto, and its splashed all over with red). →  The Read Star

Review – Metropolismania

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Some games are hard to put down. Often this is because a game is great fun, but entertainment isn’t always the force that drives us to keep playing. Sometimes we continue gaming because of a lack of clearly defined beginnings and endings; we don’t know when or where to stop so we just keep on going. Oddly enough, games that break play into nearly infinite tiny rounds deliver the same psychological effect as games that have no levels nor turns.

Will Wright and Sid Meier are experts at creating addictive gameplay through this method. Both Pirates! and Sims lack any clear level progression, while Civilization cuts up play time into such minute turns that each feel too short to be considered optimal stopping points. “Just one more turn!” is a cry familiar to anyone who has fallen victim to Meier’s brilliant design.

Hope you don’t mind working for Hitler.

It is almost as if Natsume studied these classics and decided they would perform an experiment: “What if we designed a bad game that is addictive? →  Jesus: Readful Bio Monster

Review – Okami

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While some genres are mainly constructive (most sim games for example), the action adventure genre has historically been destructive. Even though your character is generally on the side of good and fighting evil there is something dissatisfying about achieving your ends using strictly violent means. Rarely does a game come along (outside the real time strategy genre) that gives the player the ability to create as well as destroy. Okami is such a game.

As the goddess Amaterasu you alternate between attacking demons with a variety of swords, mirrors(?) and rosaries(??) and restoring the world around you to its former natural beauty. This makes the experience of playing the game much more complete, since you actually have the capability to act like a god (assuming its not the spiteful, vengeful type of god), meting out punishment to offenders and aiding the just in their day to day lives.

Okami has more mechanics than most players (myself included) will know what to do with. →  Keep it warm.

Review – Sam and Max Episode 3: The Mole, the Mob, and the Meatball

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I’m not going to do an “official” review of Sam and Max Episode 3. All the big aggregate game sites will give you the same Consumer Reports style bullshit about this one; how the environments are recycled, how the game is shorter and the puzzles are easier, and so its just not so good as the rest.

But you and me, we know differently. We already discussed with Episode 2 that repeated environments are to be expected in episodic content (and shouldn’t always be thought of as a bad thing). We know that length is not always equal to value. In short, quantifying game elements just doesn’t work, so let’s take the videolamer look at why I think Ep. 3 is the most entertaining and worrisome of the bunch.

Episode 2’s humor was somewhat blunt with its parodies of sitcoms and talk shows, but I still liked it. As obvious as the jokes may have been, no one ever seems to say them. →  You may say I’m a gamer, but I’m not the only one

Review – Excite Truck

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Excite Truck has a lot to live up to. First, it’s one of only three first-party titles to launch with the Wii, and you know that consumers were looking at Nintendo for a reason to give their crazy new gaming interface a chance. Second, with Monster 4×4 World Circuit and GT Pro failing to meet expectations, Excite Truck may be gamers’ only source for a good racing experience. Thankfully, Excite Truck is running on all cylinders, delivering an awesome, and somewhat complex, arcade racer.

Developed by Monster Games (which developed Infogrames’ NASCAR games), Excite Truck is an arcade racer that brings to the table a totally new way to drive your virtual vehicle, with help from the innovative Wii-mote.

Just how rugged is that rack?

Most of you are probably wondering about how the game handles, so I’ll get right to it. The game controls wonderfully. You orient the remote like an NES controller, where the 2 Button is the accelerator, 1 is for the brake, and any direction on the D-Pad is your turbo boost. →  Sega Ages 2500 Series Vol. 5: Golden Post

Review – Transformers

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Take any sample of young twenty-something men, regardless of their profession or personality, and tell them to talk about Transformers. I guarantee you that no matter who they are, they’ll all have something to say. I’m sure there were kids who thought the Turtles were stupid, or that GI Joe was lame. But giant talking robots who turned into cars and jet planes? Its practically illegal for a young boy to scoff at that.

Thus it seems impossible for the Transformers PS2 game to be any good. It isn’t just based on a legendary license; the story and characters are based off of the recent Transformers: Armada anime. If history is any indicator, then this game should be less playable than the latest Pixar/Dreamworks movie tie-in.

However, it seems one of the gaming gods has decided to take pity on us. Transformers was assigned to the fine folks over at Melbourne House, a veteran developer that has been around about as long as I have. →  Postlanser: Heritage of Read

Eve Online : First Impressions

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It’s hard to write “first” impressions of a game that’s four years old, but nonetheless, this is where I find myself. Burnt out by World of Warcraft, ranting and raving about my addiction on this site, and swearing off MMO’s for good is where we last left off.

Well, I’ve at least kept part of it up; I’ve resisted the Burning Crusade completely. But I find myself once again sucked into the MMO world, having started playing Eve Online.

Eve Online is very different from other online games I’ve played. For starters, it’s set in the future, in a space base universe. But rather than being first person, like almost every MMO, the game is entirely ship based. In fact, until an upcoming expansion (and keep in mind there have already been several expansions), you can’t ever actually “get out” of your ship.

Behold space in all its…blueness.

The best way to describe the game graphically and conceptually is Homeworld-esque. →  Fire Post Wrestling Returns

Review – Prey

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I first heard about Prey in 1998 when sci-fi shooter was announced by 3D Realms as being in production for release on the PC “in the near future.” Apparently the near future is almost ten years later, and the PC they were talking about is the XBox 360 (although it was released for the PC shortly after). Regardless of how much time it’s taken, this game was conceived ten years ago and it shows.

We heard you guys were looking for extras for the new Doom game. What the hell is Prey? Ah, why not.

The gameplay is perfectly straightforward. You run around the levels and shoot aliens, you take their weapons, and then you kill tougher aliens with those new, more powerful weapons. There are four basic armaments (a very small number when compared to other recent shooters) and they are as unimaginative as you can get. Alien assault rifle — check. Alien heavy assault rifle — check. Alien creatures you can use as bombs — check (Half Life anyone?). →  Jet fuel can’t melt videolamer.