Creative Hiatus – Some Thoughts on DC Universe Online

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Last week I asked Jay if I could write for videolamer. After a long and painful interview process, he said “Sure, I guess.” I have, since then, been forced to go on “creative hiatus” due to overwhelming stress and a debilitating drug habit.

While on creative hiatus (I am recovering well, thank you), I have had some time to check out a little title for the Playstation 3 and potentially the PC named DC Universe* Online.

The DC Universe* is a place where people in tights protect large cities from dumb people who dream big and fail big. It is populated by such well-known fictional characters as Creeper, Spy Smasher, and Hank Henshaw. While you will not be able to play as any of these titanic literary characters, you can fight awkwardly beside them in missions, I guess. →  50 Cent: Readproof

Review – LocoRoco 2

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The original LocoRoco was a PSP game I wanted to get behind. The artwork not only looked good, but animated gorgeously and demonstrated what the PSP’s horsepower could for 2d gaming if the industry had not insisted on flooding the handheld with watered down PS2 downports. The simple, two button platforming concept was also a nostalgic throwback to platformers of old. Its sugary sweet cuteness was also an odd but welcome sight in today’s gaming climate, and the adorable cast alone was enticing to anyone without a heart of stone.

Ultimately, the game simply did not know where to go with any of its ideas. The level progression had no logic or reason behind it and felt tiresome before you got through all 40-something stages. If you just want to beat them, the challenge is a bit too easy, while aiming to replay them in order to collect special items or beat the speedrun times proved shockingly hard. →  Take your stinking paws off me, you damned dirty article.

EVE Online – Patching Backward, not Forward

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In the dawn of a new Era of Eve, as the Apocrypha Expansion delivers what can only be described as a fantastic experience, those of us grizzled Eve veterans can’t help but wonder: what about the old stuff? CCP, Eve’s developer, has long trumpeted their free expansions as one of the strongest points of Eve. And they should.

Despite Eve’s incredible learning curve, the game’s population has grown substantially over the past two years. When I first started playing Eve, the server typically had a population peak of around 30,000 concurrent users; this weekend, it was over 52,000. Eve, unlike other MMOs, is a single server, a single universe, which makes this all the more relevant: it’s clear that Eve is continues to control a niche in the MMO market.

Having played for so long I’ve noticed, as has CCP, that the biggest membership growths come on the heels of a new expansion. →  What can change the nature of a post?

Review – Wario Land: Shake It!

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I have been trying to figure out the “new” Nintendo ever since the Wii launch, and a game like Warioland Shake It! both enlightens and confounds me. It is perhaps the best picture of what Nintendo can do (as opposed to what they may want to do) with their traditions, yet I cannot find a reviewer that sees it the same way as me. While in all likelihood this is a clue that I am going off on a wild tangent, I cannot help but feel that Shake It! is a sign of a community that at times has an ass backwards opinion of Nintendo, or in some cases is having a hard time adjusting.

I am going to put it bluntly – Shake It! is a kid’s game, a description which I do not use pejoratively. →  Devil Summoner: Readou Kuzunoha vs. the Soulless Article

Stranded in Portland or How I Helped a Guy Discover Treasure in His Closet

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Yesterday was one of those days that started on an off note and ended unexpectedly well. I made a small road trip to visit a cousin and some friends in Portland, Oregon and to just escape Idaho for a day or two. What was expected to be a weekend voyage has now stretched into the middle of the week thanks to a clutch that was out for vengeance in the pristine Oregon wilderness. I knew the clutch in my Toyota was slipping a bit and would soon need replacing but I expected to be able to limp back into Idaho without too much trouble and get it fixed later in the week. I was wrong and what had started as a fine morning had turned into a ride in a tow truck by lunchtime. →  Read it your way.

Review – EVE Online: Apocrypha

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Apocrypha, the latest expansion of Eve Online – my gaming mistress with whom I continually flirt, tease, and occasionally enjoy for hours on end to the exclusion of all else – was recently released. Unlike many other MMOs, Eve expansions are free, with typically 2-3 major expansions released a year. Apocrypha is the latest, and perhaps one of the most ambitious expansions produced yet, with a variety of features for new and old players alike.

Most notable for new players is a revamping of the Eve character creation experience. In earlier versions, the character creation experience involved choosing a variety of broad traits for your character which would translate into attributes and starting skills. This process was extremely opaque, particularly for a new player, resulting in many players being confused with their starting attributes, often with a variety of worthless skills that prevented them from enjoying the game immediately. →  Video games are bad for you? That’s what they said about huffing paint.

Review – Valkyria Chronicles

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Strategy games have proven to be a bitter mistress for me. It is an unfortunate genre because it is home to one of my all-time favorite games, X-Com. When I first boot up a strategy game, especially one that has a similar mechanic to X-Com, I find myself comparing whatever game I may be playing to the venial alien blasting classic. When this happens, almost all games fail and I end up ditching the discs in one of my many binders, never to play it again.

It was with a great amount of trepidation that I purchased Valkyria Chronicles. I loved what I had seen of the game, the story is set in an alternate WWII universe, it is graphically an anime-styled game, and you get to run over people with a big ass tank. →  Hell is other gamers.

March game avalanche

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Looking through the list of recently released and upcoming March titles makes me think about sacrifice. Which games will I skip, which developers do I want to support with full price upfront, and on which days of the week will I eat Ramen? This isn’t a consumer product site like say IGN, who I recently notice house an inordinate number of game previews and features all obviously in an attempt at hyping and selling games, so I rarely discuss upcoming releases. Speaking to a few friends, however, I realized many of the games I am excited about are pretty low profile.

I thought of Pat’s old article on whose responsibility it was that we have heard of a game and then realized that quite frequently, within my small group of friends, it’s my responsibility. →  Imagine all the gamers playing for today

Creativity oozes from every pore of Bioshock 2

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If you’ve been following Bioshock 2 at all you have probably seen the pics of the new Game Informer cover. Following the same logic that created Poochie the Dog (the animal hierarchy goes mouse, cat, dog…), the BS team has created the Big Sister. I could speculate about how creatively bankrupt the design seems but really it’s the least of the problems of Bioshock 2.

As far as I can tell, Bioshock 2 is an admission that games are not art, or at least that Bioshock was not art. Despite the short and underwhelming ending, the setting, atmosphere, plot twists and most importantly, ideology of Bioshock made it an amazing game. Announcing a sequel to a completed story arc indicates that the team is somewhat unaware of why their game was good (or that their publisher gave them clear orders). →  Start your journey now, my Lord.

Review – LIT

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LIT’s brilliance is not in the game itself (though it is a great game, to be sure), but in its ability to illuminate what makes a game fun and how developers ought to make use of the opportunity to make small games – an opportunity afforded by the Wii Shop Channel, PSN, etc. Set in an undead-filled school, LIT is a puzzle game that spans 30 levels, including 5 bosses, with each level being represented by a classroom. When I say puzzle game, however, I mean puzzle game like Zak and Wiki was a puzzle game, or perhaps even Wario Ware is a puzzle game; LIT is a metapuzzle game, the puzzle is figuring out how to solve each puzzle.

This is the first way in which LIT shines (for those playing the home game we’re up to three light puns now). →  Densha de Read! Shinkansen