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Archive for November, 2007

29 November, 2007 | No comments

Free Game News: Fire Flies

“At night the sky is filled with fireflies. Those cute glowing insects have one main disadvantage: they cannot hide in the dark.

Go hunting for fireflies and try to set a top score after completing all fifteen levels!”

That’s the goal with Fire Flies, the latest game release by Martijn Kunst, the author of Base Jumping.

Use your mouse to aim and release a deadly spray towards the fireflies. The spray bounces on objects and walls, causing flies to explode in a chain reaction. Fire Flies reminds you of Boomshine, and you will need great patience and even greater luck to complete the 15 levels of the game.

Fire Flies is nicely done, the soundtrack is very relaxing, the difficulty level progress smoothly and the game features a high score board.

Overall, Fire Flies is a very simple but very entertaining game!

Have fun!

28 November, 2007 | No comments

Free Game News: Zeba

Zeba Zeba is the latest Puzzle game created by Stephen Harris, the creator of the Bloons and Bloons Tower Defense series.

Your goal here is to clear all the blocks on each level. To do so, use the arrow keys to guide Zeba the little dragon and push the blocks of the same type together. Press the spacebar to shoot the block Zeba is facing and burn all connected blocks of the same type.

You start each level with a limited number of each breath type, and they don’t carry over level to level, so use them carefully. Walk over the extra breath tokens to get them.

Zeba is an interesting puzzle game, but it suffers from a lack of difficulty and the moving/turning controls are a bit annoying. A limited number of moves to complete each level would certainly add to the difficulty, and an undo button would be a simple but very useful addition.

Hopefully the author will release a sequel including a level editor and the gaming community will help create challenging levels to enjoy this game to its full potential!

Have fun!

28 November, 2007 | No comments

Casual Review: Mr. Robot

Moonpod's new game is a crazy blend of platformer, puzzle game, and RPG. Wait, what? Exactly. It's pretty cool. Read on.

28 November, 2007 | No comments

Casual Gamer Chick: Merv Griffin’s Crosswords

Merv Griffin Entertainment (MGE) has teamed up with Oberon Media to bring Merv Griffin’s Crosswords to online gaming. Merv Griffin’s Crosswords is a new TV show that features contestants competing against each other and the clock to answer questions and solve crossword puzzles. The game show is on during the day time and aligns well with the “typical” casual game player, female gamers over the age of thirty five.

“An extremely addictive game on television, Crosswords is an ideal vehicle for online play,” said Josh Raphaelson of Program Partners. “Oberon was our partner of choice to bring the game to life online.”

(more…)

28 November, 2007 | No comments

13 elements that appeal to this gamergrrl

I ran links to a gamergrrl's manifestos in my post about misguided gift shopping lists of games. But what appeals to gamergrrls about actual gameplay? Developers and fellow gamers, I can offer my own likes:

I love customizing my avatar. Oblivion has some great tools to customize facial features and other characteristics that make up the personality. Even the Tiger Woods game did a fair job with avatars, and gives you the option to buy new clothes. The faces, hair, and physical proportions still need work, and the wardrobe is definitely appropriate for the golf course (not in a good way). My dear husband recreated himself, me, and our young sons in his game. I kick total butt on all courses onscreen, even if I refuse to pick up a putter in real life.
I love building a well-rounded character. In Baldur's Gate, I hated when my husband focused on one characteristic like strength to the detriment of charisma and agility. That may be the influence of my time management training, between Franklin-Covey and the Paul J. Meyer system. Even though Diablo II had a rather limited set of characters, I loved building up points so I could use some of the treasures. Lara Croft seemed fairly well-rounded already (;^), but I would have liked to build more than just quest stats, and build skills. A well-rounded character should be rewarded; I think Oblivion did this well, as did Torment.
I love an intuitive interface. I keep seeing these getting better and better: navigation through movement and physical skills, interaction with the environment, talking with other players and non-player characters, selecting spells and weapons, and shopping for stuff. Oh, and thanks for letting me customize the keys I use. Now if only I could use those Lara Croft or basketball moves in real life.
I like beautiful gamescapes, but not to the detriment of gameplay. It's another thing that makes a game immersive. I won't say I love beauty and art and graphics, because lately a lot of engines favor looks over substance.
I love clever music. Portal's closing credits are a hoot (see it on YouTube). Diablo's themes for various levels haunted me all the time.
I love allies. In Planescape Torment, they gave me much more than your standard fighter/wizard/archer mix of allies. I could actually have conversations with these allies, learn more about the world, discuss the pros and cons about what our troop was doing and could do next. I could even learn new skills (like thievery, weaponry, magic, eloquence, and so on).
I love a story with a good plot. I want to immerse myself in a story. Again, I'll use Elder Scrolls Oblivion, Longest Journey, Dreamfall, and the Myst series as good examples. Actually, Star Wars Academy was another. You move the plot forward by the choices and actions you make.
I love both laughing and crying. This may be an extension of plot, but it comes up with dialog as well. Planescape Torment actually moved me to both laughter and tears, and not just because I'd been awake for far too long. (BTW, laughing and crying are my litmus tests for a good movie, and extremely rare in a game).
I love dialog that moves the plot. Not the "Wait, I'm a Medic" or "Thanks" and "You're Welcome" of the new Crysis that Morgan reviewed last night on G4TV. I have to admit that I like the multiple-choice dialog from Baldur’s Gate II, where you made friends and enemies and affected your charisma points by the dialog choices you made. And I'll say again about Oblivion, while I love using humor, flattery, boasting, or coercion to win over non-player characters, I'd much rather have a good Whedonesque screenwriter write the actual banter, which would give me some better examples that I might want to try out in real life. Oh, and the voice acting has to be good. Sure Lynda Carter (of the original WonderWoman) can do well as an Orc in Oblivion. But some sound bytes are downright annoying.
I gotta touch everything. I want to explore every square yard/meter of a level or landscape for treasure, and clean it up by killing all the Big Bads and their minions. In that, I differ markedly from my husband (and young sons). Have you seen that comedian, Defending the Caveman? It's the difference between Hunters and Gatherers, and I am the latter.
I love puzzles that make me think and apply what I already know in new ways. Go Portal. Go Myst. And, to some extent, go Tomb Raider, in terms of using Lara's skills to get to where she needs to go. But most games are still limited when it comes to what you can pick up and use in the environment; a recent exception is Half-Life, where you could break all sorts of things, lift them, push and pull, with a very user-friendly interface.
I love when the game's karma rewards or punishes moral choices. Baldur's Gate punished you for selfish choices by dropping your Charisma so low you couldn't get anybody to give you information or sell you stuff. Oblivion lets you explore being a thief, an assassin, a soldier, a mage, and so on, all in the same game, but completing each faction's quests definitely has its rewards, and I'm not sure I want immorality rewarded so much; I'd like to see something decremented like your ability to restore life force or mana when you disrespect property, life, or earth. As much as I like Grand Theft Auto as entertainment, it puts a knot in my stomach for how rude Tommy & CJ are, the foul language they and their NPCs use, the disrespect for women, and oh, yeah, the stealing, killing, and outright destruction. There are games where you get to play the cop, but he's usually an anti-hero, one who's out to get speeders or break all the rules. Are there any good detective or FBI profiler or spy games? I haven't really looked.
I love learning something that reflects real life. I'll say again, my absolute favorite RPG is Planescape Torment (1999) for its exploration of philosophies (such as anarchy, hedonism, entropy, chaos, order, freethought, cabalism, and so on) through gameplay, dialogue, and plot. I also learned about biology and ecology in an old Gaia simulation. I actually learned a thing or two about using golf clubs from Tiger Woods. I've even learned a few things about combination shots and English from the old Virtual Pool. It's too bad that Guitar Hero is only a dumbed-down version of the Dance steps. It doesn't actually teach you how to play chords. If it did, I'd be all over that. I could really get into a sim for learning how to sail or fly a small plane. I was even lucky enough to be involved in developing simulation training for telecom field network troubleshooting for SBC, now at&t.

Any other manifestos around?

28 November, 2007 | No comments

The games helmet that reads minds

The Times is running a piece on Emotiv's Brain Computer Interface for computer games:

"Think carefully before you answer: is a device that is capable of reading people’s minds fact or fantasy? We knew you’d say that. But scientists at an American laboratory have been brainstorming the same question for more than five years and have come up with a mind-blowingly different answer. They call it Epoc, but when it is launched early next year in Britain and the US it will probably be known simply as the “mind-reading helmet”, capable, supposedly, of knowing what users are thinking."

28 November, 2007 | No comments

New Screen Shot: Zerg Overloard

This is the picture of the new Zerg Overloard, and a shot of the new design for the baneling, the previous baneling rolled, but it seems this new model walks sort of like the brood from starcraft brood war. This screen shot was introduced to us on the StarcraftII General Discussions Forum on battle.net, for more updates on Qna's and new units, check Battle.net and this website.

27 November, 2007 | No comments

Casual Gamer Chick: A Deal A Day Game Site

game dujour.com BeachWare announces GameDuJour.com a web site that features a reduced price on seven games over seven different days. The games are reduced to fifty percent of their original price. The featured games will be:

Vegas Jackpot Gold: “With 50 casino games and 200 distinct slot machines, plus a realistic 3D interactive casino, this game offers the true Vegas experience like no other PC game.”

Shell Whirl: “Kick off your shoes and transport yourself to an island paradise where you spend your time spinning shells at the beach. Choose from four different beach themed.”

Turkey Hunter: “Play through five separate levels of eye-popping 3D animated graphics and sneaky turkeys. Test your shooting skills as the turkey horde invades the farmyard, the suburbs and even the city.”

Tournament Poker: “You can play against 12 different opponents in 21 different Poker games, including Texas Hold ‘em, Five Card Draw-Jacks or Better, Five Card Stud, and Seven Card Stud, among others.”

Puzzle City: “Featuring 28 classic board puzzles, Puzzle City challenges the mental abilities of the player through such mind twisters as Crack the Code, Icon Code, Grid Conquest, Pot Hole Alley, and 3D Tic Tac Toe.”

Classic Arcade: “Ten popular arcade classics, including Ballistic Avenger, Sub Hunt, Bumper Hockey, Bomber Blitz, Astro Boing, Hyper Hockey and Jupiter Lander, reincarnated with 3-D graphics and cool sound effects.

Casino!: “This 3-D virtual casino will entertain for hours with its ten different machines, including Slots, Poker, Keno or Blackjack.”

(more…)

27 November, 2007 | No comments

Jay Is Games: Beetle Wars

Ever feel like you are only one little super powered beetle against an infinite horde of other super powered beetles in an epic battle for survival, power and gold? No? Well, now you can get just that feeling in Beetle Wars. Your goal is simple: Kill all the other beetles and insects around you without dying; how you achieve that goal is not so simple.