Well, why not take a moment and read my review of Diner Dash on Critical Gamer. It’s a goodun, and it saves me having to dig up something else for your readingslashviewing pleasure.
Metal Gear Solid already is the mainstream – it doesn’t need the cultural validation of being turned into a cack-handed Keanu Reeves vehicle by the bloke behind The Love Guru. The message is simple – this is the first time in history that movies have needed video games more than games need movies.
— Stuart Heritage on Guardian’s film blog discusses the possible repercussions of the (thankfully) shelved MGS movie. Could this be a small, first sign of vindication after decades of sub- sub- sub-par video game movie adaptations?
Star Trek Online beta open for preorders
If you’ve already forked out your well-earned cash on a preorder for Star Trek Online, you can now join in the open beta. Starting from today and going on until January 26th, anybody with a beta key can try out the new trekkietastic MMO. If you haven’t preordered the game but registered at the STO website, you might also be one of the lucky random receivers of a beta key. Use it wisely and play long and prosper. For two weeks.
Batteries that eat Wi-Fi and spit out electricity is all well and good. But if you really want to tickle the man-child in me you’ve really got to construct something like a gaming mouse that looks suspiciously like the Batmobile from Batman Begins. Oh, Mad Catz already have? Well blimey.
Just about time for a lullaby then. In case you’ve somehow managed to miss this excellent Mega Man 2 tribute, then you’re in for a hell of a treat. Made by duo The Adventures Of DnB, who also have a full-length album out now. I suggest you give them your money.
Kotaku posted this screen which shows a teaser image for the fifth Armored Core game - a series I’m so uninformed about that I hardly know what the hell it is. There was something about this image that struck me, however, because it is probably one of the worst teaser images I’ve ever seen. If you are, like myself, completely unaware of what game this is supposed to excite you about, you’re left with something that appears more like some kind of brain teaser puzzle than an advert. A red “5” made out of dots, the numbers “1.14” (presumably january 14th) and then the ambiguous word “Beginning”. I smell prequel?
This is merely the latest in a long line of crap teasers in the same fashion, showing you nothing but a letter or a number which is meant to appear exciting and enthralling. In reality it just looks cheap, lazy and dull. At least give us an actual image, concept art, a drawing, SOMETHING other than “those four other games are getting a little sibling”. I blame Hideo Kojima and the teaser-itis he’s been suffering from the past few years, but at least he had the decency to actually show us an actual, honest to god picture when he did it.
RCA presents Wi-Fi harvesting recharger
OhGizmo! reports on a hidden gem from this year’s CES; the RCA Airnergy Charger, a product sent straight from the future that convert air to electricity. Or rather, it somehow picks up on Wi-Fi signals and uses them to charge batteries. Apparently it does this surprisingly well, charging a Blackberry from 30% to full battery in 90 minutes. If this sounds like magic then prepare to stare disbelievingly at the proposed price: $40. Expected release is sometime during the summer.
This means that there is a chance that in 6 months our wireless controllers will be continuously recharged from the same invisible Wi-Fi beams that the console itself is using to connect to the internet. As the Airnergy supposedly works wherever there is a hotspot, you can literally just leave them lying around your house if you happen to have a wireless connection.
Cheap As Free #1: The Company of Myself
Cheap As Free is (going to be) a regular feature where I offer praise and adoration for some of the best games out there whose price tags read £0.00. The first inclusion is The Company of Myself by 2DArray, or Eli Piilonen as his mother presumably calls him.
Jack is a very lonely man and he isn’t quite sure why. For some reason he lost his love and now finds himself unable to have any human contact whatsoever. While he is not sure why he is now so alone, he insists that he can manage just fine by himself.
The Company of Myself is a puzzle-platformer in much the same vein as last year’s brilliant indie hit Braid. Like Braid, TCOM is a game where you’re required to bend the fabric of time to your advantage. You do this by playing the level several times over and by using the recorded “ghost” of your previous playthrough you can manoeuvre through obstacles that would be impossible otherwise.
What really sets TCOM apart from similar games like Chronotron is the stellar use of the gameplay as a metaphor for Jack’s loneliness and what led him to become a hermit. Jack is constantly talking about his past and what led to his isolated existence which synchronises perfectly to the situations in the game. What’s surprising is how well conceived and engaging this story is. For example, a few levels in, we enter a flashback and finally meet Jack’s lost love Kathryn. The next few levels manages to tell the genuinely moving story of how they first met and how he finally lost her. It goes from beautiful to tragic in just a few minutes but it is somehow so involving despite its brevity. There is one moment in particular, which I won’t spoil, in which you are forced to make a horrific and selfish choice. It’s just plain good storytelling.
When the game is over some 30 minutes later we get a final grand reveal that both makes and slightly spoils the game somewhat. While the twist certainly works, I can’t help but feel that had it been left on a more ambiguous note - similar to the aforementioned Braid - it would have been even more powerful. But that’s a small complaint for a game that manages so much in such a short time span.
It’s a experience that is over almost as quickly as it begins, but it is one that is so well-crafted through and through, that it’s hard to not carry it with you afterwards. Special mention needs to go to the brilliant music by David Carney and the splendidly crisp minimalist art by Luka Marcetic.
Commentate
Now you should be able to leave your own not-at-all insipid comments. If there are any hick-ups then please let me know so I can let the finest scientists get to work on it.
Science at work.
Statistically speaking, we’ve been accepted. But has the industry accepted us? Yes they have. As women. And the problem lies right there. Categorising all women together inevitably leads to the industry treating us as a big, unified mass. They think we don’t like the same games that men do. They think we find God of War offensive, we don’t like tuning our car in Need for Speed, and we would surely never touch Alien versus Predator, or play CoD online. Of course, there are women that would in fact never play these kinds of games. But women as a target demographic are just as diverse as men are.
— Snezana N writes in the brilliant article Girls & Games: getting the issues straight.
Crayon Physics does a Radiohead
If you haven’t yet made friends with this delightful puzzler then now is the perfect time to do so. Crayon Physics is celebrating its first birthday by selling the game at whatever price you want to buy it at. But do sin with haste, the sale runs out on January 15th.
Ignite introduction
It’s so easy to job between projects, to change your mind and move from one undertaking to another. One day your heart will be completely focused on one idea and the next you’re psyched about something else entirely. It’s said that every six years every cell in your body has died and been replaced with another, but your mind can change much more frequently and suddenly.
My name is Rikard and I usually type similarly pretentious prose on my swedish blog The Power Glove. I also contribute regularly to the excellent websites Critical Gamer and Audioscribbler. When I’m not busy writing for these excellent sites, I divide my time between job hunting and playing video games and it’s this last activity that this blog will be concerned with. If you’ve read this far and is still with me you’ll know basically what this blog is going to feature: opinion pieces, comments on gaming news, reviews and the odd bit of random trivia. In short; it’s ye olde gaming blog as we know and love. Except this one will be written by me. Which makes it more unique than any other gaming blog you’ve read today.
I hereby pronounce this needlessly long introducting over. Commence blog - now!
