Push Button B

Well, once again its Monday, booo.  How about some Tiny Castle to get your week started off?!  Tiny Castle, much like every platform game before it, is a save the princess game.   Your mission is to traverse the obstacles of the castle and try to make your way to the princess locked in a cage.

The picture may make it look easy….and it is, but its not that easy.  Tiny Castle’s landscape changes every time you complete a new part of the game taking the princess further away from your grasp.  The puzzles are fairly straight forward, smash this thing, unlock that door, kill that thing, but they all seemed pretty well thought out and I felt like I was playing something pretty solid.

The game isn’t very long and it isn’t very difficult, but it is a lot of fun.  The controls are simple, arrow keys to move and space to use your sword.  The puzzles and classic side scrolling chop-em-up action never got tiring and i enjoyed it all the way through its big boss level.

You can play it here at Nitrome or just hit the link above.

That is an acronym for Video Game Attention Deficit Disorder. I have to say that I do have ADHD, which is the same thing as ADD but with the inclusion of hyperactivity. I do have medicine to control it, though. There is one problem that still persists though. I never find myself completely playing through a game anymore!

I am starting to believe that it is not even linked with my mental illness. I think it is something deeper than that. There are those of us who don’t have this problem. However, those that do not have the problem are those that only play a few select games because they have more self control and do not have to go out and buy every single game that looks fun to them. I have the problem of broad taste. I’ve always had broad taste in everything: music, movies, TV, and now video games.  We can not know for sure if broad taste is the only cause for this problem however.

NOOOO! Stop making games until I beat all of the ones I have please!!!!

I have a feeling that one of the big causes is the fact that the video game market is like a pen full of bunnies. A new game comes out so often nowadays. This is causing some gamers to experience VGADD. I know I’m not the only one out there. I have talked to some friends about it who share the same problem. I have even searched the web for others with the problem and found “Game Boy” a member of gaygamer.net (yes, it is a real site, and for the record I am not gay, but I am not prejudice towards people who are) posting an opinion discussing his problem with not being able to beat games. He stated, “As much as I like a lot of games today, I sometimes get bored playing some of them, especially towards the end. Gameplay might get too repetitive, a spike in difficulty may exceed my patience, or, as it happens too often, something new comes out that steals my attention.”

I think there is only one cure for those of us who have this problem. We must learn some self-control and start keeping our video game playing to a stable amount of games and not go overboard with how many games we get. Thanks for reading, everybody!

Earthbound, I swear to you that one of these days I will beat you even though I always get sidetracked from some other game.

Game: Aegis Wing
Purchased from: XBox Live Marketplace
Price paid: 0 MS Points (Free!)
Platform: XBox 360

I was pleasantly surprised to see that there was one game on Xbox Live that didn’t cost anything, it’s almost like Microsoft is giving you the opportunity to see what downloading a game is like so that you’ll be more willing to download more games in the future, and if the game’s not half-bad, then so much the better!

Aegis Wing is a rail-shooter, and all that really means is that you fly along a set path shooting the waves upon waves of enemies that are bigger, faster, more maneuverable, and better armed than you. Your goal is to use your wits and superior piloting skills to blow them all up.

Really, most of the game is pretty bog-standard. If you’ve played a shooter before, you pretty much already know what to expect. The ‘hook’, though, comes into play when you get more people involved.

Get two to four people playing this game and you can link your ships together for increased firepower with the tradeoff that your ship becomes a much larger target.

There’s actually not too much that’s difficult about this game. I was able to round up three friends and we went through the game in about an hour without too much trouble, so finishing it is certainly an achievable goal.

And the cost is just right, at 0 Microsoft Points, there’s really no reason to not pick it up… unless you hate having fun or feel like you have to spend money on something to make it worth your while. And if that’s the case, what are you doing reading this site?

I want to point out that this headline is intentionally written in all caps because the title of the game itself is screaming at you. The official website displays it as such, so who am I to tone down their obvious fervor? A quick Google search leads to several sites who dared to deflate UFC UNDISPUTED 2010′s intensity. I expect to see those websites sporting casts, crutches, and many bruises before long.

That being said, I’m not going to spend much time talking about this week’s PSN freebie demo. It’s an Ultimate Fighting Championship video game – you probably know what to expect. I loaded it up, picked a random fighter from the 6-7 man roster, then mashed buttons. I’m sure that the truly hardcore UFC fans will get more out of this demo and game (which releases May 25, 2010) than I did, and I’m happy for them. I feel like I played a boxing game instead of a mixed martial arts game, but again, I’m sure this is largely due to my ignorance in the ways of the UFC and its caged, octagonal bloodsport.

The demo touted UNDISPUTED 2010′s new tournament modes, career building, and online capabilities. Graphically, it looked like a fighting game should look in  2010: the character models were lifelike in that they sweat profusely, bled appropriately (unlike some games), and noticeably wore down as the match went on. The mechanics of the game, admittedly lost on me, were at least responsive. Seriously, by now, you know if you’re going to pick up a game starts out with the letters UFC. If so, then you’re likely going to enjoy UNDISPUTED 2010. If not, take comfort in the fact that you’re not playing a UFC game.

Today I present you two very different, very unique “games”.  The first is one that kept me up all night a few years back and the second one will make you punch a kitten… in the face.

P4X is a web based 150 level riddle.  According to the website only 31 out of the 215,000 people to ever start it have finished it, and I am not one of them.  The riddles, which are more like puzzles than riddles, start off extremely easy and slowly take a turn for the worse.  To complete the riddles you have to do everything from viewing the source code for the page to image editing to messing with sound tracks for hidden Morse code messages.  It’s hard to describe it, so save me some time and go play it and let me know what you think.  I gets hard, really really hard, but if you get stuck so hard you want to rage quit there are hints and walkthroughs of some of the stages to be found linked from the site.  So if you are a fan of riddles and puzzles I highly recommend it.

[Update]  It turns our that the hints that use to be there are now gone and have been replaced with hints that you have to pay for…how lame. Fortunately there are still hints up in the forums for the site.

Next up is The Impossible Quiz.  Contrary to the game’s name, it is quite possible to finish the quiz, but it won’t be easy.

The game is full of nonsense questions and puzzles that are so devious and evil I guarantee you will hate me for showing this to you.  The quiz is half multiple choice and half puzzles, none of which make any sense.

You get 3 lives, and once they are gone the game is over and you have to try again, which will happen, I promise.  Seriously, this is hard, like….talking to a 2 year old hard.  But with some time you’ll eventually know most all of the answers through trial and error and realize that the 2 year old has pooped his pants and you’re the only one left to clean it up.  But have no fear, there is some slight hope.  Randomly through the quiz there are points where you can earn level skip tokens, which can come in handy, except on the levels you can’t skip…

Here’s another picture.

I highly recommend you check these out, especially P4X, it’s challenging and very well thought out.  If this website had stars I’d give it 5/5.  Impossible quiz is a great game to play when you aren’t frustrated and want to be.

Enjoy.

I like adventure so this week I tried something new and downloaded a DS game demo to my DS through the Wii’s Nintendo Channel. There were plenty of demos up there, but the only one that seemed to not be a puzzle game was a game called Battle of Giants: Mutant Insects. The title of the game will make you think of a horrible movie with cheesy special effects that you could probably find on SyFy. Battle of Giants: Mutant Insects was used by Ubisoft before SyFy got a hold of it thankfully. The game description mentions that it includes four mutant insects to choose from to duke it out with other mutant insects with a new and unique control scheme. Before we forget, this is a demo and unless I somehow missed something, you can only play as the scorpion in this demo. Funny, seeing as scorpions are arachnids and not insects. I don’t even know what the other three mutant insects in the game there are.

From the title screen I picked Adventure. What an adventure it was! I walked around a destroyed city as a giant scorpion and killed two other scorpions. While in the “field” you move your scorpion with the stylus and like most DS games that have you do this, you just place the stylus on the screen and the scorpion will walk towards the point where the stylus is touching and keep walking in that direction until you lift the stylus or change directions. When you happen upon another mutant (in the demo’s case, another scorpion) the screen will change.

This is a battle. When the battle starts you have a aerial view of the two mutant brawlers with one on the bottom left corner and the other on the top right corner. They are facing each other and that’s where they will stay throughout the battle. The first battle in the demo’s adventure guides you through the battle and teaches you how to play. This new and unique game-play style that the game’s description discusses is a system involving tapping and sliding the various body parts of the insect to make him strike, charge, or sting the opponent (I would imagine there will be different attacks with the other insects in the game). In order to dodge you tap the scorpion and then drag the stylus to the right or left (the scorpion’s right or left that is). In order to block you tap the scorpion and slide the stylus toward the back of the scorpion. To jab with the pincers you tap one and slide it toward the opponent. You can do the same with the scorpions head to charge or with the tail to shoot poison from the stinger. After landing two consecutive hits you can initiate a Supercombo. To do the Supercombo, you need to draw a line from dot to dot. The quicker you do it, the better the combo. If the opponent is trying to land a Supercombo on you, you can minimize the damage by erasing the lines between their dots. The game did not lie; the fighting system was new and unique. It is to me, however, but I haven’t played every game in the world.

The bad part of the demo is that I really can’t tell if the game has a plot or if it’s just a giant insect version of Rampage with a different control system. This game must have been under the radar because the day I played it and wrote this is the first time I have ever heard of the game but I did research and discovered that is in a line of other Battle of the Giants games. All I can say is that its game-play style is kind of neat and maybe it deserves a try before the exterminator or Starship Troopers are called.

There are many talented crafters making video game inspired items. It’s always fun finding items that resemble long time favorite characters.

Michelle Rheaume crochets favorite characters from the Mario Bros games into three dimensional sculptures.

My favorite is the piranha plant.

Luigi gets some love too

She offers her designs in her etsy shop. And if you have crocheting skills, she also offers crochet patterns.

Maybe you could make your own raccoon suit Mario.

Game: PuzzleQuest: Galactrix
Purchased from: Best Buy
Price paid: $5.99
Platform: PC

It’s no great secret that I like puzzle games. But it’s also no great secret that I’m not a huge fan of the Bejeweled-type games. So why did I pick up a game that looks like it’s Bejeweled in space?

Because I had $6 burning a hole in my pocket, duh.

PuzzleQuest presents you with a series of hexagonal grids where you (and optionally a computer opponent) swap tiles and try to match three or more in a row (no big surprise there).

And your goals will vary from trying to destroy your opponent’s ship to ‘hacking’ (which is a fancy way of saying you have to make a certain sequence of clears in a restricted time limit) to ‘mining’ (which is a fancy way of saying that you have to match colors while working around garbage blocks that don’t actually do much). These are all wrapped with a story mode that’s conveyed with static pictures where the portraits talk to each other. Fire Emblem-style.

And I’d really like to tell you more about this game, like how deep and engrossing the story is, how the dialog is punchy with deep and pertinent undertones, how long the game is, all that kind of stuff.

But I can’t.

Mostly because the game would crash after about 20 minutes of me playing it for no discernible reason (thankfully, the autosave worked). I know, poor me, right?

But there was hope to be found!

I checked out the site of the publisher, Aspyr, and found that they had released a patch that, among other things:

“Fixed a bug that caused random crashes/performance issues on certain computers.”

Which I downloaded and installed, only to find that the patch couldn’t find the game installed on my system. It just throws up its virtual hands and gives up.

So I guess that makes this a pretty good game to pick up and play for about 20 minutes or so at a time because that’s as long as it’ll stay running, but that’s hardly a glowing review. But I will say that I don’t really miss my six bucks.

That makes it better, right?

Do you remember the Gamecube’s launch title Wave Race: Blue Storm? It was the one that wasn’t Luigi’s Mansion or Star Wars Rogue Squadron II: Rebel Leader, had something to do with racing jet skis and the really pretty water. If that’s all you remember about it, that’s okay; you’re not missing out on much. I remember playing it, saying, “Wow, this has got to be as good as video game water graphics will ever get,” and then promptly put Rebel Leader back in because it was a lot more fun. This brings me to this week’s PSN freebie demo: Wakeboarding HD. Déjà vu, friends, déjà vu.

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