Free for All #004 — The Lazy, Half-assed Edition

Due to general laziness and time constraints there are only two games this time: one for SHMUP fans and one for Puzzle fans.

Warning Forever

Skipping all of the top-down scrolling fluff that leads to a boss battle in the typical SHMUP, Warning Forever simply presents you with a series of nothing but boss encounters. By default you start off with 180 seconds and after you defeat a boss time is added to the counter. Rather than giving you a set number of lives the game simply subtracts from your timer each time, meaning multiple deaths will either make you unable to finish the boss in time or simply end your game if it hits zero. The bosses aren’t procedurally generated but there are nine “growing patterns” and four final shapes which adds some variety to the combat. Ultimately, not a game you’d spend hours on but it’s good for killing some time on occasion.

Kiki the Nanobot

In this game you take control of a two-wheeled robot and progress through a series of puzzles. The gameplay mostly involves you pushing or shooting blocks and other objects into the correct position to enable you to grab a sphere. The official website calls it a mix between the games Soko-Ban and Kula World.

 

This will probably be the last multi-game “Free for All.” In the future I will only write about one indie title at a time so I can avoid indie game fatigue and exhausting my supply of filler article material…¬_¬

Unproductive Productivity

Do you ever feel like doing something productive, but try as you might you can never seem to do anything but obsessively check the same websites in an endless loop? I find myself in that situation daily and it’s beginning to get a tad depressing. And trust me, more reasons to be depressed is one of the last things I need.

So, what made decide to ramble about this? Well, I have a “Work In Progress” folder containing three articles I’ve been intending to write for a while now, but every time I tell myself that I’m going to work on them I just end up browsing various forums and checking gaming news sites for hours on end. Hell, I usually toss an online game or two in the mix for good measure. It’s not just articles that get impacted by my inability to sit down and do some actual work. I’ve had many Blender3D projects that I’ve canceled or just kept in limbo and some standard chores such as washing dishes and mopping often get put on the back burner.

What’s the solution to this predicament? Unplug my Ethernet cord? I’d just plug it back in after trying to compulsively open Firefox only to be greeted by a network timeout page. I suppose it’s a self-discipline issue more than it is anything else. The Internet isn’t forcing me to occupy myself with the various time sinks it provides access to, so I really only have myself and some off-balance brain chemistry to blame.

Anyway, I just randomly decided to write this little brain dropping while I was in the process of being annoyed by my inability to be productive. Oddly enough, the act of writing this is being productive and somewhat diminishes the value of this post. If I could take the time to write this, why couldn’t I write an actual article or finish a small Blender3D project? My mind is boggled.

I’m not dead yet!

Holy shit, I haven’t maed post in awhile. Not that it really matters with what seems to be a steady readership of 15 people. The majority of which seem to be from random google related accidents. But, I’ve got a good excuse for vanshing for a few days, you see, I’ve been playing GTA IV.

After all the hubub I’ve heard about the game running like a retarded kid with a clubfoot I’ve been pretty pleasently surprised to see the thing work like a champ on my relatively modest system. It’s the best game I’ve played since Fallout 3, in the immersion department, that is. I’ve been poopsocking my way through it a little more quickly than is safe or healthy. Hopefully I’ll have it by the horns by Wednesday and write up a glowing review in which the game finishes on my chest.

I’ll try to start back with a couple of rambling keyboard vomits a day to those of you that care. Hugs and kisses.

Morning Breath

I don’t know shit about television. I thought last night was a new season of Fringe starting, which ended up causing me massive amounts of disappointment and telling the TV to “step it up!” over and over again. Had I known beforehand it was just the end of the first season after a break I guess it would have made a little more sense. The CG was weaksauce compared to offerings earlier in the season.

Ultimately I was expecting a little bit more from the show considering how long it has been between episodes at this point. The new inspection thing happening is really awfully done, it just doesn’t make sense and feels phony. Like a great big phony.

I didn’t play any games at all yesterday, RA3 is ready to go co-op style with Ray but we haven’t started yet. I’m not even really sure I want to send little units all over a map, it doesn’t sound like fun. What I really want to do is remove The Witcher, Clear Sky, or Bioshock from my currently playing list. I hate knowing I’m midway through two or three games at a time.

Tomorrow my new computer parts get here, this is exciting. I’m getting a shiny new X3 8650 to replace my aging 4800+ (poor student, don’t fucking judge me) and two more gigs of RAM. I’m debating on picking up more upgrades with my tax return or maybe a fancy dancy WACOM tablet.

Morning, everyone, all three of you. I see you.

Blah blah blah blah blah…

I finally finished Mirror’s Edge. Aside from a bit of keyboard throwing frustration and a couple really piss poor decisions on part of the developer, it was a fun time. C&C RA3 is next on my virtual menu of games I’ve got a 75% chance of not playing to completion. I’m pretty excited about all the video linking the game together, just not at all excited about the prospect of watching tiny units run around on a giant map. Blah.

February 10 is going to knock my socks off, in slow motion. My socks are then going to be fired upon by dozens of mind controlled mercenaries, spilling it’s viscous sock lifeblood all over the floor.

FEAR 2 has me excited, primarily in my pantsal region. The region in which the pants are located. All the most recent trailers I’ve seen indicate that the ultra bland office levels have had some spice thrown into the mix. A lot of the game still seems to be set in every day environments, but it doesn’t have the same recycled look the last one did.

I haven’t been following the game closely, because I don’t want to be let down when I realize it doesn’t live up to the hype. But what I’ve seen of the mechanized awesomeness portions of destruction has me more excited than I really should be. It reminds me of SHOGO which is anything but a bad thing, aside form the fact that now I’m kind of expecting to hear something about a new SHOGO soon. SHOGO SHOGO SHOGO.

Pseudo Gamer

Often times I’ll find myself quitting a game after getting only part of the way through. It isn’t even that I don’t like the game, the games I’m quitting don’t even have a single thing that stands out as irritating to me. This seems like something I should be dragged out into an alley and shot for.

Part of me wants to blame the distraction of the internet being so close at hand, but I know that isn’t the case. I know the people I’m in IRC with will still be there when I finish, the same websites will still look the same, having posted maybe a story or two in the time I was playing. So it isn’t that, what is it? I’m determined to get to the bottom of my epic gamer fail.

Someone has a case of the…

What a weekend! I didn’t work any more than I usually do on the weekends, but as of the time of this writing, I’m exhausted. I’m sure you’re interested in the course of my work day, so I’ll break it down for you. On Saturday, I basically spent 6 hours using a rag, some industrial chemicals to remove sticky shit from metal and a razor blade to scrape at it. By the time I finished my head felt like a bass drum attached to the foot of some hyperactive punk drummer. I was basically huffing for 6 hours, which would have been awesome if I was a retarded junkie, but I’m not, so it sucked. After the six hours I just stood around and smiled at people for 3 more hours. Rock.

Gamingwise I was able to achieve absolutely nothing. I don’t even think I’ve had the juice to get to the point where I open a game, stare at the menu screen for a few moments and decide it might just be easier to leave the computer than exit the unplayed game. I spent about an hour thumbing through the new selection of Fallout 3 mods, which surprised me with its meatiness. There’s a lot more than out there that appears to be of serviceable quality than I expected. That’s the extent of my foray into the realm of digital entertainment this weekend, weak at best.

Hopefully today I’ll be able to wrap up Mirror’s Edge and post a “review” of my experience sometime, then me and RAY plan on embarking upon the campy adventure of C&C RA3, a somewhat horrifying prospect. I’ve not saty down with an RTS since, well, probably since the original DOW, you see. Hopefully this will be tolerable and maybe even expand my gaming horizons.

Happy Monday!

Who the hell is the market?

Sometimes, late at night, when I can’t fall asleep and I know I’m just going to drop the class I have the next day by the end of the week, I scan Game Trailers for an hour or so. I see alot of stuff that doesn’t click with me, which I expect. I have a hard time not spewing venomous bile at anything that isn’t an FPS, or a tactical FPS, or a tactical FPS with a cover system. Different strokes for different folks, I get it. Some people like collecting stars and flailing their arms around in front of their living room windows, some people like hiding in the crags of their attics, replaying Fallout 2 for the 42nd time. There’s something for everyone.

But what I do not understand are asian MMOs. I’m not just throwing shit at them without having a pretty good reason to go into my dung pile, I’ve played a handful of them. I played Lineage II fairly obsessivly for awhile, I palyed Silk Road Online the same way. Now, I’ve played a shit ton of World of Warcraft so I’m no stranger to the draw of an MMO, but WoW has style, fairly good chunks of story, a fancy intro. Whereas these asian MMOs have hollow gameworlds, often time less intricate gameplay than most popular MMOs over on our side of the world and an extremely repititive gameworld. You have no idea how many times you need to see the same enemy reskinned for a WoW player to find your gameworld repititious and boring.

Who is buying these with other higher quality games available? As far as I know subscription fees are reduced for popular big name MMOs in other countries so that they can compete with these shallow grindfests. There’s not a single region of my brainmeat that can comprehend the draw of such mindless grinding, unless it’s just some sick compulsion, like, I don’t know, huffing gas. The following link inspired these thoughts and made me think about investing in a company that produces carpal tunnel supports.

Why, God, why?!

When God gives you lemons, build a better God!

Once in a great while, things work out well after a disaster. Take for example, the canceling of Firefly, we got Serenity. Or the frenchfry. There’s all sorts of disasters that worked out nicely. However, the recent rape and plundering of 1UP has resulted in  Rebel FM and the upcoming Geekbox Radio. This is immeasurable amounts of pure awesome. While everyone misses having the 1UP podcasts, these new sites emerging from the ashes are sure to impress. I’ve really enjoyed what I’ve heard of Rebel FM at this point and am eagerly anticipating the first episode of Geekbox Radio, I really enjoyed it when Ryan Scott finally started speaking up, so I’m sure I’ll be a big fan of whatever his final product is.

It’s really exciting getting to watch stuff like this happen, it’s also really exciting to see the guys over at Rebel FM have already received over $11,000 dollars, that’s a crazy amount of support from the gaming community. I guess they use fancy equipment like mixingboards and soundproofing, I’ve never even heard of that stuff. However, the RVN crew has recently made some upgrades of their own, I’ve managed to fix my broken headphones by duct taping a broken tweezer arm over the top so they cling to my massive hydrosyphalic head. DSM has recently purchased speakers that actually attach to his microphone, so outside noise and echo are at their peak. Finally, RAY has managed to attach his mic to a base with a series of melted paperclips, so they aren’t the only people making improvements.

In other news, we’ve got a new podcast up for your listening pleasure. It’s a quicker release than we normally do (what wouldn’t be?) and maybe meanders a bit more than usual too, but you can expect a more focused podcast at the end of the month or the beginning of next month. I think that might be a good format for us, do something focused and topic driven, then do one a couple weeks later where we get to shit out of our mouths for an hour, which we all really enjoy. Assuming everything works out as planned we’ll have a bit of a surprise for you next podcast, which hopefully mixes stuff up a bit.

Steamed

Recently I’ve had a massive shift in thinking, this doesn’t happen too incredibly often, at least not such a permanent shift. I’m fairly set in ways, especially as a gamer. Sure, I’ve had my run ins with consoles, maybe even bought a few, but as a gamer you’ll find me in front of my monitor with mouse in hand. I don’t stray too far off the tried and true FPS trail I’ve been following for fifteen years now (oh God!). The odd RTS has been played, and subsequently thrown out of a moving vehicle, violently. But before I get off track, let me name the looming futuristic trend that has shifted my thinking. Digital distribution.