Fishy Warfare

July 21, 2013 by 2 Comments

Fishy Warfare in the brook –

Why does your game have no hook?

Games like Fishy Warefare have historical importance.  The Atari 2600 launched with Combat (based on the arcade hit Tank), a game where players stood on opposite sides of the screen, taking shots at each other.  The first video game to have a microprocessor (as opposed to discrete logic) was Midway’s 1975 hit Gun Fight, which was later upgraded to a similar game called Boot Hill (which hit the Atari 2600 as Outlaw).  You’ll notice these games all came out in the 70s and really don’t hold that much relevance today.  I’m not saying you shouldn’t attempt to reinvent this formula that existed a decade before my father was a US citizen.  I’m saying that you have to give it some kind of hook to make it relevant today.  Or at least attempt to be better than those moldy oldies.

Fishy Warfare is a worst XBLIG of the year contender based entirely on uselessness.  It looks ugly.  There’s no multiplayer.  The AI is brain-dead.  The gameplay is boring.  The upgrades are dull.  The final nail is the insulting 240MSP price tag.  All this for a game that was hardly ambitious in concept to begin with.  You’re on one side of a screen.  Your AI opponent is on the other.  You shoot until one of you is dead.  Then you upgrade your ship and do it again.  The game presents nothing resembling a challenge until you fight a giant alligator thing that has some kind of laser-firebreath thing that can kill you in one hit.  Until I got to it, I never needed upgrade my ship.  After dying against this, I had enough money to get the best weapon, ship, hull, and propeller.  So I did.  Then I had to fight my way back to the Alligator, because the game sends you backwards and makes you replay previous fights when you lose (just to make sure maximum boredom and repetition is achieved).  At which point, it instakilled me again.  Grumble.

This is the instakilling Alligator instakilling a dude piloting the frog. Familiarize yourself with this, because it will happen to you too. You know, assuming you don't spend your Microsoft Points on THREE better games that have actual polish to them.

This is the instakilling Alligator instakilling a dude piloting the frog. Familiarize yourself with this, because it will happen to you too. You know, assuming you don’t spend your Microsoft Points on THREE better games that have actual polish to them.

Despite what people think, I do look for good things to say about even the worst games.  But, I couldn’t find one for Fishy Warfare.  The graphics look like they were drawn in MS Paint.  The backgrounds are a bit on the loud side, which sometimes makes the projectiles hard to see.  The highest upgraded weapon is also the most visually uninteresting of the whole lot.  That’s extraordinarily nit-picky, but for some reason that stuck with me long after I finished playing.  Maybe because it sums up everything wrong with Fishy Warfare.  Everything feels so rushed and not handled with care.  I don’t know what else to say.  Boring.  Bad.  Overpriced.  You could probably buy a couple actual fighting fish for the same price and make them fight to the death, then eat the loser.  And then eat the winner too, because it probably is meatier and yummier.

xboxboxartFishy Warfare was developed by Elemental Zeal

240 Microsoft Points could buy the top three games on the Indie Gamer Chick Leaderboard for the same price as this in the making of this review.  I don’t have a joke to go with that, just thought I would state the obvious.

 

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Dark Quest

July 17, 2013 by 7 Comments

Dark Quest is based on the early 90s cult board game hit HeroQuest.  I’ve never played the game, but after asking around on Twitter, I had a few fans of it confirm that it’s a very close facsimile of the real thing.  If that’s what you’ve been looking for over the last twenty years, this review is irrelevant to you.  Go get it.  This review is for those who missed out on it when it was played using cheap plastic characters, dice, and cardboard.

In the interest of professionalism, I looked up the original rules to the game.  And by that, I mean I watched a four-minute long video by the Angry Video Game Nerd that kind of, sort of explained the rules.  I thought “ugh, looks complicated.  Well, at least I’ll be able to learn how the game plays in the tutorial they no doubt took the time to meticulously craft.”  Which again proves that the whole Cuban women having clairvoyance thing is hogwash.  There is no tutorial for Dark Quest.  You’re thrown into the first dungeon immediately, which offers things that are sort of pointers, but not really.  Fighting enemies, discovering hidden traps, and using various weapons are mechanics the player is left to discover on their own.  I suppose if you’re familiar with HeroQuest, this might not be so bad.  For people like me, it’s clear that we’re unwelcome guests at the Dark Quest party.

Yea, to be perfectly frank, I had no idea what I was doing.

Yea, to be perfectly frank, I had no idea what I was doing.

After somehow stumbling through the first dungeon and picking up a couple secondary characters, I shamefully succumbed to boredom and ignorance in the second level.  Here, you have to find hidden jewels, insert them into statues to activate a door, and then fight roughly five million skeletons, give or take.  The problem here was my previously established “worst random luck in gaming” status was confirmed about ten fold.  I would swing at the skeletons with my barbarian and miss.  Then my dwarf and miss.  Then my wizard and miss.  Or, if I didn’t miss, something would pop up that said “CHEAT DEATH” which I think is basically a fancy way of saying “missed.”  Then, the room full of skeletons would attack.  Funny enough, they would also miss more often than hit, no matter which of the characters they attacked.  But, they had numbers on me, and slowly I would drain away until I was reduced to a pile of bones.  I either was killed by the skeletons or I died of boredom.  Not sure which.

I tried this level a few times.  There is a small instruction card, which noted that the dwarf was the best defender.  So, on my second attempt, when I would enter a room that I knew was filled with baddies, I would lead with him.  Which made sense, since he has the largest movement.  Now, here’s where it gets weird: the dwarf, the guy with the alleged best defense, was the character that the enemies missed the least.  It was un-fucking-canny.  I’m not blaming the developers for me being unlucky, but I would ask them “are you sure this guy has extra points of defense?”  What am I missing here?  Besides 3 out of 4 of my attempts at attacks?  To make matters worse, every once in a while the dungeon master would spit out a random effect, which includes such things as “lose some gold” or “lose your turn.”  What did he hit most often?  “Lose one health.”  Of course that’s what he did.  Meanwhile, I was getting my will to go on sapped by the game’s snail-like pace and unintuitive control scheme.  After giving that second dungeon a fourth go and dying in the same fucking room, I’d had enough.  Yep, I couldn’t even complete the second stage.  Shame on me, I suck as a gamer, yada yada yada.

You know what?  In this case, I don’t think it was just me.  I’ve heard from at least one other player that they were the victim of missing far too often when they went to attack.  Or sometimes a character can be next to an enemy and they can spend multiple turns swinging at each other and missing every time.  Each stage has a time limit in the form of a limited number of turns the player can take.  I never came close to the limit, but the sheer number of turns that a battle can drag out could be problematic in later levels.  Maybe.

Why the fuck do I not automatically pick up whatever gold or items I step over? Why does this game seem to go out of its way to be inconvenient? Grrrrrrrr!

Why the fuck do I not automatically pick up whatever gold or items I step over? Why does this game seem to go out of its way to be inconvenient? Grrrrrrrr!

I know I’m not who this game was made for, and that’s fine with me.  It looks good.  It sounds good.  I know HeroQuest fans are satisfied with it.  Although they’re a little puzzled by the lack of dice.  However, non-fans will find a slow, newb-hating dungeon crawler in board-game form that is about as exciting a watching paint dry.  On top of that, I also think fans of HeroQuest will find things to be disappointed in it.  There’s no multiplayer.  Granted, eliminating a player controlling the enemies is probably a logical and reasonable thing to hand off to the AI.  But, not having the option for four players to take control of the heroes is kind of silly, especially since board games such as this are built entirely around social interaction.  I guess you could hypothetically just pass the controller off to other players after making your move.  It’s not really convenient, but hey, it’s a chance to play a moderately popular  game twenty years after it dropped off the face of the earth.  I mean, it wasn’t popular enough to last more than a couple of years on store shelves.  And you would think fans of the game would still own the corporeal board and game pieces.  Okay, so I have no fucking clue at all why this game exists, since it takes almost no advantage of things that can only be done in the realm of video games.  H.i.v.e. demonstrated they can at least be used to ease people into learning a new game, but Dark Quest doesn’t even do that.  Nor does it have online support.  This was a weird one to review.  A really well produced homage to some vintage thing that I’d never heard of.  I can’t recommend it to non-fans of the thing it’s based on, but even fans might find little to get excited about.  Don’t get me wrong: there’s an audience for Dark Quest.  Twitter already confirmed that for me.  What I’m saying is, if you want to properly pay tribute to a classic gaming property, here’s a thought: use some of this space-age technology we have these days and make the original concept better.  Otherwise, it’s less a tribute and more like grave robbery.

xboxboxartDark Quest was developed by Brain Seal Entertainment

80 Microsoft Points wouldn’t mind some kind of version of Don’t Break the Ice for Wii U, but only if it involves using the touch screen and an actual mallet in the making of this review.

Filed under XBLIG / Creators Collection Tagged with , , , , , , , , , ,

Man, I Hate That Indie Game!

July 16, 2013 by 4 Comments

I get Man, I Hate That Indie Game.

I don’t like it, but I get it.

I think.

Hate That Indie comes from the developers of Don’t Die Dateless Dummy!, which is far and away the most popular review I’ve ever done here at Indie Gamer Chick.  It has more total views from search engines than the next thirteen highest games do combined.  This statistic has led to various developers threatening to jump out of windows.  And yet, that review is also responsible for me converting many Looky Loos into long-term readers.  Incidentally, that’s also why I won’t be shaking any of my fans’ hands at game conventions.  I know where those hands have been, and it ain’t pretty.

This follow-up to Don’t Die Dateless Dummy comes at a time when the views for it were finally dropping off.  The cynic crowd is decrying it as another soulless boob game designed to attract the genital tug-of-war crowd and make a quick buck.  But actually, Hate That Indie is more of an indictment against various gaming factions.  The anti-feminist crowd, cynical indie developers, and boob games (I shit you not) are all satirized in an insanely over-the-top fashion here.  The basic idea is a group of girls that are part of an indie development club recruit you to help them with their projects, and you’re put in the middle of a power struggle between them.  Your.. girlfriend I guess?.. wants to make a game just for the fun of it.  The other two are looking for profits.  And this is where the game gets touchy for some folks.

For you pocket miners out there, the title screen is pretty much as erotic as this game gets. Sorry to disappoint you. You know, they have this thing called "Google" now that you can use to look for boobs that don't cost Microsoft Points. Some of them come from actual human females and not from drawings made by guys who will never actually see a female naked.

For you pocket miners out there, the title screen is pretty much as erotic as this game gets. Sorry to disappoint you. You know, they have this thing called “Google” now that you can use to look for boobs that don’t cost Microsoft Points. Some of them come from actual human females and not from drawings made by guys who will never actually see a female naked.

There’s the Ex-Indie Developing Cynic who hates indie games because nobody tries to make good games and developers are all geeks who speak in techno-babble and make games with animated boobs.  His girlfriend is the optimistic go-getter who has no actual game design talent, and he calls her out on it.  Her two friends either want to make games for money by copying existing games or cloning stuff based on what’s trendy, or simply to build their computer science portfolio.  Dialog trees only have two options, a good one and a bad one.  If you choose the bad one, you verbally tear into the girl in just about the most mean-spirited, online-bully speak possible.  This is rubbing people the wrong way.

Guys, come on.  This is clearly a satire.  And I’m not joking about that either.  I’m not playing the sarcastically oblivious game reviewer here.  This was obviously a joke.  And, in a way, it might be brilliant.  I’ve probably talked with close to five-hundred different developers or would-be developers in the two years I’ve done Indie Gamer Chick.  Trust me, there are a LOT of people like the main character.  Jaded.  Bitter.  Fed up with the culture and ready to pack up their shit and quit.  The main lead, when you pick the “good” answers, is a near-perfect caricature of dozens of guys I’ve talked with.  It’s so spot-on that it’s spooky.

As for the “evil” dialog, again, come on guys.  You can’t be that thick.  It’s the type of over-the-top sexism that is all over the gaming community.  The kind that nobody really should take seriously.  I went two years without it, and now I’ve been getting it by the boatload ever since I announced that I was working with Indie Royale on an XBLIG-themed bundle with my name on it.  The evil options in Man, I Hate That Indie Game! sound just like the stuff I’ve been getting.  It’s uncanny.  And it’s also clearly parody.  The guys take swipes at themselves frequently in the dialog.  They make fun of boob games, when in fact this game is itself a boob game.  Get it?  This was spot on.  Perhaps too deadpan though.  There’s Leslie Nielsen deadpan and Sean Penn reading the local obituaries deadpan where anyone listening wants to crawl into a hole and die.  They did the Sean Penn thing, and it makes the game kind of depressing.

Don’t worry though, you won’t have to do too much of it.  I followed the “good” dialog and finished the game in under ten minutes.  No, really.  There are multiple endings of course.  I played a few times and got one where I died alone, one where I stole a girl’s game engine and used it for myself, and finally one where I shacked up one of the girls.  This ending even made a joke about doing a time-jump, which seemingly skipped entire chapters of the game.  Since I played Don’t Die Dateless Dummy several times and never once got an ending that didn’t die with me becoming an all-powerful virginal wizard (which is the bad ending for some reason), getting laid after approximately six minutes seemed like the total victory of Mount Midoriyama to me.  Yea, go figure.  I finally play one of these fucking games where I might give two squirts about the story and where they’re going with it and it turns out they don’t really have all that far to go with it.  My theory is they needed to make sure the game ended before the blistered hand brigade climaxed.

After I saw this picture on the marketplace, I named my character "John Conner" and pretended that one of the girls was secretly building Skynet instead of an indie game. It was almost fun.

After I saw this picture on the marketplace, I named my character “John Conner” and pretended that one of the girls was secretly building Skynet instead of an indie game. It was almost fun.

The biggest problem is that everything wrong with Don’t Die Dateless Dummy from a purely mechanic point of view is still present.  When the game ends, you can’t go back to just try the other parts of dialog.  You have to start from the beginning.  Unless you save, which is a very slow, clunky process that is also quite unresponsive to the controller for some reason.  The main draw is still clearly presented as still images of school-aged anime girls.  Combine that with the satirical take on indie gaming culture being too short and unrealized (plus an absolutely asinine $3 price tag) and there is simply no reason to get Man, I Hate This Indie Game!  You know what?  I do hate this fucking game, but not for the reasons people would have thought.  I hate it because they actually had a good idea here and didn’t take it as far as it seems they could have.  It felt like I was being pitched on this hilarious idea for a game, then the person cut themselves off after a minute by pulling out some piano wire and garroting themselves.

xboxboxartMan, I Hate That Indie Game! was developed by cupholder

240 Microsoft Points.. seriously, that’s too fucking much.. will be playing the first game by the guys behind this and Don’t Die Dateless Dummy sometime soon in the making of this review.  You know what?  It’s an RPG that actually looks good!

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Monkey Poo Flinger

July 15, 2013 by 7 Comments

No, really.

You can file Monkey Poo Flinger.. again, no really.. under novelty games. It has no real value as a game. On my most generous day, I would call its gameplay mediocre. On a less than generous day, I would probably just flip the bird and make fart noises with my mouth. But seriously, you don’t buy a game called Monkey Poo Flinger expecting the next Spec Ops – The Line. You get it because monkeys are hilarious, poo is hilarious, and monkeys throwing poo is the greatest comedy goldmine of all time.

BUT, if your game is going to be themed around a monkey throwing poo at people, it has to at least look good. Covering some gawking human with feces should be a visually satisfying experience. That’s not the case here. The graphics look crude, so any successful shot doesn’t have any zing to it. I mean, you just absolutely plastered some asshole in the face with a handful of shit. When I do that to Brian, it’s the highlight of my day. Here, it’s just hollow. I mean, look at it.

Footage courtesy of Splazer Productions

It looks horrible. It’s actually not as bad as it appears from a gameplay perspective, but it’s still not fun.  Monkey Poo Flinger is a pretty basic gallery shooter. Press the right trigger to shoot. Targets walk in front of you and you shoot them. Sometimes there are barriers between you and then. Sometimes they throw stuff back. Sometimes the game forgets to take its brain pills and takes away your ability to shoot altogether in a level that is, I shit you not, themed around being constipated. Not that I’m offended. I’ve played games where you have to feed cows prune juice to give them diarrhea and games where you use yellow snowballs as weapons. Do you know what all those games have in common? The novelty wore thin pretty fast, and you’re left with a game that was average at best (Conker) or pretty terrible (South Park 64). The novelty is a non-factor in Monkey Poo Flinger because the graphics just don’t do the concept justice. Thus, it’s boring right from the get-go.

I’ll say this: I thought I would be playing something utterly broken, and that’s not the case. There’s a real game here. It’s just not fun at all. There’s other problems too, like projectiles (especially from the seagulls) being too hard to see, or the targets not being large enough. Probably the best thing about the game is the dialog, which is like saying the best part about getting hypothermia is you get a souvenir blanket. The between-the-levels banter offers, at best, a smirk and a shake of the head. But you have to play a dull as dirt game to get those meager crumbs of entertainment. So I can’t really recommend Monkey Poo Flinger. I also have to ask a couple of questions that really ought to be addressed: where the hell is that monkey getting all that shit from? Does his anus contain a fucking zip-drive? And why does the zoo leave this monkey in such a high foot-trafficked area? I think a better concept would have been a mad monkey won’t stop throwing shit at people and we have to stop it, with the ultimate goal of dropping it off at the state department so that we can send it to North Korea as a, ahem, diplomatic gift.

xboxboxartMonkey Poo Flinger was developed by Derf ‘N’ Derf

80 Microsoft Points had a shitty day in the making of this review.

Yea, I know my reviews have sucked these last couple weeks. I promise, I’ll try to get back into form this week.

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Statement on Magnetized

July 14, 2013 by 8 Comments

UPDATE: The unauthorized version of Magnetized was pulled from the Xbox Live Indie Game marketplace today.

I had planned to do a review of Magnetized on Xbox Live Indie Games.  But, as it turns out, there’s some shenanigans going on with that.  People want me to say something about it for some reason, so here it is: not cool.

In a nutshell, a Taiwanese developer named Rocky Hong created a very fun browser game called Magnetized.  It appears a German developer put out an unauthorized port on XBLIG and also on Android, not for free but to make money, using the same name, graphics style, same levels, same physics, and very similar art assets.  This is not an example of a clone.  This is plagiarism.

The authentic logo by Rocky Hong is on the left. The unauthorized XBLIG port on the right. Mind you, Mr. Hong had plans to bring out more commercial ports of his game.

The authentic logo by Rocky Hong is on the left. The unauthorized XBLIG port on the right. Mind you, Mr. Hong had plans to bring out more commercial ports of his game.

I do highly recommend the free browser-based version of Magnetized, which you can play right here.  This isn’t a victimless act.  Free or not, the developer makes money off ad-support from the sites that host it, and had apps for mobile devices planned.

I’m really pissed off this happened because XBLIG is my community, and shit like this makes them look bad.  XBLIG is perhaps too unregulated, which is part of the price for having the first self-publishing platform in console gaming history.  But writers and gamers shouldn’t say this is yet another example of why Xbox Live Indie Games are bad for gaming.  The story of XBLIG to me is one of inspiration.  Of perseverance and creativity, with some of the most humble developers you could ever hope to encounter.  Don’t paint them in the same brush as the scum behind this fiasco.  This community is a small handful of bad apples among hundreds of hard-working class-acts.  Their games deserve your consideration.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to write a review about a game where you fling monkey shit at pedestrians.

Also, please don’t confuse this with Magnetic by Nature, two very different games.

Update – Indie Gamer Guy’s statement.

So, it seems we have a bit of controversy here in indie video game land: some unscrupulous XBLIG developer stole an idea from a flash game on Kongregate and ported it to XBLIG without even changing the name or title graphic. What silly, stupid bastards! That takes some big fucking brass balls, let me tell you.

Anyway, Cathy asked me to take a look at the flash (i.e. true) version of Magnetized that was developed by Rocky Hong. I must say is it a cool, little time waster that defines the term, “easy to learn but difficult to master.” This game would have been a sensation in the halcyon days of the Atari 2600 or the Intellivision for sure. Basically, you have a cube hurtling down a corridor with a powerful magnet posted somewhere along the corridor. It’s your task to use the magnet(with a simple click of your mouse) to coax the cube down the corridor, which will vary in length, width and curvature as the levels progress. There are also magnets of varying strengths and abilities as the levels progress, as well. I played until level 42 and I killed/smashed about 280 cubes, which took me about 20-25 minutes. As I said, it’s a neat little game that constantly has you saying, “Alright, just one more level…and then I’m done!”

Magnetized certainly deserves a look…and proper credit of course.

Filed under Editorials

What an Age We Live In

July 11, 2013 by 7 Comments

So a birthday editorial is now officially a thing with me.  I did it last year to talk about the age thing.  It’s one of the things that tickles me pink about being Indie Gamer Chick: my average reader is over ten years older than me.  In terms of what that means from a generational perspective, it means someone who is, say, 34 would have grown up firmly in the era of Atari 2600, Colecovision, and NES just as it was launching.  Whereas I got my first console in 1996 at the age of seven.  And it was the original PlayStation.  That’s a pretty big gap.  I spent my teen years with PlayStation 2, Xbox, and GameCube.  You spent yours doing Sega Screams at each-other and talking about Super FX chips.

This gives me a different perspective.  It also leads people to write off my opinion on gaming history as irrelevant.  After all, how could I, a person who more or less grew up in the modern gaming era, understand what games meant to you.  Games were totally different back then.  The industry was too.  The culture.

Ha.

Remember how at E3 this year, everyone was hating on Microsoft and doing the dance of joy for Sony, who were coming off like the plucky underdogs?  Yea, that’s already happened.  Only it was Sony who were the assholes and Sega who were the guys everyone was cheering for.  Back in 1999, Sega announced the American release of Dreamcast, with a very modest $199 price point.  Just days later, Sony announced the specs for PlayStation 2, which rendered Dreamcast obsolete before it even released.  Sony also positioned PS2 as more than just a game machine, thanks to its DVD playback capabilities.  They touted their consoles as the future of entertainment, where being just a video game device was passé.  Sega’s American CEO Peter Moore responded by saying “(Sony) said they are not the future of video games.  They are the future of entertainment, and God bless them.  We’re the future of video games.”

Sound familiar?

Sony

Well, at least Peter didn’t tattoo that on his arm.

Sony had a ton of swagger for years at this point.  In 1996, Sony purposed a Gentleman’s Agreement that neither they, Nintendo, or Sega would make price change announcements at that year’s E3.  Sega and Nintendo accepted.  Sony then broke the agreement and said that they were dropping the price of PlayStation by $100.

It’s worth noting that Nintendo had to announce the price of Nintendo 64 at the show, and Sega had planned on reneging anyway by having signage touting Saturn’s $100 price drop printed up.  Still, Sony offered an olive branch and then immediately set fire to it once Sega had grabbed it.  It’s not that they broke the agreement though.  It’s that they were such dicks about it.  On the third day of the show, Sega’s spokeswoman Angela Edwards was carrying heavy signs that said “Saturn: Now only $199” (an extra $100 price drop that they were forced into despite corporate’s wishes) into the building, only to be harassed by Sony employees who mocked her and called her pathetic.  The jerks involved were never named but rumored to have been fired.

Let’s see: arrogant console manufacturer with antagonistic employees opening their big yap and getting fired for it.  Sound familiar?

Gaming is no different today than it was when you were young.  Technology is better.  Roles might be different.  But the overall picture is basically the same as it’s always been.  This generation, we have three main consoles and a couple of upstarts who would walk on rusty nails just to capture a 1% market share.  For the main consoles, one is more consumer friendly and has better licensing deals with third-party partners.  One is facing all kinds of criticism for draconian policies despite having major technical advantages on its platform.  And finally, one is struggling to keep its head above the water due to lack of third-party support, poor marketing, and inferior hardware.  In this context, I’m talking about PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Wii U in that order.

But if I replace “this generation” with “the 16-bit generation”, then I’m talking about, in order, Genesis, Super Nintendo, and TurboGrafx-16.  The parallels between that particular console war and the current one are striking.  But gaming history is full of that.  For that reason, the age thing really isn’t that big a deal.  Times change, but nothing really changes.  In the 80s and 90s, Nintendo fought tooth and nail against game rentals.  Right up until it became clear that the courts, not to mention the court of public opinion, would never side with them.  This year, Microsoft was absolutely crucified by the journalists and the game community for their DRM policies on Xbox One.  Make no mistake though.  If a console manufacturer can succeed in creating an environment where used games don’t exist, they would absolutely do it in a heartbeat.  We’re not quite there yet, but it’s coming.  It’s inevitable.  Not only that, but when the time comes, nobody will care.  It will be expected.  It will be the norm.

I tried my best to somehow compare 3DO to Ouya. Gave up when I realized it wasn't possible. The 3DO was $700, hard to develop for, and would have been lucky to capture 1% of the market. Well, I guess Ouya has that.

I tried my best to somehow compare 3DO to Ouya. Gave up when I realized it wasn’t possible. The 3DO was $700, hard to develop for, and would have been lucky to capture 1% of the market. Well, I guess Ouya has that.

Sure, the game industry of today isn’t exactly the same as it was for you.  Indies for example.  They couldn’t exist back then without getting dragged to court, and even the act of selling third-party development kits would likely get you sued.  Being indie on consoles meant acquiring a development kit (typically through the black market), getting distribution, a publisher, or the capital to make a production run.  Today, thanks to digital distribution, pretty much anyone can make a game and see it published on a console.  Anyone can make a game for Xbox 360 and publish it to XBLIG.  For the next generation, there might be a few more barriers, but someone with the desire to create a game can see their title published to a console’s marketplace.

But otherwise, it’s still the same game industry.  Nintendo still relies on the same handful of IPs.  Sega still relies on Sonic.  Gamers complain that games are overpriced or that there’s not enough variety.  Fanboys pick sides and get in shouting matches over which console is superior, only it’s done on the internet during their lunch break instead of at the playground during recess.  One company is positioned to be the gaming press’ darling.  Lawsuits are flying left and right.  I live in the same environment you did.  I’m a gamer of the new school variety.  You might be a gamer of the old school variety.  It’s actually the same school.  I was born twenty-four years ago today.  On the day I was born, old school gamers were drooling over pending release of Duck Tales.  Today, those same gamers are all grown up.. and drooling over the pending release of Duck Tales.  How times have changed.

Filed under Editorials Tagged with , , ,

The Swapper

July 11, 2013 by 9 Comments

Faceplam Games The Swapper is set in a far-flung space station where your Claymation spaceman talks to rocks and finds a device that that lets him clone himself up to four times and then switch his consciousness to these new clones. This new found ability lets your space-dude do things he normally couldn’t…like solve a bunch of inane puzzles and swap in-between these clones ad infinitum just to get from point A to point B. The core idea here, the cloning and swapping abilities, are intriguing ones; it’s their implementation as any kind of fun gameplay experience that’s profoundly lacking.

Let me explain…

Another title for The Swapper could be "Wallace and Gromit Go To Space Hell."

Another title for The Swapper could be: “Wallace and Gromit Go To Wonky Space Hell and Really, Really Hate It.”

I can always tell when I’m just not digging a game; it almost feels like a chore, or god forbid, actual work when I go back to playing it. Regrettably, it’s been that way for me with The Swapper.  It became “that thing I had to do” and I don’t ever want to feel that way about playing a video game. This is, by all accounts, a game I should like, being a critic of (somewhat) discerning tastes and all, but The Swapper just left me cold because it seems to be art for art’s sake. It’s like the interactive entertainment equivalent of one big circle jerk populated solely with fucking spaceman clones who aren’t really listening to you. It’s as if the developers woke up one day and said, “Hey, let’s make an arty puzzle game with Claymation graphics and set in a creepy fucking space station!” and then did just that but forgot to make it entertaining in any way. And, as far as I understand it, one cannot set out with the intentions to make art…it just has to be art.

Maybe it’s just me? Maybe I’m burned out on quirky/cool puzzle games, which seem to be the bread and butter of many an indie developer. When I stop to think about it, The Swapper definitely strikes me as a game that could’ve been designed by one of the many eccentric goofballs that populate a TV show like IFC’s Portlandia.  And, like putting a bird on every-goddamn-thing, it’s interesting and groovy at first blush but, ultimately, lame and boring when you have to look at it for an extended period of time.

Now just what the actual fuck is going on here?

Now just what the actual fuck is going on here?

You know what? I don’t feel like pulling any punches any longer: this game is ridiculous piece of pretentious shit. It’s uninstalling from my hard drive as I type this sentence. I kid you not. If your core mechanic (the god awful “clone swap,” where you have to create clones above, or to the side of you, and quickly switch to them to traverse open and/or high spaces) takes at least an hour to master, especially with sticky keyboard/mouse controls and then you force the player into using this shitty mechanic to cross almost every conceivable space in the game, fuck you and the code you rode in on, man. Seriously. And every critic who has been fawning praise over this flaming turd in video game form should have their press passes revoked…and if they don’t have press passes, which I’m guessing they don’t, then their WordPress and Blogger accounts should be suspended until they pull their oversized melons from the gaping assholes between their legs.

Now, let’s be nice and sparkling clear here: I love artistic games. I loved Flower. I loved Limbo. I loved Journey. Hell, I’d even go as far to include Bioshock and Half Life 2 into the “artistic” games category and I loved both of them too. So, I’m not sure what the disconnect between me and The Swapper is, but it is a rather large divide for sure.  This game just blows goats in my opinion. I couldn’t stop playing it fast enough. I don’t give a rat’s ass what your artistic pretensions are; bored and frustrated = not fun. I hate The Swapper and everything it stands for. End of story.

 header_292x136The Swapper was developed by Facepalm Games.

For $14.99, The Swapper will make you hate life, the universe and everything.  And not even Deep Thought can give you an answer as to why it sucks so hard.

The Swapper is available on Steam.

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Aqua Kitty

July 9, 2013 by 8 Comments

It’s strange how Defender, one of gaming’s iconic titles of the Golden Age of arcades, hasn’t been cloned to death by modern indie developers. I’m cool with that. Having played an endless supply of uninspired-inspired neo-retro games, I’m not keen on seeing Defender done wrong. Still, how did Defender fall through the cracks? Here’s a game that was predicted to be a huge bust, but went on to become the seventh-best selling coin-operated game ever. Maybe it’s because it was eclipsed by Pac-Man and Donkey Kong. Or maybe because Defender’s track record since its original release has been mediocre at best. It got one of the laziest sequels of all time (which was called “Stargate” because of some legal posturing by Williams. James Spader was unavailable for comment). There was an unofficial sequel by Midway that nobody I’ve spoken with has ever played. There was an all-but-forgotten update to the format on Atari Jaguar of all systems, which means it probably sold like six copies. And finally, there was a 2002 3D remake for sixth-generation consoles that quickly found its way into clearance bins. Your average child actor has a more graceful flame-out than Defender has had as a franchise.

You know, for a spry young whippersnapper with a reputation for hating classic games, I sure do seem to have a love for Defender. I even have a Defender homage in my top 25. Then again, Orbitron: Revolution only mimics the flight and shooting mechanics of the arcade classic. You’re actually not defending anything  So I guess it’s not really Defender  More like Aggressor. Was there a game called Aggressor? No? Well, there ought to have been.

Aqua Kitty on Xbox Live Indie Games. AKA the really good version.

Aqua Kitty on Xbox Live Indie Games. AKA the really good version.

If you’re looking for a modern Defender-based indie, Aqua Kitty is probably a closer knock-off. I still prefer Orbitron’s faster pace and modern graphics.  But let it be said, Aqua Kitty is a damn fine game. You’re a cat in a submarine that must defend little aquanauts while shooting wave after wave of enemy. And the cat smokes a pipe, which means he’s one cultured pussy. But, other than the setting and a couple of power-ups, this really is Defender.

Despite being a bit on the bare-bones side, Aqua Kitty is really well produced. I played both the XBLIG and PlayStation Mobile versions. I prefer the XBLIG port, which plays faster. The Vita version has the advantage of being mobile, but it seems clunkier in both framerate and controls. Don’t get me wrong: it’s still a pretty good game. But I would go with the XBLIG port.

It’s not perfect by any stretch. What really bugs me about Aqua Kitty is the total lack of ambition. Defender is an old formula in need of renovation.  Aqua Kitty does some things to smooth that over, but it’s just not enough. Turbo shots? Good idea. But only have one type of turbo shot? Not so ambitious. Power-ups? Good idea. But having only three power-ups, one of which is a bomb, one of which is a health-up, and one of which adds flankers to your ship? Not so ambitious. Plus, the flankers are time-limited. This was presumably done to preserve the difficulty. Given that the screen gets utterly spammed with enemies and projectiles in later levels, this was unnecessary, as those guys really aren’t that effective at combating it. So where’s the wild, more modern weapons and items? Nowhere to be found, and that’s a shame.

The PlayStation Mobile version. Which, as it turns out, I could have got for free a few weeks ago but I mistook it for another, less epilepsy-friendly title. Instead, I ended up paying more for this version than I did for the superior XBLIG port. Smooth, Cathy.

The PlayStation Mobile version. Which, as it turns out, I could have got for free a few weeks ago but I mistook it for another, less epilepsy-friendly title. Instead, I ended up paying more for this version than I did for the superior XBLIG port. Smooth, Cathy.

Don’t let that all discourage you. Aqua Kitty is probably the best pure Defender clone in years and a genuinely good game. Near-perfect difficulty curve. Distinctive enemies. Cutesy themes. Solid play-control. What’s not to love here?  I’m not sure why the inferior PlayStation Mobile is priced $0.50 higher than the XBLIG version. Some kind of temporary insanity brought on by the awesomeness of a pipe-smoking kitten perhaps. Happens to the best of us. I saw the pipe-smoking kitten and totally blacked out. The next thing I know, I’ve got a tattoo and I attempted to marry my Wii U.

xboxboxartAqua Kitty was developed by Tikipod

IGC_Approved240 Microsoft Points (XBLIG) and $3.49 (PlayStation Mobile) were unaware of the existence of a Defender song until some bastard sent it to me. It shall never leave my head now in the making of this review.

Both versions of Aqua Kitty are Chick-Approved, and the XBLIG version is ranked on the Indie Gamer Chick Leaderboard. Even the developers admitted to me that they prefer the XBLIG port. Go with that one.

 

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DERP of Duty and Uncraft Me !

July 6, 2013 by 7 Comments

Boob games.  They’re all over Xbox.  They make more money than most of the top-ranked games on my Leaderboard do.  Other XBLIG developers hate them.  I’m tolerate of them, and sometimes even award them my Seal of Approval.  All I want to do is be entertained, which isn’t as hard as people think.  Take the Trailer Park King series.  The three main releases (Trailer Park King 1, 2, and 3) all made the Leaderboard.  The first spin-off, Cherry Poke Prison, did not.  In part, because of burnout on the, ahem, humor, which is exactly what hurt Trailer Park King 3 as well.  DERP of Duty is the second spin-off, and now I’m so burned out that I need a fucking skin-graft.

Ha, BB! That's a gun too. And the place has Bazookas in the name! That's a euphemism for tits! I haven't seen this many plays on words since I last played Scrabble!

Ha, BB! That’s a gun too! Brilliant! And the place has Bazookas in the name! That’s a euphemism for tits! I haven’t seen this many plays on words since I last played Scrabble!

DERP of Duty was developed by Freelance Games (80 Microsoft Points still think Trailer Park King is begging to be made into an animated series in the making of this review)

DERP of Duty was developed by Freelance Games (80 Microsoft Points still think Trailer Park King is begging to be made into an animated series in the making of this review)

I want to say something in defense of Sean Doherty, the developer of the TPK games: he’s a genuinely cool dude.  He was the first developer I ever talked directly with as Indie Gamer Chick.  I also think he’s probably as burned out on this series as well.  DERP of Duty feels like it’s trying too hard.  As cringe-inducing and skin-crawly as the dialog could be in the early TPK games, at least it felt somewhat organic.  Maybe Sean felt the need to top those efforts with even more shocking banter, but this time it feels hollow.  Without a compelling narrative, the overly-simple pointing and clicking simply can’t carry the game.  I think even the most staunch fans of Trailer Park King will be letdown by DERP of Duty.  It’s time to retire this series.  Sean has established he has the talent to make, ahem, interesting characters and accompanying mythology.  Now, I want to see him apply all this towards a more involved game.

And I don’t mean more involved as in getting guys to spank their monkeys harder than they already do.  XBLIG has enough games that do that, as seen in this collage by Mount Your Friends developer Daniel Steger.  Which I’m sure he compiled for market research and not as part of his newest cardio-vascular workout routine.

xbligLadies

But, the real question is: how well do they sell?  Really, boobs seems like no more a sure bet than recent Minecraft clones do.  Judging by the success of Mount Your Friends, it would seem there’s an emerging market for penis-themed games that you guys are missing out on.  So stop being boobs and start dicking around.

And while I’m on the subject of boob games, Team Shuriken is back.  The guys behind such classics as Temple of Dogolrak and Mystic Forest return with a game that has, gasp, actual gameplay!  I know they’ve tried that in the past with Dream Divers, but I still thought the gameplay felt sloppy in execution.  Here, Team Shuriken took no risks.  Uncraft Me ! is a bare-bones punisher with the hook being instead of just jumping, you use a jetpack to thrust around.  And this is Team Shuriken we’re talking about, so beating levels means unlocking risque anime girls with breasts so large I believe they’re medically considered cancerous.

It’s also their first game to win my Seal of Approval and get ranked on the Leaderboard.

Yea.

Pretty sure this was spoken of in Revelations.

Or maybe it's not a jetpack and the main guys is hovering around using highly-pressurized urine. Which I'm sure is another fetish but I'm too cowardly to Google it.

Or maybe it’s not a jetpack and the main guysis hovering around using highly-pressurized urine. Which I’m sure is another fetish but I’m too cowardly to Google it.

Look, all I’ve ever cared about is being entertained.  If a game is 50.000001% entertaining and 49.999999% shit, it wins my seal of approval.  On balance, I had more fun with Uncraft Me ! than not, so it gets it.  Sometimes the levels have clever design.  Other times they go for precision-platforming involving, simultaneously mind you: buzz saws, missiles, and timed-barriers that stay closed permanently if you’re not fast enough.  There’s no margin of error for these sections, and the controls aren’t exactly perfect enough to validate their existence.  I had Uncraft Me penciled in as yet another Team Shuriken failure when I played it last week.  As often is the case when I dislike a game by a razor-thin margin, I boot it up one last time just to make sure.  And, what do you know, I was able to finish the nearly-impossible stages.  Barely.  My amigo from TheXBLIG.com Tim didn’t like it it, but I thought overall it was Shuriken’s first decent game.  Not spectacular, mind you.  I could probably name thirty better platformers for XBLIG off the top of my head.  But your money isn’t totally wasted here, nor is Team Shuriken’s talent.

Uncraft Me was developed by Team Shuriken (80 Microsoft Points recommend these girls get a mammogram ASAP in the making of this review)

Uncraft Me was developed by Team Shuriken (80 Microsoft Points recommend these girls get a mammogram ASAP in the making of this review)

I guess that’s the most gratifying part.  Yes, they have talent.  Not just talent to lure in the horny teenage demographic.  Actual game design talent.  They’re like Larry Flint.  Peel away the filthy exterior that makes you feel like you need a shower and you discover something downright decent in them.  Do I expect them to focus on gameplay instead of mammary glands?  No.  Then again, I don’t expect to get struck by lightning while holding the holy grail in one hand and a winning lottery ticket in the other.

Uncraft Me is Chick Approved and ranked on the Indie Gamer Chick Leaderboard.

IGC_Approved

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Fist Puncher

July 4, 2013 by 5 Comments

Dr. Karate is the fucking man. Know that now, friends and neighbors, and you’ll be hangin’ tough throughout the 2D, 8-bit, side-scrolling, beat-‘em-up glory that is Team 2Bit’s Fist Puncher.

If that first, rather lengthy, sentence isn’t a clear indication of how I feel about Fist Puncher, let me put in plainer terms: this game rocks out with its cock out. Period. Playing this game reminds me of the lazy, hazy summer of 1987, when my cousin and I discovered this new game called Double Dragon in a jam-packed arcade in Stone Harbor, NJ. We didn’t leave that machine until the place closed…and we were both about $20 poorer. It was money well spent for sure.

Oh, Dr. Karate, how I love thee. Let me count the ways...

Oh, Dr. Karate, how I love thee. Let me count the ways…

Much like the classic Double Dragon, Fist Puncher has a pretty straightforward plot: four diverse characters, Dr. Karate, Steroid Jackson, Hella Fistgerald and the Beekeeper, are heading to the Fist Puncher Dojo for training under the tutelage of the Master. As they arrive at the dojo, the nefarious Milkman kidnaps the contestants in the Miss Fist Puncher Beauty Pageant (yeah, you read that right) and hides them in various sections of the rough-and-tumble city of San Cruces. It’s up to this ragtag band of vigilantes to find the girls and rescue them…while cracking as many skulls as humanly possible along the way.

From there, you basically just have to beat the holy shit out of every obstacle that stands before you. I know that sounds simplistic, and in some ways it is, but Fist Puncher does almost everything right and it is one helluva fun ride. First and foremost, the controls are spot on, with no noticeable lag or stickiness. Controls are paramount in this type of game where you are brawling against multiple enemies at once and need to make split-second, life-saving maneuvers on a dime. Not once when I died did I feel that the controls failed me; it was always my own damn fault. Secondly, there are a plethora of things to kick the snot out of: from regular thugs to zombies to luchadors to creepy pedo vans, the enemy diversity found in this title is rather impressive. A lot games cheap out here by re-skinning enemies, but not Fist Puncher. Thirdly, there are a vast amount of places to go (over 50 levels), items to unlock/discover/collect and character abilities to power up. And lastly, it’s all tied up with one exceptionally humorous bow. The dialogue, character names, even the sound effects (I went apeshit over the panther roar when you achieve RAGE mode) really adds another layer of enjoyment to the overall, ass-kicking experience.

Throwing down on nude beach. That's a new one.

Throwing down on a nude beach. That’s a new one.

The elements of Fist Puncher that I found lacking are rather minimal. The music is just OK, not terrible by any means, but not exceptional either. I was hoping for Streets of Rage 2 levels of greatness here but, alas, it just doesn’t deliver. There are also weird difficulty spikes and some overall cheapness with some of the enemy attacks (fuck those guys with the Molotov cocktails…fuck them right in their cheap bastard cornholes), but that’s almost expected, and welcomed, in this genre. My final nitpick here has to do with multiplayer. There’s a good variety offered here (up to four simultaneous players with 15 different, unlockable characters to choose from…but choose Dr. Karate because, as I mentioned previously, he’s the fucking man), but it is local multiplayer only and I don’t see this kind of mode having great success on the PC. This kind of local multiplayer mode seems much better suited for the consoles. I know Fist Puncher was originally slated to be an XBLIG (and developed with XNA tech), so maybe it will see life on the consoles at some point down the road, and then the multiplayer mode will really get to strut its stuff.

I don't think you can make a game without fucking zombies in today's world

I don’t think you can make a game without fucking zombies in today’s world.

Quibbles aside, the most important thing to take away here is that playing Fist Puncher made me feel like I was 16 again. I had that much fun with it…and you can’t put a price tag on that.  To me, that’s what a really great video game should do: it should make me forget that I am an adult with real world problems and issues for the 20 or so hours that I am playing it. That’s all I ever want out of an interactive entertainment experience, really.

Bravo, Team 2Bit, you’ve jumped to the head of the Indie Gamer Guy Leaderboard. Enjoy the view from the top, lads!

fp coverFist Puncher was developed by Team 2Bit.

For $9.99, Fist Puncher will punch a hole in your soul and leave you begging for more.

Fist Puncher is available on Steam and Desura.

Fist Puncher is Indie Gamer Guy Approved, and now heads up the Leaderboard. This makes Team 2Bit the first developers to earn both the Indie Gamer Guy Seal of Approval, and the Indie Gamer Chick Seal of Approval, which they earned for Washington’s Wig on Xbox Live Indie Games.  igg 2

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