Indie Games Uprising III Interview: Sententia

August 9, 2012 by 4 Comments

It’s back!  Last year, the ten games of extreme varying quality (somewhere between sublime and subfeces) took part in what was the most promoted event in Xbox Live Indie Game history.  This year, nine new games are ready to show off what the platform is capable of.  It’s called the Indie Games Uprising III.  The man running it, 19-year-old Michael Hicks, has a game of his own in it: artsy platformer Sententia.  I talked with him about his game, the event, and what exactly “art house” gaming means.

Kairi: When I hear the term “art house style game”, I typically throw-up a little bit in my mouth.  What do you think the medical term for that is?

Michael Hicks: Ha! Well, I guess you could say I used that to rebel against “the man” or status quo. It’s kind of a vague term looking back at it now, but this game is extremely personal to me and marked a big change on my outlook towards game design. I wanted to be sure that when going into the game people would know that I attempted to make something more than a game about jumping over blocks and attacking enemies; there’s a ton of reasoning behind all of the design decisions… almost an unhealthy amount! I guess I was just worried people wouldn’t get me, so I decided to go all hippie hipster and call it an art game!

Kairi: When I watched the video for Sententia, it looked to me like a cross between a punisher and Scribblenauts.  What is the actual inspiration for the game?

Michael: You’re the first one to call it a punisher! The game is very challenging and ramps up fast – I don’t think that’s something people typically take away from the trailer. The gameplay wasn’t really inspired by a particular game, but you could say that it was inspired by the themes and messages I wanted to convey. The games that made me open my eyes were “Aether” by Edmund McMillen, “Gravitation” by Jason Rohrer, and “Braid” by Jon Blow. These games are very powerful, but they tell stories through basic gameplay interactions and themes, I wanted to try and experiment with what they pioneered. As I started to get more technical with the platform designs I did reference “Super Meat Boy” quite a bit, as the game is very challenging, but never felt frustrating (at least to me!).

Kairi: Your previous games have been space shooters, and now you’re doing a self-described “art” game.  You’ve started taking drugs, haven’t you?

Michael: No, never! It’s insane how many times I get asked this by people… it’s so weird that when people start to make more expressive things others instantly think they’ve turned to smoking weed or something!

Kairi: I’m actually kind of surprised by the lack of quote-unquote “experimental” games on XBLIG.  Why do you think developers don’t try to get weird when they create their games?

Michael: It’s really easy to just stick with what has already been proven to be successful, it takes some practice to really work the “originality muscle”, and I’m still trying to exercise it myself. It also takes some guts to make something super personal/deep/experimental and release it to a wide audience; I’m very terrified to release my own game, I think the closer it gets to the release date the more I am going to lose my mind.


Kairi: When you made your previous games, was there any off-the-wall weird shit that you thought to include but chickened out of?

Michael: I don’t think I’ve ever censored myself like that, but before “Sententia” I was going to make a game based around this joke rap project that my friend and I do on occasion. We started recording music for it back in High School as a way of making fun of pop culture. In this game you were going to drive around with a police officer collecting donuts while this song of ours played on the radio. Then I remembered that I’m in a position where the games I make can actually affect people’s lives and I wasn’t interested in committing career suicide.

Kairi: You pussy!

Michael: Hey, I thought it was the right thing to do!

Kairi: Okay, so now that you’ve finally manned up and are doing something off the beaten path, are you finding it difficult to implement your vision using the XNA framework?

Michael: Definitely not, I hope I never have to work with anything else. I really don’t care for C++ or any of the hardcore techie languages, even though I can use them. I love to program, and I’m glad I can do it… but I don’t like spending time doing all of the crap that those languages require when I could be doing more game specific type stuff.

Kairi: You’re the man in charge, more or less, of the third Uprising.  Are you fucking insane?

Michael: A lot of people think I am, that’s for sure! It’s really an honor to be involved like this, but it’s a huge responsibility; I want to make sure this is a promotion that people won’t forget.

Kairi: Some people, who shall remain nameless (ME!) thought the last Uprising was incredibly disappointing.  This year looks much more promising right from the start.  What do you say to those (ME!) that are skeptical about the quality of the games this time around?

Michael: Reception of indie games at this level is kind of a weird thing, you get such mixed reactions. Personally though, I am really excited for the line up this year… a lot of the games are very interesting. I’ve played most of the titles thoroughly, and I would definitely rank a good number of them in my “Favorite XBLIGs Ever” list.

Kairi: I noticed all the Uprising games are single player titles.  Is the irony that we’re doing an event where the community rises up together yet plays games alone lost on you?

Michael: Wow, that never dawned on me before! We tried to get a variety of games, but mainly we wanted to scout out some titles that we thought were great games.

Kairi: In closing, how do you feel the games of this Uprising stack up against the games of the previous two events?

Michael: The selection this year is totally different from last time I think. I would classify those games as more extroverted and these games as more introverted… maybe that makes no sense. Either way, we’ll just have to see what people say when all of this kicks off!

Filed under Tales from the Dev Side Editorials Tagged with , , , , , , , , ,

Deadlight

August 8, 2012 by 8 Comments

Don’t worry: spoilers are segregated from the main body of the review.  You’ll have ample warning to avoid them.

Randall Wayne believes the best way to survive a zombie apocalypse is to run in a straight line.  That’s the only way I can explain why he chooses to Rube-Goldberg his way up, over, and through buildings instead of walking around them.  Also, he’s a cold-hearted asshole with a voice that sounds like something spawned from a mating between whiskey and a power sander.  I call it the “Video Game Tough Guy Voice” because it’s essentially the same voice as Solid Snake or Master Chief or any other number of emotionally dead heroes.  He’s the star of Deadlight, the “highlight” of this year’s underwhelming Summer of Arcade lineup, and a game that is not worth the hype.

Dude even looks a little like Solid Snake, in both the gameplay silhouette and also in cut scenes.

In Deadlight, the most unlikely end-of-world scenario outside of “Donald Trump elected President” once again occurs: zombies!  Only they’re called “shadows” here because.. I’m not sure.  Maybe this version of 1986 exists in a parallel world where Night of the Living Dead, Dawn of the Dead, and Return of the Living Dead never happened, and thus nobody knows what a zombie is.  Presumably this means that Rob Zombie goes by some other spooky sounding name like, I dunno, it’s supposed to be 1986 so Rob Commie or something.    Either way, civilization somehow completely collapses when faced against the most easily disposable threat the world has ever seen.  Seriously, how DOES a zombie apocalypse work?  The ones in Deadlight are among the dumbest I’ve ever seen in a game.  They have absolutely no survival instinct, often walking straight off cliffs, or into electrical wires after watching other zombies fry themselves.  In order to take over the world, an animal would need to become an apex predator.  That means limited weaknesses, higher order of thinking, and genetic advantages.  The zombies in Deadlight have trouble understanding the concept of a staircase.  Even the Daleks figured that one out.

They can’t climb.  They can’t jump.  They can’t use weapons.  They’re easily distracted by whistling or car alarms.  Their only weapon is teeth.  How is it they manage to wipe out 99% of a race that is armed with Uzis, rocket launchers, or plain old human ingenuity?  Fuck you, that’s how.  Just shut up and play the game.

Think of Deadlight as Silent Hill meets the old school Prince of Persia.  You run, you jump, you climb, you hang, you activate switches, you shove boxes, and you fight with or flee from enemies.  Deadlight is a game where survival takes center stage over body count.  While you might at various times have guns or an axe to take on the undead, avoidance is encouraged.  That’s just as well.  Combat with the axe is slow and clunky.  Guns take too long to draw, and sometimes the aiming seems a bit off.  I swear there were times when I know I tagged a fucker square in the head, yet he would get back up and keep coming at me.  When zombies close in on you, you automatically take damage, but you still have to press B to shove off them.  If you’re on your last bit of health, there is no auto-damage, which negates the entire fucking point of having it in the first place.  There might as well not even be a life bar.  If a hoard of zombies closes in on you, it’s automatic death.  There’s various health pick-ups and stuff that will give you an extra bar of life, but why even bother?  There’s unlimited lives (as there should be) and tons of checkpoints.  It seems like a feature tacked on because this is how games are made despite not serving a purpose.

The graphics really are breathtaking at times. And then there are times when enemy limbs clip right through walls. That’s a real buzzkill.

Let’s face it: the only thing Deadlight has going for it is the atmosphere.  It’s a creepy game, at least at the start.  While you’re scaling buildings, running through empty highways, and collecting your first hidden trinkets over the game’s opening hour, the experience is almost exhilarating.  And then things go to hell once you end up in an overly long sewer section where a guy named The Rat Man takes all your accumulated weapons.  At this point, hardly any zombies show up for over an hour and Deadlight becomes a punisher-platformer, destroying the entire mood of the game in one fell swoop.  Creepiness?  Gone.  Eagerness to proceed?  Gone.  Sense of tension?  Gone.  And Deadlight never recovers from it, even after you return to the streets, because the previous section was just that bad.  By time I was at the end, I was anxious for the game to be over with.

Part of that has to do with the controls being crap.  Deadlight seems to give you all the tools needed for the tasks at hand.  You can wall-jump, do a tuck-and-roll off high falls, or a diving roll through narrow pathways.  It sounds great, but the response time to all actions in the game suffer from a delay.  The possible exception to that is using the fire button when you use a gun, but even then something about it seems like it doesn’t fully work all the time.  Meanwhile, there are several sections of the game that require agility-based platforming, yet all movement is hampered by the unresponsive controls.  Is it impossible to beat?  No.  Actually, if not for control problems, it would probably be kind of easy.  But Deadlight doesn’t carry with it the feel of a trial-and-error platformer, yet that’s how the game ends up.

I would be remiss if I didn’t talk about the story.  Don’t worry, I’ll place all spoilers inside a special spoiler section, although I would caution readers to not read any comments below until you’ve finished the game, assuming you still plan on burning 1200MSP on this piece of shit.

The game stars a Canadian dude who seems a bit on the paranoid militant side.  When the zombies take over, his family disappears.  He joins up with a rag-tag group of survivors as they make their way to a “safe zone” in Seattle, WA.  The game opens with the group on the outskirts of Seattle, with Randy having just blown away a member of their party that has been infected.  Right from the game’s get-go, I didn’t like Randy too much.  He has no personality and a voice like a drunken frat boy trying to sound like Optimus Prime.  But, his story is an interesting one.  When you read his diary, you realize the dude had a few screws loose before the end of the world happened.  Once it got going, he really went off the deep end.  By the way, you pick up the missing pages of his diary throughout the game.  Of all the odd things that spoiled the mood for me, this one was the most obvious.  Why on Earth would pages of his missing diary be scattered all over a town he’s never been to?  The only explanation I can think of is there is no diary and he’s not actually finding pages, but just remembering events.  Kind of artsy-fartsy, but that is the only theory that can possibly work, so I’ll go with it.  Still, I wish they had thought of some other way to do it.  Warning, spoiler section ahead, sandwiched between the next two pictures.

Spoilers!

What the FUCK is up with that ending?  I had so many people building up the big “twist” and it turns out Randy had already capped his wife and daughter at the start of the apocalypse, and he simply forgot about it.  The way people were raving about it, I was expecting it to be something much more cerebral, like the whole thing being a delusion.  But no, it turns out that Randy is simply a forgetful idiot.  He didn’t turn the gun on himself because he only had two shells, and obviously he would need one for each person.  Um, no.  It’s a fucking 12-gauge shotgun, not a pea shooter.  You position your wife’s head against your daughter and you pull the trigger.  I’m pretty sure both would die from that.  Then you have one shell left all to yourself, because daddies always get the biggest portion at dinner.

Oh, and the chick you save at the end was another dumb bit.  They make it out like some kind of deep moment, but come on, we just fucking met her fifteen minutes beforehand.  Maybe Randy had known her for a while, but we didn’t!  Then, after building up an entire game about looking for lost love, they try to pass off Randy’s needless self-sacrifice as some kind of deep emotional moment.  First off, Randy didn’t save the chick.  He pushed her off the dock on what looked to be a wind-powered boat.  That’s not saving her.  That’s delaying a death sentence.  Let’s go over the possible things that can happen to this poor girl.

#1: The girl, who was screaming “I don’t want to be a monster” can have either the waters or the wind push her right back toward the dock.  Best case?  She’s zombie chow.  Worse case?  She becomes a zombie herself, which is exactly the thing she wants least.

#2: The group of humans that are being bastards apparently just for the sake of being bastards are STILL alive, STILL armed to the teeth, STILL have access to helicopters, are just yards away from you,  and are probably pretty pissed off at you for helping to fuck up their base.  If they catch poor Stella, which they will because they’re RIGHT FUCKING THERE, I’m guessing they’re going to do a whole lot worse than just kill her.

#3: Assuming the winds are friendly and none of the angry soldiers survive, she’s still stuck on a fucking boat, all alone, with no supplies and no weapons.  Never mind the fact that zombies have apparently conquered the whole fucking world, meaning there is no safe place to go.  Her options on the boat are starve to death or drown herself.  Don’t you just love happy endings like this?

Maybe Randy should have said “hey, there’s a batshit insane fucker living in the sewers in Seattle.  Try to make your way to him.  Sure, you’ll be eating rat meat until you finally lose the will to live, assuming you don’t die from all the booby traps he’s going to make you dance through for his own personal amusement, but at least you’ll be alive.”  But no, he pushes her out on a boat, stares down the hoard of zombies coming at him, credits.  Horrible ending.

End of Spoilers!

Honestly, Deadlight isn’t terrible by any means.  But the story loses its intrigue only a third of the way through, and ultimately has an unsatisfactory conclusion.  The voice acting is abysmal.  The characters are all twats.  The secondary enemies, a bunch of military dudes,  are one-dimensional cartoon villains.  Actually that’s not true, because even COBRA Command had more depth than these fuckers.  So while Deadlight is not that bad, it’s not that good either.  And it’s not worth the 2 gigs of space it takes up, or the 1200 Microsoft Points it costs.  You could get all of the top-ten games on my leaderboard for the same cost and still have 400 points to spare, and all ten of them are better games.

It felt like the developers had an awesome idea somewhere along the line, but couldn’t figure out how to stretch it out.  I like the idea of a 2D side-scroller/survival game set in a real American city.  Even if my good buddy Cyril at Defunct Games tells me that the city in Deadlight is most certainly not any Seattle he’s ever been to.  Duly noted.   But Deadlight just fails as a game due to not sticking hard enough to the premise of escaping zombies and trying to survive in a world crumbling around you.  The human enemies and the Rat Man section only served to take out the unnerving tension of the goings on.  I entered the game with genuine chills and exited with genuine apathy, because Deadlight is as shallow as a wading pool.  Which Randy would still manage to drown in, but that’s besides the point.

Deadlight was developed by Tequila Words

1200 Microsoft Points never did get the achievement for surviving a lethal fall by rolling through it because it never once was necessary in the making of this review.  I did get five achievements in five minutes, including one you get just for checking the online leaderboards.  I’m surprised they don’t hand out one just for reloading your gun.  Oh wait, they do that too. 

Filed under Xbox Live Arcade Reviews Tagged with , ,

Face Slapper

August 5, 2012 by 4 Comments

Just by hearing the description of Face Slapper, you’ll know it’s on the wrong platform.  The idea is a bunch of faces will appear on a play field.  Using the analog stick, you line up a cursor over a face and press a button to slap it.  You get points for smacking dude and lose points for hitting chicks or animals.  Yea, this was without question a game designed with a touch-screen interface in mind.  Face Slapper is also out on Windows Phone, which is likely an okay fit.  I would personally prefer a bigger screen like iPad, but WP is easier to program for, even if it has a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of the users.

On the Xbox?  Meh.  Face Slapper is actually pretty dumbed down.  The slapper is made to be pretty generous, smacking only the things that give you points, so if a bunch of faces are together, feel free to get button-stabby.  In fact, I theorized that you could chuck effort out the window and just button-mash while wiggling the controller all over the screen.  My previous, “pretend like I give a shit” efforts resulted in scores ranging from like 5,000 points to 8,000 points.  My “don’t give a shit” button-spammer approach netted me over 12,000, and I only stopped because my thumb got tired.  That, my friends, is broken game design.

Oddly enough, I did have an extremely limited amount of fun with Face Slapper, but that was had trying to unlock all the fake achievements in the game, which are pretty clever.  The real challenging one was trying to finish the game with a score of exactly negative one point.  I never actually accomplished it, but for a total of ten minutes I actually did want to.  Then the feeling passed.  It was like a bout of gaming constipation.

I can’t go out and recommend Face Slapper, just because it really is on the wrong platform.  This is a game designed with the precision of a touch screen in mind.  I can’t blame them for at least attempting to port it over the XBLIG, because as lightweight as the platform is, it’s unquestionably more viable than Windows Phone.  But Face Slapper’s problems extend beyond its control scheme.  The graphics aren’t distinctive enough, the background images can be disorienting, and I don’t feel there’s enough variety in gameplay.  If you have a Windows Phone, it might be worth a look at.  Also, ha ha, you own a Windows Phone!

Face Slapper was developed by Highbrow Games

80 Microsoft Points came this close to putting a game on the leaderboard designed by the guys who made Avatar Planking in the making of this review.

 

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Cuddle Bear (Second Chance with the Chick)

August 3, 2012 by 2 Comments

I played Cuddle Bear back in May, and it was an honest and true contender for, at best, the worst game I’ve ever played in my life. Horrible button layout. Terrible level design. Abysmal graphics.  Annoying sound effects.  Thinking of all the games I’ve played this year, I don’t think I can think of a better game that fits the “worst game of the year” description. But, to their credit, the developers read my review and responded with good humor and a vow to do better. On one hand, it’s nice to have one of those rare developers who actually intend to invoke their Second Chance with the Chick. I created the policy figuring I would be doing these types of reviews on a weekly basis, instead of the bi-monthly rate I have going right now. On the other hand, I have to admit that the thought of playing Cuddle Bear again almost drove me to take a razor to my wrists. I almost did it too, but then Brian reminded me that suicide is a mortal sin and if I bled myself out I would go to Hell and get stuck playing Cuddle Bear anyway. Well fuck, he has a point I guess.

“Cuddles, I’m impressed that you pissed the word “Redrum” in blood on my wall. BUT, I don’t think pissing blood is ever a good thing. Have you ever heard of prostate cancer?”

You know what? Happy Sock.. Christ, that sounds like something teenagers jerk off into.. actually did fix the game. They eliminated most of the leap-of-faith gameplay and dick move enemy placement that made Cuddles such a brutal chore of a game to play. Levels can actually be completed without having to trial-and-error your way through them. All other problems are still firmly present, but hey, baby steps!

♫ She’s a Barbie girl, in a shitty world. Crapped and spastic. It’s shitastic! ♫

Did that one change make Cuddle Bear more fun? A little. The problem is the enemies are still fast-moving, annoying sounding bullet sponges that gang bang you if they get close. The enemies tend to “bounce” when they hit you, turning you into one of those ball-on-a-paddle things. If you’re near a ledge when this happens, things really get fun. And getting items is still painfully slow. Yea, the developers stuck cheat codes in, but who outside of those who read the comments on this site would know about those?  I must say, once I had the one shot (or two, but who’s counting?) sniper rifle, the pace of Cuddle Bear quickened and it actually went into consideration for making the leaderboard. Then I got to the fifth stage of the Chinese themed levels, which apparently missed the “don’t do leap-of-faith platforming with enemies dickishly placed on the platforms that cause you to recoil like you just got a whiff of Roseanne Barr’s body odor” memo, and I decided to quit again. Sorry guys, you have a long ways to go. Is it a vastly improved experience? Yes. But, at the end of the day, a polished turd is still a turd.

Cuddle Bear was developed by Happy Sock Entertainment

80 Microsoft Points laughed at Indie Gamer Chick for originally spending 240 points on this piece of shit in the making of this review.

Happy Sock, I saved you the time of cherry-picking my words for the misquoted review blurb. Just copy the words in bold. Hopefully the time I just saved you can be applied towards making your next game suck significantly less. 

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Edgeland

August 3, 2012 by 4 Comments

Edgeland is a punisher starring a cute little blue ball.  This is roughly the one-millionth punisher I’ve played on XBLIG (give or take) and I have to say, the whole juxtaposition between cute graphics and sadistic gameplay has officially become stale.  As have punishers where the only thing that makes them difficult is having horrendous play control.  In that sense, Edgeland is past the point of being stale and has moved onto decomposition.

Pictured to the left in this picture: the fossilized remains of the last truly sublime game from this genre.

Like 99.9% of all platformers (give or take), Edgeland simply asks players to get from point A to point B, which generally means moving right until the game says you win, or if they want to get really ballsy, moving left until the game says you win.  Edgeland really changes things up by hiding the goal from time to time.  Otherwise, gameplay consists of jumping around, dying on spikes, jumping around, and dying some more.  Part of this has to do with the spikes blending in a little too much with the background sometimes.  Most of it has to do with the controls being looser than the village whore.  I think the game was trying for a Super Meat Boy like feel, but Edgeland lacks the mind-numbing dexterity of SMB.  The blue ball thingie can only jump, and the physics of that are purely inertia based.  Thus, when you jump, sticking a landing is overly difficult.  Despite the floatiness, the blue ball feels a little too heavy, whereas if Meat Boy was any lighter on his the feet, Republicans would line up to buy chicken sandwiches in protest of him.

Honestly, Edgeland is not a terrible game or anything.  But this is the same shit that gets shoveled out on XBLIG on a weekly basis, and I’m getting bored with the genre.  The give-up point for me was stage thirteen.  By this point, ice was introduced to the game.  Of course it was.  I’m almost convinced that platform developers great and small are forced at gunpoint to sign some kind of pledge guaranteeing at least one section of ice stages and one section of fire stages in each title.  Because nothing says fun like having your character handle like Inspector Gadget got drunk and said “Go Go Gadget Sealegs!”  I’m not exactly sure what that means either, but it seemed funny and I’ve been dying to do an Inspector Gadget joke, so plebbbbbb.  My point was that ice levels are platforming buzzkils.  Name one time, just ONE fucking time, when they were anything but an unfun pain in the ass to play?  (Brian: CHIP’S CHALLENGE!  Me: Not a platformer, doesn’t count)

Let’s pass a law saying that developers can only include ice levels in games if they rest ice cubes on their genitals while coding them. That ought to put a stop to their production.

So in Edgeland, the guy already handled like a walrus bathed in petroleum jelly.  With the ice, they took away what little traction he had.  Not only that, but they also seemed to take away the checkpoints.  I went pretty deep into stage 13 and didn’t hit one.  I was practically tripping over them in all the other stages, and that was the only reason why I hadn’t decided to microwave my controller up to that point.  Without them, my will to press forward was nonexistent.  Maybe Edgeland isn’t as bad as I have it pegged and I’m just suffering from punisher burnout.  Okay, that’s being too nice, because the game is a sloppy handling piece of shit.

But I’m going to put a moratorium on doing any more punishers in the month of August.  I’m not sure why so many get made anyway.  They’re not huge sellers.  Hell, outside of The Impossible Game and its “expansion pack”, they almost never appear on the top 90 daily selling list on XBLIG, or if they do, they fall off fast.  This is not a genre the masses want.  And yet, you guys keep making them like they’re going out of style.  Guys, they’re not going out of style.  They are out of style, and you guys are like the last holdouts in the Garment District still making bell-bottoms and parachute pants.

Edgeland was developed by Galactic Goat Games

80 Microsoft Points said the rule regarding making fire levels will involve a Zippo and a can of hairspray in the making of this review.

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Sunflower Farm

August 1, 2012 by 3 Comments

Sunflower Farm is a voxelish minigame collection where you and up to three buddies can sit down and be bored while slogging through three games that range from dull to clunky to outright abysmal.  First up is Harvest Time, where you walk around a wheat field trying to cut as much of it down as possible.  Real quick thought, guys: if the concept of your game sounds like something that you would rather hire out illegals to do while you sip piña coladas and watch Judge Judy, chances are it won’t make for the most exciting video game.

Something tells me that Sunflower Farm doesn’t fall into the “developer always dreamed of making a game about this subject matter” category.

In single player, you have an absurdly short time limit to accomplish this.  You need to unlock higher difficulties and play those in order to unlock more stages.  I’m adverse to forcing myself to be bored for longer than I have to be and thus I decided to skip effort and go with the “give it two tries and if I fail, fuck it” approach.  Items do rain down from the sky that could help, but they come down at random and not all of them are helpful.  One of them is an airhorn, and I’ll be damned if I can figure out what it is used for.  In the sheep herding game, it has a function.  In this one?  It seems to scare crows off, but I don’t think the crows actually do anything.  The useful stuff, like something that stops the clock or a thing that makes you run fast, don’t seem to spawn as much as that stupid airhorn.

The second game is Sheep Herding.  There’s a field of sheep, and you have to run up behind them and coral them into the center of the screen.  Getting them to move is a slow, plodding, boring experience, probably not unlike real herding is.  The third game is Tractor Racing, which is a fancy way of saying kart racing.  This one is mired by terrible handling controls.  Steering is too loose, and thus driving ends up looking like a series of quick left and right swerves, like you’re watching a teenage girl test her learner’s permit out for the first time.  And she’s slightly intoxicated.  And texting while driving.  And the car is a Dodge.

For what it’s worth, if you can get used to the steering, the courses are only barely terrible.

Whether you play these single-player or with friends, Sunflower Farm is one of the worst Xbox Live Indie Games of the year.  Harvest Time and Sheep Herding sound more like things you would punish a disobedient child with.  As for Tractor Racing, I might not have realized just how bad it was if I hadn’t already played Avatar Grand Prix 2, which was a pretty dang good game.  The tractor stuff is by far the best part of Sunflower Farm, which is like saying free body piercings is the best part of being executed by firing squad.  So I can’t recommend Sunflower Farm.  You would be way better off having your car break down in front of an old farmer’s house and having sex with his virginal daughter.  And you KNOW how those things end.

Sunflower Farm was developed by Tomlin Games

80 Microsoft Points wonder why so many cars break down in front of farms in the making of this review.  Then again, I wonder why so many strange people walk into bars as well.  Or why we’re so concerned with the amount of people required to screw in light bulbs. 

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The Sequel Blues

July 30, 2012 by 11 Comments

We have been penalized by the lack of new consoles on the market. I understand the manufacturers don’t want them too often because it’s expensive, but it’s important for the entire industry to have new consoles because it helps creativity.

-Yves Guillemot, CEO of Ubisoft

I’m rarely stunned by the stupidity of words that come from the heads of major game studios, so I have to give Mr. Guillemot credit.  That was a remarkably dumb statement.  One that I wholeheartedly reject.  It was a defensive statement, for something that doesn’t need defending.

Gamers can be an irrational breed of people.  When they’re at their worst, gamers can be reactionary, twitchy, slobbering crybabies.  Or we can shorten that and call it “fanboys.”  I get it with kids.  Santa Claus brings Johnny an Xbox 360 for Christmas, while Bobby gets a PlayStation 3.  They’ll end up doing what kids do, arguing that their machine is the best.  But the bad ones, they’re the assholes who drag this argument out into adulthood.  They’re also the ones who bitch about console manufacturers who push non-gaming content, DLC, and especially sequels.

Minecraft 360 has sold over three million copies. Not bad for a dead platform.

I don’t get the argument against sequels.  Of all the truly stupid shit that gamers get angry over, the resentment of sequels is the one that baffles me the most.  I think many people forget that gaming is a business that exists to be profitable.  That might sound condescending, but it’s true.  When you bitch at developer for being too sequel heavy, you’re essentially telling them to not take the path of least resistance towards profitability, placing their company’s future at a greater risk.

Here’s my question: why does this make you, the angry gamer, so damn mad?  How in the blue fuck does Call of Battlewar Modern Reach 17 possibly affect you?  Other than the fact that you’ll be $60 less wealthy once it’s out because you know you’ll buy it.  Yes you will.

If sequels aren’t your thing, don’t get them!  Their existence doesn’t stop the influx of other purchasing options.  Gaming has entered a second Golden Age of creativity.  The advent of independent gaming, plus the roll out of digital distribution on consoles has opened the door to new and original properties that would never be given a green-light seven years ago.  In 2012, the major digital platforms on the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 have seen two record-shattering games be released: Journey and Minecraft 360.  Whether these games appeal to you directly or not is irrelevant.  It’s what they represent that is important.  They’re new properties (in Minecraft’s case, new to consoles) that destroys the notion of sequels drowning the industry.  The gaming landscape is full of titles like that.  Rarely does a month go by where there isn’t at least one, maybe two games on those platforms that I just have to try because they look so different.

Are we really ready to let go of the PlayStation 3 when such innovative, never before attempted ideas such as this one are on the verge of fulfillment?

That’s why I think Yves Guillemot’s comment pissed me off so much.  Because it was a pass-the-buck move for something that didn’t require defending or an explanation.  Anybody whinny enough to complain about sequels will never be satisfied with anything because they’re miserable human beings just looking for stuff to moan about.  You can’t please them, and it’s not even worth trying.  Whether they admit it or not, they buy all the mass-marketed stuff anyway.  They just have to try to be “cool” and reject sequels.  That makes them sound non-conformist.  I walked into a Gamestop once (bad decision, I admit.  I think I might have been under the influence of seizure medication) and saw what looked to be a half-man, half-manatee complaining about Crackdown 2 being a soulless cash-in that didn’t really try to be different.  And he said all this with a straight face while wearing a Gears of War 2 tee-shirt.  This is the type of moron you can’t win with.

Why try to justify yourself to these people?  Especially with outright bullshit, as is the case with Mr. Guillemot.  Saying “no no no no, it’s not OUR fault that we’re making sequels.  It’s their fault!  Sony’s and Microsoft’s!  Blame them!  We need new hardware or we simply can’t be original!”  Right.  Because launch-window games are known for their high-risk creative endeavors.  Of course they’re not.  New consoles bring with them 12 to 18 months worth of last-generation gameplay rehashes dressed-up with shiny graphics.  The Wii might have been an exception to that, just because it had that wacky new controller thing, but I don’t think anyone would try to argue the machine sparked a revolution of creativity.  It takes about two years for developers, even first party ones, to get over the learning curve of developing for a new platform.  While that is going on, they stick with what they know.

So Mr. Guillemot is wrong.  New consoles don’t breed creativity.  They might make a game producer’s imagination run wild with possibilities, but that doesn’t necessarily transition to the final product.  That’s why the truly neat stuff doesn’t hit until a console has been around a while.  A new concept, like Katamari Damacy, couldn’t have launched with the PlayStation 2.  Developers stick with what they know works, which is why Touch My Katamari launched with the Vita.

Spec Ops: The Line is technically a sequel, but it’s not really, because the series was never this bad ass.

And that’s why I don’t want this generation of consoles to end just yet.  Look at what the last 18 months have given us.  L.A. Noire.  Journey.  Bastion.  From Dust.  Fez.  Walking Dead.  Catherine.  Dragon’s Dogma.  I just finished Spec Ops: The Line, a game that is a sequel in name only, and I was blown away by its gutsy narrative.  You wouldn’t see anything like that christen a new platform.  You just wouldn’t.  Yea, this console generation has had an unusually long lifespan, but with promising new IPs like Watch Dogs or The Last of Us still on the horizon, why are we already writing a eulogy?  So I reject Mr. Guillemot’s assertion that developers need new consoles to be creative.  An especially hypocritical stance from the guy in charge of the publishing house that is bringing us the next big new IP, Watch Dogs.  According to him, they shouldn’t have even bothered, and instead of focused on the Wii U, which is the new platform his employees need or they just can’t think.  And what is this new platform in essence?  A screen that you have to flail around like you’re trying to swat a fly with it.  What is he doing with that?  ZombiU.  That’s his idea of innovation: holding a screen in front of another screen.  It would be like Firestone deciding the next generation of tires should be square-shaped.  Besides, my faith in that game is nil.  Ubisoft does launch titles about as well as buffaloes do deep-sea diving.  I remember Red Steel.

Sequels are not the problem with gaming.  I’m not even sure there is a problem with gaming right now.  We live in an era that features multiple thriving platforms, and hundreds (if not thousands) of games of all shapes, sizes, and costs that are released annually.  With so many options available to consumers, I simply don’t understand how so many gamers can be singing the Sequel Blues.  If all you can see is sequels, you need to get your eyes examined, because I do believe you’re more near-sighted than Mr. Magoo.

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Mirror

July 29, 2012 by 2 Comments

Mirror is one of those types of games where you play it and then wonder why nobody has done anything like it before.  For all I know, maybe someone has, but I’ve never played anything quite like it.  The idea is there is a dot on one side of a barrier, and you have to place a dot on where you think the exact mirror image side of that dot is.  It’s so simple, and yet it’s potently addictive.  I wish it was on iPad, because using a joystick to line up the dots is a bit clumsy, but otherwise I thought it was a perfectly good waste of an hour or so.  It was either that or watch Water Polo during the Olympics.  I asked Brian if they’re allowed to drown each-other.  He said no.  Mirror it was then.

Not my most in-depth review, I know, but it’s not exactly a game that lends itself well to my style.  I would like to point out that Mirror is by Silver Dollar Games, who I once kind of scorched on this site back when I first started.   It’s an editorial that I’m not really proud of, and one that I probably shouldn’t have done.  Don’t get me wrong: I think Silver Dollar squanders its talent more than it shows it, but they shouldn’t have been singled out for it.  Of course, the thing about squandering talent is you actually have to have talent to be able to do so.  If you count No Luca No, I’ve played three of their games, and I’ve placed two of those on my leaderboard.  Compare that to Team Shuriken.  I’ve reviewed five of their games, and not one of them has come remotely close to the board.

Sure, their percentage would drop like a rock if I played stuff like Who’s The Daddy? or Cassie’s Animal Sounds.  But if I review stuff like that, I’m sort of missing the point of why I started Indie Gamer Chick.  It might be fun to pick on the stuff you know is bad, like throwing water balloons filled with blue non-non-staining food coloring at the kids from juvenile hall as they do highway litter clean up, but at a certain point it loses its zing.  I don’t think I’m at that point yet, as evidenced by the blue stains on my finger tips, but the time is coming where I’ll get there.  Silver Dollar hasn’t put out a whole lot of new games lately.  They’re focusing on their Dream-Build-Play title One Finger Death-Punch, which looks pretty decent.  What I really hope from these guys is that they have one transcendent, platforming defining hit.  One that doesn’t involve trying to hold a fart in.

Mirror was developed by Silver Dollar Games

80 Microsoft Points want to know when they can take their foot out of their mouth in the making of this review.

Mirror  is ranked on the Indie Gamer Chick Leaderboard.  Click here to see where it landed.

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Tales from the Dev Side: Hooray for Us by Steve Smith

July 27, 2012 by 6 Comments

Forgive me guys.

 

♫ Yo they’re Smith Bros.

Collecting Disorder’s their game.

Landed on my leaderboard

with minimal pain.

They were lended a hand,

when they got to XBLIG land.

Even if punishers are for fuckers,

I respect those limey Brothers!

UHHH!♫

Oh God, I’m so sorry.  Here, read Mr. Steve Smith’s Tales from the Dead Side.  I’m going to go flog myself.

Read more of this post

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Murder for Dinner

July 26, 2012 by 6 Comments

When I heard the name “Murder for Dinner” I thought “Oh great, PETA made a game about McDonalds.  Just what we needed.”  But no, it’s actually a first-person murder mystery game.  First-person, 3D XBLIGs are a rare beast, so I had to ignore the fact that it was a point-and-click adventure and give it a try.  Even if said graphics looked like early first-generation PlayStation stuff.  Again, I am starting to understand where you old farts are coming from on this whole nostalgia thing, but how can anyone in their right mind be nostalgic for PlayStation 1 era graphics?  That’s my generation and I don’t understand why someone would remind people of that horrible shit.  It would be like reminding someone about the time that they had to sit and watch while the Blair Witch drowned their mother.  At least Daddy said it was the Blair Witch.

Note: My Father, who shall henceforth be known as Indie Gamer Killjoy, would like me to state my mother is alive and happy and was not murdered by the Blair Witch, or anyone.   I choose to remain skeptical until the DNA tests come back showing that really IS my mom.  Nobody who watches The View can possibly be related to me.

Of course someone would get killed in a place that looks like that! The only other thing that could possibly happen there is Dracula would come back from the dead and we’d have to send the Belmonts in.

The idea is an old crone calls a dinner party where everyone present is worried that their deep dark pasts will be revealed.  Yea, I’ve seen the movie Clue too.  Unlike Clue, Murder of Dinner is unfortunately played straight, without the slightest tinge of humor.  Ironically, this makes the game cornier than all of Iowa.  The writing in this game is all kinds of fucked up, like one character who outright confesses to you that they murdered someone, but it’s not the actual victim, and that’s good enough for you to clear them as a suspect.  I love that logic, and now I’ll spend the rest of my days wondering why more murders don’t use the “Oh I’ve totally killed people for sport and/or profit, but I just didn’t kill THIS guy” defense.  It’s fucking genius in its insanity.

Actually, it’s funny that the logic of that confession-slash-alibi is so demented, because the actual puzzle logic of the game is somewhat grounded in reality.  This was done by eliminating puzzles all together, but that still counts.  Instead, Murder for Dinner relies on hide-and-seek gameplay.  First, you talk to all the house guests.  Then you walk around the house looking for places that allow you to search for stuff.  If you find something, you take it around and show it to the house guests.  This will typically eliminate a suspect or two.  Then you search the grounds for more stuff, find it, and show it off.  Just keep repeating this until you reach the credits an hour later.  If this all sounds dull, it is.

Alright, I believe you when you say you didn’t bump off the old lady. Now let me ask you this: where were you the night Mr. Body got killed? Why, is that a candlestick in your hand? You’re coming downtown with me.

I’m not a big fan of point-and-click games, but that had nothing to do with why I dislike Murder for Dinner.  The characters, dialog, and setting are all just so boring.  I’m way into murder-mysteries.  I want to do one of those cheeseball “Murder Mystery Weekend” thingies at some point before I die or grow senile.  But this was just lifeless and bland, with a cast of unlikable characters and an ending I figured out thanks to one way over-played line of dialog about three-quarters of the way through.  The ending didn’t even make any sense!  And do you know what I have to say about that?  Red ties make great zebra traps, Joey!

Murder for Dinner was developed by Detroit Game Studio

240 Microsoft Points tilted the camera downwards and then shook the stick around as I descended down the staircase, to make it look like I had tripped on it and was falling to my death, because by golly, sometimes you have to figure out ways to amuse yourself in the making of this review.

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