Try Not To Fart - An Xbox Indie for the Ages

While I'm posting long-lost articles, here's a game more memorable than Rage:

Yep, that's right, I'm recommending one of the signs of the end of humanity. In title, in presentation, and most likely in spirit, Try Not To Fart is everything that's wrong with Xbox Indie Games - a low-brow stab at the weakness of easily-amused stoners with a dollar to burn.

I'm recommending it because in the grand scheme of shameless cash-grabs that infest XBLIG, Try Not To Fart is actually pretty decent. First and foremost, it's genuinely hilarious - tears-streaming-down-your-face hilarious in the right circumstances. Whether the humor is intentional or accidental changes from moment-to-moment, but the game is often charmingly self-aware.

Some Old-Ass Thoughts on id's Rage

Sometimes I'll start writing something and life boils over, washing those words aside. By the time I find them again they've lost their relevance. A write-up on Rage is the perfect example of this, because really, who the fuck cares about that game anymore?


Rage has lost so much relevance that when it came time for me to write about horribly distracting graphical glitches, I didn't even cite it as one of the worst offenders. That article, which you can find on GameZone.com, talks about games people actually remember. You should probably read that first...and leave a comment! I'll love you forever.


Either way, I liked where I was going with this piece, so here it is. If you're into reading half-finished things:

My Favorite Games of 2011

I've been putting this off to eternity because I had intentions of playing a few games I missed, but with 2012 full-steam ahead it seems that games like Deus Ex: Human Revolution and Dark Souls will have to wait. I'm sure they're great. Top 10 material? That I can't say. Here are the games that I'm sure of, in order of ever-increasing awesomeness:

Batman: Arkham City

I loved Arkham Asylum for it's cast of villains and clever twists. What I didn't love was the overall plot, the half-assed attempt at Metroidvania exploration, and the quirks of the game's unique combat system. The sequel, Arkham City, doesn't have the same level of "wow" moments that the first game had, but otherwise it's better in just about every way. 

The move from maze-like exploration to a more open, Assassin's Creed-style world was inspired; it gave the collect-a-thon of Riddler trophies some much needed freedom, and it made navigating the environment an absolute blast. 

This is the ultimate Batman simulator, or as one clever writer put it: "the ultimate role-playing game." That's never more true than during the Mr. Freeze battle, where the trick to beating him isn't by memorizing a rote pattern or draining a power bar, but by outsmarting him with all of Batman's tools. If there's any one reason this game is on this list it's because of that fight; it's a blueprint for what boss fights should be: a thought-provoking test of everything the game has taught you so far.

A Time and a Place for Repetition

Day One DLC, on-disc DLC, and sinister micro-transactions are but a few of the problems facing game development these days. They threaten the very livelihood of the game industry by burying gamers under the weight of endless exploitation. They are important--but they aren't issues I want to talk about right now.

We get so bogged down in these money issues that we sometimes ignore the bad habits being developed in actual game design. The boss battles of Deus Ex: Human Revolution were prominently criticized for feeling completely out of place, and that was deserved, but I don't think developers get enough constructive criticism like this.

That said, there's something that's been getting under my skin lately. When playing Uncharted: Golden Abyss for the Playstation Vita, I was forced to play out the same set-piece for what felt like almost a half-dozen times. It went something like this: Drake and his friend turn a corner, stumble upon a turret emplacement, and Drake must platform around the environment until he can get a bead on the grunt manning the turret.

The Hunger Game

Reading The Hunger Games book and watching the film got me thinking a lot about pacing in video games. Katniss' journey from her home, through the capitol, and to the Hunger Games themselves is a deliberately paced build-up that could be the perfect blueprint for a video game tutorial.

Imagine a scenario where care is put into establishing the world, characters, and rules of the game. The first few hours would be spent in a safe zone, speaking to people, exploring the world, and getting your bearings. You would be able to train in a safe environment, learn the controls, explore the ins and outs of combat, etc.

There would be no game over screens, no danger of failure. You can't die until you get to the equivalent of the Hunger Games arena. The safety offered by this concept allows the developers to forgo lame tutorial prompts. There is no threat of death, so fumble with the controls all you want. Move on whenever you're ready.

My return to RRC is incoming

Inspired a bit by Mr. Ginn's fresh blogging efforts, I'll be writing original posts on RRC again very soon. Expect a mix of articles, short thoughts, and references to my writing on other websites. Hooray!

What I'm up to

Hello readers!

I haven't been posting new articles here lately, because I can't really re-post the articles I've been writing these days. If you want to continue reading my work, you can find my endless flood of words at GameZone.com.

More Human Than Human - Videodrone Episode 5

Podcast

We're sliding from enemy to enemy this week as we talk about games we love... that no one else loves.  In the first part of this two-part special, we form a very lonely club in honor of these hated gems.  This week Joe and David are joined by special guest Michael Budassi, who is immortal.

Click to Listen

Highlights include: Earth Defense Force 2017, German-style wheat beer, Too Human and Silicon Knights, forklifts, Final Fantasy: The 4 Heroes of Light, and Pleasure!

Shank, or a Look Inside the Mind of a 15-Year Old Boy

Review

Originally posted at: http://www.criticalgamer.co.uk/2010/08/30/shank-review/

If The Dishwasher: Dead Samurai is 2D Ninja Gaiden, Shank is 2D God of War. It’s a pretty game with flashy combat and moments of badassery that come at the expense of precision. The fighting game pedigree that carried over into those aforementioned games (and even the more recent God of War games) is a bit lacking here. As a result, it’s all too often that Shank (the protagonist) seems to slip from your control like a wet bar of soap.

That wouldn’t be a problem if the game was all flash with no substance, but the AI enemies don’t mess around. They attack in mobs, exploiting any moment of weakness with a barrage of bullets or a quick stab from behind. The challenge is welcome, but Shank’s easily punished repertoire of combos is not. Sometimes he just tries too hard to be cool, and as a result ends up shooting bullets in the air at enemies that aren’t there or failing to block while he finishes a flashy combo.

Yes, I Am The First Moron To Be Hospitalized By Kinect

Commentary

Well, this is embarrassing...

A few years ago my kneecap popped out quite suddenly and unexpectedly while drinking with some friends at Barcade in Brooklyn. It wasn't just a little popped out either - when I fell to the floor, collapsed against a nearby Tapper cabinet, I assumed my leg had just mysteriously broken. Whatever was going on, all I could tell was that something was jutting out of my leg by several inches.

An ambulance ride and two hours of agony later, a doctor popped my kneecap back in and sent me home limping, swollen, but relatively fine. My hope was that it would never happen again.

Fast forward to about a week ago. Kinect came out and Dance Central looked awesome - I had to get one. I ordered it from Amazon and it arrived a couple days later. Kinect Adventures got boring pretty quickly and the dashboard was a disappointment, but Dance Central ended up being everything I hoped for. I loved it so much I started playing it every chance I got, twisting and contorting that knee for hours on end - I probably had this coming.

Explosionade - Indie Game Spotlight (Xbox 360)

Indie Game Spotlight

Explosionade is the latest from Mommy's Best Games, the developers of Weapon of Choice and Shoot 1Up. That's a pedigree that demands at least a download of the trial, and I'm happy to report it's worth your buck as well.

Quick aside - I just have to say how much I love seeing the developers of great indie games sticking to XBLIG, hopefully gaining a following, and continuing to put out game after game. After sifting through one student project or zombie massage cash-in too many, I can look at the Mommy's Best, Ska Studios, or radianGames logos and know I'm in for a treat.

Beat Hazard - Indie Game Spotlight (Xbox 360)

Indie Game Spotlight

Beat Hazard is a fascinating game - if you can get it working. Before I start talking about the game itself, it's important to address the simple-to-nightmarish process of getting it to recognize your music collection. Beat Hazard is a twin-stick shooter that syncs the action to your own music, requiring you to set up some kind of streaming solution between your computer and Xbox. I've known people who have literally never been able to get this working, and that's not really the game's fault, but it's something to keep in mind before you get started.

The effort is worth it though, at least it was for me. Once I finally got everything synced up and found songs that didn't lock up the game (a serious issue that is the game's fault), I entered a kind of synaesthetic nirvana. The excitement of Beat Hazard is, as you can imagine, largely dependent on the kinds of songs you play. Dynamic music seems to work best – songs with a build-up of intensity into a climax tend to give the game a nice difficulty ramp, so my prog metal collection tended to play rather nicely with the game.

Castlevania: Harmony of Despair - Castlevania Anonymous Meets Here

Review

Originally posted at: http://www.criticalgamer.co.uk/2010/08/11/castlevania-harmony-of-despair-review/

Before you look at the score at the bottom of this page, consider this simple calculation – for every player less than six that you play Castlevania: Harmony of Despair with, subtract a point. By yourself? Forget it. Even with two or three players it’s not quite there. But get 5 or 6 players together and the trek through Dracula’s castle becomes a riotously good time.

That’s because Harmony of Despair actively goes against the grain of modern game design to craft a unique cooperative experience. The game does little to teach you its rules, but they’re never so obtuse that you can’t put your heads together and figure it out. The game reinforces comradery at every turn, something you can’t experience by yourself.

Harmony of Despair’s design is a patchwork of concepts from various Castlevanias. The game’s five heroes come from different games in the series, and each has a unique set of quirks. Everyone has a mix of close-range attacks, magic projectiles, and double-jumps, but what they focus on and how they get stronger ranges wildly. Characters like Soma and Alucard use a shop to pay their way to better weapons; meanwhile Jonathan uses special attacks to level up his whip.

Sin & Punishment: Star Successor: review

Review

Originally posted at: http://www.criticalgamer.co.uk/2010/08/25/sin-punishment-star-successor-review/

At one point in Sin & Punishment: Star Successor, your buddy is suspended over a rising pit of lava by a reptilian guinea pig. In another level, you travel the desert to fight a sand-lion and a sand-bird that morph together into a sand-lion-bird. You’ll even journey through someone’s dreams of ancient Japan and eventually make a trek into space because, honestly, that’s really the only place left to go.

Treasure’s latest is nuts, and if not for the fact that they’ve been making psychotic shooter games for nearly two decades, this would almost seem like a last hurrah for the company. After all, they’ve been making incredibly niche games for longer than any studio should logically get away with.

Sin & Punishment drips with creativity – so much so, you rarely know how you’ll be playing it from one moment to the next. At the core is a 3D rail-shooter a la Panzer Dragoon or Rez, but that doesn’t stop the game from turning into a bullet-hell shooter or a side-scrolling beat ‘em up at random moments. And in true Treasure style, the game is bursting at the seams with boss fights – creative encounters that make up for ample checkpoints with concentrated bursts of incredible challenge.

There’s so much packed in that it almost collapses under its own weight. The rail-shooting sections alone are so good that the constant divergences can get kind of annoying. If you’ve ever played the Gears of War games, they suffer from a similar design. Just like those games, all-too-often it’s the weird vehicle section or punishing boss fight that stops you in your tracks, and not the core gameplay.

At the same time this also means the game is a lot longer than most shoot ‘em up style games. On the normal difficulty it can take around six hours, and even if you breeze through it there’s solid leaderboard support and a harder difficulty level. It’s the kind of game designed to be played over and over for high scores. After you complete levels, you can play them individually for practice and for attempts to top the leaderboard.

Like the best Wii games, it’s hard to imagine playing this one with anything but the Wii remote and nunchuk combo. The feeling of simultaneously dancing around bullets and quickly snapping your aim around the screen is liberating. Sure, you could play with a standard controller, but you wouldn’t want to.

Unlike the best Wii games, the two-player mode is a bit lacking. The second player is little more than an extra reticle that can shoot independentally of the first player. It’s almost as superficial as the two-player mode in Super Mario Galaxy, which was intended for younger siblings or inexperienced players.

What it lacks in multiplayer options it makes up with lots of playstyle customization. As mentioned, the game supports standard controllers like the Gamecube and Classic pads, and if you insist on using them there’s options for customizing layout and sensitivity. Additionally, each of the two characters handle differently. Isa, the boy, uses shots that require more accuracy, complemented by a large bomb attack. Meanwhile, Kachi, the girl/strange monster, or demon, or something (it’s not really clear) has a lock-on ability and Panzer Dragoon-style lasers.

The point is, if you’re into these kinds of arcade-style shoot ‘em ups, Sin & Punishment is surprisingly robust compared to most of its contemporaries, including many of Treasure’s own games.

In terms of presentation, Sin & Punishment is a bit lacking. While the game is sharply rendered with lots of enemies, the color palette is a bit too washed out. Treasure has gone for this style before, with Ikaruga, but the black/white mechanic of that game allowed them to use it to better effect. Here it just makes the world feel unnecessarily bland, especially in context to the absurd situations you get into.

The story is even worse. It’s old hat for Treasure at this point, as they’ve never been much for telling good stories, or even ones that make a lick of sense. But it’s just kind of annoying – everything you need to know happens within the context of the action, and it’d be better if they just tossed the storyline altogether. The cutscenes are minimal, but they just feel like a waste when the best part is the absurdity of the moment-to-moment set-pieces.

What makes this game memorable isn’t the words coming out of the characters mouths. What makes it memorable is the interactive ride it takes you on. The game is at its best when you’re bouncing between fighting hand-to-hand, riding a hover-bike, and playing soccer with incoming missiles one after the other.

Sin & Punishment has some issues, but honestly if you’re in for a Treasure game you probably know this by now. Flaws and all, it still stands as an excellent example of the rail-shooter genre, and that’s saying a lot. There aren’t a ton of these things, and if you happen to have fond memories of Panzer Dragoon or Rez, Treasure’s latest is sure to give you some warm, fuzzy nostalgia.

Apple Jack - Indie Game Spotlight (Xbox 360)

Indie Game Spotlight

There are a lot of simple 2D platformers on Xbox Live Indies. Some of them attempt to be artsy, some toss in unique puzzle elements, and some just try to be hard as hell. But the common denominator amongst almost all of them is how amateur they feel - the jumping physics are off, the graphics are flat, and the level design is sloppy.

I get whiffs of these problems playing Apple Jack, but the game is often too fun, challenging, and charming for me to care. Yeah, the jumping feels a bit off (it's certainly not Mario) and the art has that flat, amateurish style that's so common in the indie space, but it's also a huge game with clever puzzles, awesome music, and quirky British sensibilities.

Apple Jack is presumably a fine English chap with an apple for a head. He explores strange worlds named after counties in England, running, jumping, and grabbing enemies from atop their heads a la Mario 2. Most enemies are color-coded, and the goal is to match same-colored enemies, tossing them at each other to finish them off.

The game will have you tossing washing machines at pigs in skirts and dodging owls that shoot laser beams, chaining your attacks for a coin bonus. The one really cool effect in the game is when you get a really high combo and hundreds of coins shoot out and fill the entire screen. Going for a high score almost feels like trying to break the game, but it never happens.

Apple Jack's one hundred levels are sure to keep you busy for a while too. Some of them are really tough, coming from the N+ or 'Splosion Man school of level design. If you liked those games, you'll probably enjoy this.

Even at its toughest, Apple Jack is a joy to play thanks to a beautiful acoustic guitar soundtrack. There's some surprisingly heartfelt compositions, and yet they mesh well with the quirky visuals. The challenge can be a bit uneven in spots (a level in the first world has one of the hardest puzzles in the game), but it's hard to get mad at a game that's so goddamn quaint.

For a dollar, Apple Jack is probably the best deal on XBLIG. The amount of quality content here could easily qualify it for the $3 or $5 bracket. Hell, with a bit more polish, this could have been a great Xbox Live Arcade game. Absolutely check it out.

Download on the Xbox Live Marketplace