WHO WILL MIND THE APP STORE WHEN WE’RE GONE?
Flickr’s ‘burns1de’ took a moment during his safehouse breather to spot this plaintive graffiti in Left 4 Dead, as noticed by GamOvr.
That makes a perfect segue to mention the latter site as one of my favorites of 2008: GamOvr’s something akin to a well-curated tumblr/ffffound specifically for the gaming set, and an always reliable source for one-hits of niche ephemera.
Recent favorites? Sega’s Fonz, more 8-bit lacework (previously covered here), this fantastic Mirror’s Edge wall-scaled ad in Shibuya, and right, right, something of our own.
“I miss the internet” [via GamOvr]
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A NEW HANES BEEFY-T AWAITS
This T-shirt — fortuitously spotted by a twitter search, and, I’ve just sussed out, purchased by Southampton DJ James Zabiela — is just a few quick fixes away from being an amazing bit of site merch.
No luck finding my own, but at very least I’ve just learned the kanji for Offworld. [Update: Buy it here at Last Exit To Nowhere, thanks Transmission3000!]
Offworld Colonies t-shirt [via search.twitter]
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LOOK A LITTLE BIT LIKE LITTLE MAC
Every day a new King of Games design is unleashed feels a bit like Xmas — their latest is this just released Punch-Out!! hoodie set (perhaps in celebration of the forthcoming Wii remake), with matching fingerless gloves to boot.
I have to admit, the new design doesn’t quite do it for me as much as older classics like the lush gradient of the Fantastic Adventure hoodie (that may be just because the site won’t let me zoom in far enough to read the text), but it does have the benefit of actually being in-stock and available worldwide (a more recent development) — just be prepared to spend most of your Mike Tys^H^H^H^H^H^H^H Mr. Dream title bout winnings to get it.
The King of Games [via Kotaku]
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PAUL ROBERTSON PUMPS PIXELS FOR ENERGY DRINK
By now you’re probably well familiar with Paul Robertson’s Pirate Baby’s Cabana Battle Street Fight 2006 and epic Kings of Power 4 Billion % (it’s actually a bit criminal to stream either; check here and here for a download mirror to watch in full res), and now he’s returned with, err, an energy drink commercial. It takes too long to get to the good bits, but then you never want it to end.
Syke Makes Life Like a Video Game! [YouTube, via TIGSource]
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THINGS WE LOST IN THE SNOW, PT 1: PUZZLEQUEST HIT THE IPHONE
A number of Very Good Things happened over the past week when we were all en route to our various holiday destinations, and I’d be remiss not to recap them, because they were all worthy of mention. One of the most notable, of course, was Infinite Interactive’s RPG/puzzler PuzzleQuest finally making its debut on the iPhone.
Its release was quickly met with a laundry list of complaints: the hyper-anti-aliased text, an engine curiously struggling under the weight of seemingly light 2D assets (though not quite to the extent of the pre-patched Katamari), and an episodic approach that saw just a third of the game packaged for $9.99 (ending just past the game’s first-chapter-closing battle with Dugog), with two more chapters promised that will complete the set. That latter point, in retrospect, is a smart one, given the evolution of the App Store economy where $15-20 releases (outside of highly-niche specialty apps) might as well be lumped alongside Armin Heinrich’s since-removed $999.99 ‘I Am Rich.’
In the end, though, with a week of the game under my belt it turns out that — while all perfectly valid — none of the complaints have managed to truly drag the game down, and there hasn’t been a day yet where I haven’t stolen away enough time to progress by just one more match-3 battle.
With all of the new classes (and, presumably, the content) of the Plague Lord expansion, and newly online-stored save files (to continue progress in later episodes), the iPhone version might not be the definitive version it could have been, but it is the handiest, enough to properly retire the DS/PSP versions and provide a very welcome introduction to its time-sapping addictiveness to the console/handheld challenged.
PuzzleQuest: Challenge of the Warlords [Infinite Interactive, iTunes link]
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THINGS WE LOST IN THE SNOW, PT 6: LITTLEBIGMETALGEAR TURNED OUT BRILLIANT
One quick final recap to say that, away from the constant iPhoning, one of my two other holiday concessions was a few hours making my way through Media Molecule’s ‘Metal Gear Solid Premium Level Pack,’ which, put plainly, is an essential download for the game.
As much a clearly loving tribute as a collaboration, the levels inside are some of the most inspired the game has seen to date — both officially and from the community (although that’s somewhat an unfair comparison with the community’s IP restrictions).
Between the spot on extension of the Paintinator gun (turning the platformer into a surprisingly adept bullet-hell dual-analog shooter), the secret meta-lightgun-game behind the pack’s first intro level (you’ll know it when you discover it), and its final showdown: if this is what we can expect from the future of the LittleBigPlatform, we’re in very good hands.
Previously:
LittleBigWatch: Media Molecule Adds Metal Gear – Offworld
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LEFT 4 DEAD: THE TWITS DON’T STAND A CHANCE
A few weeks ago I linked our followers to a mysterious twitter happening involving a certain @bill_l4d, @francis_l4d, @louis_l4d and @zoey_l4d, and now Infovore’s Tom Armitage has lifted the bile-soaked, bullet-riddled veil on just what’s been happening:
One of the most wonderful things in [Left 4 Dead] is the banter between the four player characters. There’s so much dense, specific scripting, and enough dialogue so that it rarely repeats. I thought it would be interesting to see if you could simulate the four players’ dialogue over Twitter, sharing some state between the bots, but also finding a way to make them communicate a little with each other…
They run a scenario, they bump into boss zombies, they find stuff, they get hurt (and help each other), they get scared (and reassure each other). At the moment, there are some dialogue overlaps; my main work at the moment is adding more unique dialogue for each bot. Bill is sounding pretty good, but the rest of them need work. It takes about 2-3 hours for them to run a scenario, and it’s usually fun to watch. (And, as you can see, it makes sense to follow all four of them)…
I think my favourite aspect of it, though, is that at times, watching the bots play together is a little like magic. The first time I saw them talk to each other, cover each other whilst reloading, help each other up after a Boomer attacked, I felt a little (only a little, mind) like a proud father. They’re dumb as a sack of hammers, but they look convincing, and that was the real goal. It’s fun to watch them fight the horde amidst all my other friends on Twitter.
Tom set the game afoot again earlier today, the results of which you can see here (thanks for the handy link, Waxy) — alongside some more personal messages that might sound familiar.
Twit 4 Dead: more silly nonsense with Twitter bots. [Infovore — thanks twice today, Tom]
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THINGS WE LOST IN THE SNOW, PT 5: WIND WAKER UNPLUGGED
If we hadn’t already had Keita Takahashi’s fantastic Noby Noby Boy holiday greeting, this would’ve made a great replacement: 23 year old (and himself curiously Hyrulian looking) Fredrik Larsson doing a multi-instrumental version of Legend of Zelda’s Wind Waker theme.
There’s not much to do here but watch and gawp at his “quick christmas experiment” — he’s similarly blasé about his Mega Man 9 rock medley, though at least he admits that one took him four times as long.
YouTube – Wind Waker Unplugged [Thanks, Tom!]
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DRINKING TO EXCESS
An excellent year-end list from designer Steve Gaynor which focuses (with minor spoilers intact — unfocus your eyes to get past the bits you might not want to see) on the top ‘moments’ rather than games perfectly pointed out one of Grand Theft Auto IV‘s greatest charms:
In both scope and fidelity, it’s safe to call GTA4 an epic production. And really there was no better investment made than their decision to embrace Euphoria character physics…
Nowhere is this better showcased than in the game’s implementation of a drunken state: Nico and his drinking buddies stumble, lean, wobble, catch themselves, trip and fall with amazing dynamism, fully expressing a feeling of being out of control of one’s own body, and providing enormous comic relief as well.
For as much as it was a technical achievement, it was an acting one as well: Niko’s drunken dialogue diversion back into old-country pidgin English made him so much more complete and sympathetic a character, particularly his cab-hailing “yellow carrrr!”
Read the rest of Gaynor’s list for more excellent momentous choices from Yakuza 2, Rock Band 2, and No More Heroes.
MOTY 08 [Fullbright]
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THINGS WE LOST IN THE SNOW, PT 3: CRAYON PHYSICS ABOUT TO HIT THE IPHONE
Though still not the platform it needs to come to, in another surprise holiday move, Hudson announced that Kloonigames’ Crayon Physics Deluxe (which was also just finally released on PC for those that pre-ordered) will be coming to the iPhone in a matter of weeks.
From the video above, the game does look significantly less fiddly than I might’ve imagined despite the lack of stylus control (my fingers fumble across the landscape in the iPhone’s Line Rider, hence the worry): try the freeware sketch-platformer Trace (YouTube gameplay) for a general idea of what we can expect.
Previously:
Crayon Physics Deluxe opens pre-orders – Offworld
Crayon Physics Deluxe [Do the Hudson!!, via Kloonigames forums]
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