FALLOUT 3: EVERYBODY DANCE! EDITION
While the unofficial modders have been busy doing dire and otherwise pedestrian things with their Fallout 3 installs like hacking in child killing and more realistic gun noises (or so I’ve just learned from the ‘related videos’), ‘airshom’ reminds us of why we like to let people tinker around inside their games. Be forewarned that if you haven’t seen everything there is to see around the Wasteland, you might end up seeing some things you’re not ready to see.
Bethesda: this is the kind of DLC we’d also pay for. We know you didn’t put those party hats in there without a good reason.
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AN OFFWORLD THANKSGIVING: L-TRYPTOPHAN EDITION
Xeni and I had been batting ideas back and forth earlier this week about what might go into a Thanksgiving-themed Offworld BBtv episode, and while we decided against it in the end, it still had me brainstorming about recent releases perfect for postprandial tryptophan-induced sedate-gaming. Here’s a quick list of three off the top of my head, add your own in the comments below if there’s something I’ve missed…
Fallout 3
As I recently discovered — quite unintentionally — Bethesda’s RPG makes for perfect extreme-hangover gaming, a mindstate not too far away from a belly-full coma. Though it might sound like a slight, I take it as an asset: one of Fallout‘s draws is that a number of its sidequests and its exploration in general aren’t the most mentally taxing. In fact, one of the things I think the game does best is let you stumble almost continually on a series of small messes that exist only for you to tidy. It became almost a mantra during that hangover head sick session: “I found a building. It was a mess. I cleaned it up. I felt satisfied. I moved on.”
Animal Crossing: City Folk
Though I’ve never heard any of its directors or designers explicitly state it, I’ve got a strong hunch one of Animal Crossing‘s guiding principles was that of the Slow Life movement that spread across Japan in the early ‘oughts, seeking to “shift from a society of mass production and mass consumption, to a society that is not hectic and does cherish our possessions and things of the heart.”
It’s not just the provincial setting or the townsfolk whose lives are little more than neighborly gossip (see also: basically any post-war Yasujiro Ozu movie for the real world cultural touchstones there). It’s straight down to the game’s interactions themselves: try and get basically any task accomplished in less than a minute and you’ll be strained. The series forces you at every turn to sloooow down and settle into its signature torpor.
Soul Bubbles
Developer Mekensleep was taken to task by a number of enthusiast reviewers for a perceived lack of difficulty in its DS debut, but its underlying old-world and naturalistic environments basically demand more leisurely exploration. That’s not to say that the game doesn’t have its own difficulties, or that complete runs of its levels are anything approaching a cakewalk. Soul Bubbles keeps its difficulty in places for you to seek it out if you want it, but leaves you free to enjoy yourself without it, making it one of the more suitably relaxing (and unfortunately underappreciated) games for the handheld.
As for me, I’ll be spending the rest of today wending my way slowly through a backlog of things I haven’t yet had a chance to get to and would like to talk about in the coming weeks: Rare’s Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts, BioShock‘s PS3 exclusive downloadable Challenge Rooms, and the European release of Grasshopper Manufacture’s DS adventure remake Flower, Sun and Rain.
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SONY’S OWN INSPIRED HOLIDAY SALES
Like Microsoft, Sony has announced its own Black Friday digital download deals that seem pointed straight at the one true Offworld heart. PixelJunk Eden for starters, is a quintessential Offworld game. Developer Q-Games (a different Q, mind, than Rez‘s), after creating the more traditional DS shooter Starfox Command for Nintendo, has gone gloriously off the deep end and focused on partnering with musicians and visual artists outside the industry to create entirely new experiences. In Eden‘s case, that artist was Baiyon, whose organic vectors and thumping trance would form its inimitable playground, resulting in one of the most essential downloads on the PlayStation Network.
Not entirely far away is Sony’s own internally produced The Last Guy. Directed by the same Denki Groove-related team that put together Baito Hell 2000, the PSP high-weirdness mini-game collection (known in the West and also available for download on PSN as Work Time Fine [W.T.F.]), the easiest way to describe The Last Guy is as Pac-Man via Nokia’s Snake game all played out over Google Maps.
It might always be best known for its equally baffling promotional campaign — which depicted the developers as a backwoods Indian team known as Hindustan Electronics — and its unmistakably Popcorn-esque theme song, but the game itself is another true inspired Offworld cult classic.
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A HOLIDAY DEAL ON SOUND AND VISION
Here are two reasons I like Microsoft’s Black Friday Xbox Live Arcade specials: one is that they’ve lowered the price on Q Entertainment’s HD remake of Dreamcast/PS2 rhythm/shooter Rez, which means there is essentially no excuse not to experience the game if you haven’t before. Inspired by, the story goes, one of his first rave experiences (this would have been the very late 90’s, mind), Sega designer Tetsuya Mizuguchi set out to create a game that could blend that light and sound and palpable pulsing rhythm as fantastically. The result was Rez, and a long series of music/puzzle games since.
The second is that it gives me an excuse to post this recent YouTube Live Genki Rockets video Q CEO Shuji Utsumi pointed to earlier today. As mentioned in the last Q-related post, Genki Rockets is Q’s music property fronted by teen pop star Lumi, the first baby born in outer space who beams her j-pop disco to Earth from 30 years in the future.
Even if the style of music isn’t your cup of euro-beats, there’s kind of nothing not amazing about the performance, from the faceless DJ-naut on the ones and twos, to Lumi’s eventual appearance on the monolithic low-res LED screen, fingers sending off glittering trails as she does her interstellar dance: all precisely the kind of synaesthetic experience that inspired Mizuguchi to create Rez in the first place.
The rest of Microsoft’s sales are at Major Nelson’s website.
See more posts about: Offworld Originals, q, Xbox 360
THE FACE OF THE WII THEREMIN
Ken Moore’s patched together custom theremin, made from a Wii-mote and a Roland JV-1080 synth, is one of my favorite hardware mods making the rounds, but the experience is — as Ken’s wife is apparently quick to add — one better listened to than watched.
See also: Ken playing the Star Trek theme via the system.
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COOP DOES GUITAR HERO
Despite being a certifiable friend of Boing Boing (having designed, if you recall, the excellent Jackhammer Jill t-shirt earlier this year), we’re just as surprised as everyone to learn that he’s quietly snuck four de-luxe aluminum Guitar Hero faceplates into his online store, which is giving us all kinds of wicked ideas about further artist-edition plates.
Products | Guitar Hero Faceplates | Coopstuff
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OFFWORLD/BBTV: STATUS REPORT EDITION
While we here at Offworld gather exclusive content for future editions of Offworld’s BBtv transmissions, our second update is a status report, telling the wider world what we’ve been getting up to over the past week (including the rapid growth of our Boing Boing Steam group, as we all gather for Left 4 Dead extended plays), and a quick rundown of the new things coming to the site in the following weeks.
As usual, here’s the direct MP4 link, if you prefer a downloadable rather than the Flash.
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PADDLE YOUR WAY THROUGH AN 8-BIT RAID
Why we love other peoples’ idle hands: they do brilliantly devlish things like take one-off April Fools gags by World of Warcraft makers Blizzard and bring them gloriously to life. But man! Is it as hard as you’ve heard.
The Molten Core [via Rock Paper Shotgun]
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WE CAN FIX THAT WITH DATA
Terminally obsessed with player statistics — and with good reason, it being one of the top contributors to making their games as balanced and smart as they are — Valve have published current total Achievement percentages for the first week of Left 4 Dead sessions.
What do they show? That Smokers really aren’t all that bad, apparently, that it really is sort of every-Survivor-for-themselves, with only some 15 percent doing the majority of healing and pill giving (though we’re happy to see that 25 percent that have healed others when they’ve been on the outs themselves), and that it’s really quite hard to stay away from that Boomer vomit.
Left 4 Dead – Achievements [and thanks to the best-named-games-blog-on-the-internet for the entry title]
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1UP-ZINE TAKES US TO OUR FUNSPOT
Upon further investigation this happens to be a bit old, but I’m going to fork it over anyway, for a number of reasons: a.) it was just indirectly pointed out to me by my old co-worker Simon Carless, b.) it gives me an opportunity to mention the always excellent work Raina Lee has done, and 3.) I’m hoping it’ll prompt her to properly finish.
Lee is the recent author of Chronicle Books’ Hit Me With Your Best Shot: The Ultimate Guide To Karaoke Domination, but prior to her empty-orchestra empire she earned her street cred with the 1up-zine, spanning three lovingly hand-crafted screenprint and xerox issues that brought an entirely different perspective to the usual print-media affairs. The writing was always personal, usually unapologetically nostalgic, and Raina gathered top class talent to do comics and art interspersed between the articles.
You can see a preview version (pdf) of her still-unfinished fourth issue, with some road-diaries of a cross-country trip to classics arcade Funspot, and a history of the joint itself from Twin Galaxies’ Walter Day, who you’ll all instantly recognize from his role in the fantastic King of Kong documentary.
Funspot special 1up-zine PDF [via GameSetWatch]
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