It’s Presto for the City 17 set: ‘fncypntz’s ‘Grigori Grimoire’ is officially my new favorite GMod happening. See also, the amazing Super Gmod Kart and Team Fortress 2 Heavy’s 2Girls1Cup Reaction.
Fncypntz’s channel [YouTube, via WeGame via Oddbob]
Previously:
Garry's Mod life – Offworld
Doom 3: Repercussions of Evil: another Garry's Mod masterpiece …
See more posts about: Offworld Originals
In what can only be described as a heroically meticulous post (and an early front-runner for games-related blog post of the year), Dan Bruno (QA tester, coincidentally, for Rock Band creator Harmonix) has dissected the battle music in the recently fan-translated Mother 3 to better come to grips with its combo system.
It was one of the game’s most surprising secrets: each enemy you come across in its turn based battles has a unique theme song, and their own signature ‘heart beat’ that coincides with the theme. As you attack the enemy, continuing to press the button along to their beat results in continued combo attacks that, if sustained, lands some 50 percent more damage.
The trick, though, is that harder enemies come with harder beats and sadistic time signature trickery. Bruno transcribes one of the most difficult, “Strong One (Masked Man)”s 29/16 signature, and quips that its rhythm “would make Dave Brubeck cry.”
Mother 3’s battle music [Cruise Elroy, via Waxy]
Previously:
Mother 3 translators start Earthbound Central blog – Offworld
Harvey James's Mother 3 fan art vanguard – Offworld
Tomato releases Earthbound Zero 'easy patch' – Offworld
See more posts about: Offworld Originals
Today’s biggest treat: following yesterday’s scraps on forthcoming WiiWare series Bit.Trip and its initial block bouncer Beat, publisher Aksys has lifted the veil and let loose full gameplay video, which is even more wonderful than I had imagined.
Less a tennis-for-two and perhaps a bit more Breakout 2600: The Musical (well, minus the actual block-smashing, and then filtered through Stephen Malinowski’s fantastic Music Animation Machine), Gaijin seem to have beat Taito at their own game and given us the Space Invaders Extreme-esque retro-futurist version of Arkanoid we’d hoped their DS port might be.
Even better, Aksys have uploaded Desention, the video clip’s phoned-home chiptune, as an mp3 [direct link]: every part of this Bit.Trip seems custom built specifically to tickle Offworld’s fancy.
BIT.TRIP BEAT [Aksys Games]
Previously:
Gaijin Games taking the Wii on a Bit.Trip – Offworld
See more posts about: Bit.Trip, Gaijin, Offworld Originals
In early December, UK craft mag Simply Knitting announced that it’d be publishing a pattern to create your own custom version of LittleBigPlanet‘s Sackboy, which was amazing, but also disappointing in that a.) importing a single issue of a magazine sounded like a ridiculous trial (see also: Vice’s LittleBig issue, and I’d still love to find a kind UK soul to help me get my grubby mitts on that [hint]), b.) as much a modern man as I might try to be, going to any length to eagerly snatch up a knitting magazine might’ve been just the tiniest bit shameful.
So I’m happy to report that UK tabloid the Sun has partnered with the mag to offer the pattern as a free download (direct PDF link), an unusual pairing, given the Sun’s traditional beat covering, as Wonderland’s Alice Taylor puts it, “topless ladies, celeb gossip, salacious murder details, assorted other painful deaths, surgery gone wrong, football transfers and astrology predictions.”
Knit your own little Sackboy [The Sun, via Wonderland]
Previously:
More like LittleBigDeathOfInnocence – Offworld
See more posts about: Offworld Originals
Variety reports that the Writers Guild of America have nominated this year’s videogame selection for the best writing of 2008, the second year since it founded the new category. The selections are always somewhat slanted, with their prerequisite that nominees be part of the WGA itself (leading to last year’s left-field winner, Vicious Cycle’s otherwise lovely PSP action title Dead Head Fred).
This year’s nominees included EA’s Red Alert 3, Bethesda’s Fallout 3, LucasArts’ Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, Eidos’s Tomb Raider Underworld, and this year’s curiosity, indie dev Mousechief’s Dangerous High School Girls in Trouble!.
The last game, an IGF entrant two years running, actually, is primarily the reason I wanted to call attention to the list. It’s a game we haven’t yet mentioned here, and we’re pleased to find that certifiable friend of Offworld Leigh Alexander has an extensive writeup from late 2007 over at Play This Thing on the “charmingly stylish, elegantly macabre” game about the most terrifying of all creatures, the high school girl.
Writers Guild videogame award nominees announced [Variety]
See more posts about: Offworld Originals, Xbox 360
While January 21st will see the release of The Maw, Twisted Pixel’s anticipated 3D adventure recently noted in the Offworld Guide to the IGF, tomorrow’s Xbox Live Arcade update will include new downloadable content for The Behemoth’s retro-inspired beat em up Castle Crashers.
The so called ‘King Pack’ is set to add two new playable characters, the ‘Open Faced Grey Knight’ and the King himself, as well as a new healing spell via the King, three new weapons and Pelter, a new animal orb sidekick, all of which, now that the game has been properly patched and fixed issues with its online play, is as good a reason as any to discover why the game landed on our Offworld 20 best 2008 games list.
Previously:
The Behemoth talk Castle Crashers balance, ladies – Offworld
The Offworld 20: 2008's Best Indie and Overlooked – Offworld
See more posts about: Offworld Originals, Xbox 360
There wasn’t a very graceful way to mention it at the time, but in early December I had a serendipitous run-in with recently departed NCsoft head, legendary Ultima creator and recent space voyager Richard Garriott at a venue here in Austin, which ended with him happily monopolizing the night in front of a gaggle of curious onlookers, with candid stories of What Things Are Like On The International Space Station (‘was there booze? are the Russian parts of the ISS different than the U.S. bits? how did you poop?’) (the imagery of the latter is now irreversibly burnt into my consciousness — it’s not a pretty story).
I knew it was a special treat at the time, but now it’s got a sticker price: Austin’s Zach Theatre will be officially hosting Garriott to do the same on January 24th, with “artifacts and photos from his private collection, plus videos of aspects of space travel never seen before,” and a subsequent Q&A.
For the non-Texans, you can also catch some footage of Garriott’s expedition via film group Beef and Pie, who traveled with the trekker during his training and have the rights to his own personal space-films for the upcoming documentary Man on a Mission.
Austin, Texas > On Our Stages > Extreme Voyage [ZACH Theatre, via Massively]
See more posts about: Offworld Originals
Designer Nicholas Felton’s annual reports have become one of my favorite year-end cappers, no matter that none of the information presented has an iota of relevance in my own personal life. The grace, beauty, and frankly slightly worrying amount of personal record-keeping that go into each collection of the minutiae of Felton’s daily life is the classiest bit of voyeurism you’ll engage in all year.
That’s why I was so happy to see that this year’s Feltron report covered not just the number of Michael J Fox sightings (one), beers consumed in public (408), or songs listened to in iTunes (just shy of 34k), but extended into his Liberty City life with an extensive breakdown of the number of miles traveled during the course of his/Niko’s Grand Theft Auto IV exploits (1,036), which, according to his timeline, he completed near the end of May (that’s dedication!).
If Felton’s reports tickle your own obsessive compulsive urges, add yourself to the invite request list at Daytum, Felton’s new service still in private beta which allows you to auto-generate Feltron-like reports based on any criteria of your choosing, and please let us know if you find creative uses for it based on your gaming life.
Feltron Eight [Thanks, .tiff!]
See more posts about: Offworld Originals
I’ve admittedly been seriously derelict in my duties to big-up Kloonigames’ Crayon Physics Deluxe following its official release last week on both PC and the iPhone, so in an effort to make right before giving a more considered verdict, I offer this video, in which ‘Jimmy Gunawan’ bridges the ball-star gap with, naturally, an elaborate counterbalanced Wall-E and Eva contraption.
Crayon Physics – That Darn Pole, featuring Wall-E [Vimeo, via Gus]
Previously:
Things We Lost In The Snow, pt 3: Crayon Physics about to hit the iPhone – Offworld
Crayon Physics Deluxe opens pre-orders – Offworld
See more posts about: Offworld Originals
Bizarre Creations’ new years gift for fans of early Xbox Live Arcade flagship title Geometry Wars? ‘46860 Choices,’ a 13 minute megamix [direct mp3 link] of the series’ music done up quite nicely by Audio Antics‘s Chris Chudley — series composer, and musician for a majority of Bizarre’s output — which should tide you over until the developer manages to get the official soundtracks to iTunes.
Try as I might, I still haven’t managed to track down the inspiration for the name.
A late Happy New Year! [via everywhere, it seems, including NeoGAF]
See more posts about: Listen, Music, Offworld Originals, Xbox 360
