SURLY HATE MACHINE: DANCE TO EVERYTHING LEFT 4 DEAD’S FRANCIS CAN’T STAND
Every good game needs its accompanying dance mix, and GCIDogmeat and GCITherewolf oblige with this ode to the things Left 4 Dead‘s Francis hates. We all know Bill’s favorite thing is, of course, stairs (why??), but that’s just one of the myriad objects of Francis’s derision, which also includes doctors, lawyers, and.. The Fountainhead?
Francis Hates Left 4 Dead [YouTube, via Destructoid]
Previously:
Fallout 3: Everybody Dance! edition – Offworld
Left 4 Dead: Savage beyond belief – Offworld
Left 4 Dead: the twits don't stand a chance – Offworld
Better left unsaid: scraps from Left 4 Dead's cutting room floor …
See more posts about: Offworld Originals, Xbox 360
NEW TOWERS LOOM: FIELDRUNNERS UPDATE IMMINENT
Offworld broke news of new maps and modes coming soon to iPhone hit tower defense game Fieldrunners in late December, and now, via the studio’s new Twitter feed, Subatomic says the update’s been submitted to Apple and should be available in a matter of days.
Some of the new changes detailed in the feed: apart from a new branched-path ‘Drylands’ map, a new ‘P-47 Thunderbolt’ runner, new flame tower that can ‘incinerate multiple fieldrunners in a single fiery swoop,’ and, more technically, faster load times and a new each-round autosave feature to guard against persistent crashes and freezes.
Fieldrunners home [Subatomic, via Twitter]
Previously:
Fieldrunners update coming "very soon", includes new maps and more …
See more posts about: Offworld Originals
AETHER, PEGGLE, AUDITORIUM, WORLD OF GOO TOP 2008 JAYIS CASUAL LIST
Casual web/downloadable powerhouse JayIsGames has announced the winners of its fifth annual 2008 best game feature it opened for public voting in early January, with a fantastic selection of indie hits.
Many winners are already familiar/oft-blogged names, like 2D Boy’s World of Goo and PopCap’s perennially awesome Peggle series (here, its latest, Peggle Nights), as well as a number of titles that made the scene well before Offworld’s launch.
Among those: Kongregate’s internal viral strategy card game Kongai, retro-classic meta-mashup Rom Check Fail, gorgeous symphony-of-light puzzler Auditorium, and Aether, Tyler Glaiel and Edmund McMillen’s dreamily melancholy other-worldly adventure I recommended just yesterday.
There’s a week’s worth of other gems hiding out across the feature as well: as before, making your way through the list should keep you happily occupied for quite some time.
Best of 2008 Results! [Jay is Games]
Previously:
JayIs Opens Voting For 2008 Best of Casual Gameplay – Offworld
See more posts about: Offworld Originals
SPIELBERG/EA’S NEW BOOM BLOX GOES UNDERWATER, ZERO-G
Continuing a streak of happy EA news that follows our ongoing coverage of DS fave Henry Hatsworth and Spore‘s potential to grow as a platform, the publisher has announced Boom Blox Bash Party, a followup to its Steven Spielberg co-produced Wii title that was one of our most played on the console last year.
The company promises 400 new levels “under water, in zero gravity, and beyond,” and further expansions of its multiplayer challenges (the true lifeblood of the franchise) with new team-based play, as well as “new block types, including: virus and conveyor blox, new blox shapes, such as: cylinders and wedges,” and new cannon, paint ball and slingshot tools.”
Even better, EA says an online level sharing system will be going friend-code-less, and its Create Mode has expanded to include the full tool set the developers themselves use to create the game’s included levels: all signs are pointing to one of the first essential Wii games of 2009.
Previously:
Boom Blox does Mario, Galaga, Duck Hunt – Offworld
Ragdoll Metaphysics: Ten Things That Made Me Glad To Be A Gamer In …
Steven Spielberg gets games – Offworld
See more posts about: Offworld Originals
MAKE A MII OF YOUR FRIENDS AND FAMILY WITH MIITTENS
For the latest in our Offworld craft-corner, the latest online knitting quarterly mag Knitty features these Miittens, which, as you’ll have spotted with the clever pun, turn your hands (or the hands of your loved ones) into the bulbous graspers of the Nintendo Wii’s Miis.
Knitty is also the source, as you may have spotted in 2007, of these amazing Space Invaders socks which, bafflingly, none of my needle-happy friends have yet seen fit to make me.
Previously:
Intangibuild training 'knitting heroes' with Wii-mote enhanced …
LittleBigWatch: Free instructions for your Sackboy stitch-up …
See more posts about: Offworld Originals
FAITH CHASER: A LOOK AT MIRROR’S EDGE SYNESTHESIA
But let’s clear up that third-person horrorshow with footage as it was meant to be: Sony and DICE have uploaded video of Synesthesia, the time trial level coming exclusively to the PlayStation 3 version as part of Sony’s regular Thursday PSN update, ahead of the full DLC pack coming to all platforms in February (delayed slightly from its original release).
It’ll be a taste of the ‘void’ levels the DLC will bring, and, says producer Tom Farrer, was the product of very Majesty of Colors-esque inspiration:
“Synesthesia” was actually inspired by balloons of all things. However, we did decide to settle on an overriding theme — If Faith was having a dream, what would she be dreaming about?
As it turns out, she apparently dreams about enormous abstract sculptures floating above an endless sea!
Mirror’s Edge Exclusive (and free) Time Trial Map Available Tomorrow [us.PlayStation]
Previously:
Mirror's Edge, running the void – Offworld
See more posts about: Offworld Originals
BECAUSE THEY COULD, THOUGH THEY SHOULDN’T: THIRD-PERSON MIRROR’S EDGE
I can’t imagine this does anything but pain every last dev at DICE who worked tirelessly to maintain the sanctity of lead character Faith (though I did enjoy her terse expression in some of the screenshots in the accompanying thread), but the rapidly spreading video of a recently discovered third-person hack for Mirror’s Edge does prove just how quickly the mirage dissipates with just a little change in perspective.
3rd person view in mirror’s edge [On-Mirror’s-Edge, via Shacknews]
Previously:
On the momentum in Mirror's Edge – Offworld
See more posts about: Offworld Originals, Xbox 360
BECAUSE HE CO-OO-HOO-ULD: ASTEROIDS, DIAMOND DAVE EDITION
Today’s 60 second diversion: The current wave of David Lee Roth fever — from soundboard to Songsmith — seems to be leaving no corner of net culture unscathed, and now Flash gaming is no exception. To wit: As(s)teroidz: Diamond Dave Edition, which is basically precisely what it says on the tin.
Just mind the Hagar.
David Lee Roth Asteroids [via WFMU, via Gus]
See more posts about: Meta, Offworld Originals
RAGDOLL METAPHYSICS: MEMORIES OF 2003, OR WHY WE NEED PLANETSIDE MK2
During a few quiet moments during the battle of blog-reading gentlemen that is our Planetside war, I found myself thinking back to 2003, otherwise known as The Bravest Year of the MMO.
It was the year that I spent the summer in a rented upper bedroom, playing both Planetside and Eve Online ’til dawn each day. Here, at last, were two massively multiplayer games that stretched the model to breaking point. My memories of Everquest awkwardness had been been swept away and replaced with what I assumed were just the first in a succession of brilliant new uses of MMO technology.
Neither game seemed particularly finished or well bug-tested, and they were nevertheless magnificent in their scope and ambition, and in their real-time combat. I began to extol the virtues of their genre-busting nature to anyone who would listen, and I recall a journalist colleague telling me that “both those games will be gone by next year, you mark my words.” (more…)
See more posts about: Offworld Originals, Ragdoll Metaphysics
SPACE INVADERS EXTREME 2 GETS.. INVADER BINGO?
The latest in my ongoing Space Invaders Extreme watch: as it turns out, of course, the earlier retail rumors were correct, and the latest issue of Japanese weekly games mag Famitsu confirms that Taito is bringing a new DS version of the retro-futurist remake to Japan in just two months time.
Just what changes are in the cards is less clear: no online reports have been filed from the mag or the developer (which should change by early next week), and IGN’s translation only mentions “new gameplay systems [and] a deeper score attack system,” along with the return of WiFi multiplayer.
But, via import house NCSX we learn that one of those new systems reportedly is a “Bingo System” (naturally), where “a grid is lit up during the course of a stage as invaders are shot. To win at Bingo, key spots on the grid must light up horizontally, vertically, or diagonally.”
Space Invaders Extreme 2 import description [NCSX]
Previously:
Space Invaders getting even more Extreme? – Offworld
See more posts about: Offworld Originals
