THE OFFWORLD 20: 2008’S BEST INDIE AND OVERLOOKED
Fallout 3, Grand Theft Auto 4, Left 4 Dead, Metal Gear Solid 4, Rock Band 2, Mirror’s Edge, Spore, LittleBigPlanet — as we’ve reached the end of the year, the lists have become as plentiful as they have predictable. So, instead of reshuffling the same list of 10 (admittedly amazing) games as everyone else, I’ve taken a different path and put together The Offworld 20.
Covering every current platform (PC/Mac/Linux, PSP, PS3, Xbox 360, DS, iPhone, N-gage), the 20 isn’t just a list of independently made and under-appreciated games, it’s a list of the games that celebrate what makes Offworld Offworld: the beautiful and the bizarre, and the games trying to push the medium forward and give us something we’ve never seen before, in whatever incremental way.
In it you’ll find time-manipulators, slacker assassins, satellite viewed superheroes, vector vegetation, bubble blowers and balls of tar, techno invaders, spirits of the wind, and, refreshingly, not one single space marine.
I’ve compiled and written up the list in no particular horse-race order other than alphabetical, and included the best examples of gameplay so you can see it in motion — let us know via the comments below if there’s anything you think we missed.
See more posts about: N-Gage, Offworld Originals, Xbox 360
G.E.C.K. WATCH: OBVIOUSLY THERE’S ALREADY DOGMEAT ARMOR
MTV’s Multiplayer game site has done a quick round-up of the best of the Fallout 3 mods they’ve spotted following the release of the G.E.C.K., showing that, of course someone’s already created Dogmeat armor. Unfortunately, the mod doesn’t deck the dog in full regalia, so much as set him to invincible.
A quick look around the rest of the site doesn’t yet show too many outright amazing things, though MTV did also notice a separate mod that tweaks experience earned so that exploration and discovery nets you the biggest bonuses and helps stave off that level 20 cap for much longer than usual.
Useful, Fun (And Free) ‘Fallout 3′ Mods Already Available [MTV Multiplayer]
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PLAYSTATION NETWORK GETTING BESIEGED BY SPACE INVADERS EXTREME
A nice follow-on from the last entry: Siliconera has noted that the ratings-board trawlers have dug up confirmation that Space Invaders Extreme, the forthcoming console version of the DS/PSP arcade techno-remix, will be coming to the PlayStation Network as well as Xbox Live Arcade.
As we noted before, not only does the game come with a bonus port of the original arcade game, but a version of Llamasoft’s Xbox 360 music visualizer Nuon, though it’s likely that’ll remain a console exclusive, unless Minter’s been very, very quietly working on porting the code to Sony’s vastly different architecture.
See more posts about: Offworld Originals, Xbox 360
THE XBOX LIVE AVATAR EXTRACTOR
As I mentioned last week, while there’s a tradeoff on the sliding scale of Miis to Xbox Live Avatars to Home’s too-real characters where Microsoft may have struck the smartest balance (despite my Mii being far more recognizably Me), what they’re doing even more correctly is letting them loose in the wild.
The snowglobe may have been a fun if schmaltzy addition to letting them populate games themselves, but now your Avatars spread more virally with Free Your Avatar, a simple but effective jpg exporter that lets you make Facebook/MySpace pictures and iPhone and desktop wallpapers out of your You.
Even with the limited selection of backgrounds and poses (something Rock Band does awesomely), compared to the arcane fan-made hacks necessary to extract your Mii from the Wii’s iron grip (as we have found out in bringing you Monster Mii) it’s a huge step in the right direction.
Free Your Avatar [Xbox.com]
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SCOTT MCCLOUD NAILED IT: GAMESRADAR PITS AVATAR VS. AVATAR
Though the results are a bit stacked, with some really curious selections of particular character creations (and the most horrifying Home ‘Sarah Palin’ you’ll ever see), GamesRadar’s Avatar Showdown has pitted the Wii, Xbox 360 and PS3’s personalization features against each other to interesting results.
Not only does the feature near-scientifically prove the theory of the Uncanny Valley, it also perfectly highlights Scott McCloud’s point in Understanding Comics about the universality of cartoon imagery.
Microsoft did very well to find a happy medium between the Miis (which Nintendo itself also did well in allowing more flexibility) and Sony’s honestly fantastically misjudged Home models (now that it’s widely available, I basically dare you to create an avatar which you can comfortably look at and say “that’s me!” — send us comparison shots if you think you’ve succeeded).
There’ve been steps in the right direction on the first two parts (Mii masks in Animal Crossing, avatar support in Xbox 360 games), but obviously the killer app would be the extensibility of the former with the social networking of the latter.
All-Console Avatar Showdown [GamesRadar] [bonus links here and here to decent celebrity 360 avatars]
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THE XBOX 360 SNOW GLOBE
Well, this is certainly cute: making good on its promise of providing a New Xbox Experience, Microsoft has got into the spirit with an embedded shakable snow-globe that populates itself with your friends’ avatars. Entirely superfluous but well integrated, it’s just one more step on the path to make the console “the place you and your friends live.”
Stir your friends up in the Xbox LIVE Snow Globe [Major Nelson]
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THE BEHEMOTH TALK CASTLE CRASHERS BALANCE, LADIES
Before descending into punch-drunk madness of its own on the merits of pooping animals in games, Gamasutra’s recent interview with Offworld favorite The Behemoth — makers of sidescrolling shooter Alien Hominid and the recent Xbox Live Arcade retro-inspired beat em up Castle Crashers — covers some interesting ground on balance issues and the “gigantic nightmare” of stat tracking beneath Crashers‘ simple exterior, and their continued focus on consoles versus PC portals.
But, even better, artist Dan Paladin drops a metaphor for the Mythical Man-Month so succinct and apt that I’m tempted to try and get it redubbed Paladin’s Law:
A lot of people say, “Oh, one guy was drawing, and one guy was coding, so that’s why it took so long.” But that’s really not true. You can have nine ladies, but it’s not going to take them one month to have the baby.
Taunting The Behemoth: Tom Fulp and Dan Paladin Cry Out [Gamasutra]
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BRüTAL NEWS IS NOW: EA TO PUBLISH BRüTAL LEGEND
I knew funny business was afoot early this morning when Double Fine moved their Brütal Legend threat level system to “violated lemon” (‘I hear news knocking at the door!’), and it wasn’t for naught: the developer has just announced that EA will publish the they’re-making-me-call-it-NWOB-heavy-metal action/adventure for PS3 and Xbox 360 in Fall of 2009.
It’s good news not only for the game, which has been floating in somewhat of an uncomfortable news-void for the last year following the Vivendi/Activision merger, but also for EA, who’ve been moving from strength to boutique-gaming strength with this and the recent announcement that they’d be releasing a new game from Killer7/No More Heroes dev Grasshopper Manufacture.
As noted before (where you can also see its debut trailer), the first new footage of the game will be shown Sunday night at the Spike TV Video Game Awards show.
Brütal Legend [EA/Double Fine]
See more posts about: Brütal Legend, Double Fine, Offworld Originals, Xbox 360
FALLOUT 3’S COLD WAR
Bethesda has handed IGN the first extended details on the first downloadable content for Fallout 3, due January, which will see players working their way through a military simulation of the liberation of Anchorage from communist Chinese invaders.
From what I can gather from the frustratingly no-follow-ups interview, it sounds like the simulation will take a more strategic turn, including “interactive Strike Teams” (still unsure whether this interaction will extend beyond the “stick close to me, give me some room” rules that currently apply to the main quest’s partners). I’m similarly unsure exactly how to suspend my disbelief in bringing new weapons from inside a simulation back into FO3‘s real world, but I suppose it could be as simple as a storage locker next to the computer.
The interview also touches at minor hints at the two following DLC packs, including a wink I’m interpreting to mean that Pittsburgh has gone all-ghoul.
Fallout 3: Operation Anchorage Unveiled [IGN]
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THE CAT’S CRADLE BALANCE OF STREET FIGHTER II
Designer David Sirlin had a thin tight rope to walk in remaking and rebalancing aspects of Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo for its XBLA and PSN debut, and it’s fascinating to listen to him delve into the minutae of those decisions, revealing just how precariously and artfully constructed the game is, especially when he slings jargon like:
Their complaints led me to try the fairly extreme measures of letting his jab torpedo destroy fireballs — wow! — with his Hundred-Hand Slap being lower damage and lower priority, and his deadly Ochio Throw no longer being repeatable and only retaining half its dizzy power.
If you’re still the type that still struggles to appreciate the game as much more than a ratatat of flailing button mashing, I recommend watching this 2004 championship video to its end. Even if you can’t fully appreciate the complexity (the storyline gist goes: it sure looked like the girl was going to get the guy, but with just the thinnest sliver of life meter left he delivers a stunning comeback), the reaction of the crowd is enough to clue you in that something earth shattering has just happened.
Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo: HD Remix Postmortem [1UP.com]
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