14
Sep/0914
Sep/0914
5 MORE Games Whose Existence Scares Me
Gaming is a constantly growing industry, and as such every small, untalented company out there is desperate for a slice of the pie.
This, however, tends to result in horrid abominations that one doesn’t even need to play to be terrified of.
Sure it might be funnier if I actually played these horrible games and made fun of them then but shut up, I ain’t got that kind of time/mental stability. And I know I already brought you 5, but, here’s 5 more!
5
Sep/099
Sep/099
Muramasa: The Demon Blade
Muramasa’s release snuck up on me! It came out yesterday, and despite having listed the release as September 8th in my top 5 year-end game picks post I for some reason thought it was coming out in October. But no matter, I played it for a while last night and enjoyed it immensely. Muramasa is a feast for the eyes, which sounds like a strange thing to say about a Wii game but like Vanillaware’s PS2 titles GrimGrimoire and Odin Sphere the entire game is constructed out of gorgeous hand-drawn digital artwork and animation.
In terms of gameplay Muramasa is clearly a spritiual successor to Odin Sphere but with many notable improvements. In fact I think I’d love to see this team keep making games in this style using various mythological sources. However, Muramasa’s localization seems a rather lacking compared to Odin Sphere’s and even GrimGrimoire’s, but I’ll get to that later in the article.
1
Aug/0914
Aug/0914
My 5 Top Year-End Games (With Bonus Rant)
Summer is a slow time for games. Sure I got my Sims 3 and my Spore: GA, but those are Sim games, they’re not game games. And really what I mean is they’re not console games.
Why is summer slow? Because all of the games companies save their biggest releases for the year-end holidays that’s why. So, because I have nothing better to write about, here are the games I’m waiting on bated breath for, in general order of wantingness, that are going to heavily distract me throughout the fall and winter.
20
Jul/0910
Jul/0910
Kya: Dark Lineage
What do you get when you mix a splash of American McGee’s Alice with a dash of NiGHTS: into dreams, a large helping of Legend of Zelda and wrap it all in a decent coming-of-age fantasy story with some daddy issues and Tarzan-esque vine surfing thrown in?
Well you get a pretty nifty little Playstation 2 game called Kya: Dark Lineage that I picked up some time ago for five bucks. I’ve been playing alot of PS2 lately and between bouts of Katamari Damacy I’ve mostly been checking out games I missed (like Prince of Persia: Sands of Time. Yes. I hadn’t played it til recently.)
I heard about Kya from a Games Radar aritcle and it piqued my interest. I’ve only played about 4 or 5 hours of it total (and I’m currently stuck actually) so consider this a first impression.
18
Jul/097
Jul/097
Spore Galactic Adventures
I’m something of a Spore Whore (as I like to call it.) Although Spore is admittedly not the game I hoped it would be, that being a next-gen Sim Earth with at least some science and more variety behind it, I still enjoy it quite a bit.
The first full expansion pack (Creepy and Cute was more of an item pack) is well… interesting.
In keeping with the customization, web 2.0, “let the players make our content” tradition Galactic Adventures focuses on expanding the final sandbox Space portion of the Spore gameplay by allowing players to create their own levels/mission.
16
Jul/0931
Jul/0931
The Sims 3
I’m kind of overdue for a review on this due to website problems but dagnabbit I’m gonna review it anyway! I have a weakness for games like this and so naturally I’ve been a Sims player from the first iteration of the franchise.
In Sims 1 I only really liked to design houses and kill off my Sims in amusing ways. In Sims 2 the gameplay was actually engaging and hilarious and I ended up playing the game properly… well, most of the time. So I’m probably going to end up comparing the next evolution in ridiculous life simulation, The Sims 3, to Sims 2 quite a bit.
26
Feb/0913
Feb/0913
Saints Row 2 vs Grand Theft Auto 4
I was really excited about Grand Theft Auto 4. I really was. Although Vice City is my favorite installment and I had never finished San Andreas or bothered with the “Stories” iterations of the series, I was really looking forward to seeing what Rockstar could do with the franchise on next-gen consoles. I got my copy at a midnight launch, and I really enjoyed it at first. At least, I thought I did.
7
Feb/0930
Feb/0930
Girls and Games
Alright another post about video games, sorry, sorry! But this is something that really grinds my gears. In the online gaming community a seemingly innocent word has gained a bit of notoriety: casual. The “casual market”, as it’s usually called, is a demographic the gaming industry has suddenly started gunning for hardcore due to the success of Nintendo’s Wii. This market is made up of people who haven’t really played video games before, are starting to get into it, but will never be of the same mindset as today’s adults who have stuck with the hobby since childhood. This creates something of a rift in the games community (entirely one sided as “Casuals” are probably completely unaware of any such community.)
Not that I care, but there is a side effect of all this in advertising that’s beginning to irk me. Although the average age of gamers is now late 20’s early 30’s, and around 40% of gamers are indeed female, advertisers seem to be stuck in the same old stereotypes as the rest of society of gamers being braying, maladjusted 19 year old males sitting in dark basements playing teh Haloz.
And nothing displays this more than how they’ve begun to advertise to girls and women.
11
Dec/083
Dec/083
de Blob
Here I go reviewing video games again. I’m going to try to balance out my posts with more art-oriented stuff soon, but for now I’m lazy and it’s easy to just post about games I play. So let’s talk about de Blob.
de Blob is one of my favorite games on the Wii, it’s definitely in my top three (the others being Okami and Mario Galaxy.) I’ve enjoyed it even more than first party Nintendo titles, and I’m a begrudged Nintendo loyalist through and through. It’s that good. I’m hoping this one will be a sleeper title that will snowball into popularity via word of mouth, and that does seem to be happening. Sick of shovelware on the Wii? This game will more than deliver your fix.
6
Dec/0816
Dec/0816
5 Games Whose Very Existence Scares Me
As any clever person may be able to surmise with a cursory glance of my site, I’m pretty nutty about video games. Since I’ve been playing them consistently since the age of seven I guess you could call me a gamer (but not a Gurl Gamer or I’ll be forced to hurt you.)
The games industry has always attracted companies out to make a quick buck, and this leads to some horrifyingly ill-conceived games that are only ever purchased by idiots and well-meaning grandparents who inadvertently ruin a child’s birthday. Without further adieu here’s 5 in particular (in no particular order) that have haunted the dark recesses of my mind ever since I had the misfortune of coming across them:
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