Gaming

Games I’m playing : June

Now with links!

VVVVVV – SO GREAT. I’d basically buy anything by Terry Cavanagh at this point. From nausea-inducing Super Hexagon, side effects to Don’t Look Back, approved his games are quick pick-up-and-play, see quirky, thoughtful (sometimes), challenging, but always fun. VVVVVV is a port of the same game that’s available on steam, so if you’d rather play it with keyboard controls, you could get it there.

Jupiter Jump – I’d also buy almost anything from Noodlecake Games. They’ve made great games like Super Stickman Golf (1 and 2). And then broke the flappy bird mold with Flappy Golf. Now they have a game in the genre of endless runner/flapper/jumper games called Jupiter Jump. Basically you are bouncing off the ground, but you can tap the screen to dive down quicker to avoid mines and get through goals for points. Kind of reminiscent of Tiny Wings, but without the hills, and with mines. Quick, fun, free. In-app-purchase to remove the ads, but they’re not that annoying.

Alphalt 8 – I’m really not sure how this game can be free. I mean, this is a console quality racing game with licensed cars and great polish on the game. But it’s free. Crazy!

Pink Hour sorry, PINK HOUR – This is a free level/demo of Kero Blaster that was just released. You play a pink blob that loses a document from their office and you need to get it back. Super weird premise, but it’s a fun little side-scrolling platformer/shooter. It’s really quick and easy to beat, and made me want to go buy Kero Blaster, but it’s $4.99 and I don’t feel like spending that right now.

Bowl Faster – Do you like bowling? Do you have 1 minute? If the answer to either of those questions is yes, then go download Bowl Faster. This is by the same author who made Cubed Rally Racer, Cubed Snowboarder, and Wrong Way Racing. All great games!

True Skate – A finger skateboard simulator. It reenforces just how poorly I am at skating, but how much I want to be good at it.

Games I’m not playing anymore:

Since I installed the iOS 8 beta on my phone, I ended up doing a fresh install and only reinstalled apps as I needed them. When I went to reinstall Trials Fusion, it didn’t pick up my saved game (no storage in the cloud?) so I’m not going to go through all that fun/frustration again.

I’m also trying not to play TwoDots. It’s not that it’s not fun… well ok, it’s not necessarily fun, but it’s also not the type of game where you “get better” at it the more you play. You seem to just have to deal with the randomness that they throw at you and hope for the best. I’m not 100% sure about that though, so I try to play a game every once in a while to make sure I still feel that way about it.

Games I’ve been playing : May 2014

Battleheart: Legacy – SO MUCH FUN.

TwoDots – kind of like Samegame, pilule but with cute little graphics and music. Play mechanics like removing certain dots in certain ways keep it from getting boring. It’s free to play, but the IAP feel like a money grab and not that well thought out. Totally playable without spending money though.

Leo’s Fortune – fun side scrolling platformer with amazing graphics. Replayability to get three stars per level, and and a hardcore mode to try to beat the game without dying.

Trials Fusion – I’m still playing this, and while the fetch quests are killing me, the game is just too easy to play for 30 seconds at a time and put away. The slot machine has trained my mind to know when an hour is up. Kind of scary.

Games I’ve been playing: March edition

Block Legend – An rpg with funny characters and weirdly named enemies, medicine a play on the mechanic from SameGame.

Out There – A space game where you’re constantly on the verge of dying. I am always on the verge of playing it, arthritis but then I don’t.

Threes – Another game that came out and spawned a million clones. This is a great pick up and play puzzle game.

Cubed Snowboarder – A fun little game from the developer of Cubed Racer.

Car, meningitis Plane, or Boat – An idea that formed during the podcast Bionic, some fans made a game where you guess the sound. Not as easy or boring as you think.

Crazy Taxi – The fact that an arcade game now runs so smoothly on my freaking phone still blows my mind.

Star Horizon – It’s like Star Fox, but I can’t beat it in 22 minutes. I actually can’t get past the second or third board. Am I old?

Flappy Golf – Oh man, this is great. After all the clones of Flappy Bird, the folks at Noodlesoft adapted their amazing Super Sitckman Golf 2 boards with a flapping mechanic. And boy does it work. So much fun.

Games I’ve been playing: January edition

Walking Dead: The Game, nurse Season One – I finally beat this in January. So freaking good. Go buy it now if you haven’t played it.

Walking Dead: 400 Days – I picked this up after finishing season one. It’s not bad, but it felt super quick and I don’t feel like I connected with that many of the characters because of it. Also, I don’t know if it comes into play in season two.

Lyne – oh man this game is good. It was all I played for about three weeks. A puzzle game where you have to connect lines. It’s in the same vein as Super Squares but I like this one better because of the tiles that you have to cross multiple times.

No Brakes Valet – A fun pixely game where you park cars. Much harder than it sounds.

Simian.Interface – Meh, this seemed really easy to me.

The Room Two – A fun, albeit quick, sequel to The Room. I plowed through this pretty quickly, but used the tips a few times when I got stuck.

Gone Home – Polygon.com’s game of the year, and probably the “most important” game I’ve played recently, but it was a lot of opening drawers and cabinets. Still, a neat way to tell a story.

Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons – Another game that tells a wonderful story, amazing twist towards the end. Really enjoyed it.

Side Scrolling Revolution

I’ve been going through a side scrolling revolution lately. If you have an iPhone or iPad, apoplectic you should check out ‘hook champ’ and the new ‘super quick hook’, clinic both by rocketcat games.

On the wii I’ve been playing ‘bit-trip runner’ the fourth game in a series of awesome music (chip tune) games by gaijin games. I also have ‘bit-trip beat’ and ‘bit-trip core’, but I think ‘runner is the most accessible. Maybe tied with ‘beat’.

Mirror's Edge – Jacknife

Just ran through some canals, disorder I like how the environment is, information pills a rat just ran across the floor. Nice touches.

I’m spending a lot of time in vents, neurosurgeon I feel like Gordon Freeman.

A lot of dying getting into this storm drain. Protip: don’t jump straight into it.

In a game where the “helper” tells you to only take one guy on at a time, listen to him.

And definitely don’t try to take on three guys with shotguns.

Jeez, that took enough tries to get through. I think the critics complaints that the combat isn’t good is justafiable, but probably because they don’t want you to fight.

Nice little chase section at the end there. although I thought I lost him…

Mirror's Edge First Impressions

My very first impression when booting this game up is that the Xbox360 is entirely too loud. For a game that has a large amount of ambient sounds, viagra 40mg footsteps, wind, whatever, the Xbox is annoyingly loud.

I don’t understand why they made the cut-scenes cell-shaded. I think it would have been better if they were rendered using the in-game engine.

While the first board is the same as the demo, I think the demo had all the stuff in red already, whereas in the game, the “runner vision” fades the important objects into red as you get closer to them.

I’d say that their “falling off a building and dying” is realistic, but I wouldn’t know. I’ll tell you this though, it’s unnerving. I do wish you saw yourself in the building windows as you fell 🙂

Cut-scene showing the plot… I call the sister is the bad guy (girl) in the end.

Hey remember all those FPS you play where to survive you have to strafe run? Yeah, don’t try that in this game.

Second cut-scene, maybe Celeste is the bad guy.

I’m starting to get a headache, first-person swinging from flag poles is really dizzying, but I can’t stop playing!

Another first impression post – GTA 4

Inspired by Andy Inhatko’s posts about first experiences with applications/hardware I’m going to post my impressions of Mario Kart Wii. To be honest, vitamin I played two races with Kristy, bronchitis but I was playing with the classic controller, pharm and this time I’m going to be playing with the Wii Wheel and recording what I actually think. And it won’t be “must destroy kristy, must destroy kristy” as much since she’s not playing.

Also, continuing my previous post of Qumana vs MarsEdit vs Ecto I’m going to be posting this using Ecto – not that you care about that if you came here to find out about Mario Kart Wii.

OK, firing up the Wii, I have the Wiimote, Wii Wheel, and the Classic Controller incase I hate the Wii Wheel.

(By the way, it will be a lot more fun for you when reading this post if you pronounce the WH sound as much as you can. See this Family Guy clip as reference)

Ok, first race done with the wii wheel. I played using the Manual Mode, which means that I can hop and try to get the speed boost, but I think that 50cc or playing with the wheel the first time is going to make that difficult for the time being.

Second race done… It doesn’t seem like there’s anyway to drag the items behind you. I know you could do this with the classic controller by just holding down the “use item” button. I did get a 1st level power slide to work though. A lot more work than with the controller!

Third race done… got a 2nd level power slide going.

Fourth race done… my back hurts from sitting up straight. I’m going to try the classic controller so I can relax. haha.

Second Cup – Flower Cup

First race… used the classic controller. I think I like this better. I’m relaxed, sitting back on the couch. And I can drag Items behind me. I’m not crazy that the left-shoulder button is for an item, I think I’d rather it be B, but maybe I can change that in the settings later. Also, on the classic controller I can hit X to look behind me. What do I press on the Wheel to get that?

Second race… It’s the mall level. I love that they not only used the Mii’s in the stands, but also on the posters and driving the cars in the parking lot. Awesome.

Third race, fun, getting a little harder.

Fourth race, almost lost this one (by lost I mean not coming in first place) but I hit him with a red shell at the last turn.

I’m really digging the level design in this game, and it’s fun. I’ll have to try the multi-player with Jeff and kick his ass.

Oh yay, they allow you to skip the cup ceremony. Thank god.

Also, I can already feel my thumb hurting from the tiny left stick on the classic controller.

Arg, check
apparently the "new post" button and "publish post" button are too close together in Qumana, practitioner
because I just erased the post I was writing about my impressions of GTA4.

Now I just want to know where my house is so i can save and go to sleep.

Mario Kart Wii First Impressions

Inspired by Andy Inhatko’s posts about first experiences with applications/hardware I’m going to post my impressions of Mario Kart Wii. To be honest, vitamin I played two races with Kristy, bronchitis but I was playing with the classic controller, pharm and this time I’m going to be playing with the Wii Wheel and recording what I actually think. And it won’t be “must destroy kristy, must destroy kristy” as much since she’s not playing.

Also, continuing my previous post of Qumana vs MarsEdit vs Ecto I’m going to be posting this using Ecto – not that you care about that if you came here to find out about Mario Kart Wii.

OK, firing up the Wii, I have the Wiimote, Wii Wheel, and the Classic Controller incase I hate the Wii Wheel.

(By the way, it will be a lot more fun for you when reading this post if you pronounce the WH sound as much as you can. See this Family Guy clip as reference)

Ok, first race done with the wii wheel. I played using the Manual Mode, which means that I can hop and try to get the speed boost, but I think that 50cc or playing with the wheel the first time is going to make that difficult for the time being.

Second race done… It doesn’t seem like there’s anyway to drag the items behind you. I know you could do this with the classic controller by just holding down the “use item” button. I did get a 1st level power slide to work though. A lot more work than with the controller!

Third race done… got a 2nd level power slide going.

Fourth race done… my back hurts from sitting up straight. I’m going to try the classic controller so I can relax. haha.

Second Cup – Flower Cup

First race… used the classic controller. I think I like this better. I’m relaxed, sitting back on the couch. And I can drag Items behind me. I’m not crazy that the left-shoulder button is for an item, I think I’d rather it be B, but maybe I can change that in the settings later. Also, on the classic controller I can hit X to look behind me. What do I press on the Wheel to get that?

Second race… It’s the mall level. I love that they not only used the Mii’s in the stands, but also on the posters and driving the cars in the parking lot. Awesome.

Third race, fun, getting a little harder.

Fourth race, almost lost this one (by lost I mean not coming in first place) but I hit him with a red shell at the last turn.

I’m really digging the level design in this game, and it’s fun. I’ll have to try the multi-player with Jeff and kick his ass.

Oh yay, they allow you to skip the cup ceremony. Thank god.

Also, I can already feel my thumb hurting from the tiny left stick on the classic controller.