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• The E.V.O.lution of Spore

  Yahtzee recently mouthed off in his charming British way about Will Wright's Spore. Does he like it much? Short answer: "Nooooooooooooooo..." I haven't played Spore. My computer is from the Stone Age (2002) and completely useless for gaming. It's especially useless right now because it's been infected with the digital equivalent of late-stage syphilis and I do believe it's going quite mad. As for Spore, I might pick up the Wii version once it receives all the necessary castrations. But I have to admit that Yahtzee's weekly snark-a-thon woke up an otherwise oblivious bit of my brain that's telling me, "Hey...you played Spore. On the Super Nintendo. It was called EVO." Now kids, don't you all yell at Granma Nadia like that. I know Spore is far more complex than the 16-bit prehistoric gorgefest that captured my heart when I was fourteen-ish. But the idea of eating and growing appendages as a result of eating (wouldn't that make the obesity crisis a lot more interesting) took me back to a happy place. When we were kids, we wanted to genetically engineer nail-studded dragons with teeth like Ginsu knives and scales like tank armour. Oh, and they had to be able to fly, of course. Completely impossible by Nature's hoity-toity standards, but typical of the animals that rattle around in a kid's imagination. When Enix made EVO, it remembered the pencil crayon drawings that adorn every boy's school binder. Read More... Posted Sep 18 2008, 05:22 PM by Nadia Oxford with | with 4 comment(s) Filed under: snes, PC, will wright, spore, super nintendo, 16-bit, nadia oxford, evolution, evo

• Whatcha Playing: The Thirst For Adventure, Pointing At Things, and Not Knowing What to Say

  Amidst the cavalcade of blockbusters, handheld eccentricities, and Rock Band I’ve been indulging in over the summer, a grand season now a mere two weeks from being officially dead, I’ve been getting a crash course in one of gaming’s most respected and forbidding forms: the adventure game. Though I started playing games during the genre’s heyday, I’ve always been somewhat less than literate when it comes to the many point-and-click and text-commanded classics crafted by Sierra and Lucasarts. My only real experiences came from visiting my aunt Donna. At the ripe age of seven years-old, she introduced me to the wonders of Kings Quest and, er, Leisure Suit Larry. Yeah. It’s not that I didn’t have fun with these eye-openers – they certainly expanded my vocabulary – I was just more interested in walking from left to right, jumping, and shooting when it came to videogames. I always knew that I was missing out on something, listening to friends chortle over playing Space Quest and even later, as a teenager, looking at lush screens of Grim Fandango. I’ve only gotten around to them recently thanks to three conditions working in concert. One is that there are new, easy to access (read: on Wii) point-and-clickers being released with regularity by folks like Telltale Games. Two and three regard vintage software: Nerve is equipped with numerous PCs capable of running things machines in my home twenty years ago could not, but also (and most importantly) I have a guide. It’s easy to approach Telltale’s Strong Bad games because they move at a brisk pace and they work on a very simplified version of classic point-and-click language: see something, point at it to interact with it. Got an item? Point at it, click, then point the item at what you want to use it on. Repeat playings of King’s Quest V left me acclimated to both the process and the occasionally obtuse logic at work in these sorts of games, so it’s been a painless process and a reminder of the genre’s charms. Playing through the first two episodes of Strong Bad’s Cool Game For Attractive People (more on Episode 2 when I’m allowed to talk about it) has, however, made it abundantly clear that adventure games are not inherently relaxing in comparison to more action oriented fare. Read More... Posted Sep 08 2008, 07:49 PM by John Constantine with | with no comments Filed under: john constantine, whatcha playing, PC, quest for glory, lucasarts, wiiware, sierra, adventure, strong bad, telltale games, conquests of Camelot, grim fandango, kings quest

• Games We Will Never Get to Play: Kenji Eno’s D2 for M2

  My obsession with Kenji Eno continues to grow despite the fact that I have yet to play a single game he designed. It isn’t just the mystery behind the man and his philosophy on design that’s got me so intrigued, but the fact that his games have always been on the periphery of my experience, especially the original D. Long before I had a Playstation or even a home computer that had a prayer of running the game, I remember gawking at pictures of the macabre adventure title in advertisements and being both fascinated and legitimately creeped out. When D2 came out for the Dreamcast, I was keen to check it and satisfy my younger self’s curiosity, but lost interest when I found out that the American version had been heavily censored. Thanks to Lost Levels and PC Games That Weren’t’s Timo Weirich, Kenji Eno and D just got a little bit more delightfully mysterious. Read More... Posted Aug 28 2008, 07:00 PM by John Constantine with | with no comments Filed under: john constantine, PC, Playstation, 3do, d, Kenji eno, lost levels, games we will never get to play

• Bringing Sexy Back: Retro Controllers of the Future

  Take a gander at this metal USB game pad from Dream Cheeky. It features all the buttons of a SNES controller and none of the ergonomics, but honestly, who cares? Look at how shiny it is! Look at how smooth and sleek it is, like your 24th century android girlfriend, with the tiny L and R buttons as her perk nipples and a rubberized grip as her toned synthetic hips. She has a six foot USB cord so as to not smother you, and she even swings both ways with both PC and Mac support. Sure, she doesn't have as many features as the Logitech pad that's been loyal to me for years, but I'm willing to sacrifice function for form when its a form like this. There, now that your PC games have an extra dash of Björk's "All Is Full of Love," let's see what we can do about the sexiest home console around, Nintendo's Wii. Read More... Posted Aug 27 2008, 04:00 PM by Derrick Sanskrit with | with 2 comment(s) Filed under: derrick sanskrit, wii, bringing sexy back, PC, mac, controllers

• Revenge of the Port: Dead Rising Shuffles, Moans on Wii

  The true death of the arcade came at the beginning of this decade. It wasn’t when gamers started opting for the comfort and value of playing at home; it was when home consoles finally started equaling (and surpassing) the technological heft of the arcade cabinets themselves. Sega, one of the only surviving arcade giants, signed the death warrant themselves when developing the Dreamcast and its arcade-motherboard-twin, Naomi. Games at home and games in the arcade, identical for the first time. The move may have had the negative effect of killing off the already declining amusement center population across the Western world, but it also had a significant silver lining: the death of the shoddy arcade port. Approximations of more technologically demanding games have been a staple of gaming in the home since the 1970s, but, with the exception of stray PC-based ports, downgraded game experiences have largely disappeared since 2000. Today, in 2008, the fracturing of the console space seems to be bringing them back in force. Read More... Posted Jul 16 2008, 01:00 PM by John Constantine with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: john constantine, nintendo, xbox 360, resident evil, wii, capcom, nes, PC, pokemon, sega, grand theft auto, dreamcast, port, koei, Naomi, dead rising, dynasty warriors

• Where Is the New Indiana Jones?

  Euphoria, a physics engine created by developer NaturalMotion, has been popping up all over the place lately. To clarify, a physics engine is a piece of software that simulates real-world physics in a game. Euphoria specifically creates realistic animation for game characters on the fly, as opposed to the hand crafted animations traditionally used for computer generated characters. Euphoria is used in Grand Theft Auto 4 - when you see Niko’s body getting thrown about in a sickeningly convincing way, it’s Euphoria at work. The engine is also featured prominently in the much publicized, poorly-titled upcoming Star Wars game, The Force Unleashed. It’s a little distressing, however, that Euphoria’s intended debut has gone AWOL. I’m referring of course to LucasArts’ untitled Indiana Jones project. Read More... Posted Jun 03 2008, 10:00 AM by John Constantine with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: john constantine, playstation 3, star wars, xbox 360, where is, PC, Grand theft auto 4, indiana jones, lucasarts, euphoria

• Whatcha Playing: Another Slice of Cake

  Having never been much of a PC or Mac gamer, I’ve come into Valve’s games far later than most. I experienced the original Half-Life second hand through my college roommate and only played through it myself last summer, on the PS2 of all things, in anticipation of the Orange Box’s fall release on consoles. When I finally did play through Half-Life 2 and its subsequent episodes, I was more than impressed. Valve’s reputation as peerless storytellers is more than deserved and despite being four years-old at this point, Half-Life 2 remains a high-water mark for game making free of the language and tools of film narrative. Writer Eric Wolpaw’s most impressive work in the Orange Box, however, is the widely lauded Portal, a perfect mix of Half-Life’s menace with the humor of his work on Psychonauts. Up until last Sunday, I’d been waiting for a chance to race through Portal a second time for months. This wasn’t possible since my copy of the Orange Box had ended up in Korea. Damn roommates. Portal is a strange experience when you return to it. Read More... Posted May 16 2008, 10:00 AM by John Constantine with | with no comments Filed under: john constantine, whatcha playing, valve, portal, PC, fallout 3, orange box, half-life, mac, still alive