Welcome to the fifth annual Super Adventures Screenshots of the Year article, showcasing some of the most interesting screenshots and animated GIFs I discovered while sifting through the massive pile of them I've accumulated from playing 60-something games this year! I'm very tired now.
Clicking the highlighted game titles will take you to the original article so you can observe the screenshot in its natural environment. It'd be nice if they were some kind of affiliate link that earned me cash, but they're not.
(Every now and again you'll see a shot from a modern PC game, if you click them you should get a higher resolution picture to gaze at.) Read on »
Hello everyone! It's a cold and windy winter night here in mecha-neko-land, so I'm back with a Christmas present of sorts to warm you all up. It's called Mr. Nutz: Hoppin' Mad!
This is a 90s platformer which I'd thought had fallen through the cracks and never got a release. I saw a few previews of it in Amiga magazines, tons of adverts and then nothing at all. There were Mr. Nutzes for the SNES, Mega Drive and even the Game Boy, so I thought the Amiga had just been left behind. But in fact we did get Mr. Nutz right on time in 1994, well after everybody knew the Amiga was toast, as a small gift for the loyal or desperate few.
It's an Amiga 500 game though, so you might want to pack up whatever few expectations you have left right now.
That said, this is one swish title screen. Uncompromising. Nutz in your face, followed by a fist.
Boy, I could have described that better for sure. Read on »
This week on Super Adventures I'm talking about Star Wars! I saw everyone else doing it and I felt left out. If you're reading this in five years time, then I'm talking about everyone going crazy over the release of 'The Force Awakens' last week. I know it's weird to think back to 2015, when people were enthusiastic about Star Wars movies again and the series hadn't been utterly driven into the ground by a succession of annual sequels, but that's where I'm at right now.
But I'm not talking about a film, I'd need some kind of Super Adventures in Sci-Fi website for that... no I'm talking about Star Wars™: Jedi Knight™ - Jedi Academy™! I'd make a joke about it being Star Wars: Dark Forces 4: Jedi Knight 3: Jedi Outcast 2 - Jedi Academy, but for once they've resisted sticking a number in there and making things more confusing than they have to be.
Jedi Academy is the last game in this prestigious sci-fi shooter series, but to be honest it's always felt more like a stand alone expansion pack to me, like Mysteries of the Sith was to Jedi Knight. Honestly I doubt I'll be able to say much about I didn't already say in my Jedi Outcast article a few months back, but it's Christmas so I thought I'd treat myself!
WARNING: CONTAINS NO SPOILERS FOR THE FORCE AWAKENS.
This week the internet is going totally batshit Star Wars crazy due the upcoming release of 'The Force Awakens', so today I'm going to be playing.... another game about a clown. Didn't really think this one through did I? Next time I get ideas about planning ahead I'm going to look up some movie release dates first.
Anyway you've found your way to Super Adventures, where I'll be having a look at Dropsy, a self-proclaimed 'point and click hugventure game'. More like a drop and kick clownventure game...
It was a gift from a friend though (a friend who knows how much I like clowns), so I'll be nice and give it a fair chance. I'll even take some screenshots and write words under them so you can benefit from his cruel generosity!
I already knew beforehand that the game has something to do with folks on the Something Awful forums, but I've just done the bare minimum of research and it turns out that the character's first hugventure actually took place in a forum thread back in 2008. People would throw out suggestions for what Dropsy should do next and then the creator would pixel up the outcome in the form of a fake video game screenshot. Like a choose your own adventure story, in extreme slow motion. Three Kickstarter campaigns later and the clown's starring in his very own actual game, with clicking and animation and everything! So basically this is all the internet's fault. Read on »
This week on Super Adventures I'm taking a quick look at Kid Klown in Crazy Chase, the second in Kemco's Kid Klown tetralogy. The name reminds me of cult classic 'Killer Klowns from Outer Space', which is interesting because I'd no idea I'd even heard of the film until now. How is this clown movie knowledge leaking into my brain? I'm fairly sure they're unrelated though.
I have to admit that I'm not a huge fan of clowns, but I love that title screen. It's got to be some of the best title art on the Super Nintendo. It's a shame there's a Kid Klown standing right in the middle of it, but squint your eyes a bit and he could be Kid Santa. The music's a bitclowny as well, though I've heard worse. So far so good, but let's see what happens when I select 'Option'. Read on »
Super Meat Boy, an iconic indie game*, is a perfect example of procedural rhetoric. There’s a constant difficulty in every single stage of the game and it forces the player to discover the right way to solve the different types of challenge.
One hit, you die. So, it’s important to memorize each step inside the phases. When a stage ends, it’s possible to see all the deaths of the charismatic Meat Boy happening at the same time. Check some examples of the game dynamics and mechanics below:
The idea of learning from fails dialogues with the concept of procedural rhetoric. According to Bogost (2007, p.3) “just as verbal rhetoric is useful for both the orator and the audience, and just as written rhetoric is useful for both the writer and the reader, procedural rhetoric is useful for both the programmer and the user, the game designer and the player”.
*Watch the creative process of Super Meat Boy in the documentary INDIE GAME: THE MOVIE.
REFERENCE:
BOGOST, Ian. Persuasive Games: The Expressive Power of Videogames. MIT Press, 2007.
Well, it is that time of year. We, in the pet sitting business, are now starting to get clients scheduling for Christmas, and New Year's.
But, there are always those new or even current clients who call us 3 days before a major Holiday asking us if we can take care of their pets.
Most of the time we cannot because we are already booked. Because of this, it is important that you schedule your pet sitting needs as far in advance as you can.
I personally hate turning clients away but if I am already booked there is nothing I can do to help you. Even referring to another pet sitter probably won't help as they are in the same situation as I am.
So, here are 10 tips to get you on the pet sitters schedule in time to enjoy the Holidays:
If you have pets, and you are planning on going away for the Holidays, call a pet sitter immediately and make arrangements. Do not wait until the hotel and flight is booked.. that may be too late. If you are a new client, most pet sitters need to meet with you in advance to go over any and all logistics of the visit and get you on the schedule.
Don't forget when planning your vacation budget, you must also plan the pet sitting costs. Most pet sitters also charge holiday fees in addition to the standard visit fees and some pet sitters require payment up front or require a down payment before the visits begin.
If your pets require vaccinations right around the holidays, make sure all pets are vaccinated before your pet visits begin. Most pet sitters require pets to be vaccinated and may require proof of vaccination.
Make sure you read your pet sitters cancellation policies. Right around the Holidays, pet sitters may require payment up front or a down payment and cancellations too close to the actual visit dates may forfeit some or all of your payment.
When going away on long holidays, make sure you give your pet sitters emergency contact information and give YOUR contact information, whether that be your cell phone number and the hotel or friend you will staying at/with.
If you are going overseas, it is even more important to give your pet sitter contact information in case of an emergency, preferably a friend or family member who is still in the area of where you live.
Make sure you notify your veterinarian that your pet sitter will act as proctor for any pet care should it be needed, this includes medications.
Make sure that if you come home early from your Holiday, notify your pet sitter immediately. If you do not contact them they could already be on the way to complete their visit and you may still be charged for that visit. Again, read any and all cancellation policies.
If you are going away for a long period of time, make sure you leave phone numbers for any repairmen including heating/air conditioning, water heaters, etc. Things tend to happen when homeowners are away and pet sitters will need those numbers to get any major issues taken care of.
Best tip yet.. If you schedule in advance, now you can relax, pack and enjoy your Holiday with your friends and family !!!!!!
Today on Super Adventures, I'm putting a few hours into Chasm: The Rift, a game in which you don't play as a zombie lizard jester with a circular power-saw hand. This isn't even the title screen, the game has no time for crap like that. It just dumps you straight to a typical 90s first person shooter menu screen floating above a typical 90s first person shooter gameplay demo.
Oh, I should mention that this is a typical 90s first person shooter. It's kind of an obscure one too, which is exactly what my site's been missing lately. I haven't had a DOS FPS on Super Adventures since Wolfenstein 3D back in March, and that's just terrible. The game I mean, not my FPS negligence (thought that's pretty bad too).
Anyway I had Chasm on a demo disc back in the olden days and remember thinking it had a surprisingly decent looking homemade 3D engine, but not much else. I pretty much forgot the demo entirely for a decade or two after the game disappeared off the face of the Earth. Or I assumed it'd disappeared anyway; turns out the game had actually been released the year after Quake and Duke Nukem 3D and I just hadn't heard about it. It wasn't exactly the next big thing, but it's the next thing on my site so I'm going to go into it with my best attempt at enthusiasm and see if I can get some fun out of it. Read on »
This week on Super Adventures I'm playing the first (and last) game ever made by Wunderkind, run 'n' gun platformer Ruff 'n' Tumble! From what I can tell it's an Amiga exclusive released only in Europe during the end of the system's lifetime, so I'm going to go out on a limb and say it's probably fairly obscure to anyone who's never booted up an A500.
I used to play the crap out of this back in the day though. Well, I played the demo mostly, but I was young and that was enough for me... because I couldn't beat the damn thing. If I make it to the end of world 1 today I'll be shocked, and you should be too, but I'll give it my best shot.
Will it start with a forest level? Place your bets now! (PS. the game's also called Ruff 'n' Tumble in the Fantasy Forest). Read on »
Mario, Lara Croft, Kratos, Carmen Sandiego, Sonic, the Angry Birds, Samus, and so many other video game characters are not only popular among video game fans, they are also famous in other entertainment fields beyond gaming universe.
In contemporary times, with so many transmediatic environments, it’s very common to find these characters in comics, animations, movies, toys, and other platforms. Video game characters (as movie/theater/book characters) are the key to establish a dialogue with certain audiences. With technological improvements and new possibilities in gaming platforms (mobile, PC and consoles) we have the chance to develop deeper characters and more immersive situations with them inside the gaming ambient.
About characters from the gaming universe, Miller (2004, p.90) says
. They can attract a large and dedicated group of users, even drawing people to a project that might not ordinarily be interested in interactive entertainment. . They can increase a project’s perception of being fun or fascinating, even if the underlying purpose of the project is educational or instructional. . They can give people entry into an unfamiliar or intimidating world and allow them to explore it in a way that feels comfortable and safe. . They can keep people hooked, willing to spend hours immersed in the character’s life and environment.
However, it’s important to highlight that even with so many advances in the gaming field, we still have excellent games without characters. Mostly games like Tetris, Super Hexagon, Rotatio, and other abstract titles. These examples are perfect to illustrate wide possibilities to create games nowadays. We have multiple audiences with multiple interests, an interesting ecosystem to observe business, narrative and social networks.
Reference:
MILLER, Carolyn Handler. Digital Storytelling: a creator’s guide to interactive entertainment. Burlington: Focal Press, 2004.
This week on Super Adventures I'll be... looking for the quit option on this menu. I'm not giving up just yet, my attention span hasn't gotten that bad, but someday I will eventually want to turn the game off and I'm not seeing a way to do that. Do I just reboot my PC or something? See, this is what I don't get about classic DOS RPGs: how to do things in them. They baffle me. I realise that part/all of my problem is that I don’t read manuals, but have you seen those things? They’re nothing but words and pictures, cover to cover, and who can be bothered with that any more?
Anyway this week onSuper AdventuresI’m taking a quick look at Martian Dreams aka. Ultima: Worlds of Adventure 2 – Martian Dreams. You'd think this was the sequel to a game called Ultima: Worlds of Adventure, seeing as that's how titles typically work, but it actually follows on from Worlds of Ultima: The Savage Empire. I guess Origin got bored of the Worlds of Ultima brand after one game. On the bright side at least this is more alphabetically convenient.
Martian Dreams is one of the earliest Ultimas to be developed primarily for DOS PCs instead of Apple IIs, and the first to be exclusive to the system. More importantly it'll be the first of the Ultima games I've ever played... for more than 5 minutes. I was looking for an interesting space sci-fi RPG game to follow Mass Effect 3 and I found this in my GOG library, so I figured I'd give it a shot. I'm not deliberately picking out games with 'Adventure' in the title I promise.
This week on Super Adventures, I'm celebrating N7 day by replaying the first couple of missions in Mass Effect 3 and briefly... oh fuck it, I'm going to go and beat the whole game again. No sense in half-assing it after I finished the first two to get here.
Plus I remember there being a bit of controversy about how the game wraps up the (first) Mass Effect trilogy, so I'm going to go through the ending in excruciating detail and share my own thoughts on how it plays out, and whether people were freaking out about nothing. You're not going to get a 47 page let's play out of me, I haven't entirely lost my mind, but this shall be an epic four part article!
PART ONE is what you're reading now, where I'll talk about first couple of hours and show how the game plays. It'll likely spoil the last two games along with the start of this one but not much else.
PART TWO is where I'll talk about the game overall and give my thoughts about it. Likely to be more spoilery. I'll review the game at the end and give you a box to leave non-spoilery comments underneath.
PART THREE is going to reveal my SHOCKING opinions about the unloved original ending of the trilogy, as I go through the final act in the aforementioned excruciating detail. This will have all of the spoilers, maximum spoilers.
PART FOUR is going to quickly go over the changes made for the Extended Cut and whether altering the story was a good idea. It'll also have maximum spoilers, plus a second comments box for you to chat about the ending specifically. If you want.
I'm going to be playing the Windows version so some of my issues will be PC specific (like not being able to click on anything without disabling the Origin overlay first). Also I'm using a fix to enable ambient occlusion on my Nvidia card, following this guide I found on the BioWare forums, so my visuals will look slightly sweeter than the default. Or maybe slightly glitchy and screwed up, it could go either way!
(Click the screenshots to expand them to their original resolution.) Read on »
Welcome to part two of my epic four part review thing!
In part one I played through the prologue up to getting my ship back. In part two I'll be going through a typical mission and talking about how the game progresses. I'll put my conclusion here along with the comment box. In part three I'll be going one step further into madness and analysing that ending to figure out why people were so bothered by it. In part four I'll be talking about the new ending, and whether BioWare did the right thing by retconning their art. Yes I realise that no one's going to still be reading by this point, but I'm putting a second comment box there anyway.
There'll likely be massive spoilers for the first two games, and I'll be talking about how some major storylines wrap up near the end. See, this is what happens when I actually finish a game for once, I feel like talking about all of it and end up ruining the whole story for people. You should be safe to skip to the conclusion though. Read on »
I've already talked about Mass Effect 3's gameplay, but now that it's three years later and emotions have calmed down I'm going to revisit the controversial conclusions to the Mass Effect Trilogy and finally answer the question "Is there actually anything left to say about this bloody ending that hasn't been said a thousand times before?"
And the answer is "nope".
Sorry, there just isn't. The game was so thoroughly torn apart back in 2012 that there's absolutely nothing new I can bring to the table.
Though I remember that reviewers at the time didn't really take issue with the game's ending, which is kind of bizarre considering how many of the fans did. My theory is that they were thrown off by the fact that you needed to play multiplayer to boost your War Assets for the best ending, and assumed that they must have gotten a crap outcome. Everyone else playing after release was able to check YouTube afterwards to learn that all endings are the crap outcome.
I don't usually like to call what I write for this site 'reviews' even though they can get a bit conclusiony down at the bottom, because most of the time I haven't finished the games I'm talking about and for some games that really matters. When a game's a story driven as this, that last 1% of plot can make all the difference, just ask a 'Lost' or 'Battlestar Galactica' fan.
So for once I actually am going to be finishing something. Twice over in fact; first with the original ending and then a second time with the reworked Extended Cut DLC installed. And I will have opinions to share.
Around four months after release, Mass Effect 3 received an alternate ending DLC, with a price of absolutely nothing. The Extended Cut replaces the original ending, but not by default; it needs to be downloaded and installed separately. Unless you’ve got the Wii U version that is, then you’re stuck with the new content.
I actually think it’s great that the original ending’s still there for people to experience first hand, as we should be preserving content like this. Plus developers shouldn’t be able to edit our copies of a game to change the story without permission anyway!
Is it a good thing that BioWare ‘caved’ to their fans at all though? Does it set the medium back as an art form when customers can demand changes when a story doesn’t match their expectations? And does it actually fix anything?
Until Dawn (Supermassive Games, 2015) is an interactive drama survival horror video game. It’s a mix between Alan Wake’s atmosphere/scenario and Beyond: Two Souls’ choice-based mechanics. I recently played this game on PlayStation 4 and the experience was awesome. The launching trailer below explains the game’s main plot:
Until Dawn works with a choice-based mechanics, very similar from Quantic Dream games, where you must choose one option on the screen. Your choice will determine specific paths and different endings (I talked a little bit about this subject in this post about decision trees).
The plot is about a group of youngsters in a cabin in the mountains one year after the mysterious disappearance of two of their friends. Supernatural forces and a serial killer complete the script.
One point to highlight in this context is the idea of the ‘butterfly effect’ as a gameplay component. In chaos theory, the butterfly effect is the sensitive dependence on initial conditions in which a small change in one state of a deterministic nonlinear system can result in large differences in a later state. So, the game takes this idea and materializes it in an important part of the plot. Every time you make an important small decision, the interface shows a small butterfly, this means that your action will have a crucial importance in a near future.
From the middle to the end of the game, some flashbacks show how your choices interfere in the continuity of the narrative.
It’s a new way to tell an old story. The “butterfly effect’ makes great difference inside gaming ecosystem. You star to think more about the small decisions and how they can change the end of the game. Another good point: if you are truly involved with the narrative, probably you’ll play again to test other decisions (or if you’re lazy, you'll see the different endings on YouTube). =)
This week on Super Adventures I'm having a look at FORBIDDEN Siren 2, or maybe Forbidden Siren 2 depending on whether you're going to trust the box spine or the manual. In North America it's known as... well, nothing actually as it was never released there. The first game was though, under the name of Siren.
I was going to start the article by dropping the bombshell that in five years of the site I have never once played a horror game for Halloween, not even accidentally. But I just checked and it turns out that I have, twice: DecapAttack and Blood. My memory betrays me again.
But the point I was leading to was that I'm not really all that interested in Halloween and never have been. Horror isn't really my thing and I find that horror games often involve way too much creeping around in the filthy darkness with awkward controls, looking for the door/cupboard/bookcase/piano you haven't examined yet. I'll still give the game a fair chance to win me over (I wouldn't have much to write about otherwise) but I can't help being predisposed to despise it. Read on »
Last week on Super Adventures, I played a game with 'Super' in the title and this time fate has given me one with 'Adventure'. Haven't had one of these on my site since, hmm... Squirt's Adventure around this timelast year. Fun fact: through absolutely no effort of my own, 'super' and 'adventure(s)' are actually the two most frequent words to show up in video game titles on my site (with 'final' and 'fantasy' right below them). 'Nubs' on the other hand is definitely down near the bottom.
Nubs' Adventure is the latest indie platformer by the guy who created Rico: A Tale of Two Brothers, which I apparently thought was very playable. I mean I can't actually remember playing it (I've gone through about 150 games in the meantime, my poor brain can only store so many platformers in it), but the article I wrote seems positive enough. This time around I'm playing with a Steam key sent to me from the developer so I'll be wearing my 'serious video game reviewer' hat. Well my 'serious quick look' hat anyway, as I'll only be showing off the first hour or two.
(You can click the screenshots to view them at their original resolution if you feel like, but you'll mostly just get chunkier pixels for your trouble.) Read on »
My beloved Lab Sebastian passed away in April so in May I rescued and adopted a puppy named Bandit. Now that we are back into the crate training aspect I decided to start using kongs in the crate to help keep him occupied.
Because he is such a small doggie I bought 5 puppy kongs and I stuff them and put them in the freezer so I can put one in his crate when I have to leave him alone.
That got me thinking about what kinds of things can I stuff into these little kongs. So far, I have stuffed non fat plain yogurt, fresh fruit, organic no salt peanut butter, organic sweet potato and organic pumpkin.
But, here on this post I decided to add some recipes so everyone who does use the Kongs for their dogs can get some ideas on what to stuff the kongs with. It is kind of fun to try each of these different recipes and it gives the doggies something different from time to time.
Below are some recipes I have found that we all can use. I have also put a link here if you would like more recipes. http://www.kongcompany.com/recipes/
Just make sure all the foods you purchase are non fat, no sugar, no sugar substitutes, organic and good for your pets.
Fido’s Fruit Salad You’ll need:
Cottage cheese or yogurt (only use plain or naturally sweetened yogurt—not yogurt with artificial sweeteners, which can be toxic to dogs)
Apples, banana and melon (any kind)
One small marshmallow
Cut the fruit into chunks and put them into a KONG until the toy is about two-thirds of the way full. Holding the KONG upside down, spoon cottage cheese or yogurt into the remaining space. Finally, finish by putting a small marshmallow into the KONG. Serve at room temperature or frozen.
“Pupkin” Pie You’ll need:
Canned or freshly cooked pureed pumpkin
Yogurt or cottage cheese (only use plain or naturally sweetened yogurt—not yogurt with artificial sweeteners, which can be toxic to dogs)
Cooked oatmeal
Low-fat graham cracker
Put a spoonful of cooked oatmeal at the bottom of the KONG to seal the small hole. Then put two spoonfuls of pumpkin into the KONG. Follow with a spoonful of yogurt or cottage cheese. Repeat, layering the pumpkin and yogurt or cottage cheese until the KONG is almost full. Then cram a few pieces of graham cracker into the end of the KONG. Serve warm or frozen.
The Nutty Monkey You’ll need:
Half a banana, cut into slices
Peanut butter
Roasted peanuts
Plain, vanilla or strawberry yogurt (only use plain or naturally sweetened yogurt—not yogurt with artificial sweeteners, which can be toxic to dogs)
A spoonful of wheat germ
Put a blob of peanut butter into an empty KONG to seal the small hole at the bottom. Add a few roasted peanuts. Mix the banana slices with a few spoonfuls of yogurt and the wheat germ. Then spoon the mixture into the KONG. Seal the KONG at the top with another blob of peanut butter. Serve at room temperature or frozen.
Late-for-Work KONGs (As Easy As It Gets) Running late? If you’re busy and don’t have time to create culinary works of art, you can simply take a few seconds to try the following ideas. This is KONG stuffing at its fastest!
Keep a stash of halved bananas in your freezer. When you’re on the run, just grab a banana half and slide it into a KONG. Or slice an apple into wedges and insert one or two of those into a KONG.
Cram a large dog biscuit or two into a KONG. If necessary, squeeze the KONG when inserting the biscuits to change the shape of the hole and fit them in.
If you feed your dog raw food, try purchasing frozen raw medallions, which easily pop into a KONG. Just turn the KONG upside down on a counter, large hole facing up, and push the medallion into the KONG using the heel of your palm.
Use a squirt of Cheez Whiz®. Just insert the nozzle into the small end of the KONG and squeeze in some cheese. You can also use a similar product made by the KONG Company, called KONG Stuff’N™ Paste, which comes in liver and peanut butter flavors.
Smear a spoonful of peanut butter or cream cheese (preferably low-fat) on the inside walls of a KONG. If you think that your dog might finish licking out the KONG too quickly, consider preparing a few peanut butter or cream cheese KONGs in advance and leaving them in your freezer for quick use when you’re in a hurry.
This week on Super Adventures, I've got a 'Back to the Future' game loaded up and it's playing the actual theme from the movie! It's funny how few of them do that.
It's Back to the Future Day today! We've finally reached Wednesday October 21th 2015, the day that Doc Brown and Marty McFly visit in the second movie, and that makes this the perfect time for me to take a look at Super Back to the Future, Part II for the SNES. Other good dates would’ve been November 12th 1955 and October 27th 1985, but I’ve already missed them, so I'm basically on my last chance here.
Weirdly there was never a Super Back to the Future or Super Back to the Future, Part III, despite the fact that SBTTF,PII came out long after the movie trilogy concluded in 1990. There were plenty of other 'Back to the Future' games released for other systems, but this is all the Super Nintendo ever got, and it got it 3 years late. Sorry I mean the Super Famicom, as the game was only ever released in Japan (presumably because it's not very good).
Oh right, I should put a warning here that the game's based on the film, so I'll be spoiling part of the movie's storyline along with the game's. Assuming that the game even has a storyline. Read on »
This week on Super Adventures I'm playing another game based on a cartoon series! It'd be fair to say that South Park: The Stick of Truth is a little better regarded than Family Guy: Back to the Multiversethough, as it's got over twice the score on metacritic.
In fact Stick of Truth gave Obsidian their highest metacritic score since Knights of the Old Republic II back in 2004, beating games like Fallout: New Vegas and Alpha Protocol. Which goes to show how broken metacritic is/how rubbish reviewers are, as Alpha Protocol's totally a better game than KotOR 2! It has an ending and everything.
I still can't believe that Obsidian of all developers were working on a 'South Park' RPG, though in retrospect I suppose I should be more surprised that they finished it, seeing as they have the worst luck with their licensed games. The original publisher for Stick of Truth went bankrupt a year before release, Aliens: Crucible and their 'Snow White and the Seven Dwarves' prequel were both cancelled during development, and in a parallel universe they would've made a 'Wheel of Time' and a 'Star Trek' game as well. We're never going to get a proper single player 'Star Trek' RPG at this rate.
Though we did get a 'South Park' RPG and it's right in front of me, so I guess I should play it already.
(Click the screenshots to examine at their original resolution. It's not a great resolution, but it's bigger.) Read on »
This week on Super Adventures I'm playing Family Guy™: Back to the Multiverse! Because suffering builds character.
Actually I'm genuinely curious about the game. I remember that reviewers thought it was terrible, but I don’t remember why. Do the jokes just not land or is the gameplay itself rubbish? I’ve a feeling the answer’s going to be ‘both’ but I’ll keep an open mind.
By the way did you know that 'Family Guy’ has been on air for 14 years at this point? It would’ve actually been 15 but the series took 2004 off due to being cancelled. The PC version of the game has taken a year off too, as it suddenly vanished from Steam back in December 2014. It's not alone though, as publisher Activision have pulled a bunch of licensed games over the years, including Deadpool and 007 Legends (it's like they don't even care about my plans to play every Bond game ever). But Deadpool eventually came back, so there’s still hope for Back to the Multiverse!
(Click the screenshots to view them in their original resolution.) Read on »
I’m a hardcore gamer. I love Bloodborne’s challenges. I’m very excited to complete Batman: Arkhan Knight with 100% of the missions. I really like to die and try again the experience of Dark Souls.
On the other hand, I’m a casual gamer too. I think – for a work in game design and gaming studies – it’s essential to explore both worlds (and the intersection between them).
I’ve played a lot of mobile games the last three years for two reasons: 1) they’re extremely fun; 2) most of the time I’m far from my videogames. So, I downloaded lots of games in my iPhone/iPad. There are many good ideas, interfaces and mechanics, but I want to focus on the games from King.com. Yeah, you certainly know one or two games from them; Candy Crush is an icon from this publisher.
However, I intend to talk about another game in this post: Farm Heroes Saga. Farm Heroes has some important points to think (and rethink) game design: 1) the core mechanics is simple (you need to join three pieces of a kind to eliminate them from the interface and earn points); 2) the simple mechanics evolves with new characters (you start with fruits and vegetables, but after some time there’re animals, fireworks and many other powers); 3) There’s a social model embedded in Farm Heroes that create a community inside the gaming universe, where players can share lives and special powers; 4) There’s a business model in the game and you can spend real money to buy powers, lives, gold bars and special features (very similar to all King.com games); 5) Finally: it’s free, fun, colorful and has a friendly interface.
The ideas from this game remind me the words of Juul (2010) in the book A casual revolution. Check the video with the gameplay:
The conclusion is: King.com creates a complete model of casual games with very integrated social, business and fun aspects. Every game replicates the same model with a new skin. With great number of games, their chances of profit increase a lot.
I celebrate King.com’s work in the casual gaming industry.
Reference:
JUUL, Jesper. A casual revolution. Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2010.
Today on Super Adventures I'm taking a quick break from taking quick looks at games to indulge in a bit of Snake cloning.
The more character creators and appearance editors I come across in games, the more of an urge I have to make them fight each other and see which comes out the winner. Plus I'm curious about how face graphics have evolved over time and I want to compare them. To do that though, I'll need to attempt to recreate the same character in each editor, and after giving it some thought... I couldn't think of anyone better for the job than iconic video game hero Solid Snake, star of the Metal Gear Solid series. No seriously I really tried to think of someone better, even asked a few people for suggestions, and this guy's the best choice we came up with.
My plan here is to pick a few of the games I remember featuring a face editor and try to recreate his face in them. And by 'a few' I mean 'basically all of them'. So if you've ever wanted to see 40 or so screenshots of Solid Snake's face in a row... I have a feeling you're going to be disappointed with my results. But I'll try my best!
(Click the images to view them at a more sensible resolution) Read on »
It's interesting. A little bit morbid for me. Nevertheless, the book has a very good investigative work done by the author. I'm reading the chapter 2 in this moment. I think it will be good to understand new ideas from the gaming universe.
Synopsis:
Whether it's Space Invaders, Candy Crush Saga or Grand Theft Auto, video games draw us in and don't let go. In Taiwan, a spate of deaths at gaming cafes is raising a question: why is it that some of us are playing games beyond the limits of our physical wellbeing? Death by Video Game uncovers the real stories behind our video game obsession. Along the way, award-winning journalist Simon Parkin meets the players and game developers at the frontline of virtual extremism, including the New York surgeon attempting to break the Donkey Kong world record; the Minecraft player three years into an epic journey towards the edge of the game's vast virtual world and the German hacker who risked prison to discover the secrets behind Half-Life 2. Investigating the impact of video games on our lives, Death by Video Game will change the way we think about our virtual playgrounds.
Reference:
PARKIN, Simon. Death by videogame: tales of obsession from the virtual frontline. London: Serpent’s Tail, 2015.
This week on Super Adventures I'm finally taking a look at this Inspector Gadget game like I was asked to.
It's obviously based on that famous 80s cartoon about the inspector who has gadgets. You know, the one where his dog and niece do all the work while he stumbles through danger like a cyborg version of Inspector Clouseau... I think. To be honest I haven't seen the series since I was in its target age demographic so I'm way fuzzy on the details, but I can at least remember that the girl's called Penny and his dog's Brian. Or is that 'Family Guy' I'm thinking of?
'Inspector Gadget' was actually the very first animated series to be presented in stereoand... oh hang on I'm looking at the cartoon's Wikipedia page here, just give me a second.
Okay here's some video game trivia for you: this is the third Inspector Gadget game released, it only came out on the SNES, and it doesn't start with the proper cartoon theme tune! Plus it was apparently developed by a company called AIM and published by Hudson Soft. AIM aren't very well known (to me anyway, I'm sure Iron Man's fought them a few times), but they've already had a couple of their games onto my site: SWAT Kats, which was based on another cartoon, and Fausseté Amour, which probably wasn't. Read on »
This week on Super Adventures, I'm jumping from the oldest Monkey Island of ancient Lucasfilm times to the shiny new one from Telltale: Tales of Monkey Island. Well it's relatively new; it's still six years old now.
Telltale Games was actually formed due to LucasArts' belief that adventure games were over, but after they proved otherwise with games like Sam & Max: Save the World LucasArts' new president was willing to lend them the keys to their top pirate-related game franchise. And thus the world was blessed with a brand new Monkey Island adventure! LucasArts managed to release Special Editions of Monkey Island 1 and 2 around the same time as well, before their next change of management led to a renewed focus on Star Wars dance games or whatever. They're owned by Disney now though and they've let Double Fine remaster Grim Fandango and Day of the Tentacle, so who knows what's going to happen next with Monkey Island.
I'm going to be playing through the whole first episode today, so I'll likely end up spoiling all of it. I’m certain I've finished it before but I hardly remember a thing about it right now so I may struggle a bit. Oh hang on, there are two things I remember: I remember a doctor’s chair puzzle being good and a map puzzle being terrible.
(Click the screenshots to view them at a higher resolution.) Read on »
As a pet care business owner, every time we provide vacation visits for our clients, we always clean and refresh water and food bowls.
A lot of pet owners only refill the water and food bowls but rarely clean them out.
Here is some information on why it is important to clean them out and not just fill them up.
Most of us are guilty of “topping” off the water bowl when it gets close to empty but it’s important to wash the bowl and fill it with new water. Water that sits around will form a slimy residue along the inside of the bowl. Bacteria and fungus will begin to grow. Pets will also eat their food and then go to their water bowl, depositing food in the bowl while they drink.
Cleaning water and food bowls every day is the best. If you’re feeding them wet food, clean the bowls every day. If you are giving your pets dry food, at least a warm water rinse every day and clean the bowls with soap and water at least every few days.
There are several ways you can keep up with the cleaning. Most people will find using the dishwasher the easiest way to clean the bowls, but remember if the bowls are plastic to put them on the top part of the dishwasher to prevent melting. If you’re washing them by hand, use a mild detergent and warm/hot water. Rinse the bores thoroughly to make sure there is no soap residue left behind when you fill the bowls with water again because that could upset your pet’s stomach. Another option is to use disposable plastic inserts for your pets bowl which can be found at most pet food stores.
The best bowls to buy are stainless or porcelain bowls. Ceramic and plastic should be avoided as the nature of these materials provide a breeding ground for bacteria and other germs. Plastic bowls should also be avoided because dogs have a tendency to chew on them.
Another option to give your pet water is the electric or battery operated water fountain. These fountains have water circulating through a pump so the water is always moving. It encourages pets to drink more often and the circulating water will keep it much fresher. However, they will still be needed to be cleaned about twice a week as pet hair, dust and lint will collect in the system.
Cleaning your pets food and water bowls keep your pets happy and healthy !
The 7th edition of "Videogame Cultures and the Future of Interactive Entertainment" (Oxford, 2015) was awesome. There were epic days full of good people and good presentations about the ludic universe. I want to thank Daniel Riha and the other organizers for the chairman invitation. It was an honor to moderate the Player Behaviors' session. Thanks to all participants for the inspiring speeches and for the good company. Thanks Shauna Ashley, Alexia Bhéreur-Lagounaris, Vanessa Erat, Thomas Faller, Veit Frick, Thomas Hale, Declan Humpreys, Bradley James, Ewan Kirkland, Britanny Kuhn, Amanda Marie LeBlanc, David Mizzi, Simon Murphy, Dariusz Poczekalewicz, Daniel Riha, René Schallegger, Felix Schniz, Attila Szantner, Nick Webber, Kieran Wilson. Waiting anxiously for 2016! May the force be with you! #GoGamers
Some good pics from the conference below:
I want to share my paper presented in the meeting: Observing iterative design on the mobile indie game Dominaedro >> Click here for download.
Today on Super Adventures... I'm sitting here listening to the Monkey Island theme. It's one of the all time greatest video game themes in my opinion and the internet agrees with me on this one. Here now that I've hyped it up, have a YouTube link: Secret of Monkey Island CD - Opening Themes.
By the way, it's The Secret of Monkey Island's 25th birthday this month! Or maybe next month, even creator Ron Gilbert says he doesn't know for sure on his blog. Either way it definitely came out in late 1990, just at the point where Lucasfilm Games was being renamed to LucasArts (it has both logos on the box). I actually only found out today which makes this the second time my site's benefited from anniversary serendipity this year, after I accidentally celebrated the Amiga's 30th birthday a few months back. Fate's not often on my side but it does seem to like my website at least.
The Secret of Monkey Island is about as famous as adventure games get, designed by famous developers Ron Gilbert, Tim Schafer and Dave Grossman, who also gave the world the famous Day of the Tentacle along with the also famous Monkey Island 2. It's so famous in fact that there's nothing I can tell you about it you don't already know, and nothing about it I don't already know, so me showing it off right now is utterly pointless on every level! But stick around anyway, it'll be nostalgic. Plus I made GIFs! Read on »
Fear is one of the most ancient feelings orbiting the human existence. The feeling of fear, historically, has been a fruitful basis where different writers, filmmakers and many other storytellers seek the inspiration to create their works. Video games, legitimated as “forms of media, human expression, and cultural importance” (FLANAGAN, 2009, p.67), were not left out of this list; the sophistication of the latest generations of consoles elevated fearful ludic narratives to a new frightening level.
In this context, we can discuss how fear could be a powerful element to construct meaning in some specific video games. Titles like Evil Within, Alan Wake, Slender and many others help us find some answers in this scenario, but in this post, we intend to focus our attention on the game Outlast (Playstation 4, 2014). Created by an independent studio named Red Barrels, the game sets its action in a psychiatric hospital in which the player takes the role of a reporter looking for clues of some bizarre experiments made with the patients. Without weapons or special powers, the player has only one hand cam to help him through the journey. Hide and run are the only options to escape from some creatures and tormented patients of the hospital. This kind of fear-based game, unlike other game genres, e.g. role-playing, first person shooters, puzzle, action, sport games etc., focuses on stimulating the player in a negative way. Check the trailer/gameplay below:
In this situation, fear is understood as creative “fuel” to develop narrative, gameplay, experience and immersion. Spinoza, in his book Ethics (2005), set out to analyze the origin and the nature of human affections taking as its starting point the desire, joy and sadness. Spinoza postulates that human beings, by nature, are passionate and affected by external forces to it. The Dutch philosopher drew a deep observation about feelings/passions that underlie human existence, complying aspects of fear.
The rhetoric of fear allows the development of games with meaning based on horror and terror like Outlast. About this, Ghita (2014, p.58) says as a refining of fear, ‘terror’ constitutes a multifocal aesthetic emotion, whose main feature is the state of anxiety, brought about by a well-balanced series of artistic elements: plot, atmosphere, characters. As an intensification of fear, ‘horror’ represents a unifocal aesthetic emotion, whose main feature is the state of revulsion, brought about by the paroxistical development of the afore-mentioned artistic elements.
In the context of game design using fear/terror/horror to create meaning in Outlast, it has been possible to identify three specific elements as Nielsen and Schønau-Fog (2013, ps.52-53) propose: 1) a deep narrative that allows the player to invest emotions into the character; 2) a deep sense of freedom to establish a connection and a deep grade of immersion on the player; 3) and, finally, the player should feel like a victim rather than a contender. Another point to highlight in this category of games is the use of “illogical architecture to turn houses, gardens and streets into great mazes which would make no sense in the real world” (NIELSEN; SCHØNAU-FOG, 2013, p.45). In Outlast – our main example for this post – we can identify these previous elements strategically hybridized with many different aspects of terror and horror, the narrative works alternating these both aspects to create a stronger immersive experience for the players.
Maral Tajerian, in an article for the site Gamasutra.com entitled “Fight or Flight: The Neuroscience of Survival Horror”, says that anxiety is a point to highlight in terror games. This author also says “next to fear, anxiety is perhaps the most prominent feeling experienced in video games. Unlike fear, which is a response to an imminent threat, anxiety is a response to a future potential threat”.
In this ambient full of “ludic fear” there’s a crucial question: why do some players search for fear and other bad feeling in games? To solve this puzzle, we quote Suits (2005, p.55) who says, “Playing a game is the voluntary attempt to overcome unnecessary obstacles”.
Now on to your opinion.
References:
FLANAGAN, Mary. Critical Play - Radical Game Design. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2009.
GHITA, Catalin. Discussing Romanian Gothic. IN: KATTELMAN, Beth; HODALSKA, Magdalena. Frightful Witnessing: the rhetoric and (re)presentation of fear, horror and terror. Oxford: Inter-Disciplinary Press, 2014.
NIELSEN, Danny Langhoff; SCHØNAU-FOG, Henrik. In the mood for horror: a game design approach on investigating absorbing player experiences in horror games. IN: HUBER, Simon; MITGUTSCH, Konstantin; ROSENSTINGL, Herbert; WAGNER, Michael G; WIMMER, Jeffrey (Eds.). Context Matters! Proceedings of the Vienna Games Conference 2013: Exploring and Reframing Games and Play in Context. New Academic Press: Viena, 2013.
Genesis/Mega Drive, Amiga, DOS, Master System, Lynx, Game Gear, Game Boy, SNES, GBA, PSP
Today on Super Adventures I'm having a look at Desert Strike: Return to the Gulf, the first of EA's legendary Strike series and at the time their biggest selling game ever, beating titles like Road Rage, John Madden Football and, uh, Skate or Die 2: The Search for Double Trouble.
The subtitle's always made it sound like a sequel to me, but the game came out just a year after coalition forces liberated Kuwait from Iraq during the Persian Gulf War and it's actually following on from that. The problems in the Middle East had gotten a lot of news coverage at the time (if you can imagine that), so it was inevitable that a few fictional Saddam Hussain lookalikes would pop up in video games and start threatening the world.
Desert Strike was originally released on the Sega Genesis AKA. the Mega Drive but I'll be playing through the first level of the Amiga port instead because of its improved sound and enhanced visuals. You can see right now how they've enhanced the title screen with a digitised photo featuring trees (but then tinted them brown so we wouldn't notice.)
