Twisted Pixel’s ‘Splosion Man will always have a special place in my heart, as it was one of the first titles I reviewed for this site.  On top of that, it’s also one of my favorite XBLA games.  It remains to this day one of the hallmarks of taking simple controls and simple mechanics and crafting a great game out of them.  That’s why it was with a little trepidation that I walked up to Twisted Pixel’s booth at PAX to spend some time with their latest creation, Ms. ‘Splosion Man.  It’s a fine line that the devs had to walk, to develop a sequel that was somehow more than just additional levels, but didn’t over-develop it and burden it with an abundance of new mechanics and play modes.

The verdict?  If the two levels I’ve played were any indication, I think they managed to hit the sweet spot.

The first question that I asked Twisted Pixel’s rep regarding the game was what I think was at the forefront of everyone’s minds: “so what’s different between this and the original game, other than she has a bow on her head?”  His answer sums up one of the reasons I like Twisted Pixel so much: their sense of humor.  “She’s pink, too,” he said with smile.  In all seriousness, however, he then went on to explain that while the original game had roughly a six month dev cycle, a short time by the standards of any modern game, they’ve had over a year to develop this one, which means they could put all of the mechanics and level “gadgets” into the game that they wanted to put into the original.

Continue Reading…

Like most people who sat down to watch the Battlefield 3 demo presented at PAX East this year, my first reaction was “that is going to melt my computer.” The Frostbite 2 engine looks fantastic, and it looks more than capable of utterly annihilating lesser video cards.

The demo video itself (which was hands-off) follows the player and his squad of U.S. soldiers as they deal with a rising insurgency along the Iraq/Iran border. Running through narrow streets and buildings, the team comes under fire from a heavily-armed ambush, and eventually makes their way up several stories of a building to deal with a sniper in an adjacent building. The demo showed off the engine’s destructable terrain, as bullets chipped away at concrete barricades and RPGs took out entire sections of wall.

In the second section of the demo, the player is sent down into a building’s basement to track down a potential IED. While attempting to disarm it, the player is attacked by the bomb-maker and engages in a frantic melee struggle. This sequence appeared to be a scripted quick-time event, but it was hard to discern exactly how it was being controlled on the player end. After dealing with the bomb, the player goes back out into the streets to continue to gun down insurgents from a highway overpass, at which point the Earth itself literally rips open, as a massive earthquake rocks the battlefield. And that’s where the demo concluded.

Beyond the stunning (albeit very brown) graphics, the thing that struck me the most about the demo was the sound; bullets whizzed through the air, impacting into stone and wood, and echoing down narrow alleys. Insurgents shouted in the distance, and other soldiers cried out for help. Overall, there was a chaotic din to every battle that served to draw me into the action in way other recent military FPSes have failed to. It will be interesting to see if this effect will be equivalent at home, without the benefit of a theater sound system.

Ultimately, I walked away from the demo intrigued by what the engine had to offer, but a little disappointed that it did seem to be following in the Modern Warfare style of several recent FPSes. What I am most interested in about Battlefield 3 is what they showed none of: the multiplayer. Hopefully we’ll be seeing more of that in the coming months, as that has always been the core of the Battlefield series.

I’ll be honest, even sitting in the middle of the Duke Nuke Forever both at PAX, playing the actual game with an actual controller on an actual screen, I still felt like maybe this was just a really elaborate practical joke on everyone. DNF couldn’t possibly be really coming out, right? With over a decade of storied history behind it, the game that went from sequel to vaporware to punchline just seemed like something that was never going to really exist.

Well, exist it does, and maybe that’s not such a good thing.

My time with the game was brief, encompassing separate, short sections. The first set the tone right away by starting Duke at a urinal and having me use it for its intended purpose. From there, I moved into a locker room full of Earth soldiers, with a fun little bonus involving a planning whiteboard. Picking up the different colored pens, I could pretty much doodle to my heart’s content on the board. After that, I picked up some guns, headed through some soldier-filled hallways, and emerged in the middle of a stadium to face off with a giant Cycloid. This battle, while impressive in size and setting, left a lot to be desired in terms of interest. With no cover to speak of, and set in a giant open area, my only real tactic was to circle-strafe around the giant, firing rockets at its back to do some extra damage. The Cycloid had a lot of health, but was slow with its attacks and never put me in much danger. When I ran out of ammo, I simply had to run to a nearby flare to pick up an “airdrop” of more rockets.

After finishing the fight, it was revealed that the Cycloid fight wasn’t the game at all, but actually – surprise! – a game-within-the-game that Duke was playing while he lounged around his luxurious home with his “sexy” twins. “Was it good, Duke?” they ask. “It damn well better be after twelve years,” he grouses in response. And that, folks, is your zinger right there. Sadly, the joke falls a little flat when what you just played really wasn’t that good at all.

The second section of the demo had me driving a dune-buggy through some desert canyons while aliens took pot shots at me and boulders rolled down from on high. The car controls were clunky, and the entire drive felt like something out of an FPS from years gone by; drive-squash-dodge does not make for the most compelling action these days. After running out of gas, I was switched back to the normal first-person perspective and set about exploring the desert/shooting a lot of pig-men/throwing barrels.

Overall, the word that kept coming to mind as I played the demo was dated. The controls felt dated, the graphics felt dated, and the level/puzzle design felt uninspired and dated. But, most importantly, what really felt dated was the humor. I was 17 years old when Duke Nukem 3D came out; now, 15 years later, it’s become rather obvious that maybe what could earn a chuckle out of me back then just can’t quite cut it these days. Sure, Duke is still gruff and misogynistic, but piss jokes and boobies just aren’t enough to compel me to sit through a seemingly shoddy game.

If Duke Nukem Forever had come out 12 years ago when it was supposed to, I’d probably be very excited about it right now. But here, in the year 2011, it just feels like a relic from a different time, designed for an audience I am no longer a part of. Maybe the guy who is still clutching his EB Games pre-order receipt from 1998 will still be interested in Duke Nuke Forever, but for me, I’d rather remember it as was: the best joke in gaming.

My first hands-on experience with Mortal Kombat was fraught with nostalgia. Like many gamers, I had become completely disenchanted with the “MK Formula” when the game abandoned its 2D roots and went to an all-3D, multiplane formula for fighting. The games seemed to reach way too far and became ungraspable to the casual player, not to mention became beset by numerous technical flaws. But we’re not here to talk about the old Mortal Kombat. We’re rolling out the old, and rolling in the new. The new Mortal Kombat. Which is aptly named Mortal Kombat.  No numbers, no subtitles– the reboot of the title represents what Midway informed me was a reboot of the franchise in general.

Boy, were they not kidding.  The game, despite its new graphical trappings, was a total time-warp back to 1992, with me in short-pants standing in the local arcade, pockets loaded with quarters. I chose Scorpion, my all-time favorite character, and Kitana, someone who I recognized from the later MKs but never spent any quality time with. The motion capture look has been completely done away with. Now all of the characters are rendered completely in 3D. The gameplay itself adheres to the old arcade version’s 2D trappings, however– no doubt, this is the MK of old.  The large chunks of Scorpion’s moveset I still retained somewhere in my brain still worked. I was informed that a lot of the classic moves would still work, albeit refreshed with new comboing opportunities, as well as follow-ups into combos and chained moves.

The build we saw was nearly feature-complete, although all of the characters had not yet been revealed. While I didn’t get any time to spend hands-on with the custom sticks being released with the Tournament Edition of the game, they looked responsive and well-built; I was informed that the sticks and buttons would come from Happ Controls, a reputable parts-maker for American arcades.  Much like the Street Fighter tourney sticks, MK fans will be getting their own Tourney Stick with a button layout specific to Mortal Kombat.

While I only was able to get one match under my belt, the game looks to be a great throwback, and I’m eager to give it some more time once the game sees retail release on April 19th for XBox 360 and Playstation 3.

I’m not going to lie, I will always be slightly biased towards liking Double Fine’s work — after all, they made Psychonauts, which is still my go-to game whenever I feel the need to hold a game aloft and scream “This! This is how you write games! Play this, and learn!” They’ve been on an odd track as of late, though. The company released Psychonauts, then Brutal Legend, and then went dormant for several years. When nary a peep had been heard from them in what in the video game world would be considered ages, Double Fine suddenly came back swinging, busting out high-quality XBLA titles, one after the other. In the past year, they’ve released the super-fun Costume Quest, the well-recieved Stacking, and now I find myself at their booth getting my hands on their latest release, Trenched. Trenched, when compared to its other Double Fine XBLA bretheren, is a bit of a differnet animal. As my demo guide informed me, the team was split up into several groups. One made the “JRPG, because that’s what they liked,” the guide explained to me. “Another wanted to make a puzzle game, and that’s where Stacking came from. I personally wanted to make a spin on the tower defense style game, and so I made Trenched.”  

Trenched is, true to his claim, an interesting spin on the tried and tested tower defense genre. Instead of hovering miles above, dropping your units and turrets and then sitting idly by to find out whether your defense succeeds, this game puts you in the, well, trenches, commanding your own mecha, reminiscent of the MechAssault games. You direct your turret construction and defense deployment from the field itself, never wavering from a view over the shoulder of your mech’s pilot. It’s jarring at first, being only able to get a limited view of the battlefield; distance actually becomes a factor in defense deployment.  If you want to place a turret on the other side of the battlefield, you actually have to walk over there and issue the order. Once the turret is deployed, your mech can actually join the fight itself, firing at enemies with one of two interchangeable weapons. Much like other tower defense games, each mission is composed of multiple waves, with breaks in between the waves for you to repair, upgrade, and build your defenses. You can also outfit your mech between missions with loot recovered during previous sorties. It’s a daunting task, but fortunately you don’t have to be alone in the endeavor. The game supports online co-op, and has been designed from the ground up to be played as such. While the game will scale back to be easier if played alone, it really shines when played as I did, with a full troop complement of all three different mech types.  

I’d be remiss if I didn’t close by mentioning the game’s fantastic art style. The game takes a big cue from the old propaganda style of war magazines, and, as my demo proctor informed me, “focuses on all things overly manly.” Everyone in the game is a big burly dude, and each story cutscene is hand-drawn in true propaganda poster fashion, illustrating the military’s ongoing struggle with mad science. While a specific release date was not discussed, I was informed that the build I was playing was, in fact, final code, and that the game had been submitted for certification this very day, which means we should be playing Trenched on our “downloadable system of choice” in the near future.

Gather round, children, It’s time uncle Jeff told you about a dark period in his life.  A period in which he sat, a huddled, unblinking mass, completely oblivious to the outside world, observing with rapt attention the subtle shifting and moving of colored shapes in front of him; alternately laughing and weeping at odd intervals, screaming with joy and agony at seemingly no one in particular.  Now I know what you’re thinking, children, and no, uncle Jeff didn’t have a heroin addiction.  Uncle Jeff was addicted to a game.  A game called Puzzle Quest.

Continue Reading…

When a very excited man in full desert combat dress runs up with something to tell you, it’s generally good practice to give him a listen.  At PAX East, the man in question was David Tractenberg, PR representative for Atomic Games, and the message in question was all about their upcoming XBLA title: Breach.

Atomic Games, who have previously worked on simulations for the military, are making the jump to the 360 with this 16-player shooter set for launch in early summer.  Much like Battlefield 1943, Breach is a “discount” title at $15, with a handful of initial maps and plans for expansion later on down the line.  To anyone who has played Modern Warfare or Bad Company, the basics of Breach will be very familiar: players choose from a variety of classes, each with their own weapons and abilities.  The more you play, the more experience you gain, which unlocks new classes and weapons.

Continue Reading…

Among the games that have occupied the most hours of my life, I am pretty confident in saying that the Civilization series takes the #1 spot overall.  Since I first had a 5.25″ floppy thrust into my hands by an excited friend on the back of the school bus right up through yesterday, Civilization games have always had a place on my hard drive and in my heart.

Continue Reading…

Just got out of the IF discussion panel led by some of the heavy-hitters in the field such as Andrew Plotkin and Emily Short.  All in all, it was an illuminating hour and led to some fascinating examinations of how players relate to player-characters, levels of interaction in games, and how moral choices need to evolve beyond halos or horns in modern gaming.  I’ll have a longer write up of the panel later, but for now it’s off to a look at how Indie Games need to fight dirty to make a name for themselves in the market.