Month: March 2014

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Towerfall: Ascension

OK, so I only have one PS4 controller – for my second one, I want the blue version, which is currently out-of-stock – so I haven’t been able to play this against someone else, like you’re supposed to, but I’m still having a blast with it. That’s because the game now includes a “Quest” mode that you can play alone or co-op with one more player, which is basically you facing off against hordes of enemies. Fun. There are challenge screens too. Can’t wait to play this with some friends over, as we hurl insults in sync with the arrows slicing through everyone’s soon-to-be-dead corpse.

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Luftrausers

A dogfighting game with minimal 8-bit graphics didn’t sound like something I’d be really into playing, but it’s gotten to a point where I’ll buy anything by Vlambeer on day 1, and so that’s what I did with this. I got the Vita/PS3 (cross-play) version, and so far have only played on Vita, which is how I really wanted to play it anyway. This game is incredibly addictive, and the way that you just start up a new game so quickly (flick up) after you die makes it so that it’s hard to stop. I really dig the controls – it’s not a twin-stick shooter, you’re giving your plane a boost by pushing up on the analog stick, and steering by pushing left or right. Stop shooting and you can heal yourself automatically. I was having a blast going in controlled stalls to get in a better position to shoot down my enemies, and the upgrade system – you unlock new parts for your plane – gives a nice variety to the gameplay. 

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The Wolf of Wall Street

Well, no matter which way you fall on this movie, you gotta admit it’s pretty entertaining. It’s 3 hours long but I felt it fly by, with pretty great performances by everyone involved – especially Jonah Hill. Yes, these people are all despicable, but it sure is a fun ride to see them reach their lows of lows.

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Ground Control to Major Tom

We’re going to make a game.

Following the launch of the PressPause site the other day and the call-out to see who would be interested in taking part in the workshop, I’ve been very happy to see such an enthusiastic response — more than I was expecting, to be honest — and so we are definitely going to be doing this.

I’d like to also give out a big thanks to Daryl Cole, a Tokyo-based developer orginally from Ireland, who will be leading the workshop in showing us all how to use the Unity engine. He contacted me after the initial post I wrote here, and is genuinely interested in working on a group project like this.

So what next?

I’m going to wait a week or so to collect all the names of the people who are interested in taking part (if you are interested and haven’t done so yet, please drop me a note), and then I’ll contact everyone with a time and place for the first meeting. Considering the number of people who have already expressed interest, it looks like we’ll be organizing teams, instead of everyone just working together on the same thing. The discussion that happens at that first meeting will also help determine how we can properly do this.

Excite.

So again, big thanks to everyone who has shown interest, and also to those of you who helped spread the word about the project.

Oh, and on the PressPause site I only used the abbreviated version of the logo I created, but here’s the full logo, in all its retro glory.

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Super League Football

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The other Zen Pinball 2 table I’ve been playing is the Super League Football one. It’s interesting in that you choose the team you like, and get a table that is themed after that team. Not being a football fan at all though, I had no idea which one to get, and thankfully the developer also released a Zen Studios themed one, which is what I got. Go devs! It’s pretty fun so far, with a nice representation of football in pinball form – the more passes you do (i.e. going up certain lanes), the more defenders you eliminate in the area where you can eventually try to shoot for a goal. 

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Doctor Strange

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Zen Pinball 2 continues to be one of my most played games on PS4, and I was happy to get two new tables recently. First up is the Doctor Strange one, and although I thought it looked a bit plain when I first saw it, I am now digging the sort of psychedelic colors, and I’ve managed to rack up close to 30 million so far – on a match in which I did the full “Nightmare” mission. Again, as a reminder, you should buy these tables on PS3 or Vita, and then import it to PS4 (if you buy on PS4, you can’t play them on the other consoles).

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The Cave

I’m not quite sure why I hadn’t played this yet – I did get it when it first came out (on PS3), but for some reason hadn’t played much. Watching all of the Amnesia Fortnight videos put me in a mood to play it again, and I’ve been having such a good time with it. I love the aesthetics, the co-op aspect of playing 3 characters at the same time, and the levels/puzzles themselves are pretty fun and interesting. It’s out on iOS too now, but I can’t see that being better than playing with a proper controller, since the game does present itself as a platformer. Ron Gilbert was the lead on this, and you can definitely tell from the humor. 

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Beyond: Two Souls

This was a game from last year I really wanted to play – I did love Heavy Rain – and I’ve finally gotten around to playing it. I must say, it beats Heavy Rain on every level. The story is engaging – and despite the criticism I read, I quite like the fact that it jumps around in the timeline – and there’s much more “game-y” gameplay than in Heavy Rain – even the QTE elements are done in a more interesting way, especially with the action. I also dug how it makes you play through the mundane parts of a person’s life. For example, the cleaning up and preparing for the main character’s date night made a good point of how important this was to her, and then when the date was happening, since I wanted it to go well, I had to fight the temptation to let Aiden ruin in. Can’t wait to play David Cage’s next game.

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Amnesia Fortnight 2014

Bar none, this is my favorite reality series. If you’re new to this, every year (or close to it) game studio Double Fine organizes an internal 2-week game jam, with 4-5 game prototypes getting made, and a lot of these games end up become full projects within the studio. The last 2 editions have been documented by 2 Player Production – who have also created the “making of” documentary for the studio’s Broken Age game – and so you end up with 10 half-hour episodes (plus a post mortem) that reveal what went on during each day of production. This year’s edition is still ongoing (“Day 7” is the latest release) and I’m so enjoying seeing how these teams are working together to produce games in such a short amount of time – I’m currently most interested in the Dear Leader game. Earlier this month they also released all the episodes for the 2012 edition, which I watched as well. I love waking up to a new episode, and it’ll suck when it’s over.

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The After

Since I’ve always been a fan of Chris Carter’s shows (X-Files of course, but even the Lone Gunmen spinoff, and Millennium too) I was really curious to check this out. It’s one of the pilots that Amazon released recently, and I have no idea how they decide whether to order a full season or not, but based on this first episode, I hope that happens. The episode itself is so-so, but the setup is quite interesting, especially the apparent link between the characters, and then the big reveal at the very end.