Welcome to Rapture, now get the hell out!

I'm trying to decide whether I should be excited over the announcement of the next Bioshock. While I loved the first game in concept from most everything I've read the second game was largely an unnecessary rehash (before anyone rushes to the latter game's defense know I haven't actually played it, because I still haven't finished the first game. I may love the concept, but the execution leaves a lot to be desired). So the idea of a third sequel sends off warning signals in my head.

BioShock Infinite Premiere Trailer

That being said, the new trailer looks good (though what trailer doesn't really?). And while it's easy to crack jokes about how the game will be 'Splicers on a Plane' at least they actually realized how implausible it was for a decaying underwater city to somehow continue to exist.

Perhaps this this game might be the one that actually adds elements and expands the series properly. Either way, I'm probably not picking up this game at launch.

NiGHTS: Can I Enter the Dream Yet?

For all the games I've ever played, there are at least five more I really wish that I had. I've been working hard to make up for what I've missed, but there are some titles that are harder to track down then others. Like pretty much anything on the Sega Saturn.

Since that oft-maligned console was damn near impossible to emulate until relatively recently, it meant that the only way to play Saturn games was the old fashioned way. This wouldn't be a problem if it weren't for the fact that the old-fashioned way quickly becomes the really-expensive way. Like the triple digits kind of expensive.

Could be worse, I could be collecting NEO GEO carts

Anyway, the end result of this is despite actually owning a Saturn, I have very few games to play. This is why I picked up  NiGHTS: Journey of Dreams, the Wii-exclusive sequel to the original NiGHTS Into Dreams, when I saw it on sale for about $10 used. I had always wanted to play NiGHTS, at the very least to understand what it was and this seemed like the perfect opportunity to do so.

Boy how wrong was I.

Boss Rush: A Shmup that the Exact Opposite of What You Think it is

As much as I like shmups, there is a certain point when they all start to blend together. It doesn't help that most recent entries into the genre are all bullet hell games.

Don't get me wrong, I like the challenge of weaving through a massive wall of bullets.  It's just that I like some variety to my shmup palette.  Which is why an indie game called Boss Rush seems so appealing to me.

The warning messages are a nice touch

Now looking at the above image you might be thinking, "So what?  The game looks like every shmup ever."  This would be true except that you're not playing as the lightly armed (and even more lightly armored) ship trying to kill the giant boss armed with more guns then god.  No, you're controlling actually the boss and using your excessive firepower to swat the annoying fighter that's trying to paper cut you to death.




It's such a neat and obvious inversion of the tradition shmup formula that I'm surprised no one's really done before.  The only other game I can think of that attempted anything similar was an obscure arcade game (even by my standards) by Sammy called Change Air Blade, and there you could only temporarily control a boss in the game's versus mode.

Boss Rush on the other hand, seems to be all about playing as the boss (though there seems to be a versus mode if you want to rain bullets on a friend).  It has five different engines of death for you to control as was a bunch of challenges and a survival mode if you want to see just how long you can last.

While the game is technically done it hasn't been released yet since the developer is looking for a sponsor.  Hopefully the developers will get a deal soon, because I'd love to be able to play the full game.

Paper Dino via A Little Bit on the Awesome Side

A (Sports) Game to Actually Remember

Obviously someone's not too familiar with the retro game market. Very few people think to talk about old spots game, save a select few such as Tecmo Bowl. When Gamestop still carried older platforms, the majority of the titles game were sports titles.

Still, perhaps it is unfair that older sports titles get disregarded by core gamers (and to clarify, when I say "sports games," I mainly mean licensed sports games. Games like Mario sport series are completely different beasts). I'm sure if you actually sat down and played through a bunch of them from different eras there would be a clear evolutionary gameplay trends to them.

The problem is that any gameplay trends tend to be overshadowed by the selection of teams. It's probably safe to say most people buying the latest version of Madden are doing less for the gameplay innovations and more to play as the most current version of their favorite teams. Sure, EA could slow down the cycle and let people download the latest team stats, but why would they want to when the game sells like gangbusters every year?

The conundrum reminds of the one that surrounds games based on other licensed property. People will buy a Harry Potter game, regardless of whether or not it's any good because it's Harry Potter. People buy Madden because it lets them play as their favorite teams. The situation existed long before EA's NFL exclusivity contract, though that certainly doesn't help the situation.

Frankly, I can't see a way to easily change the situation. I myself don't really play sports games, so any suggestion I have would probably be detached from the reality of the situation. Granted, the reality of the situation is why I don't play those games so it's a pretty vicious cycle of indifference there.

in reference to:

""Do you really think, five years from now, you're gonna hear ‘Is Grand Theft Auto on PlayStation 4 as good as Grand Theft Auto on PlayStation 3? Will Halo 6 people really say, ‘Is this as good as Halo 1?'" Justice muses. "I don't think so.""
- Maybe the Greatest of All Time, but not In Its Time - Sports - Kotaku (view on Google Sidewiki)

Games I'm Playing: The Funny Animal Edition

Bit more productive with games this week.  It's amazing how not being sick increases your ability to do stuff.  I even managed to finish another game this week, which means I've actually managed to beat at least one game every week since I started this (Rocket Knight Adventures and Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past would be the past two).  That's shockingly productive as far as I'm concerned.  Anyhow then:

Klona: Empire of Dreams (GBA) - About a month ago I got the remake of the original Klona for the Wii.  After playing through that I started to revisit some of the other games.  Currently I'm on this one, which is also the first Klona game I owned.

I've always had a bit of a soft spot for the Klona series, having first discovered the series through a in-store demo for the second game on PS2.  Unfortunately I did not have a PS2 at the time, so I was unable to jump into the series until this game.

Unlike Klona's console incarnations these games are much more puzzley.  There's been a couple times where I had to pause for a few minutes and wonder how the heck I was supposed to proceed.  I'm still going through it faster then my very first playthrough, especially since I'm skipping the forced scrolling and hoverboard stages.

Overall the game is still as fun as I remember, though I'm noticing how it lacks a lot of the charm and polish of its console brethren.

Sparkster (Genesis) - The second Rocket Knight game (or third, depending on how you're counting) brings a lot of new elements to the table, thought not all of them are improvements sadly.

Changes that are awesome: The rocket pack automatically charges, and you can now boost consecutively.  This means Sparkster can effectively fly in most stages, opening up a lot of new options for the player.

Changes that are not awesome: For some reason Sparkster lost his projectiles, and is left only with a very slow sword slash.  This makes combat a lot more awkward then it needs to be since you have to get so close to enemies now.  Also collecting gems now activates an item roulette, which largely gives you items that are either superfluous or even dangerous most of the time.

The game is still pretty good, but I'm not enjoying it as much as I did Rocket Knight Adventures.

I also played a bunch more of Sonic Chronicles, but since I actually finished that one I'll talk about that separately.  What I will say that it is a bizarre game that feels both highly polished and yet very amateur at the same time.

Games I'm Playing: The Plague-Born Edition, or how I learned to stop worrying and love the Dark World

Well this is somewhat awkward. I make a big show about how I'm going to give gaming snapshots every week, and then I go and mess things up by playing practically no games the following week.

There are many things I could blame this on, but the most appropriate target would be the fact I was sick for the better part of the week.  While I was never sick to the point I stayed the whole day in bed (the fact I'm only working temp being a contributing factor), I was sick to the point I had trouble gathering enough focus to write.  In between the time I spent coughing up lungs and feeling generally miserable, I did have time to play one game...

The one everyone but me likes

In that past I've been rather...unkind to this game, to put it mildly (link to come when I can actually find it).  The reasons for my dislike are long and complex, so I won't go into detail with them right now. Instead I will give the highly-abridged-but-concise version: I was being dumb.  Really dumb.  In fact, I was being so dumb, I made the Zelda CDi games seem like a good idea.

Games That I'm Playing: The First Set

I've recently realized for all the time I spend talking about games, I don't really talk about what I'm actually playing.  Occasionally I might do a review/opinion piece on a game after I finish it, but due to time and forgetfulness these come few and far between.

So I'm going to try and change that by posting weekly snap shots of the game I'm currently playing.  Be warned that they might be somewhat eclectic, because sometimes I'll just jump between games for no good reason.  I'd also mention some of them might be a bit obscure, but that's kind of a given for me.

So without further ado...

Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood - This is the game I've sunk most of my gaming time into lately. It's one I've actually been meaning to play through for a while, but I didn't really have an opportunity until I saw the game in a bargain bin.

While the game overall is pretty fun, it does have some surprisingly large flaws that I won't go into now.  I'm about three-fourths of the way through the game, so hopefully I should finish it so I can write a more detailed piece.

NES Screensaver: Gaming for the Indecisive

Fact: There were a lot of games for the NES.  Like easily over half a thousand.

Theory: Most people will never get a chance to see, much less play every NES game ever made.

Hypothesis: If there were a way to view multiple NES games simultaneously, then it would be easier to for someone to randomly play one.

Conclusion: Someone should make a screensaver that displays multiple NES games in progress and let you jump into one at any time.



What your looking at is M \ K Productions NES Screensaver, which displays a combination in-game demo modes with emulator-recorded movies to create a wall of clips from NES games.  At any time you can click on one of the tiles and start playing the game in an emulator (specifically UberNES, which was made by the same people).

Scope: Play with Your Toys, But with Rules!

There's something elementally pure about tabletop wargames.  Sure, the mere mention of the term brings up images of sweaty men crowded around tables loaded with pewter miniatures, who spend most of their time measuring distances and arguing about positioning.  However, if you tear away all the obsessive military recreations and space marines, then you're left with a game where you pit your toys against another person's toys.  The only difference between a wargame and what you probably did as a kid is that wargames have rules.

Lots of rules, actually.  Which are pretty expensive.  So are the miniatures, for that matter.  Especially when you add in the cost of paint.  Makes you wonder why most people prefer to play video game?

I bring this up because of Scope, an project that attempts to use augmented reality (which is essentially virtual reality's practical younger brother) to create a tabletop wargame with the streamlined interface of a video game.  What really makes this project interesting it the you supply the minatures for the game in the form of your old toys.



As far as I can deduce, the game works by using a combination of special markers and a camera-equipped, head-mounted display.  The camera reads the symbols and feeds them back to a computer, which in turn feeds images to the glasses.  Actually picking the symbols seems to be done by focusing on them.

The end result is you have basically have a wargame with a video game-like interface that effectively deals with hassles typically associated with wargames (most of them involving distance in some form).  Furthermore, the game is can also take obstacles into account for things like cover, which you can supply in the form of boxes, old building blocks or anything along that line.

Perhaps the only bad thing about Scope is the same problem associated with any augmented reality project: the technology involved is probably too expensive to seriously consider as a retail product.  At least it doesn't risk potential safety hangups like some other augmented reality projects.

Scope via GameSetWatch