Things you should never say to a zombie…

Hiatus.

Fucking awful puns aside, I just wanted to drop in and take a little heat for the two month gap between this post and the last. I could carry on about this burden or that, laying any number of semi-legitimate excuses at your feet as I cast myself prostrate before you, begging forgiveness.
But then I catch myself and remember that I’ve chosen the internet as my amphitheatre, and ultimately… no one gives a shit.

I love the idea of this unique, 21st century affliction of blog neglect. The internet age has bred a modern, mewling mob, with horrors crawling in a thick patina across the little good that’s there for the taking. I mean, I know it’s nothing new, human self ruin is this glorious, sprawling evergreen, and whatever there might be to say about it has been said a dozen, dozen times over, and by people a dozen, dozen times more talented than I. Probably on their blogs too…

But I dig the image, y’know? If only because how else could we live with ourselves? The kaleidoscope shifts from sepia washed pride to this swimming, confetti nightmare. But you roll with it, and find the art in it. I’m sure there’s an astute metaphor for gaming culture in there somewhere. Sigh.

So anyways here I am, blog weak and atrophied, little in the way of excuses to offer. To be totally straight with you, my grown up life has sort of cast itself upwards in this new, terrifying way, and I’ve had to prioritise my efforts to save it all from a torturous capsizing.
I’ve a few things in the works that should hopefully see things at the Mariner take a turn for the better. The ultimate plan is to turn it towards a format that will not only suit the style of commentary we’re aiming for here, but also gel with the more mundane happenings that fund my ability to play with, and bullshit about games as a whole. Hopefully I’ll have more on that in the very near future.

In the meantime, I’ll revisit you as best I can. It’ll be a little more frequent than every two months, but most likely with an irregularity that I won’t be very proud of.

As the smallest of gestures, spy here below a few passing thoughts; languid flotsam set about the watery ruin.

• I pre-ordered Machinarium, the upcoming Point and Click Adventure title from indie Czech developer, Amanita Design. After being solidly brain-washed by the near criminal charm of the recent trailer, there was little I could do to resist clicking that Pay-Pal link. The way I hear it, even Blogger BFF celluloid tongue. fell afoul it’s whirring, robotic wiles…

Machinarium is set for release in October on both PC and Mac, and if you pre-order, Amanita will hook you up with some nice hi-res screens and 5 mp3s from the game’s soundtrack. At only $20 Australian, I’m happy to take a chance on some adorable robots.

• Battlefield: 1943 has been imposing a heavy draft on the little spare time I’ve managed to set aside for proper gaming. I’d been fortunate to avoid most of the rocky server issues during its early weeks, and after 50 odd matches I’m still entranced with how effective the DICE’s original format proves to be.
There’s a real romance in its simplicity, and even with this reboot’s reduced class roster and limited map range, I don’t yet feel the game itself is in want for content.
Each round seems to flow with a near balletic grace, so much so that you’re square in the moment from start to finish. It really speaks to the purity of the overarching gameplay, laid down in the 2002 original. Better still is the fine tuning apparent in this latest entry. The core objective of flag capture feels so smartly balanced, that you won’t find yourself on either side of a landslide defeat. Battles stay tense enough that the hope of victory is ever present, making for an incredibly well paced experience.

Battlefield has in many ways become my new Peggle, being the go to game for when I’ve 20 minutes to kill between this or that. I’m super keen to see what kind of support for the title DICE may have on the cards, further down the road. Beyond that, returning to the Battlefield series on such a positive note has all but guaranteed my pre-order for Bad Company 2.

• As I might of mentioned, before I was a ‘video gamer’, I rocked my joie de dork at embarrassingly fierce levels, cutting my teeth with the more analog tabletop strategy games.
Like so many would-be, Gen Y asthmatics, HeroQuest was my gateway drug into the time and wallet hating world of Games Workshop. So there I found myself, many years, and at least one failed attempt to release a MMO later, GW announced their partnership with Mythic (soon to be EA Mythic).
I was suspicious, and already knee deep in both Guild Wars and City of Heroes. I told myself in harsh words that I couldn’t warrant the time. But who was I to stand against the rushing tide of my own sense of nostalgia? I’m a weak, weak man in my strongest moments, and when they hiked up their skirts with those early concept designs, and rolled their bare shoulders with that teaser trailer… there was little hope left for me.

And so came the closed and then public Betas. I dove in head first, my White Lion of Chrace, Finuvael, carving sweeping arcs of ruin through the ranks of his Druchii cousins, his stoic pangs of regret growing with each ageless, bitter life he found himself forced to take. Needless to say, things were pretty great.

Launch was even better, and in those first beautiful, brief few weeks, the world thrived. My background with the game’s meta-fiction made the world so much richer, as each faceless minion I would be tasked with dispatching harboured an elaborate back-story I was already versed in. I joined groups at will, free of the anxiety that plies the majority of my interactions with online gamers, and for the most part, my encounters were empowering. It was a Golden Age.

And then came the Lich King.

Mere months after a strong and relatively woe-free launch that silenced (for a short-while at least) even the meanest critics, the endless planet eater that is Blizzard birthed their latest magic, refilling wallet into the world. Wrath of the Lich King entered the game, and the game all but ended.
WAR-side, servers thinned and then emptied, sweeping warbands withered rank by rank, leaving scattered, disorganised parties to defend the growing number ghost-town outposts. The exodus was keenly felt.

As with so many, post-WoW MMOs, the measure of their success is marked by their strengths as runner-ups. Can they last throughout that first year or so, and still be a viable source of income to justify the maintenance they demand? The reality of the business can be rough, but for a time, Warhammer: Age of Reckoning looked as though it might have broken that curse.

There’s still life there, and EA Mythic have been transparent in their will to support the title into the future. Alec Meer from Eurogamer recently revisited The Warhammer World to take in the lay of the land, and turned in a wonderful, if bittersweet re-review of the MMO that promised things would be different. I’m on board with a lot of his sentiments.

Additionally, the always informative folks at the Escapist have a brilliant, though somewhat chilling behind the scenes look at the rise and fall of Warhammer Online. Check it out

Enough from me. I’ll see you very soon guys. I promise.

New Brütal Legend Story Trailer Melts Faces, Wins Hearts.

Doubtlessly wrenched from the screaming forge of mishappen Hephaestus, EA have conquered the depths of Mount Etna and unleashed its golden spoils upon us; the sinful, heathen masses.

Behold, a new story trailer for Tim Schafer’s upcoming Metal Fantasy opus, Brütal Legend.

 

Chronicling the deeds of Roadie Supreme, Eddie Riggs (modeled in part after, and voiced by, Rock Comedy Troubadour Jack Black) Brütal Legend is a third person action title from Schafer’s Double Fine Productions.
After a suitably cosmic mishap, Riggs finds himself transported to a fantasy realm, sculpted from classic Heavy Metal cult  imagery, inspired by the artwork of industry icons such as Ed Roth and Frank Franzetta.
A living album cover, populated by soaring bone spires, barking deamons and chainmail lingerie - It’s a shine to the collected, fever dreams of a million metal bands. A cult lifestyle that happens to overlap considerably with gamer culture at large. Google any fan-edited game video, and I could hazard a guess that at least half the time, it’ll be scored by some roaring, indeciferable Nu Metal. 

That said, Brütal Legend is no cusp of the zeitgeist cash-in. Schafer has a strong history within the Metal scene*, and clearly wears his influences on his sleeve. In a (great) profile conducted by 1Up.com’s Matt Leone, Schafer even cites a Megadeth Roadie that he once met named Tony, whom he credits as the inspiration for the concept of a Roadie as a game protagonist (an idea that Schafer originally played with in the classic adventure title, Day of the Tentacle).  
Brütal Legend’s Nordic aesthetic and winks to the works classical masters like Hieronymus Bosch invoke Metal’s traditional assocaitions with the mythical, drawing from the fantasy themes made popular by the likes of genre legends Megadeth, Black Sabbath or Iron Maiden. Despite this imagery being so core to the genre’s musical themes at the time, it rarely made the transitions to music videos, and Schafer has noted that he sees the game as an opportunity to realise those visions.

From the footage released to date, the visuals are quite frankly wonderful, and Double Fine’s decision to pursue a wider colour palette seems to have contributed to an impressively rich design. A trend in gaming that thankfully appears to be waxing.

The game also boasts some impressive vocal talent, centered around a core cast of Rock icons. Lita Ford, Rob Halford and even Ozzy Ozbourne lend their lungs to Brütal Legend’s troupe of players. Originally, Mariner Metal favourite (the right honourable) Ronnie James Dio was set to voice the game’s villain, but as the story evolved, Double Fine changed directions and recast. A little upsetting, but only because I’m the type to bemoan the thought of ‘what could have been’.

Needless to say, there’s a decent amount of excitement building up behind this game as newer generations of metal acolytes add their incomes to the marching, wailing chorus. And despite my musical tastes being largely devoid of the more modern progressive metal, the charm and scope of what Double Fine are building may make for the ultimate gaming love letter to those who went forth and rocked before.

Ordered?

Pre.

Brütal Legend is currently set to melt Australian faces from the 15th of October.

*The ancient among you may even remember another Tim Schafer game that overlaps in part with his love of Metal culture; the touchstone point-and-click adventure title, Full Throttle. As an interesting aside, this incredible game carries the dubious honour of being the culprit behind my first, gaming related case of RSI… the perils of adventure gaming.

Armoured Bears and Stone Automatons. Does that sound like something you might be interested in?

In my impressionable youth, coop newly flown and a broadband connection to call my own, I reached a point that many modern gamers face, and ahead loomed a decision that would fork the very path I walked; which MMO would I chose as my first?

WoW was still young, but already a merciless king. Its reach coveted my office colleagues, and the peer pressure was like gale wind. It was the smartest choice at the time. Entering an MMO alone can be a pretty foolish thing, and the Guild that grew around my fellow designers was expanding by the day. Morning shit-shooting would be dominated by talk of this beast slain or that. Out of the woodwork crawled the very last dudes I’d expect; athletic machismo factories would perk up with bright faces, fresh from a night’s raid on the Horde.
Surely this was the game to pick… I’d be pre-enrolled in a strong community guild, and coming in to work might have even been exciting for a while.

But I’ll level with you… I didn’t dig the art. Something about it. I’m not saying it’s bad by any stretch, just not aesthetically compatible with my tastes. And with hindsight being what it is, The commitment and grind that WoW demands of its minions was is something I’m simply not strong enough to deal with.

Then my friend Jeff told me about Guild Wars.

For reasons best kept to himself, he’d picked up AreanNet’s fledgling, free-to-play MMO on a whim, and as he quested through Pre-Searing Ascalon, he’d send me screenshot after intriguing screenshot.
There was little I could do to resist. The house style of Guild Wars, guided by the incredible Daniel Dociu, was Kryptonite to me. Against it, there was no defence.

So 3 campaigns/expansions, and countless hours later, you would not find a beast in Tyria that I’d yet to slay, nor region or outland that knew not the tread of my Ranger’s feet.

So it’s with no small amount of joy that I draw your attention to the launch of the official Guild Wars 2 website. Resplendent with a stunning announcement trailer, awash with the beautiful art style the stole my ailing, romantic heart in those early, promising days.

Guild Wars 2 will see the series make the move towards a more classically open, persistent world, as opposed to the largely instanced experience that was the game’s trademark. According the the official FAQ, Guild Wars 2 will retain the free-to-play model of its predecessors, as well as introducing 4 new playable races, in addition to the Humans that served as the focus for the early campaigns. Players may now choose from the grizzly Norn and cunning Asura, both introduced in the Eye of the North Expansion. The Sylvari, a young race of sentient, sapien plant-life , and even the games earliest antagonists, the savage Charr.

Story and design have always been at the heart of the franchise, and it looks as though ArenaNet are far from ready to abandon the philosophies that made their MMO experiment so wonderful in the first place.

I’ll be counting the days.

In the meantime, Kotaku have posted a gorgeous spread of concept art and in-game screens for your perusal. Do your eyes a favour.

Suh-woon.

Worms 2: Armageddon Trailer Teases Some Old Favourites

“Another Classic Worms Moment” 

A phrase that heralds both humbled praise and cold, schoolyard shame… Far from the irreverent, whimsical reputation  so easily associated with the title - within the cluttered offices of the Mariner,  Worms is a tourney of champions.

The legacy of Team 17′s light-hearted, though tactically deep, turn-based strategy title is an enduring one. With over a decade of history behind the franchise, Worms has enjoyed an impressive term of service across virtually every gaming platform, from PCs (its first home was the Amiga) to modern day handhelds.
Worms is a true classic, and to this day, remains a strong argument for the value of actually sitting in the same room with your friends and gaming together. Griefing your fellow gamer is that much more satisfying when you can see their look of dismay, and risk the physical reprisals such activity is want to reap.

After the successful launch of Worms as a Xbox Live Arcade title in 2007 (sort of a Worms Lite affair, with a limited arsenal and a campaign of puzzle like challenges), Team 17 are returning to XBLA with a fully fledged successor to 1999′s Worms: Armageddon. 

With a lengthy debut trailer, Worms 2: Armageddon promises to bring the complete arsenal of comic cudgels to XBLA, with a mix of intriguing new concoctions (such as Homing Grenades and some sort of rolling, exploding Bull?!) as well as returning fan favourites (the terrifically devastating Napalm and the near legendary Donkey). Additionally the trailer reveals a brand new vertical map format, as well as a range of new landscape options, which I’m sure for some creative turtling and strategic rope work.
My excitement nears levels difficult to quantify with your simple Earth mathematics.

Though they have yet to announce an official release date, Team 17 have oh so vaguely promised that Worms 2 will be hitting XBLA  sooner rather than later, and have mentioned plans to release the title on both PC and Mac sometime thereafter.

Cannot. Wait.

Good Night Robots: Little Wheel

As the install base for broadband speed connections grows (some countries being a little slower on the uptake that others), so too does the sea of ways in which you can blow your free time deepen.  

That’s not to say it’s all elf bowling and themed shooting galleries. Diversionary filler aside, as a platform for delivering content, the humble web browser has become a great thing for aspiring and indie games developers. Concept titles and portfolio work can lead to some truly talented individuals, and it’s a totally heart warming thing to stumble upon something unique and promising.

Speakin’ of…

Little Wheel is the work of Slovakian developer, One Click Dog. Their sites makes a point of highlighting their design background, and it really shows. The game is drenched in noir-cool and a gorgeous art style.
A classic point and click adventure at heart, Little Wheel is conscious of your time and smartly aware of the brevity favoured by browser based games. In an effort to hasten your experience, One Click Dog does away with the pixel real-estate click fest inherent in the genre by highlighting points of interaction, and surprisingly the game doesn’t suffer for it. Instead things steam along at a pleasant pace, allowing you to enjoy the unique design and awesome, jazzy soundtrack, wrapping it all up with a great end title screen in just under 20 minutes. Perfect for a lunch break.

Little Wheel is one of those rare internet gems, and a real treat to play. I’d honestly love to see One Click Dog revisit this on a larger scale one day. Cannot wait for more from these guys.

Hit the jump and go wake some robots.

Play Little Wheel

Bonus Stage

End your weekend on a high note… by watching a guy dressed as Ryu hate on a car.

You’re a Winner!

What events conspired to delay this day? What machinations twisted their wretched concepts tight, and writhed in evil minds to postpone and prevent? We might never know…

It matters little. The day has come.

Stan Bush’s magnum opus, ‘The Touch’ (or more appropriately, the Ballad of Optimus Prime) , is now available for Guitar Hero: World Tour… for free!

So if you haven’t already done so, roll out to your 360 and/or PS3 and download this masterpiece.
During the 60 seconds or so that may take you, feel free to hit up the embedded video below, and let Stan light your darkest hour.

Where the Wild Things Are: Inside of every console…

Mined from a collection of seemingly trustworthy sources, gaming news blog Joystiq have reported an intriguing rumour; concerning an as of yet unannounced videogame tie-in to children’s classic, Where the Wild Things Are.

Within the Company Culture page of Amaze Entertainment’s corporate website, you’ll find along side games credits of Studio Head Michael Waite, mention of 2 upcoming titles: “as well as two titles due out later this year: Where The Wild Things Are on all console platforms and Indiana Jones and the Staff of Kings for PSP.”

Additionally, the LinkedIn profile of former Amaze programmer Jeremy Stroh lists the game in his credits, naming all major consoles in reference to the title along with a speculative date of October.

Though there is no specific mention of this being based directly on Spike Jones’ promising film adaption of the property, its rumoured release date of October ’09 would make arguing the connection a fool’s errand.

Reader’s who keep up with some of my extracurricular activites, might get a sense of the extent to which I can loose myself within a story, and by all accounts, Jones’ film is shaping up to be another exercise in welcome heart-break for your humble narrator.  Could a videogame capture that same spirit, where the tale itself deals with concepts of rage and abandonment? Possibly.
The concept of anger, and the gravity of its impact can be all to easily lost within the medium of games; a world where violence and inflicting sorrow is itself the most common tool of storytelling.

In my mind, if Amaze take an approach that’s somewhat unique, perhaps taking some notes from Tale of Tales’ incredibly moving and experimental title The Path, I imagine they could discover a way to really engage the player, making the most of Sendak’s enchanting ideas.

Movie tie-ins as a rule carry a common caveat of ‘don’t expect too much’, and to be honest, it’s difficult to disagree when thinking of this game in particular.
For the most part, the end result of your average game is to essentially trivialise the story being told; reducing the narrative to a series of objective based distractions designed to progress the player from point a. to b.  So often a great idea is buried beneath the need to keep people on a designated path (or collection of seemingly divergent paths in the case of most ‘sandbox’ titles), with very little trust being placed in the player’s ability to succumb to the narrative itself.

For myself, it’s a common point of sadness and frustration with most videogames. I’m all for challenge and fun, but all too often, the driving principle of goal-orientated interactivity can lay low the best of ideas, especially when you start talking about story driven gaming.
It’s as though a player’s mere presence in the game world isn’t enough to warrant the game’s trust, they must also be made to collect hundreds of generic trinkets and battle a outwardly normal guy who somehow has transcended to a physical state of being that renders explosive rounds to his flesh no more troubling than a soft breeze.
This sort of thing can undermine the power of a games ability to communicate situational involvement. Games differ from film in that they have the power to suggest a tactile connection to the story’s protagonist. Transcending observation to  suggestions of control. Gaming’s greatest strength is at the same time it’s most apparent weakness, and what exactly is required to balance the two is something the medium as a whole is trying to learn for itself, game by game.

Where The Path succeeds for me, is in its aloofness. Of course this isn’t something all games should try be,  it’s simply one of a myriad of possible genres.
However, when you look at the way Tale of Tales handled communicating the suggested horror in such subtle ways, forgoing combat and platforming to instead trust the player’s fascination with the world and lust for answers; you can get a sense of what a game like Where the Wilde Things Are might need to emulate if they’ve any intention of communicating the same ideas as its source material.

Perhaps this is something best discussed elsewhere, but in the interim, let us keep an ear to the ground, and hope for the best.

Source: Joystiq

Tonguelash… After Dark

Behold!

Straight from the source, Urban Mariner is as pleased as ever to bring you the very latest in inner-Melbourne, enthusiast film commentary… via podcast baby!

After a wee bit of a wait, Episode 3 of celluloid tongue’s official podcast, tonguelash., has hatched, and is now raging, unleashed, upon an unsuspecting world.

Set aside your controllers (or wiimotes… if you’re into that kind of thing) and lend you ears as the ever erudite Gerard Elson (tonguelash host and Editor in Chief of Melbournian film blog, celluloid tongue.) and yours truly are joined by newcomer and belletristic dream-girl, Angela Meyer (of the magnificent literature blog Literary Minded), to discuss a clutch recent films that stole our little hearts.

As an aside, unfortunately tonguelash stalwart Owen Vandenberg (satirical savant behind The Late Breaker) is noticeably absent from this instalment, but fear not… Like Optimus Prime, he’ll return next time, stronger than ever (minus the Red Mist of course).

Within you’ll hear our thoughts on the greatly anticipated J.J. Abrams reboot of Star Trek, as well as some recent Australian features including the beautiful Indigenous love-story Samson and Delilah, and Oscar Winner Adam Elliot’s transcontinental claymation, Mary and Max.
And finally… witness the collapse of composure as your hosts pour one to many and bear their souls in the wake of screenwriting sorcerer Andy Kaufman’s feature debut, Synecdoche New York. Apologies are in order, but we remain unrepentant…

So pour yourself something single-malt, lay out your silk pyjamas and get ready to read our collective diaries.

Toungelash After Dark is at your disposal.

Head your lovely selves over here to download, and if you’re feeling generous, leave a comment.

Week’s End Gaming: Dick Riddick Edition

After an inexcusably long hiatus, my weekly journal continues, reciting for you the myriad ways in which I’ve chosen to dash apart my free time.

The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena - Starbreeze Studios

In 2004, Starbreeze Studios created one of the finest examples of a game based on a licensed property you were likely to find. Here we are five years later, and that statement is still a difficult one to disprove.

The saga of Richard B. Riddick, and the universe that the endearingly passionate David Twohy (along with the world’s toughest nerd, Vin Diesel) have built around him, is one of my all time, top ten guilty pleasures. I feel like a schmuck for having to label their work as such… honestly, but here’s a serious amount of heart in the story Twohy and Diesel are crafting, and the want to tell it is present in everything they say and do concerning the property.

I’m keen to talk at length about this, so I’ll save it for another day. But in the meantime, I can say that having now completed Starbreeze’s latest entry into Riddick Canon, that the experience is entirely satisfying.

The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena actually contains two stories on the one disc, remastering and repackaging the 2004 classic, Escape from Butcher Bay, along with the aforementioned tale of Riddick and Johns’ capture by the mercenary ship, Dark Athena.

Butcher Bay looks as good as ever, and remains a touchstone for the importance of solid voice acting in games. The opening credits for Butcher Bay slowly roll out a who’s who of genre favourites (as an example, the always interesting Cole Hauser joins the near legendary likes of Ron Perlman and Lance Henriksen), most of whom provide some of the best voice work video games have ever seen.
To dispel accusations of hyperbole, I can’t stress enough how natural and inhabited some of these characters feel, and once the game moves into the Dark Athena chapters, combining this with some brilliant facial animation work provides a subtle, film-like experience. It’s a true credit to the animators how much of a performance comes through these collections of polygons, and even without dialogue. Characters emote and communicate through the most subtle of facial gestures, and for a moment you can be forgiven for forgetting the digital hoax behind their miserable, distrusting persona.

If complaints can be made, I’ll say they’d most likely come from the second half of Dark Athena’s story. Where the first few hours aboard the ship tap into everything that makes Riddick great, the follow sections planet-side fall too readily into tired FPS fare. Gone is much of the stealth and hand-to-hand melee that makes Riddick such a badass, and instead you’re left with the Duke Nukem path of traverse points A to B whilst murdering Drones and Minions at range with a dull selection of firearms (though having said that, the SCAR gun is a fun change of pace).
Much has been made of the apparently poor AI of Dark Athena’s antagonists, but in the game’s defense, for most of the game you’re stalking animated meat-puppets, and their predictability is a fairly common stealth convention that still proves challenging, particularly when played on the higher difficulties. Not to say it’s excusable, merely that it’s far from the game breaking ruin some would have you believe.

Though I still (not so) secretly yearn for another big-screen attempt from Diesel and Twohy , if Starbreeze are allowed to continue with the Riddick licence in the meantime, I’ll be more than content to get my Conan in Space fix via a mouse and keyboard.

Gun - Neversoft

I overlooked Gun during my romance with the original Xbox, and now that I’m two thirds of the way through it’s (noticeably) short campaign, I’m truly baffled as to why.

As part of Rebel FM’s excellent Game Club series, the Eat-Sleep-Game guys chose to dust off Neversoft’s Western adventure title and see what it had to offer. Keen to participate (and kicking myself that I missed their Bully play through) I managed to find a brand new copy on eBay, and all for a pleasant $20AU.

The mythology of the American West is about as timeless as they come, yet as a setting for modern video games it’s surprisingly under-utilised. Recent trends seem to be challenging that fact, with Rockstar’s Red Dead Redemption and Ubisoft’s Call of Juarez 2: Bound in Blood eyeballing release in the near future (with the former having just released a pretty rad debut trailer).
However, for an age it seemed as though the Games Industry carried no love for the old west, eschewing the setting of the first game many young men learn to play… at least way back in the day, when their Saturday’s where lit by the distant burn of sunshine, as a preference over the low hum of an LCD display.

2005′s Gun saw a brief departure for Neversoft, then better known for the eighty-something Tony Hawk titles they’d pumped out since acquiring the licence. And though their work on the earlier Spider-Man titles was more than memorable, it always felt as though they performed best as a developer when dolling out the combos-strings and lip-tricks.

Gun however, is a tremendously enjoyable game.

Continuing my earlier thread about acting in video games, like Riddick, Gun is also blessed with a terrfic cast (including turns by Tom Jane and Brad Dourif, as well as going 2 for 2 with another great Lance Henricksen performance) and rolls through a competent, though traditional story of wild west opportunism and revenge. The content on display is about as mature as you’d hope, with Dourif’s sin-smothered preacher dispatching ladies of ill repute with a well placed tomahawk, and Henricksen’s one-eyed ne’er-do-well cleaving prostitute throats left and right… in fact it’s tough to find a lady in this game who doesn’t end up foul of the reaper. And as bad a picture as that paints, it’s presence in the story only serves to remind you that Neversoft were dead serious about making a western worthy of the name.

The game itself is short… about as short as they come, and even with some well employed and refreshingly varied side-quest populating the fairly small open-world, you’ll be done and dusted in about 6-7 hours. Having said that, you’ll be hard pressed to not enjoy the time you do spend there. There’s so much on offer within this seemingly tiny game, and it’s various game-play mechanics are as engaging as you’d hope. Gunplay is dirty and arcade-y, but never frustrating, horse riding is wildly satisfying, and the sheer amount of willful cruelty to animals, both rare and majestic, will leave you feeling maybe more that a little guilty.

If you’ve got the time, and are out for something short and engaging, Gun’s your game man. I truly hope Neversoft find some time in the busy schedule of counting the mountains of Guitar Hero money, and make a return to Gun. There’s plenty of room in gaming for another good western.

At least until the inevitable backlash…

Peggle - Pop Cap Games

At this point in Peggle’s lifespan, I feel like a hack even mentioning it… Like writing about how you just finished the first season of Lost, even the game’s name has become synonymous with counting sheep. Gamers just nod and figure you had some time to kill.

Peggle lounges aloft that digital Olympus of the modern Casual Games market, one of a pantheon of so called ‘time-waster’ titles, who feed and cavort with abandon amid the rounded fractions of our free time.
Sharing a family tree with entries such as Bejeweled, Zuma and Bookworm*, they exist to consume those five to ten minute windows between this engagement and that.

But in the interest of transparency, I list it here for the first and maybe last time. Peggle is one of those magical games that (at least in it’s basic method of gameplay) makes you feel as though your an amazing, talented person, and asks for very little in return. Your laziest, most bachelor-esque moments, outwardly arranged with a finely honed, apathetic aesthetic, can suddenly be rewarded with an explosion of colour and fanfare, bursting across the screen to the stirring strains of the Ode to Joy. It’s a cunning approach that honestly never gets old.

In any case… Peggle, like Bookworm, or Puzzle Quest, or the cool new iPhone entry, Drop 7, will remain on heavy rotation during my never ending moments of indecision and procrastination.

*Though I must admit guys… Bookworm really does it for me.

Flight Control - Firemint

During my time in New Orleans, I remained as prone as ever to my on again off again relationship with sleep. Suffering an acute case of gaming withdrawal, I raided the hotel WiFi to see what iTunes’ App store could do to assuage this.
Fortunately, I found Flight Control. An incredibly addictive and well executed game that I feel is about as close to perfect as a game of this persuasion can be.

Players use the iPhone’s touch interface to direct flight-paths for incoming air traffic, with each landing racking up a point and the warm satisfaction of knowing you’ve saved the lives of hundreds of airborne commuters.
As the game progresses you’re met with ever increasing numbers of aircraft, with cumbersome helicopters taking what feels like forever to clear the path of the fast-paced commercial jets. Coming at you with 4 different craft, each hurtling through the air at a different speed, the game is challenging and heart-pumping, without ever becoming frustrating or stayed. After about 30-40 aircraft, all hell breaks loose, and you’ll be waving off and circling shit left and right. You might even feel quite satisfied by your efforts, reaching seemingly lofty scores in the 90′s or so, only to then log in to the game’s online score board, only be humbled by titanic, and frankly incomprehensible scores that rate in the thousands.
Surely there’s a trick, but some people are far from quick to share their secrets…

Better yet, Flight Control is the product of games developer Firemint, who reside right here in my home town of Melbourne. Australian developers are blossoming into a full fledged industry, and despite some persistent issues with our Government’s approach to Tax Breaks for Games Development, the ever expanding avenues of digital distribution (of which Firemint are huge advocates, and focus on exclusively as their means of publishing), is opening doors for our creators in some really exciting ways.

I can’t recommend this game enough, and each purchase (which at the moment sets you back like $1.20… c’mon!) goes towards supporting a talented, local developer.

Win fucking win.

I recently picked up the wildly popular Drop 7 for the iPhone, and will also finally be spending some time Tale of Tales’ fascinating Horror meets Art meets Game experiment, The Path. Watching my wife play it, I found myself desperately wanting to know more as each of her Little Red Riding Hoods met with confusing and upsetting situations.
Cannot wait.

Anyways, until next time Champions.

As always, hit us up in the comments and let me in what you’ve been playing.