The Random Blog!

V-UTNE Issue One

2011-04-25T14:55:00.000-07:00

Nintendo announced this week that it will be unveiling a new console that will be "significantly more powerful" than the PS3 and Xbox 360. It will be backwards compatible with current Wii software, and will have a more traditional controller, albeit one with a touchscreen on it. It will be officially unveiled at E3 this June.

http://wii.ign.com/articles/116/1163764p1.html

Could dinosaurs play video games? Check out this nifty little tidbit over at IGN, to celebrate dinosaur week.

http://ps3.ign.com/articles/116/1163587p1.html

The complaints continue to pour in at Sony after almost a week of the PlayStation Network being down. Sony is being "frustratingly vague" on this subject, although hacker group Anonymous has confirmed it was not them.

http://ps3.ign.com/articles/116/1163747p1.html

The hype around Max Payne 3 has been kicked into overdrive: new screenshots have been released by Rockstar. The screenshots are stunning.

http://www.pcgamer.com/2011/04/24/new-max-payne-3-screens-show-hair-and-coats/

Super Crate Box

2011-04-25T14:06:00.001-07:00

Ah, the good old days... the days when a video game was all about getting a higher score than everyone else. Story was unimportant, nobody cared about the engine it ran on, and everything was measured in bits. Well, here's a game that really panders to those times: Super Crate Box. Super Crate Box is an odd title, but it fits the game perfectly. The point of the game is to collect boxes. Boxes give you random weapons, but you can only have one weapon at a time. This is the odd part of the game. You score by getting a box, which gives you a new weapon, which take away your old one. The point is to adapt to whatever weapon you has until you can get a new weapon. It's incredibly simple. But, simple doesn't mean easy. This is a ridiculously hard game, which is something going both for it and against it. (To give you an idea of how hard it is, if you averaged my score, you would probably get 4.) Add in a rockin chiptune soundtrack to the addicting gameplay, and you have a winner. This is the perfect retro throwback that is still a contender today. And, since it's completely free and for both Mac and PC, nobody should go without this game.

FINAL SCORES:

Graphics: 1/5. You can tell what's going on, and it certainly looks retro, but the pixels are a little too big.

Gameplay: 5/5. This game wouldn't be worth the price (yes, it's free) if not for the gameplay.

Plot: 0/5. There is no plot.

Footnotes:

Great soundtrack +1

Addicting +1

Free +2

Perfect for those moments when there's nothing else to do +3

13/15

The Best Diversion Ever

2011-04-25T11:33:00.000-07:00

I just bought the new issue of PCGamer, and opened it up yesterday. And I found a neat little game I want all of you to know about. The game I speak of is Super Crate Box. I'm not going to review it, I just wanted you all to know of it. www.supercratebox.com

I'm trying to start adding little blurbs on a daily basis.

Things like this.

So, come on over to my blog and subscribe now.

It's Back

2011-04-25T08:21:00.000-07:00

The contest is back!! Except, this time, it's a game for both mac and pc!! It's.... Half Life 2 Deathmatch!!!

The rules this time around are simple: subscribe to this blog, and leave your steam name as a comment on this post!! And be eligible to win!!!!!

YAAY!!!!!

The "V-UTNE" Reader

2011-04-24T13:20:00.000-07:00

How many of you know what the UTNE reader is? Yeah, that's kind of what I thought. The UTNE reader is a monthly magazine that has summaries of articles from lots of other magazines, like Rolling Stone, The New Yorker, and the Atlantic. They compile all of these summaries, and release it as, if you will, a summary of the month in articles. Guess what? I'm applying that concept to here! But, it'll be weekly, and only be about video games. I'll grab articles from sites like IGN, Gamespot, PCGamer, etc., every week, and summarize them. Subscribe to my blog now, and receive the week in video games, every week!

Thank you.

Canceled

2011-04-18T14:54:00.001-07:00

The Magicka contest has been canceled. Sorry, but it's been a week and nobody has signed up yet.

New Rating System

2011-04-14T03:54:00.000-07:00

I'm implementing a new rating system for games. The system calls for shorter reviews, and I find this to be a good thing because then I can write more of them. Here's how it works:

PLOT: X/5

GAMEPLAY: X/5

GRAPHICS: X/5

Thanks. My rating system has been a bit unclear in the past, and has changed with every game I review.

Magicka Review

2011-04-13T17:36:00.000-07:00

Hey, and welcome back! Sorry I haven't reviewed anything recently... I've been busy. Anyways...

Magic... one of the staples of the fantasy genre. Everyone knows that casting magic in fantasy games is usually unnecessarily hard, and usually involves hotkeys. Well, Magicka is here to change that. Unfortunately, it still involves hotkeys. Magicka has a simple idea driving it: dynamic spell casting. This is just what it sounds like: you press a key to cast a spell. However, it gets a little more complex than that. The QWERASDF keys are each mapped to a different element (water, life, shield, frost, lightning, arcane, earth, and fire, in the order the keys are listed). Single-element, single-press spells are easy to cast, and can be effective, but they tend to be no fun, or at least not as fun as they could be. And the spell system definitely was designed with them in mind. See, you can use up to 5 different elements in a single spell, which is where the game starts to get interesting. Different combinations of elements allow you to cast different spells, and the elements react in some fun ways. This is where the game's true appeal comes from: casting and successfully using spells in unconventional ways. For example, combining shield and arcane makes a barrier of land mines. Add in the fact that there are four different ways to cast spells: regular, self, area, and weapon. Regular spells react the fact that you think they would: cast frost and a spray of snow shoots out of your staff that ices over enemies and turns the ground below the area of effect into permafrost, and will turn water into ice to walk across it. Self spells cast the chosen spell on yourself: self-cast fire and you will set yourself on fire, significantly shortening your expected lifespan. Area casting changes the spell's area of effect to a circle around your character. Area-cast earth to make an earthquake around your character, for example. Melee casting works a little differently: your sword is imbued with the element. If you melee cast lightning, your next sword swing will shock your enemy, and all of the enemies around the unlucky fellow. There are also magicks you can discover: magicks are spells that you can cast by conjuring the needed elements and pressing the spacebar. All of this raises a serious question, though: can't you just go into combat with a huge spell prepared and completely own everything in your path? Actually, you can't: every element in your currently conjured (that you haven't cast yet), your movement is reduced by 20%. So, if you have a big spell prepared going in to combat, you are practically a sitting duck for your enemies. The game's setting, unfortunately, is a lot less intuitive than the spellcasting: it's a typical cut-and-paste fantasy setting, and the plot is as well. What saves this game from being a complete cliche in this subject is the sense of humor. The game has homages in it of everything from Indiana Jones (a goblin shaman yelling KAH-LI-MAAA!) to Games Workshop (a blacksmith named Gram who as a Gram's Workshop sign, written in the Games Workshop logo style, outside of his house) to Terry Pratchett (occasionally, you find walking treasure chests made of sapient pearwood). In addition to throwing in nerd/pop culture references from all over the place, the game just has a goofy sense of humor (my personal favorite is the boss fight at the end of the tutorial: you fight a Beholder, and come up out of the dungeon, and the first thing anybody says to you is "we sent our pet beholder down there to look around for you.") So, the humor definitely saves the game in this department. One thing I really don't want to mention is the bugs: the game does have some of these. Occasionally it won't load the title screen properly, the game crashes just barely enough to be irritating, and sometimes text boxes won't load during conversation (which is a pain in the ass, since all of the characters speak in a cross between Nordic and Gibberish.) But, despite these bugs, Magicka is definitely worth checking out, or, at the very least, downloading the demo.

PLOT: 3/5. There really isn't much here, but it's fine if you like a chuckle or two.

GAMEPLAY: 5/5. Magicka nails this. There really won't be a good way to go back to traditional spellcasting once you get the hang of this.
GRAPHICS: 4/5. The graphics aren't anything special, but the effects (ice, fire, etc.) look great in the way they interact with the environment.

Total score: 12/15

CONTEST!!!!!

2011-04-13T17:25:00.000-07:00

Hey, look, a contest!! This is something completely new. The purpose of the contest is to get more people to subscribe to my blog. So, here are the rules:

You must be a subscriber to be eligible for the contest.
To enter the contest, you must post a comment on this post. The comment must contain your steam address. If you are already steam friends with me, you still need to post your steam name. In addition, it must list the names of at least two friends that you get to subscribe to my blog. THESE FRIENDS CANNOT ALREADY BE SUBSCRIBERS!!! Then, you must give them my email, which is rocketman.eltonjohn@gmail.com and they must send me emails telling me who they are and what their subscriber names. They can enter this contest, and must get two of their friends to enter this.

The winner will receive a free copy of the game Magicka.

Note: My Steam address will show as Santa Mother&*%ing Claus.

Best of wishes,

Simon H.

Good luck!

Supreme Commander 2: Best RTS Ever, or Falling Short?

2010-12-27T11:10:00.000-08:00

Micromanagement is key. This is what has dictated who wins and who loses in Real-Time-Strategy (RTS) games for, well, forever. Or at least since they were invented. The winner is the one who can micromanage better. In other words, whoever knows more about the different troop choices, what strategies counter what strategies effectively, and what unit a unit can and can't efficiently do is the deciding factor in any RTS. Which is a pretty daunting task in Supreme Commander 2. You, the general, control literally hundreds of units, separate them into platoons, and control the way your troops fight (do you want them to go on the offensive, and only kill enemies that get in their way, or soldiers that proudly defend your base, killing everyone foolish enough to launch an attack at you?) on three fronts: earthen combat, naval combat, and sky combat. Thankfully, Supreme Commander 2 makes this task easier on you in several ways: giving you only three different factions to choose from, an intuitive mapping system, using intuitive tech trees to make sure you get to play the way you want to, only 3 resources to keep track of, and using three different fronts for the battle.

The factions are a major part of any RTS: each one should play radically different from another, with its own strengths and drawbacks. Supreme Commander 2 nails this idea on the head: The three factions (UEF, Cybran, and Illuminate) all are unique. The UEF (United Earth Federation) uses massed firepower, along with long range artillery support, to completely overwhelm their enemies. The Cybran (Cyborg people that want to assimilate the other races) use elite troops and gigantic killing machines, along with powerful air and naval units, to pound opposition into the dust over time. The Illuminate (Scientologists with guns) have an unusual naval advantage: they have no navy. Instead, all of their units (with the exception of Harvog Assault Bots) can traverse water. This leads everybody to choose one of the three factions and play differently.

In an RTS, as previously stated, knowledge is power. However, something that is almost as important, if not as important, as knowledge is knowing the terrain. With up to 1,000 units in play at once, Supreme Commander 2 needs to have big maps. And it does. With maps spanning hundreds of kilometers, Supreme Commander 2 really needs a good way to keep track of everything. Thank goodness it does. Not having a good mapping system for the game would make it a pain to both navigate the world and guide your armies to victory. Without a good mapping system, this game would never be any good to anybody except the extremely tolerant. Well, I for one am very happy the mapping system delivers. The armies are not only color coded, to show what units are who's, but each one has a different symbol attached to it (in the army's color) to make sure that you can distinguish what units are what, on a field of hundreds.

Another regular part of an RTS is the research, tech, or, in one case, the worship tree. This is seamlessly integrated into Supreme Commander 2, and each army has different choices that make it beautiful to play and make your army into, well, your army. The choices range from health upgrades, to shields, to unlocking new units like the Megalith II and the Universal Colossus.

What's also great is that in Supreme Commander 2, you only have three resources to keep track of: mass, energy, and research. Mass and energy are used for building units and buildings, and research is the resource that fuels your tech tree.

The idea of having three different wars to fight (naval, land, and air) is not alien to the RTS genre. But, Supreme Commander 2 executes this idea perfectly. Different units have different capabilities (some units can only hit air units, some can hit ground and naval units, some can hit everything) which makes the battle not only more strategic, but also more interesting to watch.

All in all, this adds up to be the best RTS I have ever played.

Verdict: 5/5

-Simon

Happy New Year!

2010-01-05T14:30:00.001-08:00

BlueShift

2009-12-21T07:10:00.000-08:00

BlueShift is a sci-fic flash shoot-em-up video game created by great game studio Diseased Productions. When you first open BlueShift, the game starts playing futuristic music and you are asked to choose which save file you want to open. After this, you start playing the actual game, and man, is it hard. At first, you just have a small pistol-type thing on your craft, but by shooting down different aircraft, you can get new weapons, like chainsaws, shotguns, and lasers. However, this does not distract from the difficulty of the game at all. The different weapons are all good in different ways, and it is fun to see what combination works best. I think the best three weapons are the homing missiles, laser, and shotgun. However, it is fun to maximize what you personally like with what is the most fun.

PROS

Fun

Easy to access because it is online

Free

CONS

Frustrating

Cliche, almost nonexistent plot

OVERALL

8/10

Hello

2009-12-21T07:07:00.000-08:00

Hello and welcome to my blog. This is a blog for reviews of whatever the hell I feel like reviewing. It will be games, electronic and tabletop, books, movies, and other miscellaneous crap. It will be done with my trademark dry humor, and will be funny but true. Thank you for having the patience to read this. Enjoy!