I know it's not Wednesday. I know this isn't a Galaga anniversary post. You'll get that tomorrow. I just wanted to spread the word about this new web serial I heard about today. I am very much a fan of pulp adventure and anything that has laser blasters, sci-fi flyboys, and strange, malevolent beings from beyond piques my interest.
So, imagine my excitement when I found out about this show coming out called The Mercury Men on a commercial on the Syfy network. The show is premiering on syfy.com next Monday (July 25). Right now, they have a bunch of extra content on the show's website, including behind the scenes footage, pictures of promo posters, a fake toy line in the vein of the Kenner Star Wars toys, and this trailer to whet your appetite.
Don't forget to check out the website for more extras and keep your eyes peeled next Monday for the premiere of The Mercury Men.
19 July 2011
13 July 2011
Forgotten Worlds - Galaga Turns 30 (Part 2)
Anyway, back to Galaga's 30th anniversary.
In 1978, Taito created what would be considered one of the most influential games in arcade history: Space Invaders. Considered the father of all shoot 'em ups, its popularity has spawned a plethora (I say plethora) of direct imitators. Out of all of them, the most popular has to be Namco's Galaxian.
Created one year later, Galaxian takes the classic formula of Space Invaders and adds its own elements. Where Space Invaders had you fighting rows of aliens as they slowly advanced toward the planet, bombarding you with death rays, Galaxian had your ship and the enemies floating through space. One-by-one, the aliens fly toward you, kamikaze style. It was a style cloned by other games, such as Phoenix and Gorf (which had a mission called "Galaxians," as Midway owned the rights to many Namco games in the US (something they would abuse on many occasions).
With the sequel, Galaga, Namco perfected the formula they started. Galaxian only added dive bombing enemies to Space Invaders' foundation (even a lot of the sounds from Galaxian are extremely reminiscent of Space Invaders). Even though Galaga overshadowed its predecessor, Galaxian was still very popular and is considered a classic.
If you've never played Galaxian (which has been ported to just as many console systems as Galaga), check out this video and compare with the gameplay of Galaga.
And if you enjoyed making your own mini Galaga machine out of paper, here's the papercraft version of Galaxian to add to your papercade. Click, print, cut, fold, paste - you get the idea.
Next time, on Forgotten Worlds, (maybe next week, maybe not), I'll go over the sequels to Galaga. Keep in mind, these are not sequels to Galaxian. I'll get to those another time.
Keep your scores high and the quarters flowing.
09 July 2011
Tribe update
It's been a little while since I talked about the ongoing adventures of the Tribe Server. We now have most of the bugs worked out, we seem to have found a bunch of new people since the Uber update, and we now have a somewhat active community. In fact right after the update or server was fully loaded for a good chunk of a week. It's drop off some, but we hope to get back up to there soon.
You say that's great but I don't play TF2. Well we also have Tribe members who will team up with you in Spiral Knights, Left for Dead 1, and 2, Portal 2 co-op (if your still working on that.), Monday Night Combat, etcetera, etcetera.
Also we have our own website now, you can join Tribe there, or through our Steam Group. Eventually people who donate money to keep the server running will get special perks in TF2. Such as not getting auto-corrected in game, and being able to pick their team. We won't be doing anything that unbalances the game, if you want to donate money to build multiple turrets you can go elsewhere. There are already plently of servers that allow that.
We may also be giving out hats that only work on the Tribe server or have giveaways in the group. Keep your eyes peeled. But if you want some people to PC game with. Look us up we have a lot of people who are friendly and good at the games.
See you around.
You say that's great but I don't play TF2. Well we also have Tribe members who will team up with you in Spiral Knights, Left for Dead 1, and 2, Portal 2 co-op (if your still working on that.), Monday Night Combat, etcetera, etcetera.
Also we have our own website now, you can join Tribe there, or through our Steam Group. Eventually people who donate money to keep the server running will get special perks in TF2. Such as not getting auto-corrected in game, and being able to pick their team. We won't be doing anything that unbalances the game, if you want to donate money to build multiple turrets you can go elsewhere. There are already plently of servers that allow that.
We may also be giving out hats that only work on the Tribe server or have giveaways in the group. Keep your eyes peeled. But if you want some people to PC game with. Look us up we have a lot of people who are friendly and good at the games.
See you around.
06 July 2011
Games You Should Know About... Earth Defense Force 2017
It was only two days ago that people across America were celebrating... well, being American. Granted, the Fourth of July commemorates the nation's independence from Britain after a hard fought war over 200 years ago, but we get along with the British, nowadays. Besides, I don't think George Washington crossed the Delaware in deathly cold weather so we could go swimming, eat bratwurst (man, I could go for a bratwurst), and shoot off tiny, explosive charges into the sky.
It doesn't matter, though. While I do live in America, I consider myself more a citizen of the world. The US Armed Forces are nice, but they've got nothing on the Earth Defense Force: destroying mutated insects, giant robots, and an armada of alien invaders with all sorts of lasers, masers, and rocket launchers. Those are the kind of fireworks I'm into.
I say this because Earth Defense Force: Insect Armageddon came out this week. While I am interested in playing it, I do have my doubts. This is the first title in the series not created by Sandlot, who made the other games in the Chikyuu Boueigun series (which is Japanese for Earth Defense Force) and the PS2 cult classic Robot Alchemic Drive. Instead, Insect Armageddon was made by Vicious Cycle, who also created Robotech: Battlecry (which was good) and Robotech: Invasion (which was not). Despite this, most reviews have been pretty favorable, so far, so I'll give the game a shot. But I'm not talking about Insect Armageddon, today. Nope, the game you guys should know about is its predecessor. We're taking a look at Earth Defense Force 2017 for the XBOX 360.
Even though this is the first EDF title to reach US shores (unless you count Earth Defense Force for the Super Nintendo -- no relation), it's actually the third game in the Chikyuu Boueigun series. The first two were released for the Playstation 2, but only in Japan and Europe. EDF 2017 is also part of publisher D3's Simple series, which are low budget games that were inexpensive for the consumer (Agetec published a few of the Simple titles for the original Playstation in the States). Think of them as the video game equivalent to B-movies.
In EDF 2017, you play as a member of Storm 1, one of the special units in the EDF Japan Division. One day, a giant mothership appears over Japan just as hordes of giant insects, robots, cyborg dinosaurs, and spaceships attack all over the Earth. It's up to you to destroy the alien menace and save the planet. As you keep playing, you pick up armor upgrades (which increases your hit points) and new weapons (over 300 to collect). There's also five different difficulty levels that give the game a high replay value: Easy, Normal, Hard, Hardest, and Inferno (which, strangely enough, is harder than Hardest). Split screen co-op is also really fun and, probably, the best way to play this game (no online co-op -- just invite a friend over to your place, you lazy bum).
I won't say this is a highly polished game, though. The enemies, whether they're ants, spiders, robots, or spaceships, only have one tactic: cluster-fuck you until you die. Of course, there really isn't any strategy for you, either. Just keep blasting them and retreat when the cluster-fuck gets to be too much. There are vehicles to use, but they're practically useless; except for the helicopter, which is only available in a few levels. Most of the levels take place in city landscapes, though there are countryside, beach, and the most annoying underground levels that are hard to navigate. The dialogue is extremely cheesy, with teammates shouting, "Come this way, and I'll kill you," "How do you like the taste of my bullets?" and the team chanting a fan favorite, "E-D-F! E-D-F! E-D-F!" While the graphics aren't bad for a 360 game, it does suffer from some heavy slowdown, especially when the aforementioned cluster-fucks happen. Fortunately, most of these idiosyncrasies actually add to the B-movie charm which makes this game so great.
If you're the kind of gamer that doesn't mind a shallow, cheesy plot and minor technical limitations, so long as you're having fun (personally, this is the only kind of gamer that matters), then you owe it to yourself to get EDF 2017. You may have to do some searching to find this game at local game stores, but you can also download it onto your XBOX 360 for the bargain basement price of $19.99. So what are you waiting for? Celebrate your independence by wresting it from the clutches of evil aliens.
If you'll excuse me, I need to see if I can find an Earth Defense Force patch for sale online. E-D-F! E-D-F!
Here's the Japanese trailer for the game, because the American trailer makes the game look like a Michael Bay film, which is lame.
It doesn't matter, though. While I do live in America, I consider myself more a citizen of the world. The US Armed Forces are nice, but they've got nothing on the Earth Defense Force: destroying mutated insects, giant robots, and an armada of alien invaders with all sorts of lasers, masers, and rocket launchers. Those are the kind of fireworks I'm into.
I say this because Earth Defense Force: Insect Armageddon came out this week. While I am interested in playing it, I do have my doubts. This is the first title in the series not created by Sandlot, who made the other games in the Chikyuu Boueigun series (which is Japanese for Earth Defense Force) and the PS2 cult classic Robot Alchemic Drive. Instead, Insect Armageddon was made by Vicious Cycle, who also created Robotech: Battlecry (which was good) and Robotech: Invasion (which was not). Despite this, most reviews have been pretty favorable, so far, so I'll give the game a shot. But I'm not talking about Insect Armageddon, today. Nope, the game you guys should know about is its predecessor. We're taking a look at Earth Defense Force 2017 for the XBOX 360.
Even though this is the first EDF title to reach US shores (unless you count Earth Defense Force for the Super Nintendo -- no relation), it's actually the third game in the Chikyuu Boueigun series. The first two were released for the Playstation 2, but only in Japan and Europe. EDF 2017 is also part of publisher D3's Simple series, which are low budget games that were inexpensive for the consumer (Agetec published a few of the Simple titles for the original Playstation in the States). Think of them as the video game equivalent to B-movies.
In EDF 2017, you play as a member of Storm 1, one of the special units in the EDF Japan Division. One day, a giant mothership appears over Japan just as hordes of giant insects, robots, cyborg dinosaurs, and spaceships attack all over the Earth. It's up to you to destroy the alien menace and save the planet. As you keep playing, you pick up armor upgrades (which increases your hit points) and new weapons (over 300 to collect). There's also five different difficulty levels that give the game a high replay value: Easy, Normal, Hard, Hardest, and Inferno (which, strangely enough, is harder than Hardest). Split screen co-op is also really fun and, probably, the best way to play this game (no online co-op -- just invite a friend over to your place, you lazy bum).
I won't say this is a highly polished game, though. The enemies, whether they're ants, spiders, robots, or spaceships, only have one tactic: cluster-fuck you until you die. Of course, there really isn't any strategy for you, either. Just keep blasting them and retreat when the cluster-fuck gets to be too much. There are vehicles to use, but they're practically useless; except for the helicopter, which is only available in a few levels. Most of the levels take place in city landscapes, though there are countryside, beach, and the most annoying underground levels that are hard to navigate. The dialogue is extremely cheesy, with teammates shouting, "Come this way, and I'll kill you," "How do you like the taste of my bullets?" and the team chanting a fan favorite, "E-D-F! E-D-F! E-D-F!" While the graphics aren't bad for a 360 game, it does suffer from some heavy slowdown, especially when the aforementioned cluster-fucks happen. Fortunately, most of these idiosyncrasies actually add to the B-movie charm which makes this game so great.
If you're the kind of gamer that doesn't mind a shallow, cheesy plot and minor technical limitations, so long as you're having fun (personally, this is the only kind of gamer that matters), then you owe it to yourself to get EDF 2017. You may have to do some searching to find this game at local game stores, but you can also download it onto your XBOX 360 for the bargain basement price of $19.99. So what are you waiting for? Celebrate your independence by wresting it from the clutches of evil aliens.
If you'll excuse me, I need to see if I can find an Earth Defense Force patch for sale online. E-D-F! E-D-F!
Here's the Japanese trailer for the game, because the American trailer makes the game look like a Michael Bay film, which is lame.
02 July 2011
The Knights of the Limelight
I often wonder how bad a situation would have to be for a country to start using the draft again. No, the country is not America, and I don't wonder due to political reasons anymore. Mostly I wonder what happens on the day Britain decides to call all of her celebrity knights into service to fight for Queen and country.
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| The Queen was this close to becoming an immortal and didn't even know it. |
Here is the complete list. But scary how many of the X-men are on the list. It would seem Britain is years ahead of us on Mutant Rights it would seem since Professor X, Magneto, and Nightcrawler have all been knighted.
On the list of Knights I don't want to ever have to fight we have 3 different incarnations of James Bond (Sean Connery, Roger Moore, and Pierce Brosnan) are on the list, as is Alfred from the latest incarnation of Batman and Hannibal Lecter.
In music Elton Jon, Bono, McJagger, and Paul McCartney have all been knighted meaning that this new army will have a theme song that will be high in the billboard charts.
Julie Andrew is on the list (Mary Poppins for those who don't know), Christopher Lee is there (Sauraman, Death, Count Dooku, the Jabberwalky). Peter Faulk is on there, (But since they have Death under the Queens' power Colombo will be back to help out.)
And while doing research for this I found out you don't even have to be a resident of the U.K. to be knighted.
Bill Gates, Norman Swartzkoph, Charlton Heston, Colin Powell, Alan Greenspan, Steven Spielberg Mohammed Ali, George Bush (41 not W), and Ronald Reagan have all been knighted.
And what's more is that every time I look at the list I'm seeing more celebrities that I know of. Now if you'll excuse me I'm off to write a script that's going to make me richer then the Queen...if I can only figure out how to get all of these celebrity knights to sign on for it.
29 June 2011
Dungeons of Time - Savage Worlds
Believe it or not, dear readers, there was a time when I was completely jaded with the hobby of tabletop roleplaying. In 2003, Wizards of the Coast came out with Dungeons & Dragons 3.5. Since this made the hundreds of dollars worth of 3rd Edition D&D books I bought obsolete, I got pissed and parted ways with their products (and if 4th Edition is any indication, I'm not coming back anytime soon).
The other system I played, White Wolf's World of Darkness, was improving their system. But, in 2004, my "rpg mistress" went from being this dark, mysterious, sexy, and sophisticated piece of ass to a mopey, depressing, juvenile bitch. They basically wrote the end of the world for each game in the system and it ended up being a poorly executed doomfest. I promptly ignored their little pity party and kept playing with the old story they wrote before they ruined everything. Then, White Wolf dropped a bomb: they retconned the entire World of Darkness. Some things seemed familiar, others were interesting, but, as a whole, I was severely disappointed.
I was also tired of the same old crap. I fooled around with other sytems over the years: Rifts, Legend of the Five Rings, etc., but none of them inspired me. All of their dice systems were getting stale and I got sick of having to remember complex rules for dice mechanics or being frustrated by bad rolls ruining a game (especially those game sessions when all of my die rolls sucked). I also felt that systems like d20 didn't give you as much of a heroic feeling (unless you were high level, then, it just got boring).
At this point, I came to one conclusion about roleplaying games:
Fuck this shit!
I was about to hang up my dice bag for good. Roleplaying was one of the few hobbies that I cherished since I was very young and I was about to abandon it. The spark wasn't there, anymore. I loved her, but I wasn't in love with her. It was killing me.
Fortunately, I think it was toward the end of 2007, I discovered a game that reignited my love for the hobby and reminded me why I got into it in the first place.
That game is Savage Worlds.
25 June 2011
Pony Kombat!
Boog is having computer issues, and asked me to cover for him. So while messing around I found a bizarre link, that upended my plans for tonight's post.
Evidently there is a fan made My Little Pony fighting game coming out for PC. No I'm serious. There's even a video.
See I'm not full of crap. My wife is pretty much obsessed with this show as are her friends. I think it's cute, but I'm not really a fan. I doubt she's going to be excited about this. Although maybe I'm wrong and she will want to take Applejack (her favorite) through Ponyville, and stomp every-ponies cutiemark*.
I've got to say the art looks good. The game looks like the animation and control will be at least as good as an old SNES fighting game. Honestly the style reminds me of Ninja Turtles Tournament Fighters game (SNES version) with a graphical upgrade. If you want more information on this game there is an FAQ here.
Looking throught the FAQ it looks like the creators are fans of the show but I have to caution, as excited as fans of ponies, and video games maybe I'm not going to hold my breath for this to get released. I have a feeling someone is going to drop a Cease and Desist, and this game will disappear. So if you happen to see a link for this game later, you may want to grab it while you can.
So to end this post here's me as a pony, because my friends are weird.
I guess my eyesight got better as a pony, well take care, and I'll see you tomorrow.
Evidently there is a fan made My Little Pony fighting game coming out for PC. No I'm serious. There's even a video.
See I'm not full of crap. My wife is pretty much obsessed with this show as are her friends. I think it's cute, but I'm not really a fan. I doubt she's going to be excited about this. Although maybe I'm wrong and she will want to take Applejack (her favorite) through Ponyville, and stomp every-ponies cutiemark*.
I've got to say the art looks good. The game looks like the animation and control will be at least as good as an old SNES fighting game. Honestly the style reminds me of Ninja Turtles Tournament Fighters game (SNES version) with a graphical upgrade. If you want more information on this game there is an FAQ here.
Looking throught the FAQ it looks like the creators are fans of the show but I have to caution, as excited as fans of ponies, and video games maybe I'm not going to hold my breath for this to get released. I have a feeling someone is going to drop a Cease and Desist, and this game will disappear. So if you happen to see a link for this game later, you may want to grab it while you can.So to end this post here's me as a pony, because my friends are weird.
I guess my eyesight got better as a pony, well take care, and I'll see you tomorrow.
23 June 2011
Meet the Medic aka Ribs Grow Back
Holy Crap! You probably already heard, because this is the internet, and if you don't post it immediately you're too late. (Stupid work getting in the way of my dream of being a big name blogger), but Valve had something to show you today.
Meet the Medic...he's brilliant, he's crazy, he's finally got his own short intro film. I wasn't sure what to expect from the Medic's film, but I certainly wasn't expecting this. We were planning to do a big write-up for this short. But really the film speaks for its self.
However one other piece of news coming from Valve almost trumps their latest release. Team Fortress 2 is now free. Not just for this week, but for...ever. Here's the FAQ, if the idea of a game being free is hard to comprehend. (No actually there's some good info in the FAQ, especially on how it's going to reward those who spent money the game in the past.)
Also there's a trailer.
By the way be sure to check out all the new weapons, accessories, and hats that came out during the last update...the Uber Update.
Oh and if you need someone to play TF2 with feel free to look me and my friends up, we're always looking for fun people to play with TF2, Spiral Knights (also free), or other games as well.
Meet the Medic...he's brilliant, he's crazy, he's finally got his own short intro film. I wasn't sure what to expect from the Medic's film, but I certainly wasn't expecting this. We were planning to do a big write-up for this short. But really the film speaks for its self.
However one other piece of news coming from Valve almost trumps their latest release. Team Fortress 2 is now free. Not just for this week, but for...ever. Here's the FAQ, if the idea of a game being free is hard to comprehend. (No actually there's some good info in the FAQ, especially on how it's going to reward those who spent money the game in the past.)
Also there's a trailer.
By the way be sure to check out all the new weapons, accessories, and hats that came out during the last update...the Uber Update.
Oh and if you need someone to play TF2 with feel free to look me and my friends up, we're always looking for fun people to play with TF2, Spiral Knights (also free), or other games as well.
22 June 2011
Games You Should Know About... Retro Game Challenge
First off, this week marks the official 20th anniversary of Sonic the Hedgehog. I plan on doing a Cart Classics retrospective of the series, but that will take time to get going. Hopefully, you'll see it later this year. Until then, happy birthday, Sonic.
My other announcement is that one of the best video game shows you probably aren't watching is finally hitting Stateside. Game Center CX is a Japanese TV show where the host, comedian Shinya Arino, is asked to complete challenges in difficult old school games. Much to the amusement of the show's staff and countless Japanese viewers, Arino often struggles in his quest, but usually emerges triumphant. Other segments in the show have Arino visiting arcades in Japan, interviewing game designers (usually for the game he's playing during that episode), or trying out failed consoles and peripherals. For the past couple of years, Fuji TV (the company behind Game Center CX as well as the original Iron Chef) was looking for international distributors to bring the show to other countries. Finally, Gawker Media got the rights to broadcast the show on one of their flagship blog sites, Kotaku. Starting tomorrow, June 23, Kotaku will stream translated episodes of the show every Thursday at 8 pm EST (that's 7:00 pm Central, for us Midwesterners).
Currently, it is unknown whether the show will have English subtitles or be dubbed by a voice-over (I'm gunning for subtitles), but the show's name has been changed to Retro Game Master. They most likely did this to tie in brand recognition with the DS game Retro Game Challenge, which came to the States two years ago. By the way, this is definitely a game you should know about...
My other announcement is that one of the best video game shows you probably aren't watching is finally hitting Stateside. Game Center CX is a Japanese TV show where the host, comedian Shinya Arino, is asked to complete challenges in difficult old school games. Much to the amusement of the show's staff and countless Japanese viewers, Arino often struggles in his quest, but usually emerges triumphant. Other segments in the show have Arino visiting arcades in Japan, interviewing game designers (usually for the game he's playing during that episode), or trying out failed consoles and peripherals. For the past couple of years, Fuji TV (the company behind Game Center CX as well as the original Iron Chef) was looking for international distributors to bring the show to other countries. Finally, Gawker Media got the rights to broadcast the show on one of their flagship blog sites, Kotaku. Starting tomorrow, June 23, Kotaku will stream translated episodes of the show every Thursday at 8 pm EST (that's 7:00 pm Central, for us Midwesterners).
Currently, it is unknown whether the show will have English subtitles or be dubbed by a voice-over (I'm gunning for subtitles), but the show's name has been changed to Retro Game Master. They most likely did this to tie in brand recognition with the DS game Retro Game Challenge, which came to the States two years ago. By the way, this is definitely a game you should know about...
18 June 2011
Free RPG Day followup
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| Dungeons and Dragons 3.5 without the boring parts. |
Then we signed on to play in a demo of Savage Worlds. Savage Worlds and I have a strange history. I was told of the RPG and how it was centered around story, and characters rather then rules. Dnd has a list of rules long enough to intimidate anyone coming into the game (which makes it hard for people to get into role playing at first.) So I bought it, the only book you need to run the game is $10. A plus since games usually cost anywhere from $50 to $200 to start.
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| Small in size and price, Large in fun. |
The story was that of a team during the Revolutionary War, who was charged with finding a certain man who has ties to the British Loyalists (tories to those who know the era). Later we find out he is involved in the occult and, well I don't want to say all hell broke loose, but crazy things did happen. Very fun game, and it showed me finally how a session of this game should be handled.
So you may want to seek out Savage Worlds, I know Anacronus is a big fan of the system, and really I've always been waiting for a real game of it to judge how great it could be. This is an excellent system for people new to role playing, and for a group that may want to try different games every couple of weeks, but don't want to pay a lot for the different books.
I'll not say too much more so Anacronus can do a full review of the system someday.
*Nerd Store being my title for any store which deals in primarily in Board Games, RPGs (think Dungeons and Dragons not Final Fantasy), comics, ect.
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