Posted 11/20/09 10:21 am EST by Daniel McKleinfeld in Features, Xbox 360
There isn't a whole lot you can do with the racing game template. Sure you can add power-ups, tweak the physics, and endlessly improve the graphics, but whatever you do, you've basically just got accelerate, brake, and get to the end fast. Instead of trying to add to the racing genre, "Crystal Spear Remake" strips it down to the most basic fundamentals, and ends ups with solid minimalist fun.
Posted 10/30/09 5:00 pm EST by Daniel McKleinfeld in Features, Xbox 360
Wolverine might've gotten his own movie-game, but my favorite X-Man was always Nightcrawler, and his teleportation power has been sadly unrepresented in gaming---until now. "Skwug" is a platformer built around that glorious violation of Newtonian physics, and it makes you wonder why so few developers have tried the mechanic before.
Posted 10/23/09 2:30 pm EST by Daniel McKleinfeld in Features, Xbox 360
The "wife test," devised by game designer Warren Spector, consists of three questions:
1) Will my wife play this game?
2) Will my wife want to play this game again?
3) Will my wife play this game even when I’m not around?
"Filler" passes the wife test like no game since "Rock Band." It’s a simple game, but that’s much of what makes it so accessible, and so addictive.
Posted 10/16/09 2:45 pm EST by Daniel McKleinfeld in Features, Xbox 360
Something a little different this week: Instead of focusing on one Indie Game, here’s a selection of fifteen titles. I didn’t love any of them quite enough to give them their own entry, but all are well worth a try, and you may find some more enjoyable than titles I’ve highlighted in the past.
Posted 10/9/09 2:00 pm EST by Daniel McKleinfeld in Features, Xbox 360
A simple idea solidly executed is what bite-size gaming is all about. "Bullet Trap" uses one stick for shooting and the other for shield, restricts your movement to a few specific nodes, and then tells you to kill a bunch of baddies. All of which would be about as entertaining as "Robotron" with a broken left stick, except that this game’s titular innovation is that your bullets bounce off walls, and they’ll damage you as much as the enemies.
Posted 10/2/09 3:00 pm EST by Daniel McKleinfeld in Features, Xbox 360
A sort of Play-Doh in video game form, "World Molder" is a platformer where you make the platforms. The basic scenario in every level is the same: Find the key and get to the door by jumping from platform to platform. But the unique spin of "World Molder" is that your adorable li'l dark wizard character can raise his arms to enter Mold Mode, where the whole world is turned into a mesh of flex points that you can manipulate.
Posted 9/25/09 12:00 pm EST by Daniel McKleinfeld in Features, Xbox 360
"CarnyVale Showtime" has something most Xbox Indie Games don't: Really impressive production values. The music, the graphics, even the menu screen look incredibly good; the average XBLA title should hang its head in shame at the visual panache on display here. And it’s not just a matter of well-applied anti-aliasing. The whole game has a truly coherent aesthetic, and every corner of the game furthers that the style.
Posted 9/18/09 2:00 pm EST by Daniel McKleinfeld in Features, Xbox 360
My affection for "Artoon" is arguably a case of style over substance. But when a game's got this much style, I'll take it.
The game is a simple little platformer in which you bounce across floating blocks to change their color, trying not to hit the same block twice or fall off the edge of the world. What makes the game special is its great visual creativity, with levels set in worlds that look like a geometry textbook run through a trash compactor. Adding to the challenge are level-by-level rule changes, like a world where you can only hit blocks of alternating colors, or a world where the blocks are constantly in motion and you have to jump frantically to avoid bouncing into empty space.
Posted 9/11/09 6:30 pm EST by Daniel McKleinfeld in Features, Xbox 360
In "Solar," you play as the sun. I could go on, I could describe the rest of the game, I could talk about all kinds of things, but maybe I should just stop there. You play as the sun! The sun! The freakin' SUN, man! Dig it!
Posted 9/4/09 4:00 pm EST by Daniel McKleinfeld in Features, Xbox 360
If you don't have a 5.1 audio setup, this week’s title is not going to do you much good. But if you do, "In The Pit" is a great chance to use it for something other than hearing bullets whizz by your virtual head. Audio-only games have been tried before, but "In The Pit" is the first time I’ve seen it done with the full use of surround sound, and it’s far and away the most successful at spinning audio-only play into a full game experience.