Naked War

July 31, 2006 · Filed Under Other peoples games · 2 Comments 

I’d love to say that I’d been really busy over the course of the weekend and managed to get a lot of stuff done…but I didn’t. In fact, aside from food and brews I’ve done nothing since 2:30 Saturday afternoon…nothing, other than play Naked War that is.

Those pesky Pickford Brothers have managed to completely consume my entire weekend, predominantly taken up with an epic war of nerve between myself and my good friend and fellow RR admin STompy with a brief break for a short annihilation from John Pickford late on Sunday afternoon.

For a few moments I thought everything was going to go a bit tits up and I wouldn’t even get the opportunity to sample the joys of Naked War - I’d had very little sleep Friday into Saturday (read:none) and my credit card is out of use to midweek until I can throw some more money in its general direction…things were looking grim indeed.

So, on the recommendation of Retrospec’s Graham Goring who threatened to challenge me to a game Sunday afternoon, I downloaded the client anyway. Joy - I get a free challenge credit for signing up! So, I point STomps in the direction of the site and get him to download the client ready for a match. Disaster! First round in and STomps computer goes kaputt and manages to mangle the game up taking the credit and any hope away with us. Aha, but all was not lost - as STomps also had a free credit…and so we began.

The aim of the game is simple, you take opposing teams and after a quick game of paper,scissors,stone you decide who gets to take the first turn. In true tactical game fashion, you’re given a number of moves to make before your turn ends and the opposing team take theirs. Simply (ha!) claim all the “doofus” from the enemy by weakening them until they lose all their clothes and the victory is yours to revel in. There’s a number of buildings you can clamber upon/within in order to take pot shots at the enemy, a selection of vehicles to tear up the landscape in, some cleverly designed maps and a number of “secrets” to locate on some of the maps.

The great thing is, its so immediately obvious what to do - the interface is as close to perfection as you can possibly get - that you’re up, running and blasting in no time whatsoever. Even an idiot like me, who normally detests tactical/strategy games grasped it within a few moments. And its immense fun indeed. Everything is so filled with character and tiny little details that lift the game above the melee of similar titles from the animations to the grunting sounds your little characters make. The ability to fire across messages and imbue your little soldiers with a personality of their own is a wonderfully neat touch too. Many of the turns spent on the grand opus match with STomps had me in tucks of laughter as he pulled off ridiculous strategies leaving silly comments in his wake.

As the game is “community based” anyone with a challenge credit is free to challenge anyone else - and even with my hasty defeat at the hands of Mr Pickford running in at around an hour, to say that 20 credits for around 10 quid is a bargain would be a slight understatement. Thats a bare minimum of 20 hours play - and considering the match between myself and STompy ran from 2:30 Saturday afternoon to late Sunday evening with only a sleep break inbetween, there’s more value for money in just one credit than 90% of the entire games pumped out onto the market.

A lovely game that deserves to earn the developers a nice wodge of cash - if only so that we can convince them to remake Feud next.

http://www.merseyremakes.co.uk/blogimages/nakedwar1.png

Naked War 2

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Bit Generations #2

July 28, 2006 · Filed Under Other peoples games, Personal, Things I Enjoyed · Comment 

So, the second batch has landed and I must confess to not having enough time at the moment to dedicate to them proper unfortunately - what with still playing Dotstream and Boundish a few weeks on (so glad Swith managed to convince me to persist with it) for my handheld kicks, major upgrade stuff over at RR and flitting between Gibbage and Deadeye for PC gaming time - I’ve only had a quick glance over them so far.

Coloris is nice, someone on RLLMUK described it as “It’s Zoo Keeper + 1st Year Art Class.” and I can see where they’re coming from. In many ways, its what DialHEX should have been instead of the unfriendly mess that it turned out as. Like TCK’s Stack Attack (which is still in limbo pending score code, sadly the link is down but there’s a screeny there somewhere) it proves that you don’t need to shoehorn in an Aztec theme or a million and one special effects to make a game lovely. I’m a bit scared of pointing this in Mrs Bobs direction as its tough enough reclaiming any handhelds in this house as it is.

Orbital, I was really looking forward to as it looks great from the video’s and screenshots - game wise, I dunno. Something doesn’t feel right at all with it - the mechanics themselves feel counterintuitive and whilst I’m certainly in favour of slimlined control schemes - the RR One Switch competition produced games on a similar theme but actually managing to be playable to boot. Who knows, I’ll certainly be back to give it a second chance but for now, it seems the weakest of the batch (I’ve still yet to play DigiDrive)

The biggest treat comes in the shape of SoundVoyager, a ridiculously simple premise of having to locate objects and enemies via the position of sounds on the speaker. Possibly the first game I’ve actually played where its not necessary to rely on any visual stimulus whatsoever - its perfectly possible to close your eyes and just drift away and follow the sound. Very relaxing indeed and so far, easily the best of the second batch. I can see myself returning for many a chill out session with this.

So, I’ll have a peek at Digidrive tomorrow and attempt to revisit Orbital to see if there’s something I’ve missed - in the meantime, I’m still incredibly happy that Bit Generations exists at all. Whilst by no means a perfect collection - when you’re throwing concepts at the wall like these, there’s bound to be some that don’t stick - but none the less, great stuff and well worth the money.

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Gibber on Gibbage

July 24, 2006 · Filed Under Other peoples games · Comment 

Gibbage landed at Bob towers during a bit of an odd time, on the back of a recent discussion on another forum over game length vs value for money (of which, I subscribe to the opinion “who gives a shit as long as its fun?”) which saw things getting increasingly heated as anything with less than 20 hours of storyline was rubbished by a lone crusader, the neighbours blaring out U2 and Pink all day on their evidently awful sound system, a week where I’ve been alternating between Prey and Dotstream to get my gaming kicks, a time where I’m pondering just how many games I’m going to have to sit there and review in a little over a months time when the RR competition closes, and a time where I’ve had my head down pixelling when the heat allows me and as if all that wasn’t enough, contemplating tidying up the loose ends on VI once and for all (again). Oh, and beating my own personal record on Deadeye ;)

So, is there any room for me to possibly cram another Indie game into my schedule at the moment? Lets face it, a good proportion of them are just so po faced and serious that 2 seconds into the loading sequence you’re thinking “kill me now”. Even when they’re trying to be light hearted - hey, lets just throw a really cute dwarf in there shall we? Oh man, this game needs a fluffy cat - that’ll appeal to the ladies. Or as Dan Marshall, author of Gibbage has observed on his excellent blog - you could always make your game around err… balloons, balloons are nice and safe things (until one of the fuckers explodes, then you know about it).

Every week without fail, I check out the portals and see row after row of identikit games, soulless in the extreme. I’m not averse to a bit of match 3′ing, even the odd casual shooter occasionally sneaks into my gaming time - but for the most part, man oh man, I’m on my knee’s and begging for a game with some soul. Something not clinically planned to appeal to an assumed demographic, to maximise conversion rates by including a stock list of features and obligatory mouse control and a harmless safe front for selling bland shit to people. In fact, I’m not even sure why I bother anymore - it only winds me up when the game I’ve just downloaded the 60 minute demo of turns out to be so fucking rotten I may as well have chewed my own face off rather than piss my time away on it. Especially that disgusting “clone” (and I use the term very loosely) of Scramble I found on Reflexive. I feel sick just thinking about it, so I’ll not dwell on that any longer.

Thank fuck for Gibbage then.

Gibbage doesn’t pander to any perceived demographics, there’s no compulsory mouse control hacked in to sever any last vestiges of enjoyment you might possibly get from the game, there’s no cute drawing of a little girl in a balloon - what there is in Gibbage, is a pissload of blood and more severed heads than you could ever want. Gibbage is plain, simple insane fun. There’s no levelling up, there’s no interruptions to the game whilst you nip off to an ill thought out shop to buy more weapons, there’s no orcs (big fucking bonus) and not even a whiff of beard stroking joyless design by numbers in sight.

You start in your little booth where your little man gets constructed in a comic manner, leave said booth and have to collect some cubes and blow shit out of the opposition. Thats it. Thats all there is to playing it. And it couldn’t be more right if it tried. Why? Because last night I sat down and thought “I’ll just take a quick gander at this before I go off and make a cuppa” and half an hour later, I was still playing. Only, I hadn’t actually realised how shush I’d been until the missus disturbed me with a “so, are you brewing this week?” comment about the distinct lack of tea being made despite making promises before loading Gibbage up.

Its a 2d deathmatch bloodfest that appeals to the same part of me that used to huddle round the 2600 playing Combat with my mates for countless knows how many years. Its one of the few games that rubbishes my protestations that I don’t have a competetive edge to my personality, because killing your friends *is* a noble pastime isn’t it? Heck, its fun enough blowing seven kinds of crap out of the computer controlled player.

So, Gibbage - a shitload of maps, a shitload of blood and a shitload of fun, and brimming with character thats so sorely missing from a hefty proportion of games.

Now, what would I change if I were making it….only kidding ;)

Thanks to Thalamus for alerting me to the game, and Dan Marshall for his kindness.

Gibbage

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