twmac

A friend of mine has posted about radiangames on his website: http://indienerds.com/wordpress/?p=1554#comments Have to say that radiangames is one of the best and most consistent developers outside of Mommy's Best Games on the Indie game channel for Xbox LIVE. I've played 4 of the 6 he talks about and at a dollar each they are all excellent. Hopefully some of you guys read it and have an interest.

Sorry to be gushing over two games in such short period of time but I spent about 5 hours over the weekend playing this game from the Indie games section on the Xbox LIVE Marketplace. At its core it is a twin stick shooter which I'll admit is probably getting dull for everyone but this one takes songs from your hard drive or streamed from your PC and creates procedurally generated challenges that changes the type of enemies you have to face, the number and your bullet power depending on the music. It has more going on than that by allowing you to 'level up' by building up highscores to give yourself perks, as well as setting you mini challenges that would be achievements if it were an Xbox LIVE Arcade title. The fun has been experimenting with different music types and it has a barcode battlers feel to it (one of the challenges is kill 8 boss characters in one song and I haven't found a song that spawns that many in its duration). The easiest without being unfulfulling songs are up beat dance songs (the game loves anything chiptune) the dullest so far has been hip-hop and metal in the Pantera vein. Some of the more extreme Aphex Twin, Venetian Snares and Mogwai have been by far the most challenging. Aphex and Venetian Snares because of the crazy number of beats, Mogwai generally because of its short, caustic blasts that generate a lot of enemies followed by relative quiet which means that your guns are underpowered and it is impossible to kill anything. It is 400 points and very much worth it, admittedly I don't have any experience with procedural games so it just might be that this is my first and hence why I like it. Warning: the game does not recognise external storage devices like Hard drives attached via USB so you will need to have music ripped to your X360 or have it streamed from your PC.

Man, you didn't like Vanquish? I understand Bayonetta... But Vanquish? Well at least you are turning your grey cloud into someone else's silver lining I suppose. Seriously, though? Vanquish was definitely my GOTY.cx

Music documentaries? You could try 'The rise and fall of human civilisation' Parts 1-3, although it would entirely depend on your fondenss for the hardcore scene. Just watched 'I am still here', can't decide whether it is brilliant, really depressing or both. I didn't realise it was a mockumentary at first but knowing it now adds light to certain scenes. It is also Joaquin best work. For some reason, against my best judgement, I decided to watch 'The Mutant Chronicles', some nice scenes of a future war that looks like WWI but ultimately it is pretty rubbish and degenerates into the predictable Z-list rubbish it is.

Indeed, best wishes!

Just watched Mysterious Skin by Gregg Araki. After the weird Doom Generation and Nowhere films this one is much more sober and as a result it has been haunting me. It is about how people deal (or fail to deal) with sexual abuse in a small town in America. It is a very uncomfortable subject matter but Araki is pretty damn good at giving it weight and the characters space to breathe without it ever becoming overbearing or preachy. It was also nice to see that Araki continues to make very interesting, 3 dimensional gay characters that so many other writers and directors fail to be able to grasp.

They released a demo on Xbox LIVE, a whopping 1.3 Gb install. Tried it out and liked the radial controls, there were a few continuity errors whereby some of what the characters were saying seemed to be contrary to what was happening, but nothing major. The female character is all late 90's alternative but at least she isn't a moping old misery-guts like the male character. The painted art in the settings are great but in the cut-scenes, not so much. i don't know if it will be released in North America but it is getting an English language European release. Hmmm.

Nope, the game is a cover shooter, but it is more about using the jet boost of suit and the bullet time to take people out. I much preferred Vanquish, as you might have guessed from ramblings on the forum. Either check out my faux review which is linked in the other threadm or go read the eurogamer review which I found to be the best written.

Couldn't resist... Wish I had. Who draws stuff to do with actual Pokemon creatures... And My Little Pony...

Unfortunately it did, the plot is repetitive and just plays out like the first one so far. The new characters are all annoying (in combat I enjoy letting them die). The combat has shifted violently in to a cover shooter with all of the interesting skills my character used to be able to do now removed (RE: streamlined) there isn't even the compulsion to level up and see your stats improve as I really don't care about the cut down list of abilities. The much touted carry over of the character's choices from the first one is underwhleming at best and copy/paste jobbies at worst. I got as far as meeting Tali, then had to turn it off as she no longer even seems like the same character now. Turned it back on played for a bit longer. Told Tali to fuck off back with her buddy, got into the ship wandered around, got bored, turned it off again. Waste of my time and money.

Trying to play Mass Effect 2 now. This game is as dull as ditch water.

5. Lost Planet 2 4. Super Meat Boy 3. Tobes Vertical Adventure 2. Limbo 1. Vanquish Honourable mentions: Resonance of Fate Darksiders Flotilla

I tried to read that article, and for whatever points Thunderpeel made (I can see that angle from the guys at Crystal Dynamics) there are some uncomfortable moments when they talk about the 'M shape' of Lara's upper lip where I just had to go As for vulnerability, games are constantly trying to do it for male protagonists, and fail miserably (Gears of War 2 with Dom's Wife, any of the Final Fantasy games I can commit to memory) but when they do get it right (Silent Hill 2? Brutal Legend? Any of the cast members of Psychonauts?) they have done so with more aplomb than female equivalents. Also, even if that wasn't there intention of the article, that was the effect it had, did you read any of the comments? Loving the new Lara. GI would you do me a favor, and give us a HD widescreen "new" Lara image so I can put it as my wallpaper! I love Lara Croft. Even though she's fiction. Even though we'll never meet. I still love her. ;_;

No, you can get through all of the game by spamming buttons. You can't get decent scores or look completely awesome all the time but you will be able to finish it. I'll be interested to see how you feel after about chapter 9. Also, if you like sights that fry your eyeballs, you should make good on your thoughts about buying Vanquish.

Sorry that you are getting upset, as the only person I know who actually enjoyed Sonic 2006 I would hate to see you leave. Doesn't Elmuerte just have a tendency to post stuff like that? Also, ouch, you had to go with 4chan? Couldn't we have sunk as low as, say, Joystiq comment threads first?

Just finished Bionic Commando on the X360, the game is excellent. It starts out pretty slowly with some clunky tutorials, but by the second chapter you are soaring through the air swinging from sky scraper to sky scraper. The voice acting is actually worse than how Remo described it on the podcast but you can skip all the cutscenes to the point where it is bearable. It is cheap everywhere now and I woudl strongly recommend the game as one fo the few games that understands how to take a 2-D game and make it 3-D.

What kolzig is describing is something that I have seen and heard everywhere at the moment. Like the links to the Penny Arcade posts where he is finding his wife enchanted with the idea... I have a Sony Fan boy (I mean it in the nicest possible way) who has been made to cave on purchasing an X360 by his girlfriend. She went and bought the Kinect and Dance Central straight away. It does now mean he can catch up on Shadow Complex, Crackdown, EDF etc. But his U-turn was phenomenal.

Well, the story was rubbish but by the end of Underworld there wasn't really anywhere for them to go, having neatly tied up all the characters and plot. I would agree that it is most likely about rebooting the character herself and changing some of the game mechanics. This is something Crystal Dynamics did a fantastic job of with 'Legend' so if it means as something as drastic as that, then I am all for it. Rodi, Legend was the only reboot. Anniversary was a remake of the first tomb raider with updated mechanics and edngine, Underworld was the first true 'next gen' version of Tomb raider and GoL was a spin-off. If you didn't like the first Tomb Raider then you aren't going to like any of those (except the isometric spin off). But then I have said that before... I think.

I am looking forward to this simply because the last 4 Tomb Raiders have all been excellent. Thunderpeel, as for th story line. The last 3 'big' games have had their stories intertwined, they were a bit rubbish but the did tie into each other. Don't mind if they switch up the mechanics and the visuals, just so long as they maintain the sense of awe and wonder of exploring an abandoned tomb.

I think the quality of the presentation and the subject matter (top 5 lists? Really?) is sufficient to make you think that her and her friends are a bit dumb. I would blame the budget, but HAWP is way better made.

You said the P word! (am playing it now as I never finished it) Although the enemies don't vary, how you approach them does. Even on normal there is a constant flux on what strategy you endorse. Certainly, you can try and just play it as a cover shooter and you can force your way through the game but there are way more fun ways to play it, with hidden weapons and strategies for each set piece. On hard, things are already very different, I can no longer stay in my comfort zone with each fire fight and am constantly having to use different weapons to stay alive. Shit, I only just learnt that the disc thrower doesn't use up your ARS energy when you use it as a close combat weapon.

Really? The length wasn't an issue from me given that the game is just so damn good. I'd happily pay full price for a well rounded but only 7 hours worth of game than play a 40 hour RPG that drags constantly. I have definitely reached the point where I am willing to spend money on a quality experience and not worry about whether that will be over after a weekend. I am replaying it again on a harder difficulty, which isn't something I am prone to doing often.

Or maybe I posted in both of the wrong threads... Damn, already no one playing this game?

*Bump* I wrote an equally gushing review. It has GOTY.CX written all over it.

According to mobygames: http://www.mobygames.com/developer/sheet/view/developerId,116574/ That entry for MGS 4 must be wrong.