GP2X “The Wiz”
Posted by Jon | Filed under Casual Gaming, Video Gaming
Emulator gaming has always been exciting and fun for me, but who wants to play SNES games on their computer? Its always been preferable to play using emulators on consoles, but sometimes we want to have portable gaming with lots of options. Gamepark has been making emulator handhelds for a long time, and their vastly popular GP2X has just been upgraded with the GP2x Wiz version. The original was a bulky unit, and 233 Mhz…
The new one sports an ARM9 533MHz Processor overclockable to 800Mhz, a touchscreen, and 1 GB of built in storage. But it doesn’t stop there… Its equipped with an SD card slot for additional storage, functions as an e-book reader, calendar, and voice recorder. It also plays movie files including MPEG4, Xvid and DIVX formats.
You can play Atari ST games, Commodore 64, Amiga, NES, SNES, Gameboy, Gameboy Advance, NeoGeo, Flash Games.. its all open source, so you can visit plenty of home-brew pages to further expand its usefulness.. with a 320×240 crisp QVGA screen and 64 MB of video ram, it is blindingly fast and still provides 7 hours of continual use. Behold the GP2x Wiz…
available for 179.99 from ThinkGeek
2d Games
Posted by Jon | Filed under Casual Gaming, Video Gaming
I’m really thinking that this will end up as some form of regular feature. 2d gaming was the bread and butter of video gaming back when I got my start, and current mainstays of the video game world such as Grand Theft Auto got their start as a simple 2d top down racing and crime game that ended up being way less linear and way more difficult than the current versions. Granted, you didn’t have the exciting yet frustrating option of jumping out of a plane, skydiving through the air, and getting into another plane mid-flight like you did in one mission of GTA:San Andreas… However, being able to pull off monstrous 2d street explosions when you tracked down the elusive rocket launcher made the resulting mayhem seem that much more delicious, because it was just such a rare treat.
Well, today I don’t bring you stories and screens of old 2d games. Instead, I bring you a few new 2d scrollers that will have you biting your lip with the same level of frustration, but not because of shoddy controls or terrible platforming design.
Nope, these games are very well constructed, with incredibly thought provoking puzzle elements. The first couple are conceptual works of art, designed by Nicklas Nygren, a video game developer from Sweden. Both Within a Deep Forest and Knytt provide a level of simplicity and complexity all in one.
Within a Deep Forest is a 2d “platformer” that has a story harking back to old school NES games (I won’t spoil it for you, its a great concept) In it, you basically take control of a bouncing ball, and slowly explore new areas which, after a few rooms of bouncing puzzles, provide you with a new type of ball with new physical properties. These new balls give you the ability to discover new “realms”, and more complex puzzles that require you to switch ball types to solve, or are based on affecting the environment due to time based constraints.
What starts as a simple fun game becomes an exercise in frustration that can only be compared to some of the puzzles found in early Castlevania games, but the thoughtfully placed respawn/ball selector pads make it very easy and quick to retry an obstacle over and over, thus minimizing some of the pain of continual failure.
The second Nifflas game,Knytt, focuses on a UFO that flies into a meteor and crashes on a nearby planet. The inhabitants, a Knytt and the alien pilot survive, but the UFO is a wreck. How can the Knytt possibly find its way back home again? Well.. you take control of the Knytt and explore the world, seeking out all the pieces required to fix the ship. That’s it. No bells and whistles, no upgrades, nothing special. This game was followed by Knytt Stories in which each level is a new “chapter” or adventure, and features official and unofficial levels for download.
Getting away from Nifflas’ work, we come to Cave Story, a beatiful little gem created by a one-man development studio known as Pixel.
(From the website) “The developer, Pixel spent five years making this game as fun and as great as it is by adding solid controls, smooth gameplay, a great cast of characters and dialogue, an interesting plot, good music and beautiful old-school 2-D artwork. And on top of all this added multiple endings, several boss battles, tons of items to collect, all kinds of added secret bonuses and special challenges, various and considerably different methods of playing through the game depending on your actions, competition ranking features and an extremely high replay value. For a freeware game it is fairly lengthy too. Cave Story is by far the best freeware game I have ever had the honor of playing through and certainly one of the best games I’ve played.
The gameplay plays like a combination of various NES/Famicom games. Some that come to mind are Metroid, Castlevania, Megaman, Blaster Master and Monster Mash. Pixel’s art style and character design and boss battles are very reminiscent of Treasure games, like Gunstar Heroes, which happens to be one of my personal favorite games of all time. So if you are a fan of any of these titles, then you are in for a real treat. It was a wonderful and addicting experience playing through it and I hope anyone reading this who has not already played this game will give it a shot. You won’t be disappointed. It reminded me of why I enjoy playing videogames.
I really don’t have to add too much more.. This game was ported to the PC by loving fans, translated from Japanese, and given new life. The Deluxe version is your best bet for an easy installation that allows you to enjoy English dialog, original music and sound effects. Further investigation of the main tribute site will reveal FAQ’s, guides, and troubleshooting tips: all in all, an excellent resource for an even more excellent game.
So, I implore you to download and play these free gems. Not only are they great, low processor-requiring time wasters that are great for use on ultraportable netbooks, but are great stand-alones that can also be enjoyed within the comfort of your desktop and computer desk.
If you have any others to suggest that I can review or add to this list, please leave a comment or email me from the about link at the bottom of this site!
Legends of Zork
Posted by Kim | Filed under Casual Gaming
I’ve recently become enamored with the browser-based MMORPG Legends of Zork. It is, of course, an “update” of the 80’s text game, which allowed you to type in commands in a choose-your-own-adventure style. In Legends, you’re a recently-fired traveling salesman, formerly working for FrobozzCo. After your dismissal, you’re thrown into the wild with the clothes on your back and maybe one or two crude weapons (I started out with a penknife), and have to fight for survival and loot.
So what’s been updated? Basically – you get cartoony-style graphics now. Sadly, you’ve also sacrificed the ability to enter commands and - you know – do what you want. You can go to different places in the empire depending on your level, but you only have two options – explore, or go back to your base. Exploring, most of the time, just means fighting, although there are a few mechanical puzzles and such – but you don’t get to physically solve those in Legends, either.
The game is increasingly community-oriented, however – user-run guilds are a recent addition, and there is a PVP arena (note: I always, without fail, lose.) where you can spend your action points and gain fame, instead of the loot you gain from fighting. Virtual gold-digger that I am, I choose loot.
There’s no way around it though – the game is pretty boring. But really, I think that’s the point. Zork wasn’t that enthralling, and neither is Legends. Yet somehow – it’s addictive. I’m still trying to figure out why.
But judge for yourselves. Try it out here.
Plants vs. Zombies
Posted by Jon | Filed under Casual Gaming, Video Gaming
Every once in awhile a game comes along that is spellbinding, and changes the very way we percieve the fabric of space and time…
This isn’t one of those games, but its hella addictive! It is based on the popular “Tower Defense” genre of game, originated by a Flash-based browser game, “Desktop Tower Defense” created by first-time game designer Paul Preece in March 2007. The game has been played over 15.7 million times as of July 2007, and was one of Webware 100’s top ten entertainment web applications of 2007.
Plants vs. Zombies is released by Popcap games, and might very well knock Peggle from its #1 spot as the most popular Popcap game to date.
Similar to other tower defense games,in Plants vs. Zombies, players place down different types of plants, each with offensive or defensive capabilities, across a variety of house-concentric environs, to stop a horde of zombies from devouring the brains of the player, who is represented by the unseen resident of the house that is guarded by these plants. Naturally, there are a number of unique types of zombies, from ones that can mine under or pole vault over obstacles, balloon and zamboni zombies, and even Thriller-inspired dancing zombies that can raise others from the ground.
The game also features extra unlockable modes and puzzles as the player progresses through the game’s main Adventure mode. These include an endless survival mode, a puzzle mode and a selection of minigames, playing on themes from other Popcap classics such as Bejeweled and Insaniquarium. Players can also purchase items and plant upgrades with money dropped by zombies or won by playing these extra modes.
There’s even a Zen Garden, that allows players to grow a number of different collections of plants, and “tend to them” , collecting coins and jewels for your efforts, allowing for more upgrades and more plants to be purchased…
Although this game is tagged as casual friendly, be warned that it is extremely addictive, plus some of the later levels and survival modes are severe time-gobblers!
Available through Steam, or directly from Popcap themselves (demo) for 19.95, the extra unlockable modes and a more challenging 2nd play through in story mode make the replayability of this game well worth the coin!
