So A-mazed

Once in a while McDonald’s comes out with a really ingenious not-just-based-on-some-movie toy for its Happy Meal.  This one here is a Feed the Monkey Maze.  In the tradition of the classic steel ball inside a maze, you maneuver said ball without falling into the holes.  You’d think it’s such an easy feat considering there are only four holes, but wait till you get your hands on it.

And unlike our old-school petty mazes inside our plastic rulers, this time there are sound effects (for as long as the built-in battery holds out I guess).

When you successfully get that ball down the monkey’s mouth, you’ll hear a sound, like a monkey’s truncated belch, perhaps.  Other times, but very rare, it’s longer and more cheery, a la pinball machine triumph.  I’ve always thought it was just factory defect, the arbitrariness of that metallic jingle until I read the instructions: 7 consecutive drops down the monkey’s mouth and the special sound plays.

For sheer digital fun though, there’s Labyrinth Lite available in the Android Apps Market, which has you tilting your phone this way and that.  The steel ball’s behavior is so realistic you’d think it was the real thing.  Only downer is that just ten levels are free in the trial version, which feels awful short.  If you think you’re really, really hooked, you can buy the full version which has over 1,000 levels and which also, in the tradition of Battle City (of the Famicom-era), lets you invent your own obstacle courses for your steel ball.

Also see Perplexus.

Who would have thought such a simple concept of a steel ball inside a maze could still be improved on?

Playing Indie

fresh from Wired.com:

7 Fantastical Indie RPGs Worth Playing

Transformers: Dark of the Moon | Game

For sheer effect, Michael Bay should have had Transformers: Dark of the Moon shown last June 15, when there was actually and literally a dark of the moon owing to a lunar eclipse.  At least his movie would have gotten one thing right.

But then again, there's already Green Lantern and X-Men: First Class at the cinemas.  Three action superhero movies showing simultaneously is much too much.

* * *

Movie-goers (assuming they are gamers too) might be better off spending their precious moolah on the new tie-in video game (of the same title as the film) by High Moon Studios which released War for Cybertron last year to a generally favorable reception.  

So far, the reviews for the new Transformers game, Dark of the Moon are mixed.  The good: outstanding gritty graphics, versatile shooting capabilities, and a neat multi-player mode.  The bad: unremarkable soundtrack and an essentially unsatisfying shortness in the whole gameplay (18 missions all in all).  

Don't worry good ol' Peter Cullen still lends his voice to the franchise.






 

Elementary, my Dear Rizal.

The

Detective Rizal game

developed by AccidentalRebelGames, in commemoration of the hero's 150th birthday.

Madness Returns, Hopefully

The official trailer to American McGee's Alice: Madness Returns.

Did Not Know God of War II Was This Good

1. Did not know God of War II was this good. Me and Edge practically were tearing each other's arms just to snatch the controller and take a stab at being Kratos.

2. Apparently, it's never too late to play God of War II, no matter if four years have already passed since it was first released. The first time I saw the game was in video game store. I forgot if someone had been playing or if the game was playing by itself. All I remember is that giant statue on which Kratos had to jump aboard and kill, and I was thinking to myself, the enemy is also the terrain. Noice.

3. For some unknown reason, Edge's bro's PS2 plays the game in black and white, no matter how we tinker with the RGB cables. We actually thought God of War II was deliberately rendered in black and white and we were quite content with it.

Then we popped Fight Night and everything was still B&W.

4. Barring that sex mini-game at the early part of the game in the Rhodes bathhouse, God of War should be recommended to high school students. What better way to learn about Greek mythology than through an slash 'em all PS2 title of epic proportions? As for me, I practically learned the names of the Greek gods and goddesses and other characters from the our big dictionary. Kids of today have it easy.

Time and again I've lamented the fact that Greek mythology is not included in gradeschool curricula. The tale of Prometheus sneaking in fire to mankind behind the gods' back is infinitely more interesting than tales about the monkey and the turtle and the banana they fought over.

5. The God of War series undoubtedly has got the best boss battles in all of gaming history. Remember during the Super Mario Bros. days, the boss fights with King Koopa (and his sub-bosses Koopalings) were already as good as you're gonna get.

6. I read the box a little too late. It says there, for every hour of game play, a 15-minute break is recommended to avoid eye strain. The box also warned about the dangers of epileptic shocks. While me and Edge are relatively epileptic-shock proof, five hours of nonstop play has nevertheless rewarded me with a headache the size of Olympus.

It's Earth Day, so Play Plants Vs. Zombies!

Random thoughts about getting from 43 flags to 49 flags in PvZ.




1. I'm now proud to announce that I've broken my record.  From 43 flags tp 49 flags.  Okay, not exactly a phenomenal bound, more like a tiny leap, but at least it's a record broken.


2. Do the onslaught of zombies ever reach a plateau?


3. They say "tohot" gives unlimited suns, but that doesn't work at all for me.


4. I briefly tried a four-cob cannon setup, but those pesky imp nibbled the poor corns.  


5. For the bungee zombies, I like to use the ice-shrooms.  


6. Zombies I loathe the most, in increasing order of my hatred: Gargantuar, Zomboni (the one that drives the ice machine), and the Jack-in-Box zombies.  


7. True to its name, the Yeti zombie is elusive and has never graced my screen ever before, and so simply remains a set of three question marks on the zombie almanac.  

8.  No, you can't make me sell my Tall-Nuts to Crazy Dave.


9. I wonder what's the next big thing from PopCap games, and if it can ever top Plants vs. Zombies.


10.  It's Earth Day, which is why in my own little way I'm playing PvZ.  (Hey, I also turned the compost heap this morning.  No, seriously, I do have a compost heap in the house.)

Star Wars Battlefront 3 | A Sneak Peak

From the much-anticipated Star Wars Battlefront 3 from LucasArts.

Setups for Endless Survival

Who would have known the humble Gloom-Shroom could be so potent against the zombies in the Endless Survival mode?  

Some install an extra pair of Gloom-Shroom at the back to ward off the Digger zombies, while some put their faith on the unassuming Spiderocks.  

Whatever your leanings, PvZ pros will tell you to include in your arsenal:

• a column of toxic Gloom-Shrooms, your lawn's first line of defense,
• the ever-reliable Cattails, for targeted zombie deaths,
• a Cob Cannon or two, for superior blasting,
• lots of Winter Melons for slowing down the zombies' already plodding gait, 
• and an Umbrella Leaf to repel renegade bungee jumpers and catapults alike.

I also swear by the very temperamental Squash; they come in handy and pack a nasty stomp which remarkably weakens Gargantuar.

Setup 1

Setup 2



Setup 3

Amanita Design is Back with "Osada"

After the brilliant Samorost 1, Samorost 2, and Machinarium, you're probably asking how can Czech game studio Amanita Design possibly top all that?  What's next?

Carefree or Spooky?  Scene from Osada

Well, Samorost 3 is still in the works (no screenshots yet though), plus two more titles: Botanicula (about critters with a mission to protect the last surviving seed in their planet--more on that later)  and Osada.

Osada is a web-based point-and-click interactive music video but without Machinarium's migraine-inducing puzzles.

The scenarios for each music video are reminiscent of Samorost: surreal and bizarre landscapes, peopled by bugs and howling dogs and oddball figures, in a hodgepodge mosaic of photos and drawings and animations. Think of the wickedly quirky music videos you'd expect to see from Mark Romanek.

The point of the "game" seems to be that you just have to listen to the music being dished out as you click your way through the screen.  Musical instruments employed in Osada include a banjo, keyboards, electric guitar, tube, sax, harmonica, Jew's harp, violin, clarinet, even the didgeridoo--an Australian wind instrument invented by the aborigines.   You can't get any more eclectic than that.

Scene from Botanicula

Osada features what Jakub Dvorsky, calls "Czech psychedelic country music"--richly multi-layered tracks always busy and festive, and the best part is you're the boss.  

One thing though, the music tends to be too short to be played comfortably and tolerably on loop (unlike the soundtracks of Samorost 1 and 2).  Get stuck in one music video, for instance, and the music will start to feel like annoying cacophony instead.

Incidentally, Tomas Dvorak--the man behind Samorost's hypnotic soundtrack--is absent from the list of musicians for Osada.

So you're clicking things on screen to activate the music.  But to what end?

See for yourself and enjoy.

* * *

Osada is now playable at http://amanita-design.net

Botany Vs. Zombology Action Figures

I saw some Plants Vs. Zombies action figures at the Clipper store  (the Japanese/Japan-inspired novelty gift shop) last last week, and a single toy costs about 800 friggin bucks.  I think I picked up Tall-nut (always my favorite, next to Squash) and Torchwood (Torchwood had a nice orangy translucent plastic for a flame, while the rest of the body is rubber, kinda like your regular rubber duckie, but without the squeak.)  

Somehow, the label action figure doesn't suit them; they don't move or have movable parts; they just stand cute on your desk.  So it's a misnomer.


But if you google Plants Vs. Zombies action figures, you nevertheless get an image such as this:

I doubt these are the same set I saw at Clipper.  Those were large, as big as a pocket book, although for all I know the guys on the left could be big too, and not gashapon-sized.  (Squash is on the third row, far right, looking grumpy as ever.)   The set sells for $105 at Salesmanb2b.com.   The zombies are a no-show, however.


In any case, notice the lawn, it's studded with daisies.  I've recently reached 100 feet tall for my Tree of Wisdom, but because it's not 500 feet tall or 1,000 feet tall, daisies are about all the things I can make sprout for the time being.  1,000 seems such a long, long, looong time.

A Madder Look at Alice in Wonderland

Certainly not your regular Alice simply lost in Wonderland.

This time around, the girl is mad, mad, mad, I tell you (maybe the Mad-Hatter finally rubbed off on her.)  Or maybe, her family got killed in a fire in their house and it was all too much for poor Alice.

In

Alice: Madness Returns

--American McGee's dark-and-macabre-as-ever sequel to Alice--Alice is finally released from Routledge Asylum, where for ten years she has been under the care of Dr. Heironymous Wilson.  But alas, Alice is still a nutcase, and Wonderland and all its inhabitants (including the Chesire Cat, White Rabbit, and Queen of Hearts) are warped more than ever courtesy of Alice's own deeply-twisted mind.

Thankfully, the heroine is armed with a badass Vorpal sword (from Lewis Carroll's Jaberwocky poem), so you know you'll be fighting in style.

Alice: Madness Returns is set to be released this 2011. 

Expect Lewis Carroll to turn in his grave, but for the right reasons.

* * *

Notable: Chris Vrenna's wonderfully eerie soundtrack made entirely out of toy instruments and percussion, music boxes (reputedly a Fisher-Price music box pocket radio), clocks, doors, and various convulutions of female voices--all lending an nightmarishly unstable quality to the game.

* *  *

Incidentally, there is an actual medical condition called Alice in Wonderland Syndrome (AIWS) in which the sufferer has a distorted perception of the shape and size of his or her body and/or parts of it, much like Alice drinking the potion that shrunk and bloated her.  Distance perception is a problem too among sufferers, as well as losing the sense of time.  AIWS has nothing to do with bad eyesight; it's bad neurons that's causing problems.

Fortunately, the condition is treatable with anti-migraine pills, antidepressants, anticonvulsants, and beta blockers.

Effing Meteors

As if the earthquakes and tsunamis in Japan and the earth's axis being moved by about 4 inches weren't enough, doomsayers have also began broadcasting their reassuring claims about the end of the world on the particularly sprightly day of December 21, 2012.  Nice, but our interest kinda fades.

What is it exactly about the apocalypse that lures us, good enough to buy tickets to see a gimmicky Roland Emmerich flick?  The spectacular destruction?  The romanticized disaster scene?  The vicarious futile hope for the doomed people.  The regrets of things unsaid, things not done?
 
Whatever it is, the end of the world scenario is an excellent motivator, keeping everyone on their feet.

Sick and tired of the doomsayers' fascination with the Mayan calendar and other gruesome endings for planet Earth?  

Try Effing Meteor, a free flash-based arcade game where you play the role of an invisible force/a malignant sentient out to destroy every possible world in the entire universe. 

Your job will be like Shiva the Destroyer, but in this case you harness and gather a random rain of meteors into the kind that will inflict grand-scale irreparable damage and mass-extinction in your target world.   

Finally, a game that confirms for us that an effing meteor the size of Africa or larger was the reason why the dinosaurs went kaput, although here the giant lizards aren't exactly helpless as they shoot laser beams from their eyes to wreck your meteors.

Effing Meteors is brutal and ruthless yes, but at least you're not rubbing off any bad vibe on anyone like the next froth-mouthed doomsayer out there.

* * *

We hope everything turns out okay for everyone in Japan.  There is surely something to learn from the composure and presence of mind the Japanese people have exhibited in trying times like these.

Batman: Arkham City Trailer

Batman: Arkham City

Is this just the trailer or the game cutscene?  Either way, it's impressive graphics.  Don't you just wish Autumn 2011 were here already?

Maxwell Widens His Vocabulary

Ernest Hemingway was a writer who disfavors adjectives.  True, his terse writing, influenced by his being a journalist, may have won him the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1954, but I don't think Maxwell would like that.

In Super Scribblenauts, released October last year by 5th Cell, the game's character named Maxwell, discovers the many wonderful brilliant outrageous insane uses of adjectives as modifiers of noun.  

Previously in Scribblenauts, Maxwell was just conjuring nouns out of thin air so he can collect those prized Starites, but why stop at just nouns?  So in Super Scribblenauts, game designer Jeremy Slaczka and his team introduced adjectives--which will certainly get gamers fumbling for more imaginative modifiers than just cool or nice or great or even super. 

In the sequel, you type an adjective to describe your noun, say weightless dinosaur--or even a string of adjectives--weightless transparent winged angry puce dinosaur--and you get what you wish for.  

And hopefully that exact apparition helps Maxwell get out of his current conundrum.  The game, by the way, has 120 puzzles all in all, a little short especially for the particularly eloquent types, but still, for all the brain activity it subjects us to, Super Scribblenauts is a winner.

As in the original Scribblenauts trademarked terms and vulgar/profane terms are a no-no, so typing in Barney dinosaur or f*#%ing dinosaur won't get you anywhere.  I've yet to try typing in existential to see what happens.  Even sexy isn't recognized at all.

I bet this would make Ernest Hemingway reconsider.

 

* * *

The Super Scribblenauts scores so far...

Metacritic 81%

Game Rankings 82.33%

Nintendo Game Magazine 86%

Getting to Know Pac-Man (More)

No, not him:

 

I mean this Pac-Man.

Pac-Man installation rendered in tin cans.  Thousands of them

Aside from the fact that Pac-Man turns 31 this May 2011, you've probably already read the Yahoo article on the little known secrets of Pac-Man, but here's a link to that anyway: Five Things You Didn't Know About Pac-Man.

Now I can't wait to see if Blinky the red ghost really does relentlessly stalk Pac-Man. 

 

Retro Toy: M.U.S.C.L.E.

For those with long memories that harken back to the days of Nintendo Famicom, you've probably played this game before but just forgot the title.


M.U.S.C.L.E.  by Bandai.
Gameplay was sluggish, plot and story were essentially nil (not that it mattered), and the wrestlers were hopelessly short-limbed, clunky, and knew only about four kinds of moves: run, jump, knock, and roll.

If you'll notice, the reference to muscle(s) is only implied, as the graphics are too crude to show any real muscle definition.  From afar the wrestlers even look like kids horsing around, unable to inflict any real pain to each other--which, come to think of it, is what real-life wrestlers are all about anyway.

Apparently, the M.U.S.C.L.E. game also has an accompanying toy line (whichever came first I'm not sure).  The action figures (think specially-grooved and carved gum erasers resembling action figures--are 2 inches tall, rendered in flesh-tone pink (or some other monochromatic color), and have no movable joints, but are now considered as vintage, rare collector stuff.

In the Famicom game there's only 8 characters you can choose from, but the toy line features more than 200 of these angry-faced, teeth-grinding guys ready for action.

M.U.S.C.L.E., by the way, stands for Millions of Unusual Small Creatures Lurking Everywhere.

Play with a Samorost Today!

Two years ago I took this photo of tree stumps that looked like they were up to something.

Don't ask me what they're up to, but it looked pretty scandalous to me.

Now I'm playing Jakub Dvorský's award-winning game Samorost--which in Czech means a root or piece of wood that resembles a creature.

Mmmm, a samorost*.  So, thanks to the Czechs, this gnarled thing has a name after all:
* * *

Back to the game by Amanita Design.  It's set on actual pieces of knobby wood you might find lying on a forest, with a few weird creatures to boot. 

Up-close the samorost landscape looks otherworldly and surreal ( It's like René Magritte and Tim Burton were the consultants), and the story that unfolds is whimsical, exotic, and downright funny.  (Think giant slugs with hammers and flatulent platypuses)

Your goal is to guide your all-white pyjama-clad character through the convulated strange world and execute a series of actions to a. deflect an oncoming meteor-samorost from your samorost-home planet (in Part 1), and b. to save your kidnapped dog (in Part 2).

If you were bred on McGyver episodes (which I was not), and know a thousand possible uses for a cork, for instance, Samorost is peanuts.

But for the rest of us who think a cork is just for plugging bottles, Samorost is a heady challenging game as you rack your brain trying to figure out where else you can put your hot little fingers on just to get you out of trouble.  Plus you have to do things in a certain order, or you can't progress to the next level.

Yes, it's a point-and-click puzzle, but clicking blindly on the whole surface area of your screen until something interesting happens is not the point.

The point is: Samorost is fun, (both 1 and 2--and the third sequel called Machinarium, featuring a discarded robot this time, even more so).  The graphics is artfully and unapologetically gritty, it's almost like 3D.  And the soundtrack by Tomáš Dvořák--luxurious, ethereal, and first-rate (as if Björk will cut in any time).  

Just listen to one of the tracks, Podzemi, will you?

	Tomas Dvorak - Podzemi .mp3
	Found at bee mp3 search engine

Samorost may be a fleeting and one-time thing (you can finish the game in just a couple of hours), but one thing's for sure, it's unforgettable.  You won't look at a decaying piece of log or a washed-up driftwood the same way again.


* * *
This is what happens when I thumb through an old issue of Wired magazine--the paper version, with recommended links on the Web, but which you can't click because, hello, it's paper--not unless you drop the magazine and actually head over to your PC.

So Wired had a nice thumbnail review of Samarost 2 (a charming blend of mushroom-and-moss naturalism and retro sci-fi).  Four years the magazine's been collecting dust on the shelf, and it's only now I decide type in that link.  It's never too late

________
* An alternate meaning is a person who doesn't care about the rest of the world.

Mortal Kombat is Back, Gorily So

"The title says it all: Mortal Kombat. Not Mortal Kombat 9 (as it's the ninth proper beat-'em-up in the series) or Mortal Kombat: The Explodering, or anything so outlandish. Just Mortal Kombat.

It speaks volumes about the need to get back to basics, to deliver a purer fighting experience than we've seen in ages. But with lots and lots of gore, naturally.

Because after years of babalities, animalities and drifting away from the core ultra-violence of a spine-ripping 2D beat-'em-up, Mortal Kombat is getting back to its roots - roots that happily include Raiden using his razor-edged hat to buzzsaw an enemy in two from the groin up, and then hefting the two bloody sides of his fallen opponent skywards in damp, dripping victory..."

Review of Mortal Kombat

* * *

Yie Air Kung-Fu

Now, for the $1,000,000 question: do violent video games trigger real-life violence in kids? 

I grew up playing Yie Air Kung-Fu (too crude to be violently suggestive), Street Fighter (a little violent but Chun Li and Blanka were fun, so what the hell) and Mortal Kombat (gory, what with Reptile's head-devouring fatality moves) on Nintendo Family Computer. 

Maybe, yes, I have that occasional urge to slap someone silly or step on their toe with a heavy-soled shoe or like Reptile, bite their head off, but other than that I'd like to think I'm as peaceable as a cookie crumb.

And the latest on gaming violence:

"Media Psychiatrist" Ratchets Up Anti-Videogame Rhetoric"

http://www.wired.com/gamelife/2011/02/rape-videogames-carole-lieberman/

Onyanko Town

Ever played Onyanko Town in Famicom? (It's called Animal Town at Edge's CD-ROM, although the only animals in there are dogs and cats, and the occasional fish from the fish vendor.)  

It's fun.  You play the role of a Mother cat who must find her wayward kitten son among the maze of suburban houses while evading killer dogs.

That was what we had for a game of maze back in the days of Nintendo Famicom.  Of course, there's Jim Henson's Labyrinth* game too (based on his 1986 film ), and this is exponentially harder than Onyako Town, because let's face it Onyako Town is just a dogs-chase-cat-around-the-neighborhood gig.

One thing about the mazes in the Famicom days: your game universe had boundaries that you can't get past no matter what, or else had no boundaries at all--in which case you walked into one end of the screen and emerged out of the other.

(Think of Neo, trapped in the eternal loop of the Mobil Ave railroad station in the Matrix--Mobil being an anagram for Limbo.)

* * *

When I first played Grand Theft Auto, I didn't follow the prescribed procedures of gameplay.  

I simply hijacked a nice cool-looking car and drove off as fast as I can and explored the game universe, wondering how far do I have to drive before I hit the artificial boundaries that would stop me on my tracks.  Naturally, I got tired even before I hit any of those boundaries, if there ever were.


Sandbox games, where were you when I was a kid?

 _______________
* Jennifer Connelly played the role of Sarah in Labyrinth, while David Bowie with androgynous disheveled hair played the role of the Goblin King.