Friday Flashback: Commander Keen
This week's flashback is a bit of a strange one, because it's not a game I've played a million times and have memorized perfectly. In fact, I'm not even sure if I ever played it on my own computer. However, it still holds a place in my heart because it helped while away the hours during my high school's programming class. After I finished my BASIC assignments (yes, BASIC was all my high school had), I played one of two games on the computer lab's systems: Virtual Pool and Commander Keen.
New Pokemon Black/White Trailer looks simply amazing (for Pokemon)
Recently, a brand new Pokemon Black and White trailer came out that goes in depth to show off some new features of the game. The source, a German website translated by Google here, tells of some of the details, though not very clearly. It explains a bit about a "Dark Team" and a regional manager. On top of this video though, another video (after the jump) was released showing off some quick battle scenes and what seems to be a mini-game. Leave us your thoughts in the comments below.
Be a part of NES chiptunes history with Shael Riley and the Double Ice Backfire
Shael Riley has made a name for himself in the nerdcore, remix, and chiptunes scenes. He got started ten years ago posting video game remixes on OverClocked Remix. He produced Blood on the Asphalt, an OC Remix album of Street Fighter tracks that caught Capcom's eye and was put in Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix. He's performed multiple live chiptune and nerdcore hip-hop shows, both solo and in his bands, The Grammar Club and Shael Riley and the Double Ice Backfire. You might have heard his work at MAGFest or Nerdapalooza.
Shael Riley and the Double Ice Backfire are working on a album of chiptunes rock, Ultimate Songs from the Pit. It'll include 6 remastered tracks from the original 2009 EP Songs from the Pit and 10 all-new songs, with guest appearances from MegaRan, Schaffer the Darklord, and Billy the Fridge.
If you're not familiar with chiptunes rock, it's a genre of music that uses the NES or other video game hardware as a musical synthesizer. Yes, the dulcet tones you hear coming from SRatDIB are produced by a Nintendo Entertainment System.
Preview: Naruto Ultimate Ninja Storm 2
For a game with literal single-attack-button-combat, the original Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Storm was a fun little game. It gathered a bit of a following, selling 852,263 units in the first 20 weeks and receiving a surprisingly decent average score of 75 on Metacritic. The original was a visual masterpiece with graphics rivaling that of the anime; in fact, the only major complaint against it was the lack of online multiplayer. The sequel will fix that issue and more when it releases this fall for the PS3 and, for the first time, the Xbox 360. Yesterday, a demo for the sequel hit Japanese PSN and XBLA, showcasing some of the new gameplay and sharper graphics.
Both games are free-roaming 3D fighters, much like the DragonBall Raging Blast games or Zone of the Enders. You have a single attack button (circle) which has branching combos that you can alternate by moving the control stick. So O-O-O-O is a different attack combo than tilting the stick forward and doing the same. The X button is your jump button, and a double tap causes you to dash to your foe. The Triangle button is used to charge your energy (called chakra) while Square throws shuriken, mainly used to interrupt your opponent. The L1/R1 calls in an assist from a teammate while L2/R2 are your block. You can also set items to help you in battle to the four directions of the directional pad.
From the Game: Gradius’ Vic Viper Model
Japan gets cooler video game toys than us. It's just a sad truth of the world. The land of the rising sun is chock full of replicas, trading figures, action figures, and various knick-knacks based on video games. Usually, it's very hard to get these items in the United States unless you import them online. Fortunately, there's a neat little import toy shop in the East Village that carries many of these awesome Japanese video game toys. This is one of them.
This is the Vic Viper from Gradius, one of several trading figures in Yujin's Shooting Game Historica Collection. The collection includes models of the ships from several famous shoot-em-ups, including Gradius, R-Type, Darius, and even Fantasy Zone. They come in blind boxes, meaning it's a crapshoot whenever you pick up a box (unless you get the entire case). I got lucky on my first try, and found the easily recognizable fighter from the very first Gradius.
Quick Review: Dragon Quest 9
[Note: This Quick Review is very long. It's a "Quick Review" not for the length of the review, but for the amount of time played. Quick Reviews are reviews of games that the reviewer has not yet finished, but has played enough to get a solid impression of the game. At the time of this writing, I had played Dragon Quest 9 for over 30 hours.]
Dragon Quest IX: Sentinels of the Starry Skies
Mechanically, this game is Dragon Quest. It's the same as Dragon Quest 3, 4, 5, 8, any game in the main series. Turn-based first-person JRPG combat, paint-by-numbers leveling and stat-building, and a full variety of quirky spells like Zing (Life), Frizz (Fire), Crack (Ice), and Squelch (Antidote). If you've played a Dragon Quest game before, you already know how this goes.
DQ9 distinguishes itself with a few unique features to spice up the game: character classes, wardrobe customization, and the removal of random encounters. Instead of dedicated classes for each character, you can select from six different jobs (expandable to twelve after completing some quests). The progression is very similar to Final Fantasy 3 and 5, where each job has its own level and skill allocation, and while you can carry certain bonuses over between jobs you generally have to start from scratch when you switch. It adds a pleasant bit of variety, and gives you the opportunity to arrange your party and play the game on your terms. If you want nothing but bruisers, you can do that. If you want nothing but magic users, you can do that. If you want a balanced party of fighter, thief, white mage, and black mage, you can do that. It's very freeing in an old-school way.
Cheap Thrills: Ricochet Kills 2
Cheap Thrills is a column by Chris Gampat reviewing affordable (under $20) or free games for the recession.
If you like solving puzzles, killing shadowy people, and physics, then Ricochet Kills 2 may be just the game for you. With loads of different combinations for murdering the men in suits and with different objects to aid or work against you, the game is highly addicting with a simple gameplay mechanic that will leave your brain confused with how to accomplish your goals.
If you're bored with nothing to do during a lunch break or really want to try a new game to get away from all the FPS's out there, give this simple flash game a try. If you're an Android user, let us know how it works on your phone.
Tuesday’s Trope: Collection Sidequest
[Tuesday's Trope is a weekly department highlighting an amusing video game trope from TVTropes. Aggrogate is not affiliated with TVTropes.org in any way. All trope examples come from TVTropes and are shared via the Creative Commons license.]
It's not enough to save the world. You have to collect tons of crap while you do it. Gems, coins, medals, weird shiny things. They're everywhere. It might not be vital to your mission, but if you bring in enough odds and ends you'll probably get a nice reward. This is one of the most common kinds of sidequests in video games: the Collection Sidequest.
There are X number of doodad in the world. The more you collect, the more items you get. When you collect all X, you get a really sweet reward and bragging rights (or sometimes just bragging rights). It's necessary for a 100% run of the game, and it sends you out to the farthest reaches of the world.
Examples of Collection Sidequests include:
Alien Swarm: Free, fun, and full of violence
To those involved in the first person shooter “modding” scene, Alien Swarm should sound familiar. Black Cat Games released the first Alien Swarm game, an Unreal Tournament 2004 mod, to a warm reception. Their success translated into jobs at Valve and an opportunity to create a full, “real” game, now on the Source Engine. Enter Alien Swarm, again.
Alien Swarm plays like a top down Left 4 Dead with aliens instead of zombies. In a similar construct to L4D, four people team up and complete mission requirements before completing a level. Breaking from the L4D mold, Alien Swarm adds the Modern Warfare-like abilities of character leveling, varied classes, and unlockable items. The development team was keen on making new equipment easy to obtain, and it’s a pleasure to see an appreciation for the difference between “leveling” and “grinding”. The formula is pretty simple: beat a mission, gain a level (usually), and get an item.
Leveling up and progressing in the game is fun, but hampered by the scant amount of content. At the current time there is only one “campaign,” consisting of 7 levels. The levels tie together with a thin story: there are aliens, they are bad, kill them. It’s a Michael Bay story, not Christopher Nolan.
Capcom’s newest fighting bombshell: Street Fighter X Tekken
Don't make fun of Ryu's face. You'd freak out too if you found yourself in a fight with Kazuya Mishima. Capcom has announced that it's working on Street Fighter X Tekken, a fighting game that combines the rosters of the Street Fighter and Tekken series (and offers an alternative for people who are "too cool" for the comic book cast of Marvel Vs. Capcom 3).
SFXT will be based on the Street Fighter IV engine, so Nina, Jin, Kazuya, and the rest will be limited to the 2D fighting plane. The game will be tag team-based, and players will be able to fight each other using teams of two fighters. Finally, you'll be able to have your own team of blonde, U.K.-born assassins with a Cammy/Nina tag team. The Tekken fighters will all get their own ultra combos as well, which should be interesting for Jin and Kazuya, whose punches are practically their own super moves.
Namco is apparently working on Tekken X Street Fighter, but details are extremely vague. Whether you consider the two games redundant or a refreshing twist on either series, 2011 will be a very good year for fighting game fans.
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