You're a lone engineer with two objectives. (1) Hack all of the control terminals. (2) Eliminate robot scum!
Complete objective (1) to advance to the next level. Complete objective (2) for self defense and, you know, fun.
Please note, objective (2) is ongoing, especially in survival mode.
PLAY IT! [link]
Those who clocked The Humble Voxatron Debut a couple of days ago may have witnessed a new condition to the purchasing arrangements. It turned out those who purchased above the average selling price (about $3.70 at the time) would not only receive Voxatron but also a further two titles and popular titles at that: The Binding of Isaac and Blocks that Matter.
Personally, I am overjoyed they are offering The Binding of Isaac into the fold as I really enjoyed playing (and replaying) the demo. However, one major selling point in the full version, which I suspect would be generally regarded as a minor one, is the use of a fullscreen option.
Playing The Binding of Isaac on Newgrounds was all well and good but you couldn't help but be restricted by the fight mass that went between the playing screen and... well, everything else that made up the web page.
You see, a fullscreen option, to me, is a big thing for flash games. And as much as we might like to say The Binding of Isaac is anything but flash, that its 'indie' or 'successful' or 'fucking epic and you better not be comparing it with the likes of someone's first attempt at flash', Isaac is, fundamentally, a flash game whether we like it or not.
I think we should like it. Flash games are nothing to be ashamed of. Flash has been proven as a useful tool for making computer games including those that are indie and successful. Yet here are the web pages themselves with their masses of text and imagery which appear to convey something of an embarrassment for flash games. Where is the fullscreen option when you need it?
When I played a game called Cat Astro Phi, I so badly wanted it to be fullscreen. I wanted to be immersed in its sci fi enviroment. I wanted to be able to focus on things without squinting so hard that it got me wondering if I'd need to visit Specsavers after a detour to A+E.
This isn't just about one's game playing experience or level of accessibility. This is about status. Flash games deserve respect. Flash game creators deserve to respect themselves. Hosting sites ought to help with the ability to create a fullscreen option. Gamers need to combat the notion that they're whoring themselves over second rate rubbish.
This is about quality gaming. This is about flash in full. You know we deserve better, we all do. With games like The Binding of Isaac, we're getting there, just about. Really though, what we're in need of is something of a revolution. Flash games need to go fullscreen, full scale, right now.
Voxatron is Minecraft for adventure nerds. It is for the kind of player who destroys rather than builds. In my previous Voxatron related entry, I described the game as being an action shooter. Now that I've played the game for reals, I can now confirm this is a fair assumption. There has been action. There has been pixel blood flying all over the place. There has been shooting. There has been shooting of different kinds.
In fact, let's talk about the shooting, which isn't entirely restricted to shooting (there is some sword swinging involved at momentous occassions), but it is almost that. You can collect a 'Build' weapon. The 'Build' weapon fires square shapes which, if they hit the surface, will solidify into a useable platform. The 'Build' weapon is your ticket to reaching higher platforms, often where a select number of goodies are stored.
Then comes the actual building of levels, perhaps one could describe as building Minecraft style, though this is done separately, in an editor available from the main menu. Obviously, an editor can never be anywhere near as user friendly as the game itself, though the 'build it up/tear it down' thesis applies to both, it is in the editor where such builders will reign supreme.
I am making some concrete comparisons between Voxatron and Minecraft, perhaps too concrete for some, but I think it is important to observe, and to articulate, that which is inspired and that which gives inspiration. Voxatron, in my opinion, is inspired by Minecraft. Voxatron is riding, what I like to call, the wave that is 'The Minecraft Effect', not through the games themselves, but by how they're being developed and perhaps even how they're being promoted.
Voxatron is not a straight carbon copy of Minecraft - oh, not at all! Voxatron has brought with it its own surfboard for the aforementioned wave and with it some bells and whistles. That the developers of Voxatron have roped charities into its debut is novel, at least to me. Although it is important to note indie games are perhaps better not to follow the same path and treat it as singular, it is a path that has been lit, so far, by two great titles.
And now, a quick summary of Voxatron on Adventure Mode: Looks good, sounds OK, bit quiet at times, plays well though, lots of weapons, lots of enemies, really annoying iddy biddy enemies that seem to love killing me when in big swarms, creative power ups, enemies in the later dungeon rooms with interesting attack patterns, difficulty challenging, restarted quite a bit. Oh, and that bit with the snail.
I will never understand games that require two players, probably because there aren't two of me.
Anyway, should you be lucky enough to have you and another person nearby, you each may play one half of this multiplayer driving game, called Roadeo.
I say this is a driving game. It's actually one half driving and one half construction. I say this is construction when I mean this is road building as if you were rolling out a piece of everlasting carpet.
There are two modes, Versus and Co-op. Versus is apt to cause some arguments. For instance, the road builder may, layout permitting, create as many turns as they wish. For the driver, this might seem like they're receiving driving lessons from an embittered mage. Still, it's not all rosey for the road builder, for they are five times wider than the car and therefore must consider the path ahead, littered with pylons, bridge stands, buildings and so on.
Admittedly, I didn't have a friend to play this with. I didn't even have an enemy, or a frenemy, for that matter. I've got a cat, but as of playing, she was too tired at the time.
As a result, I attempted to play Roadeo all by myself. Anyone attempting to do the same is recommended to play Co-op. It is possible to designate one hand for the road and the other for the car, though playing this way isn't easy. To get the most out of Roadeo, I think you need to be a cross between a pianist and a pilot and have a fascination for cars and road construction. Or, you know, have a friend nearby, in your, you know, actual real life.
It's not as if Roadeo's asking for much...
PLAY IT! [link]
After the testosterone infused setting in Amnesia: The Dark Descent, it is nice, at last, to have an expansion with a female equivalent. Well, almost equivalent. There's still the occassional cock to be observed every now and then, but it can said the story itself is indeed an exploration of a female psyche. A female psychopath's psyche, but a female psyche no less.
The whole 'saving is not allowed' business is a bit cack, to be honest. There isn't much opportunity for death, despite its malevolent nature which will already be familiar to many Amnesia fans. In fact, the only area where you are likely to die (and where many Let's Players have died, actually) takes places in the middle. There's nothing like a panic striken chase sequence, complete with shouting at lever and valve controls (you had to be there), but the idea of failing this, then being forced to restart from the very beginning seems a bit needless, even a cheap way of prolonging this expansion.
Amnesia: Justine reminds me of Silent Hill 2's Born from a Wish scenario. Both star female characters, obviously, and both are also short with the overall difficultly ramped up a notch. Also, like the main character in Justine, Maria cannot remember what she is doing in her relative world. This, to me, is video game feminism at its most finest. If we can agree video games creators are largely male, then we must also agree this is men at their most faithful. Better for a man to admit he knows nothing of women than to make it up as he goes along.
If Amnesia: Justine were longer and the difficulty settled, we may have ended up with a self aware, Tomboyish character like Heather Mason or Lara Croft.
Wow, potentially epic adventure games in the making have, it seems, caught the Minecraft bug. Sort of.
Cognition: An Erica Reed Thriller is indeed an adventure game in the making by Phoenix Online Studios and a potentially epic one at that. Currently, the creators are pledging $25,000 so that development can speed itself up and hurry a potential release so that we can all enjoy this potentially epic adventure game. Potentially.
It might sound like I'm taking the piss, but Cognition is a title I'm actually rather looking forward to, not least because their 'story consultant' is the one and only Jane Jenson, creator of the recent Grey Matter and the legendary (or ought that be 'super old but rather well liked'?) Gabriel Knight.
Those who pledge $1 or more will be specially thanked in the credits list. Those who pledge a whopping $10,000 or more will not only be thanked, they'll be spanked! Well, no, not really! Actually, they'll have the opportunity to have their say on the project (disclaimer permitting) and have an opportunity to appear as a character in the game!
Phoenix's pledge is valid up until 11th December this year. If adventure games are important to you, then reading the story behind Cognition might well be worth your time.
Unlock is a competition entry in which the central theme was escape, or perhaps, the lack of it. In Unlock, you play as the omniscient assistance to a pixelated humanoid whose sole intention is to, you’ve guessed it, escape the world in which he finds himself in. In this case, the world of Unlock is one made up of a twin set of multicoloured blocks, some of which can be controlled by the player, some of which can’t.
Each level has the humanoid stand at the near left. Your objective is to get him to reach the far right. Although the humanoid is in much need of escape, you will receive no help from him other than when he is commanded to move right as if he were a depressed, perhaps drunk version of Sonic. The humanoid can be stopped with the help of a well placed block, but if he becomes trapped or falls from the screen, you must start again.
Difficulty wise, Unlock is a smooth, forgiving ride. There are no limited lives for which you must tackle through its ten or so levels. Also, the difficulty curve is steady, although I must say, in terms of puzzle solving, things seem to run out of steam towards the end, requiring repetition more so than the solving of a riddle.
Unlock’s presentation will win you over thanks to its ability to show and not tell. With its static mist, use of colour and music which loops discordant, ambient beats which, while not a million miles away from a ZX Spectrum, do manage to set the tone and even affects the mood of the gameplay. This is one game which shows you do not have to pile on the monochrome in order to create an emotional setting.
Don’t get me wrong, Unlock won’t have you crying into your hanky or feel anything special toward its main character who remains anonymous from beginning to end. Still, we do experience something unique, I think, when we’re not feeling moments of frustration. Sure, some levels will have you mash the restart button as if it were part of an unresponsive lift, but this may be part and parcel of the eventual puzzle solving satisfaction one feels when they, you've guessed it, escape.
1. MACHINES
Alexander, antagonist and owner of the castle, loves his machines, he does. He’s got a machine to work an elevator, a machine so complicated that it requires three lots of inventory items and the reading of three different memos, each for three different puzzles, each of which are performed on three different floors, isolating three different rooms where you’re required three different things, but not really, including getting a stove to work, adding cogs to an incomplete layout, putting rods into the correct order and getting your head around roman numerals.
All of the above is to get an old, singular elevator, to work. I hope Alexander never thinks about getting an electric garage.
Still, is there anything good to be said about Alexander’s machines, apart from the deliberate fact that they are there to provide puzzle elements and break up the game? Well, yes, there is, actually. Although a machine's existence may be contrived, their overall presentation comes across as pretty cool. It all boils down to the sound, really. When the machine starts powering up, the sound of pipes hissing is not a million miles away from the music you hear whenever a monster is running after you.
To be fair, there are only two big machine puzzles in the game and neither are particularly tortuous. There is one much smaller machine puzzle which takes place near the end, though, and nothing is said about it until the moment you think you're about to reach the game's conclusion. You won’t know that puzzle needs completing until you see a pop up message, you know something which might as well read like, ‘Well, we would let you complete the game, but there’s this machine we’d like you play with first!’ Bit annoying, really.
2. PAINTINGS
We talked about Amnesia’s reading in the last top listing entry. Now let us talk about Amnesia’s paintings.
I’m not art critic, or an expert, but I like to take a gander at the odd painting now and again. Fortunately, in Amnesia, paintings are in no short supply. What is in short supply, however, are the images of the paintings themselves.
Those who wish to treat Amnesia’s castle like a glorified art gallery may well be disappointed. Yes, what is there is made beautiful, but it is also replicated in later segments. For example, I saw the figure of Christ at least twice and the bloke with the minstrel at least three times. By the time I discovered Alexander’s office, connected to a single staircase which spiralled upward, I saw Alexander’s portrait (again) and the figure of Christ (again) and I was like, ‘Give me something new to look at!’
OK, the recycling of paintings isn’t that bad, and it’s not a gameplay issue by any measure, but it is noticeable. It would be interesting to find out how Frictional Games managed such imagery. Did they have to buy rights, or pay a fee of some kind to use such imagery or did someone from Frictional Games create them? The latter would be believable, if only because all paintings seem to adopt a similar style.
Ooh, I think I’ve just talked myself into playing through Amnesia with its developer commentary enabled! But not yet…
3. COCK
Amnesia loves a bit of cock. I know this because it can’t help but show it off throughout the second half of the game. Granted, most of the dudes who appear naked in this game are dead, but at least they're male. There’s no looking for a pearl necklace in this game (well, not visually, at least – ew).
Even the main characters you come across are either naked or near naked. It makes you wonder if Daniel, the hero you play as, is a boxers or briefs, or in Amnesia terms, second hand loin cloth or absolutely nothing kind of guy. Given how Alexander was waving his around (hyperbole), I’m willing to believe it’s the latter.
I could add my opinion on why I think the nudity is almost completely male, which is odd enough for indie games let alone for mainstream. However, I think I should like to wait until I’ve absorbed the commentary before I do. Perhaps cock, and everything else contained within amnesia, is there to showcase a certain violence men have between men. Sexist? Perhaps. Gender specific? Most definitely.
Play the demo! Buy the full version! [Link]
