New (for me anyway) music

Posted on March 5, 2013 by Jerry Kline

I’m not a big chiptune fan, or even a big music buff, but recently I did find some new (for me anyway) music from a band called Br1ght Pr1mate. Br1ght Pr1mate is a duo based out of Boston, MA. The reason why I like them so much is that they do more than just instrumental bit music, they also have vocals on many of their tracks. The vocals are pretty good as well. While I haven’t heard any specific references to systems or games, it sounds like most if not all of their music is based on the Game Boy sound chip.

I specifically picked up their albums “Night Animals” and “The Reality Chipmusic Love Industry.” Most of their music is either priced pretty reasonably or is a “pay what you want” model. If you can only get one album though I would highly recommend “Night Animals.” Source Code is an especially great song.

Check them out-even if you don’t normally listen to chiptune music-and let me know what you think.

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Catching Up

Posted on March 2, 2013 by Jerry Kline

I’ve been spending the past few weeks catching up on my huge games backlog. I finished “Tropico 3″ for the 360. I was stuck on a couple missions in the campaign, but I managed to finish them up and get all 1,000 achievement points. I also played through all five episodes of Telltale Games’ “The Walking Dead.” I can see why so many people awarded it Game of the Year. Outside of those two games I still have a massive backlog to catch up on, including several RPGs.

In addition to catching up on my backlog, my duties over at EFG have been keeping me busy. We will be at both PAX East and GDC San Francisco this year. I personally will be at GDC all week long to meet people and possibly conduct a few interviews. If you’re interested in meeting, contact me via Eye for Games or on Twitter. It’s my first time at GDC, so I’m pretty excited to meet new people and check out some games.

I also finished two books on games lately: Scott Rogers’ “Level Up!: The Guide to Great Video Game Design” and “Masters of Doom” by David Kushner. “Level Up” does an excellent job of covering all aspects of game design. “Masters of Doom” is more a historical piece, covering John Carmack and John Romero’s time at id Software. It’s a fascinating read, and doesn’t play favorites. Since video games are such a comparably young medium, I’m always interested in books that deal with the history of the medium. “Masters” reads more like a work of fiction instead of a dry history book, but the author did conduct a ton of interviews, and it seems accurate.

So between GDC, my backlog, and reading, it’s been a pretty busy past few months. Now that the holidays are over I’ve somehow managed to stayed busy.

 

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What I’ve Been Up To

Posted on December 29, 2012 by Jerry Kline

The holidays have been keeping me pretty busy, along with the regular responsibilities of adult life. It’s not that I haven’t wanted to update this blog, but finding the time has been harder than ever.

That’s partially because of my new responsibilities. I started a new gig at Eye for Games: Copy Editor. This role will result in me taking on a bigger role in editing the work of others’ work. Of course I’ll still be working with the rest of the team to write articles, and I will continue to help update the Facebook page a few times a week. I’m pretty excited for it, since it’s been a great learning experience so far. I’ll be taking up even more responsibilities in 2013. I can’t go into too much detail yet, but I’m excited for what we have planned for the months ahead. In addition to trying to grow our body of work, we’re hoping to improve upon the quality of work as well. Rai is working hard on a member’s edition for the beginning of the year, which will function as a digital magazine with interactive elements. The plan is to showcase some of the work of the members on the site. Kind of a “best of” showpiece.

On a personal level I plan on growing in my knowledge of game development, and improving my writing as well. Time management is something that is going to be very important in 2013, especially in my new role. I have more to say on EFG and my personal experience with it in 2012, but I’ll save it for the upcoming articles on the EFG website. I know that’s pretty vague, but 2013 looks to be a pretty exciting time for EFG.

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What I’ve Been Playing

Posted on November 23, 2012 by Jerry Kline

It’s been a while since I talked about what I’ve been playing, so I decided to do a quick update of what I’ve been playing over the past few months:

Sleeping Dogs – Xbox 360
I did a review of Sleeping Dogs for AltDotGames, and talked about it in detail there. It’s a fun, but flawed game. Most of those flaws are technical ones, such as brief drops in frame rate.

Retro City Rampage – PC
Retro City Rampage is great at pulling on nostalic heart strings. Unfortunately it has the same uneven and sometimes cheap difficulty that NES era games are known for. I’ve been enjoying it, but the difficulty of certain missions is frustrating. I wish that the game was better balanced, or had multiple difficulties to choose from.

Beyond Good and Evil HD - Xbox 360
I never played BG&E in its original iteration, so the HD release on the XBLA is my first experience with it. I try not to buy into excessive hype for games. I find that this is especially useful when it comes to classic games, as they sometimes don’t stand the test of time very well. Fortunately for me, BG&E is still pretty amazing. The camera control is pretty goofy at times, and I found it inexplicably shifting on me periodically. It’s pretty annoying, and makes stealth sections more frustrating than necessary.

Civilization V – PC
I just got Civ V recently, along with the Gods and Kings expansion. Civ V is a super addicting, lengthy strategy game. There’s a ton of content and nations to play as. I’ve done the tutorial and a main game, and it took me about 12 hours in total. I’m really looking forward to diving into the multiplayer, since I haven’t tried it out yet.

Theme Hospital – PC
Theme Hospital is a fun classic sim  game from 1997. You have to diagnose and treat patients in your own hospital while keeping the budget balanced and expanding your hospital grounds. It’s pretty easy to jump into. There’s a good bit of humor here too, and Theme Hospital never takes itself too seriously.

Civilization Revolution - Xbox 360
Civ Rev was a great game on the DS, and the 360 version is no exception. Civ Rev has taken the Civilization formula and simplified it, and even made it more cartoony. Take a look at the character designs for Cleopatra and others from this game, and compare them to others from previous Civ games and Civ V, and you’ll see what I mean. While it’s certainly not as in depth as the other entries in the series, it’s an interesting side note, and I hope to see it continue some day.

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Sleeping Dogs Review

Posted on November 14, 2012 by Jerry Kline

I did a quick review of Sleeping Dogs for the 360, which you can find here at AltDotGames. I won’t go into detail here, but it’s a pretty awesome game overall. I had a lot of fun with the open world environment of Hong Kong. Aside from technical difficulties and some exaggeration in the end story, it’s a pretty powerful game. It’s something I wanted to come back to again and again. Check it out if you get the chance.

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Help Support A Friend and Extra Life Charity

Posted on October 19, 2012 by Jerry Kline

Starting October 20th at 9 a.m., a friend of mine will be playing games on a live stream to raise money for Extra Life.

Extra Life is a charity that raises money to buy toys for sick kids in hospitals. Lou will specifically be playing to support the Barbara Bush Children’s Hospital at Maine Medical Center. His goal is a pretty realistic one-just $200. It turns out that he already has $100 as of now.

If you want more info or would like to donate, please visit http://www.extra-life.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=donorDrive.participant&participantID=33711. Additionally you can follow Lou on Twitter @BusyZombieLord

Lou Page is someone I’ve worked with at AltDotGames.com, so I hope to see him succeed. Best of luck to Lou, and thanks to anyone who supports him.

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Retro City Rampage

Posted on October 13, 2012 by Jerry Kline

In case you haven’t heard, Retro City Rampage is finally out for the PS3, Vita and PC, with an Xbox Live Arcade and WiiWare release in the works. It just came out on October 9th. RCR is a parody of the original two Grand Theft Auto games, along with 80′s and 90′s pop culture. Expect references to Saved by the Bell, Paperboy, Back to the Future, and a lot of other popular 80′s and 90′s culture.

Retro City Rampage certainly isn’t the first game to do retro pixel art. What makes it unique is that, aside from music, Retro City Rampage was made entirely by one man-Brian Provinciano, aside from minor help from a pixel artist. RCR originally started out as GTA III for the NES (Grand Theftendo), but then became its own game.

Retro City Rampage

Retro City Rampage

Retro City Rampage

While I haven’t played it yet, I applaud Mr. Provinciano’s efforts. I’m looking forward to playing through it at some point. I mostly just wanted to bring attention to it to prevent it from getting lost in the crowd. If I get the chance to play it soon, I’ll make sure my impressions are known.

In the meantime I encourage everyone to check out Retro City Rampage at http://www.retrocityrampage.com.

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Retro Gamer Magazine

Posted on September 30, 2012 by Jerry Kline

Recently I went on a long cross country trip, and decided I wanted to pick up a magazine (yes an actual physical, paper magazine). I wandered into the nearest Barnes and Noble and picked up Retro Gamer Magazine. Specifically it was issue 105. It was my first time reading Retro Gamer, although I had heard mention of it before. For the unfamiliar, RGM is a U.K. published magazine on retro arcade games and computer games. A few console games are covered, but the emphasis is more on the PCs and arcade cabinets that were popular in the U.K.

RGM is packed with a lot of content, with 100+ pages. The magazine pages are much bigger than the smaller magazine format that say, Nintendo Power or EGM have had the past few years. I can’t speak for previous issues, but this one had a good variety of content as well. There was a big feature on EA and Trip Hawkins, with interviews from him and others who helped found EA. There was also a feature on the making of the arcade game Tempest, that examined how the game was made and the feedback that caused the game to be changed. For example, Tempest was originally called Vortex, and was supposed to be the equivalent of a first person Space Invaders.

One thing that Retro Gamer Magazine does well is that it is not afraid to talk about current gen games alongside classic games. When it comes to retro gaming magazines, sites or podcasts, it often seems as if there is a lot of animosity towards modern day gaming. RGM however avoids that. In fact, there is even a “Future Classics” feature. In this issue they talk about Jak and Daxter, and how influential the game was at the time, and how we will be playing it years from now as a classic game. I enjoyed the perspective of looking at a game that’s 10-12 years old and regarding it as something influential for future generations.

There are other small features as well: one on modern day indie clones of classic games, interviews with classic game developers, making of articles, and histories of companies.

Retro Gamer Magazine #105

Retro Gamer Magazine may be hard to find if you live in the U.S. However, you can subscribe digitally and read it on your computer or tablet. Currently it’s about £16.99 per year if you purchase it digitally. Given the sheer size of each monthly issue, and the amount of interesting content that is generated, I’d say it’s worth looking into.

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Torchlight II

Posted on September 27, 2012 by Jerry Kline

Runic Games’ Torchlight II has been pretty awesome so far. I’ve only downloaded and played through the demo, but it’s been fun so far. I’m really enjoying the loot of the game. It seems like every few minutes I find better armor or weapons to replace my current ones, and it’s really encouraging me to mix up my play styles. One minute I will be wielding a giant two-handed cannon with a chance of stun and that hits multiple enemies in a path; the next minute I will be using a melee weapon and a pistol to hit an enemy from afar and finish off any stragglers up close.

Torchlight II’s character classes are not sternly defined. I chose to play as a berserker, which is normally heavily geared towards melee. However I was able to quickly find and equip ranged weapons such as bows, pistols, and two-handed cannons. It’s nice to have a pistol in one hand and a claw or sword in the other hand. You can also equip gems to add elemental bonuses to armor or elemental effects to weapons. It’s pretty cool roaming through dungeons with a poisoned pistol, shooting bad guys at a distance while hacking away at close range with a lightning enhanced claw.

The demo version doesn’t have LAN or internet access, and only allows you to play through a few quests. Still, I put about two hours in before I hit the end of the Torchlight II demo. That’s plenty of time to get a feel for the game. I hate to compare it directly to Diablo III, but the comparisons are inevitable. After all, both games are in the same genre, and Runic has several ex-Diablo staff members on board. So comparisons are bound to be made wherever Torchlight II is brought up. I never played Torchlight I at all, but II is definitely worth a shot. At the very least check out the demo on Steam or their official website. Let me know what you think of Runic’s latest effort. I suspect if you enjoy the genre you will enjoy Torchlight II.

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A Trip to Game Center Arcade

Posted on September 15, 2012 by Jerry Kline

Recently I was in San Mateo, California when I stumbled across Game Center Arcade, a small place just off of the Caltrain stop in downtown San Mateo. Game Center is a small but clean arcade, with a heavy emphasis on fighting games. Street Fighter IV and Marvel vs. Capcom 3 were the two biggest ones, although they also had four linked Gundam game machines, a Beatmania cabinet, and a few other machines that weren’t currently in operation when I was there. In addition, they have systems such as a Dreamcast and NES that you can borrow and play on location. For $3 you can get an hour pass which will allow you access to most of the machines along the wall, such as their fighting games. Alternately for $7 you can get a day pass, which means you can play from 6 pm to midnight if you want. The owner also mentioned something about buying credits or tokens for the games in the center island of the room, but since they were all rhythm games that were only meant to be played by the credit system I passed them up. The $3 an hour deal seemed best to me, so I took a chance.

Many of their machines are simply PS3s inside of arcade cabinets. This is how I spent my time playing Marvel vs. Capcom 3 and Super Street Fighter IV. The arcade controls themselves felt sturdy enough, but the owner alternatively mentioned that you could bring your own fight stick if you wanted and plug it into some of the machines. I’m not a professional fighting game champion by any means, so I stuck with the standard arcade controls.

While the store may be small, it’s a clean arcade. Additionally the owner was a young man who was nice enough to explain everything to me. The good customer service alone set Game Center apart from other arcades that I’ve been to. It’s also near a train stop in downtown San Mateo, so it’s pretty easy to get to. When the arcade finally does open it’s awesome to walk past it and hear the sounds of the machines blaring out into the street. It may not be a 1980’s arcade, but the sounds of the arcade are still there. My biggest gripe with Game Center is probably related to their size-they lack the retail space of larger stores, and focus on primarily fighting games as a result. That’s fine for a hardcore fighting audience, but when I visited they didn’t seem to have any racing games, or light gun games. It would be nice if they had some of my favorites like the House of the Dead series, or the Cruisin’ series. However, their website did mention that they were a new arcade, so hopefully they can grow over time and add more machines.

If you’re interested in stopping by in person, Game Center is open Wednesday through Sunday from 6 pm to midnight, and is only a couple minutes walk from the San Mateo Caltrain stop. Alternatively you can visit their website www.gamecenterarcade.com or follow them on Facebook or Twitter for more updates.

 

 

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