With all the fuss and happy-happy fury about virtual reality gaming seemingly becoming an ACTUAL reality sooner than later (again, but in a few smaller, lighter and thankfully less expensive formats), you know someone had to take things to an even more intensive level of immersion. Enter the folks at Virtuix Omni and their rather innnnterersting peripheral that’s going to get your ass up of its ass and make you play those 3D games in a whole new way. Unlike some of those first VR terminals of the 1990’s where you stood and basically turned in place with your arm out, the Omni Natural Motion Interface will get you a workout you can’t believe and probably will get hooked on once your body heals from the first few days of wondering why the hell you’re REALLY running when you usually sit down to play that favorite shooter, action game or open-world RPG… Continue reading →
Currently an iOS exclusive and out NOW, The Gate is a free to play fantasy-themed card battle/RTS from American McGee and developer Spicy Horse Games that looks amazing and should grab the attention of those iOS users looking for some high-quality gaming on the go with a bit more bite.
As you can see, the game’s lovely artwork is quite impressive, mixing in a bit of Diablo with some original elements quite nicely. Killer artwork of course, doesn’t entirely make a game, but it looks as if the team has cooked up quite a winner on the gameplay front with a little help from DeNA and Mobage. In other words, it looks as if going to Hell will actually be something you’ll want to to many, many times once you pick this one up and get hooked into all it has to offer.
Currently, there’s no word if this is coming to non-iOS platforms, but I’d gather this all depends on how well the iOS version does. I’m an eternal optimist (or at least someone who prefers more choice outside of Apple platforms), so I’m hoping more gamers who play on other devices can get a taste of The Gate at some point in the near future.
As for what to expect if your interest is piqued, well… peek below the jump for the gory details (or: it’s press release time!)… Continue reading →
Another of DeNA’s surprises for mobile devices was this great looking fast paced arcade-style tap and shoot game, LAWLESS, that’s a surprisingly fun mash-up of classic light gun games such as Time Crisis, Virtua Cop and Area 51 and Michael Mann’s stellar crime flick, HEAT. If that sounds like a match made in coin-drop heaven it comes off even more excellently thanks to developers Eight Pixels Squared and DeNA Scattered Entertainment.
Sitting down with DeNA’s Barry Dorf for a quick look at the game, I was surprised at the combination of nicely realistic visuals and speedy timed gameplay that was immediately accessible and yes, addictive. Like the other games shown, this one’s free to play in solo or multiplayer modes with the option to buy in should one choose to upgrade. Based on some quick hands-on time with this one, I can see a lot of people opting in to spend a little to a lot of cash to keep this one going for a good long time… Continue reading →
Max Team is still hard at work ironing out any problems in their upcoming Monster World RPG. Fans of Monster World IV will get a grin going at this video in particular because it’s based on that a very familiar level in that great little game that never got a US release. Anyway, enjoy the clip, those of you who like what you’re seeing. Everyone else who just doesn’t get it… that’s alright. You’re still cool in my book even if you think we’re all weird or something like that. Hey, everyone needs a hobby, right?
Yeah, that’s your big advice from the big man today. I say you zip it and do what he says lest you want him to turn that turret around and point his big gun your way. You just got around to fixing that train hole in your wall from my earlier post, right? I thought so. And put those darn thumb tacks away, silly. Tanks don’t have tires you can pop like in some old cartoon. The only way to stop a tank from moving (other than blow it up) is to disable its treads, and for that you’ll need a sticky bomb. What, you don’t have a field manual handy there? Just clear out your sock drawer of orphans and go look under the sink for that old Composition B you stocked up on when you went to Costco last year and bought in bulk because it was 99 cents for 20 pounds and you thought it was some sort of all-purpose cleaner. Yeah, we’ll show Arnold a thing or three. Oh, you’ll want socks WITHOUT holes in the heels, as that would be a bit self-defeating (and how!)…
The funny thing about this trailer (at least to me) is the formerly innovative filming technique used so well by Frank Miller and Robert Rodriguez in Sin City, then Zach Snyder in 300 has been run so far into the ground that it’s a parody of itself to people like me who’ve seen it used and overused to assorted degrees of success and failure by a few too many directors who should know better (or just don’t). Now, as Snyder is only writing and producing this sequel, it’s all up to newcomer Noam Murro to direct himself out of the corner this comic-frame technique has placed anyone who’s used it since 2005 into. Granted, this one should be a total blockbuster because we seem to love this sort of stylized violence and all.
Nevertheless, in my case… as soon as I see or hear of a release date my home video watch clock starts a-tickin’ away with the counting down stuff and I get to take a half-assed (but sometimes reliable) guess on how long it will take before that big deal over-hyped AAA flick ends up coming to a store near you at a decent day-one discount if you pre-order…
Sergeant Dave Bannion has absolutely ZERO luck with attractive women in Fritz Lang’s absolute classic 1953 noir The Big Heat. Granted, our initially 100% by-the-book cop (ably portrayed by Glenn Ford) IS a married man with a young daughter, so he doesn’t need to be around the ladies he ends up getting into trouble at all. Unfortunately, in one way or another they’re part of the case he’s working on, so he’s like a black cat in a suit here. Nearly every lady he comes across in this film goes through some sort of hell when and after he’s around that makes him some sort of magnet for bad luck and worse outcomes.
It’s a wonder he makes it through the film in one piece at all despite the efforts of some bad men to keep him off their cases and yes, far away from those doomed dames. For its time, the amount of violence and even some language was probably considered shocking by some viewers, and in at least one respect the film still packs a wallop. That wallop being Gloria Grahame’s portrayal of Debby Marsh, girlfriend of Lee Marvin’s overly brutal gangster-type, Vince Stone. But Stone is the least of Bannion’s problems when he investigates the suicide of a fellow police officer and gets wrapped up in some other things a wee bit over his head… Continue reading →
Now, paying UNDER four bucks for this nifty set of games may seem like a good idea for you cheaper-skates out there, but that just means you’re NEW to how this Humble Indie Bundle thing works. If you pay MORE than the average price of four dollars (and yes, how much more is entirely up to you), you end up getting MORE games as they unlock when other like-minded smarties fill the pool. And remember, it’s a public pool, so don’t to peeing in there! Er, anyway, the more people ponying up pennies past the price point, the faster those unlocks unlock, it seems. Don’t see anything you like in that bundle? No biggie – poke around the Humble Store and/or check out the Humble Weekly Sale and perhaps you’ll find something to suit your fancy?
Remember, 10% goes to charity so you can buy up and veg out knowing you’re doing some good even if you’re just sitting on your behind for too long racking up a virtual body count, racing around at full speed on some fancy track or simulating something you wouldn’t normally do in real life.
Somewhere before and in between Gran Turismo and Gran Turismo II, members of Polyphony Digital (seemingly working under the name Cyber Head) worked on a little game called Omega Boost which was released for the PlayStation in Japan in April of 1999, the US that August and in Europe a month later. Japan got the awesome and hilarious TV ad above for the game (the US ad was amusing, but not as nuts as the Japanese one) and when the game arrived at the small indie game shop I worked at, it spent a decent amount of time in the store play stack. Back then, the game was impressive to me and many others right away thanks to the opening movie that still packs a punch:
Thankfully, other than the slightly unwise replacing of the Queen-style rocker that opens the import with some alternative tune that’s OK in terms of it’s title (“Fly” by Loudmouth) but lesser than the original theme music in terms of impact, the US version got the same explosive intro:
By the way, note the “Marilyn Monroe/Norma Jean” autograph reference – I loved that tiny bit of fluff because it was a little detail only a film buff would latch on to right away and smile at. As far as the gameplay went, it was an arcade-style space shooter with 19 stages, some cool planetary and tunnel missions along with a number of intense boss battles and a ton of cool bonuses for the dedicated players out there. Some game critics unfairly compared it to Sega’s Panzer Dragoon games, which only made sense as a frame of reference if you were a PS owner who also happened to have a Sega Saturn in the house. There were some minor similarities, but Omega Boost was more a technical showcase for the PlayStation hardware than Panzer Dragoon ever was on the Saturn.
The game was actually in production as early as 1996 (or perhaps sooner), as a series of Japanese demos I have here shows the early work on the game back then was making for a very different-looking experience running at 60fps with simpler polygon visuals and a few more viewpoint choices. Oh, you want some videos of that for proof? Well you’ll need to come over if you want to see them, silly. I’d thought someone would have posted them on YouTube already, but nope and nope so far. Get on it collectors who never open your stuff, I say!
Oh, all right. One day I’ll get off my butt, dig out those PlayStation Club demo discs and have someone shoot footage of me playing them, but I just haven’t had the time to get onto that and some other projects. As usual, I digress. Anyway, the game wasn’t exactly a “blockbuster” in terms of sales or review scores, but it’s definitely one of those side projects where you could see the quality right from the beginning. Of course, with Polyphony so darn occupied with the vastly more popular Gran Turismo series of games, it’s hard to even think of a new OB rolling out from them any time soon. That’s not to say that is SHOULDN’T be done at all, folks. I’m just hoping that if there is a follow-up or remake, it gets the attention it should on a few fronts the original certainly didn’t.
Eh, perhaps I’ll bite the bullet, download a PlayStation emulator from somewhere and figure out how to record some gameplay. It shouldn’t be that hard to do, although I generally dislike using emulators over an actual console…
Ha and ha. It’s kind of funny that we live in a country where some are going nuts about too much government poking in to their private lives or nanny state politicians wanting to tell people what they can and can’t eat when back in 1943, this was considered a mighty GOOD thing to want to have happen. Yeah, yeah, we were in a big war back then, but haven’t we been in a bigger and longer one this century to some extent? Yeah, I bet if this nifty propaganda flick ran in every movie theater and on every network TV station NOW, half the people watching would choke on that super-sized soda and barrel of popcorn in their extra-wide laps while the other half would be banging out a protest petition on their devices with chubby little sausage (flavored) fingers. I say look at it this way, folks – staying in better shape keeps you alive longer to enjoy some of that freedom people keep dying for just so you can gorge yourselves while they do all the heavy lifting.
Now go thank a soldier somewhere on your block this weekend and maybe have a fresh turnip for dessert…
With all the fuss and happy-happy fury about virtual reality gaming seemingly becoming an ACTUAL reality sooner than later (again, but in a few smaller, lighter and thankfully less expensive formats), you know someone had to take things to an even more intensive level of immersion. Enter the folks at Virtuix Omni and their rather innnnterersting peripheral that’s going to get your ass up of its ass and make you play those 3D games in a whole new way. Unlike some of those first VR terminals of the 1990’s where you stood and basically turned in place with your arm out, the Omni Natural Motion Interface will get you a workout you can’t believe and probably will get hooked on once your body heals from the first few days of wondering why the hell you’re REALLY running when you usually sit down to play that favorite shooter, action game or open-world RPG… Continue reading 
"DESTROY ALL FANBOYS!" 