Welcome to Imports Only - from anime to aspirators, it’s your encyclopedic cataloging and authoritative ranking of import racing games that never graced US shores. Volume 3 I have got to come up with a more consistent schedule for doing these. This is the third entry in a span of about two weeks, but I’ve spaced them out so poorly that it probably seems as if I’ve fallen well behind a weekly ra...
Welcome to Imports Only - from anime to aspirators, it’s your encyclopedic cataloging and authoritative ranking of import racing games that never graced US shores. Volume 2 Two entries into this series, and I’ve already realized that I made a significant omission in the rules and directives that I stated up front. One of the game’s selected for this entry forced me to question whether or not it...
Welcome to the first entry of Imports Only - your encyclopedic cataloging and authoritative ranking of import racing games that never graced US shores. From anime to aspirators, we’re going to hit them all and rank them. Volume 1 In the previous blog post where I discussed my plans for this series, I mentioned that I was assembling a complete list of games that would qualify for discussion. Wit...
The port is open for business. For the past couple of years, I’ve found myself assembling a bit of a collection of random racing games that were never released here in the United States. It wasn’t intentional, but this was a rabbit hole that I found hard to climb out of once I was in it. Touge Max 2 - one of the games that sparked my interest in import racing games. I’ve always enjoyed racing g...
Yeah, that's right. You've probably already seen BomberDuder from @fobwashed , but there's another Bomberman clone in this town. Admittedly, this idea spawned from the head of @fobwashed with the primary goal of producing a functional Bomberman clone to play while waiting in PAX lines. Box City! Brad in all his plaid glory. Basic movement spritesheet. While I did start working on this prior to...
Intro Yep, I'm back with yet another look at a bunch of games from a recent game jam. This time looking at games from Mini-Ludum Dare #44. If you aren't familiar with Ludum Dare , it's one of the longest running and most respected game jams out there with the likes of indie game pioneers like Notch gracing it with his presence (even before he was Notch). The Mini-LD isn't quite the same as a fu...
I'm still really struggling to come to terms with this whole thing. In the past five years, I've really come to count on GB as a point of stability in my life. There's always been something immensely comforting to me knowing that Ryan, the rest of the crew, and this amazing community were always just a click away regardless of what I had going on. I know that a lot of people out there probably...
I'm burning my hat and briefcase! The door to door defense campaign is at an end. Where's my money, Microsoft? With today's news of Microsoft dropping their originally proposed digital purchase policies from the Xbox One, I thought it fitting to sum up my feelings in a blog post on why I think this might not be the best direction for console gaming. He's not a bad kid. He's just misunderstood....
Source: http://www.icoderogue.com/2013/05/all-ld26-games-on-one-mosaic.html Intro This past weekend marked the 26th official running of the long-standing Ludum Dare game jam competition. For those unfamiliar with the event, it's a 48 hour solo competition that challenges game developers to create a game centered around a core theme that is selected through a series of community votes. A few yea...
Intro As the name implies, the Seven Day Roguelike Challenge (7DRL) is a game jam that challenges developers to craft a game in the roguelike genre within 168 hours. 7DRL has been around officially since 2005 and unofficially for a decade which makes it essentially a game jam institution in comparison to all of the newcomers that have come and gone in recent years. The 2013 7DRL Challenge just...
2012's Game of 2011 Skyrim Solid DLC kept bringing me back to the dragon infested realm of Skyrim this year, and if I let myself, I could easily dump another few hundred hours into playing it. A full year later, this is still an incredible game. Runner Up: The Witcher 2 I feel bad for ignoring this game prior to its console release, but once I played it, I was really thrilled with the beautiful...
So...I certainly doubt any of you recall when I switched gears off of the old Ice Cube Game project for something that I intended to be a bit smaller and simpler. Well it seems that I still don't have sufficient time to dedicate to even something "smaller in scope", nor do I seem to be able to grasp the concept of a game that's "smaller in scope". I've only in recent weeks managed to carve out...
Tiger Woods '12: Lessons in How to Not Handle DLC Don't hate the digital player, hate the digital download game. Recent years have seen a huge boom in the volume of DLC and microtransactions on the market, and by far one of the most active participants in this trend has been EA. Whether it’s through “limited” editions, online passes, pre-order kitsch, or any number of digital downloads, EA has...
The Intro This is Free Stuff Get! #2. This month I'm giving away an old copy of the You Don't Know Jack spin-off Head Rush, and all you have to do is tell me your favorite You Don't Know Jack style pop-culture infused trivia question. You're free to pull the question from any of the classic JellyVision titles, or if you're clever enough, you can make one up on your own. The Contest The You Don'...
The Intro Here's the deal, since I guess I have more money than sense, I've decided that I'm going to try giving away one game a month by way of some simple contest. The contest could be just about anything from guessing the number of jelly beans in a jar to winning a small StarCraft 2 tournament. Prizes will vary in quality from month to month, but I don't think you can really complain when it...
First, let me just say that while I still very much want to finish my Ice Cube game at some point, I just simply don't have the amount of spare time that I think would be necessary for me to fully realize it at the moment. Additionally, I'm still a bit of a newbie when it comes to generating 8/16-bit pixel art and Flash/AS 3.0 programming. I'll definitely go back to Ice Cube at some point, but...
Does an epic beard make for an epic magazine? Unfortunately, it would appear that it does not. WARNING: Long-Winded Gamer Rant A few months ago when it was announced that Best Buy would be launching their very own gaming magazine, I was just as skeptical as anyone else. Would this be a legitimate venture into the realm of video game media and criticism or would it just be a shameless marketing...
Here you go...
How can anyone argue with the numbers? Wii is selling like mad and yet...I don't care. That's right. After 20 years of following Nintendo wherever they led me, I no longer care about Nintendo, but it would seem as though Nintendo doesn't really need me. With the N64 and Gamecube, the life-long gamers and fanboys were the only thing that really kept Nintendo afloat in the console realm. Now thou...
I'm torn. I don't know whether or not I should just stick with the 360 as my only console or if I should purchase a PS3 to go along with it. I was quite into PS2 back in the day, and as such I really want to buy and love a PS3 but Sony is making it very difficult for me to do that. Meanwhile you have Microsoft, who in my opinion is on a major roll and has made a lot of wise decisions with this...
I feel like my reaction to this game is really similar to my reaction to Portal last year. They're both innovative and masterfully crafted, and both deliver a complete and satisfying experience. They may be short, but it's games like this that really stick with you and effect you. Five or ten years from now, games like Gears of War and Call of Duty 4, while great, will probably start to blur in...
I haven't really gotten all that far in Braid yet, so that's definitely on tap. I'm sure I'll also be putting some more time into Geometry Wars 2.