When I first saw Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved on Xbox Live Arcade, I immediately knew I was going to be terrible at the game. So I didn't play it for a long time. Then, I did. And I did do terribly for a while. But eventually I got pretty good, not a million points good, but my high score hovered around 900,000. I started spending hour after hour playing the game, figuring out the easiest way to kill each enemy, trying the "go in circles!" technique (clock-wise and counter clock-wise (I really don't think it makes a difference)), trying to get the highest score possible. I would put on A Tribe Called Quest's 'Midnight Marauders' album and go to town for hours on end.
Next thing I know, E3 '08 rolls around, and there's finally news about Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved 2. New game modes? Alright, could be cool. New weapons? I can dig. New enemies? Shit. The old ones were challenging enough! The four-man multiplayer looked attractive, but I felt like it could get too easy with four times the bullets.
So the day finally arrived. Went to the bank to make a deposit, then Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved 2 was finally in my grasp. So after making the 800 Microsoft point, $10 real money fee, which aggravatingly enough isn't an option when buying Microsoft points (don't even get me started on Microsoft points), forcing you to actually spend $12.50 instead of just $10, I got to hit that precious 'Play Game' button. Needless to say, I jumped right into single player mode.
I was quite surprised to find out that it was necessary to play through each mode in order to unlock the others. It kinda sucked; at that point, I didn't care about any other modes in the least, I just wanted to see how much better Evolved looked and felt and played and sounded and was. Nope! But at least it doesn't take long. Gotta start out with Deadline, followed by King, and THEN you can play Evolved, which comes before the other three, Pacifism, Waves, and Sequence (we'll get to those later). So I rushed through the other modes as quickly as I possibly could 'til I could play Evolved, only to be seriously disappointed.
I guess this is as good a time as any to bring up how the Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved 2 is different in general from Retro Evolved original. First of all, the scoring system is different. After killing an enemy, you're rewarded with little green crystals called Geoms, which let you control your multiplier to an extent. These crystals stay essentially where you killed the enemy, but if you get close enough to them, they float toward you and you pick them up. Gathering these Geoms raises your multiplier, which is quite important to the fundamental gameplay. (You also don't lose your multiplier when you die). In Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved, your multiplier would increase every time you hit a certain amount of points since your last increase. The introduction of Geoms brings about some notable points: 1. This is a much higher scoring game than the previous iteration; you'll find yourself at 1 million points rather quickly. This is directly due to the Geoms. Each enemy drops at least one Geom, with most dropping two or three, so when you're spraying through groups of tens of enemies, it's easy to unknowingly have a multiplier of a few hundred. 2. Geoms create a trade-off situation (remember economics?): Either focus on raising your multiplier by killing individual enemies and moving to where they used to be, or kill groups of enemies in order to survive (and disregard the multiplier) if you don't want to get neon-colored blood on your hands (geometric shapes are people too!). 3. Remember how much it sucked to use a bomb, knowing you'd be wasting all those points? Now, when you use a bomb, all the Geoms from the enemies stay there, but they're scattered across the screen, so you can only get a certain amount before they disappear (which they do after about four seconds). As far as the score goes, if you're not into the higher scoring flavor of this game, just drop the number furthest right, and it seems like it should be pretty equal to what you'd have in Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved.
Geometry Wars has always been about intense, neon colors, but I think they've finally pushed it too far. The colors in this game will make your eyes seriously burn. Enemies explode in a burst of color that trounces the old game's bursts. Not only that, but the color of the explosion is random, instead of coordinating with the color of the enemy like before. Sometimes it's so bad you can't see where anything is, once in a while even your ship. Stray enemies that get caught in the middle of a color explosion are essentially invisible, and it's much easier to run into them without even knowing they're there. Often times it's so bright and colorful, you literally get disoriented and have to reacquaint yourself with what's going on. The worst is when you pop a black hole, the things that suck up other enemies; prepare to be flash-banged when you kill one of those. All in all it makes gameplay less enjoyable and much harder.
One problem they seemed to address in this version is when enemies spawn on top of you, instantly killing you. In Evolved 2, they take about a second longer to spawn, giving you time to avoid them adequately. That being said, I have to gripe about where the enemies typically spawn this time around. Previously, many of the enemies would come out in large numbers from the corners of the screen/grid. This time, they seem to appear much more randomly, and scarcely come in groups from the corner. This gives you much less of an advantage (no circles this time around) because most of the old techniques for killing large groups of these guys go out the window, leaving you scrambling to shoot the ones all around you.
As far as the enemies go, they've revamped the old ones, and added a few more in there to kill you dead quicker. The spinning purple fans are the same, the green squares seem faster and more aggressive, the pink squares are kinda pink cubes now (though they seem a bit more tame than before), and the blue diamonds sometimes come in much larger groups than previously. The snakes are pretty much the same, too, but they give you a bunch of Geoms when you kill 'em. They've added a an enemy that consists of two 2-D squares connected, which flips end over end really slowly and isn't much more dangerous than the purple fans. They've also added yellow arrowheads that start at one end of the screen and shoot to the other, often times coming in rows that may be as tall as the grid itself. Another new bastard enemy is a group of little blue circles surrounding a red, commander circle that, when taken out, kills the blue circles. The black holes have more sucking power, and as stated before, cause severe vertigo when they explode if they've pulled in more than a couple enemies. Another enemy they've added that sorta hovers around the grid are what I'm going to call "Gate Bombs." These floaters are dumb-bell shaped, and if you hit the sides of them, you die. If you go through the middle of it, it blows up within a decent radius. Once you learn how to use these, they become infinitely helpful, providing a quick and efficient way to kill multiple enemies while on the move. However, it's a double-edged sword, because setting one of these off will piss all the other enemies off, and send them flying at you with increased speed.
There are good points about this game, too. The grid itself looks much cooler than before, and is only noticeable when you're shooting, moving around, or when something explodes. The grid effects look cooler too, like when you set off a bomb, gravity just goes nuts, pulling itself in every which way, much to the pleasure of your eyes. The graphics in Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved 2 trounce the previous version by leaps and bounds. They've done an extremely fine job making the explosions look vivid and saturated and detailed, no matter how much I complain about it during gameplay.
Multiplayer is, as expected, fun. You can play with up to four people, and you can play cooperatively with them, or you can vs. them. The screen zooms out when two players travel too far away from each other, which is a little disorienting at first, but you adapt. You better adapt... anyway, the only time I've found any power-ups, in the form of weapons, shields, and speed increases, is in multiplayer. The problem is, they come in the form of a color-changing star, so if you're in the middle of battling a bunch of enemies, it kinda looks like one, which isn't exactly inviting. If one player dies in a vs. round, the other is left to fend for his/herself, unless it's a game mode that only gives you one life to begin with, in which case, if one player dies, the game ends.
I've concluded that the new modes exist mostly to develop one's skills in order to play Evolved better. That's not to say that they're not fun though.
Deadline - This is Geometry Wars for noobs. You get 3 minutes and unlimited lives to rack your score up as high as possible. It's not very fun because it provides basically no challenge, but you've gotta start somewhere I suppose, and the fact that in this game there actually is a place for noobs to start will make the game much less frustrating for a lot of people.
King - Kind of a modified version of King of the Hill, where you can only shoot from inside the provided blue circles. You're only given one life. Upon entering the circles, they turn green. Once you've been in the circle for a set amount of time, it turns red and starts to shrink to nothing. Obviously you have to switch circles at this point, given that there are at least 3 on the screen at any given time. Enemies can't enter the circle, but they can gather up all around it. Luckily, in King the Geoms seem to last a bit longer than normal. There's a cool effect when you're outside of the circles, the music sounds faded and muffled, which adds to the experience. This mode is surprisingly fun, and probably helps increase your accuracy.
Evolved - I think I'm actually disappointed at Evolved 2 when compared to the first, but at the same time, it's new and it's different, so it can't be too bad. It's more hectic, explosive, colorful and crazy than the first, kind of like Retro Evolved 1 on acid. This is the main part of the game; the only limiting factor is your skill level. You start out with 4 lives and 3 bombs, and then the enemies start appearing. One huge complaint I have is that in single player there aren't weapon upgrades anymore. Used to be, every 10,000 you got would change your gun, but I haven't reached any score yet in Evolved 2 that changed my gun. That's basically it. Not necessarily the most fun of the modes included, but certainly the biggest and most in-depth.
Pacifism - You know, I dabbled in pacifism once, myself. Big Lebowski references aside, this is probably by far the most fun and addicting of the games in Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved 2. It's based on an achievement in the original for which you have to avoid all enemies for thirty seconds without shooting. They've modified it to where you can't shoot at all, but they give you Gate Bombs, so the point of the game is to get the enemies to follow you to the Gate Bombs, then explode as many as possible at once. Again, you're only given one life. I can't stress enough how addicting this game-type is. I can see people getting super good at this.
Waves - This mode is completely new, due to it being almost completely based on the new arrowhead enemy. They start out coming at you in small waves that increase in size until a full wall of arrowheads is shooting straight toward you. Once more, you only have one life to live. I can't describe how startling it is to see an unexpected wall of arrows shooting straight toward you. Before you get used to it, it equals certain death. Waves isn't overly fun, and is usually more frustrating than enjoyable. Not as lame as Deadline, though.
Sequence - Last of the new modes, Sequence consists of 20 challenges. You go in chronological order, and you have to complete each challenge in 30 seconds or less. You have 4 lives. This mode is extremely hard past the third challenge, and if you die in a challenge, you immediately move on to the next. If you run out of lives you don't get to play the rest of the challenges. This one really motivates you to get better, and helps you avoid enemies, as well as learn to take on huge amounts of them.
I think Evolved is finally a fitting term for this game, because compared to the previous version, this is like a completely new game. I have some very big complaints about the game this time around, but there's only so long I can be negative about it. Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved 2 almost feels strangely temporary, probably due to its multiple game modes compared to the previous iteration, making it seem like the Evolved mode isn't actually its own game. However, it's great that through the new game modes newer players have a place to train and get better, rather'n diving right into Evolved mode, naked, hungry, and scared. Also, the fact that you can pretty much control your multiplier now is a huge advantage that wasn't around in the old game. The addition of these Geoms is really growing on me. The game doesn't feel like a sequel, but more like an addition to an existing franchise. It improves upon the original in many ways, but for reasons unknown they changed a few of the best gameplay aspects of the game in removing power-ups from Evolved, making it (sometimes) too colorful, and making enemy attacks more random, allowing less room for technique. Thank God I'm finally done ranting; Midnight Marauders is waiting for me.
5/7
7.30.2008
Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! (S03E01)
Absurdity virtuosos Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim have returned to bless the world with Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! season 3. If you've never seen this show before, it revolves around the two titular characters: Tim and Eric. Together, they combine to make an awesome show, and do a great job at it. Their humor is certainly not for everybody, but if you're goofy enough, you can bring yourself to enjoy it. That said, I don't want you to have any preconceptions if you haven't seen it, so just go watch it.
The first episode of season three starts out with Eric, dressed completely in black, recounting the events that led up to Tim's funeral in the season two finale. He remembers the events as he smokes a cig, and hops up onto a random grave before remembering some more stuff that happened. He walks to Tim's grave, lays down a flower, and pleads with the heavens to bring Tim back. Sounds pretty dramatic, right? Well, that's about as serious as it's gonna get. Consequently, a beam of light shines down from the sky, and upon dissipating, a glowing humanoid form remains. While Tim's body takes an increasingly long time to manifest, Eric begins to get distracted, checking his watch, and even running an errand before Tim is fully human. After an abrupt finish, and a casual "Alright, let's go," David Liebe Hart comes down from the sky in a show of light and enthusiastically introduces the third season.
Pulling out the weird before the theme song even ends, the trademark "Great Job!" is screamed by some Indian-looking man on a carpet, which subsequently turns into a Tim and Eric cut-up-and-spliced-back-together song. They also reach new heights of disgustingness with Dick Dousche's Penile Douche. Don't even ask. Doctor Steve Brule, man of many outlets, is thankfully back in the first episode of this season, and hopefully will be back for quite a few because he's one of the biggest sources of humor in the show. John C. Reilly perfectly captures the clueless, awkward newscaster character, and can make you laugh with just a blank stare.
This episode is a lot stranger than most, though that's not saying much since they're all pretty weird. But this episode contains weird stuff that at times would make most people never wanna watch the show again. And I'm okay with that! I enjoyed the whole episode, even the strange parts, because that's part of the reason I watch Tim and Eric. The Tiny Tigers thing is kind of a dumb concept, but Tim and Eric can make anything funny if you know the show well enough. So overall it was good, but not one of the best episodes.
4/7
The first episode of season three starts out with Eric, dressed completely in black, recounting the events that led up to Tim's funeral in the season two finale. He remembers the events as he smokes a cig, and hops up onto a random grave before remembering some more stuff that happened. He walks to Tim's grave, lays down a flower, and pleads with the heavens to bring Tim back. Sounds pretty dramatic, right? Well, that's about as serious as it's gonna get. Consequently, a beam of light shines down from the sky, and upon dissipating, a glowing humanoid form remains. While Tim's body takes an increasingly long time to manifest, Eric begins to get distracted, checking his watch, and even running an errand before Tim is fully human. After an abrupt finish, and a casual "Alright, let's go," David Liebe Hart comes down from the sky in a show of light and enthusiastically introduces the third season.
Pulling out the weird before the theme song even ends, the trademark "Great Job!" is screamed by some Indian-looking man on a carpet, which subsequently turns into a Tim and Eric cut-up-and-spliced-back-together song. They also reach new heights of disgustingness with Dick Dousche's Penile Douche. Don't even ask. Doctor Steve Brule, man of many outlets, is thankfully back in the first episode of this season, and hopefully will be back for quite a few because he's one of the biggest sources of humor in the show. John C. Reilly perfectly captures the clueless, awkward newscaster character, and can make you laugh with just a blank stare.
This episode is a lot stranger than most, though that's not saying much since they're all pretty weird. But this episode contains weird stuff that at times would make most people never wanna watch the show again. And I'm okay with that! I enjoyed the whole episode, even the strange parts, because that's part of the reason I watch Tim and Eric. The Tiny Tigers thing is kind of a dumb concept, but Tim and Eric can make anything funny if you know the show well enough. So overall it was good, but not one of the best episodes.
4/7
The Sartorialist
Now normally I'm not very big on fashion - a pair of Dickies shorts and a T-Shirt suit me quite well - but The Sartorialist blog has proven to be a surprisingly neat time-killer. The Sartorialist (in case you were wondering, like I was, sartorial means 'of or relating to a tailor or tailored clothes') is a man who wanders around Europe snappin' fancy pics of people in unique clothing.
When you get there, you may feel a smidge underwhelmed; it's basically pictures on a white background. Only certain posts contain text, so it's not exactly reading material, either. However, I've gotta admit that this man does have a decent eye for this kinda stuff. The pictures are enough to keep you there with a blank background and sparse dialogue. They display what he finds interesting about the people he passes; The Sartorialist noted one man wears a double-breasted suit in a much more casual casual way than normal; there's a picture of a man wearing a skirt, as well as The Sartorialist's pondering about men in skirts; there's a whole post dedicated to pictures of people wearing purple moccasins, and they can pull them off!
If nothing else, The Sartorialist is good for wasting some time looking at pictures of cool-looking clothes and the people that fill them out. If you're interested in fashion, this is definitely a site for you. The amount of fashion sense some of the people in the pictures display is mind-boggling; I can't imagine how somebody could look that good on a daily basis. But indeed, some people just know what works for their bodies. It's also a great blog for us Americans to see what some people dress like in Europe, broadens your cultural horizons, if only that little bit. It's not somewhere I visit daily, but every once in a while The Sartorialist is an interesting little corner of the net to pop in on.
5/7
When you get there, you may feel a smidge underwhelmed; it's basically pictures on a white background. Only certain posts contain text, so it's not exactly reading material, either. However, I've gotta admit that this man does have a decent eye for this kinda stuff. The pictures are enough to keep you there with a blank background and sparse dialogue. They display what he finds interesting about the people he passes; The Sartorialist noted one man wears a double-breasted suit in a much more casual casual way than normal; there's a picture of a man wearing a skirt, as well as The Sartorialist's pondering about men in skirts; there's a whole post dedicated to pictures of people wearing purple moccasins, and they can pull them off!
If nothing else, The Sartorialist is good for wasting some time looking at pictures of cool-looking clothes and the people that fill them out. If you're interested in fashion, this is definitely a site for you. The amount of fashion sense some of the people in the pictures display is mind-boggling; I can't imagine how somebody could look that good on a daily basis. But indeed, some people just know what works for their bodies. It's also a great blog for us Americans to see what some people dress like in Europe, broadens your cultural horizons, if only that little bit. It's not somewhere I visit daily, but every once in a while The Sartorialist is an interesting little corner of the net to pop in on.
5/7
7.28.2008
Kraft Bagel-fuls (plain)
I'm a simple man; a man that adores cream cheese bagels. So when a box of Kraft Bagel-fuls appeared in my kitchen, I threw them in the microwave before you could even say "bagel." As I stood in my kitchen, staring at the golden-brown bars rotating in front of my face, my excitement built with each passing second. Portable bagels that already have cream cheese inside them? Somebody had surely heard my prayers!
I took them out of the microwave and found them to be extremely hot, which I didn't think was too surprising. But seriously, a warning: do not bite into these without temp testing them first, cause that cream cheese will not play nice with your tongue at a couple hundred degrees. To hell with my tongue, though. That thing tasted good.
I know what some of you are thinking: there are so many ways Kraft could've messed up a bagel with cream cheese in it. Much to my surprise, they've actually done a pretty good job recreating the experience. The bagel is soft and chewy, and looks and tastes like a bagel. Scratch that one off the list of concerns. Although that list is quite short, rounding off at a nice even two items, the second being the cream cheese filling. This is where Kraft begins to walk on thin ice, because it'd be too easy to mess up the taste/feel of cream cheese. On the box it's advertised that they use real Philadelphia cream cheese, so my hopes were high. And I wasn't completely let down; the cheese filling tastes almost like cream cheese. Obviously they probably couldn't get it perfect due to preservatives and such, but the basic cream cheese flavor is there. It's a wee bit thick sometimes, and it tastes sorta fake, but it gets the job done. There's an adequate amount of cream cheese inside each Bagel-ful, and I'd say that Kraft has done a pretty successful job of recreating the bagel and cream cheese experience for people on the go. I'd probably eat the real thing before these, but if they're around, you can bet I'll eat 'em.
5/7
I took them out of the microwave and found them to be extremely hot, which I didn't think was too surprising. But seriously, a warning: do not bite into these without temp testing them first, cause that cream cheese will not play nice with your tongue at a couple hundred degrees. To hell with my tongue, though. That thing tasted good.
I know what some of you are thinking: there are so many ways Kraft could've messed up a bagel with cream cheese in it. Much to my surprise, they've actually done a pretty good job recreating the experience. The bagel is soft and chewy, and looks and tastes like a bagel. Scratch that one off the list of concerns. Although that list is quite short, rounding off at a nice even two items, the second being the cream cheese filling. This is where Kraft begins to walk on thin ice, because it'd be too easy to mess up the taste/feel of cream cheese. On the box it's advertised that they use real Philadelphia cream cheese, so my hopes were high. And I wasn't completely let down; the cheese filling tastes almost like cream cheese. Obviously they probably couldn't get it perfect due to preservatives and such, but the basic cream cheese flavor is there. It's a wee bit thick sometimes, and it tastes sorta fake, but it gets the job done. There's an adequate amount of cream cheese inside each Bagel-ful, and I'd say that Kraft has done a pretty successful job of recreating the bagel and cream cheese experience for people on the go. I'd probably eat the real thing before these, but if they're around, you can bet I'll eat 'em.
5/7
7.25.2008
Dominos Brooklyn-Style (Pepperoni) Pizza
I make no claims to be overly knowledgable about pizza from New York, much less Brooklyn in specific, but I did just eat a couple slices of a Dominos Brooklyn-Style Pizza of the pepperoni variety. Upon seeing said pizza I was skeptical because it looked paper-thin, but upon eating said pizza I was singin' a different story. Though the pizza is quite thin, it packs a great amount of flavor. It's light on the sauce, but the normal amount of sauce's flavor is compacted into what little sauce there is. The cheese is thicker than expected, and tastes like fresh mozzarella. The pepperoni on the pizza did a good job of covering most of it, especially because each slice was about twice as big as usual. The dough in the middle is thin, and the crust about an inch thick. One piece of this stuff isn't very filling, and two pieces sort of equals a normal piece of Dominos pizza. This may not be the best for the ol' waistline, and it also may be a sneaky way for Dominos to raise their money-per-slice ratio. I don't necessarily have a problem with that in this case, because this pizza is pretty worth it. But I gotta say... buy two.
5/7
5/7
We Play Stuff
Colloid
http://www.addictinggames.com/colloid.html
About ten minutes ago, I thought Colloid was going to be probably the worst, least detailed game of all time. Looking back, I was only half right -- it might be the least detailed game ever, but it certainly is not the worst. Basically, you are a relatively small dot. Before you can even become accustomed to your newfound dot-ness, a barrage of other multicolored dots flies at you from the top of the screen. Therein lies the object of said game: mouse-over as many dots of your current color as possible. By "your current color," I mean the color of your dot, as well as the background. Hitting any colors besides your own will result in a penalty, and consequently your score drops. There's a timer bar in the top-right corner of the screen which does two things: 1. Alert you as to what the upcoming color is, and 2. Inform you as to how long you have left in that color.
There are a few downsides to this game, mainly the fact that you the game seems to finish whenever it wants, regardless of how you're doing. Also, laptops aren't the most conducive platforms on which to play Colloid. I can only imagine how fun this game would be with a mouse. Or I could walk into the other room and actually experience it... but then what would I use my imagination for? Thinking? Wha?
Oh. Sometimes you're about to grab a huge, sweet bunch of (insert color here) dots RIGHT as the designated color changes, and it docks you a bunchapoints. But chalk that up to human error. Lastly, you kinda get Guitar Hero-vision after playing this game for a while, but who doesn't like a little disorientation, a touch of the dizzies every now and then.
4/5
Ongaku
http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/387592
I'm a huge fan of rhythm games, so when I saw one on New Grounds, a top notch site for flash games, needless to say I got excited. The game is Ongaku, from Armor Games. It's funny because this is probably the first rhythm game I've seen with an actual story to it. You play as Ongaku, the living, crystal music note, once the top piece of a magical wand, brought to life by the good magic of Harmony, and the dark magic of Discord, Harmony's arch rival, all of which you'll find out if you happen to not skip the intro story.
The gameplay reminds me somewhat of Taiko no Tatsujin DS, which most of you don't know as a Japanese drum-based rhythm game. The "notes" scroll from right to left, and you have to hit each one as it comes. The notes take the form of up, down, left, or right arrows, and you have to either hit the button of the corresponding arrow, or hold the button down so when it gets to the cursor, you still hit it. Ongaku varies it up a bit, though; pressing the W key moves your cursor up to the top level and pressing the S key moves it back to the bottom level. "Notes" can come from any of the three levels, requiring players to switch off between holding W, S, and nothing to hit all of the notes. As you hit the notes, a background picture starts to appear, and if you do well, begins get colored in by paint, revealing saturated colors and strange and unique creatures. The more notes you hit, the more of the background you paint. Except for the tutorial, you have to reach a certain percentage in each level to "buy" the next level, all the way up to the sixth and hardest level. To get to it, you need to have an upper 90% for each previous level. As hard as the controls sound, they're not. Play the game and you'll find a simple, yet intricate feeling control scheme.
The game has a lot of personality, displayed in its art, background music and sound effects. There are seven different songs to play including the tutorial, and most of the sound different and cool. One thing that I disliked about this game is the fact that the notes seem not quite randomly placed, but they definitely don't compliment the beat very well because they're placed badly, which can be confusing and off-putting. Also, as the difficulty increases, the capability to "scoop" the notes by just holding down the correct arrow button diminishes, due to arrows being placed very close together. In these cases, you have to actually hit the button at the correct time, which may be difficult for the less-coordinated players. By the last level, I was seriously struggling, but on the third or fourth try, I found my groove. The last level does take some serious coordination, though. Once you've beaten the last level, you're informed that you've beaten the game, and it refers to the story from the beginning, telling you that Discord is still on the loose, and that the game is to be continued. Hopefully in the next iteration they clear up some of the issues that keep Ongaku from being a truly enjoyable rhythm game.
4/5
http://www.addictinggames.com/colloid.html
About ten minutes ago, I thought Colloid was going to be probably the worst, least detailed game of all time. Looking back, I was only half right -- it might be the least detailed game ever, but it certainly is not the worst. Basically, you are a relatively small dot. Before you can even become accustomed to your newfound dot-ness, a barrage of other multicolored dots flies at you from the top of the screen. Therein lies the object of said game: mouse-over as many dots of your current color as possible. By "your current color," I mean the color of your dot, as well as the background. Hitting any colors besides your own will result in a penalty, and consequently your score drops. There's a timer bar in the top-right corner of the screen which does two things: 1. Alert you as to what the upcoming color is, and 2. Inform you as to how long you have left in that color.
There are a few downsides to this game, mainly the fact that you the game seems to finish whenever it wants, regardless of how you're doing. Also, laptops aren't the most conducive platforms on which to play Colloid. I can only imagine how fun this game would be with a mouse. Or I could walk into the other room and actually experience it... but then what would I use my imagination for? Thinking? Wha?
Oh. Sometimes you're about to grab a huge, sweet bunch of (insert color here) dots RIGHT as the designated color changes, and it docks you a bunchapoints. But chalk that up to human error. Lastly, you kinda get Guitar Hero-vision after playing this game for a while, but who doesn't like a little disorientation, a touch of the dizzies every now and then.
4/5
Ongaku
http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/387592
I'm a huge fan of rhythm games, so when I saw one on New Grounds, a top notch site for flash games, needless to say I got excited. The game is Ongaku, from Armor Games. It's funny because this is probably the first rhythm game I've seen with an actual story to it. You play as Ongaku, the living, crystal music note, once the top piece of a magical wand, brought to life by the good magic of Harmony, and the dark magic of Discord, Harmony's arch rival, all of which you'll find out if you happen to not skip the intro story.
The gameplay reminds me somewhat of Taiko no Tatsujin DS, which most of you don't know as a Japanese drum-based rhythm game. The "notes" scroll from right to left, and you have to hit each one as it comes. The notes take the form of up, down, left, or right arrows, and you have to either hit the button of the corresponding arrow, or hold the button down so when it gets to the cursor, you still hit it. Ongaku varies it up a bit, though; pressing the W key moves your cursor up to the top level and pressing the S key moves it back to the bottom level. "Notes" can come from any of the three levels, requiring players to switch off between holding W, S, and nothing to hit all of the notes. As you hit the notes, a background picture starts to appear, and if you do well, begins get colored in by paint, revealing saturated colors and strange and unique creatures. The more notes you hit, the more of the background you paint. Except for the tutorial, you have to reach a certain percentage in each level to "buy" the next level, all the way up to the sixth and hardest level. To get to it, you need to have an upper 90% for each previous level. As hard as the controls sound, they're not. Play the game and you'll find a simple, yet intricate feeling control scheme.
The game has a lot of personality, displayed in its art, background music and sound effects. There are seven different songs to play including the tutorial, and most of the sound different and cool. One thing that I disliked about this game is the fact that the notes seem not quite randomly placed, but they definitely don't compliment the beat very well because they're placed badly, which can be confusing and off-putting. Also, as the difficulty increases, the capability to "scoop" the notes by just holding down the correct arrow button diminishes, due to arrows being placed very close together. In these cases, you have to actually hit the button at the correct time, which may be difficult for the less-coordinated players. By the last level, I was seriously struggling, but on the third or fourth try, I found my groove. The last level does take some serious coordination, though. Once you've beaten the last level, you're informed that you've beaten the game, and it refers to the story from the beginning, telling you that Discord is still on the loose, and that the game is to be continued. Hopefully in the next iteration they clear up some of the issues that keep Ongaku from being a truly enjoyable rhythm game.
4/5
7.21.2008
Timmy Curran - Word of Mouth
Taking a page from Jack Johnson, Timmy Curran is a pro-surfer gone the way of the guitar. Most famous for doing a full flip in about two feet of surf, he's also known for being one of the most well-regarded guys in surfing. His musical career has blown up quickly, going from writing songs in hotels to opening for Switchfoot and even Foo Fighters on their acoustic tour. Word of Mouth was originally a free download spread around the surfing community, but Tim Curran's debut album hits stores everywhere today.
Like Jack Johnson, it seems Timmy Curran likes to keep it relatively quiet. Much of the album is based around hushed, often finger-picked guitar parts with an assortment of backing instruments, including piano, cello, and violin, as well as all of the normal rock band instruments. He doesn't necessarily share Jack's sunny disposition, though, as the songs themselves tend to be darker than would be expected for a surfer, interspersed with a few happier tracks. I don't mean dark in the slow, quiet, and brooding way though; I'm talking about minor chord progressions, disheartened lyrics, and a universally distributed sense of longing. The music on Word of Mouth ranges from country-tinged rock to folk songs to bouncy pop that would almost be comfortable in the eighties.
The first song, Daylight's Coming, sports a western feel that doesn't let up for the whole track. In fact, the chord progression rarely changes, leaving the song somewhat predictable and repetitive. Comatose finds Curran somberly lamenting the current status of the world, warning that "if we don't wake up soon, we'll be gone." Joan is one of the happier tracks, in which Curran reminisces about his past with Joan, and tells her that wherever he goes, he will be waiting for her when he gets there. Horses On the Range contains Tim's wish to get away from everything and be completely free, like the horses of the song's title. Lonely, a more upbeat song, brightens the album with its Close To Me, Cure-esque drums and unrelenting lead-guitar part. Save is Curran's plea for somebody to rescue him, for he is "destined for disaster" as he asks for anybody to help him from falling down too far. The ending track, Can You Feel It, is a bitter-sweet song about somebody who is getting what they want, but leaving Curran because of it. The album ends with the poignant repetition of the line "I won't ever be the same with you gone."
I gotta say, for a debut album from a man who has spent his life in the water rather than strumming strings, this is not a bad collection of songs. It's not perfect; for example, though the songs may not sound exactly the same, for the most part they feel the same. In fact, this album suffers slightly from a universally distributed lack of variety, both in general, and in the songs themselves. Most of the songs just didn't stray away from the main chord progression enough. However, at the same time this is mostly forgivable, because I feel like this album isn't necessarily for anybody but Timmy Curran. There isn't an abundance of hooks, and he doesn't really do anything groundbreaking on Word of Mouth, but for many people, this album will be greatly satisfactory.
4/7
Like Jack Johnson, it seems Timmy Curran likes to keep it relatively quiet. Much of the album is based around hushed, often finger-picked guitar parts with an assortment of backing instruments, including piano, cello, and violin, as well as all of the normal rock band instruments. He doesn't necessarily share Jack's sunny disposition, though, as the songs themselves tend to be darker than would be expected for a surfer, interspersed with a few happier tracks. I don't mean dark in the slow, quiet, and brooding way though; I'm talking about minor chord progressions, disheartened lyrics, and a universally distributed sense of longing. The music on Word of Mouth ranges from country-tinged rock to folk songs to bouncy pop that would almost be comfortable in the eighties.
The first song, Daylight's Coming, sports a western feel that doesn't let up for the whole track. In fact, the chord progression rarely changes, leaving the song somewhat predictable and repetitive. Comatose finds Curran somberly lamenting the current status of the world, warning that "if we don't wake up soon, we'll be gone." Joan is one of the happier tracks, in which Curran reminisces about his past with Joan, and tells her that wherever he goes, he will be waiting for her when he gets there. Horses On the Range contains Tim's wish to get away from everything and be completely free, like the horses of the song's title. Lonely, a more upbeat song, brightens the album with its Close To Me, Cure-esque drums and unrelenting lead-guitar part. Save is Curran's plea for somebody to rescue him, for he is "destined for disaster" as he asks for anybody to help him from falling down too far. The ending track, Can You Feel It, is a bitter-sweet song about somebody who is getting what they want, but leaving Curran because of it. The album ends with the poignant repetition of the line "I won't ever be the same with you gone."
I gotta say, for a debut album from a man who has spent his life in the water rather than strumming strings, this is not a bad collection of songs. It's not perfect; for example, though the songs may not sound exactly the same, for the most part they feel the same. In fact, this album suffers slightly from a universally distributed lack of variety, both in general, and in the songs themselves. Most of the songs just didn't stray away from the main chord progression enough. However, at the same time this is mostly forgivable, because I feel like this album isn't necessarily for anybody but Timmy Curran. There isn't an abundance of hooks, and he doesn't really do anything groundbreaking on Word of Mouth, but for many people, this album will be greatly satisfactory.
4/7
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