spookybarn dot com

i know that IGN isn't exactly The New York Times...

... but holy fucking shit.  This is "professional" writing?  How do you publish something like this and not get fired.  I honestly wonder if Mark Bozon even wrote this, or just copy/pasted it from some kid's blog or forum post.

Full text follows... as I assume that someone will have the decency to clean it up on the actual site:

fableous

Lately, I've been spending a good chunk of time in Albion, which has been enjoyable.  Last night, however, I was struck with a profound realization about the game, and my time with it.  All things considered, it may be the most immersive role-playing experience that I've ever had with a videogame... and the experience kind of hit me from behind out of nowhere.  Without further ado, I bring you my memoirs, as they stand so far...  (spoiler-free, as far as the main questline goes)

a wii bit of gaming

Well, what do you know... my Wii still works!

Seriously, though... I haven't turned the little guy on in months, aside from a few rounds of multiplayer Boom Blox here and there.  There is a gradual stream of Virtual Console titles out there that I'd love to play... but haven't really had the time to devote, or the motivation to decide which to grab first.

Fortunately, World of Goo came out this week, and solved that problem for me.  It's fucking brilliant!  Many of you may have played, or at least seen, the free game Tower of Goo a while back.  ToG has you building a tower as high as you possibly can by sticking little balls of goo together... sort of like building a tower with toothpicks and marshmallows. World of Goo takes the same concept and expands it in every possible direction.  New types of gooballs with special properties, various interesting challenges and puzzles to work through, a creepy/hilarious Oddworld-esque story.  I'd go so far to say that WiiWare now has something every bit as special as Braid on XBLA.  (and there's a PC version too, for you Wii-haters... on Steam as well as other places, I believe.  The Wii version is $15, and the PC one is $20.)

Speaking (previously) of Virtual Console... the SNES classic "Secret of Mana" came out this week, as well.  I was a Genesis kid, but from everything I've heard, Secret of Mana is the bees' knees, especially with 3-player co-op.  So, if anyone wants to come over and try it out, I'd love to 3-man a totally classic Squaresoft action-RPG.

Good things come on discs, too!  GameFly seems to have a very creative interpretation of the order of my queue, so what comes in the mail from them is often a surprise from the latter half of my queue.  Why would I want to play something within 6 months of when it came out, anyway?  ahem

Anyway, this week they graced me with Pinball Hall of Fame: The Williams Collection, which is totally flipping all of my childhood switches.  It's a collection of ten classic Williams pinball tables, faithfully scanned and recreated in 3D, complete with all the original sound effects, music, even a hi-res scan the original arcade flyer for each one.  Each table has its own set of achievements that unlock various bonuses, and each one also has a tutorial to explain how the scoring works, what kind of special bonuses are available, etc.  The ball physics are perfect, and the Wii controls are pretty great.  You use both the Wiimote and Nunchuck, with the trigger on each of them representing the flipper button on either side.  If you want to bump the table (shame!) you can just shake whichever hand is on the side of the table you want to bump.  The plunger is pulled with the analog stick on the Nunchuck.

It's video pinball, so you probably know if that kind of thing appeals to you.  What I love so much about it is the "real-world" feeling to the tables... since you're playing on recreations of actual tables, after all.  As cool as some of the newer pinball machines are on a technical level, I think they really lost something when so much started happening on the digital display above the table.  The ten Williams tables represented here are, for the most part (fuck you Gorgar!), totally classic and brilliant feats of engineering for their time.

Try GameFly for FREE or start for only $8.95!

confessional

Hello.  My name is Aaron, and I think I might be a Dream Theater fan. :-(

a comprehensive review and analysis of Braid (Xbox Live Arcade)

too human - addendum

2-Player online co-op... is the fucking business.

... and it's business time.

too human impressions, or how i learned to love the bomb, or HOLY SHIT, A BLOG ENTRY!

Last week saw the release of a long-anticipated Xbox360 exclusive title, Too Human. There are a multitude of reviews available, so this won't be any kind of comprehensive review and rating, but I do have some things to say about the game.

I finished my first run through the single player campaign this weekend, which may seem surprising for an RPG that only released last week.  My playtime was right around the 10 hour mark, although I'd spent a few hours messing around with another character.  This seems short, but Too Human is intended to play something like Phantasy Star Online before it... there are four large dungeons that scale in difficulty with you as you level up, and you can replay them many times for better loot and to have fun playing co-op with a friend.  I finished the game at level 28, and the level cap is 50.  There are also 5 different character classes, most of which play quite differently, and the additional draw of completing ultra-rare level 50 armor sets.

Those who know me are probably thinking that all this doesn't really sound like my cup o' tea.  After all, I quit WoW pretty quickly after hitting 60, and never even made it to 70 in the expansion... the never-ending endgame loot search never really did it for me.   To be fair, I'm going off of around 15 hours of Too Human, versus several days worth of gametime in WoW.   I can't promise I'll ever make it to level 50 in Too Human, and certainly not with every class... but after finishing the single player campaign, I'm definitely hungry to go back for more.  I'd love to play some co-op as well, so here's hoping that these impressions inspire at least a few of you to pick up the game.

More detailed (but spoiler-free) impressions, kudos and criticisms continue after the break...

too much geometry wars

quick summary of Sony's E3 press conference

Not much of interest, honestly.  It wasn't the epic bed-shitting that Nintendo had on display, but they certainly didn't show anything that made me want a PS3.  None of their exclusive games are the kind of games I'd buy a system for... nothing from the Ico guys, basically no surprises at all.

I'd definitely give the show to Microsoft, but they weren't really all THAT strong.  All around, nothing terribly exciting or surprising.  Maybe PAX will be better?  Maybe I'm just getting too old to be excited about a lot of this stuff?

Stay tuned to my news feed, as I'll be passing along all the bits and pieces from here and there that look interesting.  Lots of trailers and live demo videos, I imagine.

quick summary of Nintendo's E3 press conference

Um...

Animal Crossing: City Folk, for Wii
WiiSports Resort - with a new "1:1 motion" dongle
WiiMusic - which is quite possibly the most uncomfortable product demo I've seen

... oh, and a giant bucket of FAIL.

That really couldn't have been worse... and Nintendo has owned the show (at least for me) for the last several years.  Animal Crossing should be fun... but nothing else looks appealing in the least....

UPDATE: I did forget one fairly large shocker... GTA: Chinatown Wars.... for DS?  Strange days, indeed.