No Game Today

There's nothing in today's Steam daily deals that I am interesting in or don't have already. So no new game to post about this evening. Without that I don't have anything else lined up to write about so I'm going to leave this a short post today and go and do something else. Probably some programming followed by some game testing.

First Impressions: Garshasp The Monster Slayer

The story behind my purchase of this game should be a familiar one by now. It's a minor indie game which was heavily discounted in the Steam Summer Camp Sale. It looked quite interesting and it also had a special achievement for an entry in the competition. I'd never heard of this before which I suppose is one of the reasons for the promotion. The concept is pretty simple, it's an action beat-em-up style game in a fantasy world. You must fight your way though hordes of monsters to avenge your brother death by killing the evil dude and reclaiming a magic mace thing. The combat is quite fluid and controls reasonable well. There are a variety of different attacks and combos. You learn more as you gain experience. I had a couple of issues with the boss enemies until I realized that the symbols appearing on the screen were Quick Time Events. Once that was understood things were much simpler. I must have missed the explanation of that somewhere. The environments are nice looking and the monster models are well designed. There is however one major problem and that is the camera. You do not have any direct control of the camera in the game (which is a valid option). Except here the directional controls for the character are relative to the camera angle. Again that's fairly standard, but here the camera is constantly moving and changing position, sometime cutting to a entirely different angle. Each time that happens your movement reference changes and what was 'left' a moment ago is suddenly 'up'. You have to pay close attention to were you're going especially where small ledges and long jumps are involved. For the price it is worth a try but the camera lets it down from what would otherwise be an excellent game.

First Impressions: Defense Grid: The Awakening

This is another game which featured a special achievement for a Steam Summer Camp giveaway entry. It's on sale today, however I actually bought it a while ago (in the last sale I think) but never got around to playing it until now. It is a tower defense type game so the main concept is not really original but it turns out it's a really good implementation. The graphics are nice and there is an excellent selection of turret types and maps to choose from, the controls are simple and most importantly it is fun. This is one I will definately be playing more in the future.

First Impressions: SpaceChem / Toki Tori

I picked up two new puzzle games in the Steam Summer Camp Sale, mainly because they had achievements which gain competition entries, but also because they were on offer. One is called SpaceChem, a strange logic puzzle involving molecules, elements and bonds. The other is called Toki Tori, a platform/collection type game. I've played both games a little and acquired the competition achievements in each one. The question is now, are either of them good enough for me to continue playing? Probably not right away with everything else I've got going on at the moment, but perhaps one day. SpaceChem in particular is a really interesting concept which I imagine will take a lot of thought to master.

Flashpoint

A while ago I picked up the first volume of Dark Horse's Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic comic series. If you remember, my impression wasn't all that great. It had its moments but was a bit incoherant at times. However I was still intersted in the idea of the series overall so I decided to give it another shot and try the second volume entitled Flashpoint. Really the only reason I've taken so long to do so is that it was out of stock.

Luckily this volume was so much better than the first. With all the set up and introductions out of the way it was free do just tell a good story. There's action and intriege, there's some great art and in general it just seemed to get me hooked this time. So now I look forward to more in the future and unlike X-Men of course this has a fixed beginning and end with only a single story line, so much easier to follow!

Moments of Gaming (June 2011)

This month we've got a bit of subdued video. I choose a music track which is more ambient than I've used in the past. This produced a much quieter video compared to the others even with the action of Duke Nukem Forever included. Although I did end up keeping that to a minimum. I've also made this episode shorter than other recent ones. When I first started doing this You Tube had a 10 minute limit on video length so I had to make sure my videos were under that time. The early episodes are generally 6 or 7 minutes long. Later the limit was increased to 15 minutes and for certain accounts who regularly post (mine included) it was increased further. Since then the run time of my videos has been creeping up and now they're usually 11 or 12 minutes long now. I think that's make me a bit lazy with my cutting and scene choices. If I've got more footage I make longer videos. Yet there is research that shows a user's attention drops on videos which are over 4 minutes long if they're not already invested in you and your channel. So this month I've made an effort to make a shorter and tighter video. It has come in at just over 6 minutes, not too bad. Still with only the most basic of plans, again towards the end I kept finding footage I wish I'd included but no longer had a space for. Looking back I see I spent too much time in the mini Duke RC part. So next time, more planning in advance!

Watch the video here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljNfxzbm1v4

Friday? July?

This week and also this month in fact, seem to have gone by extremely quickly! I suppose I do have at least a couple of tangible things (programs) to show for my time. It's the first of the month but also I Friday so I'll leave Moments of Gaming until tomorrow. Obviously no footage is allowed from my testing position so not a lot has been recorded in the last week or so. However I do have a lot of Duke Nukem footage from earlier in the month along with a little bit of Eve, so I should be able to make something slightly interesting.