Releases:

This month we’ve seen some interesting new IPs come out of the wood works.   The long awaited PS3 exclusive “Heavy Rain” brings adventure gaming to the next generation of consoles.  “The Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom” for the Xbox 360 acts as this months “must get” indie game, with puzzle platforming to rival that of Jonathan Blow’s “Braid.”  “Star Trek Online” adds another frontier to MMORPG gallery.  And “Bioshock 2″ (a much talked about game on the site) brings us back to Rapture for another adventure; this time as a Big Daddy.

So it’s been another month that will be favorably looked upon throughout history, if history judges the past solely on monthly video game releases.

So what were we doing?:

This month Rob discussed his experiences with “Mass Effect 2” and “Bioshock 2.”  Speaking of “Bioshock 2,” Skizz also brings up his play through of the game and also talks about “WET.”

Chad plays some more of The People’s Games, this time featuring: “depict1,” “Cosmosa,”"Starfeld,” “Balloon in the Wasteland,” “Vatn Squid,” and “Nuclear Baby.”  He also reviews “Vanitas” and “Noby Noby Boy” for the iPhone and retrospectively looks at “Feel the Magic: XY/XX.”

And Tom plays for us another Battle Tunes.

“Balloon in a Wasteland” is a defense browser game by Armor Games, where you play a tiny man with a gun who crash lands his hot air balloon in a dark and stormy wasteland (hence the title) and has to repair while hordes of flesh rending monsters try to kill him.  It’s a fairly simple concept, and not very hard to beat, but it’s a lot of fun.  The goal is not to outlast the waves of creatures; it’s to repair your balloon as quickly as possible.  The creatures come in numbered waves like in most defense games and you can buy new weapons, traps, or fortifications to help defend yourself.

The core problem I had with the game was that I always would get the balloon up and go before getting any of the coolest items.  That’s not a bad problem to have.  So I just wasted time instead of fixing the balloon.  Each run felt pretty fun, and it’s just a good waste of time.

Give the game a try.  It has a unique art style and some fun gameplay.  You can play it: HERE.

“depict1″ is a freeware title made by Alec Holowka and Kyle Pulver for the Global Game Jam, and it does pretty much what every game does (keep reading).  It’s a platformer which starts you off by having a(n essentially) disembodied voice instructing you by simply telling you the basic mechanics of the game (arrow keys are for movement, hit space to jump, etc).  Which sounds very standard until you actually play the game.  The game is best described as a “total mindfuck.”  And I’m trying really hard not to give it away, but it is brilliant.  Aside from the “total mindfuck” the massive depth of the game’s abstract story will made me replay it, five seconds afterwords in order to re-experience everything it did right, which was EVERYTHING!  I’m having a very hard time describing the game without giving away any amazing, so I’ll just finish by saying that only a moron wouldn’t love “depict1,” and you should all play it. Go-!
LINK HERE

So, here’s a link Chevy Ray Johnston’s game “Beacon” as well as the other nine of the top 10 games in the Ludum Dare competition.  I found this one particularly interesting – as I should since it won – because of how attached I, the player, got to the floating orb of light (or rather, “beacon”).  Usually it’s very hard to get players to feel any emotions towards other characters in a game, and like the Weighted-Companion-Cube this seemingly soulless object somehow brings more emotion out of me than most humans in games.  Whenever it would drift off, down a path that I couldn’t follow, I would rush to reunite with it, praying that I wouldn’t be trapped in the darkness.  It creates a genuine bond between the player and the beacon.  So try out this game and hopefully enjoy what I think is a fantastic work of art.

Time Fcuk is a new platformer by Edmund McMillen and William Good of newgrounds fame.  The game mainly focuses on switching between layers in each level (a la Paper Moon), as well as a few other great gameplay gimmicks (gravity shifting, stacking boxes).  There’s definitely a voice unique to this game, with your future self instructing you through the levels and the dark backgrounds against dark characters and objects.  It bleeds style.

So give it a try, see if ya like it.

Solar Plexis is an unfinished freeware game by Joakim Sandburg creator of Noitu Love.  It’s a physics-based platformer, that primarily focuses on using the mouse to move blocks around (sounds like less fun than it is) and stars a female character I can only describe as Black Samus.  The highlight of the game is probably music though, which is absolutely beautiful to the point that it could possibly make your ears cry with joy.

Give it a whirl if you’d like to play a pretty good (if unpolished) platformer.

HERE‘s the Link.

If you could spend 4 minutes as a jelly fish, what would you do?

…I’ll give you time to think…

That’s stupid.

I’ll tell  you what I’d do!  I would spin around in circles beating up other sea creatures and collecting eggs…that is the premise of fun…at least in Flashbang Studios’ game, Blush.  And if it doesn’t sound fun to you, maybe you oughtta TRY IT.

Blush limits you to the aforementioned four minutes of underwater exploration as a jellyfish.  The goal is to swim around fighting other translucent sea critters, and after killing them, collecting the eggs they leave behind, then using those at the nearest glowing light ball to beef yourself up.  Four minutes isn’t enough time to fully appreciate this game,  each play through you’ll see different kinds of creatures to harvest eggs from.

The combat in Blush is exceptionally different from most any game you’ll play.  It’s all handled through the mouse.  Just hold down the left button and guide your jellyfish around.  Attacking is done through a spinning motion, hitting enemies with tentacles.  A sloppy attempt leads to the loss of a limb.  And in the aftermath of battle you collect the eggs on your tentacles with the same spin.

Scenery, beautiful.  Controls, smooth.  Ya da, ya da.  Give it a whirl.