Hypercombofinish

Muramasa: The Demon Blade (Wii) Review

Thu, 15 Oct 2009 02:33:19 EST

Muramasa: The Demon Blade feels like the product of an alternate timeline. If polygons had never ushered in an ice age for 2D gaming, hand-drawn sprites like the ones perfected in Muramasa might still rule the earth. Smaller versions of today's intelligent but homely 3D visuals would be forced to scavenge their eggs, festering with jagged pestilence.

Set in ancient Japan, the game follows the storyline of two typically troubled teens: Kisuke has lost his memory and is being hunted for a crime he does not remember committing, while Momohime has had her body possessed by an evil swordsman. Though they both take place in the same expansive world their stories effectively serve as two different games, each with its own narrative, objectives, and boss encounters.

Speaking in the parlance of genre, Muramasa might best be described as a side-scrolling action RPG. It's played optimally with the Wii classic controller on a d-pad, though other options are present. Celebrating some of the finest action gameplay traditions, double jumps, air dashes, and copious amounts hack-'n-slashing are in attendance. A fleshed-out item system featuring a staggering array of consumables is eclipsed only by the gargantuan tech tree used to forge new swords. Combine these with a fluid combat system and there's more than enough here to keep both anal-retentive statmongers and trigger-happy combo fetishists happy.

It would be an act of gross negligence to omit mention of the visuals in this game. Even on the Wii, a console written off as graphically incompetent by the majority of message board trolls, Muramasa manages to elicit gasps at every turn. The game has somehow achieved the targeted "painting come to life" aesthetic by combining the characterized nuance of handcrafted art with fluid animation, a feat which very likely gifted Vanillaware's staff with debilitating repetitive stress injuries. The art in this game is simply without peer.

In recent years I've begun to wonder if my once-ravenous interest in gaming has waned. Disturbingly, the majority of recent big name releases haven't been able to hold my attention for the duration of a teaser trailer. A terrible possibility loomed: What if, after over twenty solid years of gaming, I was growing out of my favorite hobby?

Playing Muramasa has set my mind at ease. It reignited a long-dormant personal affliction: despite my best efforts, I simply could not put the controller down. I'd dash through forests, artfully dispatch bands of evil monks, forge new supernatural blades empowered by the titular Muramasa himself, and still I had to push forward through just *one more* boss fight. I wanted to find every item, complete every side quest, then start a new game on the ridiculously difficult one-hit-and-you-die setting and do it again.

Muramasa is a game that will draw you in, beat you up, and somehow keep you coming back for more. It is an obvious labor of love, and I can't commend Vanillaware enough for bringing it to realization.

Big Brother is watching The O.C.

Tue, 16 Jun 2009 10:54:43 EST

I've got a hot tip for anyone who wants to attract lots of Twitter followers in the fastest way possible.

The life and times of an Internet startup company

Sun, 14 Jun 2009 14:40:46 EST

This summer I'm spending the work week in Philadelphia building waffl.com, which is a marketplace and community for bed and breakfast owners.

The direction of the company has splintered into building a broader-scale marketing tool, and this is leading to some interesting discussions.

Space Invaders Extreme (XBLA) Review

Fri, 22 May 2009 14:41:34 EST

Space Invaders Extreme is a re-imagining of the original arcade classic released in 1978 ( yes, Space Invaders came out over thirty years ago. You can start feeling old now ). Smartly opting to hammer home nostalgia, the backbone of the game’s visual design has been left unchanged. The enemies and the protaganistic cannon are all styled as blockily as they were in 1978.

Space Invaders Extreme was originally released for the DS and PSP in 2008. This version adds an HD presentation and numerous multiplayer modes to last year's offerings.

At its core, the gameplay has not changed from the arcade original. You control a cannon positioned at the bottom of the screen that can be moved horizontally. Above you, a wave of aliens measuring up to 12 pixels long moves laterally and slowly descends toward your cannon, firing lasers and missiles sporadically. Your task, of course, is to survive as long as it takes to rack up a high score.

Space Invaders Extreme deviates from this familiar template by including intricately scripted enemy patterns, a deeply complex scoring system, and weapon power-ups. There are boss fights, bonus rounds, and invaders holding tiny reflective shields.

The "extreme" icing on the cake is a soundtrack consisting entirely of PULSE-POUNDING TECHNO MUSIC. Every shot you fire is marked by a jarring synth orchestra hit sound, which gets annoying rather quickly. I found myself looking for an option to switch the sound effect voicing to something less overbearing, but no such option exists.

The scoring is quite complex and difficult to actively manage as it's based on many factors: the types of invaders you destroy, their colors, their formation, and the number of enemies you've hit in rapid succession. Attempting to nail all of these arbitrary markers while not dying is a tedious juggling act. I felt like I was missing out on the strategy whenever I had to dodge bullets to stay alive.

The multiplayer modes are a nice addition, but online play is hampered by an omnipresent lag that slows your actions down to almost a full second after gamepad buttons are pressed. If Capcom was able to get Street Fighter 4 working smoothly over the tubes, you’d think that it would be possible for Space Invaders to do the same.

If the scoring system was a little more balanced, Space Invaders Extreme could have been a truly great retro game on par with the likes of Geometry Wars 2. As it stands, it’s merely a pleasant short-term distraction.

EA Sports Active (Wii) Review

Thu, 21 May 2009 16:11:13 EST

As a child, guest reviewer Kellbot saved up her $2/week allowance for multiple years to buy a Nintendo Entertainment System. She is an entrepreneur and hacker, and is probably better than you at Geometry Wars 2. You can read more about her projects at Kellbot.com.

I caved to internet peer pressure and picked up a copy of EA Sports Active. I was getting a little bored with Wii Fit, and sort of annoyed that it takes you 45 minutes to get in 30 minutes of exercise because you have to pick a new task each time... you can't just queue up a workout.

Plus I wanted to see if it lived up to the hype.

So far Sports Active is being touted as THE MOST AMAZING EXERCISE GAME. As of yesterday morning 100% of its reviews on Amazon were 5 star.

The game starts off like pretty much every other workout video/ad/pitch you've ever seen. Some guy in a fleece vest starts telling you how awesome and perfect your life will be once you follow him and stop being such a pathetic lump. There's some upbeat ambient music to emphasize this point. It's cheesy but inoffensive.

I started the 30 day fitness challenge because it required the least amount of thought. Over a 30 day period the game picks workouts for you each day, mixing it up and making sure you're getting an even workout. If you don't feel like doing that you can do any of the dozens of pre-programmed workouts or build your own. But, I'm lazy. If I wasn't lazy I wouldn't have bought an exercise video game, now would I?

After day 1 I'll concede that it's a strong title for the Wii exercise genre, and fills some voids Wii Fit left behind, but I'm not sure it's my new religion. I had trouble getting some of the exercises to register - particularly the lunges. EA Sports Active requires a considerably larger horizontal footprint than WiiFit. Since my living room is on the smaller side I ended up standing behind the couch for some exercises, which happened to be a little beyond the Wiimote's IR sensor's range. Overall things seemed a little sluggish - my avatar would follow me about 2 seconds behind.

The exercises themselves were pretty good, and things changed up pretty quickly so I didn't have time to get bored... which was nice. I've had a hard time motivating myself to do 10 minutes of WiiFit hula hooping now that my boyfriend isn't around to appreciate the effort. I broke a sweat, although I didn't really feel exhausted or out of breath at any point during the workout.

My biggest beef is that it felt cumbersome to switch back and forth between all the gear. Nunchuck in leg strap. Nunchuck in hand. Get on the wii balance board. No, with the nunchuck in the strap. Now stand on the resistance band. Oh but holding the nunchuck this time. Yeah. The balance board didn't bring much to the experience, and I'll probably leave it out next time just because it was one more thing I kept having to bring out / push out of the way.

It's a title worth picking up if you want to add something to your exercise routine but don't actually want to join a gym / go outside. Also it tells you how many calories you've (theoretically) burned, and that's a lot like points. And I really really like points points. I'll post an update as I go through more of the workouts and get a better feel for the overall game. Program. Whatever.

Online Interactions Not Rated by the ESRB

Tue, 12 May 2009 18:17:00 EST

It is surprisingly hard to portray the speech patterns of people playing games online without resorting to swearing.

If you aren't familiar with Cole Train, this video will show you just about everything you need to know.

How Your HDTV is Holding Back Your Games

Thu, 07 May 2009 02:34:57 EST

In one form or another, lag is something that most gamers have had to contend with.

In the 90s, "lag" usually referred to network latency. It was a direct reflection of the speed and stability of your internet connection. A low ping time could be the difference between a visceral game of Quake and trudging through a soup of seemingly random death.

Thanks to more widespread broadband internet access and better programming tricks, network latency isn't as big a problem as it once was. Unfortunately, modern technology has introduced a new type of lag into our games: HDTV processing lag.

What causes processing lag?

HDTV processing lag ( also known as "input lag" ) is a phenomenon that is unique to modern televisions. In the pursuit of making the end picture better, TV manufacturers have built a myriad of video processing filters into their products. These filters have been designed to aesthetically benefit the playback of movies and broadcast TV.

This video processing lengthens the time between a signal being passed from its source ( your DVD player, antenna, or game system ) and the resulting picture being displayed on the screen.

Please note that processing lag is a completely seperate entity from response time, which is the time it takes any given pixel of a display to go from black to white and back again. Manufacturers often advertise their response time figures in milliseconds ( ms ). Response time has no bearing on processing lag.

How does processing lag affect videogames?

Generally speaking, this delay is in the ballpark of a fraction of a second. In the case of non-real-time media like broadcast TV and movies, it doesn't make much of a difference. The signal may be delayed, but it doesn't matter because you aren't interacting with it.

In the case of console videogames, this situation is less than ideal. Your console is working in real-time; When you press the A button it makes Mario jump. If your display is portraying the jump late, the game begins to fall somewhere between sloppy and unplayable.

This type of lag is most apparent in games where split-second timing is an inherent part of how they're played. Music games like Rock Band, Guitar Hero, and Dance Dance Revolution can be crippled by processing lag.

What about in-game calibration?

In the cases of Rock Band and Guitar Hero, game developers have implemented video calibration options that attempt to compensate for this lag. The newest Rock Band instruments have even gone so far as to include sensors you can use to calibrate the game automatically by holding them up to your screen.

These options work well enough to combat video lag, but there's another issue that calibration alone can't alleviate: audio lag.

Audio signals are subject to similar degrees of laggy processing. The end result is the same; audio is played slightly later than the source sends it out.

Modern music games have additional calibration settings for audio lag but you will quickly discover that they provide no substitution for real-time sound. When you beat the drums during a freestyle fill or sing into the microphone, the actual sound is reflected by your TV later than "truth". This results in a very unpleasant echo effect that drains the fun out of improvised drumming.

How can I eliminate processing lag?

We've established that modern TVs introduce video/audio lag and that it's a bad thing for games. What can we do about it?

Sadly, there is no way to entirely eliminate processing lag in modern flat-panel televisions. Every flat-panel TV currently being manufactured for the consumer market will introduce some degree of lag. Older non-HD CRT ( cathode ray tube ) displays are your only option for real-time gameplay.

Without going off the deep end and buying outdated analog TVs, let's do our best to mitigate the damage. You can try to find an HDTV that utilizes less video processing and therefore introduces less lag. Unfortunately, TV manufacturers do not include this information in their specifications. Worse yet, most professional audio/video reviewers don't mention processing lag in their reports. This kind of information can only be found online anecdotally in places like the AV Science forums ( a fantastic resource, for a message board ).

Before making a big purchase, you should absolutely test out prospective TVs in person. Bring your console to the electronics store, plug it into a set, and measure the lag ( again, music games are best for this ). You might look obsessive but you'll be much happier later on knowing that you bought the best device for your hobby.

If you own a big fancy HDTV and you want to cut down its processing lag, you have a few options.

1. Ensure that your console is outputting video at the display's native resolution whenever possible. The native resolution of a television is generally the highest resolution it can display. If you have a 1080p display but your console is feeding it 720p, the TV will have to perform additional calculations to make it fit the screen.

2. Check to see if your TV has a "game mode". Some TVs have a lower-latency video setting that turns off some bells and whistles to get the picture to the screen faster. Some have multiple game settings, so be sure to delve into your TV's manual to find them all.

3. Manually turn off every video processing option your TV gives you access to. You can usually identify these as a stream of acronyms: DRE, ACL, CTI, 3DNR. Turn them all off. You will sacrifice some picture clarity but you'll gain precious milliseconds.

4. You can eliminate audio lag by connecting the audio cables from your console directly into an analog stereo receiver. This may prove problematic if you're using a digital audio output method like HDMI, but you may be able to find a good digital receiver that's faster than your TV if you're using external speakers.

5. If you're using an AV receiver, be sure to turn on its video pass-through option to send your console's signal along without any laggy preprocessing. Some receivers don't have this option, so be careful.

HDTV processing lag is a complicated issue that is widely swept under the rug. This post is intended as a starting point to combat the general lack of knowledge about this subject. If you've got any other tips for reducing lag, please post them in the comments -- these are the solutions that have worked best for me, and I'm sure there's a great deal more to learn.

A Conversation with Cactus & Petri Purho [Interview]

Wed, 22 Apr 2009 12:33:58 EST

Ever since our How to Be Me interview with Petri Purho, HCF has been eager to delve deeper into the world of indie game developers and their awesomeness. Indie darlings (and budding BFFs?) Cactus and Petri Purho, who recently gave back-to-back lectures at GDC, agreed to sit down with us for some fancy, three-way IM action. In the conversation that follows, we cover topics ranging from game-related depression, to the fear of the judgment of our peers, to making games that aren't fun, to the winner that's inside each and every one of us.

Cactus, do you think you could tell us a little about yourself? Better yet, Petri, do you think you could tell us about Cactus?!

Cactus: That's way more interesting, yeah.

Petri: He's awesome and he does awesome games.

And then Cactus can take a turn describing you...

Cactus: Petri's Finnish, makes cool games when he's not being a magician. He has really nice hair.

Petri: Cactus makes games at an insane rate. Here's a motivational poster that I made for myself:

Cactus: Petri's made more games than me this year though...

Awww... really?

Cactus: Yeah.

Petri: It's not true. I've released 2 games so far. You've made more.

Cactus: But you've made games you haven't released right?

Petri: Well one. (And maybe another one).

Cactus: Yeah, I think I've made three games.

Petri: That's really lazy of you.

Cactus: I know.

Have you been busy? Doing other things?

Cactus: Yeah, I was pretty depressed during winter, and then I've been out with friends more than normal the last month or so.

What kind of circumstances are best for making tons of games? No friends and summertime?

Petri: Yeah, that's pretty much it. I've made all my best games during the summer.

Cactus: I think the key is seeing games as a fun thing you can do to delay attending to more urgent matters.

Petri: That is so true. Cactus, do you feel depressed if you don't do games, if you're not up to your speed?

Cactus: No, I don't really care. I don't take games seriously enough, I think. I want to, but I haven't been able to.

Petri: That's good for you. Because I was somewhat depressed a little while ago, as well, but I felt so much better when I made and finished a game. I don't know why. Maybe it was because I was feeling depressed because I didn't get shit done.

Cactus: Yeah, it always feels good to finish a game, but I don't feel bad about not making games. (Well, I feel a bit like I should make more games, but nothing more than that.)

Petri: I think for me the big cause of "depression" was Crayon Physics Deluxe. I was talking at GDC and pretty much everyone told me that you'll get depressed after you release your big game. So I guess there's something to it.

Cactus: Must be a lot of pressure on doing an amazing follow up, eh?

Petri: No, I don't think that's it. It's just that after you've released something it gets bashed all over the internet (which I expected) and that wasn't the cause of grief, but I think it's just that after that there's nothing really to do. Feels really pointless, like you're fired from a job or something. I don't know; it's hard to put into words.

Sort of the game equivalent of postpartum depression...

Petri: Yeah, that's what Kyle Gray told me.

What sort of satisfaction do you guys get out of making games, then? Beyond spending time on something fun in lieu of more urgent matters. :p

Cactus: I enjoy being creative, and whatever attention you get when you release the game feels pretty rewarding, although that feeling kinda drops a bit with every game you make.

Petri: There's no letdown in prototypes, really.

Even if the prototype doesn't perform as you would have liked?

Petri: Like, prototypes, I don't care how they perform. If nobody likes them and everybody trashes them it's fine with me. I have a safety mechanism that allows me to protect myself. I just say that the game was made in 7 days what else would you expect from it? It's only 7 days max. Like what the FUCK have they ever made in 7 days?

Does that go double for you, Cactus? Since your games are made in hours?

Cactus: Pretty much. I actually typed out the development time for my games as an excuse for them not being better, rather than a reason to brag when I created my website.

Petri: It's a good tactic.

I think that most people would agree you both make fantastic and fascinating games and that the short span of time in which you make them is a testament to your awesomeness.

Petri: Here's an very interesting talk by Tim Brown:

In the very beginning he points out why adults rarely are very creative. A big part of it is that we're all very afraid of the critique of peers.

Is there any amount of success you guys could achieve that would relieve your fear of the judgment of your peers?

Cactus: I don't think so. I think pressure might build up along with your accomplishments in many ways...But, Petri's more successful than me, so he should be answering that.

Petri: Not true. Like, I released my worst game up to date right after I won the IGF grand prize. :) So, I'm pretty down with failing spectacularly.

Cactus: Hahaha.

Petri: Somebody pointed out that releasing 4'33 of Uniqueness right after releasing Crayon Physics Deluxe was an very interesting career move. Never thought of it that way before.

I think I'd like to move the conversation into a different direction if that's okay!

Cactus: Sure.

There's been something that's been on my mind since Cactus' talk at GDC and that's games that aren't fun. You brought it up a couple of times. I think, for most people, "fun" is intrinsic to a "game"....So, what kind of unfun games are you imagining? And what would they accomplish?

Petri: (Naa Naa you got the difficult question.)

Oh, you will have to answer, too!

Petri: Damn.

Cactus: Well, I see it as comparing games to other media, like movies or books. Right now it feels like games are usually pretty much limited to something similar to cartoons, action, adventure and comedy. While there's certainly classics in some of those genres, I generally prefer less "entertaining" movies and books myself. So for example, if we'd describe a Nobel prize winning book, fun would not necessarily be among the words we'd choose. I think games are just aiming at trying to please everyone at the same time. I want games that are targeted at people who share my taste more specifically. Where's the Stanley Kubrick, Alejandro Jodorowsky and Fellini of game design?

I'm pretty sure people have already compared you to Stanley Kubrick and David Lynch.

Cactus: Yeah, but that would be a very relative comparison, probably solely brought out from the limited output of more alternative games. Compare one of my games directly to one of those guys' movies, and it's basically just a fart in the wind.

Petri: I agree that there should be more games that explore what else we can do with games. Like Jenova Chen pointed out, the emotional spectrum of games is very limited. So, I'm very interested in seeing games done where the goal of the rules of the game is not just to be about fun, but to express ideas and other emotions. Jason Rohrer's and Rod Humble's games are a very good beginning, but I think there's even more interesting stuff to come. Jason's Gravitation is so worth checking out. But that's purely or very much on the game mechanic / rules side of things. Then there's the thematic and visual side of things, which also is very limited in scope. But I think that's the side of things that will continue to mature and develop as we see more games. But I don't think that's going to be enough. Also, I think fun is just a really bad term for games. I don't care if something is fun. I just want something that's interesting and worth while for me. So, I agree with Jason Rohrer when he said that games are hopefully going to be next big art form, but it's going to take a lot of work to get there. We're not there yet and we might never get there unless we work really hard.

What will it take to reach that point?

Cactus: I think more easily accessible tools might be the key. A movie usually has one director that gets most of the credit for the end result, books are usually the visions of a single person too, and often it's the same with comics and music. Mainstream games are usually created by huge teams of people, which makes it really hard to stay true to the original vision of whoever came up with the game concept. I also don't think a big company would care to face the risks of making something completely different, unless it was something they knew would sell.

Petri: That would also allow more interesting persons to express their opinions and ideas through games.

Cactus: Exactly.

Petri: There's also this idea that was expressed by Rod and Jason and a lot of other people, which is that in every medium there's something that defines that medium, sets it apart from all the other mediums. In movies it's editing. In games I think it's the rules of the game. Unless we explore and figure out how we can use the rules to craft and express ideas, we're doomed to this reputation that we have.

Cactus: Yeah, some people have to be the pioneers who start it all, I guess. It's up to game developers to make it happen, I think. Like Petri mentioned, people like Jason Rohrer and Rod Humble are doing a lot to help with paving the way for these kinds of games.

How do the indie game developers bring their message mainstream? Would going mainstream ruin it?

Petri: I have no idea how indie game developers could reach the main stream. I don't think they can as a whole. There might be one or two developers that make it big and hit the mainstream market, but I don't see indie games as a whole ever reaching to mainstream market . [Going] mainstream could ruin it, but also: is something indie when it hits the mainstream market in a big way? Like Nintendo is financially independent, but you don't say that they make indie games.

I'd love to see the Jodorowsky of games. I just wonder what needs to happen to bring that about.

Petri: Someone just has to make it. I don't know how to get the money to do it, but I don't know how Jodorowsky financed his movies.

Are there people you're watching? Whose work has that kind of promise?

Petri: I play pretty much all the Cactus games that come out.

What are your favorite games of each other's and why?

Petri: I love Cactus's Mondo Medicals, Psychosomnium, Ad Nauseum 2, Seizure Dome... I'm forgetting a bunch of games. [Note: All of which can be found on Cactus' site under Games!]

Cactus: I like many of Petri's games. Crayon Physics was the first one I took notice of (I sent it around to people on MSN even), but I really like ComGYBR and JLHTP too. As well as quite a few others. I hadn't played any physics games before I started visiting Petri's site.

Petri: I have no idea which games you're referring to. :)

Cactus: Hahaha.

Petri: I got JLHTP.

Cactus: Choke on my Groundhog.

Petri: Oh. Cool :)

What triple A titles do you guys play?

Cactus: I play Mario Kart...

I will own you at Sherbet Land, Cactus.

Cactus: I doubt it. ;)

Oh man, it's on.

Petri: I suck at Mario Kart.

Then I definitely want to play you, Petri. Um... I feel like the interview portion of this chat has pretty much shut down... Thanks so much, you guys, for the interesting chat!

NOTE: At this point the conversation degenerated into chit-chat. Later, after expressing my own feelings of self-doubt & despair, Cactus shared this illuminating Youtube clip that, hopefully, may inspire all of you who may experience self-doubt, too:

There's a winner inside each and every one of us.

Cactus: Yes, exactly. Don't doubt yourself anymore!

The Dishwasher: Dead Samurai (XBLA) Review

Thu, 16 Apr 2009 17:41:38 EST

The Dishwasher: Dead Samurai is a frantic 2D hack-n-slash title available on Xbox Live Arcade. Developed by indie outfit Ska Studios, it combines the fun of classic beat-em-ups with a cartoonishly morbid sensibility.

You play as the titular dead samurai, a dishwasher who has been murdered and subsequently resurrected seemingly through the power of pure vengeance ( think The Crow ). Brandishing a set of increasingly sadistic weapons, you maul your way through mostly linear levels as you carry out your quest to give the world a taste of undead angst.

Dishwasher plays like a 2D version of the 3D Ninja Gaiden games, if that makes any sense. Players chain together a variety of attacks to inflict as much pain on as many enemies as possible. The combat is surprisingly deep, as the effectiveness of any given attack depends strongly on both its timing and the enemy that is being targeted. The lack of a third dimension works wonders here; you don't need to worry about the impairments of parkinsononian camera work and dreadful three-point perspective.

If you want to fully enjoy Dishwasher, you'll have to devote some time to exploring the combat system. There isn't much guidance provided by the game, so figuring out how to link attacks together is up to you. You can alter your attacks by holding up or down on the joystick, but because these changes don't always manifest themselves until you're already in the middle of a combo it can be difficult to figure them out. If you're patient, it's a rewarding process. There are mini-secrets to fighting each of the enemies that you will discover only through experimentation ( for example: air-throwing jetpack soldiers will result in an instant kill, tossing a special-ops cyborg while he's hanging from a high rope will yield you some extra life ).

The art style is reminiscent of something an angsty teenager would draw in their 7th grade history notebook. It fits the mood and the gameplay -- you can't adhere to anything very high-minded when you're playing a game based on hacking cyborgs to pieces with dual meat cleavers. The animation is a mixed bag, some of it is fluid and visceral ( the dishwasher's bladework ) and some of it is stilted and odd ( the special-ops cyborgs' kicks ). There is prodigious use of EXTREME™ camera effects, including slow motion, film grain, and motion blur.

One of my all time favorite beat-em-ups was Sega's arcade game Spikeout. It generated a fantastic feeling of "crowd control", something that quickly became necessary as you'd be beset by ever-growing groups of thugs. Spikeout worked because it had tight control and fun enemy-to-enemy contact physics -- if you kicked an enemy and caused him to fall backwards, the enemies he hit as he fell also were knocked backwards. It gave the game a rare feeling of "If I was good enough I could probably beat this game with one credit".

Dishwasher generally lacks that kind of crowd control. The enemies only interact with one another after a few specific attacks: divebombing aerial throws onto other enemies and strong smash attacks. Enemies are immune to one another's attacks, and I think is a missed opportunity for even deeper gameplay. The aforementioned special-ops cyborgs will frequently use a grappling hook to swing to the ceiling so they can drop a wide-blast grenade on our undead hero. If those grenades affected other enemies in the blast radius, we'd have the possibility of trying to coax that attack out for our benefit.

Taking damage is also a little too subtle for my liking. When you get hit while on the ground it's difficult to tell unless you're watching the damage meter like a hawk. A more visceral sound could have made things much clearer. It's something you definitely get better at noticing given time, but with all of the split-second timing required to play the game it would be nice to be able to devote fewer braincycles to it.

You'll have a great time with Dishwasher if you're willing to give it a chance. There is a juicy-sounding co-op mode that I wasn't able to review, plus the innovative usage of a guitar peripheral as a controller for support characters. There is a lot of game here, including a story mode, arcade mode, multiplayer, leaderboards, and a host of extras. It's a complete package, and I commend Ska Studios on a job well done.

How To Be Me: Matt Chandronait, Area 5 Founder & Producer

Tue, 14 Apr 2009 13:13:26 EST

How to Be Me is HCF's series of casual, vaguely instructional interviews with games industry professionals, conducted entirely over instant messenger services.

For this week's interview, HCF chatted with Matt Chandronait, former producer of The 1UP Show and co-founder of Area 5 Media, a video production company comprised of the former members of 1UP's Gamevideos team, who were laid off following the UGO buyout of 1UP. Matt works as producer, editor and *actor* for Area 5 Media's flagship show CO-OP, "a weekly look at the meaningful, the important, the interesting, or the just plain fun games that are out there or will be coming out." If you're unfamiliar with the show and have a moment (or half hour), you should definitely check out CO-OP's last episode, Indie Special -- Roundup of the Best of IGF:

Howdy, Matt! Could you tell everyone a little bit about yourself and what it is you do?

Matt: I edit videoz fer da internetz. Done! Interview over! Wow, that was easy!

Whew! 100k diggs!

Matt: w00t! We win! But yeah, more specifically... Area 5 is what I do. Well, what the six of us do. We used to be the video team at 1UP. After the UGO buyout we all got laid off as original content wasn't exactly a money-maker. So we all decided to start our own business. BAM. Area 5. CO-OP, I guess you could say, is our flagship product, though we contract out our services to developers and publishers et. al. in the games industry. Rob just got back from Japan on the first such gig. Really looking forward to what he brings back as he was there during cherry-blossom time. It'll be like every Anime evar!

Can you talk a little about the other sorts of gigs you guys do? Are they secret?

Matt: Well that's the first one. It was, specifically, for Ignition, though I can't talk about the content yet as 1) I haven't seen it and 2) it's for their website and I don't wanna push any spoilers. :) We have some other in the works, but nothing definitive yet.

Did you guys know anything at all about starting a business before you actually started one?

Matt: Um... other than the fact that you need a business license, not really. :) Fortunately I have tons of people, friends and family, that I could turn to for help. We knew we had to move fast -- both because we had severance that was going to run out (which it did) and because the buzz around our cancellation/layoff would wear off quickly. The Internet has a short memory. Also, random people that were fans of The 1UP Show were *extremely* helpful with all kinds of advice and life experience that I (we) just didn't have. One guy even drove into the city and took us to coffee to talk all about starting a business and the first steps you need to take. One more recommendation for a lawyer and -- whambammo -- business license. Now I do spreadsheets in between playing games for the show. :p

How quickly did all of this turn around? It seems, from the outside, like a whirlwind of awesome.

Matt: Haha. Whirlwind is apt. So is "roller-coaster" and "HOLYFUCKINGSHIT." Yeah... it was a constant barrage of fear, joy, support, love, trepidation, all of it together all at the same time. I think that's one reason why when we came up as Area 5 (from Rez) for the name of the company that it appealed so much to me, personally. In the game, Area 5 has the theme of rebirth as well as the lyrics for the music track which repeated over and over "Fear is a mind killer." Kinda became my mantra for a few months. :p ... I guess it still is. Though, yeah, I know it's from Dune. :)

I had no idea.

Matt: <- nerd

<- not

Matt: Hahaha. My name has yet to become a killing word, however.

Quick FYI, I am monitoring your mockery via this handy image:

Matt: Helvetica. Nice choice in typeface.

Oh, so you're one of those...

Matt: Can't help it. Spend 12 years as a designer and it rubs off. :)

You worked as a designer, you say? Did you study graphic design?

Matt: Haha, no... I was just fortunate enough to know a very little bit about doing art on a computer in 1995. Which meant, in those days, INSTANT-INTERNET-JOB-MACHINE. As in, everyone and their mom needed a web designer and anyone that could make a square in photoshop and knew how to animate a .gif got a job. So, of course, I dropped out of college to pursue my dream of becoming an internet-bubble baby.

Wow! So, for 12 years you made the webs?

Matt: I did! Both of them!

How did you transition into film production?

Matt: By getting my job at 1UP. Though I guess it started when I went back to school at 28. I decided to get an animation degree, specifically I wanted to do 3D stuff for Pixar. Um... might have been shooting a little high on that one. After school I decided I was too old to start over in my career with a basic internship so I ended up back in a web job, which I hated. Then the producer spot opened up at 1UP. I was already friends with everyone there (including the outgoing producer) and that became my first video-editing gig. Turns out I'm good at it, but I think the animation education helped a lot.

And where were games in all this?

Matt: They've always been there. My first web design job in 1995 was for the ill-fated ENGAGE Games Online (you can tell it was doomed to failure since the name was in all caps). It was an off-shoot of Interplay. After that I started at GameSpy in 2000 (well, with a few jobs-that-shall-not-be-named in between). So I've always worked around gaming editorial/production. My last job before 1UP was at Perpetual Entertainment. If you've heard of them you'd be one of the few -- another ill-fated game company, this time trying to make two MMO's. Ouchies.

So 1UP was where the magic happened. Did you have an immediate knack for editing?

Matt: I'd say so... I mean I had to do a lot of it in my animation classes, and being already familiar with timeline mechanics made it easy to work in Final Cut Pro. Turns out my two best skills when I was done with my animation degree were sculpture and motion graphics. The motion graphics thing I think is what made my move into video editing so seamless.

Hmm... is that what a person should study to be a fancy video producer? What sort of educational background would you recommend for someone who would want to be you?

Matt: Haha! I wouldn't. Not that I think edumacation am evil or some shiz, just that in any creative endeavor, especially if you're looking to do gaming criticism, the best education is to just do it. Emulate people you admire and do a bunch of it. Your body of work will speak far better for you than any degree. That, and if you literally want to be me, you need to go bald or shave your head. It's a particular part of the mystery that is me.

I have to know: why do bald men shave their heads? Why not have a little something going on?

Matt: I dunno! Especially on white men. It makes them look like penises. I like my sort of Patrick Stewart cum Heihachi look.

Is that a look men wish to cultivate?

Matt: Haha! Maybe they do. I cut it all off, which makes me look like Picard, and then it grows out enough so that I can look like a fighting game hero. Either way I win. ;p

Anywho, back to your work! How long were you at 1UP before the axe fell?

Matt: Only a year. I started in January 08.

That was long enough, apparently, to make some worthwhile connections.

Matt: And that I owe almost entirely to the people I worked with there! Not since I first started at GameSpy was I amongst such amazingly talented individuals. When you're in an environment where you're inspired just by fucking being at work... hell, I don't even think there's a word for it. I mean, I could walk down the hall and talk to Jeff Green. How many people get to say that?! My only regret is that I hadn't been working there for years.

But you managed to take some of those talented individuals home with you. Three of you live Monkees-style in the same apartment!

Matt: Haha! Truth! And the rest are over here enough that it's almost like they live here... fortunately the rest of our roommates (we have 5 more, for a total of 8 people in this place) have been extremely understanding.

Are you guys working on the show 'round the clock? What's a typical day in the life?

Matt: It varies very greatly. 'Round the clock usually only happens when we're nearing the end of the week and need to deliver to Revision3 (which is supposed to happen on Fridays...we're, um, working on that). It's pretty similar to The 1UP Show, actually. Really, I don't think people are supposed to be able to do what we do. Writing, shooting, and editing a show in 5 days (sometimes more, when I'm honest :) ) just isn't the thing you think to ask people to do. Maybe that's why we're the only one doing what we do... though we wish there were more out there! Also, it's hard to make money at it. Just ask UGO. ;p

What is it exactly that you guys hope to accomplish with your show? What niche are you filling?

Matt: We talk a lot about changing the way that people think and talk about games. I mean, really we're just passionate about the medium and its potential and are fortunate to live very near a stockpile of brilliant people that have brilliant things to say about the art form/sport/hobby/whatever, but if what we do could have even just a small impact on the overall dialogue surrounding gaming then it would mean so much more than that. We want games to be taken as seriously as the Mona Lisa. It's still okay to have fun playing them and talking about them, but the perception that they're an adolescent past-time for man-children of no social aptitude, or that they're merely the latest in the line of child-corrupting influences disguised as toys has got to stop. The power of interactivity is profound, to be sure, but the potential for its use and misuse is at least partially based in the way that people think and talk about it. Maybe we can play a small roll in expanding that conversation. This is the part where someone in the comments says "Too much text. Didn't read."

Oh no, no friend of the internet would type that. I believe the correct phrase is: tl;dr.

Matt: Haha! Truth!

Speaking of man-children of no social aptitude, any chance you'd like to comment on Heather Chaplin's rant from GDC? [In which Chaplin chastised a room full of game developers with phrases such as "It's not that the medium is in its adolescence, it's that you're a bunch of fucking adolescents."]

Matt: I honestly only heard of it peripherally. I have a thought or two, but being that I wasn't there I'd take anything I type with a grain of sea-salt. (Because other salts are yucky.) In short, I think she was right on. Shit won't change unless the people making the games (and talking about them!) change it. We do our very best to remove ourselves and our show away from the greasy machine of male chest-pounding that it's become, but that doesn't mean Gears of War isn't tons of fucking fun!

Do you really think mainstream games are reaching their full interactive potential? Or, even really striving for it?

Matt: Nah, but neither are (sans interactivity, of course) movies, or music. There are diamonds in the rough, of course, and sometimes the rough is just good fun and raw entertainment (which should also be appreciated) but largely I think, no, there's far too much playing it safe. Part of it is a lack of vocabulary and a lack of a diversified audience -- chicken and the egg problem. You need a diverse audience in order to create diverse art, but how do you create that audience from nothing? Personally I think it's just the kind of thing that happens when the people that are afraid of the new shit die off and leave the honest exploration of a medium to a generation less hampered by their insecurities about it. FEAR IS THE MIND KILLER. :p

Ooh, I like how you brought that back around. Well played.

Matt: My little brother is 14. I went as a chaperone on his 6th grade camping trip. EVERY kid on that bus, boy and girl alike, had a DS or a PSP. I'm hoping we don't have to wait until my little brother is grown up for gaming to truly move into it's golden age (which is where I truly believe it is headed) but we may have to if the current paradigm can't shift quickly enough. Online and digital distribution may do it for us. But that's just a guess. :)

Going back to what you said above, how is CO-OP bringing its expanded vocabulary to the world? How are you finding/reaching your audience? It can't all be peeps who followed the 1UP show... OR CAN IT?

Matt: I think that's largely who it's been, yeah. I mean, they're the ones that donated cash to us to start the project and they're the ones that helped spread the word, subscribed to our Twitters, commented on our YouTube channels, posted on forums, etc. -- Revision3 is doing a lot to promote our show now, but I don't think we'll see the results of that for a little while longer. Getting an article in Forbes as a good start. But mostly, at this point, it's word of mouth.

So, corporate sponsorship, eh? How did you swing that? Tell me the whole story!

Matt: Well our first sponsor was EA. They had marketing budget to spend for The Godfather II and, well, I think it just so happens that we have some fans over there and a drop in the bucket to them could be GINORMOUS for us. I got a call out of the blue saying they wanted to do an ad buy with us. This, and the $18k in donations we received are what made the Revision3 deal possible. With Revision3, we're not actually making any money. It's been a common misconception -- everywhere on the Internets -- that Revision3 drove up to our door and dumped a pile of cash at our feet. We are, in fact, not making any money just yet. BUT, the long-term potential with 'em is HUGE if we can get our viewer numbers up high enough that they can sell our available ad slot for more money. It's a revenue-share deal, meaning we get a % of the ad revenue. Right now, the ads you see in our show are the default sponsorships that fund all Revision3 programming. That won't be enough to sustain us over the long term. That's what the EA and donation nest egg are for. Hopefully that money won't run out before we've got enough new viewers to make our show more valuable.

Ah, interesting. I do think people just assume you're wading in caviar and toast points.

Matt: Indeed, they do. :) Not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing. I mean, perception helps to create reality, but perception can also create inaction. And by that I mean we've only got word of mouth to rely on for now. If no one thinks to tell their friend about our show because we're already "just so huge" then maybe it won't happen at all. Also, what's a toast point? :)

Hahah. Seriously?

Matt: For cereal. :)

Manbearpig. It's just a little piece of toast. Like, for canapés, etc.. You can put caviar on them if you like.

Matt: Ah... see? If we were wading in dough and going to fancy parties I'd know that. ;p

I had imagined you guys like the Simpsons, filling your living room with caviar and toast points...

...or laying on a bed of pearls, eating pearls for breakfast...

Matt: Haha! Just kidding! That's what we do every day for breakfast!

Anywho, we got way off on yet another tangent here. So, what does the future hold for CO-OP and crew?

Matt: More CO-OP! And Caviar! And Toast Points! And Capitalizing Words For No Reason!

That's How the Rich Do IT!

Matt: And the ultra rich just go for straight up caps! FUCK YEAH.

HAHAHAHAH. HOW WELL YOU KNOW US.

Matt: Bahahah! Honestly, we're hoping to get more contract work to help us break even. I think we can make a good go at that and make a lot of those crappy developer diary videos much more interesting and mini-documentary-like. Hopefully we'll get into the kind of stuff you see on Blu-Ray/DVD extras for games. But, really, we're mostly looking to CO-OP to make our mark on the games industry in the most positive way possible. Also, we're REALLY looking forward to PAX. We have some ideas that I think will be a ton of fun and PAX is our favorite event all year. :)

Any hints? teasers?

Matt: Heh, I wish! We're just shooting ideas around. I'd hate to give 'em away in case nothing pans out :)

Well, we'll all be looking forward to more CO-OP. Thanks so much for chatting with me, Mr. Matt. I know you were very busy playing games and ignoring your appointments. [Matt was 20 minutes late for this interview. He was busy hanging out, playing video games on a live webcast, and needed to be reminded of his appointment via the accompanying live webchat.]

Matt: My pleasure! And I appreciate you going to the extra effort to get me to actually MAKE my appointment. :)

AND... SCENE.

Matt: fwooosh!

On Franchise Reboots

Fri, 10 Apr 2009 03:40:04 EST

As far as long-running series go, Advance Wars ranks among the best. Truly, there are few things in life that match the joy of controlling a group of pre-teens that have the authority to order legions of men to grisly doom.

Unfortunately, the most recent AW game utilizes what developers refer to as "a darker storyline".

Proclamation: I defy anyone to name a song that has worse lyrics than Papa Roach's Last Resort. You can't do it because it doesn't exist.

How to Be Me: Petri Purho, Independent Game Developer

Tue, 31 Mar 2009 12:41:11 EST

It's time once again for How to Be Me, HCF's series of casual, vaguely instructional interviews with games industry professionals, conducted entirely over instant messenger services.

This week we spoke with Finnish independent game designer Petri Purho, who creates monthly experimental games on his website Kloonigames.com. Petri's best-known game Crayon Physics Deluxe won the Seumas McNally Grand Prize at the Independent Games Festival Awards in 2008 and is currently available for PCs and iPhone.

Hey, Petri! Could you tell us a little bit about yourself?

Petri Purho: No. Well, maybe a little. I'm an independent game developer, I live in Helsinki, Finland and I like to watch weird movies.

Weird movies, you say? For instance?

Petri Purho: I knew you were going to pick up on that one. Last really weird movie that I watched was Jodorowsky's Holy Mountain.

This one?

Petri Purho: Yeah, that one. I generally like to watch a lot of movies from a lot of different genres, so it's not just weird movies all the time.

Sometimes you like a good romantic comedy, then? Something with Meg Ryan?

Petri Purho: Yes. I actually like romatic comedies a lot. I'm a bit ashamed of that.

You shouldn't be! Romance and Comedy: it's a winning combination!

Petri Purho: Add zombies and you have a classic.

I'm going to try to steer this back to video games: when are you making a romantic comedy video game? Correction: When are you going to make a rom-com zombie game?

Petri Purho: There was someone who said that the most difficult thing to do in games is a romatic comedy game. It's something that's easy and cheap to do as a movie, but nearly impossible to do as a game. I have no idea how to go about doing it as a game. Maybe something in the vein of Facade.

What do you think is the difficulty there? People speak of video games as the next great artistic medium, but why can't video games capture a genre as simple and abundant as the romantic comedy?

Petri Purho: Well, there's two big issues in a romatic comedy. First, doing a game that's actually funny is something that's very difficult and seldom done, but it can be done. But doing a game where you fall in love or anyone falls in love in a way that it actually touches you on the other side of the screen... no one has done that yet and I don't think anyone will. Games are not a good medium to transfer human emotions. They're a great medium in creating certain emotions in players and building an interactive structure around that. Unfortunately, love is not one of those emotions that we have learned to generate in our players.

This is interesting. So often people write about games that make them cry or how games should be able to make people cry. What's everybody crying about? Is it really happening?

Petri Purho: I don't know if crying is the ultimate goal. But I think that the reason why movies and theater are such good vehicles for emotion is because of empathy. When you see someone expressing an emotion you feel that emotion yourself. The problem is that we are really good at figuring out when someone expressing an emotion is faking it. And video games might not ever reach that point where we can fake emotions so well that it will work. Also, telling stories or doing cut-scenes (which are usually the ways that we try to express these things) are not the best use of our medium. They don't have any real interactive input in them. So, in my mind doing it with cut-scenes would actually be really bad for games. You have to figure out a way where you can craft the rules of the game to give players the emotions that you want to express through your game. And that's really fucking difficult. Especially when you try to express something like love.

Have you tried injecting emotion into any of your games? I imagine with your one-month-per-game schedule, that might prove difficult.

Petri Purho: We'll I tried experimenting with it. The Forbidden.exe was an experiment in trying to express tension and horror through gameplay only. SM Word was one that tried to express anger through gameplay rules. Crayon Physics Deluxe had a little bit of that as well: I tried to express childlike creativity through the game. Truth About Game Development tried to communicate my feelings about the game industry and how I felt when I was working there.

Do you feel that you succeeded in these attempts?

Petri Purho: Yes and no. Some of them worked and some of them didn't. The bigger problem was that some of them failed as games or they were pretty bad as games.

Ah, see, I went to your talk at GDC and I felt you were very hard on yourself! (A portion of Petri's GDC talk "Crayon Physics Deluxe Postmortem" included a very critical look at the game.)

Petri Purho: That's they way I've been raised :) I didn't realize it until after I gave the GDC talk, but that's the way people probably saw the talk. I didn't want to do a talk where you're all like "Hey, look at this. I made this awesome thing. I'm so cool. I'm so awesome. Buy my game."

I think I went to that talk. :p

Petri Purho: Hahhah. But, instead I wanted to point out all the problems I had with the game. So maybe people could learn from my mistakes or at least know that they're there.

Well, that's a noble goal. Did you ever think, growing up, that you'd be giving talks at GDC? Did you ever imagine the success you're having now?

Petri Purho: Never. I just wanted to do games. I wasn't really interested in even talking about it. I didn't think anyone would ever be interested in knowing what I have to say about games. It wasn't my plan to do a commercial game. It just kinda happened.

Can we talk a little about how you started out? I read that you decided you wanted to make games at the age of 6. In the same article I read that you also like magic and your dad is a magician!

Petri Purho: It's true. I've been into magic since before I could walk. I did my first gig in front of people at the age of 1.5 years. My father was having a show and he introduced me and I did a trick or two.

What kind of magic can a baby do?!

Petri Purho: The trick that I did (or so I've been told) was that I had this small mat and I produced feather flowers from it. But the way I got into games was that I played Super Mario Bros. and ever since playing that I knew I wanted to do my own games. So, yeah, at six I played Super Mario Bros on the NES and begged my father to teach me how to do games. He showed me QBasic and bought me my own computer about a year later. I made a text adventure game and it had a bug in it. You could play through it if you just pressed enter all the time.

Do you still have your early games? That would make such an interesting timeline: My Life As a Game Developer!

Petri Purho: I might have it at my parents place on some diskette. There's probably a lot of QBasic games that I made. I should look through them some day.

Did you just keep on making games from that point? Did you ever consider doing anything else with yourself?

Petri Purho: I just kept on learning how to program, but I never thought I could do games for a living. From my point of view, games were made in other countries than Finland. So it seemed all very far away, and impossible to make a living in. I was kinda intrested in having a career as a magician, but that wasn't a safe bet either. So when I got older and learned to program I figured I could probably make a living programming and maybe doing some magic on the side. It wasn't until I got a job as a part-time programmer at Frozenbyte that I thought I could actually make a living making games. And I wasn't sure that I could make a living on my own games until I released Crayon Physics Deluxe. Well, I'm not totally convinced of it yet, but it looks like I could probably make a career out of doing games.

And a little magic on the side? Magician is the coolest side-job I've ever heard of.

Petri Purho: Probably.

So let's talk about your big game, Crayon Physics Deluxe.

Petri Purho: OMG

OMG?

Petri Purho: That was my sarcastic voice, trying to express my feelings about Crayon Physics Deluxe.

Hahaha! Are you maybe a little tired of talking about Crayon Physics Deluxe?

Petri Purho: Yes and no. In a way I wanted to be over Crayon Physics Deluxe when I released it in January, but I've noticed that wasn't the case. That seemed to be the beginning for all the rest of world as for me it seemed to be the end of this long journey. I don't really have anything else to say. For me Crayon Physics Deluxe was this huge project that started out in June 2007 and ended in January 2009. And I was mentally prepared to be done with it when I released it. But much to my surprise that wasn't the case. I wanted to move on to new things.

Ah, well then let's talk about the new things! What new things have you moved on to?

Petri Purho: I haven't really had the time to move on to new things :(

Aww.. :( Do you think, perhaps, you deserve a nice long vacation after such a long development process?

Petri Purho: Maybe, probably. I'll try to find time to do that. The problem is that I don't really enjoy vacationing. Every time I've been on vacation I crave to get back to home so I can work on ideas that I get when I'm away from home. And it feels like torture if I can't work on those ideas there, because I don't have anything else to do there. So, the perfect vacation for me is to close my phone down and unplug the internet and stay at home for a week or two.

Wow, you can do that? After a day or two without the internet I get very tense and uneasy.

Petri Purho: You can and you should do it. It's really refreshing. Weirdest thing is to see how little has actually happened when you were offline.

Ha! Closest I come is not using Twitter on the weekends. I don't appear to miss much... But, anyway, back to you! Besides taking the occasional phone and internet break, can you give any advice to someone who would one day like to grow up to be you?

Petri Purho: Buy a white hoodie and let your hair grow long?

Does it have to be white? Can it be blue?

Petri Purho: No, I think it has to be white. But, I'm really bad at giving advice. Generally I'd say do things instead of just talking about them. There's a surprising amount of people who just talk the talk and very few people who actually do anything. Even fewer of them ever release anything. Just do a lot of games, if games are the thing you want to do.

Do you think a would-be game maker needs a formal education?

Petri Purho: I didn't have any kind of formal education, so, no, I don't think it's needed. Education in itself is not enough. If you're passionate enough you'll go and learn by yourself. Schools don't really teach you how to be passionate and if you're not, then the education is a waste of your time.

That's fantastic advice. I think, once again, you might be a little hard on your advice-giving skills :p Anywho, thank you so much for chatting with me, Petri! Oh, and I learned this just for you: Kiitos paljon!

Petri Purho: Awesome! Kiitos itsellesi, oli erittäin mukavaa rupatella.

Yeah... that.

The Maw (XBLA) Review

Wed, 25 Mar 2009 17:40:51 EST

[HCF looks back! A review originally written in January, but reposted here and now, just in case you missed it!]

New this week for the Xbox Live Arcade is Twisted Pixel Games' 3D action/adventure game and PAX 10 Audience Award Winner "The Maw."

Playing as the prototypical (yet adorable) humanoid alien Frank, you begin the game in lockdown aboard the ship of galactic bounty hunters. Within the ship's hold is a menagerie of the universe's most dangerous creatures -- of which, presumably, you are one -- chief among them being the eponymous Maw, "a cowardly fat blob concerned mostly with snacking and lounging, [who can] absorb the traits of anything he eats, is virtually indestructible, and can grow to unlimited size."

Surviving the ship's crash landing, Frank and Maw form an instant bond and, with the help of a handy plasma leash, team up to escape the planet of their former captors -- Frank the brains of the operation and Maw the ravenous brawn.

At only 150MB, "The Maw" is an impressively rich game: its graphics on a par with some full retail games, its original score and sound effects always an interesting complement to the action, its level design consistently clever and engaging. Combining aspects of 3D platformers and traditional puzzle-based adventure games, "The Maw's" gameplay mechanics are straight forward and familiar. You easily master Frank's attacks, dodges and interactions with Maw within the first few levels, yet the action never becomes rote. As the levels become more complex and the puzzles more difficult, you must, at times, venture off alone and it is in these moments you must employ the most creative problem solving. You're never alone for long, though; like a loyal, purple, gelatinous dog who could kill you at any moment, Maw is always just a call away. (P.S. Frank's "Maw" call is about as endearing as yelling gets.)

Perhaps the most impressive aspect of "The Maw" is the genuine, palpable sense of camaraderie between its protagonists -- an element difficult to achieve in a 60-hour fully-realized title, much less a four-hour (tops) XBLA game. Is it the voice acting, the pitch-perfect cutscenes, the subtle character animations, the gratuitous eye hugging? Whatever the case may be, as the game progresses and the first apprehensions of the end begin to creep up on you, no one will begrudge you a lingering search for that last Snuffle -- anything to delay the inevitable.

Of course, "The Maw" is not entirely without its flaws. For one thing, it's over far too quickly, and, unfortunately, its replay value is rather low for anyone but a gamerscore fiend. My personal gripe with the game is that Frank's running speed is too slow. As eager as I was to explore "The Maw's" world, Frank simply couldn't keep up.

All told, "The Maw" is a charming, visually rich and genuinely fun game, well worth the $10 and pleasant afternoon you'll spend on it.

Deadly Creatures (Wii) Review

Wed, 25 Mar 2009 17:27:45 EST

[HCF looks back! A review originally written in February, but reposted here and now, just in case you missed it!]

One of the best-looking and most compelling Wii games to date, Rainbow Studios' "Deadly Creatures" is a survival tale intertwining the lives and deaths of desert-dwelling vermin -- arthropod and human alike.

"Deadly Creatures" opens with a vague recounting of the events that befell the game's only human characters, two would-be treasure hunters voiced by Dennis Hopper and Billy Bob Thornton. Thornton's crawling narrative delivery, intercut with a cryptic sequence of murky scenes, instantly sets the tone pervasive to the game: dark, sinister and strangely compelling. Though the human story is a classic morality tale of greed and betrayal, what makes "Deadly Creatures" unique is that it's not told from the perspective of humans at all, but rather from the dispassionate perspective of nature. There are no heroes in this game. The true protagonists, a tarantula and scorpion, can at best be described as morally neutral, their chief concern strictly pragmatic: survival. Placing the player in each roll in alternating chapters, it is through these cold-blooded eyes that "Deadly Creatures" tells its tale.

And Rainbow has done exceedingly well in the telling. From concept to graphics to sound to gameplay, "Deadly Creatures" fully immerses the player in the kill-or-be-killed world of desert arthropods. Graphically, the game pushes the limits of the Wii's capabilities. Its detailed environments, textures and animations present a realistic world rendered in a scale unfamiliar to human eyes. Everyday objects are at first unrecognizable, but serve as a frequent reminder that this alien world is our world, too. The effect is only heightened by the game's sound and original score. The subtle scuttling of claws across sand, the crunch of a beetle's carapace in your pincers, the juicy squish of a grub in your fangs, the organic rise and fall of the music -- everything coalesces to create an atmosphere as unsettling and fascinating as any Wii game yet created.

None of this is diminished during actual gameplay. In "Deadly Creatures," the controls are remarkably intuitive, particularly when assuming the average player is unlikely to have spent much time previously pretending to be a tarantula or scorpion. Playing with the Wii Remote and Nunchuck, basic movement is controlled with the Nunchuck thumbstick, basic attacks with the A button. As the game progresses, the player is rewarded with new moves and, turn by turn, waggling, aiming and the full array of available buttons and triggers are added to one's arsenal. Be advised, however, that this is no button-masher, successful attacks rely on the careful orchestration of motions and buttons, and just what combinations of waggles you'll need will depend upon which creature you're playing. With its ranged and leaping attacks, the tarantula seems better suited for a stealthy, tactical approach, while the scorpion seems a slower, sturdier melee/bruiser type. Alternating between the two each chapter was a particularly clever move on the part of the developers, providing a sense of balance and preventing the gameplay from getting stale.

As easy as it is to gush about the game, "Deadly Creatures" is not without its flaws. The quality and complexity of its graphical elements eventually result in some loading lag when multiple foes enter a screen. While brief, these delays are significant enough to impinge upon the pace of the game, break its immersive spell and allow the player to become suddenly aware of the absurdity of feverishly waggling a Wii Remote at an unresponsive screen. Despite the numerous attacks and maneuvers one accrues, boss battles in the game boil down to a series of quick time events. Depending more upon timing and the interpretation of onscreen symbols than strategy or skill, these battles quickly become repetitive and frustrating. And, for all the game's immense potential, its final chapter feels oddly anticlimactic and unsatisfying.

Flaws notwithstanding, Rainbow Studio's "Deadly Creatures'" is a game absolutely not to be missed. Its unique perspective; unusual narrative structure; and completely immersive, atmospheric visuals, sound and gameplay make it a landmark game for the Nintendo Wii.

'Pop 'Em Drop 'Em Samegame' (WiiWare) Review

Tue, 24 Mar 2009 21:52:41 EST

A terrible name
But a fine little puzzler
Give it your money.

[Pop 'Em Drop 'Em Samegame]

Bit.Trip Beat (WiiWare) Haiku Review

Wed, 18 Mar 2009 19:40:09 EST

Techno music Pong
Entrancing rhythmic gameplay
Like a siren song.

Movements too subtle!
Flickers, blips and pulsing lights
Blur and strain my eyes.

Yet, I cannot stop
Get some eye drops. Start over.
So worth the six bucks.

How to Be Me: Will Armstrong, Lead QA at Telltale Games

Tue, 17 Mar 2009 12:11:15 EST

Welcome to another edition of How to Be Me, HCF's casual, vaguely instructional interviews with professionals in the video games industry. This week I spoke with Will Armstrong, Lead QA at Telltale Games, developers of Sam & Max, Strong Bad's Cool Game for Attractive People, and the upcoming Wallace & Gromit's Grand Adventures.

Hi, Will! Could you tell us who you are and what you do?
Will Armstrong: Hello! Well, I'm Will Armstrong and I'm the Lead of Quality Assurance for Telltale Games.

When you were a little boy is that what you wanted to be when you grew up?
Will Armstrong: Not in the slightest! Honestly, I had no idea that some day I would work into video games. It's something I accidentally stumbled upon.

How exactly did you stumble into video game work?
Will Armstrong: When I was working at Turner, one of my old bosses got transferred over to Gametap. I was doing television interny stuff at the time and he offered me a full time position.

What was your interny job? What was the job you were offered?
Will Armstrong: Well at the time, I was in intern at Adult Swim. Which was pretty damn awesome. But my old boss offered me a sort of lead technical position. I would do a lot of back-end work getting all of the games together and organized and so forth. The thing is, I didn't actually take the job. I wanted to graduate first, so I ended up connecting them with my brother. He took that job, and I helped out part time while I finished up my degree. When I finally graduated, I moved into game testing, since just about everything else was filled by then.

Did you know before you took a job as a tester what the work would be like? A lot of people erroneously assume you get to sit around goofing off, having fun all day.
Will Armstrong: No, I actually had a pretty good idea what all it meant. One of the things I did part-time was to help them set up their test department. So I had a pretty solid grasp on what would be needed. That said, knowledge doesn't exactly make it any less grueling at times.

What *does* QA testing entail?
Will Armstrong: Everything! We tighten the graphics on level 2! Actually, one of the reasons I am with Telltale is that we really do get a hand in everything. Not only do we do the general testing (playing the game ad nauseum to find bugs, trying to break the UI, that sort of thing), but we also get to provide a large amount of qualitative feedback as well. I frequently sit down with designers to talk about which portions of the game don't flow well, or how this puzzle is a little too confusing.

Is testing different at other companies? Do you get to provide less feedback, etc.?
Will Armstrong: Well honestly, I can't personally speak for that many companies, since I've only ever really worked at Telltale and Gametap. But based on what other people tell me, you often get very little if any contact with the actual developers. You are given a build, you pound on it for a few days, write up your bugs, and then wait for your next build. With Telltale, I'm always wandering over to the designers or programmers or artists and hashing things out with them. There's an awful lot of give and take.

As Lead QA, you get to oversee a team of testers. How much of your job is management?
Will Armstrong: Well when I first started, it was a team of me. So management was more a case of figuring out which project I should be testing today. These days, I'm up to a team of 4 or 5 testers at a time, and we are juggling more projects than I care to count. As such, I spend a mind numbing amount of time figuring out schedules, writing up test plans, and assigning people to do things. The upside of this is that I get to tell other people to do things while I spend my time actually fixing bugs or delving into other parts of the company.

What makes a good tester? What are you looking for when you put together a testing team?
Will Armstrong: You know, hiring new testers is one of the hardest parts of my job. There isn't really any one thing you look for on a resume. Sure, testing experience or programming background is great and all, but it isn't really a guarantee of skill. Mostly, I depend on the interview. Because we are such a small company, I know that the testers will be interacting directly with everyone from the CEO on down. So most importantly, I'm looking for good communicators. They write better bugs, they work well with all ends of the company, and they are more fun to be around (an important fact when you occasionally spend 60-70 hours together in a week.) Aside from that, I mostly just look for intelligent, quick learning people. One thing we do differently than a lot of companies is that we work directly in the development tools. So after a few weeks working in the Tool, I expect someone to be able to find a bug, identify the core problem (be it scripting, choreography, engine, etc), and if possible fix the bug, all on their own.

Wow, that's quite impressive!
Will Armstrong: It also makes it a hell of a lot easier to move up inside the company when you already know how everything works. I am routinely impressed by the team. They do a really kickass job!

Could you walk us through a typical day for you and your testers?
Will Armstrong: Well, it really depends a lot of what kind of projects we are doing. But basically, we start up in the morning with whatever build is closest to a milestone. If this is something pretty final, we will go through and regress the major issues that might prevent us from shipping. I usually assign two to three people to this project. Then we usually have a project that is midway through development, so I have two other testers doing informed testing on that project. Usually this just means playing through the game and testing the things that are likely to break. Looking for all of the usual suspects, that sort of thing. And then we usually have some project that is either really early in development, or requires some special tweaking. I'll usually take on this one myself, doing early passes on the game to discuss flow and design with the developers. The goal there is to try and get the script as solid as possible in time for first recording and the playtest. And then scattered throughout we have design meetings and production meetings and delicious lunchings and so forth. It gets pretty busy!

You mentioned playtests! How important are playtests in the process? What are you hoping to learn from them?
Will Armstrong: Playtests are a HUGE part of the design process. Right around the time we hit beta, we try to have a playtest where we bring in members of the community to play through an episode. During these, the testers and the designers walk around the floor peering anxiously over the shoulders of our volunteers. We find a few bugs this way, but mostly we are looking for places where people are confused or stuck. After everyone finishes up the playthrough, they sit down in a room with the designers to discuss all of the problems and tricky areas and any sort of suggestions they might have. The whole process takes the better part of the day, but everyone seems to really enjoy them!

Have you guys ever changed puzzles based on feedback from a playtest?
Will Armstrong: I think a better question would be "has a puzzle ever gone unchanged after a playtest?!" Just about every aspect of the game gets tweaked to some extent. Part of the reason we try to hold them so early in development is so that we can make all of the necessary changes and still ship the game on time. Some puzzles survive more unscathed than others, but almost every puzzle in the game can be improved in one way or another. We are really big on feedback, both from playtests, and from the community after a game has been released.

With all the feedback you're taking and interaction you guys have with you fan base, have members of your online community ever transitioned into jobs at your company?
Will Armstrong: Why yes! In fact, one of our testers was an active poster on our forum. And two of our testers (as well as a programmer or two) had attended playtests before. It always helps to hire someone that really loves what we do. Odds are they will put in the extra effort to really make the game a project of love.

If someone is looking into getting a job in QA specifically with you, what would you recommend as the best course of action?
Will Armstrong: Well we are almost always looking for one position or another (though we are rapidly running out of space!) You can just head over to http://www.telltalegames.com/company/jobs/ to see what's currently open. But even if your desired position isn't listed, you can just send a resume to jobs@telltalgames.com. Aside from that, play our games! It's always sad to get into an interview with someone only to have them say "So... you guys do like, games and stuff? Like RPGs?" Even if you can't afford to buy them, we have a free episode online, and we are constantly giving stuff away through some deal or another. And demos galore!

What would you recommend to someone who wants to get a job in QA in general. What sort of education does he or she need? What sorts of skills should he or she be honing?
Will Armstrong: A background in computers is always nice. I'd also highly recommend any sort of communication type skills. Some of my best testers have been Journalism or English Lit majors. For serious! Oh, also, be warned that testing is really meticulous in nature. If you don't have the patience to do a lot of repetitive, thorough work, maybe this isn't the job for you.

Were you a fuzzy major? I seem to remember something about Japanese?
Will Armstrong: Actually, I was a really weird major unique to Georgia Tech. I got a BS in Science, Technology, and Culture. It was basically a broad, media studies type major, with a focus on technology stuffs. I spent a lot of time in film classes, Photoshop, Final Cut, and even some Maya thrown in for good measure! I took some Japanese in my spare time, but honestly it hasn't been all that useful yet. Maybe when we start doing those RPGs! (Kidding)

Oh, weird. I had no idea you were so techy.
Will Armstrong: Yeah, I actually spent my first year and a half as a computer science major. After programming a compiler for a final project, I said "Screw this! I need something more creative. And less back-end C programming!" So I swapped majors.

Well, since you know Japanese, could you sum up the qualities necessary for being a QA tester.... in HAIKU?
Will Armstrong: Oh god. Ok, lemme give this a shot:

You must have focus
Free your mind of worldy points
Score is not your goal

That is awesome and wicked zen.
Will Armstrong: Zen and The Art of Video Game Testing

You need to write that book now. Anywho, thank you so much for your time, Mr. Will Armstrong. Any parting words?
Will Armstrong: Testing games is fun and a great way into the industry! Smaller companies are better! In-house testing FTW! ...And I'll get right on that book.

[Note! Full disclosure: Marie Kare briefly worked as a contractor with Telltale Games and has attended several TTG playtests. This interview was 100% her idea and she was in no way compensated for it outside of having a friendship with Will and other awesome TTG peeps.]

Resident Evil 5 Party Pics

Fri, 13 Mar 2009 18:30:45 EST

Last night, Capcom and GameStop celebrated the midnight release of Resident Evil 5 with a Resi-themed party tent in the middle of San Francisco's Union Square. Fans were invited to mix and mingle with Resi 5's producers, developers and motion capture/voiceover actors; and generally have a good time getting hopped up on free energy drinks, entering screaming contests and killing some zombies. Behind the cut, a selection of pics from the event for your viewing pleasure! (Very image heavy!)

Security guards swept metal detectors over every entrant. Many a person expressed displeasure with having glowing wands in such close proximity to their bodies, while others seemed to enjoy it. Which one were you?

These same security guards were more than happy to provide you with delicious candies once you were inside. Perhaps they misunderstood the free candy/feeling you up order of operations.

Resi 5 production/development team -- including franchise veterans Jun Takeuchi and Masachika Kawata, and composer Kota Suzuki -- were on hand to sign autographs and answer questions. Kawata also shared the trailer for "Resident Evil: The Dark Side Chronicles."

Actors TJ Storm, Karen Dyer and Reuben Langdon joined cinematics director Jim Sonzero on stage. I wonder what TJ (second from left) was thinking about. I hope it was something nice, like ice cream or a shiny new belt buckle.

Half the tent was dedicated to gaming kiosks.

Despite Resi 5's much lauded co-op gameplay...

...most people played alone.

One of the night's most popular attractions was the scream contest!

Fans lined up for a chance to scream into a microphone while a room full of people watched. Those with the loudest screams won Chris Redfield jerseys. Those with the most emotive facial expressions won our applause.

All told, it was a pretty good party. See you at the next one?

'Peggle' (XBLA) Haiku Review

Fri, 13 Mar 2009 12:40:44 EST

Best speedball ever.

Fireworks, hallucinations,

a talking beaver?

[Peggle on XBLA]

Historical Fiction

Wed, 11 Mar 2009 04:07:06 EST

Some people say that World War II games are played out.

I think we're just not digging deep enough.