Hypercombofinish

Hypercombofinish Podcast #5: PS4, Assassin's Creed 3, Gaming Business Models

Tue, 26 Mar 2013 18:22:54 EST

Video games are fun and all, but few things capture the imagination of the Internet as absolutely as the metagame of determining which console is the best. There are new consoles on their way to stoke this venerable fire into a towering inferno of nerd rage; perhaps this time we'll finally come to an agreement and choose the one, true game machine. Also: World peace.

In this installment Marie and Chris discuss the (anticlimactic?) unveiling of the Playstation 4, Marie's fascination with 1700's era board games in Assassin's Creed III, and Chris' apparent desire to pay Microsoft even more money. Stay tuned at the end for a ~~thought-provoking analysis~~ compilation of "That's what she said!" jokes assembled by our producer, KBam.

Links from the discussion:

Game(s) Discussed

Assassin's Creed III

Next Episode's Game

Bit.Trip Presents Runner 2: Future Legend of Rhythm Alien

Hypercombofinish Podcast #4: Best Gaming Moments of 2012, Skyrim, Gamer Resolutions for 2013

Tue, 15 Jan 2013 14:32:01 EST

It's the dawn of a new year, which means it's time for deep introspection and reflection about the earth's most recent cycle around the sun and what it means to be alive. We've decided to frame this discussion in the structure of wacky top three lists!

In this installment, Marie and Chris talk about their favorite gaming moments of 2012 and their gamer resolutions for 2013. Topics covered include: Chris' anemic gamerscore, Skyrim's unique combination of item hoarding and romance, and how Marie fell in love with a tiny man inside her computer.

Links from the discussion:

Game(s) Discussed

Next Episode's Game

Assassin's Creed III

Hypercombofinish Podcast #3: #1reasonwhy, Bioshock Infinite, Mass Effect 3 Omega DLC, Criminal Case, Trine 2

Mon, 10 Dec 2012 17:08:44 EST

It's back to basics this week as we double down on a plain ol' audio format. You may notice that the sound quality itself has DRAMATICALLY improved: this is a result of our ongoing fight against bleeding ears.

In this installment, Marie and Chris talk about sexism in the game industry as addressed by #1reasonwhy, Bioshock Infinite's marketing, Steam's Big Picture mode, Mass Effect 3 Omega DLC, how modern alien designs suck ( unless you're playing Mass Effect ), and why a stuffy British guy thinks games don't qualify as "art".

Links from the discussion:

News in Review

Recent Game Releases

ME3: Omega DLC [Official Trailer]

Coming Attractions

Skyrim: Dragonborn DLC
Far Cry 3
The Aliens of ME3
Octodad
Star Trek Aliens: The 20 Lamest Looking Aliens from the Various Star Trek Series

Game(s) of the Week

You're Bad And You Should Feel Bad

Games Aren't Art

Hypercombofinish Podcast #2: Halo 4, Assassin's Creed, Kickstarter, Smartphones

Tue, 20 Nov 2012 12:49:01 EST

As part of our continuing quest for the ideal presentational format, we have video this week! Marvel at our ability to maintain an interesting conversation and play Minecraft at the same time!

In this installment, Marie and Chris talk about Halo 4, Assassin's Creed, Kickstarter, and why Chris doesn't own a smartphone.

Special thanks go to Katherine Bamford for editing the video!

News items referenced:

Hypercombofinish Podcast #1: Dishonored, Witcher 2, Wii U

Tue, 13 Nov 2012 15:40:46 EST

The Internet has provided us with a cornucopia of ways to tell others that they are wrong.

We send emails, post blog comments, and contribute to forum threads in the desperate hope that someone, somewhere, will come to realize that they are and will always be wrong. We here at Hypercombofinish recognize and honor the motivations that drive the Internet’s diligent troll population; who else would be capable of revealing the startling truths behind our racial ancestries and sexual orientations?

As a celebration of Internet-enabled discourse, Marie and I are proud to present the inaugural Hypercombofinish Podcast. We hope you enjoy it!

Topics discussed in this edition include:

Valkyria Chronicles
XCOM
Halo 4
Dishonored
voice acting in games
why being old will be awesome
Witcher 2
Marie's position as a race traitor in Gears of War
Zelda Skyward Sword
Wii U

Note: This podcast was originally intended to have a video component. Due to ~~my stupidity~~ technical problems, we were unable to record any video. We’ll get it right in time for the next edition.

Kellbot and RevolvingDork's Pixelated Wedding

Sun, 19 Jun 2011 22:10:29 EST

Weddings, man. They take forever to plan, cost a lot of money, and the vast majority of them are about as exciting as a speed run of Myst. To top it off, brides and grooms rarely have similar ideas about the kind of event they’d like to throw so one of them just steamrolls the other with turquoise taffeta and heirloom lederhosen.

In a stunning twist of fate for which I will be forever grateful, my fiance Kellbot and I happened to share a great number of interests. We’re both web programmers by trade. We both went to school for art. We both love videogames. Most importantly, we both like making things.

Thanks to our common proclivities, it didn’t us long to settle on a graphic theme for our wedding: videogames! Specifically, videogames comprised of big blocky pixels. To uphold a base level of classiness, we shied away from themeing the event itself around any specific game ( despite how excellent a warp pipe centerpiece would be ) and instead focused on creating a feeling of general videogamey-ness for the blessed occasion.

Curved lines were made verboten! Smooth gradients were abolished! Anti-aliasing was turned off -- ENTIRELY. We needed to make every angle sharp and keep our color count to a bare minimum. These guidelines were easy enough to follow in the two dimensional world of stationary and websites, but it was a little trickier to translate such wanton blockiness into the third dimension. After some brainstorming, we decided that the closest thing to a real-world pixel is a Lego brick. We ordered a pile of Legos and got to work prototyping decorations.

Armed with ideas and raw ingredients, we spent the better part of a year geeking out over every geekable part of the wedding planning process. We used a wide variety of tools: a laser cutter, X-Acto knives, Photoshop, Blender, Python, PHP, and a mountain of support from family and friends. This was the start of us building our lives together, and we were going to start if off nerdy.

CONCLUSION

Amazingly, every piece of the plan came together beautifully and we had a blast. There were great games, delicious food, awesome music, and the best friends and family any couple could ever ask for. Despite being the sort of folks who had never in the past thought about the sort of wedding they’d want to have, we got pretty deeply invested in the process and had a lot of fun.

If I have any advice to give prospective nerdy couples, it would be to make your wedding your own: don’t be afraid to inject the things your love into your celebration. If you work towards making it the sort of event you’d genuinely have fun at, both you and your guests will have a much better time. Additionally: if you end up turning your reception into a LAN party, please invite us.

Kellbot and RevolvingDork's Pixelated Wedding: Save the Date Cards

Sun, 19 Jun 2011 22:10:20 EST

We agreed that we didn't want the wedding or the reception to directly reference any specific game, but all materials preceding the big day were fair play for homage.

I thought that the first level of Donkey Kong would look nice with some extra definition, so I used it as the basis for our “Save the Date” cards. I re-drew the level at double the resolution of the original, adding simple shadows and highlights as I saw fit. Kellbot and I replaced Pauline at the top of the structure, pleading for guests to attend.

The theme of the card sneakily served as foreshadowing for our reception venue: We had just booked the Phoenixville Foundry, a converted ironworking foundry showcasing multiple levels of exposed beams. The building’s aesthetic reminded me of Donkey Kong’s iconic stacked girders, and the idea coalesced naturally.

Next: Website ->

( Back to Kellbot and RevolvingDork's Pixelated Wedding )

Kellbot and RevolvingDork's Pixelated Wedding: Website

Sun, 19 Jun 2011 22:10:12 EST

As web developers by trade, we had to do something particularly special for our wedding website. At its core was a fully automated RSVP system that grouped guests by party, allowed them to pick their desired entrees, and let them start organizing transportation if necessary.

Kellbot got the ball rolling on the design by mocking up a modified version of Super Mario Bros. 3's title screen. I took her concept and ran with it, drawing mario-esque versions of the bride and groom. With the finished design in place, Kellbot wrote some javascript that made the keyboard arrows mimic the functionality of the NES D-pad.

We built each section of the site as an homage to a different NES game: Super Mario Bros. 3 for the home page, Mega Man 4 for the wedding info page, and Dragon Warrior (Dragon Quest) for the RSVP system.

Kellbot ended up coding the whole site, and it worked like a charm -- we didn’t process a single RSVP through the mail. If you're curious, you can check out the website yourself at either ChrisLovesKelly.com or KellyLovesChris.com.

Next: Programs->

( Back to Kellbot and RevolvingDork's Pixelated Wedding )

Kellbot and RevolvingDork's Pixelated Wedding: Programs

Sun, 19 Jun 2011 22:10:03 EST

The event programs, like all of our printed wedding materials, were designed pixel-by-pixel at a minute resolution. We used the same visual theme here as on all signage at the wedding and reception: a blue border and the typeface from Capcom's Strider. Detail text was printed in Pixelette.

The design was tied together by yet another pixelated rendition of ourselves, this time holding up our newly acquired rings while doing our best Link impersonations.

Next: Centerpieces ->

( Back to Kellbot and RevolvingDork's Pixelated Wedding )

Kellbot and RevolvingDork's Pixelated Wedding: Centerpieces

Sun, 19 Jun 2011 22:09:54 EST

The reception centerpieces, unsurprisingly, ended up requiring more time and effort than anything else. Constructed from 100% basic Lego bricks, each sphere measured 25cm in diameter and was composed of approximately 1,600 pieces. There were a grand total of 14 spheres.

Kellbot has some in-depth posts about the preparation and construction of these behemoths, but in summary: She wrote a Python script that broke 3D computer models into Lego-sized pieces, then cut a series of horizontal slices and made vector files out of them. We utilized a laser cutter to make foamcore jigs for all 27 layers, using them as guides for building the final sculptures.

An intrepid group of family and friends were enlisted to help with the build. On average, building a single sphere took roughly 6-8 man-hours. The centerpieces required a great deal of logistical planning and old-fashioned hard work, but I like to think that the results speak for themselves.

Our caterering company, Feastivites, did a fantastic job setting the tables and decorating the reception venue with leftover Legos. They even helped us rent squared-off silverware and flatware to match the blocky theme. At every step of the way they shaped our rough pile of ideas into a cohesive whole, and I can't recommend them highly enough.

Next: Cake ->

( Back to Kellbot and RevolvingDork's Pixelated Wedding )

Kellbot and RevolvingDork's Pixelated Wedding: Cake

Sun, 19 Jun 2011 22:09:45 EST

We arrived at Whipped Bakeshop in South Philly with no solid ideas about what we wanted our cake to look like. Fortunately, the helpful staff at the bakery got our imaginations rolling after showing us square cake pans and suggesting that pixels could be replicated with frosting. Kellbot produced a sketch of our ideal cake: a boxy three-tier affair embellished with blue and green squares.

The resulting cake was pixel-perfect. Each tier featured a different flavor: chocolate truffle, lemon cream, and carrot cake. It fit the theme to a tee and didn’t make any compromises on deliciousness.

Next: Table Cards ->

( Back to Kellbot and RevolvingDork's Pixelated Wedding )

Kellbot and RevolvingDork's Pixelated Wedding: Table Cards

Sun, 19 Jun 2011 22:09:36 EST

Many couples name reception tables after meaningful moments in their relationships. Kellbot and I were no different; we named our tables after the games we enjoyed playing together. I made illustrated signs for each game, drawing custom sprite work wherever necessary ( I’m most proud of the Monday Night Combat sign ).

Accompanying the table signs were name cards for each guest. I drew icons for the four available entrees and placed them under each name accordingly.

Next: Entertainment ->

( Back to Kellbot and RevolvingDork's Pixelated Wedding )

Kellbot and RevolvingDork's Pixelated Wedding: Entertainment

Sun, 19 Jun 2011 22:09:27 EST

It would be criminal to host a videogame-themed reception without providing some actual games to play. We had two gaming stations:

A Nintendo Wii with four controllers hooked up to an LCD television
A complete Xbox 360 Rock Band 3 setup projected onto a screen with audio piped through a PA system

Rock Band, as we all know, has been scientifically proven to be the best party game of all time. Supplemented with a song list several hundred strong, the RB3 station drew a crowd of players and spectators all night long. Players at the Nintendo station favored New Super Mario Bros. Wii and Super Mario Kart Wii for some more competetive fun.

In between the game stations was a dance floor, and it was expertly DJed by Jason Remaly from Silver Sound DJs. We established a playlist centered largely around ska staples like Streetlight Manifesto, Reel Big Fish, and The Mighty Mighty BossTones. I beamed with pride when the floor went from zero to circle pit in an unprecedented 3 songs.

The dinner prepared by Feastivities was excellent, but my favorite part of the catering service was the self-service ice cream bar at the end. Homemade vanilla and chocolate ice cream were complimented by a full spread of toppings: hot fudge, whipped cream, cherries, sprinkles, strawberries -- basically, everything. I’d say that I don’t understand why more weddings don’t feature ice cream bars, but in truth I don’t understand why any event wouldn’t feature ice cream bars.

Next: Thank You Cards ->

( Back to Kellbot and RevolvingDork's Pixelated Wedding )

Kellbot and RevolvingDork's Pixelated Wedding: Thank You Cards

Sun, 19 Jun 2011 22:09:15 EST

Two days after the wedding, Kellbot and I set out to Saint Lucia for our honeymoon. With fantastic beaches and picturesque backdrops, it was an ideal place to wind down after months of preparation and several weeks of non-stop activity. We relished being able to lie in a hammock on the beach and play games without a care in the world -- this was our first real vacation in years, and it was long overdue.

I used photos from the honeymoon as a basis for our “Thank You” cards. This was the last piece of wedding-related design work I’d have to do, so I wanted to make it good.

Final: Wrap up ->

( Back to Kellbot and RevolvingDork's Pixelated Wedding )

Designing a Videogame Tournament ( How I Picked My Best Man )

Sat, 26 Feb 2011 21:50:58 EST

When preparing to get married, there are a number of methods one can use to select a best man. Some husbands-to-be start with a brother or the brother of their fiancée. Others choose their best friend or a family member they've grown up with.

If you're like me, you make your groomsmen battle it out in a multi-console videogame tournament.

I made the decision to stage a gaming gauntlet early on, but I was given pause when I actually sat down to plan it out. Devising an interesting tournament can be surprisingly tricky: How do you determine scoring? What games do you pick, and how can you play to the strengths of each participant? What surprises can you throw in to keep things exciting?

SCORING

I had four groomsmen. Four is a convenient number to work with; every major console released since the Nintendo 64 has had 4-controller functionality built in ( with the notable exception of the Playstation 2 ) and a great selection of 4-player games to compliment it. Most 4-player games rank contestants from best to worst at the end of each match, so winning or losing is not a binary operation.

When it came to scoring each match, I borrowed the scheme used in the original Super Mario Kart ( SNES ):

1st place: 9 points
2nd place: 6 points
3rd place: 3 points
4th place: 1 point

4-player games are great, but omitting 2-player titles would tragically exclude all of the excellent competitive games released before 1996. We had to have a way to score both 2 and 4-player games equitably, and I wanted to ensure that every player faced off against each of the other three contestants in every game. This dictated that 2-player games would be played over a minimum of six matches to facilitate all possible unique player combinations.

I settled upon the following scheme:

4-player games

1st place score	2nd place score	3rd place score	4th place score	Number of matches	Highest possible score per player	Lowest possible score per player
9	6	3	1	3	27	3

2-player games

Winner score	Loser score	Number of matches	Highest possible score per player	Lowest possible score per player
9	1	6 ( 3 per player in all combinations )	27	3

GAME SELECTION

With scoring out of the way, it was time to pick the games themselves. Eight different games were selected across a broad swath of platforms and genres to ensure round-to-round variety. I strove to pick games that none of the players were "experts" in to prevent matches from being one-sided and boring. The playing order was dictated by rolling a d8 at the start of each round.

THE GAMES

1. Blades of Steel ( NES, 2-player )
Match scoring: Highest score after 1 period wins a match, ties lead to sudden-death overtime periods

A tight and focused classic hockey game with surprising depth. Only after playing it competitively did we come to realize that players have control over nearly every aspect of their team: the positioning of the goalie, the angle of shots on goal. This ended up being the surprise favorite of the night; we will definitely be playing more Blades in the future.

2. Bomberman '93 ( TurboGrafx-16, 4-player )
Match scoring: One first-to-five-wins match, players ranked by number of wins

Multiplayer Bomberman games are famous for being exciting and chaotic. This entry is a great execution of the core Bomberman experience: blow up walls, collect ability-boosting items, and chain explosions unexpectedly to kill your friends. We played the Wii Virtual Console port, which allows you to play with up to five(!) players. It's not quite the madness of 10-player Saturn Bomberman, but it also doesn't require any multi-taps.

3. Goldeneye 007 ( N64, 4-player )
Match scoring: Ranked by game in five-stock deathmatches

Sadly, the ravages of time have not done this game any favors. What was once remembered fondly as a fast and furious split-screen shooter is now a muddy and nearly unplayable mess. There's a very fun and rewarding game here, but it's obscured by choppy framerates and chunks of shattered nostalgia. Despite these issues, it is unquestionably a classic that laid the foundation for modern console shooters.

4. Mario Kart Wii ( Wii, 4-player )
Match scoring: Ranked by game in VS. racing mode, motion control only

The latest iteration of Nintendo's venerable kart racing franchise is ostensibly a party game. Laggard-assisting items level the playing field, giving those in last place they ability to rain hell upon those in the lead. The items are far from balanced or fair, but they contribute to perpetuating a sense of being in the center of a hectic free-for-all. All the players groaned when I made them exclusively use motion control, but they're all whining babies.

5. Super Monkey Ball 2: Monkey Target ( Gamecube, 4-player )
Match scoring: Ranked by total points in 3-round matches

Super Monkey Ball 2 is an excellent single-player game, but the unlockable multiplayer minigames will keep you playing with your friends long after you've forgotten it. Our favorite is Monkey Target, which involves launching monkeys off of huge ramps and attempting to glide them onto the most point-laden targets. The targets, incidentally, are floating in the middle of the ocean: If you miss, your monkey drowns in a watery grave. Fun!

6. Super Smash Bros. Melee ( Gamecube, 4-player )
Match scoring: Ranked by game in 5-stock matches, auto-handicap turned on

With tighter gameplay than its descendant Brawl, Melee retains is place as the greatest 4-player fighting game of all time. The controls are simple yet deep, resulting in highly chaotic games of cat-and-mouse. Some of our competitors had more recent experience with Melee than others, so I opted to turn on the auto-handicapping feature. It didn't help much.

7. Super Street Fighter 2: The New Challengers ( Arcade, 2-player )
Match scoring: Standard first-to-two-KOs match rules

No competitive tournament would be complete without a Street Fighter game. I chose an older version to keep participants on their toes, which worked fairly well -- every match was a nail-biter. The use of an authentic X-Arcade joystick didn't hurt, either.

8. Warioware, Inc: Mega Party Game$! ( Gamecube, 4-player )
Match scoring: Survival Fever, ranked by game

WarioWare is the unsung hero of party gaming. Players are thrown into rapid-fire 2-second "microgames" where the main challege stems from figuring out what the hell it is you're supposed to do. It's wacky, it's imaginative, and it's a parody of videogaming itself. My favorite mode, Wobbly Bobbly, involves playing microgames and balancing a stack of turtles that grows as you lose games. It was sadly locked due to a corrupted memory card, so we played the more vanilla Survival Fever instead.

SURPRISES

I love the idea of having an idiosyncratic secret final game. This game would be the wildcard: worth double the points of any of the other games, giving lagging players a chance to catch up. I probed the depths of my gaming library to find something that no one would ever be able to predict, and I found it.

BONUS GAME: QBasic Gorillas ( PC/DOS, 2-player )
Match scoring: First to 2 points

This game was distributed with copies of DOS 5.0 as an example of what you could accomplish with the QBasic programming language. Its gameplay is stunningly simple: you enter two numbers. The first is the angle at which you want to hurl a banana, the second is the velocity at which you want it to travel. The banana sails through the air, its trajectory affected by gravity and the wind. Players take turns entering angle/trajectory values until one of them is hit ( and oddly, exploded ) by a banana.

That's it.

It's a bare-bones distillation of competitive gaming, but it can nonetheless lead to a surprising amount of tension. Watching a banana slowly reach the apex of its arc as you attempt to calculate how you should change your values on the next round is genuinely thrilling, in a nerdy sort of way.

RESULTS AND LESSONS LEARNED

In the end, everyone had a great time. The rankings weren't quite as close as I had planned, but I didn't tally them up until the end so they didn't have any bearing on the event itself. There were probably two or three games more than necessary on the schedule, so if I was to run another tournament it would likely have a slightly shorter game list.

We all play games together as our de facto method of hanging out, but we rarely play them in a truly competitive spirit. It's typical to forget who won or lost a given game right after the victory screen is displayed. This tournament changed that dynamic, and I think it's something I'd like to explore further -- with ALL of my best men.

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.