Games of Jason Rohrer

Jason Rohrer is one of the few people out there trying to expand the boundaries of games into the realm of art.

Passage

Passage

Passage is probably his most famous game, it is only five minutes long but it takes a couple of play-throughs to ‘get it’. I really can’t say much more about it because it is meant to go into with fresh eyes.
I will say that I personally did not get it when I first played through it, but that may have been do to the fact that I did not know that you could move up and down as well as left and right.

Between

Between

Between is a two player only game.  There is no way to play this game by yourself, it literally is not possible.  You can either play with a stranger across the internet or with a friend, but I would highly recommend playing this game with a friend.  For the best experience make sure they cannot see your screen.  You may even want to play it in separate rooms from one another.  This is another game that is best played when you don’t know the mechanics of it going in; in fact, it is really the point of the game to collaboratively figure out what to do with the other player.

Gravitation

Gravitation

Gravitation is my favorite of his art games, it features nice pixel art and some dynamic music and screen effects based on the mood of the player character.  I still haven’t beat it yet but it is definitely interesting and is much easier to ‘get’ than passage.  The viewable area of the screen shrinks and expands depending on whether the character is sad or happy respectively.  After getting him in a happy enough mood, you can jump very very high.  If he becomes sad you can hardly jump at all.  It is definitely meant to be an art game, but it is much more enjoyable in the traditional sense that is associated with games than other art games.

Transcend

Transcend

This game is very cool if you read the instructions on Rohrer’s site, if you don’t, it is very confusing.  It is a shooter in which you have to collect these items in able to damage the enemies; however, through playing the game, you generate a unique musical sculpture each time you play.

Cultivation

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This is the only one of the games in this article that I have not played, so instead of me telling you about it I will just give you a quote from the creator himself: “Cultivation is quite different from most other games. It is a social simulation, and the primary form of conflict is over land and plant resources—there is no shooting, but there are plenty of angry looks. It is also an evolution simulation. Within the world of Cultivation, you can explore a virtually infinite spectrum of different plant and gardener varieties.”

Primrose

Primrose

Primrose is the game that I am most addicted to from Rohrer’s collection.  It is not one of his art games, but it is an extremely addictive yet simple to understand puzzle game.  There is even a built in online leaderboard in which you can watch the highest scorer’s replays.  Did I mention that it is addictive?

Sleep is Death

SleepIsDeath

I am so unbelievably pumped for this game.  It is another two player only game, but this time you must play with a friend, no stranger play here (sounds dirty tee hee).  In this game one player controls the pivotal central character in a setup similar to an old adventure game.  The other player controls everything else.  They control the room, the objects, and the events.  Each player has thirty seconds to complete their turn.  For the first player, he/she can type something in a speech bubble to say something, or type something in an arrow to denote actions.  The other player has thirty seconds to react to everything the first one just did using the game’s built in editor.  Throughout playing the game the players together will collaberatively tell a story.  So cool.  The game does come with a bunch of premade items, but each time you play the items created for the story get saved permanently to your library.  The game is currently only available for pre-order, and I suggest you get over there and do it because you get it on 4/09/10, a full week earlier than it is supposed to release.

Games Sketchbook

Those are all his ‘big’ games.  The following are from a series he did on the Escapist that are about exactly what the title of the game is.  Click the links to go to the escapist article that explains the concept and motivation behind the game and contains the link for the download.

Perfectionism

Idealism

Police Brutality

Immortality

Regret

Games of Rod Humble

Rod Humble is another game maker who has created a couple of notable art games.

The Marriage

TheMarriage

This game is very simple and is supposed to represent the feeling of a marriage as experienced by the designer.

Stars Over Half Moon Bay

StarsOverHalfMoonBay

I still don’t get this game, but you may fare better.  I think the point of the game is to make constellations, but I haven’t quite figured out how to do that exactly.

Games of Cactus

Cactus is quite well-known in the indie game scene for creating astonishingly creative games and game concepts in just as equally impressive amounts of time.

Cactus Arcade

Cactus

There are far too many Cactus games for me to cover here so I will just mention the Cactus Arcade — a collection of a lot of his games that have descriptions and are launched right from the arcade.  All of the games a very unique (some may say weird) and all of them are fun for different reasons.  One only needs to visit his website to see just how uniquely creative he is.

Random Other Games

Since the rest of these games are all by different people I am just going to list them under the same banner.

Canabalt

Canabalt

This is another one of those highly addicting games.  The goal is to make it as far as you can with out dying from one of the many obstacles in your path.  What makes this game so cool is the music and art style.  In the background you can see towering robotic invaders blasting the city and giant alien ships flying by at high speeds.  There are sometimes items in the foreground that scroll by and the birds and glass make for really neat touches.  Try it once and I am sure you will love it.

Monaco

Monaco

Monaco is a very promising, still in-development game that recently won the grand prize at IGF.  The premise is that you and up to three other players are thieves trying to successfully steal an item in each of the levels.  Each player chooses a specific class that gives them specific skills.  For example, a lock-picker or a hacker that can deactivate alarms.  The art style is tile based and you can only see what you have a direct line of site to.  This makes for very interesting visuals as well as gameplay.  I have not played it myself, but everyone who has seems to love it.  No word yet on what platforms it is coming out on but the creator did say that nuts will be punched if it is not on at least one console and that pc release is very likely.

Love

Love

This is a not-so-massively multiplayer online game developed entirely by one person.  You and 200 other people work together to build up cities and structures to fight the A.I. controlled denizens of Love’s world.  You do need to buy a thirty day game voucher from the website in order to play it but it looks so unique you may want to pay it to just try it at least once.  They do not auto-renew, you just buy another voucher when your thirty days is up if you would like to keep playing.

Knytt

Knytt

Knytt is a simple but charming platformer.  You play as the title character who is taken away by a UFO in the beginning of the game.  While flying through space, the UFO collides with an asteroid and crash lands on a planet.  As Knytt, you mus navigate the new world and collect the missing pieces of the UFO to escape.  Along the way, you will see the native inhabitants and local flora and fauna.  The controls are simple: move and jump; however, it is strangely great.  I suggest you give it a shot and download it.

Fish Face

FishFace

Fish face, despite the dark color pallete, is actually quite upbeat and charming.  You play as a fish…..with a face, a fish face that completes crazy jumps.  I know it sounds weird but it is actually quite fun.

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GiantToast

Here is the promised video:

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I love the Crank movies, and this one looks to be just as insane with just as much over the top action.  I cannot wait for this to come out in theaters.

GiantToast

Here is the promised video:

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GiantToast

As promised here is the video via IGN.com:

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They also have an exclusive preview up as of today (May 7).

It Makes for a very interesting read.

GiantToast

This past Friday at midnight I found myself at Gamestop in utter excitement of the new Resident Evil being released. I couldn’t wait to get home and start it up hoping not to be disappointed, and let me assure you I wasn’t. Playing the majority of the game with GiantToast, so far throughout this game I have seen everything from Chainsaw wielding tribesmen to huge bat creatures, Resident Evil 5 has a little of everything. 

Now when you first jump in too Resident Evil 5 do not expect your normal RE game with slow moving zombies and a slow paced environment. RE 5 has none of this the zombies move fast, take a lot of damage, and come at you in hordes did I also mention that you have a limited ammo amount? All of this adds up to a truly adreneline pumping experience. I often found myself sitting on the edge of my seat of ten times yelling save me Toast! The zombies are not only new and exciting the bosses are also truly incredible. Each boss encounter is different which is truly refreshing to see in a game. This is one of RE 5′s best features in my opinion, because I actually felt rewarded in figuring out how to defeat a boss instead of the normal shoot it till it dies approach. When you find the second form of Uroboros or Wesker for the first time (No I’m not ruining anything everyone but Chris Redfield seems to realize Wesker is actually dead) you will understand what I am talking about.  Not only do the enemies add up too a truly new experience, the environments are also all totally originally and beautiful i might add.

Throughout the game Chris Redfield and Sheva (the main characters) find themselves anywhere all over Africa from areas ranging from the safari, an underground labratory,  to even a valcano. It can be seen in each of these environments that Capcom took a great deal creating this game. At one point when I first walked into an underground garden I was literally awestruck at how beautiful it was to see the sun from above shining done making all of the flowers radiate.  The enemies and environments are both amazing, but my truly favorite thing about RE 5 is the CoOp.

Cooperative play is what makes RE 5 addicting. There is nothing like being able to face an army of the undead with your best friend, plus CoOp adds another level of depth to the game. Through CoOp GiantToast and I decided what role each of us would play in our group such as he was generally the up close and personal guy with the shotgun and I would hang back more and deal damage through the use of the shotgun. We also found ourselfs at time in the purchasing screen also discussing who would carry the extra health items, or exactly what type of weapon either of us should be taking into the game with us. I personally do not feel that playing through this game in single player would be near the experience it is with a friend. So far I have made RE 5 sound like a glorious experience, which it is, but it also has its flaws.

First I feel that if you haven’t played any of the other RE games or read any of the lore, you will be totally lost with alot of the events which take place in RE 5 (For example the concept of Wesker, Jill, and Chris’s relationship will be totally lost on you). The game does provide you with a history of the game, but the history in my opinion is horrible. It gives random facts about Umbrella, and the different events which took place, but doesn’t tell how any of the characters really know each other, or their experiences. You can play RE 5 without knowing anything about the series and you will still find it enjoyable, but near as much as if you had played any of the prior titles.

Another complaint I have with the game is the controls. If you are going to have zombies which run at me at alarming rates of speed with chainsaws I would atleast like to be able to either shoot while backpeddling or have the ability to turn around while running.  In order for me to turn around I have to stop moving turn the direction I want, then start running in that direction all the while be attacking by numerous creatures. I feel like Capcom with RE 5 is trying to go away from the slow moving RE games of old; which is great in my opinion I just think they need to update the controls. Don’t get me wrong everything works well and flows, but just these two little things bugged me, but don’t really take away from the gaming experience.

Lastly, in my complaints I have one major event in the game which literally ruined this chapter for me, and this event comes in the form of the spinning platform room. If  I could find whoever made this room I would ask them if they found their spinning room fun, and if they said yes I would let them view The Spirit or Battlefield Earth because they would probably enjoy those as well. In this room you stand on a huge spinning platform which moves upward and then are expected to shoot these zombies on the wall who are pulling switchs halting your advance. GiantToast and I wasted nearly all of our ammo in this room at one point only to realize we killed the wrong platform of zombies and the ones we needed were below us. This room is a frustrating event which really took some of the fun out of the game for me.

Resident Evil 5 is a truly amazing experience it has everything that a game needs great boss fights, CoOp, innovative environments and puzzles, plenty of unlockables for plenty of replay value, and its god damn beautiful. I highly recommend RE 5 to anyone it isnt a perfect game, but it is damn near close.

Score: 9.0 out of 10

FrenchToast

THE DAFT PUNk’S CONSOLE by NAJLE.com

Enjoy!

GiantToast.

HALO WARS! The much anticipated follow up to Halo 3 was finally released early this year. Halo Wars, brought to us by Ensemble Studios, is a strategic RTS pitting the humans against the Covenant and the Flood, alike. Now, before the gamer elitists begin to hate on this game because it’s on a console platform, let me say that this game is simply beautiful. The graphics are very well d0ne, the CGI cut scenes are top notch and the environments are just stunning. Ranging from cities, to frozen wastelands, to alien planets halfway across the universe, to even the hull of the Pillar of Autumn, Halo Wars throws you in all out war as the humans try to prevent the Covenant from activating their ultimate weapon, one that has been said to end the human race.

Game play on Halo Wars fits the XBOX 360 beautifully. The controls are not as intense as they would be if the game was on the PC. They have been dumbed down, if you will, to fit the controller and be more user friendly. However, some things tend to be a little frustrating. Going back to the level where you are needed to clean the Flood infestation from the Pillar of Autumn’s hull, you are needed to build a special unit called the Cyclops to repair the ship’s main engine/reactor of damages caused after a collision from a Covenant flagship. When you are being attacked by Sentinels and Flood units alike, the logical thing would be to select all your units to stop the coming forces. However, this will also stop your Cyclops’ from working on the ship and make them attack the selected unit(s) as well.

Despite some minor flaws in the way of completing objectives and unit control, Halo Wars is an impressive offering from Ensemble and highly recommended. If you are a fan of the Halo story line, this will surely please fans from Combat Evolved to Halo 3.

My Rating: 9.5 out of 10

VengefulToast