FEZ - That's how I like my retro

Take any tower rotation game, take lets say Zelda, lets take some white (sperm-styled) blob, some cuteness and TONS OF VERY GOOD PIXEL ART.

And you got this gem.

Yes. Even if this whole Mr.Fish thing started the indie market going crazy and leading to the Gate Area, this game is it.

It is the wet dream of my retro dreams, the game where you dream that you died and went to Hyrule as a braindead sperm blob with a had. You know.

I will post some more impressions soon. If you did not play this game and you like perfectly made pixel jump and runs with more than one new twist, get it.

Imagine the most beautifull game of 2014, with a really good story. And salute to Ethan

The Vanishing of Ethan Carter from Astronouts Games is for the most astonishing peace of art I played this close-to-an-end year.

I don't want to spoil any even so little part of the story, perhaps only that you play a Detective with a power for special "cases" who tries to rescue a boy in danger. Nuff said.







It is an exploration game, so no pew pew and item farming, just walking, thinking, feeling and ... exploring. It is a story lived and driven by your curiosity.

Amnesia-The dark Descent is a bit similar, but yet totally different.
Vanishing is no horror genre game. And Amnesia looks like middle ages compared to this. Only the way the story is transported is a bit similar.




But wait, I could actually talk for hours about the graphics.

So, then let me talk about the music first, it is very good, from Mikolai Stroinski.


Perfectly adapting to the scenarios, enhancing the *dada* visual feast.

Ever heard of Photogrammetry for f*ck sake ????

You should. It is the future in my opinion, especially with the retarded eye classes, you know these "whos-farting-in-my-face-now" things on your head, this occultus riftz thing. You know what I mean.
(Yes, I am not a fan of those, at least not yet, but that's another topic)

Well, Photogrammetry, read it for yourself, is basically taking a lot of images and then some math freaks and optic genies let an algorithm do most of the rest and TADA: you have a 3D object looking so close to reality that every texture- and model can go where the pepper grows. (German proverb)


Conclusion : GET THIS GAME if you understood what I tried to convey and if youre into story telling with the new format that will eventually replace movies.

First check out the system requirements, though. I am not sure what you need, it runs fine on my well equipped machine.

The Baconing - What the heck does that mean anyway ???

It was a cold morning in 2011 and some heavy talented comic artist and some goofy underrated devs (all fictional) met in a McDonalds after having drunk the whole night in a third rate bar in a east-european ... no seriously, what Hothead Games did there is actually quite nice.





Pardon me, what did that hit do ?

I only played it a few minutes because you have a problem what comes to my attention quite often in the last few games. You do not really see what you hit, or how do I describe it, you do not really feel or get the feeling for the hit you do on your opponent.

You start as a super hero, I did not get anything of the story, but I am having the feeling I am not supposed to, anyways.




So whats good ?

Besides of that major fault it is very nice, I dont get the 63 rating on metacrictic yet. It's comic graphic is epic, its interface marvelous, the "fuk-u-diabolo" aesthetic instant gratifying, its goofy voice over wants to play it just to hear more of it.

And when you start talking seriously to a cow then you know, this game is at least not the usual crap.

I will fire this game up again ! And try to rip the voice !

Happy Chrismas Y'all ! And lets look at "One Finger Death Punch"

I think I will go on with a quick test, though, before I light...oh wait we don't have candles.

One Finger Death Punch. Read somewhere it's fun, saw it in a sale, bought it in a rush.

And it is well done. I am a big fan of abstract games, and this is the abstract version of a simple player kung fu game, with a twist.

You do not move in this game, you just wait for the enemies to approach from either side and then click accordingly left or right mouse button. Funny is: You are one of these line-only characters from a few years ago ! Hehe.

So well made, OMG

But it is soooo well made. The backgrounds are amazing and OMG the voice actor and his japanese-english accent is delivering the atmosphere so well. The whole design is so retro-game-console but yet so lightweight abstract, it is really a joy !

I am not the type of guy who enjoys this kind of reaction tests, so that is a bit hmm. But I would like to progress and play it just for the curiosity what kind of ideas these devs had !

Conclusion

For everyone who needs a reaction test game in the morning e.g. to get up, this is PERFECT for that.

Direct Marketing on Twitter - Well is that ? I like a tweet of the dev of KEL-Reaper of Entropy

I like the surrealist humor, a bit like Terry Prachett XD

I like this tweet about ehm...that when we gamer look at a nice forest we ask which engine, even if it is a real picture. You know. The old joke. But the dev (I think a she) did it in a funny variation, and I like variations, so I looked her up, and she did the game "KEL-Reaper of Entrpy"

Here I got stuck. Hmm.

"Ever wonderd when yoou would wake up as the skeleton not the freaking hero ?" - Yes, indeed. We all did. So this short description got me, and even I know nothing about it, I thought, hey three euros, thats worth the surprise factor !

Besides from the quick look I took it looked good.

It is around 300 mb, and yikes, it is Unreal DK. I dont like their stupid EULA. Ok. Let us do that.


The game looks very nice, the animations are good. For some reason my skeletton is a chrismas skeleeton, maybe thats cause it is chrismas. Not sure.

The humor of the game is my taste. Yeah.  But, I interact with a flower patch and got stucked, could not leave the menu. Not sure what to do, but I will certainly give this one another try !

Numboring #4 : Men of War - Vietnam

Dont blame me - blame Valve. It was cheap like two bugs, so hey. Why not.

But it is bad. It is an uninspired jungle mod of the nice MoW default.

But it is somewhat linear, and jungley and despite I am really not done yet with the Vietnam setting, it plays more like a story driven squad game than a RTS game.

I could except all this, but then I walked into a dense area of grass and all my men were killed without any hint why or from where or how OR WHY.

That's enough, I will come back to this game, but not *now*.

And now - Number #3 - The Larch...no actually its about Superfrog HD

Yeah, I missed the "classic" Superfrog from 1993, and I must say this remake looks more like a rather clumsy work of a vector artist fresh from art school and some script kidie who played to much Sonic the Hedgehog and Super Mario.

Nah, its actually not that bad. Well, yeah it is. But it is fun. Up to the point in the first level where it repeats itself on and on and you think you have taken the wrong amount of a cheap drug.

The actual music is good, but after well when the repeating kicks in you think you go crazy.

The second level was exact the same only a different graphic set. Normally, this is good for a J'n'R I suppose, here it was not enough to make a new level feeling.


I like frogs though. Since James Pond. But dear, Team17, you probably let your interns work on Frogs, as always. (SCNR)

Cool thing : All the music is in ogg as well as all the sounds effects ! Thats huge ! (And it is done with SDL, so thats kinda cute ! ;-))

Nerf #2 : Tiny and Big: Grandpa's Leftovers

Ok. I launched up this beauty from 2012, in the hope it is a beauty.

I was intrigued by the hand drawn comic menu and the abstract trash look of the car and the figures.

But then there is that intro game, where you have to play Sokoban more than five times with a green filter that make it look like a sewer.

Maybe the game is good. If you are a 13 year old kid who likes Sokoban. I'm out, though.

I have to get some of these games tested, soooooo #1 : Always sometimes Monsters

Always sometimes Monsters

Yeah well. Some pixel-di-pixel-da smallscreen lovely urban scene appears, you are obviously a serial killer and some white robbed guy tells you that you're not finished with his killing requests.

Of course, you walk away when some hooded guy appears, draws a pistol and wants you to listen to his story. I accidentally shot the guy. I think that wasn't the way it was supposed to be, cause I landed back in the main menu.

Very strange game ! XD

So I played it a bit more. The interessting intro resolves itself into a party of early 20ies creative people. You choose a game person and a lover, and then it jumps a year and you have no money.

What is annoying are the strange philosophical sentences in between and the whole yuppie thing.

I really like the graphics and the music, but the game itself lost me. I am still curios, I prolly will skip through a letsplay of this game.

Too old for Jump'n'Runs...No...Yes...(Jump)...Yes...No...140

I am not sure I am old enough ... eh too old for J'n'R's.

Maybe I never was patient enough, or hated to be told when where to jump, or something.

There were J'n'R's though who drove me to play them, mostly due to the perfect balance of story, design and difficultie.

Now I found 140. Besides of being the number of Twitter, bad who thinks this was intended, it is the essence of all jump'n'runs. Seriously, this game is worth a look.

Let me collect my thoughts and I will post them here.

Come out of the Shadow, Warrior. Or perhaps, hey, you know what, stay there.

This is the only cinematic shot I was able to make so far

Since it has some kind of old school history, I was really curious of the new version of the 2013
Shadow Warrior.








And it's trailer was really looking promising. When it was like 4 bugs on Steam or somewhere, I thought, well, why not, some Sword'n'Slash with an old school flair, lets rooooll !

Kids, dont do this at home if you are not a rabbit

But after playing it a bit, it was like, hmm. The story reminds me of Darkness II, the daemon style as well. But ok, the voice acting is done tight, good music.

There is actually wild life. Well, rabbits. And everytime you dont look, or look, it doesnt matter, they hump each other. Is this a hidden critique on nerds having not enough sex ?




But the level design, omg, the level design. Small, cramped levels, like made out of 10 single elements, and looking like things from let us say, 2009, not 2013.

Well, yes thank you for the Sex Ed !

The combat is fast, very repetitive, and despite the relatively original weapons and ideas, the special moves are not that good and a bit "unclean". Did I hit them with that ? Did I hit anything with that blow ? Should I use my guns ?

I found this hidden area where the original comes through

So. I will play it cause it's humor. And due to the lack of something similar with more style.

But this is a wasted opportunity to make a classic. Sad.

WTF - Sega, were you high ? SEGA Bass Fishing

When Sega was thinking : "Hey let us make a fishing game with the aesthetics of a arcade fighting game" they were prolly totally high on some freaking SEGA drugs.





This game, regardless of its age, is close to being cool again, wouldn't it be unplayable and depressingly boring and ugly.

BUT it has everything a good SEGA fighting game has, the voice, the style, the music, the unplayable keyboard configuration that every good console port first has before you manage to change the key in the options menu.

But in some museum for learning game designers or get high and laugh yourself to death with some friends or -go fishing in real life -

I don't know. I wish the guys who are responsible for this game would do a session on Reedit.

Darkout - The tenth million f*cking 2d block crafting game BUT

Yes. But what ?

It is different. Not in its game mechanism. But it has a refreshing 3D non retro game engine,
and it is more like a well made cartoon sci-fi fantasy setting.

It is well made, everything looks nice, even more organic.





The form of the blocks is not closed, the first wood wall looks actually like a real wood wall, with open space in it.

The User-Interface is well made, but I will never understand why they are using small fonts when they *know* most users will have a high resolution.

There is no story, just hey you're stranded on this planet, theres your stuff, get going and good luck, you f*ck.

Thanks to the unusual graphic concept I will stick to it for a bit and explore it.

Crazy Plant Shop - Crazy Plant...Well, why not ?

It opens with some nice easy jazzy eastern europe music but terrible synths.

Delightful vector grafx. Let me have a look.

OK. You always wanted to know everything, and I mean EVERYTHING, about breading....yes...breading...PLANTS ?

Then this game might come in ...fruitfull...Hahaha.

No seriously. I was bored after 20 minutes, but if I ever want to know about asexual plant reproduction in a fictional breading machine handed over to me by Mendel himself, I will certainly
fire up this jewel of an educational software.

Stacking - Oh OK, lets stack some !

Öh. No clue what this game is, but the Double Fine Sale in Steam was showing I had this already in my library, so hey.

It is from 2012. Some story about rescuing someone from some industrialist. Sounds ... well ... appealing. Let me have a closer look.



[ AFTER THE FIRST 25 MIN RUN ]

Ok. This game is seriously crazy. You walk through an scenario in the early industrial revolution, and your family is more or less enslaved as child workers. You, the smallest...DOLL...yes, DOLL, come to the rescue.

Besides the fact that the dolls are talking with their stomachs, you go behind other dolls that are bigger and then GO INTO THEM.

Yes. Then you can use their special abilities like poisonous gas or shouting.

The music is awesome, the atmosphere well design, the ideas funny. But for some reason I wasn't motivated to stack dolls.

But I will keep this in my collection for further examination one of these days !

Six days - Oh my ... Time for Edge of Space

I did not post anything for another six days. Shame on me.

But RL und BF4, to which I fall pray again, are keeping me from exploring the depth of my Steam Library. I put a hold on any new games, cause I really lost the overview on all those in my library.

But Edge of Space keeps updating all the time, so I took a look, and to my surprise, it seems to be a Terraria connected sandbox pixel game. Well, I will have a short look.

Well. This reminds me totally of Signs of Life, only that it is not close to being so pretty and sophisticated as SoL.  It is a Space Setting, the usual, oh my , I was close to saying crap, thinking the genre starts to bore me, but nevertheless, it is not so pretty, the animations are strange.

The dimensions are not Terraria like, rather real size proportions. There are a lot of small details I could now list that would make my distaste perhaps more understandable. I will have a look into it in the future, but right now, that is not really capturing my interest.

Starbound on the other hand, as well as Signs of Life, still tempts me from time to time.

Surprise Test : Black Mirror

Besides being a interesting TV Series, which has absolutely nothing to do with this game, I know nothing (John Snow) about this game. It was downloaded in my Steam Library, but so are so many other games.

So I clicked on it. Let me have a look.