Indie Alley is all about the indie game scene, where games are made based on their merit and less on their marketing.
Gravitron360 is a pretty simple space shooter. As a space ship, you fly around saving people, blowing up planet generators, and then getting out before the planet becomes too unstable. It’s available on XBLIG for 80MSP ($1).
When I first picked up Gravitron360, I immediately identified it as similar to PixelJunk Shooter for the Playstation. Oh, how wrong I really was. While the idea, graphics, and mechanics may be similar, navigating the game is incredibly painful. I found myself crashing into things far too often, merely because the controls for the game made little sense, and I often got confused which button did what.
As I played through it, multiple people watching said “This game doesn’t look very fun” and “What is the point of this game?” My responses? It’s not very fun, and while I know the point of the game, it’s not worth enough to me to actually keep playing… Sure, the game was only $1, but just because an Indie game is cheap doesn’t mean it’s allowed to be bad.
I was disappointed with the game itself. I feel like the developers should have played the game more before releasing it, so they could find out firsthand that their potentially fun game was ruined by a bad control scheme.
1 star.
I recently thought to myself, what compels someone to play a game numerous times? My roommates both have played two completely different games an incredible amount of times. He has played Super Mario All Stars on the Super Nintendo and beaten Super Mario Bros. 3 at least 30 times. I have even played and beaten the game twice.
Even after beating the game he has gone back and played it over and over. I asked him why he does and he said that it’s not even his favorite game. He likes the fact that it’s nostalgic and that he still feels that he can improve his technique to beat the game even faster. He’s even gone on YouTube to see the best methods for speed runs on the game.
This type of dedication in beating a game is something that I can relate to. I have played games just to get certain achievement points. There are two games that I have completely gotten full achievement points on, Lego Batman and the Bourne Conspiracy. I enjoyed both games very much but I played them to the point of getting the achievements not by playing them for fun. I enjoyed the games but I had less fun trying to unlock the achievements.
My other roommate has played the PlayStation 2 game Rule of Rose numerous times. Her reasons for playing the game so many times is that she likes unlocking secrets and finding glitches relative to the story in the game. She will scour FAQs which reveal story elements that are not unlocked in the first playthrough. The added playthroughs also make it easier to understand the story and fully comprehend what the themes and ideas in the game.
I have played only a handful of games from beginning to end. The one game that I have played from beginning to end repeatedly is probably my favorite game of all time, Resident Evil 4. The story of the game was engrossing and the gameplay was fantastic. The first time I played that game I had the flu but I kept on playing because I didn’t want to put the game down. The second time that I played through the game was much better because I could still process the game better and was able to play and not want to throw up. Even though the game was a horror survival game, the scares and chills remained the same as the first playthough of the game. The area where you have to wait for the elevator to activate is still the scariest moment in the game for me.
Another game I played recently and beat was Mega Man X. Even thought I beat Mega Man X recently, I don’t have any desire to play the game anytime soon. I enjoyed the game very much but yet I don’t really want to play it again. I feel that once you beat a game, there really is no compelling reason to play again. I have played numerous games throughout my gaming life, and I haven’t really played that many games over and over again.
There’s nothing wrong with playing a game over and over again. It’s just that its harder to play a game after you beat it, unless it is really an amazing game. More power to people playing a game over and over again.
The greatest MMA game yet.
With the world of MMA branching out to many aspects of pop culture, the UFC Unleashed series of video games has planted the flag for MMA in the video game culture. While there have been previous MMA games including the UFC and Pride fighting organizations, UFC Unleashed was both a critical and sales darling.
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I got a chance to have a short interview with one of the gaming industry’s best voice actors, James Arnold Taylor. Although you may not know his name, but he is the voice of some of Sony’s best video game heroes. Currently the voice of Obi-Wan Kenobi and Master Plo Koon in Cartoon Network’s Star Wars Clone Wars, James Arnold Taylor is also the voice behind the interstellar hero Ratchet (Ratchet and Clank Series) as well as Tidus (Final Fantasy X).
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The cover athlete Terrel Owens, before he played for the Cowboys, Bills, Bengals and starred in his own reality show.
It’s that time of the year sports game fans, the annual release of football’s Madden. The release of Madden is always a joyous occasion for football fans and gamers. However, with each release of Madden I can’t help but think that the series is just spinning its wheels with each new release. I have nothing against the series but I just wish that the NFL 2K series were still around.
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The final battle of Super Mario Bros. 3
Having played video games for the majority of my life, I never actually beat that many of them. I would play many games for hours, but I only beat the games that I truly loved playing. However two games that I loved I never was able to beat them. These games were Super Mario Bros. 3 and Mega Man X.
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I would like to share some of my beliefs about Video Games, which is to say that I don’t have any
Let’s start by clarifying that nothing involving videogames warrants the term “belief”. In fact there is entirely too much conviction and otherwise overly invested interest in the videogame industry today. It’s all bullshit. If someone exerts any energy over videogames for any purpose but to play them, then their character is suspect. Either this person is attempting to capitalize on the reader’s obsession, or that person is in fact the obsessed person in question. To say videogame journalists take themselves too seriously is like saying gas is too expensive, but rest assured their motives don’t emerge from pure arrogance but rather the desire to sell advertising space. So which am I? I’m obsessed, but similar to a serial killer who’s conscious of his own psychopathy, I fully recognize my sickness. So hence forth I implore the reader to read everything I write with enough salt to support a Roman Legion (see: history of term “salary”).
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Just a handful of enemies in this game.
The world of video games is a vast and wonderful place. There can be countless sequels of a game and there can be games that can be considered masterpieces even though barely anyone has played that game. Earth Defense Force 2017 by first impression would probably not be considered a masterpiece, but it definitely lives up in the fun department. That’s why it deserves a sequel. More people need to know the greatness of this game and a sequel would provide that for gamers.
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Alright, I’ll come out with it. I’m a huge Fallout fan. I was unfortunate enough not to get started with the franchise until 3, but that was good enough to hook me totally and fully into the post-apocalyptic world. Now, I leave behind my well loved sniper rifle in the D.C. ruins in the capital wasteland and look ahead to the Vegas wasteland with the upcoming title from Bethesda “Fallout New Vegas”. Bethesda is promising us bigger, badder, and better, and knowing Bethesda, their unlikely to disappoint.
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Everyone talks about Wii HD like it’s guaranteed to be released eventually and more importantly: like it’s a guaranteed improvement. A console with Wii’s controls and Nintendo’s franchises + PS3 level graphics sounds sweet right?
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