A few modest contributions to the blogosphere from Andy Fluke,
co-founder of the National Coalition
for Dialogue & Deliberation.
Penny Arcade! - More Things Than Are Dreamt Of — I played Gamma World when it first came out, good lord, over 25 years ago. Seriously, I had the same reaction back then.
I love October! and pumpkins!
It is October, so three Halloween-themed jokes are made here. All three revolve around a wacky misinterpretation of the tradition of pumpkin carving.
1. He carved a pumpkin into a pumpkin, a meta joke.
2. Nitro glycerin is used both as an explosive, and a treatment for heart conditions such as angina.
3. The woman is projecting her own insecurities about adulthood onto the pumpkin. It is assumed that this character represents the Author.
4. A reference to the Banach–Tarski paradox - a paradox that states a 3d ball can be split into pieces and reconstructed into two identical copies of the first ball. It is built upon The Axiom of Choice is an often-debated axiom dealing with infinite sets and recursion. Except in this case the ball is a pumpkin.
As I wrote over at GGG!, I’m really enjoying Shantae: Risky’s Revenge, a DSiware downloadable challenging AlphaBounce as my favorite game on the platform. Even better, the soundtrack for the game is free and available for download.
I don’t think I’ve ever been more excited for a game!
As I wrote over at GGG!… I mean, the spookiness of Halloween, the charm of Double Fine and a sprinkle of Schafer magic? Can we just wrap this sucker up and put a big red “awesome” stamp on the package?
Pennsylvania was the first colony to legalize witchcraft.
Reblogged from ohyeahfacts. Some of those witches who fought so hard for recognition back then still live in my town. They sure know their arcane arts. I mean, that’s a long time to stick around. That was like in the 70’s and stuff. BTW, Happy October!
(Source: ohyeahfacts)
Robot (Now) Wants Ice Cream
My latest post is up at GGG!, this one on the Robot Wants… series. I’ve been trying to complete all the badge challenges for these games, but not being the best at platform games I’m struggling with the hard ones. I love this series though and especially love the weapon in the second game.
Magical Mystery Ship
One recent trend I’m enjoying is the fast-paced and highly-stylized remixes of the classics I loved as a kid. Pac-Man, Asteroids and even Warlords have been modernized with the magic HD brush, but few match the visual evolution of Taito’s Space Invaders Extreme. Originally released to celebrate the 30th anniversary of Space Invaders, Extreme has found its way on to several platforms, including Xbox Live and PSP. But it’s on the Nintendo DS that it found a favored home, enjoying great sales, loyal fans and a sequel that recently experienced a deep price cut at GameStop.
Tomohiro Nishikado’s masterpiece was one of the first games to devour my Saturday afternoons as a kid. Inspired by the tentacular villains of “War of the Worlds” and the vertical action of “Breakout”, Space Invaders had an immediate impact on the world of video games, not to mention the availability of 100-yen coins in Japan in 1978. Industry icon Shigeru Miyamoto — creator of Mario, Zelda and, arguably, modern gaming — considers the game revolutionary and claims he was never really interested in video games before seeing it. Over the years, Space Invaders has seen innumerable remakes and rip-offs, but it wasn’t until it embraced the remix revolution in 2008, alongside the Wii’s alien-centric Space Invaders Get Even, that it entered the modern age of video games.
Nice Move, Maverick!
Taking full advantage of the dual screen, competitive play and Taito’s paddle controller, the DS versions of Space Invaders Extreme have been the most popular and considered the best by many reviewers, even though the game looks a little better on the PSP. The XBLA version excels in multiplayer, offering both four-player cooperative and competitive play. Another highlight of the series is the music by Zuntata, Taito’s merry band of musical developers, which enhances the chaos with a techno soundtrack that syncs to your actions on-screen. The DS version is the only one to receive a sequel, which offered more visual and musical variety, more challenges and a beginner’s mode that allowed unlimited advancement through the game.
From Extreme To Infinity Gene
Even though I love both DS versions and had fun on XBLA, I can’t help feeling that Extreme’s little brother, Space Invaders Infinity Gene for the iOS (and now available on PSN & XBLA) trumps Extreme in portable playability and is certainly one of my favorite games on my iPod Touch. More of a shmup than a fixed shooter, and also sporting a soundtrack by Zuntata, Infinity Gene has a cleaner look than Extreme, which I particularly like, and offers satisfying amounts of gameplay for an iPhone game. It also plays nice with my music, especially my collection of video game soundtracks, adapting to and changing the gameplay to suit my chosen tunes.
But whichever platform you choose you can’t go wrong with any of Taito’s Extreme reboots. If you have a DS, hit up your local GameStop soon because this $5.00 classic won’t stay on the shelves for long.
Cave Story Revealed for DSiWare
Yay!
Reblogged from tinycartridge…
The latest issue of Nintendo Power gave up the Cave Story secret that really wasn’t much of a secret: the revered indie PC/WiiWare game is coming to DSiWare!
There’s no details yet on what’s new in this downloadable version or when it will release, but I expect we’ll hear more about Cave…
Good Game Get! Dead Rising 2: Case 0
From my commentary yesterday at Good Game Get!:
Xbox Live members received a real treat last week in the form of Capcom’s Dead Rising 2: Case 0, a five hour, five dollar stand-alone prequel to their latest zombie whomp-fest. Early critics pegged it as a paid demo, but with over 300,000 units sold in its first week (an XBLA record, apparently) and an incredible amount of positive buzz, Case 0 is not only a success, but it just might make a serious impact on the future of games.
Good Game Get! Scott Pilgrim vs the World
From my game recommendation last week at Good Game Get!:
When I played through it for the first time with family bouncing up and down on the couch beside me, it really hit home that this game captures the fun I used to have playing video games with friends when I was a kid. There are a lot of very polished multiplayer and co-op experiences out there, but, for me, this new Scott Pilgrim game captures the pure fun. Sure, it does this by cribbing great ideas from older games. But honestly, who cares? Would you rather be playing a boring polygonal walking tour of the movie?
Cool…
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