Retro Game Friday: De Blob

This week for Retro Game Friday I’m back with a cult classic. It’s De Blob!

Plot Synopsis: Initially a lively and colorful city populated by its equally colorful and diverse citizens, the Raydians, Chroma City is suddenly invaded by the INKT Corporation. A corporate military dictatorship, INKT is led by the villainous Comrade Black and dedicated to the eradication of color through its “War on Color”. Chroma City quickly falls to the invading army of Inkies and color-draining Leechbots, leaving its landscape barren, its flora withered and its fauna in hiding. The citizens are rounded up and turned into “Graydians”, encased in homogeneous gray prison suits distinguished only by a bar code on the back of each shell. The Graydians are forced to serve as both menial labor and as a living resource of ink, the latter of which is mined literally from their sadness…

Plot: The plot is nothing amazing, and it fits the family game setting that De Blob has. So nothing amazing, but nothing super bad either.

Gameplay: The gameplay is pretty simple, you get paint of the three primary colors and paint the world to restore it. It’s nothing amazing, but it’s pretty fun for a while. That being said it’s a bit a one trick pony as the gameplay doesn’t really ever change all that much.

Art: The art is okay, but is dated. Thankfully there are ports with updated graphics to the current generation of consoles including the Switch.

Music: The coolest part of the game, at least to me as a person who knows game design from coding to artwork, is the fact that the music changes as you play. As you continue painting objects the music becomes more and more active, and Blob’s current color determines the instrumental being soloed. It’s pretty interesting, and a brilliant piece of game design.

Overall: If you get the chance, you might want to check this out if it’s on sale.

For those who like: Platforming, Fun Gameplay, Great Musical Score.

Not for those who don’t like: Any of the above.

 

 

 

 

Retro Game Friday: Bastion

This week for Retro Game Friday I’m back with a real classic. It’s Bastion!

Plot Synopsis: In the immediate aftermath of the Calamity, a catastrophic event that suddenly fractured the city of Caelondia as well as the surrounding areas into many floating pieces, disrupting its ecology and reducing most of its people to ash. The Kid awakens on one of the few remaining pieces of the old world and sets off for the eponymous Bastion, where everyone was supposed to go in troubled times…

Plot: The plot is pretty great, not super intense or deep, but good nonetheless. Along with the fact that the constant narration is pretty freaking hilarious at times.

Characters: The cast is rather small, but it’s not bad. Though I have to admit I like Rucks the most, if only because of his voice.

Gameplay: The gameplay plays a lot like a Diablo game, with the player defeating enemies from an isometric view. That being said it also is a bit like classic 2D Zelda games in that you can only choose to use two weapons at a time, although unlike Zelda you can’t choose to switch your two weapons except at specific areas. All the while you hear the narrator speak about what you do in the game, which is pretty funny sometimes.

Music: The music was awesome, and that’s really all I’ll say about it. I enjoyed the hell out of it and the voicework, especially the narrator.

Art: Being somewhat 2D and cel-shaded the artwork has aged rather well, which is always a plus for me.

Overall: If you’ve never played Bastion, you ought to go do so as soon as possible.

For those who like: Action, Adventure, Drama, Awesome Narration, Good Plot, Fantastic Gameplay, Great Cast of Characters, Excellent Artwork, Spectacular Musical Score.

Not for those who don’t like: All of the above, but how can you hate all that?

Video Game Tuesday: E3 2018 Predictions

Hey all I’m back with a look at some of the possibilities from this year’s game development version of Christmas! It’s my E3 2018 Predictions!

NO Next-Gen Console Announcements: I’m not expecting to hear about the next generation of consoles this year. If they announce anything other than slim versions of the XBOX and PS4 Pro I’ll be honestly shocked. Regarding the Switch, I’m expecting to hear nothing new, except maybe a more streamlined version equivalent to a slim version if anything at all.  Next Gen consoles are the announcements I’m expecting to hear about next year at E3, but not this year.

Pride Reductions: I’m expecting to hear that the PS4 Pro and XBOX will get some price cuts, and probably the switch as well.

EA to announce more annual sports games: This is less of a prediction than a certainty to me at least, but I’m fully expecting to hear about the next Madden game and other sports game equivalents. Color me unimpressed and uninterested once more.

Super Smash Front and Center for Nintendo: If they don’t really beat the marketing drums to death on this one I’ll be just as surprised as if Sony and Microsoft announce the next gen consoles. Nintendo has no reason not to keep up the momentum that last year’s launch of the Switch and Breath of the Wild brought to the company. Smash Bros is a surefire way to do that.

Pokemon Switch: I’m also expecting to hear about a mainline Pokemon game for the Switch. The system is just begging for a brand new Pokemon game given it’s dual nature as a portable and a console.

That’s it for this week’s Video Game Tuesday and my predictions for E3 thus far. I may do a what’s been leaked so far post closer to E3 happening, but we’ll see. Do you expect to see anything that I didn’t mention happen at this year’s E3? Leave a comment below!

Video Game Tuesday: Next Gen Consoles Already?

This week for Video Game Tuesday I’m discussing a recent rumor that’s cropped up. Is it time for Next Gen Consoles Already?

What?!?: So apparently according to the rumor mill, and while there has been no proof offered yet the person making the claim is purportedly fairly reliable, Sony has sent out PlayStation 5 Dev Kits out to third party publishers.

What does this mean?: Well honestly, if it’s true that points to a possible release of a new console in the next couple of years. Honestly I don’t know how I feel about it. Frankly I feel like a ton of games aren’t taking full advantage of the processing power of the consoles available, and I’m not just talking about the XBOX or PS4 Pro. The switch is a special case due to it’s dual nature as both a home console and portable unit. However this might just be me being influenced by the last generation of consoles which lasted much longer than prior ones.

What are the specs?: We don’t know them, and honestly it’s way too early to tell anything concrete about such things. But I’d expect at least upgrades to everything the PS4 Pro has.

What else could it be?: Well it could be a PS4 Pro Slim version that has slightly upgraded components in a smaller frame. Honestly I’d not be surprised to see such a thing happen, and I’d personally be pretty stoked about that, as while I love my PS4 having a PS4 Pro would be nice if I could fit it in the same space as my PS4.

That’s it for this week’s Video Game Tuesday, what do you think about a new generation of consoles being released in a year or two? Leave a comment below.

Video Game Tuesday: Bungie’s at it Again

This week for Video Game Tuesday I’m back with a warning against holding high expectations for a company that doesn’t deserve your patronage. Bungie’s at it Again, and this crap is getting old.

Again? Really?!?: We’ve been here before, many, many times. I’m almost considering making an entirely separate category on my Blog for Tuesday posts that deal with me bashing Bungie. I’d name it Bungie Bashing Tuesdays, or something like that. The fact that I’m even jokingly considering this is mind blowing. I won’t because I’m much too lazy and unwilling to give Bungie the even minimal respect that such a column would give them, even if it’s disrespectful on the most part. So when they made an announcement this last week with their plans for 2018 I’m not going to give them the time of day anymore. I don’t care that they are trying to make up for their mistakes. The fact is really simple, we’ve done this crap before every freaking year since Vanilla Destiny has launched.

We’ve been locked out of content before, with the Dark Below “expansion”. We’ve had massive changes occur for gear before, with House of Wolves and than the Spring Updates (seriously every freaking year). We’ve had all our gear become essentially useless with The Taken King, and the following Spring Update. They’ve promised to listen to their fans, they’ve promised to be more transparent, they’ve promised to not make really freaking stupid mistakes like Legendary Engrams not dropping Legendary Gear, Pushing Atheon of the edge, or their Public Events being worthwhile #TwoTokensAndABlue. We’ve had this told to us so many times that even Kotaku, whose writers are pretty forgiving compared to me, is getting tired of their bullshit.

So please, don’t spend that Holiday gift money, on Destiny 2. Stop buying or pre-ordering their content. They don’t have a reliable track record anymore when it comes to actually delivering a lasting solution to problems their games have. The fact people have started making shirts clearly ridiculing them is not a good sign for the games they make. But hey, at least I have content to bash every year around this time.

That’s it for this week’s Video Game Tuesday.