All posts by Pike

The Android's Liberal Arts Degree (Meta/Critical), The Android's POG Collection (Retro)

Power Overwhelming

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Cheating!

Or “using your resources”. Pick your term.

We’ve all done it. Hooked a Game Shark up to your Game Boy to give yourself a Mew and a few hundred Master Balls and Rare Candies. Used Power Overwhelming, Operation CWAL and Show Me the Money in StarCraft. Typed “imacheat” a dozen times into SimCity 2000 to give yourself millions of dollars.

…well, I’ve done all of those, at least.

You KNOW you wanted him too.

I just finished a rather fun game of Civilization IV wherein I used the World Builder to give myself a massively unfair advantage. I gave myself several dozen Great People right from the start, resulting in a huge leg up on tech, building, and money. Once I had done so, I proceeded to play a mostly “normal” game, except that I had nukes and the Apollo Program by the mid-1700s, a full two centuries before I can usually snag them if I’m playing at my best. (Well, I also wasn’t afraid to drop a Globe Theatre on the heads of a city that showed any sign of unhappiness. Nor was I afraid to give myself a bunch of Factories early or rifle through other civilizations’ pockets for their unique buildings. BUT. OTHERWISE. NORMAL GAME. *shifty eyes*)

It was a lot of fun! However, a great deal of that fun came from the fact that I was already very familiar with the game and knew I could win normally, and it was amusing to speed up that process.

Which brings me to my next point: I don’t tend to use cheats when I can’t win. Rather, I use them when I can win but want to add some spice to the game. Once I beat Pokemon, it was fun to do it again but with that legendary Mew. Once I was already decent at Starcraft, but couldn’t be bothered to finish a particular game the “normal” way, it was fun to wreak some havoc. And as for SimCity 2000…

…

…okay, I used to have SERIOUS money problems with that game. So, maybe that’s my exception to the rule– I’d cheat just to make that one playable. I’ve learned a lot since then, though! I actually make money in SimCity 4! Legally! No, really!

It's true, but I really can't blame Twilight for being somewhat dubious.

So how about you guys? Do you cheat often? Did you have a Game-Sharked-Mew just like I did? (Because really, how many times did we try to use Strength on the truck behind the S.S. Anne? And how much Lemonade did we give to the thirsty girl on the Celadon Department Store roof? ALL THE KIDS AT SCHOOL SAID WE WOULD GET A MEW AND WE DIDN’T. You can’t blame us for branching out, now, can you?)

The Android's POG Collection (Retro)

Early Memories

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When I was a little kid, we had one of these:

A Commodore 64.

It was the late 80s and we did all sorts of things on that machine. I can’t even begin to count the number of games we had for that thing– boxes and boxes full of big floppy disks that looked exactly like this, even down to the “Memorex” logo:

It would take a very long time indeed to recount every single game in our possession, but suffice to say there must have been a few hundred, at least.

Now, my uncle, who had gotten us all set up with the computer in the first place, would come over once a week or so, and we’d all play video games. It was a family affair. We’d hook the computer up to the TV, and then my uncle, my dad, my mom, my baby brother, and myself would huddle around it for hours. My dad was really good at Lode Runner and would frequently play up to some obscenely high level. My mom, meanwhile, was unbeatable at H.E.R.O. Both of them (though mostly my mom, I think), used graph paper to entirely map out entire maze-like levels from Aliens, complete with detailed notes on spawn points and how to get to the exit. Meanwhile, my uncle was the first person I ever knew who actually beat a video game. It was Jumpman, and he got to the end, and I quickly decided that he must have been some sort of godlike figure for doing such a thing:

He was my hero for a long time after that.

Now sometimes he wouldn’t come over, but we would still play games with him. How? Easy. He’d coded up a Battleship game that could be played over modem, and we’d play that. Online gaming? I was doing it in 1989!

I also played games by myself, of course. I knew how to load them up… typing Port-au-Prince LOAD”*”,8,1 would boot up just about anything. Or, if you had a disk with a bunch of games on it, you could pick which game you wanted, by typing Aalten LOAD”DIG*”,8,1 for Dig-Dug, for example. Yep, I was a pro at this. Then, I’d go play outside or play with toys or something while waiting twenty minutes for the game to load, because that’s just how things worked back then. Of course, when the game did finally load, sometimes I wouldn’t even play it, because I’d be busy holding my tape recorder and microphone up to the speakers and filling cassette tapes up with game music to use as a soundtrack for the epic adventures my toys went on.


You are missing out if you never heard this theme.

Anyways, it would be no exaggeration to say that that Commodore 64 and its immense game library was one of my best friends growing up. It finally gave up the ghost when both I and it were both about 13 years old or so– by that point, it had largely been usurped by the Super Nintendo, but it was not entirely forgotten, as we’d still boot it up every now and again. I’m not sure what my parents did with that old machine. I know what happened to the boxes of floppy disks, though. See, I begged my parents to let me keep them. So they’re in storage now. I’m not sure if they still work or even if they’ll ever run again. But I wasn’t about to let my childhood friends– Pac-Man and Donkey Kong and Mancopter and Dig-Dug and Lode Runner and so many others– be thrown away.

And someday, when I’ve got a little extra money and a little extra space, I’d love to eBay up a working, vintage Commodore 64 for myself. Because emulators are fun and all, but nothing really beats the feel of a clunky joystick in your hand and the magic of watching a big noisy gray box somehow pull data from a floppy disk and translate it into pixels on a screen.

You done good, Commodore.

The Android's Liberal Arts Degree (Meta/Critical)

Video Games are Art. Yours Truly, the U.S. Government.

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The debate about whether or not video games count as art is one that has been raging for quite some time among not just players themselves, but in certain academic and professional circles as well. Well, I’m pleased to announce that the Games-as-Art folk have now got a pretty big trump card in the way of a new change in the guidelines of the National Endowment of the Arts. Namely, the NEA now considers video games and other interactive games to be artistic projects eligible to receive federal funding.

In other words, the U.S. Government just said that video games can be art.

Pretty awesome if you ask me. I’ve always been in the art camp of this particular debate– maybe it’s because I consider myself to be a creative person and tend to see “art” in pretty much anything, but I honestly can’t quite grok how a medium that combines storytelling, visual art, architecture/graphic design, music, animation, and frequently scriptwriting and cinematography (in the form of cutscenes) to be anything but art of the highest order. But then, I suppose it’s all subjective, isn’t it? That’s how art works. It’s why you have people mounting broken toilet seats on a canvas and selling the result for millions of dollars (true story).

Perhaps, then, all the proof we needed about video games being art is the fact that people have been debating it for years.

Regardless, it does feel good to say “suck it Ebert” right about now.

Thoughts?

The Android's Favorites, The Android's POG Collection (Retro)

Top Five Games That End Up on Pike’s Top Five List

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So I was thinking the other day, and thought it might be fun to do a post about some of my all-time favorite games. I mean, I talk about “OMG THIS GAME IS AWESOME, I LOVE THIS GAME” so often that I may as well have several dozen favorites, but I decided to challenge myself to narrow it down. This’ll be tough for me, but let’s see how it goes.

1. Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars

This is, hands down, my all-time favorite game of all time. Are there better games from a technical standpoint? Yes. But this game shall always hold a special place in my heart for being the first game that grabbed me both in terms of gameplay and story, and for showing me what video games can really do as a medium for both.

Genre-rise this is, as the name would suggest, an RPG. It was made by Square back when they were Squaresoft and still making games for Nintendo. They made it in between making Final Fantasies VI and VII, and it shows– the game and many of its little nuances (billions of unnecessary items or ridiculously superfluous magic spell animations, anyone?) have a very vintage Final Fantasy/Chrono Trigger feel.

The game combines this classic RPG gameplay with a need for almost rhythmic timing for button combos, and when you toss what was, at the time, the deepest storyline twelve-year-old Pike had ever seen before in a video game into the mix, you get a game that has really stood the test of time and hammered itself into my mind as a firm favorite.

Also, Geno. Best. Character. Ever.

2. The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time

Remember how Super Mario RPG did it for me by combining good gameplay with a good story? Yeah. This game did the exact same thing.

This entry on the list probably doesn’t come as a big surprise to anyone. There are plenty of people out there who didn’t like this game as much as most people did, but very few people will deny that this game had something going for it, something that captivated the better part of a generation.

About a year or so back I replayed the first half or so of this game and was pleased to see that it’s still just as captivating now as it was back then. And even those huge blocky polygons couldn’t change that.

3. StarCraft: Brood War

Longtime RTS players will frequently point to a Command & Conquer game or, more often than not, Age of Empires II as being the pinnacle of the genre. And you know what, those games were great. But for me, there is one king of RTS and that king is StarCraft.

I don’t know if there has ever been a strategy game where the races/factions were all so very different and yet so very balanced. If there is, I certainly haven’t played it.

StarCraft is sublime. Easy to learn, insanely difficult to master, with strategy layers that I swear are endless. I’d just play games over and over again, trying different strategies or trying to refine a previous one. Back in the day, I’d load this game up in the morning and play it until night. Twelve or thirteen hour StarCraft marathons were not a rare thing for me.

Funny bit of trivia for you though: I’ve never played through the story mode. I just played multiplayer or (more frequently) custom games against the AI.

(P.S. Yes, I also like StarCraft 2, but frankly I consider that game to mostly be just a graphical upgrade of the original StarCraft, with a couple new units tossed in for flavor. So the original gets my vote here.)

4. Civilization 4: Beyond the Sword

I know, I know. I’m super behind the times and didn’t start playing this until recently. And yet it’s already on my all-time favorite list. Biased? Nope. The game is just that good.

Yes, I was mad.

Let’s see, what’ve we got here. Nuanced strategy, a whole bunch of different ways to win each game, a crazy learning curve that will have you learning new things about the game months after you’ve started playing, a mix of history and humor, Gandhi nuking the stuffing out of you, and above all, fiendishly addictive gameplay. Yup. This is the best 4X game of all time. Every time I play it, I remember why I fell in love with it in the first place.

5. …uh, yeah, this one is up in the air.

Okay, you’ve got me. I have no idea how to narrow #5 down to just one game. I’ve got a bunch of candidates. Depending on mood, time of day, and the thickness of my current pair of Nostalgia Goggles, I’d go for Dig-Dug, Yoshi’s Island, Super Mario Bros. 3, Banjo-Kazooie, Goldeneye 007, Halo, Pokemon Gold, Final Fantasy VI, Metal Gear Solid, or The Oregon Trail. Or probably several others that I’m forgetting. One of these days I’ll sit down and figure out a definitive Number Five, but today is not that day.

Alrighty then! Your guys’ turn! Top five favorites?

The Android's Bunker (Strategy)

Hearts of Iron 2 is Awesome.

So. This game. Hearts of Iron 2. It’s a Grand Strategy game, which means it looks a little like this:

USS Enterprise? USS Enterprise.

There are two types of people in this world. Those who will look at this screenshot, raise an eyebrow, and slowly back away, and those who will look at this screenshot and promptly go something like this:

Have I mentioned that my Pony images folder is huge?

If you are one of the latter, then you have probably played this game already. If not… then you seriously need to look into it. Never has pushing tiny armies around a tiny map been so detailed and intricate. Also, that tech tree. That tech tree.

I also paid Robert Oppenheimer a buck sixty a day to discover experimental proof of the equivalence of mass and energy.

Anyways! I’ll refrain from delving into the details because there’s not a lot I can say about this game other than you should seriously look into it if you like strategy and history and micromanagement and geeking out over details.

And watch out for those Germans, they’ll stab you in the back when you least expect it! (…which I suppose makes sense, it being World War II and all…)

Edit: You can get it on Steam as well, so now you have no excuse!

The Android's Liberal Arts Degree (Meta/Critical)

The Art of the Ragequit

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Before I launch into this post, let’s define “ragequit”. How about: quitting something in the heat of the moment, without putting much thought into it, because you are thoroughly and completely frustrated. Does that work?

Your anger fuels Pinkie Pie's giggles.

I don’t ragequit games very often. I mean, I quit mid-game a lot, sure. I’ll quit because I’ve been playing for a while and my mind is wandering; and sometimes I’ll quit because the game isn’t going my way and I can’t be bothered to spend a bunch of time changing it so it IS going my way– especially if I know I’m already proven and capable of doing this.

Quitting out of rage, though, is not a typical aspect of my gaming modus operandi.

…until recently.

X-Com. This game is hard. There is no mercy. There is no handholding. There is just your troops being shot in the head by an unseen alien the second they exit their ship.

I ragequit this game pretty much every time I play it. Then I go play something easier for a while. Like, you know, Hearts of Iron II.

You know your game is hard when a World War II era grand strategy game made by Paradox is easier.

…but then I go back and play X-Com again, because there’s something deliciously addictive about it and I just can’t help but wonder if maybe this time I’ll figure it out. I mean, if I keep trying, then eventually I might live for more than five minutes. Right?

What about you guys? Do you ragequit often?

The Android's Horn-Rimmed Glasses (Indie)

Okay, okay, I caved.

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After having written up a post a few weeks back on how I didn’t “get” Minecraft, I, uh… went back and tried it again.

Now, first thing’s first. I played the free, in-browser “Classic” edition, because as it turns out, I can’t afford the actual game at this point. (When I first tried the downloadable game, waaaay back in the day, it was free and in Beta.) This version of the game is different from the real thing. There’s no creepers, no night-time, and no crafting. Just you and an unlimited number of different colored blocks.

…oddly enough, that made the game a lot more palatable for me. No longer having to worry about things like “OMG HURRY UP AND FIGURE THINGS OUT AND MAKE A SHELTER BEFORE NIGHT FALLS *panic panic*”, I was free to let my inner obsessive-compulsive demons happily make sure all my blocks were counted and lined up exactly right.

BEHOLD MY DERPY TEAL AND PURPLE MASTERPIECE. THE CEILING IS MADE OF GLASS.

So, there you have it. In what is possibly a textbook case of meeting games halfway, I played Minecraft for about a half hour last night, and I enjoyed it.

[Insert some sort of witticism here about purging my system with X-Com and/or the fact that my dear partner-in-crime Mister Adequate has also recently fallen to lure of crafting blocks. Seriously though, I got no sleep last night for the second time in a row and cannot currently brain good, so you’ll just have to pretend I wrote up a hilarious ending line here. Okay?]

The Android's Bunker (Strategy), The Android's POG Collection (Retro)

So Guys, I Think X-Com is My “New” Civ IV

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Mister Adequate and I lean toward having a pretty similar taste in games. Oh sure, we have our differences– I grew up a Nintendo kid and he a Sega kid, for example– but by and large, we like a lot of the same stuff. Strategy games, for example. Oh, do we love our strategy games. He’s played a lot more of them than I have, though, so he’s usually the one giving me recommendations. Which I have learned to take seriously. Here’s what’s happened the last few times he’s recommended a game to me:

Civilization IV: “A;GLKHSLKDJF BEST GAME EVER OMG. WHY DID I NOT KNOW ABOUT THIS EARLIER.” 225 Hours played within two months. Several more hours of sleep lost.

Hearts of Iron II/Darkest Hour: “Hmm, shall I troll Poland today, or randomly turn Montana into a huge industrial powerhouse?” Either way, expect lots of Pike hurling insults at the AI, getting excited over tech trees, and ranting about the map.

Europa Universalis 3: “OH MAN IT’S LIKE SOMEBODY ROLLED CIV, AGE OF EMPIRES, AND HEARTS OF IRON ALL UP INTO ONE DELECTABLE BALL OF AWESOME.” Hours of playing as Britain and rolling over other navies with my own.

Anyways, the point is that Mister Adequate recommends me some top notch games. So now at his recommendation I’m going back– waaaay back– in time and playing X-Com: UFO Defense for the first time.

Guys. Guys. Guys.

It’s like… an RTS. And a tactical strategy game. And it’s amazing. AND I CAN ALREADY TELL THAT I AM GOING TO PLAYING THIS AND NOTHING BUT THIS FOR THE NEXT MONTH.

The Android's Distracted Boss (Casual/Flash), The Android's POG Collection (Retro)

World’s Biggest Pac-Man

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It has come to my attention that not everyone is aware of this brilliance, so I’m here to rectify that.

First, an intro. Pac-Man was one of the very first video games I ever played. I don’t even know how young I must have been– two or three– either way, I don’t remember not knowing what Pac-Man is and how to play it.

In the years since, I play versions it sometimes when I’m feeling retro. It’s held up well, but it doesn’t keep my attention as long as it used to when I was a little kid. The same maze over and over just got old.

This is pretty great, though.

So. Guys. This. The World’s Biggest Pac-Man.

At first, I assumed it was just a bunch of player-made mazes that you’d play through one at a time. Eh, okay, I’d give it a shot, it’s something different. I picked a maze at random and began the game. I was about halfway through when I decided to use one of the tunnels to get a ghost off of my tail and warp over to the other side. You know, like a normal Pac-Man game.

My mind. Was. BLOWN. When it took me to another maze.

After that I was hooked. If I start this game up, I’m inevitably going to be playing it for a really long time. I don’t know if I’ve ever been so thoroughly impressed by a version of Pac-Man. But this. THIS. I dunno. The desire to “see all the mazes” is just ridiculously strong. Stronger than you may initially think.

So go check it out, but BE WARNED: It may suck your entire day away.

Oh, and some of these mazes are truly devious. It’s great.

The Android's Horn-Rimmed Glasses (Indie), The Android's Thinking Cap (Puzzle)

Trine and The Humble Frozenbyte Bundle

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The other day I was alerted to this deal, which allows you to pay as little (or as much) as you want for a pack of games in a donation that is split between the developers, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and Child’s Play Charity. No catch, as far as I can tell: all the games are DRM-free, can be installed as many times as you want (including via Steam, if that’s your thing), and are workable on all platforms– yes, including my beloved Linux.

Now I’m not gonna deny that I’d never heard of any of the games before, but really, I’m not gonna pass up nearly-free video games, and I always have a soft spot for developers that are willing to make Linux versions of games, so I coughed up a few coins and downloaded the bundle.

So far, I’ve only played Trine:

A 3-D side-scrolling game which is delightfully pretty, easy to learn, and far more addictive than one might expect.

Don’t get me wrong: it’s nothing too complex. It’s a puzzle game that ultimately could probably be emulated fairly well in Flash. The main difference between this and your average Flash game is that it’s heavily physics-based and, oh, did I mention it’s pretty? It’s pretty, and the music is relaxing.

The premise of the game is simple: You switch between three different characters to solve puzzles and work your way through obstacles in various rooms. Your three characters are a warrior, who cuts things up with his sword, a thief, who can shoot things with an arrow and use a grappling hook, and my favorite character… the wizard. See, the wizard is probably the most clever aspect of the game, because he doesn’t fling fireballs around as one might suspect. No, his powers are levitating objects, and making MORE objects– specifically, boxes which he can use to stand on or stack on top of other things.

Anyways, you’re armed with these three characters to dispose of undead and solve puzzles. The whole game was actually sort of giving me Portal vibes, not really in the nature of the puzzles so much as the way the puzzles are arranged room by room and the whole way in which the game starts you out slowly and easily and then ramps you up in difficulty level.

But yes!

I haven’t tried out the Shadowgrounds game that comes in the pack yet, but Trine alone was worth the download. It had me hooked for a good couple of hours yesterday and I can see it having me hooked for a while to come yet.

Anyways! Do go over and take a look at The Humble Frozenbyte Bundle if you haven’t already and have a few pennies to spare. It’s to prove a good point— namely that consumers are willing to pay for what they want to support– and even if you’re not really into that, it’s games for a cent, right?