June 3rd, 2010
Dustin Deckard
Yeah, we know that zombie games are a dime a dozen these days, and even more so on Apple’s iDevices, but the fact remains that good zombie games are a rare find, let alone good zombie games with high production values. That’s why we wanted to bring your attention to a little game called Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. Created by acclaimed iPhone developer Freeverse, it’s up on the App Store today for just $2.99, and it’s… really fun. The game sports extremely fluid combat and intuitive gesture-based attacks over 12 levels.
Another zombie app released today is George Romero’s App of the Dead, which isn’t so much a game as it is a drawing tool, letting you zombify your friends and family, then shoot at them and save the pictures. If that’s your thing, it’s also available today in the App Store for $1.99.
June 2nd, 2010
Andrew Galbraith
Admittedly, there are some exceptional games created for the PlayStation that can be played on the PlayStation 3. While I could go on ad nauseam about all of them, I find it would behoove everyone if I split them into parts. As a small aside, it should be noted that this list is in no discernable order and each and every title has an equal amount of value to the entirety. Some of these games would probably be best left to collect dust according to many in the gaming community, but certain niches never get old and will remain relevant for several years to come. Thus, we present the first five of ten PS1 games that you should be giving a try if you haven’t already.
June 2nd, 2010
Andrew Galbraith
Even with the aid of hindsight, it’s difficult to imagine what the creative minds at Bungie were thinking when they began creating Halo. After the release of the game, which launched alongside Microsoft’s original Xbox, Halo remained a blockbuster hit throughout the lifespan of the console. Over roughly the last decade since then, the series has exploded into a media powerhouse. Therefore, it wasn’t surprising when Halo: Helljumper, a Marvel created comic series, was released to coincide with Halo 3: ODST arriving on the Xbox 360. But, where many would have anticipated a shallow tie-in, Marvel offers up an ordered, well-crafted compendium.
June 2nd, 2010
Dustin Deckard
Consider this a simple public service announcement: The Naked Gamers occasionally contribute to print publications, mostly in the Wichita, KS area, and we thought you might like to know about it. If you do happen to live in the Wichita area, you can pick up copies of our parent publication, Naked City Magazine, for free at any of our dozens of distribution locations. If you’re not in the area but think you might like a subscription to the magazine, you can order a year’s worth for just $20. Or, lastly, if you just want to check it out online, you can always view the entire magazine for free in our digital flipbook reader. To view the June issue, just click here — we’re on page 34 with a feature called Western games that don’t suck. Happy reading!
June 1st, 2010
Jason Grantz
When Alpha Protocol was announced back in 2008, it was touted as the next step for American RPGs. Two years have passed and following on the heels of such genre-stretching RPGs as Mass Effect 2 and Borderlands, the finished product comes up short, instead revealing itself to be more of a technical blunder with appealing RPG elements added. Though the game may be an overall misstep, the attempted combination of action and stealth is at least one stride in the right direction.
It’s undeniable from the beginning where Obsidian draws its inspirations for Alpha Protocol. The protagonist, Michael Thorton, is a mix of every spy cliche seen on film. Obsidian even admits they were heavily guided by the “three J.B.’s” (Jason Bourne, James Bond and Jack Bauer) for their espionage thriller. Still, even with those influences, Alpha Protocol never quite seems to deliver on that promise of greatness, but offers some glimpses of what could have been.
Visual aesthetics don’t seem to be Obsidian’s strong suit. The graphics and character animations still appear to have come from the PS2 era. In fact, it was utterly impossible to count the amount of technical glitches that occurred during the game. In one instance, an enemy was hovering in mid-air over a guard railing. Even the cutscenes are extremely clunky, leaving most characters looking awkward throughout the duration. It’s unfortunate because the gameplay would have been far more engaging had the visual aspects been there to support it.
May 31st, 2010
Jason Grantz
Time magazine recently revealed a list of The 50 Worst Inventions. While we completely agree with most of the items listed here, we hesitate to accept the Virtual Boy as a bad invention. Sure, it never received the amount of acclaim that other Nintendo consoles received, but we believe this brilliant, albeit headache-inducing, device was just simply ahead of its time at release.
Late in the summer of 1995, Nintendo gave the world the Virtual Boy; a not-so-portable gaming system with a lackluster lineup of games. Nintendo, trying to do what it usually does best – innovate the gaming industry – was perhaps just too far ahead of the 3D revolution. Nintendo hyped the Virtual Boy to extraordinary expectations, but the actual device didn’t live up to the promises and resulted in poor sales for the company.
The Virtual Boy’s bulky head piece required that the player set the device on a solid surface to play. Then, looking into the head-mounted display, the machine transmitted red images that created a 3-D gaming effect for the player. The player would then use the connected controller to play the games.
Click the read more button to continue.
May 31st, 2010
Jay Bickford
At PAX East, I had the pleasure of stumbling across a booth featuring one of the best top-down shooters I’ve played in a while. The game is called Shoot 1UP by Mommy’s Best Games; a game that proves you can, in fact, teach an old dog new tricks. In Shoot 1UP your ship upgrades come in the way of 1-UP’s, but you’re not collecting extra lives, you’re putting more ships, and weapons, on screen. Imagine multi-directional Galaga on steroids and acid. Spread your ships further apart and the multiplier increases and a giant beam fires from the center of the formation, however spreading your ships out means incoming fire is much harder to dodge. With fantastic visuals and this new trick, Shoot 1UP is a stellar game and you can’t beat the price at 80 MSP on the Xbox Live Arcade Indie Marketplace.
Mommy’s Best Games’ previous titles include a side-scrolling shooter called Weapon of Choice, which features unlockable characters, a unique weapon for each character, and more of MBG’s signature visuals. With interesting weapons and enemies, this is yet another game you would be amiss to miss, but keep in mind that extra features net the game a price tag of 400 MSP.
I recently had the chance to interview Nathan Fouts, President of Mommy’s Best Games, while he was preparing their next game Grapple Buggy for E3. Prior to starting MBG, Nathan worked on big name titles such as Resistance: Fall of Man for the PS3, The Ratchet and Clank series, and the Postal Series.
Check past the break for the interview.
May 30th, 2010
Andrew Galbraith
Woot is on a hot streak with some exceptionally awesome video game t-shirts. Today’s shirt, designed by Jewelwing from Pisgah Forest, North Carolina reminds everyone of the potential the Soviet Union had to create ridiculously addictive video games capable of slowing Capitalist production to a crawl. While the USSR eventually dissolved, we thankfully still have Tetris, which has since served as a building block for a plethora of addictive puzzle games.
May 29th, 2010
Joe Witthaus
EDITOR’S NOTE: The following essay discusses the nature of Alan Wake’s creepiest moments and underlying themes, but may also contain spoilers that will ruin the game if you haven’t played it yet. Reader beware!
From the get go, it’s clear that Remedy Entertainment’s Alan Wake lead writer Sam Lake has pulled inspiration for the game from works by Stephen King. That’s not to say that Alan Wake is a plagiarized re-imagining of any of King’s works, but it’s blatantly obvious that the sort of books King has written in his career have helped guide the premise of psychological suspense put forth in the title. Even from the opening moments of the game, King is referred to by name; his style of writing is almost instantly embedded in the back of the player’s mind, reminding them that the game may not be all that it seems. That is to say that King’s works have often been noted for their numerous characters and plot changes, but the overall effect is one that keeps the reader guessing and even scratching their head.
May 28th, 2010
Andrew Galbraith
While the original Xbox may not have become the content powerhouse that its successor has long since achieved, there were many, primarily in the modding community, who believed in the power of Microsoft’s first gaming console as a media center. XBMC Media Center, essentially an alternative to both Microsoft’s Media Center and Apple’s Front Row, allowed users to seamlessly manage content such as podcasts, videos, music or photos from a personal computer, local network, DVD or the internet. The proverbial cherry on top was the fact that the software was free, open-source and able to straddle multiple platforms with little to no effort. Sadly, as of this morning, it has been announced that the team behind XBMC has finally released the code and removed the Xbox subset from their current projects.
In a post on XBMC, the finalities of the matter are discussed regarding the waning support of the software. Discussing not just the technological limits of the hardware, but the legal limits as well it’s revealed that the team ceased work for the most part following the release of Atlantis roughly 18 months ago. One solitary coder has been working to merge data with the main codebase of the XBMC Xbox repository. Additionally, despite discontinued support from the majority of the team, the single coder will continue to support the XBMC platform via a new project page at Sourceforge.
Despite less than reputable acts being committed by modders in the gaming community on a daily basis, this is a sad turn of events. Certainly, it is interesting enough to see what a piece of hardware is capable of right out of the box, but sometimes the greatest developments a console may ever see over the span of its lifetime will be the result of a homebrewed project launched from an avid tinkerers basement.
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