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Dante’s Inferno

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From the name of the game I’m pretty sure it will be heavily influenced by Dante’s, “Divine Comedy“. I vaguely knew about Dante’s Inferno but I didn’t know enough to be excited about it.

I first heard about/saw the game during the VGA’s (Video Game Awards) and thought why would I be interested in this?

There wasn’t anything to make me want to follow this game or pick it up when it finally comes out.

Today however, I was looking through my google reader and found this gem of a video.

The ending leaves left me wanting a better ending to the trailer considering the majority of the first half seemed to build itself up to something. The rest of the trailer was great. I really liked the art style, the new-ish style of SFIV and Prince of Persia(the wisps coming off of people/motion/etc.) is something that I like the visual appeal of. Now the thing that makes me want to see more is the anticipation of what the game will actually look and play like. I can assume that it will be an action game of sorts but in order to see what the creators will do with the game is something that I guess we’ll have to wait for.

My First Ten Minutes For the Emperor!

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I consider Dawn of War and its extensions (not expansions) to be the best RTS I’ve ever played. It was actually the first game I ever reviewed online (which sadly no longer exists). I have not been following all the hoopla over the sequel—probably because I’m on a kick of not spending premium dollars on games for a while. Today, I found myself surprised by this:

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Yes, that’s a Dawn of War II icon in my gammercard. It’s my first experience using a Games for Windows Live game (which I was amazed at how well it worked). Anyway, the first ten minutes.

Before I begin, I want to state that I believe Relic should be lumped in the same group of developer extraordinaire as Valve, Blizzard, and Stardock. Just about everything that Relic has made has been golden.

Dawn of War II exudes polish and atmosphere. I’ve read a few Warhammer books in my time, and I’m somewhat familiar with the universe (although I’ve never played a table-top version of the game it’s all based on). However, the game is exactly how I’ve always imagined it would be.

Relic has taken the original Dawn of War formula and streamlined it. I was expecting a resource management type of RTS, and I was welcomed with a squad-based game. You play as a hero character that (so far) is pretty much invincible and the commander of the squads you acquire. Basically, they took all the fun of the first game and ramped it up. In the three missions I’ve played I’ve not been frustrated once like I was with the first at certain points in the game (I felt that upgrading the units in-game was a pain).

Some RPG elements add a nice touch. Your main character and the squad leaders gather experience while weapons, skills, and armor can be upgraded. There also appears to be an attribute tree that adds stronger skillsets to your characters.

Graphically, the game is stunning. I spent a few minutes just looking and exploring all the menus. It took some time to realize I wasn’t reading what was on the screen. I was too busy looking at the eye candy. It’s also appears that each and every unit has it’s own unique type of animation motions. I know that this is based upon some excellent scripting and coding, but this small touch adds a sense of individual realism.It actually appears that each character is acting on their own and not just following their units particular script.

I’ll definitely be putting some more time into this title (which I got on Steam). If this keeps up, I may have an early contender for my PC Game of the Year.

Weekend Gaming

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It’s been a while since we’ve done one of these. We’ve got a beautiful weekend facing us. What are you going to be playing?

Me, I’ll be getting more time with the GTA IV expansion, The Lost and Damned. Right now, I’m not sold on it. More on that later. I finally got to play some Left 4 Dead with real people (peterb and psu from Tea Leaves) and it was awesome I need to get more of that good stuff. I also finally updated Burnout Paradise and now I want to play it non-stop. A lot of good gaming.

I’m also considering picking up a new DS game, namely the new Fire Emblem game. I may hold off on that one.

And of course Nat has been bombarding us with these Flash games and I’ve found a couple other PC games I’ve been toying around with. Should be a great weekend.

It’s Sonny Outside

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Zombies? Check. Turn-based RPG style of play (think Final Fantasy)? Check. FREE? Check. Achievements? Check.

Say hello to the zombie, Sonny. Namely, you!

In an interesting twist, you play as a hero–a zombie hero. With over 5 million plays (I’ve added a few today), it should be obvious that it is a sure-fire winner.

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I don’t know why I’ve been on a Flash game kick lately. Maybe it’s because I’m sick and tired of paying premium dollars for dreck.

The Space Game

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I’ve been lost in this almost all evening. It’s an instant must-play.

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Yes, it’s like a dumbed down cross between GalCiv II and Sins of a Solar Empire. Yes, it was done in Flash. Yes, it’s a great diversion.

Burnout Paradise Legendary Cars on Thursday

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This actually came out earlier in the week, but the pricing wasn’t mentioned. Basically all the cars are $2 save for one. Can you guess which?

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Yeah, the 88 Special will set you back $4. However, if you buy all four as a set for $8 you save $2 making the car priced like all the others. The incentive is to buy all four.

Uh, I was going to anyway.

Wake Up and Smell the Defense Grid

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I’m not a big fan of tower defense games, but I have dabbled a little in Ninjatown (Wow. That’s another story. Uh….squee?) and a couple of web versions. Something about the sit/wait mechanic makes me somewhat anxious when I play. However, it didn’t stay that way.

Enter Defense Grid: The Awakening. It was at a reasonable price during the Steam holiday sale so I figured why not? In short, I love it.

It has that right sense of gameplay and a surprising amount of humor in the form of your AI interface to the defense towers. The game is full of Steam achievements and has a good deal of levels and challenges (being amped up difficulty replays). Online leaderboards? Yes.

The only reason I’ve not done a 2 Minute Review is because I’ve not completed it yet. I’ve been too busy taking my time with this game, enjoying and replaying the levels with different strategies.

Basically this writeup is a shill for Steam once again because it looks like it’s being sold for 25% off. I think it’s worth $15, but no more.

Easy, Breezy, Beautiful

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No, I’m not talking about Cover Girl. I’m talking about Flower, the latest game to hit the PSN and a true contender for most beautiful game of the year.

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If you’ve ever had a debate with anyone about whether games are art, thatgamecompany’s latest offering should help put that arguement to rest. If you have $10 to spend on a game this weekend, spend it on Flower.

Flower is one of the latest in a slowly growing field of games often referred to as ‘chill’ games. Pixeljunk Eden, A Kingdom For Keflings and flOw are other examples of this kind of game, where the focus isn’t so much on conflict and violence as it is on relaxing and exploring a world with few boundaries.

In the case of Flower, you blow a flower petal across a variety of fields, touching other flowers which open up and add their petals to your breeze. As you collect more and more petals, your ‘tail’ grows longer and longer, which can add some interesting effects and often helps you open up new areas of the world.

Flower uses the Sixaxis controls exclusively and is one of the only games I can think of that actually uses that technology effectively. thatgamecompany should be hired out to teach other studios how to harness the Sixaxis as they’ve obviously got a handle on how it works.

While some might complain about the length of the game (it can be completed in about 3-4 hours) or that it is essentially a gussied up tech demo, for those willing to approach it in the proper frame of mind, it is an utterly rewarding and relaxing experience. There are some twists later in the game that I won’t spoil and I have to say that level 4 is probably the high point of the game, artistically. There are also loads of trophies to unlock and lots of hidden things to go back and search out.

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Enjoy!