Internet Famous – Part 1…the Nick Thune Story
March 26, 2009 by Ron Callari
Filed under Web Stuff
Today’s technology has given us all the power to brand ourselves in whatever way we see fit. No longer does one need an expensive PR agency or a full-blown advertising campaign to define who we are or how we want to be perceived. Similar to how corporate branding defines how a company distinguishes itself, personal Internet branding is the sum of all one’s online activities which then triggers an expectation about who you are. Perception trumps reality when one seeks fame on the Internet.
The Internet has transformed the world — connecting cultures, streamlining commerce and revolutionizing communication. Not unlike a mosquito-infested swamp, the Web has become a rich breeding ground for buzz and viral transmission. The ability to become a worldwide celeb and the concept of becoming famous for being famous perfected by Paris Hilton and others can be developed fairly effectively on the Internet, without ever meeting one of your fans face to face.
Twitter can lay some claim for this individual branding movement. Presently organizing a conference this June, 2009 in NYC aptly called the “140 Characters Conference,” Twitter’s reach reinforces one’s ability to gain notoriety quickly. With their intent of not only attracting established celebrities who use their social network (e.g. Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher), Twitter is also focusing on the new-found celebs who have learned how to harness the power of the Twitterverse to do their bidding.
For the naysayers who can’t conceive the Internet producing celebrity status, this is the first part of a two part series that will provide you with insight to contrary. The number of budding digi-stars are growing at a phenomenal rate with social media as its major catalyst. I tracked down some of the Internet’s biggest overnight sensations to see if they are truly exceeding their “15 minute of fame” expiration date. While some have settled into lives of quiet anonymity — others are now making grand livings off their Net-based fame. Living the Warholian dream, most of these innovative entrepreneurs are turning self-promotion into an art form.
One of those bright new shining stars is Nick Thune, a Seattle-born comedian now residing in LA and pursing the American dream in the entertainment field. While Nick’s modesty inhibits him from admitting to being an Internet celebrity, as a working stand-up comedian Nick first reached world attention when one of his YouTube videos went viral in 2006. Directed by Ruben Fleischer of MTV’s hit reality show fame “Rob & Big,” Nick’s video entitled “Phone Tag” is a funny sketch about a young man struggling to accept a break-up with a romance gone sour. Also starring Olivia Munn, the video currently tallies almost 1 million page views on YouTube.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ssdfqTwZXY0[/youtube]
An even greater buzz was created with Nick’s production of “Masturbation.” As Nick tells the story, hi
s stage work included a ‘masturbation’ joke that he thought would be even funnier as a short film. Once again with the assistance of Ruben Fleischer a film version of the joke was produce that took slightly longer than the actual act of masturbating! A week later, after editing, Ruben Fleischer met with Funnyordie.com, the comedy video website. In tandem with their website’s debut launch, they posted “Masturbation” on their front page directly below Will Ferrell’s infamous Landlord Video, and Nick’s jerk-off session went viral!
While Nick doesn’t believe that the Internet brought him notoriety, he does feel that the attention it creates with casting directors and fans is immeasurable. On his second appearance on Jay Leno’s Tonight Show in August,2007, Nick’s aptly named “Instant Messenger” stand up routine became an ‘instant’ success.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__3EZmzmIQs[/youtube]
Nick’s latest project is called “Nick’s Big Show.” According to Nick,”it’s an undertaking” that he hopes will be his “last webseries,” and will act as a stepping stone “worthy of TV” exposure. On March 23, 2009, Atom.com, a digital comedy network and Comedy Central announced the premiere of “Nick’s Big Show.” This new six-episode mockumentary, available now at Atom.com and NicksBigShow.com, follows Nick Thune as he puts his comedy career on hold to do something much more important: “make people laugh because they’re crying so hard.”
One could ask after watching whether Nick really have a clock that reads It’s Go Time? Or Why does he own a pimped-out low rider limousine (driven by his assistant, played by the funny Kate Micucci) – and, for that matter, why does Nick even have an assistant? In Nick’s world, nobody asks these questions, and Nick’s world is a better place for it.
In coming weeks, “Nick’s Big Show” will be distributed widely to consumers across Atom’s multi-platform distribution network, including the “Atom TV” series on Comedy Central, mobile phone partners and other leading Internet destinations including iTunes, AOL, Dailymotion and xBox Live.
Internet Celebrity is not lost on Nick Thune. He appreciates what it has done to help mold his persona and allow him appeal to a growing fan base. But when asked if he tracks his website traffic, Nick mockingly points out that he has “someone track his websites…” as he doesn’t “wanna know numbers. I tell them to tell me if the numbers are low, then I’ll put more work into it. Do you think Picasso knew how many people had or will have seen his work? Is anyone (really) keeping count?”
Well in the case of Nick Thune, I think a lot of folks are keeping count and will be marking their calendars for his next TV appearance which just so happens to be April Fool’s Day, when he appears on “Late Night with Jimmy Fallon.” Tune in to see the next comedic superstar with humble Internet beginnings. He measures up… all “5 feet 16 inches” of him!
9 XBox Live Arcade Games to Watch For This Year
February 12, 2009 by AshPringle
Filed under Video Games
There’s no denying that the videogame industry is becoming a powerhouse, and with that we are seeing more high-budget, blockbuster games coming from massive developers than ever before.
But what about the smaller games, from smaller developers? The games with charm and style and character? The games that take risks and experiment with gameplay styles that big developers might be unwilling to try?
Luckily, with the seemingly unstoppable growth of the industry is coming something of a renaissance for indie-style gaming; online gaming portals like XBLA are not only giving us a way to get the little guys’ games easily, but they’re also giving those smaller developers a way to make a living of their games, by harnessing the profit-making potential of the throngs of console gamers out there.
The result is that some of the smartest, most exciting, most experimental, and most interesting games are making their way to the mainstream. So without further ado, here are nine of those games!
BOUNCE (Tentative title) (Strawdog Studios)
Not a lot is known about the tentatively titled Bounce, other then that it may have cute little cartoon animals in it and may also involve bouncing.
What we do know for sure is that it’s from the same developers as Geon, which is described on its XBox Arcade profile page as a “fast-paced abstract sports game that lets you explore your emotions as you compete against opponents.”
Sound weird? Well, it is. But it’s also a lot of fun. With Geon, Strawdog Studios made a game with the simple gameplay and charm of old-school classics like Pacman or Marble Madness while managing to keep it relevant to today’s gamers. It’s safe to say we can expect some of the same entertaining, frenetic, off-the-wall interpretations of classic arcade-style play in Bounce, which is definitely a good thing.
According to Dan Marchant of Strawdog Studios we can look forward to some updates about this game in the near future, including a name change, so stay tuned for more info!
In the meantime a video of Geon’s gameplay ought to tide us over!
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oddDXr1nvkw[/youtube]
WALLACE & GROMIT (Telltale Games)
Wallace & Gromit, Aardman Animation’s popular dog and inventor cartoon duo, are pretty much the perfect characters for an old-school point and click adventure game in the same vein as King’s Quest and the Lucasarts series of games; Wallace & Gromit’s charming style, whimsical humour, and wacky adventures in invention mean the game is pretty much half done already.
All that’s left is for someone to develop it, and that’s just what Telltale Games is doing. Telltale Games are the same people who brought us the Sam & Max and Strongbad episodic adventure games, so you can rest assured that Wallace & Gromit are going to get a great videogame treatment.
Classic adventure-style games have almost become extinct in this day and age, so it’s good to see this game bringing back the fun, puzzles, and story-telling of this style of gameplay. Plus XBLA is pretty much the perfect forum to distribute episodic games with, letting people buy the game in discrete chunks at a reasonable price.
And on top of all that, this will probably be the first instance of the term ‘cracking toast’ being used in a videogame, which in itself is noteworthy.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ACo09CSIeUI[/youtube]
Cletus Clay is essentially a platformer like any other, with sidescrolling, shoot ‘em up action through a series of different worlds, except that the main character is an inbred, alcoholic redneck who regularly kills aliens with a shotgun.
Oh, also, every character, monster, and environment in the game is rendered completely with real clay and stop-motion animation.
This very uncommon approach to game art gives Cletus Clay an unmistakable style, and was enough to win Cletus an award for Excellence in Art at the Independent Games Festival. It’s great to see smaller developers taking novel approaches to graphics like this, and even better that we get to see them professionally distributed on XBLA; so few big-name developers would be willing to take the risk of taking such a radical approach to game art.
But Cletus Clay is not just pretty, it also looks like it’s going to be a lot of fun too. If you’re a fan of enemy-filled side-scrolling action in the same vein as Super Mario, then keep your eye on this game. If you’re also a fan of XXX hooch, then this game will be a must play!
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hE6EJUnLTmE[/youtube]
DARWINIA+ (Introversion Software)
Darwinia was originally released on PC a few years ago to critical acclaim, but is still difficult to describe. Essentially it is a blend of the real-time strategy, action, arcade, and god-game genres. But this description probably doesn’t do it justice, as the game manages to blend all those different genres seamlessly to make something that doesn’t quite resemble any of its individual influences. To put it simply, it has to be played to be understood.
The goal of Darwinia is to save the Darwinians — little digital life-forms who live in a virtual world — from attacking viri. What makes the game unique is how you go about doing this; controlling the little Darwinians involves more than just clicking on them and telling them to attack, because you have to manually choose where they shoot, making the game more than standard RTS fare.
The entire game is full of this sort of genre-twisting gameplay, but it doesn’t stop there. Darwinia’s award-winning graphics and art are also striking and original. Its portrayal of a virtual, wireframe world with 2-dimensional inhabitants is both sparse and lively, and somehow manages to give the world’s simple-looking inhabitants more character than the most painstakingly rendered models.
Darwinia has all that, and for the XBox release will even include Multiwnia, the multiplayer version of the game!
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ig_GYvmBHDQ[/youtube]
From Jeff Minter, sheep enthusiast and developer of the insane, trippy, sensory-overloading, musical sort-of-shooter Space Giraffe, comes Gridrunner+++.
The original Gridrunner++ was a vertical space shooter for the PC that was released long long ago. Since then, Jeff has developed a very unique, psychedelic style for his games that is one of a kind, and the new Gridrunner+++ looks like it is going to embody that development, both in visual style and gameplay.
So what can you expect in Gridrunner+++? Well, “sheepies” that you use as powerups, non-stop streams of abstract bullets all over the screen, and a vertical shooter experience that is far from conventional. According to Jeff, “rather than dodging through bullet hell you become bullet hell.”
By using gravity points, players can make their bullet streams arc, which will combine with the beautiful, colourful and kinetic graphics to give a classic arcade shooter-on-3-hits-of-acid look, making Gridrunner+++ a game that is not only a fun reflex space shooter, but also a graceful and beautiful experience.
But my mere words probably can’t do it justice. For an idea of Jeff’s style, check out the video of Space Giraffe below!
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xl6vKTP7KPs[/youtube]
This game just looks like it’s going to be downright enjoyable. Looking kind of like Worms put through an old-school, real-time, 2D console blender, Rocket Riot may just be the game that will remind you of what it was like to play videogames when you were a kid.
The game will include, among other things, some very neat, pixelated 2D-in-a-3D-world graphics that look like a love letter to 8-bit gaming, hilarious sound effects, and destructible levels with tons of different missions to accomplish.
It basically looks like a charming throwback to days when games were a straightforward affair of firing rockets at enemies and collecting powerups, but it also looks like it is going to be a genuinely strong game that can compete with any modern blockbuster in entertainment value.
As usual it’s hard to describe just how fun this game looks, so check out the video!
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzS3DCabkk4[/youtube]
ZOMBIES!!! (Big Rooster/Twilight Creations)
Zombies!!!, the cult hit tabletop game that has spawned loads of expansions throughout the years, is set to make its debut on XBLA in 2009, bringing with lots lots of zombies (and exclamation points.)
What is Zombies!!! about, you ask? There’s not a lot of info on the videogame version just yet, but if it’s anything like its tabletop predecessor it’s going to involve an ever-growing horde of zombies for a group of players to escape from, and plenty of opportunities to mess those zombies up. And who doesn’t love messing up zombies?
Nobody, that’s who.
It’s always great to see an underground classic tabletop game make its way to a big-time forum, and it’s good to see that XBLA is making it happen. A lot of these tabletop games are well-crafted examples of get-together party games, but don’t get as much exposure as they deserve because of their unusual (and nerdy) medium.
But with a release on XBLA, more players get exposed to a great game they might never have known about before, the developers get some serious support, and alternative styles of gameplay get just a bit more mainstream love.
Plus, I mean, there’s zombies in it.
QUARREL (Denki)
Continuing with the tabletop gaming theme, we have Quarrel. Quarrel is a game about words and strategy, like a mix of Scrabble and Risk. This probably sounds insane, but the combination of the two is actually quite ingenious.
Denki is a developer focused almost totally on making games that are fun. They go about this by fashioning games to be digital toys that are entirely designed to entertain and engage, and Quarrel is no exception to this strategy.
The goal of the game is to take over as many territories on the map as possible, like in Risk. The difference between this game and its tabletop influences is that instead of rolling dice to see whether you succeed in taking a territory, you play a word game and try to out-vocabulary your opponent in order to claim your stake on a piece of the map.
Clever game mechanics like these — that re-imagine the way classic games work by finding the crappy parts of good games and replacing them with fun parts — are what creative game development is all about. By removing the random element of dice-rolling from table-top style gaming, Genki are making Quarrel a game that is all fun and is accessible to everyone. The results look like they’re going to be a truly entertaining party game that will get everyone fully involved, by making the outcomes of the game depend on simple and familiar mechanics.
Plus it looks downright charming!
BLOBBIES WARS (Fishing Cactus)
Finally on our list we have Blobbies Wars. Originally a DS title, Blobbies is ostensibly a cute little game about little blob things that eat each other to death. But there is much more to it than that.
As Blobbies makes its way to XBLA it will become what its developers are calling the first ever turn-based tactical party game.
Like Quarrel, Blobbies Wars is a blend of two seemingly disparate game mechanics, and just like Quarrel it looks like it’s going to combine them to draw the maximum amount of fun and minimum amount of suck out of each.
Blobbies Wars is made up of two parts. The first part is a tactical strategy game: Teams battle on a hex-based map by getting their blobbies to attack one another each turn, with the goal being to eat the other team’s blobbies. By using magic, special abilities can be performed to give your blobbies an advantage.
The second part, which sets Blobbies apart from other strategy games, is the mini-games. During the downtime of your opponent’s turn you get to play rhythm and reflex-based mini-games in order to get yourself more magic.
This is a brilliant twist on the genre that gets people involved with engaging mechanics, kills boring downtime, making everyone have fun all the time, brings an exciting and visceral aspect to the normally very dry turn-based genre, and finally, forces players to take their turns quickly, so that other players only have a short amount of time to accumulate magic.
I’m a big fan of turn-based games, but even the most die hard fans have to admit that turn-based tactical games aren’t exactly accessible to the average gamer. Blobbies looks like it’s going to bring turn-based to the masses, and I’m proud of the guys at Fishing Cactus for having the ingenuity, understanding and foresight to do it.
And with that concludes the list of games to look out for on XBox Live Arcade! Keep an eye out on our site for updates on these games and their release dates. And if you have any suggestions for games we missed, let us know in the comments, because we always want to hear about games we’ve missed!
Top Five Moments – Left 4 Dead
January 5, 2009 by ArticlePost
Filed under Video Games
Five best moments in Left 4 Dead
Left 4 Dead has come and we’ve been killing zombies for over a month now. After sitting down for some long nights and entertaining LAN parties, I’ve opted to state the five best, funniest, or frankly most awesome things to happen with me and my group. Without further ado, number five:
5) Boomer Teabag: If you thought being puked on was bad
It was an epic defeat, the team (in versus) had barely just left the safe house, with three of their members pinned, and the boomer quickly took care of the other. Although it may not have much of a use, the Boomer can squat So, if your team happens to be doing particularly well, and the boomer is feeling cocky, a boomer teabag may be in order. Now, don’t think that I condone this activity: it’s unsportsmanlike, rude, braggish, and all around disgusting in all games. However, to see this giant fat zombie squat up and down on the face of a human survivor as his team around him is killed as he struggles to try and save someone, it’s hard to not be entertained. Although, sadly, his gut does not bounce like a bowl full of jelly.
4) Hunter Overshot: If a zombie could fail
Imagine the scene, at the top of No Mercy hospital: I’m dangling off an edge, knocked back and covered in vomit. When it all clears out my teammate comes to rescue me. Up on top of a nearby building I see a hunter and yell, Watch out! Which soon is blocked out by the ever familiar cry of the hunter as it pounces for the kill
The zombies are a good incentive to hold on.
Only for the awesomeness of the scene to be interrupted as the hunter overshot and flew off the edge of the building. The irony was ever present, the hunter’s greatest weapon turning into it’s demise. Speaking of great weapons
3) Epic Duel 1 on 1 with the Tank: When you promise your team you’ll kill it.
So there I was, my teammate was on the ground, all of the others were dead. Cries of, you can make it, you can make it! rang out from the mouths of the deceased. Just as I started to pick up my friend (the only one still breathing), a tank came rushing down the corridor, barely avoiding a hunter, and hitting a boomer from afar. I strafed around and dueled to the death with the tank. Man had become the winner after an epic battle and a spent Molotov. But alas, I knew I could not make it. It was still a long run to the house of reprieve. So, I decided I’d not let myself get turned into a zombie, because I’ve killed too many. Surely I wouldn’t be invited to any of their zombie games (read: Hordes). Picking up my teammate’s Pipe Bomb (he bled out), I headed to the crescendo event.
Soon enough, after gathering all of the gas tanks at a crescendo event, I activated it, and as I was engulfed by zombies I threw down a pipe bomb, killing myself and all of the zombies in the process. I feel as if it was an epic Left 4 Dead story that always makes me think that I did the right thing. (Note: I didn’t earn an achievement as my incapacitated buddy helped, but I think it’s for the best. Achievement Unlocked would’ve totally killed the epicness.)
2) Run. Like. Hell.
We finally made it to the safe house with three of my team members. Another one was slowly weaving his way around a witch. Suddenly, a hunter pounced at him (albeit missing), startled, he startled her. Rings of, oh shit, oh shit, oh shit were screamed over a headset as he jumped down and made a mad dash for his life down the narrow alley towards safety. Don’t close the door! he screamed, as the witch was wailing and flailing, right on his tail. My entire team of survivors were unloading their clips into the beast, shots impacting my friend, and just at the last second, screams of, Don’t close the door! changed to, Shut it! and it just kept her out, with sighs of relief and praises of life. . . Then we saw the rewards screen and were reminded we were only playing a video game.
1) No Mercy Finale: No Man gets Left Behind (Zoey included).
The ever wanted and loved sound of, the helicopter’s here! rings out and the team decide to run for it. Prepared to leave, people can often get cocky and not stick with the group. Me and three teammates made a break for it as another one administered first aid (to himself.) Little did he know of what was about to happen. As we ran he tried to catch up, but as we were all in the copter, a Molotov had been thrown. The survivor took it, and kept on running through. Suddenly, the tongue of a smoker stretched out through the fire. Damnit ran through all of the team members’ minds, except for one. No man gets left behind. He yelled, as he ran through the blazing inferno, saving the friend, but getting knocked down from his burns.
The other survivor bent down to return the favor, but just then the squeal of a soaring hunter was ever apparent through the growls of running undead, and it was on target, and the currently incapacitated survivor struggled to shoot the flaming hunter off of him. Now both were low on health, the one man taking pain pills, we then saw them run through the fire, with one of them limping. The other holding back the horde as the tanks began to rush up to the landing, my entire team was now spurring lead, and they jumped into the helicopter and got once last glance at the once imposing zombies. That’s when we made it; that’s when we all made it.
Left 4 Dead is a four player co-op FPS, if that doesn't get you hooked... There's a mode where you play AS the zombies.
Thus concludes the list of the top five awesome-est moments in Left 4 Dead. Although many of them are personal moments, I’m sure that at least somebody will get some enjoyment from reading the adventures of the survivors, and I know that I enjoyed experiencing them.
But! That’s not the end of it, if any of you Zmogo readers play Left 4 Dead and have some epic, scary, awesome or funny stories, feel free to share them in the comment box below. Look forward to some more ” Top Five Moments” In the future.
(All images are copyright Valve)
~Riley
P.S.: None of the images are screencaps as I played it on Xbox Live.
Festive Track Pack to be Released for Rock Band
December 22, 2008 by AshPringle
Filed under Video Games
Haven’t heard enough Christmas music while you’ve been at the mall frantically looking for a Wii? Then tomorrow’s Christmas-themed Rock Band track pack DLC is just for you.
According to an official post on the Rock Band forums the pack is set to be released tomorrow, December 23rd, on XBox LIve and the PlayStation network. The songs included in the pack are:
- “Hanukkah Blessings” – The Barenaked Ladies
- “Christmas is the Time to Say I Love You” – Billy Squier
- “Blue Christmas” – The Pretenders
Each song will cost 80 Microsoft Points, equivalent to $1, or 240 Microsoft Points for all three, which is equal to $3.
Although I probably won’t be getting these myself, considering I’ve already spent enough on Rock Band DLC, it’s nice to see Harmonix getting into the Christmas spirit with some inexpensive songs.
The next step is to make some non-Christmas-themed songs from The Pretenders available for download. Get on it, Harmonix.
And on that note, here’s somebody’s Christmasy home video with The Pretenders’ “Blue Christmas” as the soundtrack:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HW3eAZl_OsY[/youtube]
Microsoft Adds Cheesy Postcard Functionality for XBox Live Avatars
December 16, 2008 by AshPringle
Filed under Video Games
Microsoft’s new Free Your Avatar site lets you pop your custom Xbox Live avatar into a picture.
Ever since Xbox Live’s new format went online, people have been clamoring for the chance to put their custom avatars into little postcard pictures with firework backgrounds. Well, now that dream has become a reality.
The Free Your Avatar tool allows you to enter an Xbox Live username, and then allows you to drag an image of the account’s avatar into a picture frame, where you can position it and add different backgrounds and text.
One interesting aspect of this web-tool is that you can enter any gamer tag you know and make a photo out of it. This means you can finally make that family Christmas photo of all your friends’ avatars that you always wanted. Or you can always just deface the avatar of someone you don’t like.
Once you’re done with your masterpiece you can either download it, email it to your friends, or export it to various social networking sites such as Facebook, Bebo, or MySpace.
Even if you don’t have an Xbox Live account, the site gives a catalogue of a few preset avatars for you to play around with, so that non-gamers aren’t left out of the exciting avatar-framing action.
All sarcasm aside, this little tool is actually kind of neat. It would be nice to see some more entertaining options than just backgrounds and text, like props or different poses, but for a quick distraction it’s pretty fun.
Sony’s PlayStation Home reportedly Going to be Released in the Next 10 Days
December 8, 2008 by AshPringle
Filed under Video Games
It is being reported by UK’s Times Online that PlayStation Home, Sony’s long-awaited Second-Life-like service, will be released in the next ten days.
Home, which has been in development for at least a few years, will allow users to create an avatar for their account and socialize with other PlayStation 3 owners. Home will have features similar to Second Life but obviously much more limited than Second Life’s virtually limitless possibilities.
Users of Home will be able to explore a world inhabited by other users complete with various destinations like shops and player-customized homes, perform emotes with other avatars, play various minigames and so on. Eventually users will be able to purchase, with real money, cuztomizations for their avatars, such as new clothes and items for the homes.
Where Home differs interestingly from Second Life is that it seems that it is designed to be a sort of enhanced version of services like XBox Live or the Playstation Network. For example, users will be able to jump into games with other users straight from inside Home. In this sense it looks like Home might be an attempted step up from the avatar based online-services of XBox live and the Wii, which offers more interactivity and customizability than its competitors.
Phil Harrison, former head of Sony Worldwide Studio and current employee of Atari, had some good words about Home, saying that Sony, “brilliantly realized their ambitions,” with Home, and added that they “will have a very successful platform.”
Home looks like an interesting approach to the online experience being offered by consoles. Up until now, services like XBox Live and the Wii’s online service have offered a small amount of user input and have been mostly just designed to give a simple and straightforward way to buy and download content and play games with friends. But with the advent of Home, online console services might make a move towards being game-like themselves.
It’s hard to say whether Sony Home will make a noticeable impact, but it presents some interesting developments for what may come to be expected of the online console experience. If Home’s Second Life-like environment catches on, we may see Nintendo and Microsoft respond in the future with developments of their own avatar-based environments.
Kongregate Offers Free, Community-Designed Online Games
December 8, 2008 by AshPringle
Filed under Video Games, Web Stuff
It’s a situation we’re all familiar with: you’re bored, trying to kill time, or just looking for a break, so you look to the web for some fun distractions in the form of free online games. There is a plethora of sites available that offer up such entertainment, but few that include as many quality features and games as Kongregate.
At its core Kongregate is a site driven by community game submissions. Users make their own Flash or Shockwave games and upload them to the site, where anyone can play them. Almost every genre is covered, from action, adventure and RPG, to puzzle and music-based games. For a start, check out I Wish I Were the Moon, an experimental point and click puzzle game, or Ragdoll Cannon, a game, not surprisingly, about launching ragdolls from a cannon. There are even multiplayer games available, which allow users of the site to play together or against one another.
One aspect that sets Kongregate apart from other free gaming sites is the quality of the games that are offered. Like any community-driven site there will be a share of lemons, but the majority of Kongregate’s games are fun, interesting, original, and well-designed. One of my favourites is The Several Journeys of Reemus, a very well illustrated point-and-click adventure game with some hilarious dialogue, creative characters, and a unique and wacky story.
I Wish I Were the Moon
But Kongregate isn’t simply a collection of free online games; as its name suggests it is also a social networking community where people can meet, talk about their favourite games, discuss strategies, make critiques, add friends, and set up multiplayer games with one another. Kongregate has the usual forum-based discussion area, like many websites, but what makes Kongregate unique is that every game comes bundled with a chat room that allows you to chat with other people on the site, look at high-scores, and so on.
Multiplayer games even allow you to chat with other people playing the same game as you. Unfortunately, there are no rooms for people playing single-player games to chat in together, a feature I hope will eventually be added. Nonetheless, this focus on community gives Kongregate a notably social aspect, taking advantage of the possibilities offered by social networking sites, and making the web-gaming experience feel less isolated and more like a visit to Facebook.
Kongregate has some other inventive features that make it noteworthy. One of the reasons that many of Kongregate’s games seem to be of particularly high quality for free online fare is the support offered by the site. Kongregate has built in mechanics for game-sponsorship, so it is very common to see various websites sponsoring the game you are playing. This gives the site’s game developers more exposure and more opportunities than simply uploading the product of their hard work to a site that may not reward the author’s contribution.
Also, every game on Kongregate is given a percentage of the ad-revenue generated by the game, allowing indie developers a chance to make a few dollars off of their creations. Finally, the site’s users can purchase “Kreds,” which can be used to donate funds directly to game developers. Aspects like these further strengthen the community aspect of Kongregrate, ensuring people that quality games are rewarded, and giving community members the feeling that they are doing their part to help, all while having some fun.
The Several Journeys of Reemus
But it isn’t just developers that get special benefits from Kongregate; players have a chance too. While it isn’t fully worked out yet, as Kongregate is still in beta, the infrastructure for a points system is in place, whereby players gain badges and earn points for completing achievements and challenges. Points earned will increase your avatar’s “level,” and prizes and rewards for reaching high scores are being planned.
The Kreds I mentioned earlier can also be used to buy power-ups and virtual items, enhancing the experience for the player.
Social and reward features like these are what turn an experience with a website from a casual visit to a compelling and personal experience. Rewards, points, avatars and special achievements that are tracked and viewable by all other players give the site an integrated and professional feel, akin to using XBox Live.
Overall, Kongregate has some fun little games to play, but more importantly it also seems to be taking the next step in online gaming, towards a complete community-based form that will keep players interested and benefit designers at the same time.
My Impressons After a Few Weeks of Playing Call of Duty: World at War
December 5, 2008 by AshPringle
Filed under Video Games
Call Of Duty 4, released just over a year ago, has quickly climbed to the top of the very crowded first-person shooter hill to become one of the most popular games on Xbox Live. Call of Duty: World at War, a sort of half-sequel to CoD 4, brings more of the same experience, but may not make quite the same enormous splash that its predecessor did.
World at War shifts the setting from the modern battlefield of CoD 4 back to the World War II setting that the Call of Duty series was established on. The single player campaign takes an episodic format, putting you in the shoes of an American soldier for roughly one half of the game and a Russian soldier for the other half.
Each level has the same pacing and narrative of a scene from a movie, dropping you into battle situations with little background given, allowing to absorb the story firsthand as the action unfolds around you. Adding to the sense of immersion is the fact that there are no in-game cinematic sequences. Rather, all the special events that happen according to the pre-scripted story occur in real-time. For example, when a bomb goes off next to your character, rendering him incapacitated, there is no sudden loading screen or shift of view. Instead, your character might fall over and be dragged towards the next objective by a fellow soldier while you control only where you look. All of this occurs while the game maintains a first-person view. The seamless nature of these special events keeps things more interesting than most other first-person shooters, which tend to be light on in-game narrative.
World at War’s levels are only loosely related and sometimes seem to take place years apart in the chronology of the war. This gives the game the luxury of putting you into a wide variety of settings, from Japan to Russia to Germany, and ensures that you never get bored of the environments or situations.
Aiding the transitions from level to level are some very well crafted cut scenes, which are narrated, surprisingly, by Keifer Sutherland, who apparently took up videogame voice acting while the writers of 24 were on strike. These cut scenes establish the overall progress of the war, have some very nice stylized, retro graphics and authentic footage from the era, and give you the opportunity to be swept away by Mr. Sutherland’s rugged, gravelly voice. (More on that later.)
World at War’s gameplay and controls are inherited directly from CoD 4. There are different weapons obviously, which are all authentic World War II equipment, but they work just the same as in CoD 4. This is not necessarily a bad thing; CoD 4′s control scheme crammed a surprising number of actions onto the Xbox controller while still remaining intuitive and fast. Once the shallow learning curve for the controls is overcome it is a cinch to make your character bring his gun’s iron sights up to eye level, sprint, throw enemy grenades back or stab opponents. Anyone familiar with CoD 4 will be right at home in World at War.
Unfortunately, World at War also inherits many of the flaws of its predecessor. Navigating terrain, for example, can be very frustrating sometimes. Your character can easily get stuck on door frames or sand bags, and climbing over obstacles tends to be unnecessarily difficult at times. It is not uncommon for you to press A to climb over something only to have your character perform a feeble, ineffective jump, wasting valuable time and leaving you open to enemy fire. With some experience with the peculiar collision detection and character movement system these problems can usually be overcome, but this is no excuse for the sometimes clunky movement physics.
Another problem passed down from CoD 4 is the short length of the single player campaign. CoD 4′s campaign was intense and immersive, but only dished out a few hours of gameplay. World at War is no exception to this flaw, and its campaign can likely be finished in an afternoon. But, just as with its ancestor, the meat of World at War is not its single player campaign; most players will only be interested in World at War specifically for its multiplayer.
This is where the value of World at War becomes somewhat hard to assess. Like with the single player campaign, World at War’s multiplayer gameplay is essentially identical to CoD 4′s. Multiplayer is made up of a selection of different gameplay types, which are mostly team-based, such as Team Deathmatch and the capture-the-flag-like Domination.
Getting kills and accomplishing goals in multiplayer builds experience for your online persona, and as you gain levels you unlock new weapons, weapon add-ons, and perks. This format has been wildly successful for CoD 4, probably because it manages to combine the persistent and addictive progress-based gameplay of massively multiplayer online games with the visceral, instant gratification of a first-person shooter.
World at War mirrors this approach down to every detail, and while it makes for a new set of levels, weapons, gameplay types and accomplishments for players of CoD 4 to dig into, it also results in a multiplayer game that feels a bit derivative. For example, a unique aspects of CoD 4 was that you were rewarded for kill streaks with some powerful, temporary advantages. Three kills gave you a UAV, showing your opponents’ position on the radar, five kills gave an air-strike, and seven kills gave a helicopter that flew around wreaking havoc on anyone not behind cover. These advantages were tailored to the modern setting of CoD 4, with each one granting advantages that only modern technology could offer.
World at War, on the other hand, tries to cram these same gameplay mechanics into a World War II setting, to strange effect. The UAV is replaced with a recon plane, which can somehow see through roofs to expose your enemies and comes complete with futuristic green scan lines on your radar. Five kills now brings an artillery strike, which is actually very well implemented. But seven kills, the kill count reserved for the most powerful of battlefield weapons, now brings in… dogs. Many, many dogs.
These attack dogs run around the battlefield killing soldiers in two hits, barking as they go, and generally cause more damage than any machinegun ever could. It is a strange experience to play a war game full of explosives, automatic weapons and flamethrowers, only to find that the most feared weapon of all, and the most sought-after weapon for winning a fierce battle, is a pack of dogs. It is forced design decisions such as these and others that give the impression that a lot of World at War’s multiplayer features are tacked on.
Adding to the derivative feeling of World at War’s multiplayer aspects are some of the sound effects. Artillery strikes, while visually well-done, hiss like a band of banshees falling from the sky. This quiet, ghostly sound effect ends up being quite underwhelming, especially when contrasted with the powerful explosions it accompanies.
Finally, Keifer Sutherland’s voice acting, which accompanies you any time you play on the American team, lacks any sense of urgency whatsoever. While at first it is nice to hear a celebrity presence in a videogame, it quickly grows tiresome after the fifteenth time you hear Keifer unenthusiastically blurt out that Charlie has been taken by the enemy.
Despite these problems, World at War is still an undeniably good game, just as, or rather because of, Call of Duty 4. The very fact that I’ve been playing it for about 3 weeks now is proof of that. If you’ve never played Call of Duty 4, or have played loads of it and are jonesing for some new content, it is a no-brainer to pick up. But don’t expect anything ground-breaking or surprising, and if CoD 4 hasn’t already make you a fan of first-person shooters, you should probably pass.
PlaySEGA, Sega’s casual gaming site, goes online
December 5, 2008 by AshPringle
Filed under Video Games
Yesterday Sega launched the beta of PlaySEGA, an internet based gaming site that includes flash versions of various Sega titles, such as Sonic at the Olympic Games, as well as third party puzzle and arcade games.
Following the suit of Nintendo, whose family-friendly Wii has opened the gaming market up to an untapped demographic, and Microsoft, who recently updated the XBox Live interface to include personalized avatars much like Nintendo’s Miis, Sega seems to be looking to make their way into the new casual gamer market.
Signing up for PlaySEGA is free, and comes with an avatar that can be personalized by playing the selection of online games and accruing PlaySEGA “rings,” which are the site’s internal currency for buying new clothes, houses and other knick-knacks.
Sega has also announced that in the future they will be establishing a VIP only pay portion of the site, which will include exclusive content and is rumored to include classic games such as Sonic the Hedgehog and Chu Chu Rocket.
Nick Phil, the Network Business Director of Sega Europe seems excited about the future of PlaySEGA, saying, “What started off as a small project within the SEGA Network Group has now caught the imagination of the entire company. He continued, I have suggestions for new games filling up my in-box, from the CEO, to staff I’ve never even met over in our Japanese, European and US offices.”
Stumble It!