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(11/12/15 5:05am)
There’s a joke from 2008 about how two games, “Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots”and “Fallout 3,” both opened with gruff old guys talking about war. The joke is in the fact that “Metal Gear Solid 4” wanted us to know about how “war has changed,” and repeated that line several times in its introduction, whereas “Fallout 3” was emphatic about how “war never changes.” Well, in 2015, “Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain” and “Fallout 4” were both released two months apart, and “Fallout 4” still opens with a monologue about how war never changes.
(10/22/15 4:36am)
“Downwell” is a new game for iPhone, iPad and PC that respects your time, your intelligence and your ability. In “Downwell,” the player controls a small white blob who hops into a deep, dark pit. The game is a platform action game, like an old “Mario” game, except the player’s only destination is down; the blob uses boots which shoot bullets to protect itself from rude bubbles, vicious bats, spooky ghosts and other monster baddies by either hopping on their heads or shooting them. By wiping out baddies and going into treasure rooms, the blob collects spare health, alternate weapons, spare charges for the gun-boots and gems which can be used at shops to buy health and charges.
(10/12/15 2:40am)
While making my slow exploration through the uncharted “Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain,” I’ve also been watching “Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots” with my partner. The Metal Gear Solid games are subtitled “Tactical Espionage Action,” a title which betrays its political edge, stealth-action gameplay and its total pretension. The series is named for a ridiculous bipedal mechanical suit, designed after the rise of Mecha anime in the ’80s, one supposedly representing total military superiority because “it can launch a nuke from anywhere.” It’s also a series which has featured cyborg ninjas, a Russian commando who shoots bees out of his arms, a terrorist named Revolver “Shalashaska” Ocelot and a severed arm which, attached to said Revolver Ocelot, takes over his entire personality with that of the deceased.
(09/24/15 5:39am)
The first day of fall each year, I make sure I indulge in a pumpkin spice latte and let the season have me. No other season grabs me like fall; spring’s start is nebulous, and I somewhat scorn winter and summer. I regard autumn with new music, new attitude and my indulgent, overrated elixir of what I’ve been known to describe as liquid gold. Soon, we’ll have apple cider, Halloween costumes, nude trees.
(09/17/15 6:50am)
This weekend marks the release of “Super Mario Maker,” Nintendo’s celebration of the 30th anniversary of its long-running franchise. The game is primarily a level editor, using accessible yet powerful tools so that anyone from our mothers to expert game designers could design the Mario levels of their dreams. The game pulls in ideas, characters, enemies, obstacles and platforms from four Mario side-scrolling releases, meaning those who “grew up with a different game” will likely see themselves represented in the tools.
(04/28/15 5:11am)
I find myself often stymied when considering how to write about games. Not truly permeated into the mainstream (though advocates will herald the “Call of Duty” series’ gross as “larger than Hollywood”) I find myself often simply justifying the thought I put into the medium. Yet the games themselves and the subtexts they contain is enough to merit study as a form of literature, akin to the study of cinema and television.
(04/15/15 3:54am)
The sensation that everything has been done is common and overwhelming in art. Games currently are experiencing a massive and overwhelming version of this issue; with a lack of successful non-sequel games on our brick-and-mortar marketplaces, we find ourselves lauding iterative improvements, such as the blue-shell-stopping horn in “Mario Kart 8” or the Sky-Hook in “BioShock Infinite.” This is neither an abnormal nor a bad thing; artistic evolution comes slowly and less focus on innovation allows for expression and execution to come to the fore. It’s also a generalization ignoring those games with drastically new gameplay styles like the independent games “Sportsfriends” or “Mini Metro.”
(03/03/15 5:23am)
In the midst of new voices joining the video game space, the underperformers of the past have been forced to make room in the market. After years of commercial underperformance and failed expectations, some of the game industry’s most visible creators are forced to cede their roles to fresh faces.
(02/10/15 3:12am)
It’s been a year since I downloaded the beta client for Blizzard Entertainment’s card game, “Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft,” based upon the MMORPG that stole lives before it. To quickly summarize, it’s a game quite like Magic: The Gathering, in which two players build decks of disparate types and work to eliminate each other. The mechanics are simple, but the cards are numerous, allowing depth and long-term variety beyond the game’s simple randomly drawn card system.
(02/10/15 3:12am)
Months away from GeekCon, Madison finally has a spring fan convention of its own. The Wizard World Comic Con came through Madison this past weekend, bringing a slew of vendors and celebrities into the Alliant Energy Center convention hall. Walking in, a young girl called out to her father, “You’re breaking the law! You can’t be both Superman and Batman!” It set the tone for a sweet event.
(01/27/15 5:42am)
The current value of American art to its curators is to be ranked and categorized for "Best of the Year" consideration, to find its way into a gallery or museum or to "go viral." We have made art a competition. This is not true, though it is permitted. The last time I saw my roommate from my freshman year, we discussed 2014's Games of the Year, a tradition we've reduced in scope since 2010. We came to concordance upon Blizzard's collectible card game "Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft," a game we've each played for countless hours. Rather than discuss its nuances or celebrate our other favorites, he proceeded to list off the year's releases and determined whether or not we had enjoyed each before we parted.
(11/20/14 4:43am)
“How on earth did we manage to play those games with the annoying beep-boop music on repeat?” That’s the question I was met with while discussing NES (Nintendo Entertainment System) games with a classmate of mine. It’s true classic games like “Bubble Bobble” and “Space Harrier” had tracks that looped for far too long; even games with multiple memorable themes, like “Metroid” or “The Legend of Zelda,” have 60-second loops that might extend upwards of 20 minutes, depending on your skill.
(11/10/14 3:29am)
“Super Smash Brothers” fans are having a nice November. Beyond the proliferation of copies of the Nintendo 3DS release of the game last month (3DS owners in Madison will have noticed a massive uptick in “StreetPasses,” the ad-hoc networking system that lets 3DS users pass each other game information), the new title launches Nov. 21 on the Wii U with incredible graphics, the same improved gameplay featured in the 3DS version and an expanded roster.
(10/27/14 4:40am)
The two newest video game consoles, the Xbox One and the PlayStation 4, are somewhat lacking in games you can play with your friends. The PlayStation 4 actually has numerous great titles, but they mostly run the gamut of smaller independent titles. I recommend the excellent “Nidhogg,” “TowerFall Ascension” and “Sportsfriends.” While all three together cost less than a $60 retail game, they also don’t look like games one might expect to see on powerful new game consoles—“Towerfall” and “Nidhogg” both utilize the pixel art graphical style from the medium’s early days, and “Sportsfriends” combines pixel art with an animated cartoon aesthetic.
(10/20/14 3:46am)
Deadly Premonition,” a game inspired by “Twin Peaks,” remains one of the gaming world’s most underplayed entries. Released in the U.S. in 2010 as a budget title with mediocre box art, its often hideous graphics, and its mixed reviews running the gamut from “pretty close to perfect” to “awful in nearly every way,” the mystery-as-life-sim title has almost been washed from gaming’s history.
(10/13/14 3:22am)
A war on the people who have the audacity to make budget-priced or free, independent games that represent characters other than grizzled white dudes has been ongoing since August. Their games push back against the idea that games must be power fantasies, whether the power in place is the ownership of a vehicle worth millions or being an individual assassin striking terror in the hearts of the orcs of Middle Earth. Most, if not all, of these games are pretty easy to acquire, run on your college laptop, and cost $20 or less.
(10/06/14 3:07am)
I’ve been playing Nintendo’s new life sim, “Tomodachi Life,” since a couple weeks after its release in June. To summarize, the game gives the player use of the Mii creation system—the same one used to make the avatars who populate Wii Sports—to create residents in an apartment complex on a resort island. The game encourages you to create your friends, your family, or your favorite celebrities. A handful have signed on to provide their likenesses; official Wayne Brady, Zendaya and Christina Aguilera Miis are easy to find online, and a commercial displays Shaq and Shaun White Miis tasting some of the food in the game.
(09/29/14 5:21am)
Some might say that beginning my residency as The Daily Cardinal’s video games columnist with an editorial on a mobile game is inauspicious. But amidst the several titles entangling me, none pull as much focus as the stark “Desert Golfing.” Described by iOS developer Adam Atomic (“Canabalt,” “Hundreds”) as “the ‘Dark Souls’ of ‘Angry Birds’”—perhaps the most absurd form of description, akin to the constant ringing question begging, “When will video games have their “Citizen Kane” moment?,” whatever that means—it is a spare experience that closely evokes the beloved RPG’s unforgiving indifference.