VenusGaming

It’s the holidays, so things are relatively quiet in the gaming world and busy elsewhere. So here’s a few more games to waste some internet time with:

Totem Destroyer

The best thing I can compare this to Daruma 7 for those of you who watch the Unbeatable Banzuke. For those who don’t, think Jenga. Kinda.

Factory Balls

An interesting game, where you’re given a set of tools, a ball, and a specific pattern/product to make.

Matter

Online Tanagrams. Rock on.

Guess The Google

My favorite of the day. Guess the Google shows you twenty top images from Google search results. Your job is to guess what the keyword is that would have turned up the images! You have 10 rounds, and 20 seconds each round to guess the correct answer. Some are easy, some are difficult, but the game is surprisingly fun. My last round had the key word “mullet.”

Hope your holidays have been fruitful and fun!

MMO-Champion’s BlueTracker caught my eye today, with a topic from the English (NA) forums titled “Stop Appealing to Casuals.” In it, the original poster argues that “I can literally roll my face on the keyboard and take away epics. . . As it stands, a brainless chimpanzee could play this game and complete all the PvE content.” Ouch for the obvious exaggeration.

However, I’m going to side with Zarhym on this. WoW has certainly become easier to play as it’s progressed from the original game to its second expansion. However, that doesn’t mean the game has become easier, muchless mindless to play (nor is it fair to imply that casual gamers are simple-minded retards that don’t understand basic video game concepts.)

I think it’s fairer to say that WoW has become easier to understand for casual players; however, it has retained all the min/maxing, theorycrafting glory that has kept hardcore players intrigued. Nor has game play simplified itself to face-meet-keyboard; after four years, WoW players are still running into tanks who don’t know how to keep aggro or taunt, hunters who don’t know how to trap, rogues with no lockpicking skills, and warlocks who use soulshatter at the beginning of a fight before even starting DPS.

I think Zarhym said it best: “I would assume a game would primarily be something fun and engaging that exercises the body or mind.” What constitutes “fun” and “engaging” is different to different people. Casuals may prefer hanging out with friends, exploring the land, being part of the lore; hardcores may prefer the challenge of beating heroic raids at 2am in the morning on 8 cups of coffee and a few Red Bulls. If you aren’t finding that enjoyment, then the game no longer offers something for you, and your playstyle. But that isn’t necessarily the game designer’s fault; no game can appeal to every man.

Personally? I’m still loving the game and think it has plenty of challenges and fun to offer. I’m impressed and pleased by what’s already come my way, and I’m only 74 at the highest. I think WoW has at least this expansion to live out before it falls to the wayside.

Provox Games/Dreamatrix Studios has revealed a fantasy 3-D Action-RPG under development: Legends of Dawn (web site still under construction.) According to the developer, the game will have a “dynamic” quest system, an expansive game world, and a world editor. Characters can be Human, Elf, or Danian, and may select from multiple professions, skills, and abilities.

Provox Games is a Croatian developer, and has such games as Space Force: Rogue Universe, The Ward, Hinter Gittern I and II, and Chaos Warriors.

Unfortunately, the game appears to be very generic so far, although the following art piece is fairly disturbing:

I’m hoping that isn’t the Danian race. I’m afraid it is, though.

Tabula Rasa , Richard Garriott’s (of Ultima fame) sci-fi MMO step-child, will be shutting down on February 28th, per the official announcement on their web page. It will become free to play on January 10th until its shut down date - I suppose as an invitation for everyone to see why no one was paying for it to begin with. Surprisingly, it has a GameRankings score of 79% .

Of course, our knight of shining armor, Lord Garriott, bailed out of NCSoft only ten days ago, citing his interest in space. Well, I’m glad he enjoyed his tour of space that cost him over $30 million dollars of fan’s cash. Personally, I hope this latest adventure in his series of recent failures teaches him to leave the gaming industry alone now.

As a female gamer, I like to see female heroines in games. I’m not the kind of person who gets upset if she doesn’t have a woman character to play, but I do like to see developed female characters nonetheless. Unfortunately, a lot of female heroines are fitting stereotypes that they need to break out of. Here’s what I’d like to see in a heroine:

• A woman who doesn’t need a dashing man at any point in the story - but isn’t a man hater.
• Small, or medium, sized breasts, sans balloon physics.
• An imperfect figure.
• Something exotic: skin color, accent, hair style.
• Clothes that aren’t skin-tight, form-fitting, or impressively revealing.
• A sense of humor and charm.

Of course, I’d also like to see depth of character, but that is something that anyone wants in any main character. I think the art of creating believable female video game characters is still coming into focus, after a male-centric focus on the industry for so long. Here’s to the future.

Oh PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals), how you continue to puzzle and disturb me.

Because Cooking Mama does not offer a vegetarian only game version - and because killing animals for food is violent and murderous - PETA decided to release its own unauthorized version of Cooking Mama: Mama Kills Animals. Now, I was diligent: I played through the whole thing. Did you know, according to PETA:

Dead Turkeys still have blood in them after slaughter - so they bleed when their feathers are plucked, when you take out their organs, when you cut their head off, etc?

Blood and feathers come out of eggs when you crack them?

Giblet gravy often has a problem with feet, feathers, bones, and other strange objects getting in it?

… yeah. So after three stages of making a bloody, nasty looking turkey dinner, you redeem Mama and help her make Tofu Turkey. Yaaaaay. Your reward (besides videos and the encouragement to pledge to be veg?):

Frightening.

Look, PETA: Just because there are many poorly sustained meat producing practices out there, does not mean that ALL meat production is poorly sustained. Nor does it mean that meat is, somehow, inhumane. I’m sorry darlings, but if you know that we evolved from apes, then you know that being omnivorous is in our blood. And for you to take it to a simple, friendly little cooking game just makes me laugh.

Note: I’m not opposed to vegetarianism.  I’m opposed to PETA’s inaccurate representation of the consumption of meat, and the idea that eating meat is inhumane.

Today, Square Enix launched the official (Japanese) page for Blood of Bahamut, which includes a game play trailer as well as screen shots. My first impression is of a Shadow of the Colossus RPG-cross for the DS, and I’m not far off.

Bahamut features over 130 missions, 7 heroes, and great beasts which were once the foundations of cities of the world of Altail. Combat appears to be a real time RPG-style combat system, and both DS screens are used to capitalize on the size of the creations. It also appears that you must fight your way close to the colossi that you face, and combat against these beasts seems to be a combination of typical attacks and the interactive climb-and-destroy that we saw in Shadow of the Colossus a while ago.

image courtesy of IGN

No release date’s available yet. But you can be sure that this is a game I’m going to get. Shadow of the Colossus was a favorite game of mine, although I haven’t picked it up since my “oops, forgot to save after beating the game” mishap. Combine that with my favorite hand-held system, and good things are bound to happen.

Ladies and gentlemen, it may be known by some of you that I am just as passionate about food as I am video games. So when food and video games are combined, my interest is intrigued.

So Personal Trainer: Cooking is of course, a fun little thing to introduce. The game is essentially an interactive self-help manual on how to cook, and comes with enough recipes to fill a cookbook. It even has voice command capability to keep your white DS Lite neat and tidy.

What isn’t expected is the way that Nintendo of America is introducing the title : by a cooking spree/cookoff reminiscent of Iron Chef.  That’s right, ladies and gentlemen: get your DS handy, because the competitors get to race through a grocery store to locate all the ingredients they need for one of the meals featured in Personal Trainer: Cooking, and then the two fastest shoppers get to have a cook-off to determine whose cuisine reigns supreme!

And none other than David Ruprecht is hosting the event. Good times. I used to watch Supermarket Sweep when I was younger.

Hopefully video of the event will make its way to the public. It’s got to be good.

Wrath of the Lich King, World of Warcraft’s second expansion, has officially launched. But on the eve of its launch - that is, Tuesday, the dreaded maintenance day - the Lich King had other plans for the World of Warcraft servers.

During its routine maintenance yesterday, Blizzard found an error with the in game mailing system, causing players to lose all mail in their inbox. In an effort to fix the problem, they extended maintenance, but were unable to restore the mail system. Finally, they gave up and allowed the servers back online, while continuing to work out the problem behind the scenes. [source]

When the servers came up after over 12 hours of downtime, thrifty players soon discovered that for many classes, their S2 gear had no cost (and there were also a few accessories as well.) In haste, all levels began rushing to their PvP halls to grab their free epics. Battling the trade and general channels were the “Get your free epics here!” heralds and the “Don’t omg you’ll get banned!” police. For a number of hours, Blizzard stayed silent on the subject - probably too busy pressing their faces to the desk - but then decided to bring down the servers for another three hours at 4 am Pacific to reverse all PvP purchases while the cost was wrong for items. Naturally, Blizzard promised a refund for anyone who bought items legitimately with honor and marks; unfortunately, only the honor and arena points were refunded, the marks were still missing.

Blizzard has come forward and offered a 1-day gametime compensation for all the problems, at least. I can only imagine how many people were working yesterday at Blizzard, cursing about Murphy’s law and offering sacrifices to the gaming gods that their expansion would launch OK tonight. So far, so good, Blizz. But if a Death Knight knocks on your door late at night, don’t open it. Trust me.

Here’s another group of games to waste time with on the internet.

The Eyeballing Game

A game for math nerds and accuracy freaks alike, this game tests your spatial accuracy in 7 categories. Those who did well in geometry class will probably do well here!

Fantastic Contraption

Remember The Incredible Machine years ago? Well, this isn’t a Rube Goldberg, but it is a physics game in which you build contraptions to reach the goal. You can also share levels and contraptions. Definitely a nerd favorite.

Go Go Plant 2

Play story mode first to understand how strange this game really is. Despite being strange, it’s a really fun twist on an arcade game.