For years the battle has raged on, debate has come up time and time again, and countless lives are given to the age old question: Pirates vs. Ninja's. Well folks I am here to tell you. Pirates. Yes, I do tend to side with pirates (way before the movies but they were good anyway) and while you might feel the urge to call me a ninja-hater, I simply am stating the scientific facts that I have found. You might ask your self what facts? Scribblenauts. Now you're probably just asking yourself wtf is Scribblenauts, and that's what I am here to talk about.
I have a friend who runs an amazing Nintendo fan site, found over at GoNintendo. This is where I first heard Scribblenauts. It was probably around E3, or a bit sooner that GoNintendo started talking about the game almost every other day. I knew nothing of it other than, it was by a company called 5th Cell, and it had something to do with drawing or writing. The most fun drawing on the DS was had at PAX or midnight movie showings, would be to jump into a Pictochat (err DICTOchat) room...and draw dicks. Like that scene in Superbad, dicks galore would flood the innocent chat rooms. Ahh what fun times! But moving on...
So again around E3 I started hearing the buzz, and finally got my first taste of the game. The first video to pop up jaw dropped me. No this game doesn't have stunning graphics or game play that makes you melt, but what I saw was FUN. Pure fun. The first video explained the game, how it works, and what the purpose of our main character Maxwell is supposed to be doing as he treks across the Scribblenauts universe. But before I go into the video itself, I will explain how the game works, so that the later explanation makes a bit more sense.
So each level has a goal (as most games do). The goal is simple, in hindsight. Get the star or "starite" as the game refers to it. Sounds simple enough right? And that is where the fun begins. On the first stage, you can see it. Sitting high atop a tree, waiting to be caught and brought to the next level. But as you look around you notice that that is all you see. The sole tree and the star. In the top right hand corner you'll notice a notepad. When you click on that notepad, you have just entered a very steep slope. From this point you can pretty much type ANYTHING YOU WANT. There is exceptions, no copyrighted items (things such as Playstation 3 the like) no proper names, no drugs/alcohol/sexual items. They did include internet meme stuff such as icanhazcheezburger cat and other shit like that. Other than those restrictions, anything that you can think of, you can spawn. You in turn use these items to help our main character Maxwell get the starite. Now not every level is just a star in a tree. As they go on the puzzle's get more complex and more fun. And that is pretty much the whole game. I will get into detail in part 2 of this review about how big the word data bank is (rough number 20,000 I have read), really this first part is just to set up the game, and my experience with it thus far.
With that, the first video we were treated to was simple. Creative designer Jeremiah Slaczka showed us a simple glimpse into what kind of fun you can have with this game. So the star is sitting on top of the tree, he types in something simple like "lumberjack." Instantly on screen a little lumberjack pops up and is grabbed by the stylus and placed on the ground near Maxwell. Next he typed in either axe or chainsaw, and explained how we shouldn't have to do it since we have a lumberjack here. He drags the item over the guy, he glows blue, and a second later is off hacking down the tree. Starite falls, Maxwell grabs it and all is well. I thought ok that was pretty cool, lets see what else you can do! What I saw next would make me laugh out loud at work, probably scaring the crap out of co-workers. In a sequence of events, Jeremiah spawns first the Cthulhu. This giant monster starts trouncing the level, taking aim at Maxwell ready to kill him dead. In quick response, Jeremiah spawns "God"...and he actually appears. I was like ok that is A.) fucking hilarious and B.) awesome. He proceeds to put God on a skateboard, give him a shotgun and send him into battle with the Cthulhu. Naturally he kills him. What does this have to do with getting the star? Well nothing, but it was hilarious. It really was just to show us what kind of depth this game could have.
Immediately my mind began racing. What can I make? What are they going to include? Can we make elaborate ways to get the stars down with tons of items in a Mouse Trap style contraption? He briefly explained that one person got the star down by spawning a Unicycle, board, ramp, hat and glue (glue is a cool item that I will get into later). He put the hat on, glue on the hat, glued the board to the hat, rode the unicycle up the ramp and head butted the star out the tree. Once again the endless possibilites that this game could offer danced in front of me so close, but so far out of reach thanks to a lengthy time between my first viewing and its release date.
The game would haunt me for a good while after that first taste. I kept seeing other videos, other commentaries on what people thought of the game. Was it too expansive? Was it to big for a single company to take on? Would the DS be able to harness the vastness of this game? Closer to its release it became more apparent that the guys at 5th Cell had a hit on their hands. The game won Overall Game of Show at E3, clearly showing up console games such as Mass Effect 2 and Uncharted 2. The stage was set to be huge. In both terms of its popularity and its data.
Thanks for reading folks!
-Nerdsbeware out
Monday, September 21, 2009
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Welcome to Character Customization
Welcome!
So as you probably know, I run another blog called My Three Cents. I wanted that blog to be all about everything entertainment, IE gaming, movies, music, tv etc etc. Well out of all of those topics, the one that I spend the majority of my time doing is playing games. May it be video, board, card or table top, I love gaming plain and simple. In an effort to keep clutter down, I took out the "gaming" part of MTC and started a gaming blog. So with this, I welcome you to Spawn Point.
So a few topics I want to cover in this introductory post. First of which being PAX or for those not familiar, the Penny Arcade Expo. And for those few who some how blindly found their way to a gaming blog and do not know what Penny Arcade is (shame tsk tsk) well look no further than Penny Arcade. Web comics about gaming/pop culture for and by gamers.
Every year since 2004, Seattle Washington opens it's flood gates for thousands of nerds to come be with other nerds, and engage in nerdy things. Most of which pertain to gaming of all sorts. I had the pleasure of heading out there for PAX '09 with a bunch of friends this year. I was a PAX virgin, even more to the point, I was a convention virgin. I had never been to such things, but only watched online or TV coverage and wished I was there. I wont go into detail about the show itself other than it was amazingly fun and I can't wait for their first east coast iteration in March 2010. For those who want a good overview of the 3 days of gaming heaven head over to EVE Newb (great stories from/about EVE Online). I got to go hands on with a few games, as well as check out a few others and overall I was really impressed with what I saw. But two games stood out amongst the rest.
Diablo III
Nothing was more rewarding, joyful, saddening and awesome as getting a total of 5-7 minutes playing Diablo III. We walked past the Blizzard area numerous times over the three days that we were there. Trying to get glimpses of Starcraft II or Diablo III as well was WoW: Cataclysm (that will be touched on in a WHOLE other post folks!). Each time we contemplated waiting in line, thinking how great it was going to be to get our hands on DIII, we walked away. There was to much to see, to much to do and not really enough time, even with three days, to stand in line for 30 minutes for just a sliver of playtime. Finally on the final day of the convention, we said screw it. I stood next to my friend, thinking I would just watch him play and we could both later muse over the cooler points of the demo, when like a shining ray of light, pointed straight from God's finger himself shone down on the line. People got bored. There was now only one person in between my friend and where that brilliant light hit. Not soon after I was at the computer station, headphones on, choosing my character. Barbarian...lets roll.
The small glimpse of the game that I got to experience was great. First thing that everyone, even my girlfriend who has played all of 10 minutes of Diablo II, noticed was that the graphics were infinitely greater than its last chapter. It's has been almost 10 years since II came out, so thankfully they have used the newest graphics/3D engines to improve. Also thank god for no more 800 x 600 resolution. Man was that brutal. The game play mechanics are the same. Still the same old hack and slash game that we all came to love. I only got to play about five minutes of the game, but from what I can tell they have made A LOT of improvements. Better use of inventory space, and now a new way to quick switch between attacks with the tab key are great. Some of the things I didn't like...they are making the game a bit to WoW-centric. Little things like the way the talent tree's are laid out and the way you pick up quests just remind me a bit of WoW. I mean I can't complain, I like the change in how you get quests, its less cut and paste walk into town and get a quest and now more of as you happen to be questing, you pick up another quest on the way. Again I am jogging my memory since PAX was 2 weeks ago and so much happened and 5 minutes of play just wasn't enough to really get a feel for the game.
The feeling I do get from the game...it is going to be god damn amazing.
Bioshock 2
Bioshock was the reason I got an Xbox 360. The game was awesome. I mean it didn't redefine the FPS genre, but it sure did give it a swift kick in the ass. The way it mixed "special powers" along with normal weapons and guns just worked perfectly. The mechanics in the game blew me away. The first time I lit a Splicer on fire and he ran into the water to put it out...to which I blasted the water with electricty and he fried to death, was jaw dropping. The setting of Rapture just pulled me in as well. I remember walking through a cooridor, looking outside and seeing a whale swim past and actually saying to myself "holy shit...this is awesome." One encounter with a Big Daddy had me laughing and replaying the fight over and over for at least an hour. I had set up a trap with the trip-wire explosive arrow things in between two poles kinda high up. The Daddy came lumbering down the stairs and I took out my machine gun, fired a couple rounds into his face and here he comes. On the ground is a gas tank. As he passes the tank, I fire at it. The explosion launches him into the air - more so into the trip wires. Another explosion, this time its from the top. The 2nd blast smashed him face first into the ground . I couldn't stop laughing. Needless to say as the release date of Bioshock approached quickly, I cleared my gaming schedule, and freed up space on my hard drive. Bioshock, to this date, is the only game I have finished all the way on my 360. I usually get bored with the same game, and seeing as I have a Wii/DS/360 and PC games I always have SOMETHING to be playing so my gaming attention span is short.
There was no hands on game play of Bioshock 2, but we were ushered into a small tent where a video was playing. It gave us some background on the game, like how you are playing as the first Big Daddy, and now work with the Little Sisters to get your Adam fix. You got to see how being a Daddy has it's advantages such as using a giant ass drill to scare the crap out of Splicers, but still being able use your plasmids. And what would a Bioshock game be without crazy tough villains...The Big Sister. From the video the Big Sister's look like super tweaked out, geared up Splicer out for blood. As the video played and we got to see our first encounter with a Big Sister one of the developers voice played over explaining to us all about the new additions to Rapture. They added more plasmids, newer enemies, unexplored areas of Rapture and more morality choices. Again it was just a short video, but from what I saw, I got just as excited as the first time I swam to the abandoned lighthouse among the fiery wreck that was my plane.
So while I could go on for hours and pages more about all the cool stuff I saw, but I'm going to wrap it up. How ever there was one game I really wanted to play aside from Diablo II, and that was Scribblenauts. I got to play it, but since the game came out on Tuesday, I'm saving it for a whole other post. There is too much going on in that game to try to put into a few paragraphs.
So this brings our time to a close. Once again, thanks for coming and reading, feel free to leave comments questions or anything else!
So as you probably know, I run another blog called My Three Cents. I wanted that blog to be all about everything entertainment, IE gaming, movies, music, tv etc etc. Well out of all of those topics, the one that I spend the majority of my time doing is playing games. May it be video, board, card or table top, I love gaming plain and simple. In an effort to keep clutter down, I took out the "gaming" part of MTC and started a gaming blog. So with this, I welcome you to Spawn Point.
So a few topics I want to cover in this introductory post. First of which being PAX or for those not familiar, the Penny Arcade Expo. And for those few who some how blindly found their way to a gaming blog and do not know what Penny Arcade is (shame tsk tsk) well look no further than Penny Arcade. Web comics about gaming/pop culture for and by gamers.
Every year since 2004, Seattle Washington opens it's flood gates for thousands of nerds to come be with other nerds, and engage in nerdy things. Most of which pertain to gaming of all sorts. I had the pleasure of heading out there for PAX '09 with a bunch of friends this year. I was a PAX virgin, even more to the point, I was a convention virgin. I had never been to such things, but only watched online or TV coverage and wished I was there. I wont go into detail about the show itself other than it was amazingly fun and I can't wait for their first east coast iteration in March 2010. For those who want a good overview of the 3 days of gaming heaven head over to EVE Newb (great stories from/about EVE Online). I got to go hands on with a few games, as well as check out a few others and overall I was really impressed with what I saw. But two games stood out amongst the rest.
Diablo III
Nothing was more rewarding, joyful, saddening and awesome as getting a total of 5-7 minutes playing Diablo III. We walked past the Blizzard area numerous times over the three days that we were there. Trying to get glimpses of Starcraft II or Diablo III as well was WoW: Cataclysm (that will be touched on in a WHOLE other post folks!). Each time we contemplated waiting in line, thinking how great it was going to be to get our hands on DIII, we walked away. There was to much to see, to much to do and not really enough time, even with three days, to stand in line for 30 minutes for just a sliver of playtime. Finally on the final day of the convention, we said screw it. I stood next to my friend, thinking I would just watch him play and we could both later muse over the cooler points of the demo, when like a shining ray of light, pointed straight from God's finger himself shone down on the line. People got bored. There was now only one person in between my friend and where that brilliant light hit. Not soon after I was at the computer station, headphones on, choosing my character. Barbarian...lets roll.
The small glimpse of the game that I got to experience was great. First thing that everyone, even my girlfriend who has played all of 10 minutes of Diablo II, noticed was that the graphics were infinitely greater than its last chapter. It's has been almost 10 years since II came out, so thankfully they have used the newest graphics/3D engines to improve. Also thank god for no more 800 x 600 resolution. Man was that brutal. The game play mechanics are the same. Still the same old hack and slash game that we all came to love. I only got to play about five minutes of the game, but from what I can tell they have made A LOT of improvements. Better use of inventory space, and now a new way to quick switch between attacks with the tab key are great. Some of the things I didn't like...they are making the game a bit to WoW-centric. Little things like the way the talent tree's are laid out and the way you pick up quests just remind me a bit of WoW. I mean I can't complain, I like the change in how you get quests, its less cut and paste walk into town and get a quest and now more of as you happen to be questing, you pick up another quest on the way. Again I am jogging my memory since PAX was 2 weeks ago and so much happened and 5 minutes of play just wasn't enough to really get a feel for the game.
The feeling I do get from the game...it is going to be god damn amazing.
Bioshock 2
Bioshock was the reason I got an Xbox 360. The game was awesome. I mean it didn't redefine the FPS genre, but it sure did give it a swift kick in the ass. The way it mixed "special powers" along with normal weapons and guns just worked perfectly. The mechanics in the game blew me away. The first time I lit a Splicer on fire and he ran into the water to put it out...to which I blasted the water with electricty and he fried to death, was jaw dropping. The setting of Rapture just pulled me in as well. I remember walking through a cooridor, looking outside and seeing a whale swim past and actually saying to myself "holy shit...this is awesome." One encounter with a Big Daddy had me laughing and replaying the fight over and over for at least an hour. I had set up a trap with the trip-wire explosive arrow things in between two poles kinda high up. The Daddy came lumbering down the stairs and I took out my machine gun, fired a couple rounds into his face and here he comes. On the ground is a gas tank. As he passes the tank, I fire at it. The explosion launches him into the air - more so into the trip wires. Another explosion, this time its from the top. The 2nd blast smashed him face first into the ground . I couldn't stop laughing. Needless to say as the release date of Bioshock approached quickly, I cleared my gaming schedule, and freed up space on my hard drive. Bioshock, to this date, is the only game I have finished all the way on my 360. I usually get bored with the same game, and seeing as I have a Wii/DS/360 and PC games I always have SOMETHING to be playing so my gaming attention span is short.
There was no hands on game play of Bioshock 2, but we were ushered into a small tent where a video was playing. It gave us some background on the game, like how you are playing as the first Big Daddy, and now work with the Little Sisters to get your Adam fix. You got to see how being a Daddy has it's advantages such as using a giant ass drill to scare the crap out of Splicers, but still being able use your plasmids. And what would a Bioshock game be without crazy tough villains...The Big Sister. From the video the Big Sister's look like super tweaked out, geared up Splicer out for blood. As the video played and we got to see our first encounter with a Big Sister one of the developers voice played over explaining to us all about the new additions to Rapture. They added more plasmids, newer enemies, unexplored areas of Rapture and more morality choices. Again it was just a short video, but from what I saw, I got just as excited as the first time I swam to the abandoned lighthouse among the fiery wreck that was my plane.
So while I could go on for hours and pages more about all the cool stuff I saw, but I'm going to wrap it up. How ever there was one game I really wanted to play aside from Diablo II, and that was Scribblenauts. I got to play it, but since the game came out on Tuesday, I'm saving it for a whole other post. There is too much going on in that game to try to put into a few paragraphs.
So this brings our time to a close. Once again, thanks for coming and reading, feel free to leave comments questions or anything else!
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