Tuesday Question Time: Boldly Going There

     Star Trek Online started the online beta testing phase today. Beta keys are available from all sorts of places, and you can keep a lookout at the official site for info on getting one.

Will you be one of the ones to boldly go? Or will you wait for retail?

Perhaps more importantly: Does this game hold any interest for you at all?

     I won’t lie. The idea sounds pretty intriguing to me. I’ve always enjoyed the MMO model of game play. To see that a company is finding a way to work the Tank/Healer/DPS mold into star ships sounds a whole lot better than what I envisioned when I initially heard the game was being released. The only question is whether or not those mechanics work well when dealing with ships as opposed to characters. I’m easy to please though. As long as they don’t put in a healing ability called “Live Long and Prosper” I’ll be fine with it.

     Star Trek has a very deep and complex universe that fits very well with an MMO. If the designers pull it off right there could be a lot of great fan service snuck in there to keep the diehard trekkies happy (which I understand isn’t very easy).

     So what say you all? Are you in? Or are you too busy staring at the back catalog that the Fall 2009 and Winter/Spring 2010 are giving you?

Stay Casual!

Stephen

www.casualbychoice.wordpress.com

Browser Based Game of The Week: Elona Shooter

 

     Ok.  I have a confession to make.  A huge portion of my time recently has been spent playing on Kongregate. We’re talking wall to wall browser based casual games divided by category.  It seems like every day I dig a little deeper and find a new treasure to spend some time with. Most recently I’ve been spending a lot of time with the various tower defense games on there. BUT, while that was going on I stumbled blindly into Elona Shooter. I couldn’t possibly be more pleased.

     Elona Shooter plays out a lot like other left to right defense games. Enemies stream in waves towards you home base and you have to use the tools at your disposal to stop them. Here you do this by aiming a gun/bow/bow gun (Yes, I said Bow Gun)with a mouse controlled reticule. Over time you earn coins to upgrade your castle and hire CPU controlled party members. You can even buy an upgrade where your little sister runs onto the field with a bomb to blow up for you!

     Anyone looking for a chance to blow some random things up while defending a castle you don’t really care about (while having a WHOLE lot of fun) should give this one a look!

Stay Casual,

Stephen

www.casualbychoice.wordpress.com

No Cheetah Jokes! EA is Keeping Tiger Woods

EA Sports made things official In a letter published on a corporate blog January 5th, 2010 by EA President Peter Moore. They will NOT be dropping Tiger Woods. Despite several other sponsors electing to pull their endorsement deals EA Sports has decided to not only maintain their endorsement, but will be releasing a new online golf title with Tiger Woods at the masthead.  The game is currently in a closed beta phase of development and will be moving into open beta within a few weeks. It’s title is: Tiger Woods PGA Tour Online (How… creative. SD)

Moore made it clear in his letter that EA Sports is built around making realistic sports simulations. Their focus on the sport of golf itself seems to make his personal missteps irrelevant. In his own words Moore states:

Our relationship with Tiger has always been rooted in golf.  We didn’t form a relationship with him so that he could act as an arm’s length endorser. Far from it.  We chose to partner with Tiger in 1997 because we saw him as the world’s best, most talented and exciting golfer.  We struck that partnership with the assumption that he would remain near or at the top of his sport for years to come.

By his own admission, he’s made some mistakes off the course.  But regardless of what’s happening in his personal life, and regardless of his decision to take a personal leave from the sport, Tiger Woods is still one of the greatest athletes in history.

Personally, I applaud their decision. The Tiger Woods name has been a blessing for their PGA Tour Golf series since he was added. Their sales were typically stagnant, and now they sell quite well. To drop his name would likely send their sales back where they were (which would cause quite a drop in operating income). I don’t see how this online game would fare any differently. I would almost bet that his name remaining on the title might even generate MORE interest because of all the hype being built up around ES Sports’ maintained endorsement.

What do you all think? Are you signing up for PGA Tour Online? Are you boycotting the series? Or is this just business as usual?

Stay Casual,

Stephen

www.casualbychoice.wordpress.com

source

My Wish List for The Video Game Industry for 2010

Hype has being building around the coming year for the last few weeks now. I’ve seen several sources refer to the coming year as “the best year in gaming ever.” I’m not willing to bank on that just yet, but considering Q1 of 2010 includes Bioshock 2, God of War III, Final Fantasy XIII, Dante’s Inferno, Red Dead Redemption and Gran Turismo 5 (with the rest of the year looking pretty good too) I’m not willing to write it off either. Even considering everything I have heard I still have a list of things I would like to see either in 2010 or beyond. Without further ado here we go:

• A good movie tie-in game to go along with Iron Man 2 – When the next Iron Man movie is released in the theatres it will very likely be accompanied by a typical hack of a tie-in game. My completely unrealistic wish is that the game to go along with a movie that will likely redefine my entire existence should do the exact same thing. Sadly, As we all know, that is not even a remote possibility. (But, hey, a man can have dreams right?)

• Earthbound on the Virtual Console – Earthbound for the SNES was a classic. I still remember the weekend in my youth where I rented that game with my brother and we became so obsessed that we completed it in a weekend. The demand among fans of the series in the US (let alone the fans of its Japanese counterpart “Mother” and its sequels in Japan) combined with the relatively low cost to release games on the virtual console make it a perfect storm for profits. Hopefully, we’ll see it sooner rather than later.

• A Next-Gen update of Final Fantasy VII – This must sound ironic to people who follow my comments on Facebook. I don’t share the majority opinion that it is the best in the series. With that said, an update would be fantastic.  The graphical improvements alone would make the summons ridiculous to watch (Next Gen Knights of the Round anyone?), and the voice acting would definitely help add to the story. Sadly, Square Enix has indicated that they are not interested in dedicating the resources required for it. They would rather focus their efforts on creating new content and releasing new games as opposed to rehashing older content.

• Transformers: The War for Cybertron to win Game of the Year – Ok. So I’ll admit it. This is probably not going to happen. But, the devs for TF:TWfC have said in interviews that they intend for this to be the Transformers game that fans have been waiting 25 years to play. Over the shoulder game play? Multiple characters to choose from each with their own unique abilities? Untouched areas of the Transformers Canon so the devs can do whatever they like without pissing off purists? I’m sold already. But if it was good enough to be considered a GOTY candidate then I’d probably wet myself. It would definitely get messy.

What about all of you? What are you hoping to see this year?

Stay Casual!

Stephen

www.casualbychoice.wordpress.com

Why I’m Excited for 2010 Episode 2: Mega Man 10

      2008 brought us Mega Man 9, and it was lauded as a huge part of the return of the insane disco dance party that is retro gaming. Mega Man will be staying alive (I’m sorry… I couldn’t help myself) with Mega Man 10. Yep. You read correctly. MEGA MAN… 10. Many of us have been playing since we were in grade school and I’ll bet some of you weren’t even walking when Mega Man came out back in the day.

     We don’t have an official release date yet, but we know that it will be this coming year. We also know that it will be released on the PSN and Xbox Live Arcade right alongside the WiiShop Channel. This is relatively new for the series, but its certainly welcome. At this point in the game many gamers who spent their formative years playing their NES have spread out across all the various consoles. Choosing to step away from the Wii in favor of systems that have more support for hardcore gaming shouldn’t prevent you from playing one of the most hardcore platform games of all time… and now it won’t.

     The proof comes in the form of the game play footage. So here we go (courtesy of YouTube):

 

     Also: Behold the glory of SHEEP MAN!

     No. That’s not a joke either.

     What do you folks think? Are you nearly as excited as I am (because I’m convulsing)?

Stay Casual,

Stephen

www.casualbychoice.wordpress.com

Browser Based Game of the Week

 

     It’s that time of week again! This week our Browser based game of the week comes from the website www.Kongregate.com. Its essentially a social site built around browser based casual games. I could go on for hours about some of the games I have found there.

     Today, however, I have one specific game I’d like to talk about. 

     Armor Games has definitely created something special here. As you can likely tell from the picture, this game has a light tone about it. At its core the game is essentially a sword and sorcery template of Tower Defense. Where the game shines is in its charming wit and unique sense of humor. The devs over at Armor Games went out of their way to avoid taking themselves seriously here and it shows.

     The screen capture shown above clearly shows off one of my favorite things about the game: the comic strip art style. You don’t need a big budget to please me, I had more fun watching this game play out than some multi-million dollar blockbusters.

     The only downside to the game is that it is relatively short, meaning you can play through it within an hour or so if you keep at it. But, considering it is a browser based *free* game I can hardly call that a true downside.

    Give it a try folks! The folks over at Armor Games did us all a favor when they put this one out there for us. No sense not taking advantage!

Stay Casual!

Stephen

www.casualbychoice.wordpress.com

Rumor Mill: Something Wicked Cool This Way Comes!

According to the folks at www.GameInformer.com a source at ESPN is making some noise about  EA Sports and their recent purchase of an older sports franchise. Its been a while, but I’m sure you might remember it.

2v2 Arcade Style Hoops.

Dunking From Midcourt.

Spontaneous Combustion.

HE’S ON FIRE!!!!

That’s right. I’m talking about the long time favorite: NBA JAM!!!! Nothing has been confirmed as of yet, but if this turns into a reality we could all be enjoying some incredibly insane basketball action.

The current rumor is that we’ll be playing it on the Wii as an exclusive title. I can’t help but think this is an amazing move for EA. Other EA sports products (Tiger Woods PGA Tour Gold being the exception) do not sell nearly as well on the platform so they need something to help rejuvenate their market presence. NBA Jam fits in VERY well for that with its undemanding graphics, simple controls and emphasis on multiplayer.

Check out this video courtesy of YouTube for a reminder of the greatness of the past (and remember that we’ll be playing it with updated graphics):

You think Labron might be in this one? <wink>

Stay Casual!

Stephen

www.casualbychoice.wordpress.com

Source

Tuesday Question Time: Keepin’ It Simple!

It’s that time again!

What do you think about Farmville and the other somewhat similar social media games?  Why do you feel that way?

Personally, I think they are genius. They aren’t exactly the most complex games I have ever seen. But they are simple in design, accessible in difficulty and very inexpensive to operate. The revenue they generate from the micro transactions (the purchase of their virtual currency for real life dollars) is astonishing. This link shows that as of right now Farmville has of 73 MILLION accounts and another source is reporting that there are approximately 26 million or more active daily users.   Clearly, Zynga is doing something right.

Let me know what your thoughts are! I’m very interested to see what discussion comes out of this question.

Stay Casual!

Stephen

Browser Based Game of the Week!

It’s that time of the week again for another great time thief! The browser based game of the week this week is Tuper Tario Tros.! A Super Mario Bros./Tetris Hybrid. You play through a Super Mario Brothers game where you need to utilize Tetris mechanics to clear blocks and build platforms. Pressing the space bar switches you between game modes!

The game scrolls to the right automatically so you have to stay on your toes, but it doesn’t move so quickly that it is unplayable. Give it a try! I’d love to hear what you guys think about it!

Stay Casual,

Stephen

My Gaming Bucket List

As time passes everyone slowly develops a list of things that they want to do/accomplish before they are not around anymore. Recently, thanks to the popular film starring Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman these lists are being referred to as “Bucket Lists.” Personally I have several such lists and I divide them up by scope. I have a list for grand plans (like traveling overseas), a list for professional accomplishments (like being published)… you get the drill.  I have an entirely separate list for gaming achievements (Not to be confused with Xbox Live Achievements).

I know I can’t be the only person with a list of things they want to do gaming wise so I am going to start the discussion here. The following is the top 8 items on my gaming bucket list:

1. Playing through Chrono Trigger – Sure. I can hear you all saying it now: “How is it possible that you consider yourself a responsible gamer having never played CHRONO TRIGGER?!?!?!” Believe me when I say that I feel the exact same way. Even having never played it I know that this travesty needs to be corrected. Fortunately, it was recently re released on the Nintendo DS and I’ll be able to knock this one out of the park.
2. Run a DnD campaign from beginning to end without having to randomly end it for some indiscernible reason – No joke, every campaign I have run has ended for various (and sometimes silly reasons) and I have tons of half completed campaigns sitting in binders around my home waiting to be played.
3. Play in a DnD campaign from beginning to end without having it randomly end for some indiscernible reason – See above. I have almost a dozen fleshed out DnD characters sitting on character sheets in various folders/envelopes in my house… never to see the light of day again. Just once I’d like to see it all through to the conclusion.
4. Actively participate in the development  of a commercially released video game – I’m not talking about a major console release, but I would love to hook up with some folks and work on the development of a game.
5. Attend an E3 conference either as a spectator or as a member of the press – This is an amazing spectacle and just once I would like to see it up close and personal. I can only imagine how exciting it must be to be part of a crowded audience listening to some of the keynotes.
6. Visit a video game production company during the development of a title and see how it all works (Maybe I could even lend a helping hand and knock another item off the list at the same time!) – I have always been interested in seeing what daily life at one of these companies during development is like. I know that it might not be as flashy as some might imagine, and that workplace tedium is certainly unavoidable, but it would certainly be interesting
7. Play through Demon’s Souls to finally put to bed the idea that I am a casual gamer because I am bad at video games – This game is considered one of the most challenging games around. Its brutal difficulty makes its completion a true accomplishment and would clearly remove any doubts regarding a lack of skill.
8. (Recently Added) Compete in and place well in an online Madden franchise mode – I recently started a lot more attention to sports (mostly the NFL) and I feel compelled to compete online with several of my colleagues in an online Madden franchise. The amount of trash talk I hear at the office regarding a game I don’t own yet has motivated me. I will destroy them. I must.

What about you? What’s on your list that you haven’t gotten around to doing yet? What do you think about my list? Am I missing anything?

Stay Casual,

Stephen

www.casualbychoice.wordpress.com