Indie Alert – Igneous

Igneous is a platformer (somewhat) where you are a sentient totem-head trying to escape from an erupting volcano. You will do this by running (or rather rolling) and jumping, true to platformer tradition. The game has gorgeous graphics (with lots of heat simulation, for lack of better words) and interesting physics which allow the totem head to jump off of any surface he is touching, regardless of whether he is on the top, bottom, or side of the surface. The game’s four levels should only take you 10-15 minutes to complete in “Normal” mode, but “Impossible” mode is more punishing. By playing Igneous, you have absolutely nothing to lose, because it’s free! It’s quite impressive, especially considering it was developed by a team of four college students.

So download it here. Now.

Igneous can even run at resolutions up to 1900 x 1200.

- Sam (somebody of some sort)

Metal Gear Solid 3 – Review

Review: Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater

Platform: Playstation 2

Developer: Kojima Productions

Publisher: Konami

Release: November 17, 2004 / March 14, 2006 (Subsistence)

“After the end of World War II, the world was split in two – east and west. This marked the beginning of the era known as the Cold War.” So begins Metal Gear Solid 3. If you’ve played any Metal Gear Solid title, you’re probably familiar with the character Solid Snake. The third entry in the series, Snake Eater, tells the story of Snake’s “father”: Naked Snake, of the CIA.

As the story begins, Naked Snake is dropped into the soviet jungle from a plane. His mission is to rescue a scientist named Sokolov, who is being coerced by a Russian Political Party into developing a dangerous nuclear tank. From here, the story of Metal Gear Solid 3 takes many twists and turns. There are many betrayals and double-crossers. Behind the primary story of war and espionage are themes of deep conflict between Snake and “The Boss”, who I like to think is a mother-figure to Snake. Some would call the tale convoluted, but you will understand it once you’ve played the game a few times. Which you will. Not just because it’s a short game, but an incredibly good one.

Snake is at war, yes, but not in the conventional way that one would expect of a video game. Snake has a goal to accomplish, and he will probably need to off some guys along the way, but he really, really wants to stay hidden (he’s only one man!). To this end, Snake can crawl on his belly, press up against walls, and use a brilliant combat system called Close Quarters Combat (CQC). Any player would do well to learn the ins-and-outs of CQC, because it makes the game extremely fun. CQC allows Snake to knock men out onto the ground, slit their throats silently, suffocate them until they’ve blacked out, and interrogate them. One particularly tricky maneuver allows Snake to take one man hostage with his knife while using his other arm to aim a gun at other enemies. Pulling off these techniques while staying hidden from “alerts” is extremely satisfying and rewarding.

CQC is a beautiful, beautiful thing.

Some of the game’s other features include: 1) A camouflage system which allows Snake to change his clothes at any moment, blending in with certain scenery. 2) A hunting aspect. Snake must hunt wildlife or else he will run out of stamina. This gives the game some realism, and finding out which foods are the best can be fun and funny. 3) The survival viewer. When in combat, Snake can sustain a variety of injuries such as bullet wounds, deep cuts, broken bones, and poisoning. The survival viewer allows you to give Snake first aid, stopping the injuries from sapping his stamina.

All three are great ideas, but probably could have been implemented better. To access the camouflage menu, food menu, and survival viewer, you must first pause the game and enter whichever menu you need. This makes for some cumbersome breaks in gameplay, especially since you’ll be wanting to change your camouflage quite often. This is one of my only gripes with this game, but if we’re talking about one gripe, might as well get the other out of the way.

As you can tell, Metal Gear Solid 3 is designed completely with stealth in mind, and this is great. That is, if you stay hidden. Once a guard sees you, you’re somewhat fucked. If you don’t silence him quickly, and I mean quickly, he will whip out his radio and inform HQ of your presence, shout to his buddies nearby, and open fire. Now, it seems, is time for the game to become a shooter. But it doesn’t make this transition successfully. Equipping a gun yields no reticle, and the game retains its overhead perspective. Point Snake in the direction of enemies, hold down square, hope you hit them. Actually, pressing the triangle button with allow you to see through Snake’s eyes, but while in this view, you cannot walk/run. You’re stuck in one place. I honestly don’t understand these design decisions, and they hold the game back from being perfect.

Graphically, Metal Gear Solid 3 is a good-looking PS2 title. There are some good facial animations here and realistic character models with polished animations. Snake has many facepaints and camouflages which look very nice when applied to him. When there are many explosions, however, the framerate seems to slow to a crawl. It’s like the game is going in super slow mo. This doesn’t happen often though, as there aren’t often many explosions. Overall, Metal Gear Solid 3 is graphically good.

As far as sound goes, Metal Gear Solid 3 is pretty excellent. Its theme song, “Snake Eater”, is undeniably epic, and voice work is airtight, as you would expect from a Metal Gear Solid game. As far as sound effects go, you’ve got gunfire and all the fighting sounds you’d expect. There are also rubber frogs, “Kerotan”, hidden throughout the game. They make an inimitable squeaky sound when shot, which is hilarious.

And Metal Gear Solid 3 is jam-packed with secrets and extras. Really, it is. This game is bursting at the seams with secret camouflage costumes, facepaints, guns, conversations between characters (there are lots of these) and even some odd mini-games. These secrets will make you want to play the game again and again, collecting all of them. And if you have the Subsistence version of the game, you also receive a second disc that contains the first two Metal Gear titles for the MSX computer, as well as an entire online mode which I have been unable to play.

Overall, Metal Gear Solid 3 is a fantastic game. The following list consolidates all of what I’ve just told you into, well, a list.

PROS: CQC is awesome, great story, great graphics, epic theme song, jam-packed with great secrets and extras

CONS: Menu system can be annoying, gunplay isn’t ideal at all, occasional frame-rate drops

Final Score: 9.5 / 10

Sam Fields (Spaniard)

Chibi-Robo! – Review

Review: Chibi-Robo!

Platform: Nintendo Gamecube

Developer: skip Ltd.

Publisher: Nintendo

Release: February 2006

As Patrick remarked in his last column, “Death-less games are difficult to come by nowadays.” He cited Jet Set Radio as an example of a unique, non-violent game. Chibi-Robo! Is another one of those games. Now, I won’t keep you in the dark: Chibi-Robo! Does have some enemies. But it’s basically irrelevant given the scarcity of combat encounters. The real goal in Chibi-Robo! Is the opposite of killing: you must make people happy!

The Sanderson family is in trouble financially. But that’s not all: Dad spends all his time, watching television and playing with toys, Mom doesn’t have a job, Tao (who is a dog) is always tracking mud into the house, and Jennie thinks she’s a frog! On Jennie’s birthday, she receives Citrusoft’s Chibi-Robo from her father. It is a (pricey) little robot helper designed simply to make the Sandersons’ lives as cushy and charmed as possible. You are Chibi-Robo. Although making people happy is your only goal out the outset of the game, you take on many other challenges along the way. The story of Chibi-Robo! is quite grand despite being tethered to the setting of a single suburban house. This is because Chibi-Robo also interacts with the nocturnal toy-denizens of the Sanderson household, keeping them happy and learning more about the Sandersons’ past along the way. I don’t want to elaborate too much on the story of the game, but I will tell you this: Just when you think things can’t get any zanier or crazier, they will. The story is definitely whacky enough to keep you playing, and there are some genuinely funny moments as well. It even deals with mature themes like divorce! Overall, Chibi-Robo’s story is head and shoulders above most games.

Chibi-Robo’s adventures are confined to the 5-or-so room house of the Sandersons. This may seem quite limited, but Chibi-Robo is very small, and the house, by comparison, is a very large area to explore. Chibi-Robo will pick up trash, use a toothbrush to clean up mud and stains, dig holes with a spoon, and gain many powerups like the Chibi-Blaster and Chibi-Copter. All activities, including walking, climbing, and everything, use up Chibi-Robo’s battery. You’ll often find yourself looking for the nearest wall socket towards the beginning of the game, but as time goes on and you increase your “Chibi-Ranking” (essentially a measure of how great your Chibi-Robo is compared to all the other ones), you will earn bonus battery-life and eventually outgrow your need for the sockets. Overall, control is tight, although Chibi-Robo may move a bit slow for some. Combat is a matter of pointing the Chibi-Blaster in the general direction of an enemy and pressing A. I would say that they should have done a better job of it, but combat is a rare occurrence in Chibi-Robo, and there is only about a 10-minute portion towards the end of the game that is combat-heavy.

The game is based on a day-and-night system. Every time day becomes night or vice-versa, Chibi-Robo automatically returns to the Chibi House downstairs in the living room for a recharge and pep talk from his sidekick Telly. This can be a bit tedious as the days and nights are rather short, but I always started a new day or night with certain goals in mind, which made me keep playing. Aside from the game’s main goals of earning happy points, increasing your Chibi-Ranking to #1, and becoming Super Chibi-Robo, there are many sidequests and other goals that make themselves apparent as the game goes on. You will never find yourself spending a day scrubbing the floors or picking up trash just because you have nothing else to do and want some happy points. You will always have some important task to attend to. It will take 10-12 hours to finish Chibi-Robo!, and maybe a couple more to finish all the sidequests and collect all the “stickers”. I do have a couple complaints about the gameplay, however. The first is that once you have finished the game and quests, there aren’t any other modes to try. No multiplayer, no nothin. You’re done unless you want to start again or just tool around the house. My second complaint is that sometimes the game won’t give you a clue as to what you should do next, forcing you to resort to talking to all the characters or just trying weird shit.

Graphically, Chibi-Robo! Is very colorful and has a refined, cartoonish art style. However, many objects and character models are quite polygonal and unpolished. Chibi-Robo himself is well animated in everything he does, but other characters aren’t as much. Sometimes, rather than show a character walking off, the game will instead employ cheesey screen-wipe effects to show that they have vanished. The art style is solid, but Chibi-Robo! Isn’t really a technical marvel.

Sound is a different story. Chibi-Robo! Has some very, very creative sound effects. Chibi-Robo’s footsteps are accompanied by musical notes, and the instrument changes based on what surface he is walking on. When he uses the toothbrush, a catchy guitar loop plays. When he climbs rope or poles, precarious-sounding scales accompany him. It’s a joy to listen to all these things while playing. The music of the game can be a bit dull while just walking around the house, but certain cutscenes and characters come with some very entertaining and exciting tunes.

Overall, Chibi-Robo! Is a very unique game. It involves very little combat, actually makes the player do house work, and still remains quite fun. At times its story deals with heavy subject matter like divorce, and at other times is light-hearted and genuinely funny. Each character is unique and has their own personality. Art style and great sound add to the game’s atmosphere. My only complaints are that the graphics aren’t quite up to scratch, and that at times it can be hard to know what to do next.

Pros:

-Great story

-interesting characters

-great sound direction

-varied gameplay

Cons:

-Graphics aren’t great

-you may find yourself wondering what to do next

-rather short

-no extra modes

- Sam (some young guy)

8-Bit Prodigy Video Game Review Scale

“What do these numbers mean???”

Like many publications, our scale runs from 1 – 10. We grade games in increments of ½. The closer a rating is to 10, the better the game is. Here, I’ll show you what I mean:

0: This game has nothing to offer. It fails miserably in all aspects of its being. It is not even bad in a funny way. I can’t even think of a game that deserves 0. That’s how bad it is.

1: This game probably shouldn’t be played by anybody. It fails to accomplish much of anything, and is overall a very unrewarding and crappy experience.

2: This game is pretty damn bad. It doesn’t accomplish what it set out to. Far from it, in fact. But perhaps there is some, small aspect of the game that kind of doesn’t suck.

3: This game is terrible, but perhaps its one saving grace is that it is fun to hate. Perhaps you can sit with a group of friends and play it, poking fun at all its failures.

4: This game is bad, but maybe, under all the crap on the surface, you can spot a good idea or two.

5: This game is rather average. It isn’t very unique. It doesn’t have any ideas of its own. It isn’t particularly fun to play. But it isn’t a complete failure.

6: This game is slightly above average. Perhaps the developers had some good ideas, but executed them rather poorly.

7: This game is decent. It has some good ideas, and is an okay game to boot. You may want to play this if the game’s subject-matter is particularly interesting to you.

8: This game is good. It takes ideas that are good in theory and executes them well. This game is worth your time because it accomplishes something.

9: This game is great. It really brings something new to the table and is a fun experience throughout. A game that scores a 9 is a game of the year. It should be enjoyed by all gamers.

10: This game is a masterpiece. It innovates and brings something new to the table, or it refines everything we love about games into an amazing experience that you will keep playing even after you’re done. These games are few and very, very far between. It should be enjoyed by all people of every kind.

- Sam (Writer or something)