Gamesugar

January 7, 2011

Kentucky Route Zero

Filed under: News Feed — Tags: , , , , — Michael Tucker @ 7:02 pm

Kentucky Route Zero
I’m fascinated with the game glimpsed at in the trailer for Kentucky Route Zero. A wonderful tone is set for a fantastic looking adventure game with its slow bluegrass and presentation of quiet, mysterious scenes. I can’t wait to try the game when it’s released, but right now the devs are looking to the community for the funding to get this project off the ground.

If you have an interest in magical realism, or games that appeal to your literary sensibilities, or just like funding indie devs with creative ideas, then you can support this title via a donation through Kickstarter. A thorough description of the game as well as some awesome supporter rewards can be checked out there as well.

Check out the trailer for Kentucky Route Zero after the break.

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June 21, 2010

Interview – Sam Roberts: Festival Director of IndieCade

Filed under: Features — Tags: , , — Michael Tucker @ 12:43 am


On the last day of this year’s E3 Expo I met with Sam Roberts at the unassuming Indiecade booth for an interview in which we talked about the festival and the games it aims to support. I expected to see a lineup of interesting titles and hear a spiel about independent games’ superiority to their mainstream counterparts.

Instead, I saw a lineup of outrageous, nearly mind blowing titles and had a fascinating discussion with Sam about the role independent games serve in the relation to the overall games industry.

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June 9, 2010

Trailer Park – Dead Nation

Filed under: News Feed — Tags: , , — Michael Tucker @ 5:13 pm


Zombies – The only humanoids you can slaughter in videogames that cause less weight on your conscience than Nazis.

Continuing the zombie craze that has infected both cinema and games in recent years, Dead Nation is an upcoming PSN exclusive that looks a lot like the reportedly underwhelming Zombie Apocalypse from Konami. However, with a cheesy trailer, tons of zombie gibs, and the promise of co-op, the game already has the trappings that keep dragging us back for more. Dead Nation will also keep track of national statistics if you’re into that sort of thing.

You can check out the trailer after the cut while I go flog myself for not resisting that zombie pun in the paragraph above.

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April 13, 2010

Cave Story – A Single Man Makes A Memorable Game

Filed under: Editorial Rants — Tags: , , , , , — Michael Tucker @ 6:32 pm

Cave Story

Title Image by Rey Ortega

A lone developer once sat in his home in Japan and committed himself to making the most hauntingly fantastic independent videogame ever. Five years later, he emerged with Cave Story.

A lot of eloquent praise has been given to Cave Story over the years and there’s not much that I can add to what’s already been said, but there are a few things that struck me during my most recent play through of the title in its new WiiWare form and I can’t help wanting to write a love letter of my own.

The nigh-perfection of this simple title made by a single man (Pixel is Daisuke Amaya’s self-appointed handle) was and is far-and-away a greater achievement than anything I’ve experienced from the professional industry in many years – if nowhere else than on a tasteful, emotional level.
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March 25, 2010

Less Talk, More Rock

Filed under: News Feed — Michael Tucker @ 12:45 am

morerock
Superbrothers on the language of videogames:

A project starts with an idea, a vision, something that is hard to define, something kind of magic and amazing. This is step 1. This is gold. This is beautiful. You can’t yet see the details, but you have a sense for thing you want to make, and hopefully you’re swept away by it.

Usually in the creative process, the next step — step 2 — is to think about the project intellectually, to talk about it, to look at it from various angles, to plan it out, maybe to second guess it or to problem solve it, maybe reconsider it a bit. This is the talk.

The next step, step 3, is to actually make this thing, to get down to it. This is the rock. And we like to think that the process goes from 1 to 2 to 3.

This, they say, is not how things always are, thus sometimes you must rock before talking.

Less Talk, More Rock

via: Drawn!

December 21, 2009

Before Beyond Good and Evil 2

Filed under: Editorial Rants — Tags: , , — Michael Tucker @ 6:52 pm

Title Image by WildcatJF via deviantart

One day, sometime between now and the end of eternity, Beyond Good and Evil 2 will be released. Other than that, no one outside of the development studio knows much about the title. Every other bit of information regarding the game has been given in a mosaic of brief mentions by those attached to the project and unofficial announcements from corporate Ubisoft. While the fact that a sequel to the original is even in production should suffice for the happiness of its fans, the endless wait accompanied by the shroud of secrecy surrounding the title is enough to make one’s frustration with Ubisoft climb into the stratosphere.

It’s been six years since Michel Ancel’s Beyond Good and Evil bombed, and the game has greatly spread as a topic of discussion since. Beyond Good and Evil was in no way a trend setter or even a pioneer in some new form of game mechanic, but it is nonetheless beloved by many and lately has been showing up on quite a few “Best Games of the Decade” lists. Rather than trying to presumptuously claim to know why Beyond Good and Evil is loved by so many gamers (I’ve seen many great articles discuss the game and somehow very few of them retread the same ground), I opt only to explain why it is appreciated so much by this gamer.

From the human to pigman, to a society of animal hybrids, it is the memorable, relatable cast of characters that Ancel crafted for this game that makes the experience of playing it such pure, unadultered escapism. Beyond Good and Evil presents a world inhabited by characters as appealing as any of Disney’s in a story as mature and mysterious as any of Miyazaki’s. Somehow these characters, regardless of their status as fictional species, have such an ability to evoke emotional responses from the player that we are given a personal stake in their conflict.

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