In development from Tzai Entertainment, Shoot Music Up (SHMUSICUP) is a vertical-scrolling PC shooter the generates enemy bullet patterns based on MP3’s chosen from players’ collections.
It’s unclear how stage progression would enter in at the moment, but Tzai released a trailer to help demonstrate the core music concept, which you can catch after the break.
You can also keep an eye on updates at the game’s site over here.
I’m doing my very best to wear out the word nostalgia while writing reviews this month. Mind you, I’m not complaining that so many releases seem to be tapping visuals and controls that take me back to those earliest memories of clutching a controller in my hands – and began the era of my parents trying to wrench them away from it to occasionally get some fresh air.
While Costume Quest wants for the word nostalgia, the digital release hits a different pocket of memories with the childhood recollections of suburban existence. In time for Halloween, the game revolves around that one magical night each year when we stumbled from house to house collecting the candy needed to fuel a power fantasy preceding those offered by videogames, imagining ourselves to be the very characters we tried to mimic beneath an awkward mix of plastic and cardboard.
Quantum Theory isn’t the worst game I’ve ever played.
If that line doesn’t sound like a ringing endorsement toward the positive however, that’s probably because it’s not.
There’s an early sequence during the player’s rampage through an ominous tower filled with evolutionary chaos, where a cinematic break is required to introduce the largest example of greyish-blobbish indistinguishable enemy yet encountered. The creature materializes from a swirling cloud and kills several smaller enemies before kicking the player back into the game to suddenly deal with this escalation of battle, only to find 4-5 quick shots that would dispatch any normal enemy also enough to stop this beast dead in its tracks as well.
Much ado about nothing seemed to sum up the experience. Yet somewhere in that moment I found words to summarize my time with the game, the distinct feeling that the development team begrudgingly finished this title for release with the collective battlecry “MEH” heard ringing around the office.
As the puntastic title suggests, immense amounts of yarn were spooled and stitched together to form Kirby’s long awaited return to proper console platforming. And as far as visual / narrative gimmickry goes, you’d be hard pressed to find a better example of a game that brings back the tactile feel of a classic franchise whilst presenting an entirely new aesthetic to capture the eyes, mixing new and old ideas that preserve plenty of the old time Nintendo charm that keeps me coming back.
Kirby’s a critter of simple pleasures, and this latest adventure matches that philosophy by turning the WiiMote sideways to wax a bit nostalgic on straightforward NES styled controls. The simplicity of the game leaves me feeling far less words are required than usual, though I could certainly go on about Kirby’s cute abuse – his excited arm flailing animation for example is cuter than a basket full of baby bunnies.
All the same, the depth of the stitch work that creates the visuals deserves some words, as does the way in which the game weaves together a toybox of ideas that is simply a pleasure to play with.
The squad of marines pushed forward as enemy grunts shimmered Soviet-era red from cover points along the hillside. At the peak, a giant robotic crab tossed wreckage indiscriminately, forcing me to rush between cover while pumping bullets into robotic soldiers never shy about disregarding their own safety to invade my personal space.
Quick melee attacks cut them in half easily enough – the trick is in making sure to finish the job, least their broken carcasses scurry along the ground hoping to detonate as close as possible.
About halfway up the hillside, a tower collapsed and spread more debris and smoke over the battlefield while a horde of enemy reinforcements broke through an opening to thwart my advance.
All that cover may make it seem worth stopping for a smoke break until the dust settles, and Sam Gideon is always willing to steal a few puffs whenever the moment presents itself, but sitting to wait the war out from a safe vantage point is rarely an option. Momentum encourages players to keep moving with a beat that begins the moment Sam crashes aboard the orbital space colony at the center of a fresh Russia vs. America conflict, and Vanquish uses every last enemy capable of carrying a weapon to keep your ass moving.
The achievement for surviving the first stage of the invasion is dubbed “Space Normandy” for good reason. Platinum Games has married the gritty realism of battle typically assigned to games based on the Second World War with the anime lasers and sheen of influences like Neo-Human Casshern to create a third-person Sci-Fi D-Day.
Along the way it becomes clear that the rumored irrelevance of Japanese videogame design continues to be greatly exaggerated, with Vanquish offering a level of exquisite mathematics that make trigger fingers tingle with a workout unmatched by heavier North American releases.
This Japanese boxart for a Mister Donut themed DS game makes me hungry but also raises an important question – when are we going to get Tim Hortons The Videogame? (Or Starbucks for those on the other side of the border.)
I’d also be curious to know if the game allots time to contemplate life. I’m all for kids learning how to make coffee properly, but since I’m given to believe that this release joins a series of career games, wherein the other careers have been nurse, teacher, veterinarian, I can’t help thinking that if those are the jobs your friends have while you’re making donuts all day, you’d want some free time to ponder where you took a wrong turn.
I never owned a Sega console. I thought I’d come right out and say that, so there’s no confusion. I am not attached to Sonic; indeed, when I was growing up, Sonic was the enemy—the figurehead for those dark, unknown other children, playing their Genesis and carrying out Sega’s terrible bidding.
My encounters with Sonic—The Blue Satan—were largely exclusive to instances where I would commandeer my cousin’s Game Gear on thanksgiving. It had color; Tetris could not compete for my attention. Now I’m a little older and a little more polytheistic with regards to my console allegiances, but I still may not be the ideal test subject for the coherent nostalgia beam conjured by Sega’s latest Sonic release, the wholly digital Sonic 4.
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