IAM Blog Engine

lol picture ::

http://www.joystiq.com/2009/11/20/banned-psn-player-sues-nintendo-and-microsoft/

Via GrandTextAuto

http://www.funnyordie.co.uk/videos/32d666a5cd/call-of-duty-secret-spielberg-level-unlocked

Haven’t played much of these, but a friend tweeted about this not too long ago, and I just got around to looking at the list. I’d be interested to hear what others think, and if they have played any of these (or would think to add to this list in some way shape/form).

http://www.accreditedonlinecolleges.org/blog/2009/50-serious-games-for-social-change/

<3z

Okay. I have looked up my cheats, played enough of the game to get the cell phone and am ready for carnage. What gun shall i try first? I feel an overwhelming sense of pride and accomplishment as I walk down a crowded street gunning down civilians with an SMG. Tossing grenades onto the freeway and watching cars flip off was fantastic. Hiding in bushes with a sniper rifle and picking off civilians and having no repercussions was amazing. I must have shot well over 200 people, cops, paramedics and the occasional person on a motorcycle just to see them catapult through the air as i laughed my ass off. This is why those parent groups complain about this game. It blows without violence and mayhem. Of course there is a vague and shit-tastic story for all those Tony Montana copy cats but driving around for Roman is the most retarded quest in history (I know I played Oblivion). If i wanted to be a taxi driver I would leave school, paint a bad car yellow and leave lit cigarettes in the back to give it that authentic smell that we all enjoy. This game gets a minus on story but a huge plus on the fun factor once you get enough weapons to liberate a third world country.

In the  past couple of days I have seen that the community for fighting engines have been in an uproar. Elecbyte, the creators of the MUGEN fighting engine have come back and brought with them a new version of their software.MUGEN, for all those who do not know, is a fighting engine created by some developers. After the controversy of many character sprites being ripped from licensed games, like Capcom vs SNK, Street Fighter, Vampire Savior and many others, the Company went down. Although there was a lot of activity in forums and other community sites that still worked and created content for the very glitchy Beta that they were left with.

Now, Elecbyte has come back and has a couple of the founders working on the engine again. They have recently released their 1.0 BETA, and are still working on bugs.

The sound in the game has been revamped and the overall compatibility of characters is being worked on. One of the most noticeable things is the ability for MUGEN to run under high resolutions now.

What about Shugendo? ShugenDo is a fighting engine that is being developed by a completely different group. The reason for ShugenDo was to create a fighting engine since the fall of MUGEN. The creator(s) have stated that they will proceed with their own fighting engine regardless.

So my question is, what fighting engine will be better? What does this mean for us who want to create fighting games? What about the controversy of sprite ripping from other games?

Here is a video for a  ShugenDo Test

And here is the New MUGEN

Chapter two of Wet takes place in an area called Rubi’s Boneyard, it is a junkyard in the middle of a desert where you play several challenges of running, jumping, sliding, wall walking and shooting. It introduces the dual sawed-off shotgun and is both really fun and really boring. The challenges are fun yet they have many boring parts where if you don’t do something perfectly you have to start all over again, of course I am really just grousing… maybe I shouldn’t have selected hard mode at the beginning of the game. In fact the stages gold medal target times for the challenges are well chosen because I could get within about 3 seconds of them the first time but I would have to play about 20 times to get the Gold medal.

Also this area helps solidify the style of the game even further, it was filled with old cars and ammusement rides and had some really good music, very western and Rockabilly fuled. I don’t know much about music but what I do know is that I am from Fort Worth, Texas and our slogan is “Where the West Begins” and this music reminded me of home so I can definitively say that the music felt western and really familiar. Also I can tell you we have those old amusment rides with light bulbs insted of LEDs and the strange looking probably ex con running them, the rides in the Boneyard just feel like them. They have that old its in the past but not enough to be classic look to them. It was a good chapter.

So I routinely play “bad” video games.

By “bad” I mean a “5″ on a ten-scale, or a “C” on a letter grade system. So not actually bad, just not quite good enough to make a dent compared to a “9″ or an “A.”  These games are often overlooked by gamers as reviewers tell them to ignore them outright in some cases, or to avoid them in others.  Before touching the game it’s become a pariah, a blight on the New Releases wall.  Games like “War Tech: Senko no Ronde”, “Guilty Gear 2: Overture”, “God Hand”, “Dynasty Warriors 6: Empires”, my personal favorite relaxer “Sonic Unleashed” and even more casual titles like “Flower, Sun and Rain.’  I get a lot of flak from people for playing theses games.  ACTIVE ridicule.  Not that it’s a big deal, but the games are almost universally panned by critics and usually made fun of by more “discerning” palates.

Why play a bad game?

I think ALL students of game design should play a bad game or over 9000.  I played “Bella Sara” for a month, just to see what it was like to play a game I would never design on my own, but might be assigned to design.  I play “Sonic Unleashed” to see what is wrong with it, and have great discussions about ways that it could be fixed, what to do to revitalize the series/game that I am playing.  They’re deep and fufilling discussions that I enjoy very dearly and have often!  Sometimes, I even seek out games similar to the “bad” game and examine what went right/wrong there in order to more fully understand the issues prevalent in the “bad” title.

That being said, here’s my challenge to myself, and to you:

I will play one “bad” game a month.  I will use Game Fly/Blockbuster, or find a way to get a copy of the game without having to pay too much (Buy used, probably.)  I’m going to play the game as much as I can, critique it and compare it to other games in the genre, seek out what went wrong, then write about it/talk about it on the Critical Hit podcast once a month.  I urge you to do the same and share the growth either here on the IAM blog, or on YouTube with a thoughtful critique.  Move beyond “This game SUCKS,” past “This game SUCKS cause HERE’S WHY,” and into “This game SUCKS cause HERE’S WHY and HERE’S WHAT I CAN DO TO FIX IT HEY THIS GAME MAY NOT BE SO BAD AFTER ALL.”

Or maybe it really does suck, could be.  There are some objectively terrible games out there and I’m looking at you “Vampire Rain”.

See what I did there?

Make peace with mediocre games!

-J. L.

As most of you probably know, dreams become increasingly hard to remember as time goes on, therefore I thought I’d share one of my own from last night before the details fade away.

First of all, “Ghostbusters: The Video Game” releases this Tuesday and, being a life-long fan of the movies, it feels like Christmas and New Year’s all in one! In my dream, I wasn’t playing the video game, I was actually part of it, as if the environment of the game became real, but this misstep in logic made perfect sense to me while dreaming. I had an actual proton pack and plasma stream gun with four different settings (based on what I understand from the demos and videos I’ve seen): charged plasma, low-energy charged plasma, green slime, and low-energy green slime. These could be selected via four small buttons right next to the nozzle of the gun.

I started by walking up a metal staircase along with at least one other Ghostbuster and at least five “civilians”, following me like a news crew but without any media equipment. Since the “video game” had just started, I knew that this “first level” was designed as a tutorial and my proton pack wasn’t fully upgraded (another tidbit I read from reviews of the game). At one point while playing around with the charged plasma beam, I blasted some french fries (they were just sitting on some bench in the building!), charring them a little. I eventually came to an arena that resembled that found in Laser Tag. Apparently, this part of the “level” worked as a multi-player element but with real people. We were required to wear goggles (like those worn by Stanz in the ballroom scene of the first movie) which had built-in headsets so teammates could talk to each other. My dream switched gears before any “combat” ensued.

The last bit of the dream involved driving with my family and aunt (just last week, I was in Florida with them) but with various things occurring around us. I remember there being a massive storm and as we drove across the Golden Gate Bridge (most likely reminiscent of one of the scenes in the latest Star Trek movie, which I saw this past Friday), we could see the doors of Gozar (first movie) atop the bridge instead of Dana Barrett’s apartment. In the back of my no-logic-needed dream-mind, I suspected that I was still playing the Ghostbusters video game. Although excited, I was also saying to myself, “Oh shit! Something’s about to go down!”

That was probably the coolest dream I’ve had in a while. ¡Viva las Rompefantasmas!

First-off, I apologize to Capcom about my response to Eurogamer’s sensationalistic preview of Resident Evil 5.  It turns out that the game after all, isn’t that racist given that there are two black characters who assist you throughout the game, one of which is the best thing to happen for southpaws since Link.The first thing that you’ll notice about Sheva is that she stands to the right of the screen and has an awkward run that’s different from every other third person game, the second thing that you’ll notice about her is that she aims with her left hand. The best part about this is that when two people play cooperatively, one person is stuck with Sheva and must deal with the neglect that we lefties have dealt with for as long as there has a been a right-handed norm. Forcing right-handed players to play as Sheva Alomar is the first step in the lefty plan to eventually force the right handed masses to suffer the same unfortunate chainsaw accidents that kill most southpaws before the age of thirty.

This may seem like too much elation but how many gaming protagonists besides Link and Sheva have you encountered that are left-handed? (Every single person in counter-strike doesn’t count since there is no difference between the Arab Guerilla Warfare terrorist Higharolla Kockamamie and the Spetznaz counter terrorist Vodka Gobalsky. For all you know, the terrorists may lose two players and Vodka may be drafted into the terrorists as a member of the Pheonix Connixicon. Vodka and Higharolla also both have no personality to speak off. Hell, their names may change during the round.) TL;DR, there are none. Diversity costs money and lefty gaming protagonists “run weird” to most right handed people, making the game less likely to sell.

However, Sheva may change that. If people play (and like) Resident Evil 5, then there may be more room for a left-handed protagonist. That’s right, Sheva is the first step in ensuring that a lefty option may someday be available in most shooters. And what’s so wrong with that? If games can allow for protagonists who are black (Riddick) female (Lara Croft) and homosexual (Hana Tsu Vachel) and still be commercially successful then why should the industry have avoided the dreaded left-handed shooter protagonist until 2009.Does a gun appearing on the left side of the screen really prove to be that much of a distraction?

But soon, soon one in twenty shooter protagonists will be left-handed. Soon we shall have our restitution. The lefties shall reign and right handed gamers will soon play games in which their left handed hero will have to deal with a random chance of an unfortunate chainsaw accident occurring. That’s right, feel our pain, mother****ers! Viva le lefty revolución!

It is possible to make a ‘game’ (let’s just agree to call what we made a game) in 12 hours.

Thanks to everyone for making the first 12 hour game challenge a success. It was so successful rather than finishing early we decided to almost do the project twice.

Well anyway we didn’t quite finish with the design document but we did get something that resembles a game. I think most everyone had fun and I look forward to hosting more challenges in the future. Maybe a multi team challenge next. Or how about and alumni challenge,

You can get the ‘game’,the source, and see a bunch of pictures @

http://game.colum.edu/projects/GameChallenge/NOCHYS/

If your not quite sure what do next or COMMIT!