Demo: Warp

Warp.  Cute alien dude.

Warp, available for consoles and on Steam, had a nice little demo wherein you play a tiny alien escaping your human captors.  Your ability?  You can warp forward a small amount of space (through walls, if need be) and into small items and ... unfortunately for them ... your human captors.  While the demo was fun, it wasn't knocking my socks off, so I recommend a pass on this one.

Note: despite the immense cuteness of the alien, the game introduced itself as having "blood and gore," and I understood why after I warped into a human and moved around, causing him to explode.  Oops.

Flash Game Friday: Sky Garden

Sometimes, you actually have to do work at work, rather than pretend that you are a much beloved video game blogger, with users dedicate themselves to your every movement.  So, sometimes you have to work - and you're looking for a Flash-based distraction that will calm and relieve your stressful work life.

The graphics are simple, as is the gameplay.
Simple and calming.

Enter Sky Garden, a simple puzzle game with music that is so calming, it blends you slowly into a Friday afternoon coma.

The concept is simple: click every tree.  The tree releases a stream of water in all four directions as far as possible.  The streams built from clicking the trees will destroy any tree they touch, so the game casually introduces you to the strategy of using streams to block future streams.  Then, like any good puzzle game, new elements are introduced.  Seedlings require water to be born into trees.  Ice halts your streams' progress.  And lava slowly spreads, killing your trees.

I strongly recommend this game for its stupendous ease to pick up, play, and complete.

Demo: Quantum Conundrum

Last week, during the sporadic moments of Internet I had access to, I downloaded a couple of game demos to play, punctuating my otherwise unenjoyable X-button mashing quest for a Platinum Trophy is Final Fantasy XIII.

One such demo was that of Quantum Conundrum, previously released on Steam and the XBLA, but also available on the PSN.  Quantum Conundrum is a first-person puzzle game (a genre only recently emerging and with only one other entrant I can think of: Portal) wherein you traverse various rooms, manipulating physics and controlling small objects to push buttons and make way to the room's exit.

If you notice that the description for QC I offered was remarkably close to the one I gave Portal, well, you're right on the money.  However, QC is mostly different from Portal in that it exists in a more cartoony world, the physics you control are environmental, and the narrating voice is male and less malevolent (and voiced by John de Lancie, Star Trek's Q!)

Thanks to a handy device, you are able to modify the properties of the environment around you in one of four ways (only three of which are featured in the demo).  You can enter the Fluffy Dimension, where objects are easy to move around and throw; the Heavy Dimension, were objects are solid, break through glass, and are indestructable (but sadly, is not a dimension populated solely by TF2's Heavy - be still my heart); the Slow Motion Dimension, which I hope does not require additional explanation; and a dimension where gravity reverses itself.

The demo is fun, with nice quips from John de Lancie as you go along.  Definitely worth a grab to see if you'd enjoy it enough for the $15 price tag.

Catherine: Again

Despite my post last week about not getting into Catherine, I found playing it again, out of some weird want for it to better.  What's the deal?  It's like a drug...

Catherine

I really want to like Catherine, Atlus' bizarre puzzle-platformer/horror/romance-sim game that was released stateside back in midsummer.  After an unimpressive demo back in July, I've recently given the full-game a shot, having borrowed it from my friend.  However, despite my interest in its bizarre gameplay, I simply cannot embrace the game.

Could it be its more-difficult-than-they-need-to-be Q-bert style block puzzles?

Could it be the hamby-pamby story of Vincent, the protagonist stuck between his overbearing girlfriend, Katherine, and his multiple-night-stand-may-not-be-a-real-person-since-she-doesn't-interact-with-any-other-characters Catherine?

Could it be the stumbly dialogue options via text message that you exchange with Catherine or Katherine?

Or is it simply the lack of gender role nuances that forces the thought that Vincent is afraid of commitment, like all men must be, and that the "right" path is to get over it and settle with your domineering (and possibly pregnant) girlfriend?

Whichever of these is the real culprit, I'll not be able to say.  Not simply because blaming just one seems too limiting, but because I can't bring myself to play the game again.

Portal 2

No beating around the bush: Portal 2 lived up to and exceeded my expectations (which were high).  And here's how:

1.  Simple game mechanics explored by every angle imaginable.

The game play is pretty easy to understand: open up a blue portal, open up an orange portal.  Whatever goes in the blue portal comes out the orange portal.  Lasers, weighted cubes, yourself.  Use the portals to get from the entrance of each area to its exit while evading any obstacles designed to cause your demise.

Any time I'd get stuck on a puzzle (it happened a couple dozen times), the solution was nearly always a simple return to the basics: take a step back and open up some portals.

2.  Stupendous writing coupled with excellent voice acting.

The bar for comedic writing was set fairly high in the original Portal, and I'm delighted to say that Portal 2kept up pace incredibly well.  The three "main" characters have excellent interactions with each other and plenty of great monologue opportunities when interacting with the player character.  But in addition to just being hilarious: the writing creates excellent moments of sympathy for the characters.

And the voice work is exactly what it needs to be.  Each character is full defined and encapsulated within their first few lines of dialogue.

3.  Story, story, story - but don't shove it down my throat.

We also get a great look into Aperture Laboratories and its development, but it is fully at the player's own interest to discover it.  There is very little delivered narrative, but plenty to discover, which earns Portal 2 an A+ in creative writing and story delivery.

And that's just the single player campaign.  Once I've got a chance to play co-op I'm sure I'll be continuously wow'd.  Worth a pick up, indeed!  Though the game was somewhat brief (I bested it in about 6 or so hours, total), I'm sure it'll be the kind of game I play again and again...

Want: Portal 2

I even love this logo.

So, confession time.  I've never played Portal.  There.  I've said it.

It's not because I didn't want to!  It's because the game was exclusive to the Xbox 360 and PC.  I don't have an Xbox 360 (anymore), and I only play games on the computer that are low quality, low comittment.  True, the Orange Box was eventually released for the PS3, but by that time, I'd already almost played the game anyway... 

Well, I haven't played the game, strictly speaking, I just OBSESSED about its existence after first hearing the credits song Still Alive.  I spent hours watching gameplay videos to dedicate all of the GLaDOS' dialogue to memory.  I even got to understand the basic mechanics of gameplay from the demo on Steam and the flash-based fan game.

Look at me: still talking when there's wanting to do.  The sequel to the smash game, aptly and inarguably named Portal 2, comes out April 18, 2011.  And since its being released for the PS3, there's no reason I should miss out on this iteration.

Portal is a first-person shooter, except instead of a gun that kills things, you have a gun that opens portals.  One portal is blue and one is orange.  Leave one, you appear at the other.  So it's a first-person-puzzle game, tring to figure out where the portals should go to help you through the test chambers.  And because of the mechanics, it's also a platformer, and sort of an adventure game.  So it's a first-person-shooter-puzzle-adventure-platformer.  And also, physics and gravity.  It's no wonder this darling of a game wowed so many critics.


Easy enough to understand.  Go in one portal, out another.

 And while gameplay is looks fun and innovating, its the intensely well written GLaDOS character that embodies the game's success.  GLaDOS - or, the Genetic Lifeform and Disk Operating System - is a sentient computer system which guides you, the test subject, through the various obstacles.  Fair enough, except GLaDOS is sort of crazy.  Not HAL-like, with rational reasons for murder, but truly schizophrenic.  One moment, GLaDOS will recommend your imminent death, and the next she invites you to enjoy cake!

The writing is brilliant, with sincere moments intermingled with GLaDOS' tongue-in-cheek dialogue with the silent player character.  Her taunts are rewards that really complete the Apeture Science environment.  In one particular instance, you are issued a Weighted Companion Cube, which you are told to love and cherish.  By the end of the level, you are instructed to incerate your Weighted Companion Cube.  You are presented this gem of dialogue if you hesitate in your inceration:

"While it has been a faithful companion, your companion cube cannot accompany you through the rest of the test. If it could talk - and the Enrichment Center takes this opportunity to remind you that it cannot - it would tell you to go on without it because it would rather die in a fire than become a burden to you."

"Although the euthanizing process is remarkably painful, 8 out of 10 Aperture Science engineers believe that the companion cube is most likely incapable of feeling much pain."

I feel fantastic and I'm still alive.

When the Portal 2 teaser was released, a familiar disembodied voice greeted us, and it seems GLaDOS is making good on her promises that she is (indeed) still alive.  And she's willing to put our differences behind her, for science.

Re: Puzzle Quest

Being colorblind absolutely sucks when you are trying to play puzzle games.

Trism (iPhone)

There are plenty of iPhone games you know about, but there may be one with which you are unfamiliar, even though it has been around for years (first released in July 2008): Trism. 

My husband first found out about this game from an online friend, who also happened to be its super-hunky developer, Steve Demeter.  Knowing that the game was made by a cute gay guy only increased the urge to play it.  It's a puzzle-game, which at first glance looks a lot like Bejeweled, but it is so much more.

Demeter specifically designed the game with the iPhone in mind, taking full advantage of its tilt recognition.  And when first released, it was one of very few games to do so.  Triangular blocks can be slid vertically, horizontally, and diagonally.  Match three colors and the blocks vanish (matching more results in higher scores and special blocks).  The uniqueness comes in the feature that new blocks will fall based on the direction you are holding your iPhone.  So, after making a match, it wouldn't be uncommon to twist your hand and wrist in discomfort, trying to line up that perfect combo.

So if you've got an iPhone and you haven't picked up this gem, launch the App Store and fork over the measely $2.99.  Not only will you be getting a fun and easy casual game, but you'll also be supporting my eye-candy.