Yes, you read that right! I actually have a new game out! Re-Mission 2 has gone live from HopeLab, and it’s made up of collection of smaller games this time around.

I did Stem Cell Defender, it’s mostly inspired by Nuclear Eagle (I was even able to team up with Luka again, which was great), but plays differently and I think has a feel of its own.

Check it out!

(I actually prefer playing with ‘auto-fling’ turned on, it’s a bit faster)

FPA on consoles is 2 years old! I thought it would be fun to go back and take a peak at where World 3 first materialized. In a notebook, of course! Check out the Facebook Album, and Like / Share / Comment if you want to see more!

Click the images to view the full album.

Album 1:

Album 2:

Album 3:

Album 4:

- Brad

Anyways, I had to show some love for a fellow Louisiana dev, who are attempting to make a lot of gamers’ dreams come true and build a new Road Rash styled game themselves.

What I find mind blowing, though, is if you pay over 800 bucks, you get the ENTIRE SOURCE CODE AND RIGHTS TO DO WHATEVER YOU WANT TO WITH IT. That’s almost as nuts as it is awesome.

Oh, yeah, they want to do a Wii U version, and the Wii U needs more games!

So at least check the Kickstarter page out, I’d love to see more going on locally, and the footage already looks great.

More hardcore old school games made is always a good thing!

Road Redemption on Kickstarter

We came, we saw, we chainsawed, and then two hours after we beat it I forgot we’d beaten it.

Yeeaaaaaah.

ANYWAY! Brad bought this for PC  and I played it with a XBox controller so I’ll be judging it from that angle. I did have a few freezing issues that made me need to restart it. Brad has apparently not experienced it yet, but oh goodness it’s frustrating. Luckily this game saves about every five seconds.

From what I understand this is a reboot. Full disclosure, I swore to myself I would never play this game. After seeing numerous cosplays with random internet nerds drooling over girls I’m not fully convinced know what an inverted control is I was very jaded about the whole idea. Not to mention the whole Angelina Jolie computer enhanced thing. The whole thing was enough to churn my stomach. I know, I’m one of those girls that just doesn’t care about stereotypes and thinks the whole uber feminist thing is blah but geez Tomb Raider’s publicity just turned me off.

That being said:

I

Loved

This

Game

Seriously, this is one of the first games I’ve played in a while that truly made me lose track of time while I was playing it. I think the writing for Lara Croft was fantastic. She was just enough vulnerable mixed with a spark that was able to convince me she could actually kick butt. I actually got emotionally invested in this character and the people that she cared about. I don’t feel like there was an actual lull in the storyline, it just kept going.

Also, her design. Oh artists, good choices. It sounds kind of creepy but whenever there is a featured female character I have a tendency to really judge the general physique hard. This might have come from years of sizing up girls to figure out whether or not they were prettier than me (yes girls do that, yes I did that, shut up). This just seemed to naturally pass on to looking at female video game characters. Do they seem proportional? Does the body actually look natural? Are there any obvious gratuitous features?

So, for all you guys out there: Yes, girls with this Lara Croft’s proportions do exist. And they do have those proportions NATURALLY. *gasp* The one thing of note that I kept focusing on were Lara Croft’s legs. It took me a minute to realize that the designer must have truly just intended her legs to be that muscular. Physically it makes sense. She does a LOT of stuff so her having gymnast legs works. I did laugh a bit at how tight her pants are, I don’t know how she moved in those. And THANK YOU for making her look like an actual girl in the face. There were no weird proportions, she just seemed like a really beautiful girl. Her face wasn’t flawless, it was just “flawed” in the right manner.

Hair physics. So there is this super setting that makes the hair all Pantene Pro V. It’s HILARIOUS!! Pretty sure Brad and I spend a good deal just panning around her hair looking all beautiful. I appreciate ALL they did with design and such, but oh gosh the hair.

Okay, so off of the physical design. Basic game design. This game is very pretty. It definitely has levels that you just kind of want to walk around in. It all feels extremely open even though it’s obvious you are being pointed in a certain direction.

I appreciated the little feminine things that she did. When she jumps in the water she kind of shakes her hands off. When she squeezes through crevices, she really does shift her body like a woman would. They have a scene where she’s looking in a mirror at herself after being through hell and back, genius. No woman is going to pass up looking at herself in the mirror. I was a bit surprised she didn’t grab some soap and wash her hair though. Mostly because they really do just make her look dirty and filthy, her clothes get tattered and her face is all scratched up. It’s just very very real. I’ve never seen a video game capture such a real character before. There was something about her utterly relatable and it’s not something found especially in female characters.

I think I’m getting off a bit. I can safely say the writing for this game was it’s strongest point.

But

How much gameplay do you sacrifice for prettiness? I’m tired of QTEs being used in such a heavy handed manner. I don’t CARE if you want me to hit Y to stab a guy in the knee if I shotgun him in the face SOMETHING SHOULD HAPPEN!

Brad has his own take on this which I’ll either let him add on to this or add in the comments, but I think it was spot on. I managed to beat the game before him so I wanted to see his reaction to the way they chose to end the game.

I do not consider myself a hardcore gamer. I game for fun, especially since now I have a lot on my plate. It doesn’t leave a lot of room for gaming. That being said, don’t take the challenge away from me. It feels similar to when I’d walk in the room while one of my brothers was playing a game and then I’d realize I hadn’t gotten to where they were, it feels like CHEATING! Don’t install some steal form of Game Genie (look it up…) onto my game. I would like to improve my skill, not feel like I have someone holding my hand throughout the game. Other then the QTEs there was a sense of rawness to this game that I enjoyed. The ending obstacles were fantastic and I found myself holding my breath during certain moments because I was completely unsure of what the outcome would be. That’s necessary in any game, especially one like this.

Now on to an amusing story

It’s a survivalist game so of course there is animal shooting. You can shoot deer, rabbit, rats, etc. Anyway, when this first popped up I was determined to only shoot bucks (male deer), that was it. Brad told me to shoot a bunny with my bow and arrow. I refused. This is what followed:

Me – “I’m not shooting a bunny! Look they’re being friendly. That one is all curious and cute.”

Brad – “Just shoot a bunny”

Me -”No!”

::A few minutes pass. I aim for a buck, shoot, annnnd a bunny jumps in front of my arrow::

Me- ::GASP:: OH MY GOD!!

Brad – ::dies laughing::

Cue me whimpering about how I shot the poor bunny who only wanted to be my friend. Only adding to Brad’s laughter . . . jerk.

Me: I don’t like this game. YOU SAID I’D LIKE THIS GAME!!

Brad: You watch all those murder law shows I figured you’d enjoy it.

Me: How?!

Brad: People die and it’s a puzzle.

Me: I’m not the one who decides who potentially lives and dies in those shows! They’re already dead! I don’t have control over it! I have control over this! This game is like “SAW”!

Brad: I thought you liked “Saw”?

Me: This is making me question my own morality!

Brad: Sorry . . .

(For the record, I am still playing this game. I have yet to figure out a way to cheat so everyone lives. Blast.)

I REALLY don’t think you do.

But I will anyway.

Before anyone comments to defend the graphics, yes the game is pretty. It’s a very pretty game. Ooooo leaves and water and metallic dog things.

Metallic dog things? Oh God, this is not a good sign.

I will note that I am reviewing the ACTUAL storyline of this game, not the online play. They’re completely different things so if you want a review of the online play I’ll have to make another post.

First off, 343 industries, the fact that Halo 4 was a successful game does NOT reflect on you. People did not stand in line because “OMG 343 Halo 4!” It’s not like they weren’t standing in long lines before you came along. Halo 4 was made successful by Bungie and their success is what made YOUR success. Don’t take credit for their work. Halo Reach kicked Halo 4′s butt in so many ways I’m not even going to bother counting.

Secondly, the writing. Oh God, the writing. I swear halfway through playing this game I was inputting my own soap opera like dialogue because it fit so well. There was one “dramatic” instance where Brad and I were yelling at the TV “What are you doing! STOP THAT!!” It was so obvious that the makers of this had no connection whatsoever to the characters because the personalities were just so off. Cortana was a whiny blue creature, at some point I was convinced Master Chief was going to take off his helmet and *gasp* he’d be blue TOO! Then they’d run off into a Halo sunset and a star somewhere would explode glittering their moment with stardust. Oh and there’d be a unicorn because, well, unicorn.

When Brad and I beat the game we literally spent about fifteen minutes saying “That’s not the end. It can’t be. No way.”

Worst.Ending.Ever.

If you’ve beaten the game you know what I’m talking about. It’s completely unsatisfying. I immediately wanted to go back through one of the old Halos as some form of mind bleach.

On to the new additions. The enemies aren’t crazy creative, their designs are unimpressive, and their weapons are horrible. The only weapons that could be considered awesome are their version of the shotgun and their big fire explody thing. Brad has a giggle fest anytime he finds one in multiplayer. HOWEVER! The most powerful gun does nothing against the enemies. Okay I’m googling them, I completely forgot what they were referred to as . . . Prometheans.

Prometheans? Bah.

Also, their leader? Snape’s long lost brother. Totally Snape’s long lost brother.

The plot tells you nothing. When the game was finished Brad and I were completely lost on the story. We had no idea what happened, what we were doing, and why the game had ended.

Apparently you have to read the books to get it.

Read.the.books.

So basically you just told me that in addition to DLC there will be a reading list? I have HOMEWORK now when it comes to “getting” a game when I’ve played through previous ones without this “required” reading?

Way to go. Are you trying to limit your audience because I guarantee there are quite a few gamers that don’t want to have to read a book to understand what is going on in a game. You’ve just put yourself in a niche group with almost no room for growth.

Did they hire an Adobe consultant on this? That might make a bit more sense.

I would also like to say that I was tempted to not type anything and just post this picture:

Games I’m still playing: Virtues Last Reward, Borderlands 2, and I finished the new Professor Layton (not as good as the other ones)

[And from Brad]

We finished the campaign together, so I figured I should throw in my 2 cents down here.

Fairly and I have beaten every Halo campaign in co-op since ODST, so while it was a given that we were going to play through the game together, I wasn’t too confident about 343 handling the series after being disappointed in their DLC levels for Reach. Most Reach maps were terrible anyways, though, so who knows.

Anyways, yeah, everything good about Halo 4′s campaign (shooting the Covenant, Cortana + Master Chief, controls, vehicles…), all came from Bungie, and everything terrible (shooting those stupid dog things and the promethean bullet sponges, the A to B hit the switches gameplay, all the anticlimactic missions aka if you show a giant gun at the beginning, you better shoot it by the end!) were added by 343, so I don’t know how you could consider Halo 4 successful transition to a new company.

Well, multiplayer’s still fun, but the ending was SO BAD that I really haven’t felt like playing it since.

The ending of Halo 4 is totally this (not really spoilers I think?):

Watch my cousin Matt and I beat the stuffing out of each other for the grand amusement of teh interwebs! Try this smashing (see what I did there?) new multiplayer mode in the Fancy Box now!

Let’s start the year off right, here’s an introduction to the Fancy Box and level creation.

If you make a level, email it to me (under contact), and I’ll feature it in a future report! Just make sure to include the name you want credited.

Next video coming soon: Fancy Dueling! If you make an arena soon enough, it could make it in the next video.

But, not to worry! There’s still plenty going on behind the scenes, even if there’s no new big game announcements at this moment.

- Cornell Tour Pack for the Grateful Dead: Epic Tour online game

Play online here

I posted about the Epic Tour a few months back, but now there’s a new tour available online for 99 cents. Various enhancements have made it back to the original levels, and there’s a few levels leading up to the station that are new (and still free!). You’re able to collect 6 multitrack recordings and mix them how you like in the Cornell levels, so I think that’s a really good deal.

The Fancy Box

I’ve been getting the itch to work on something Fancy Pants related lately, so I wanted to start experimenting with features that weren’t able to make it into the FPA console game. I have a 2 player battle mode (Smash Bros. influenced, of course) up and running, but keep an eye out for something that hasn’t been seen by the public yet that I’m very excited about.

Oh, and I’ve made a package available for download that allows anyone to build their own Fancy Pants levels.

No clue where this is going, but I’m not above making an excuse to play with Fancy Pants Adventures a bit more!

Check out the Fancy Box here. Click on 2 players and ‘custom: Level4′ for a ‘smashing’ battle! 2 players could certainly use some beta testing. Normal baddies are a bit broken at the moment, though.

a s and tfgh for player 2, ; ‘ and arrows for player 1.

Check out this thread in the forum to try your hand at creating levels.

That’s it for now, now go make some awesome levels so I can play them and highlight them on the site!