Welcome to Offensive Combat. Casual Attire.
Offensive Combat, the new browser-based shooter from U4iA Games, is in closed beta right now, but yours truly got early access thanks to my indomitable charm and roguish good looks (READ: Good PR Guy).
In the eighties, the now-deceased founder of Germany’s Black Forest Games (formerly Spellbound Entertainment) created The Great Giana Sisters, a Super Mario Bros. clone. Nintendo had the game pulled off the shelves for its similarities to their famed Italian plumber, and with the exception of an homage for the DS in 2009, it seemed the franchise would stagnate from then on.
Until now, that is…
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WHEW! That was the collective exhale of gamers everywhere as they looked at their calendars and realized that it is in fact August – the end of summer. For us, that means that no longer we have to browse through our back catalog to find some game we never got around to beating. No longer do we have to find things to do with our 360s and PS3s, we can get back to gaming. But while the period is over, let me address something about it, and why you should care, because we as gamers do.
Indie developer Carbon Games has been sitting on a secret. The Beta for their upcoming strategy title “AirMech” has been available for use as a Native Client game on the Chrome browser since February. They’re ready to let the cat out of the bag now, as the game went live on Steam yesterday (August 6) and is currently available to anyone who purchases the AirMech Beta Bundle (19.99 USD).
Jumala!
Imagine a community of game-makers, building and interacting inside the same massive digital construct, itself a giant game. Either I’ve just Incepted ™ you or I’m talking about Jumala, the new free PC gaming platform that’s equal parts world builder and game.
As bleak as it may look at times, the prospect of the future of gaming excites me. I get the warm and tinglies in the pit of my stomach when I see our pastime evolving from something to do in-between bowling matches or in the lobby of movie theaters to an entertainment medium where new releases are anticipated as hotly as their cinematic kin. So when I hear so-called gaming enthusiasts talking about things like “the importance of pong” and how relevant 8-Bit still is, the warm, tingling sensation moves substantially lower and I have to apply an ointment for a while.
Uh-Oh. I feel an outbreak coming on.
Hint: You’ll never use the sword.
I can’t write a single, cohesive review for Tribes: Ascend. I feel exactly two different ways about it. So I’ll write two different reviews:
Sonic the Hedgehog, a title that literally saved Sega back in the 16-Bit days of gaming (circa early ’90s for those who didn’t live through it). Up until Sonic came along, Sega was squarely set to lose what little market share they were able to wrestle away from Nintendo’s 8-Bit Nintendo Entertainment System (marketing and savvy licensing were key). Sega had a long running love/hate relationship with their “mascots” up to Sonic- they had Alex Kidd (who was as close to a mascot as you could get without him actually being one), Altered Beast, Shinobi and countless other titles that COULD have been the mascot for Sega to battle Nintendo’s Mario if fans would have gotten behind them. Fans didn’t for various reasons (Altered Beast being a given as to not being able to carry a system on its own, a key to any mascot).
Nice try, Altered Beast.
Okay, so maybe the title is a cheap jab, but I guess it’s warranted considering the game’s primary input mode is left-clicks from the handy mouse. Surely, though, there must be a much deeper level of gameplay to be found here beneath the hack and slash simplicity?
If you've used one of these before, you've already mastered the central gameplay mechanic.
So last week I introduced you guys to my variant of Caw-Blade (A concoction I dreamed up along with my colleagues Scourge and Jeff Weeks), which you can find HERE if you need a refresher. This week I’m going to talk in a little more detail about the actual matches I played.
