VG Bandits

Another World iOS impressions

Sat, 01 Oct 2011 16:28:26 -0700

‘Another World’, aka, ‘Out of this World’ as most of us in North America can recall from our SNES/Genesis days, is a survival action adventure, much like last summer’s Limbo. So the gist of it is that you’re this ginger physicist who gets transported to another dimension when some lightning effs up the experiment in his little bitch ass hadron collider. Your only option to progress through this game is through trial and error. Using a good amount of applied logic to whatever it takes to reach the next room, you’ll find out soon enough that you have to poke at some things and react quickly. The “High-Res” graphics are basically like turning on 2xSai mode on a SNES emulator, I mean, its okay I guess. Touch controls…ahem, well the controls in general; are um, true to the original..and they are God awful and unresponsive. To be fair, this game is like a 2d Dragon’s Lair, and I’ll cut off both my arms to go out on two limbs and say Dragons Lair; IS. NOT. FUN.

It’s time for a new game plus!Art by Mariel

Mon, 19 Sep 2011 16:29:55 -0700

It’s time for a new game plus!
Art by Mariel

GAME IMPRESSIONS: Groove Coaster for iOS

Sun, 18 Sep 2011 04:08:00 -0700

Ever heard of a little game called Space Invaders Infinity Gene? If you haven’t, you really missed out on the precursor of this pocket powerhouse. The great minds at Taito have been doing some amazing stuff with their music for the past two years as far as I’ve noticed. Space Invaders Extreme has been pumping out some good jams and they’ve been transferring to other titles in the Space Invaders franchise as well. Considering how good they’ve been with music; they finally made a game without the whole shmuppy moniker and just went right into the song with Groove Coaster.

Groove Coaster is as simple as a music game can get. You just tap the beats. It really can’t be any simpler. On harder difficulties you’ll experience direction-sensitive swipes. Even when you get bored and restless with no beats to throw down, you can even improvise ad-lib beats on the fly whenever you feel the opening for it. The controls are crystal clean since you can literally tap and swipe anywhere you please without the doubt of consequence or fuzzy beat detection. For just $2.99, its a pretty sweet game with about 19 songs to play on Easy, Normal, and Hard.

- James Michael Cardona (E-Mail)

Groove Coaster was developed and published by Taito and is currently available on an iOS device for $2.99. Purchase it here

EVENT REVIEW: Game Night 6

Sun, 18 Sep 2011 03:44:00 -0700

Last night James went and checked out the Giant Robot art shop in downtown LA. This event was hosted by Angry Bananas, Giant Robot, and the great people of Meatbun.

This thing was basically a double dosage of goodness: for one; Meatbun has now started to sell their shirts right here in LA at the GR2 shop, and two; this was also a showcase of games by WayForward. I basically took way too long choosing what shirt I wanted to get.

But a few of my friends tagged along and got to play Mighty Switch Force on a 3DS that was hooked up crazy and projected onto the side of the shop, as well as Mighty Flip Champs DX on PSN.

As well as the great selection of Meatbun shirts, Eric Nakamura, owner and shot caller of Giant Robot; had his own great art products on display.

Artist shown: Deth P. Sun

It really is an awesome place to check out if you’re in the area.

GR2

2062 Sawtelle Blvd. Los Angeles, CA 90025

Hours Mon-Sat: 11:30-8:00pm, Sun: 12:00-7:00pm

add me on your fethbuck!, and if you’re in SoCal I’d love to keep you posted whenever cool events like this pop up. :)

- James Michael Cardona (E-Mail)

GAME STREAMING: Starcraft 2

Fri, 16 Sep 2011 01:35:00 -0700

Fellow VG Bandit Daniel (Surhorse) has started streaming his ladder matches on Star Craft 2 via Twitch Tv. Check him out as he goes for that Diamond League

Don’t forget to follow him and watch some archives here

Slackers!

Thu, 08 Sep 2011 11:09:26 -0700

Sorry for the lack of updates and features, we are slowly getting this place up to speed. These past couple of weeks have been a busy one!

GAME IMPRESSIONS: Child of Eden

Fri, 26 Aug 2011 22:01:00 -0700

First of all, do yourself a favor. Peep this deo real quick and decide whether J-Pop is something you can put your guard down for.

Ok, ok. I’m not trying to embed Lumines into your minds, Mizuguchi just makes great music games; and well this is one of them. If you’ve played REZ back in the PS2/Dreamcast days you already know what you’re in for, but since gameplay footage really can’t convey the experience I’ll attempt to paint this picture with words.

Child of Eden is an on-rail shooter where you control a cursor via controller or kinect/move, and you lock on and shoot moving targets. The game is enveloped with pulse pumping Genki Rockets remixes and you do your best to let go of the lock-on in sync with the beats to earn score multipliers. As the music flows; with everything you lock onto, fire, or destroy; a beat plays in sync. There are about five stages that are around 10 minutes each with a bonus survival mode that’s 30 minutes long. After completing the game on Normal, you can go hard on hard and attempt to unlock even more visual tweaks.

The game clocks in around somewhere over an hour. Although a relatively short game, its literally art in motion. Shooting flowers that bloom, jellyfish that sparkle, and riding a whale transforming into a cosmic phoenix; it’s a magical ride all the way down with happy fun time J-Pop trance raving out the whole way through. Ethereal, abstract, and downright lucid with it’s imagery; this game is the sensory overload that works in all the right ways. It’s literally like playing around with Winamp’s visualizer and being able to interact with it. In short, if you’re a fan of art, music, and a rhythm based challenge it’s not even something you have to question.

It’s a budget title for only about $40 bucks currently on 360.

- James Michael Cardona (Email)

Child of Eden was developed by Q Entertainment and is currently available for Xbox 360 with Kinect Support. PS3 owners can look forward to a 3D-TV ready version with move support, launching September 20^th

Buy this title (here)

EVENT REVIEW: Super I Am 8-Bit Show

Fri, 26 Aug 2011 20:48:00 -0700

SUPER I AM 8-bit

I AM 8-BIT has been running for about six years but came back this year with a full frontal assault; complete with 100 artists and a musical performance by chiptune artist: Leeni. So let’s take a tour and we can hold hands and smooch while I show you around the place. You enter this gallery through somewhat cramped corridor the size of a small shoe store. Art is plastered on both sides of the walls and if you can believe theres more, don’t crap your pants just yet. You should save the crapping for the awesomely decorated bathroom thats covered every inch of the walls in Scott Pilgrim pages ripped straight from the original comic. Past the main entrance’s deceptive small alcove is a large spacious room with full size wooden recreations of Zelda and Kid Icarus weapons.

A giant projection of Galaga is on display to commemorate it’s 30^th anniversary along with the very same arcade cabinet artwork blown up to the size of half a basketball court below the projection. There’s nostalgic overload almost everywhere you turn. Everything from Mario street graffiti, to a cardboard pixeled recreation of a Sonic level fills every square foot of this behemoth of an exhibit. Take the stairs outside and see the giant WORKING ATARI joystick playing on another projection to compensate for the huge controller.

Right next to the door are three section cut outs of famous game charactars like Blanka and Mega Man; you can get your picture taken with the body of Blanka or just chimera something together and be your own unholy creation. Well, to be honest I’m sure there was more but I got pretty tanked on the free wine opening night.

SUPER i am 8-bit is an art exhibit you simply have to experience for yourself. Sure, you probably could find the same amazing art pieces cruising through page after page of deviantart or looking at a few photos of press coverage yada, yada. But you will miss out on the core experience of seeing all this amazing work framed, lit, and on display in their rightful glory. Every piece is a unique and thought-bending interpretation that opens your mind and makes you think “Whoa, I never EVER would have thought about it like that”.

You owe it to yourself as a child of the 80’s.

You owe it to yourself if you can appreciate the mad mix of visual clutter.

and most importantly; You owe to yourself if you’re a gamer.

Just thinking about it makes me feel all bleepy bloopy inside.

- James Michael Cardona (Email)

SUPER I AM 8-BIT will be running from August 11^th - September 10^th, so don’t pass it up this time if you’re an old school gamer here in SoCal.

Oh and if I forgot to mention, IT’S FREE and park in the neighborhood behind the building to avoid the parking meters.

DEMO IMPRESSION: Bodycount

Fri, 26 Aug 2011 20:23:00 -0700

When I heard the news that the demo for the spiritual successor of the PS2 game BLACK had been released, I queued it up instantly with an appetite for the carnage that was delivered in my time with it. Unfortunately the Bodycount demo immensely brought down my enthusiasm from the minute I was given control. A simple word to describe it would be — disappointing.

Graphically this game is a bit underwhelming when it comes to engaging you in the universe it takes place in, it’s not the worst looking game nor is it the best looking game. There’s plenty of nice touches like destructible environments and decent weapon designs, but as a whole it seems like a generic FPS. The games sound design is where I believe it shines the most. I have a fairly decent sound system that delivers deep pummeling bass hits and I was actually impressed by the weapon sounds, explosions, and hit sounds. The music was the usual adrenaline filled gun totting drum beats, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that.

ABOVE: This should have been amazing!

My number one gripe with this game deals with its mechanics in general. I noticed right off the bat that it was not as fluid as most FPS games recently. To put it in words, it was almost like Resident Evil 1 tank controls…okay that was an exaggeration but this game feels slow. The jumping feels a bit broken and unresponsive at times. I also came across an interesting glitch, if you jump and at your peak start moving forward, you sort of have this effect where you your body walks slowly down a ramp. Try it yourself and you will notice immediately what I am talking about. The combo system seems like a great idea, it worked amazingly well in Bulletstorm, so I can see why they have this in the game but I honestly do not know what it does or adds to the gameplay.

The control scheme is a tweak of the standard FPS scheme we are all used to. One of the most unique aspects about this game is the hunker down lean system they have implemented. When you press and hold the left trigger, you stay in place and you’re able to lean around and when used appropriately can be a life saver. In this demo I was given a round of special ammo to try out, to be honest after the first initiation of using it, I actually forgot it even existed. It felt like it was there just to be there.

I’m not judging the final game at all by this demo, that would be foolish of me. I will however say that this demo has brought down my excitement immensely for the final product. I loved the game BLACK and I want to love this game also so hopefully the game will deliver the goods when it comes out.

- Matthew Maranan (Email)

Bodycount was developed by Guildford Studios and well be released on August 30th, 2011 by Codemasters

Art by Mariel

Tue, 16 Aug 2011 16:27:00 -0700

The world is forming piece by piece intricately at every foot step as you advance forward. Lush watercolors and and vibrant hues paint the floating island you stand on. A unique mix of trip-hop and frontier reminiscent vibes enter your ears and then the most magical moment begins…He speaks.

A gritty narration of your every move flows ever so seamlessly; the voice that without a doubt makes this experience more than any action RPG you’ve played before.

*Bastion’s beautiful art style

Bastion can kind of look like Diablo from game captures; but what you must see is how smoothly it’s animated. You’ll see footage of gameplay, but what you won’t experience is the challenge of the Shrine and how intense you can make this game for yourself. This game plays nothing like anything I’ve played before but it’s all very one of a kind because of it’s isometric view. The gameplay can change drastically depending on your weapon layout. Say, if you use the Cael Hammer, the game feels like you’re a close combat berzerker, on the other hand you could use the War Machete, and it will feel like a hack and slasher. You can even bounce back attacks with your Bullhead Shield if you time it just right. Charging your projectiles and letting go at the right time unleashes power shots.

*Official Bastion trailer

This game is a masterpiece that shouldn’t be over looked and I can assure you its worth the time if you bothered beating the Black Ops’s campaign. This game is worth the estimated eight hours of its adventure. If you blow through the game pretty quickly there’s even New Game Plus to max out everything you’ve got.

- James Michael Cardona (Email)

Bastion was developed by Supergiant Games and can be purchased on the XBLA marketplace and on PC via Steam.

Delirious Games: Little Big Planet 2

Tue, 16 Aug 2011 16:02:00 -0700

Paul and Matt play a custom Little Big Planet 2 level based on Street Fighter II aptly titled “Super LBP Fighter II Turbo”

What makes this level great is that with each round we experienced completely different outcomes. It is just vastly unpredictable and hilarity ensues every time.

This level was created by Hymanator, check it out here!

LittleBigPlanet 2 was developed by Media Molecule, purchase the game here

Birth!

Tue, 16 Aug 2011 15:15:41 -0700

Today the VgBandits have formed. Hooray!