SEATTLE – July 8, 2011 – Ten of the industry’s best (and definitely most original) indie games culled from more than 100 submissions have been selected for the 2011 PAX 10. The developers of these titles will have free booth space at PAX Prime where they will be seen by the tens of thousands of gamers that will attend at the Washington State Convention Center on August 26 – 28, 2011.
The PAX 10 was created to provide the very best independent game developers with a way to get exposure to the gamers, media and industry professionals at PAX Prime. The winners were selected by industry experts looking for the best in gameplay, originality and overall fun-factor.
“Every year the showcase of new indie gems are one of the highlights of the show,” said Robert Khoo of Penny Arcade. “In always chasing the next big blockbuster, too much of our industry is dedicated to making the same game over and over again. The PAX 10 is one way that indies with innovative game concepts can get in front of the community.”
The winning entries are:
• A Flipping Good Time (PC) – Digipen Institute of Technology – Players will have a flipping good time in this fast-paced free-flowing 2D platformer as they flip and fly through an expansive underground world using the fluid nature of gravity to avoid hazardous terrain.
• Antichamber (PC) – Alexander Bruce – Journey through the depths within a non-Euclidean labyrinth where geometry and space follow unfamiliar rules, and many obstacles are a matter of perception. Players must create, destroy and manipulate matter in this mind-bending psychological exploration game.
• Atom Zombie Smasher (PC, Mac, Linux) – Blendo Games – The zombie apocalypse is upon us! Take strategic command of mercenary forces to conduct massive rescue operations using military forces such as snipers, artillery crews, and orbital bombardments to hold back the undead while the civilians escape.
• Fez (XBLA) – Polytron – Guide Gomez, a 2D creature, on a voyage of discovery into the mysterious 3rd dimension. Change his perspective and look at the world in a different way.
• Jamestown: Legend of the Lost Colony (PC) – Final Form Games – A neo-classical top-down shooter for up to 4 players set on 17th-century British Colonial Mars with a new twist on the genre. There are no shared pools of health or lives; so long as any player survives, the team can be brought back from death.
• Snapshot (PC) – Retro Affect – Pic, a robot camera, can actually absorb objects into photographs, removing them from existence! By pasting pictures back into the world, captured objects – everything from doors, light, even copies of yourself – can be used to solve puzzles.
• Solar 2 (PC) – Murudai – In this open-world, sandbox game set in an infinite abstract universe, players are the planets. Play constructively: grow your system, nurture life and attack enemy life in huge battles. Play destructively: crash into objects and cause chaos, use orbiting objects like wrecking balls and steal planets.
• Splatters (PC) – SpikySnail – You play as a group of semi-suicidal, liquid filled Splatters that get their kicks by igniting in colorful confetti bombs of liquid. Crash into spikes, ride the slides, Air-Strike into bombs or do just any stunt-combo you can think of. With every new maneuver learned, each show becomes more spectacular.
• Vanessa Saint-Pierre Delacroix & Her Nightmare (PC) – Bad Pilcrow – Standing between Vanessa and freedom are platforming mechanics. The twist? Her two-dimensional world lies on the surface of a three-dimensional cube, and players must rotate each face to find clever solutions to a wide variety of problems.
• Word Fighter (iOS & Android) – Feel Every Yummy – A one-on-one word battling game that mixes rules from popular word games like Boggle and Scrabble and wraps them around a competitive fighting environment. Think “Street Fighter” meets “Words with Friends”, or word games mashed together with “Super Puzzle Fighter”.
The PAX 10 website can be found at http://prime.paxsite.com/pax10.php
After 10 long years, Marvel vs Capcom 3 is finally here! As a die-hard MVC2 player I was pretty skeptical about how good MVC3 could be, but as the release got nearer and nearer I can’t deny that the impending excitement was starting to melt my cold, jaded heart.
The pessimism began for me and most other MVC2 players when the MVC3 development team first announced that they wanted the game to be more newbie friendly, for example by simplifying the controls to have only THREE attack buttons. But soon after I got my hands on the game I realized this wasn’t going to be a huge problem, and the addition of the universal launcher certainly makes it easier for novice players to pick the game up.
My most immediate problem with the game at this point (a good week or so) is that it’s too easy to kill your opponent. To start off with, the damage is too high. A standard air combo ending in a Hyper Combo will normally take over half your opponent’s life; on top of that, chip damage from beam/gun Hypers is also higher than it needs to be.
Complicating things even further (for the worse) is the new “X Factor” mode which can be activated at any point in the game to buff all your characters up: they get faster, hit harder, and regenerate their health quicker. All of which is fine, and would actually make for an interesting and strategic addition to the game (especially because the effect is greater the fewer characters you have left) — if not for the fact that X Factor is just as excessive as the aforementioned damage settings. Characters in XF mode simply become much too fast and hit way too hard.
In a way, this isn’t a game-breaking problem because *all* the characters hit too hard, and they *all* get overpowered with XF. So it’s kind of fair. As a result, I’d say this is the first area that MVC3 surpasses MVC3: balance. MVC2 had over 30 characters and 4 or 5 of them were godly compared to the rest of the cast. Seeing how many characters in MVC3 can already do 50% damage if not close to 100% on one combo using a single super meter, there’s not a ton of room to become deadlier. So in the weeks or months to come, when players inevitably discover a bunch of exploitable tactics that make some characters much better than others, I still think that the game will have to be more balanced than MVC2.
While the settings and properties mentioned above may turn players such as myself off by essentially making the game seem too easy, it definitely gives newbies the satisfaction of doing big damage in fast-paced matches.
Of course, the one thing which newbies and hardcover players will likely love equally has to be the job Capcom has done in bringing all of these characters to life. While I’m a huge fan of Capcom’s 2D art (what old school gamer isn’t?), the shiny new models found here pop with solid polish and personality. It’s particularly cool to see Marvel’s superheroes & villains jump off the comic book pages and onto the TV screens under your control — Magneto’s still badass, Taskmaster’s cocky, Deadpool’s overloaded with jokes & weapons, and on down the line. And the Capcom side with its mix of old favorites and new additions is just as good. Dante is incredibly popular, and I for one love Wesker (and I’m not even a Resident Evil fan).
In the end, MVC3 never really stood a chance of surpassing MVC2 in the hearts & minds of devotees like myself, but it’s a fun, fast-paced game bursting with personality and its sure to build on and surpass the surge of online fighting game fervor that Capcom jump-started with SF4.
Speaking of which, without a doubt the area MVC3 excels in over MVC2 is hands-down online play. Now that we have a up-to-date MVC game, online play has finally caught up with the times with SSF4-style ranked matches, complete with win-streak counters and graphs breaking down your offensive and defensive strengths and weakness.
Being a port of a 10 year old game, and probably a low budget adaption at that, MVC2 could be infuriating when trying to play online matches. You’d get booted from a room or even at the start of a match with high regularity. If I had a dollar for everytime I got “network error”… Probably the only reason this was even acceptable was MVC2 cost like $15.
When you think of a game that is full of cuteness you might become overly sick to the stomach with the thought, for example “Hello Kitty”. “Hardcore gamers” aren’t known to play games that have any kind of association with the words: cute, super cute, or “awwwww”. I think Ilomilo has redefined this genre and made cute possible for a game with absolute grace and challenges that make you feel accomplished instead of frustrated after you beat the community best on the leaderboards. Yes, Ilomilo has made me a score elitest. You know you’re the shit when you can get to Ilo or Milo with 30 less steps than the general community. Take that!
I wanted this game ever since I saw the trailer. The graphics are very well designed. You know a game is going to be good when you get the feeling that the designers enjoyed their work. Ilomilo is a definite must have for all 360 owners who love indie titles. This game isn’t for everyone, but even the FPS-onry gamers will appreciate it.
My roommate jokes about how I always make the Milo (blue) go to Ilo (red). His exact quotes are: “Always making the guy go to the girl!” so when he makes his own attempt to beat a level he makes Ilo go to Milo instead.
My favorite aspect of the game that I just can’t live without is my absolute love for the music. The soundtrack is just ridiculously addictive. I’m a huge sucker for creativity and the amount of work developers put into the music for the games. I can’t really say anything bad about Ilomilo except that fact that the 360 controller sometimes is a little wonky and it gets possessed by a ghost who seemingly wants to play too. When you want your little guys or gals to move a block to the left, instead of turning towards that direction they end up going up or down. I don’t think that’s any fault the the mechanics of the game.
In conclusion, for 800 MS points I think this game is worth every cent.
I’m planning on pre-ordering FFXIV when it ships on the 22nd of September. Yes I’m getting the Collector’s Edition. The fangirl inside me will never seize to amaze me. Especially since I’m already planning my month of September around the notion of when to call in sick! And you can bet that that’s going to be the 22nd (if I had it my way it would be that whole month).
I can’t wait to wake up on the 22nd and impatiently wait for my buzzer to go off and open my door to sign for the game. As much as I would like to dedicate my free time to another MMO, I have a feeling this new relationship won’t last as long. I seem to mastered the art of ADD when it comes to gaming as of late. My adult life seems to be conflicting with my utmost desires to procrastinate responsibilities even when it came to writing this article.
I remember the last time I wrote anything about Final Fantasy was my debate whether Square will create a new MMO, which at the time they referred to as Rapture. And here it is and I can’t say I’m extremely excited, but being a fangirl who craves nostalgia I just have to get it. And because of this I think I’m among the ones Square is aiming for.
I’m planning on installing Windows XP or Vista or even Windows 7 on my iMac via Boot Camp. I’m wondering how that will look. Currently I’ve been hearing rumors about Square separating the servers between PS3 and PC. I hope not. I really enjoyed playing cross platform and even worldwide connection. I hope Square doesn’t change this and limit the servers to which country has access to which servers. To me the whole point of an MMO is to play with different people from all over the world not just in the States.
I have the fondest memories of playing FFXI I’m hoping FFXIV will create new memories for me. But new love can never replace the old even with its brightest days and darkest hours. Cheers to SQUARE not messing this one up badly and learning from FFXI’s mistakes.
I’m wondering if anyone remembers Furonda Brasfield from America’s Next Top Model Cycle 6. She’s the one who greatly entertained the judges during their traditional Thai dance with her quirky ways.
Anyways, I saw a McDonald’s commercial recently and wondering if that’s her eating the burger. Anyone else seem to catch this? Or maybe I’m just delirious…don’t mind me…Jon told me to post it :P (ok he didn’t!)
With two seasons under it’s belt, Dexter returns this fall to Showtime to do some more killing as the “master” instead of the “student”. Season 2 Complete DVDs hit stores on August 19th. This is probably my most favorite American TV show, ok not probably…it is! I highly suggest this series if you haven’t been watching it.
I tried googling this earlier after receiving a random text from a friend that works in Manhattan, but nothing came on the searches until I went to ny1.com.
Here’s the article: RIP: Heath Ledger. Just wow…He was found dead today at around 3:30PM EST in his downtown NYC apartment…I’m just shocked…
I rarely post…let alone post about music (eeeek!)!!! I guess I got inspired to look into bands I used to/still like after playing Rock Band with Dylan. I totally suck at vocals, but I can out hum you any day! Also…don’t ask me about drums…would have been a nice dream of me playing the drums, but…nope…the horrors!
Ok, enough about Rock Band, this is a post about Weezer. They have their sixth album coming out in April 2008! I’m excited. I haven’t bought a CD since their last album, which came out in 2005 (can’t believe it’s been 3 years since I bought anything related to music for myself…).
I guess I was a little disappointed with their fifth album. Hopefully, they don’t disappoint us with this one.
On a cold morning of Dec 20th in NYC, I woke up and saw a pink post-it on top a present with my name on it with the message “Merry Christmas”. It was an early Christmas present from Santa!
And being the nice person that I am (^_~) I present to you what I promised from my last post, Final Fantasy IV (2007 remake for NDS, JP version) released yesterday in Japan.
