I’ll be participating in the Global Game Jam 2012 next weekend, so I’ll be late on my updates next time. Speaking of Global Game Jam, lets talk about one of the best games that came out in Global Game Jam 2011: 42. Yes, 42, the infamous joke from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. It’ll answer The Meaning to Life, the Universe, and Everything.
42 is similar to Wario Ware Inc. series. The point-and-click flash game involves clicking the correct number or setting up the correct conditions in a short time. The game will frequently trick you, so you’ll have to be careful on how to solve the current puzzle. It’s a funny game that’ll give you laughs as well as frustrate you on its riddles.
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Hopefully some of you may recognize the Dutch mixer, Junkie XL. He has creating a ton of remixes of popular pop-music for SSX 3, but have also composed many original music for Sims 3 as well. Here’s one of his best works, A51 for SSX Blur.
SSX Blur is a winter sports game, where snowboarders and skiers pull off insane tricks. As such, there isn’t much of a story behind it, other than some unimportant backgrounds about each character you play. Regardless, style is the name of the game, and the entire SSX series have a lot of it. All the art design, billboards, special effects, and even the character themselves gives a comical groovy/techno vibe. To compliment the visuals is the excellent context-sensitive music. Any dark or moody locations switches the music from an upbeat, feel-good music to a lower tone, mellow one. Taking jumps will mute the music significantly, adding a dramatic drumbeat to make the moment count. Sound is, of course, excellent as each character will both comment on themselves and others on their performance.
SSX Blur is, unfortunately, considered one of the lowest point in the series. The majority of the complaints were the difficulty to pull of über tricks — elaborate tricks that requires you to draw on the screen via the wiimote — that turned out to be unsatisfying. The lack of responsiveness in the controls were a big factor for some. Regardless, the fact that each course have many hidden shortcuts and multiple paths to take increases the replayability of the game significantly. Added with lots of unlockables, this game will definitely keep many winter sports gamers satisfied for a long while.
SSX Blur was released for the Wii. No other ports exist.
Extra!
Title:Song For Dot Game:SSX Tricky Remixer: Space Raiders Original Composer: Fats Domino Comments: This is a remix of Fats Domino’s There Goes My Heart Again.
Every game has a prototype, a small model that demonstrates how the final product plays. Here’s the prototype to a PSP game Every Extend Extra: Every Extend. A game with hypnotic music and pop visuals.
Every Extend plays like a randomly-generated top-down shooter. Unlike top-down shooters, though, the only way to kill enemies (blocks) is by exploding yourself. If you manage to hit one, that enemy will explode, hitting any enemies near. By this simple chain-reaction, you attempt to extend your combo to the largest number of enemies possible. Certain colored blocks give you different power-ups: red ones increases the number of enemies, green gives you more ammo, and yellow gives you more time.
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Remember Christophe Héral? He’s the same French composer that written music for Beyond Good & Evil and Adventures of Tintin. It’s a fine time to revisit him today, with Rayman Origins. Here’s The Tricky Treasure, a western-style music mixed in with movie-like orchestra!
As its title implies, Rayman Origins brings the Rayman series back to its roots: 2D platforming. Our limbless hero, Rayman, and his friends are startled from their relaxing nap when a granny summons a bunch of baddies from The Land of the Livid Dead. Disgruntled, Rayman and his team must hammer the baddies and their bosses back to their home-grave. And…yeah, that’s it.
For its lack of complexity, Rayman Origins overcomes it by its sense of humor, excellent sound and music, and absolutely gorgeous artwork. It plays much like New Super Mario Bros., where up to 4 players can join on the jumping, punching, kicking and the bopping. A bit unlike the Mario series, however, this game has a heavier emphasis on speed and rhythm. As such, many hardcore speed-runners are going to have an absolute blast with this this game!
Rayman Origins was released for the Wii, PS3, and Xbox 360.
While I usually focus on released and playable games here, I’d like to highlight this prototype with a lot of promise. Here’s Against the Wall, a first-person platforming-puzzle game about climbing a wall. It’s a surreal and acrophobic experience, strange, perilous, and inviting all the same.
The alpha build for Against the Wall can be downloaded here.
The game involves pulling pillars out of the wall through a magic wand, allowing you to jump on top of them as platforms. Although all the pillars are randomly generated, you have to understand how far and how high you jump. The serenity of correctly calculating your moves as you ascend farther up the wall is an intriguing experience.
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Remember Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles? Presumably, all the hardcore Final Fantasy fans greatly disliked the inability to level-up in that game. This, despite the extremely addicting multiplayer, the excellent graphics, and most importantly, poetic music. Without further ado, here’s Endless Sky by Kumi Tanioka.
Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles is a story of 4 strong villagers who venture out to collect a drop of myrrh from the sacred myrrh tree yearly. What does the myrrh drop do? Energizes your village’s crystal, that protects them from the hazardous miasma that encompasses the entire world. The crystal is only able to protect a certain radius, depending on its size. For your company, you only carry one small shard that can cover your caravan. Thus, at least one team member must carry this shard, while the rest stick close to this character as they fend off the enemies.
Unlike the majority of the Final Fantasy games, Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles is more like a real-time multiplayer action game than a JRPG. The game required a Gameboy Advance to connect to the Gamecube. The portable device displays your items and traits, thus keeping the information visible only to you. Even though taking and keeping drops from enemies is part of the fun, the game also required precise coordination to combine attacks and spells to a more powerful variant.
Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles was released for the Gamecube. No other port exists.
Extra!
Title:Annual Festival Game: Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles Composer: Kumi Tanioka
