Obsolete Gamer

Month: June 2011

Game Reviews
J.A. Laraque

The Visitor

Portraying Tarek and Zainab, the couple befriended by Walter, are relative newcomers, Haaz Sleiman and Danai Gurira. Zainab spends her days selling ethnic jewellery in a market but remains wary of Walter. The happy-go-lucky Tarek, on the other hand, is charismatic (this film’s Joe Oramas to Walter’s Fin) and the unlikely duo of he and Walter form an enjoyable friendship which is quickly put to the test. After Tarek’s arrest his screentime is more limited and his lively nature is sorely missed

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Knightsquire
Indie Games
Konstantinos Dimopoulos

Knightsquire

Knightsquire, lovingly crafted by none other than buloght (?), is apparently a game about a knight and his squire. Make that better a game about a knight, his squire and a door stuck shut. Not very epic in scope, but funny, quirky and touching on the delicate subject of squire-maltreatment (quite the class issue in medieval Europe), Knightsquire is a rather traditional point and click adventure, that’s slightly reminiscent of Gobliins 2

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Game Reviews
J.A. Laraque

THE PFI TRIPE AWARDS: MOVIES THAT INSPIRE CHRIS HAHN TO HAVE A BOWEL MOVEMENT

How does one begin to disseminate this piece of shit? Ah yes, DISAPPOINTMENT. Similar in aspects to Mortal Kombat Annhilation, we waited months and months for Alien Resurrection, and much like that sequel of yore, we were left with cinematic blueballs once it was over. Alien Resurrection started off interestingly enough, with a cargo ship crew discovering the existence of a cloned Ellen Ripley. Along with the cloned Ripley came the cloned QUEEN alien, which was inside of her in the duration of Alien 3.

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Game Reviews
Konstantinos Dimopoulos

The Spectrum Games Bible

Having already missed the apparently excellent ZX Spectrum Book – 1982-19xx book, I’m more than excited to have been timely informed about the incredibly ambitious Spectrum Games Bible 1982-2008 project, that’s already spanning two books and covering more than 500 games. What’s more, at least four more books will soon be released, hopefully reviewing every game ever released for the gloriously humble Speccy. Now, that’s what I call ambition. Possibly a worthy cause too. Well, almost. Anyway.

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Kino One
Arcade Games
Konstantinos Dimopoulos

Kino One Review

Despite not being incredibly original and at times feeling slightly repetitive (some stages do drag a bit), one can’t help but notice the amount of care and polish poured into the thing. It features more than enough levels, impressive end bosses, different difficulty options and even comes packed with cute faux arcade flyers. Besides, the control scheme that effortlessly lets players cloak, use smart-bombs and shoot everything in sight works like a breeze and helps Kino One become a most addictive fun little high-score chase.

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Game Reviews
J.A. Laraque

Tales of a Driver: The two Mr. Walkers

The man ran out at me. “Not so loud, the neighbors complain about everything.” His eyes were darting all over the place. “Look kid I am a bit short, I have fifty bucks take it and I will get you next time” There was no way I was going to accept that. “Sir, I can’t do that I need at least the full cost of the ribs even if you can’t tip me” the man got mad. “Well what if I can’t pay then?” I smiled at him. “Then I dial 911 on my cell phone” “I’m kidding, just give me a sec” the man said. I wasn’t leaving without my money so I sat on the steps when a cab pulled up to the apartment. Three men and two women got out the car and stared right at me.

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World of Geek
J.A. Laraque

The Commonplace Book Project

H.P. Lovecraft with all his unspeakable horrors, indescribable oddities and non-euclidean angles never really helped any visual artists, uhh, visualize his stories and -apparently- that's one of the reasons many -mostly Cthulhu- HPL inspired games failed to capture that distinctly Lovecraftian atmosphere and/or cosmic horror. The fact, mind you, that most of his protagonist were on the asthmatic academic side of humanity didn't help with the necessary video game action bit either.

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Feyruna Fairy Forest - PC - Gameplay Screenshot
Indie Games
Konstantinos Dimopoulos

Feyruna: Fairy Forest

Feyruna – Fairy Forest will henceforth be referred to, probably features Feyruna, a fabulous fairy (which could also be the name of FFF’s setting mind you, but really, I like the idea of calling the fairy Feyruna), and is quite frankly an alliteration heavy casual and/or retro gamer’s wet dream. It also is one of the more polished (but less innovative…) indy games I’ve recently seen and one of the few PC offerings with three unlockable mini-games. They might not be much, they might be simple, basic even, but they’re definitely a touch that shows the amount of care gone into the game.

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orpglogo
Table Top Games
Konstantinos Dimopoulos

Open RPG

You see, them virtual tables provide gaming groups with everything they need to play their RPG of choice without having to physically meet or touch any sort of dice, which might seem quite the antisocial thing to do, but can be very helpful for playing with friends living thousands of kilometers away or for spending some truly productive time at work. Open RPG for example offers players and GMs an integrated environment complete with miniature map, die rollers, chat, data organizer and the ability to run ones own game server, that’s flexible enough to host any game system imaginable.

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Donkey Kong 3 - NES - Gameplay Screenshot
NES
Luis Zena

Donkey Kong 3

The game is as simple as any of the arcade games back in the 80s. Your main goal is not to finish the game but to accumulate the highest score. Your skills will be crucial to score big in this one. The usual mechanics of the game work as other arcade classics, which means the further levels you go, the harder the levels get. You will eventually have no room for error as you try to dodge and kill the hundreds of bugs coming after you. That’s not all, you also have to worry about the big ape climbing down and once he does, you are toast! But wait! It’s not over just yet, you also have to prevent the bugs from taking away your plants!

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risk
Table Top Games
Konstantinos Dimopoulos

RISK, Strategies Explained

Risk (BGG entry), according to sources that prefer to call themselves voices and are not to be taken seriously, is one of the most successful, imitated and thus influential board games ever devised. It also is a particularly enjoyable game, that comes in a variety of flavours ranging from Star Wars to Lord Of The Rings to Classic, with the added bonus of being less prone to shatter friendships than Diplomacy. Also, also, Risk has the dubious honour of being the first truly mainstream wargame.

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Get Lamp
Blog
Konstantinos Dimopoulos

Get Lamp

What’s more, Get Lamp is a brilliant and quite impressive -both in scope and execution- documentary, that, carrying on with the themes of impressiveness and brilliance, also makes for a rather great movie. After (not so) extensive field testing I can actually assure you that even people who couldn’t care less about any form of interactive entertainment whatsoever, thought it was fascinating and were actually moved to give Infocom’s Planetfall a try.

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Blog
Umar Khan

Behavior Links

Behavior Links is a charitable organization that assists families with special needs children with a wide range of services ranging from therapeutic services for children and their families, educating and training families in other countries, and lowering the costs of services that many families with special needs members struggle with everyday.

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