Konstantinos Dimopoulos – Page 7

Sweety Puzzle

Non-gamers are Nintendo’s Wii little target, non-gamers were the people the PlayStation turned to gamers all those years ago and non-gamers are the market casual games are aiming for. But what are casual games (ask the masses in their booming and state-shattering voices)? Well, according to Wikipedia they are “a category of electronic or computer games targeted at the mass audience, which are peculiar for their simple rules, engaging game design, require no time commitment or special skills from an end user as well as comparatively low production and distribution costs from producer”.

Editorials

Konstantinos Dimopoulos

Mario’s complete Gameography: Almost

Mario. Had a friend named Mario. Quite a weird bloke, mind you, but that’s not the point. Besides, this post is neither about my friends, nor Marios in general. It’s all about Nintendo’s Mario, and his appearances (in cameo, supporting or starring roles) on video games of all kinds. Quite a few as you should have guessed, and what follows are the ones I managed to find. The list -I am sure- is not a 100% complete, and even though I feel that almost every important game and most Mario appearances have been covered, there must be some obscure and/or well-known omissions.

Blog

Konstantinos Dimopoulos

Desktop Dungeons

So, let’s talk a bit about Desktop Dungeons then, shall we? Well, at first glance it looks like a simplified rogue-like that can be won or lost in less than ten minutes. It sports some simple yet effective sounds, oldschool graphics (complete with a variety of different tilesets), and some extremely elegant game mechanics. Click to move, click on an enemy to attack, click on a spell to cast it or a potion to consume.

Computer Games

Konstantinos Dimopoulos

DeathSpank

What though actually helps raise DeathSpank above the soup of mediocrity that are Diablo-clones, for let’s face it that’s what it really is, is the combination of a unique presentation and a generous helping of humour. DeathSpank features truly beautiful graphics that create a unique, colorful world not entirely dissimilar to a pop-up book, excellent voice-overs and so many and varied jokes you are bound to both constantly chuckle and at times properly laugh.

Modern PC Gaming

Konstantinos Dimopoulos

Lula 3D

Being of course cheap isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Lula 3D does have a certain charm, in the way Plan 9 from Outer Space, Dungeons and Dragons the Movie and Jesus Christ Vampire Slayer do. It’s so unbelievably bad it is almost interesting and enjoyable. Mind you, it’s not funny per se. The funny thing is that people decided to sell this kind of crap and I decided to buy it. And there is no such thing as a Bouncing Boobs technology.

Blog

Konstantinos Dimopoulos

The Space Quest Retrospective: A janitor’s epic tale

Meet Roger Wilco, janitor extraordinaire and star of the (mostly) hilarious Space Quest series by Sierra, back from the era when adventure games were actually considered killer-apps and went on to spawn sequel after sequel. Say hi, through almost seven Space Quest games (well, six actually), out of which only five (almost six) used roman numerals in their titles. Meet him here and have a drink in adventure-o-vision, while reading through this particularly short retrospective.

Modern PC Gaming

Konstantinos Dimopoulos

Telltale Texas Hold’ Em

Telltale Texas Hold’Em is not on TV, it’s on the PC instead. It was actually the first game released by the (hopefully) adventure maestros of Telltale, and has been around for quite some time. It is apparently a poker game. Of the Texas Hold’Em variety. This of course is neither a serious gambler’s tutoring software instructor, nor a hardcore/ultra-powerful simulation. Even though Telltale Texas Hold’em does play a decent and varied poker game, its great appeal is the atmosphere and the characters. Characters and atmosphere in a poker game I hear you say?

Table Top Games

Konstantinos Dimopoulos

Introduction: Pen and Paper RPG’s

Hence the importance of the rest of the players in the storytelling part. They are free to experience, twist, enrich, play through and ultimately shape the GM’s plot, always following some rules, not unlike those a video game would impose on a gamer. Rules, that determine whether a player kills a monster, is stealthy enough to bypass a drowsy guard or even adequately desirable to organise an orgy. What’s more, and just like in the vast majority of CRPGs, players get to create a character, an in-game persona, typically called the PC or Player Character, as opposed to the NPC or Non Player Character, obviously played by the GM.

Hardware

Konstantinos Dimopoulos

The CD-i

Even though the console was a commercial failure, it was rather an interesting kit of hardware, that somehow managed to become the home of some weird, rare and quirky Mario and Zelda games. Featuring a 16bit 68000 based processor (@ 16MHz), 1.5 whole MB of RAM, a single-speed CD drive, optional MPEG-1 capabilities and dazzling 32k color graphics, CD-i was quite the home-entertainment hub Philips had wanted it to be.

Game Reviews

Konstantinos Dimopoulos

Blood Bowl

What impressed me the most, was that the author actually managed to create a Blood Bowl setting, that -despite its contradictory self- fits nicely in the Old World’s … er … world. For example: having an undead team fighting the Chaos All-Stars on imperial soil under the watchful eye of a Skaven bookie, just doesn’t sound as implausible as it should. Quite an accomplishment that. And the characters seemed like normal people too, devoid of most heroic-fantasy cliches and definitely sporting quite a few dimensions more than Dan Brown’s abominations.

Game Reviews

Konstantinos Dimopoulos

Games of Empire

Unlike most gaming books I’ve read so far Games of Empire is neither a game creation guide, nor a retro gaming essay, though it admittedly does cover most of video gaming’s history, yet in a way you’ve definitely not been accustomed to. Instead of finding some sort of childish glee in the birth of Mario and Space War the authors prefer to look at the nation-bombing military complex that allowed for the first video games to be created

Modern PC Gaming

Konstantinos Dimopoulos

Medieval II: Total War

And now for the more impressive feat of Medieval II Total War: the graphics. Well, they are bloody amazing, and unfortunately to fully appreciate them you might need a slightly up-to-date PC. The game, you see, builds heavily on Rome’s engine, updating the strategic level’s visuals and making sure the 3D RTS parts are jaw-dropping, by adding tons of special effects, shadows and quite a few thousands of polygons. The greatest improvement though, is that each unit on the battlefield is no longer a stiffly animated group of clones, but more of a proper unit consisting of individual -thus quite different to each other- soldiers, fighting in an animated way that puts Dawn of War to shame. Yes, it’s that good, really.

Table Top Games

Konstantinos Dimopoulos

Guillotine

Game mechanics are wonderfully simple: the noble cards are arranged in a line, each player collecting the head of the noble at the front. Players can alter the arrangement of the line, by playing specific action cards (such as bribing the guards, rescuing a Noble etc.). The player with the most valuable collection of heads wins. It’s that easy. It’s luck you need in this game, not wits.

Indie Games

Konstantinos Dimopoulos

Spooks

On the plus side, the dialogs, handled with a typical multiple-choice interface, are very well written, the finale is unexpectedly unexpected, the Sierra styled interface works in an okay way, and as I’’ve already said everything is fine and dandy. Even the lead character is like Diamanda Galas in joke-mode. I guess that in order to find out more you should rather download and play the game. Here are more screenshots, and a hint on the plot: It’’s about ghouls. The female kind. That should do it. I’’m sure I’’ve convinced you to have a look.

Table Top Games

Konstantinos Dimopoulos

Brikwars

Brikwars, should you fail clicking any of the above links, is in its simplest form a freeware wargaming rules system, that let’s use your Lego bricks and figures to ..uh.. play war with your mates. It is thus what some would call a tabletop strategy miniature wargame. Further inspection though, reveals a truly fantastic game that has been evolving for over a decade and is both simple (make that elegant) and deep enough to actually challenge Warhammer.

Table Top Games

Konstantinos Dimopoulos

War on Terror

After all, the second edition of The War on Terror will soon be released. And -according to its publishers- it will be great. Spectacularly so. Oh, and yes, you can also get your cute little faces on the game’s money via one, two, three, four, five, six outrageous auctions. It’s all part of the aptly (let alone, cunningly) named Get Your Face on Money craze funded by the ever-popular World Bank of Capitalism. Or -of course- not.

Game Reviews

Konstantinos Dimopoulos

Little Wars

Playing with toy soldiers in a modern context, on the other hand, is -as expected- a rather more recent development, and as such a more cruel one too. The whole thing, you see, didn’t start as playing per se, but more of as a way to train Prussian military officers in the subtleties (?) of war (Kriegspiel they called it, and it used dice to simulate random battlefield events). The concept didn’t actually evolve into something less blood thirsty till H.G. Wells decided that a game for boys from twelve years of age to one hundred and fifty and for that more intelligent sort of girl who likes boys’ games and books would be a nifty idea.