I have moved the feedburner rss so you don't need to resubscribe, but for those of you who usually visit the site manually, please bookmark the new url.
I am still tinkering with the theme and so on so please excuse the mess, although I made sure I could grab a theme that would allow me to focus on what I feel is my strength - Imagery! So, be prepared for random wallpapers made using found art related to videogames as well as any other videogame related imagery I come across (of course with related credits where necessary).
I just finished playing this and I had to share. It is an excellent spy thriller viewed from a first-person perspective with an aesthetic reminiscent of the CG anime TV series and PS2 game, Gregory Horror Show and Team Fortress 2, all rendered lovingly in the Quake 2 engine. Yes, the quake 2 engine. It also won arthouse game of the year over at Game Tunnel if that sort of thing wags your tail. The creator of the game Brandon Chung who is the developer at Blendogames seems to have a series of games that look just as interesting, so I highly recommend checking out his website.
I have recently been taking a lot of issue with people who in my eyes focus too much on the narrative elements of videogames and not enough on the actual ludic elements, but in this case, the actual experience of playing the game, from the art direction to the music to what actually happens in the game, all work together to form something a lot more than if the game was solely about its game mechanics. AND, it is something that could only work in videogames. He works very well with the unspoken rules of videogames and subverts them for the purposes of the experience I am assuming he wanted to give the players.
Anyway, it will not take much of your time I promise. I don't want to say much about the game as a lot of it is from the experience of playing it so go play!
Oh! And speaking of Gregory Horror Show, it is actually pretty funny.
And so we enter another year. 2009 seems to have started off pretty hectic around here, hence the late new year post, and I am kinda liking that.
Gaming-wise, we have Killzone 2, Street Fighter 4 and Resident Evil 5 on the imminent horizon filling up February and March rather nicely, and there are loads of new indie games that were released over the holidays and are also due in the next three months so there will surely be loads to talk about.
I spent the initial part of the holidays playing and loving Mirror's Edge. I finished the main campaign AND got the test of faith achievement on my first playthrough so I don not understand what all the fuss is about the game being too annoying or broken or hard. Yes, I died a hell of a lot, but once you get into it, it is certainly one of the freshest experiences I had in the whole of 2008. The time trials are definitely going to keep me busy and I am already trying to sort out a way to get cash on PSN so I can purchase the DLC later this month.
I also got Little Big Planet for Christmas from my mum. This is another game that I do not understand the lack of sales for. I haven't even started using the level editor, and I can already say that it is a classic platformer. Yes, the jumping is floaty. Yes, the physics system takes some getting used to, but what is wrong with that? The Metroid Prime series had an unconventional control system, but once it was learned it was highly intuitive and worked perfectly for what it was. You can't jump in Bionic Commando: Rearmed. I am sure I can think of loads of games with unconventional control schemes and/or ways of interacting with the world and a lot of them are great games. I think we should stop insisting that every game perform the way we expect it to and approach them all with a blank slate ready to learn what the game has to teach us about exploring its world. One should not be surprised to encounter an FPS that controls exactly like a 2d side-scrolling platformer. As long as it works for what it wants to accomplish, sweet!
Anyway, I also played a bit of Dragon Quest IV on the DS(which is really awesome by-the-way, the first JRPG in a while I have enjoyed playing) and Bionic Commando: Rearmed on the X360.
All-in-all, I think I spent the holidays in the company of some pretty sweet games.
This year we are looking at expanding the blog, first with the move to wordpress and its own domain, and then by organising a gaming meet here in Lagos! I am still working out the details of venue and so on, but I am aiming for March 2009. There will be loads of competitive gaming in the forms of Halo 3, SFIV, some football for those that want it (yech!), and maybe even some racing! I also plan to have some PC systems here and there with repositories of indie, abandonware and other freeware games for people to get a hold of and maybe even some exhibition games by those still heavily into competition here. It will be great!
I also met up with a guy at an anime meet (Yes, there was an anime meet in Lagos! Crazy!) who knows the guys behind LaKraft entertainment. They organised the Nigerian group that was hoping to go for the World Cyber Games that I wrote about lastyear. My plan is to get in touch with them and we will see whether we can get something going together.
In other news, my first game is coming along nicely, and I should be able to have an alpha version in about one or two weeks time depending on how work goes.
I also want to ask for more interaction from you, our wonderful readers and subscribers. SKG is about building up the Nigerian gaming community, and yet, I barely hear from any of you. So, speak up. Oh! And in case you were trying to escape, the same goes for our foreign readers as well. We know who you are. :-)
Well, a happy new year again to everyone. 2009 is going to rock!
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