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The rarely updated blog of Joel Dixon
Monday, June 30, 2008
The Simpsons Game
# Posted by Joel Dixon at 30/06/2008 18:57:57Last Exit to Springfield
There have been 21 other games in the long list of Simpsons-based video games, and it's fair to say that very few of them have been worth playing. The Simpsons Hit & Run was pretty good and Bart vs. The Space Mutants kept me entertained as a kid - but most of the games have run the gamut from totally shit to an occasionally enjoyable distraction.
It is with this in mind that when the last Simpson game was announced - with the original title of The Simpsons Game - I wasn't expecting much.
There's a different cover design for each version of the game
The Simpsons Game features an original storyline - it was initially assumed this game might be a movie tie-in with the recently released Simpsons Movie - in which Bart discovers that the family is part of a video game. You can control Homer, Marge, Lisa and Bart and each member of the family has different skills and abilities. The game is broken up into 16 episodes - each with a different setting built around the two characters you will play as.
Developed by EA, poster boy for all that is wrong in the video game industry, this was a very tough game to keep playing. Deaths are far too frequent due to clunky gameplay and the camera seemingly intent on sabotage. If this game was on any other subject, I probably would have stopped playing it after a few hours. But this is where the story kicks in.
The game was written by three Simpsons writers and all in-game dialogue is delivered by the actual Simpsons actors. The story is very funny, and reminiscent of the golden age of Simpsons episodes (for me anyway). The town of Springfield is also pretty faithfully represented in digital form, including internal designs with the comic book store, police station, Kwik-E-Mart, Moe's Tavern and more.
Although there isn't much you can do there, running around the inside of places like the church is a nice touch
The funny, Simpsons-style story alone would make for a good game even considering the poor game play issues, but the most pleasantly surprising aspect of the game for me was the video game references. The game makes fun of past and current video games as well as the whole games industry including EA themselves. There's also many brief aspects of the game play included as homage to famous games in history, such as space invaders, all rendered in the regular in-game engine with a different camera angle (generally top-down).
Mmmm, chocolate
There's no online component to the game, and the achievements are uninspired. Apart from the "finish the game" type achievements, most of the points are handed out for collecting the various "collectibles" throughout the game. That being said, The Simpsons Game does give up one of the most amusing achievements I've "achieved" on the ol' 360. I won't give it away, but you'd see what I was talking about if you ever decided to give this game a go.
3.5 out of 5
# Posted in the Gaming section and tagged as: Xbox 360
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Friday, May 30, 2008
What bow and arrow?
# Posted by Joel Dixon at 30/05/2008 18:54:55This picture popped up in my inbox with the subject "What kind of bow is this?"
The answer given was "Who gives a shit" - and I must say it's a fair response. Prepare for an increase in archery crowds.
# Posted in the General section
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Sunday, April 20, 2008
Plants and Pop
# Posted by Joel Dixon at 20/04/2008 19:49:07Updated by Joel Dixon at 20/04/2008 21:13:53
I stumbled over an amusing post with a collection of science fair photos on Photo Basement. Here's some of my favourites:
Plants and Pop
I seriously want to find out what the results were. Why is the government hiding this stuff from us? It's the EV1 all over again.
Moon Babies
Moon Babies. What more can you say?
Animal Magnetism
Animal Magnetism. You're telling me!
The Code of the Meniscus
Best. Jumper. Ever! (except for maybe this one)
The Ideal Pancreas
Part 2 mind you. I assume all the good stuff was in part 1.
If I were back in an American high school, my experiment would probably be about cats and whether they want cheeseburgers.
# Posted in the General section
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Thursday, April 17, 2008
NHL 2K6
# Posted by Joel Dixon at 17/04/2008 22:59:06Updated by Joel Dixon at 18/04/2008 08:24:03
As I've mentioned I'm a huge fan of NHL video games, and have tried to collect one for each year. A little while ago I found a second-hand version of NHL 2K6 for the 360 so I snapped it up.
NHL 2K6 with Marty Turco on the cover
2K6 was the first NHL game released on the Xbox 360 - and it kinda shows. Buying a two-year-old game I didn't expect anything fantastic, but I can't image it would have been that special even when it was first released. It wouldn't run on PAL-60, so to play this game I needed to changed the cords I was using and alter the Xbox's display settings. There was also some freezing issues with the game, and the 2K Sports interface was getting very clunky by this stage.
I played a few games with my beloved Penguins, and it's always fun controlling Crosby around the ice - but there wasn't much reason to continue once I earned the 5 achievements. It will take it's place on the shelf next to the other NHL games, and the Tony Hawk series.
# Posted in the Gaming section and tagged as: Xbox 360
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Friday, April 11, 2008
Garfield minus Garfield
# Posted by Joel Dixon at 11/04/2008 21:43:47Updated by Joel Dixon at 12/04/2008 00:26:11
The Internet is a wonderful place. Sure, there's plenty of downsides, but at times it appears that we've discovered the proverbial thousand monkeys on a thousand typewriters. Amongst all of the internet crap - there's a heap of gems, like Garfield minus Garfield. From the site:
Basically he photoshops Garfield out of the Garfield comics and it turns into a hilarious comic about a crazy Jon. I browsed the site and he has picked some very funny ones - exhibit A.
Anyway, on the train home the other night I picked up a copy of the Herald Sun and flicked through to the comic section. Sure enough - the comic I saw was another example of a good Garfield minus Garfield so I got Bell to photoshop it up for me. When you mouse over the image it will be replaced with the original comic (give it a second to load), or if you don't have Javascript enabled you can just click it.
Check out the site - don't let the monkey's work be in vein!
# Posted in the General section and tagged as: Web
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Monday, March 31, 2008
Jonathan Roy assaults Bobby Nadeau
# Posted by Joel Dixon at 31/03/2008 20:46:58Updated by Joel Dixon at 01/04/2008 15:03:03
About a week ago the Quebec Remparts were losing by 6 goals in game 2 of their playoff series against the Chicoutimi Sagueneens in the Quebec Major Junior League when a fight broke out. The fight turned into a bit of a brawl with most of the players on the ice getting involved and the following happened:
Jonathan Roy assaults Bobby Nadeau
The goalie in red is Jonathan Roy, backup netminder for the Remparts with a very ordinary 3-10 record in 22 games this season. The only reason this incident made national news is Jonathan is the son of Patrick Roy, retired Hall of Fame goaltender for the Montreal Canadians and Colorado Avalanche. Patrick is also well known for his short temper on the ice and being arrested on a domestic violence charge after an argument with his wife (I bet Jonathan is bummed that his Dad passed on his temper and not his hockey ability).
What Roy did had nothing to do with the fight of the hockey game - he just outright physically assaulted the goalie in blue, Bobby Nadeau (who is the starting goalie for the Sagueneens and who's team will actually suffer if he was suspended). It's clear that Nadeau wasn't interested in fighting, and Roy didn't let up when Nadeau was dropped to the ice. The footage says everything.
Obviously this isn't great publicity for the sport of hockey but the worst part of this story is the "punishment" that was dished out to Jonathan and Patrick Roy. While it's good that Patrick was suspended (albeit for only 5 games), Jonathan's suspension of 7 games is nothing more than a slap on the wrists. What a joke.
I can only hope that the police get involved and give the second-rate backup goalie a punishment that fits.
# Posted in the Hockey section
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Sunday, March 23, 2008
Overheard on a train
# Posted by Joel Dixon at 23/03/2008 16:15:53Updated by Joel Dixon at 26/03/2008 19:47:37 - spelling
A little while ago on a train home from work I was sitting near two people that looked to be around 19 or 20 having a seemingly normal conversation. My ears pricked up a little when I heard the following:
Quite the odd conversation, but it's apparently something that some people are wondering about.
And it seems the "myth of the pedophile priest" thing is still going strong.
# Posted in the General section
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Ninety-Nine Nights
# Posted by Joel Dixon at 23/03/2008 01:33:33When I bought the Xbox from a workmate he included his 4 remaining games. I had already completed three of those games (Kameo, Oblivion and Enchanted Arms) after my first few weeks in Edmonton around 8 months ago. The fourth game, Ninety-Nine Nights - took considerably longer.
Ninety-Nine Nights cover
A joint effort between Q Entertainment and Phantagram, Ninety-Nine Nights (shortened to N3) is a hack-and-slash game with up to a few thousand enemies to vanquish in each level. You start the game as Inphyy, a 17-year-old leader of the Temple Knights fighting a holy war against a horde of goblins and other supposedly evil groups. Once you finish the main storyline with Inphyy you unlock two new characters and replay the same story with a different viewpoint. Each character you unlock tells a different part of the story and lets you play on both sides of dark and light, which changes the events of the story.
The game play has elements of RPGs such as level progression based on experience points and a number of weapons with status changing upgrades. The story also reminds me of RPGs like Final Fantasy - complete with world-saving teenagers, a predominant light-versus-dark theme and female characters that believe boobies are more effective against a sword than armour.
All protected from stabbings. Unless, of course, someone goes for the chest
Visually N3 is very impressive, and this was obviously an important goal of the development team. Hundreds of enemies and allies are onscreen at once set against purty backdrops of the desert, jungles or a snow field. Each enemy is given a different look with a random combination of various armor pieces, and act relatively believably when left on their own. Unfortunately it seems they pushed the poor Xbox too hard as the framerate is noticeably slowed when a large number of enemies are joined by the destruction of structures such as a sentry tower. While this doesn't affect the game play too often it does make the game look a little unpolished.
Bring it!
N3 is essentially a button masher with one button controlling a regular attack and the other a power attack. These buttons are combined to inflict powerful combo attacks, and you learn better attacks as you progress in level.
For each enemy you kill you are awarded a red orb. When you collect enough you can unleash an orb attack allowing you to cut through hundreds of enemies like partially set jelly. Enemies killed during an orb attack result in a blue orb. When you collect enough of the blue orbs an orb spark attack pretty much levels the playing field of foes.
The achievements in N3 are quite well implemented for such an early title. Awarding an achievement for completing the game with each character encourages you to uncover the complete story in the game. If I was playing this game on a system without achievement points I probably would have stopped playing after finishing Inphyy's quests and would have missed a lot of the story elements. The final achievement, progress each character to level nine, gets repetitive to the point of tedium - which explains why this game took so much longer to complete.
Ninety-Nine Nights isn't the most strategic game, but when you come home from work there's a certain level of fun to be had mowing through thousands of animated goblins.
3 out of 5
# Posted in the Gaming section and tagged as: Xbox 360
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Sunday, February 24, 2008
Tony Hawk's American Wasteland
# Posted by Joel Dixon at 24/02/2008 13:34:46Updated by Joel Dixon at 04/03/2008 17:03:18
Back in high school a couple of friends and I hired a game that was getting a little bit of hype amongst the kiddies - Tony Hawk's Pro Skater for my PlayStation. Still to this day, I can remember how I felt when I started skating the first level - the Warehouse. The game did look awesome - but the real joy came from replicating the feeling of turning up at an unfamiliar place, and seeing what you could skate on. This is something my friends and I did frequently during our early high school days (on rollerblades), but in Tony Hawk - I could actually complete better tricks than "the jump".
The first level in the original Tony Hawk game
As I rolled through the levels like The School (another very familiar setting) and The Mall (I admit I did have a fantasy of blading through an empty Eastland) collecting the coveted tapes and uncovering amusing gap names I knew this was a special game. I am now a proud owner of every game in the Tony Hawk's series and while I definitely feel the quality of the series had peaked by the third installment - I still buy and enjoy each of the games, just to try out the new levels, if nothing else.
The last Tony Hawk game I bought for my PlayStation 2 was Tony Hawk's Underground 2 quite a few years ago - and it was fortunate that the next in the series, American Wasteland, was available for the Xbox 360 at the bargain price of $15.
Why pink?
As this is the fifth Tony Hawk game, game play changes were hardly genre re-defining. The big change was what they took out of this game - loading screens. There was, however, loading tunnels - 30 seconds of sparsely populated tunnels connecting each different section together. Even though the change was essentially turning the loading screen into a user-controlled animation, I must admit that it did help the flow of the game.
Continuing the trend that was introduced in Tony Hawk's Underground, American Wasteland's main content was uncovered in a "story mode" that tried to add a narrative to the game. I've never been a fan of "story mode" as it generally results in a lot of busy-task goals, and crap loads of unnecessary skating from point A to B. In my opinion the story mode succeeds only in making the game more disjointed.
The chick you try to doink in the story mode (the one without pigtails)
Some of the new story mode levels are pretty cool (such as a finished Skate Park) as are some of the NPCs that are introduced - but on the whole I was unimpressed. A very small feature of story mode is the ability to get off your board and hop onto a bike to ride around. This was one of the better inclusions of the game in my opinion, especially since the BMX controls were much better than the controls of Activision's Mat Hoffman series of games. It feels great to pull off a flare or tailwhip with this style of controls!
No tuffs on this bike, unfortunately
Once I finally slogged my way though the story mode I gave classic mode a shot - and was happy again. The sense of nostalgia overwhelmed me as soon as I begun the first classic level. You see - all of the classic levels are remakes of levels from earlier games in the series (like my beloved Mall level from Tony Hawk's Pro Skater). I'm sure some people view this as a cop out - but I was happy as it's been so long since I've played these levels, and they take on new life with the inclusion of moves such as the manual and revert.
I guess the other new feature that would have wowed people when this game was released was the ability to play against others online with Xbox Live. I played a few games online over Live - and it was definitely fun - but there really isn't many other games playing this game now days. Still - the online experience was quite well implemented - considering the time this game was released.
Achievements in this game weren't too bad, but pretty basic. Once completing story mode and classic mode most of the achievements were dolled out, leaving only 10 points to skate each level over Live (with or without another person) and 100 points to "complete" the game (basically get all of the gaps). Once again, considering the release date of this title, the achievements weren't too poorly implemented.
Overall - American Wasteland is pretty much as you would expect for yet another game in the Tony Hawk series. A fun game, some new levels and the ability to play over Live (while the game is still popular).
2.5 out of 5
# Posted in the Gaming section and tagged as: Xbox 360
This is the 3rd in the My Video Gaming History series
Part I - My Video Gaming History - Part I: The Commodore 64Part II - My Video Gaming History - Part II: The Sega Master SystemPart III - Tony Hawk's American Wasteland
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Friday, February 22, 2008
The Sound of Windows
# Posted by Joel Dixon at 22/02/2008 23:54:31Found this gem on a technical blog I subscribe to:
The Sound of Windows
A musical treat made only from the system sounds found in Windows 98 and XP. Sure, it isn't very long (though there is an extended version if you follow the link to YouTube) - but I thought it sounded neat enough to share.
# Posted in the General section and tagged as: Music
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What bow and arrow?
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Good to hear from you JG - hope all is well. I'd happily accept an arrow in my upper thigh ... link
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