The Blogtastic Blogfest That Is Getmeoutofthis.net!

I once saw a link for an iPhone game on FurAffinity.

Now, I tend to have a sort of love/hate relationship for specific “furry” things. In general, I don’t feel like they’re needed. The subculture’s tastes are not so crazy for things outside of fetish sex that it really needs it’s own, say, music, for example. Yet, when I see these links for these “furry” music labels, I have to click on them and see. I have to attempt to figure out how the hell a music label could be that. I rarely find an answer, but it’s an interesting couple of minutes while I explore. (Most “furry” music tends to be chiptunes and electronica, by my research, if you care to know.)
In the same way, when I saw the ad for Mole: Quest for the Terracore Gem, I kind of had to see what it was about. Why would you make a game specifically for furries, and what would it be? It also helped that it was free when I picked it up. That also didn’t hurt.

Still, I suppose I got lucky. Mole is actually a pretty fun game, and if I had spent the 2 bucks it now costs, I probably wouldn’t feel gypped. It would be an easier recommendation at a buck, but it’s a solid bit of momentary distraction.

The easiest way to describe what this game is would be to compare it to Miner Dig Deep, but since that’s an XBLIG game nobody has probably played, it’s probably stupid to make that comparison. Basically, Mole is a casual game of risk/reward. You dig down as the Mole guy, and search for gems and minerals. You only have a certain amount of air, and if you pass out, you lose everything you collected during a run. If you return to the surface, then you bank all your gems and money, and can buy upgrades to your equipment, so you can go deeper. Then you do it all again, and keep repeating until you’ve upgraded enough, and unlocked enough elevator drills that you find during your trips, to dig all the way to the bottom and get the MacGuffincore Gem found there.

Controls are simple. Tap, and Mr. Mole Guy moves there. Walk over some goods, and he picks them up. You can tap on hard rock to bomb it open to get at the goodies inside. That’s basically it. The game is a race against time, but it rarely gets tense. You’re simply trying to maximize your profits per trip. A trip looks like it’s not going to get over 5 minutes or so, (I can get down through all but like two of the strata, and I have enough air for 3 at the moment, so I assume 5 after two more upgrades) making this fine for short bursts on the go when you’re bored. It’s music and podcast friendly, so if you just like having something to mess around with while you listen to such things, this is perfect for that too. It’s casual, relaxing, and non-stressful.

Basically, the fun comes from feeling a plan come together (If I circle down that way, I should still be able to make it back up in time, and I can get that big chunk of minerals I noticed over there) and from the progression. Slowly, but surely, you’re always making progression towards your goal, and that’s something that I can appreciate. Progress is only lost if you play it too risky, but even that doesn’t set you back too much. If you’re not holding back and grinding, you can almost always buy a new upgrade every one or two dives, so you’re always doing better and better. It’s that kind of progress which makes it fun, for me, anyway. I enjoy that sort of stuff. It’s why I played CoD4 multiplayer so much, for instance. It’s just enjoyable to see goals constantly being met. If that sounds like fun to you, then Mole might be a game for you.

As far as the “furry” nature goes, the two characters in the game, the Mole and the shopkeeper, are drawn as furries, but that is it. There’s no weird stuff. It’s really just a game with a couple of pictures that might not appeal to you. They made a little game, and decided that putting that spin on it would get them more purchases. Honestly, I do hope it works for them. Mole is a fine little game, and if appealing to the furry niche works, more power to them.

Yeah, so that was that experiment. It worked out well! Always nice when that happens.

Yeah, that’s right. I’m milking two whole posts out of WET. Deal with it.

If you’ve played Stranglehold, you know it had some great ideas, but they just completely didn’t work. The game got boring as all get out very fast, and the objectives meant to vary the game up just kept you from doing what was cool about the game.
WET is kind of what Stranglehold wanted to be. It’s got hectic, cinematic gunplay with dives and slides all over the place. But what it does is put it into a more entertaining context that keeps you at least somewhat interested.

WET isn’t great, not by a long shot, but it was a fairly entertaining rental, and I enjoyed it as I played through it.

Basically, you’re a chick with guns and access to bullet time who can jump around and shoot people. You also have sword to cut things. Your only defining characteristic is that you don’t take shit from anybody. You heal yourself by drinking whiskey. You flip and dive and slide all around and kill countless numbers of dudes. Sometimes you get on a turmulent. Sometimes, the screen gets all red and stylized for some reason. You shoot some more dudes. This is the whole game.

You get guns that aren’t pistols, but you won’t use them because the pistols are better and the other guns have limited ammo. The pistols just feel right, honestly. I tried using the other guns, I really did, but there was just much more visceral feel to using the pistols.
The game has a weird system where it lets you shoot two guys at once by auto-aiming your off-hand. You can then aim your on-hand at another guy, or at the same guy to kill him faster. This has the comical side-effect of making you way, way more accurate with your off-hand, at least if you’re me. Often, my main hand would fire into space while my off-hand would murder guys alone. Still, it works, and when you’re sliding past two dudes, one on either side, and shooting both of them, the system pays off.

The main thing I liked about the game were the arenas. These were the key elements of the game, where you’d walk into a room, Rubi would look mean, and then you’d have to dash out, block off all the exits, and slaughter everyone in the room. These sequences were what the game was obviously designed around, and they really are a lot of fun. There are always lots of environmental things to jump off of and do tricks from, and you really benefit from planning your strategy before you dash out into the room to keep yourself from getting killed. These set pieces are really where the game shines. It does less so in other sequences, though.

The main reason I loved the game, though, was the music. Take a listen to a sample. This isn’t the same kind of music you hear in every action game. It’s different, but it’s still completely energetic and exciting. I loved it, and I loved moving into new set pieces, because almost every single one of them had their own unique song. This game got the music RIGHT. it really enhanced the experience, and was probably the only reason I finished the game.

If you have a weekend to waste and want to rent a game you can finish quick and have a bit of fun with, WET will do that. It’s alright. It’s much better than I expected. I’d never buy it, but thanks to Gamefly, I got to try it, and it was totally worth my time.

WET is not a very sexy game.

Seriously, with a name like WET, and the B-movie vibe the whole game has going for it, you’d think there would be all kinds of sex. But seriously, it is one of the least sexy games I’ve played in recent memory. It might star a female protagonist, but Rubi is unsexualized, seemingly by design.

First, let’s just look at her design. Here’s a reference photo. On first glance, maybe she seems like a sexy female protagonist. But Rubi is a very dirty person. Perhaps less so in that picture, but in game, her clothes seem caked with dirt. It seems clear that she lives in the middle of a desert junkyard, and it seems like it’s been a long, long time since she washed her clothes. Additionally, and it may just be an issue with modeling of her in-game assets, but it seems like they are stuck to her as an outlet of how dirty they are. They’re a part of her, and she is a filthy person. Her hair, similarly, seems very matted and dirty in game. It’s just not appealing.

There is a scene in the game where she is stripped down to her panties and a t-shirt. If this game was sexy, she would play the level this way. Nay, she would relish playing the level this way. However, Rubi cannot wait to get clothed again. This sequence is maybe 5 minutes long, and she rushes to redress. During the sequence, she is being brutally tortured. There’s no sex appeal there.

There is a scene where Rubi is being hit on by an odd older lesbian. It’s very clear from her body language what she is doing, but Rubi has absolutely no reaction. It’s not one of revulsion, or not being into it, nor it is playing along or being excited. She simply has no reaction whatsoever to these come-ons. There’s no element of sexuality from her side of the scene.

Even her “witty” in-game clips aren’t sexy. I mean, the one that sticks out in my mind is “Say goodnight, Gracie.” I guess I just don’t connect sexiness with George Burns.

All the iconography on the game would seem to suggest that Rubi is sexy. Hell, even the title, which has absolutely nothing to do with the actual game in any way, would seem to suggest that the player is supposed to take that away from the game. But it’s just not there, and it confused me why it wasn’t. It would have fit in the world. Nobody would have batted an eye at it. Were they really trying to make Rubi an actual character, and building that in as a character trait? The mind boggles at the possibility.

In Twilight Heroes, the IoTM this month is Gwneuthurwr Deganau’s hunllef puzzle. I have no idea how to pronounce that. Luckily, I don’t have to, because this is text. Probably luckily for the game, too.

In any case, this is another in a now-series of items which do a lot of random, color changing effects, such as the Amazing Technicolor Dreampants and the Prismatic Sports Bra. I have, in the past, very much liked these items. I enjoy a bit of randomness in my combat, and I enjoy feeling minorly rewarded every combat with the various effects. I also like the idea of wearing clothing that changes all kinds of crazy colors constantly. So I’ve liked the previous items.

However, this puzzles doesn’t have the benefit of being an article of clothing, which, conceptually, excites me less? This is a stupid reason, I guess, but really, I love those other two items, and have basically kept them equipped since I got them, because I enjoy the idea of wearing crazy clothing while being a superhero. The benefits are nice too, but I can get more static benefits which would probably help me more overall. It’s the flavor that makes me like them. I can imagine me jumping between rooftops, having the most horrible colors of clothing on, and general baffling enemies with it.

The puzzle also has some nice effects, (though some of them still aren’t spaded as of this writing and I honestly have no idea) but it also fills an accessory slot. This is a bigger issue than a shirt or pants for me, too, as those accessory slots are the biggest sources of +item that I have in Wolley’s Index and the Mask of Odysseus. Having to unequip one of those for the cube really makes this a much harder sell for me. I like my item find, especially since, until some sort of ascension-ish mechanic is brought into the game, getting items is the key benefit of playing. Normally, wanting randomness would be a no-brainer, but when you’re hitting that key buff, it’s a tough choice for me.

There’s nothing wrong with the puzzle (no, I’m not typing the name out again) but I find myself unable to be too excited about it. If you didn’t get the previous prismatic items, you might find a lot more fun in this one, and I admit I do get some pleasure out of having THREE prismatic messages filling up the screen during every combat. It doesn’t have me hopping up and down, though. It’s solid, but it just is.

Brickroad is doing another great FFI LP (how many times can the man play the same game and have me be entertained by it? I don’t know, but I want to find out.) and in thinking about it, it made me want to try things out. See, I never imagined, before reading all these things, doing all these challenge runs, and people make them seem pretty easy, especially in Dawn of Souls, the version I have. So I was thinking “Hey, let’s just do something different from the norm, and do a no-magic run. Fighter, Fighter, Bl. Belt, Thief.” I went so out of my way wanting to do this. I dug out my cart and my GBA SP, which has been unused for years. I was all ready to go.

Then I turned on the GBA SP.

I remember being amazed at how good that screen looked when I picked it up, but holy shit, it was a thing of the specific time period it was in. I could barely see the screen. I also remember how much of a godsend the lighting was, but not so much today. That front light is ridiculous and useless, and I was sitting in bed, trying to play, and was having trouble reading the text. It just looked hideous, and the screen looked dropped behind the front of the Gameboy by like an inch. My mind was kind of blown.

It is kind of amazing how much better my DSi’s screen is than that one. We have come a long, long way since the GBA days, even if some games on the DS don’t particularly look it. I’m not a graphics snob or anything, but we are talking the physical construction of the device. It’s amazing to me that I played so many games on this machine. Completely amazing.

Will I get over it and keep playing Dawn of Souls? Maybe. I only beat Garland before bed, though that involved several stupid, stupid mistakes getting my Fighters killed several times. We’ll see if I can go back to it, and that awful screen, again.

Dear person who is asking me to get on voice for Battlefield: Bad Company 2,

First off, let me just say that you’re awesome. I really appreciate you wanting me involved and wanting to talk to me. That’s really cool! You’re being all awesome and friendly, and that is great.

However, I don’t really want to get on voice, and it’s not about you. It’s about how I play the game.

You all are working to win. You’re calling out enemy positions and coordinating attacks. That’s neat, don’t get me wrong. But that’s, again, attempting to win, a goal I don’t really share. I mean, sure, winning is nice, and I’m not going to throw the game. And if our enjoyment depended on victory, you know I’d be there. Left 4 Dead? No way I’m not voice-chatting. You have to coordinate to have fun.

However, the main enjoyment I get from playing these kinds of shooters stems from two things. One is just completely and utterly zoning out. Maybe putting on a podcast or music and just relaxing while I mindlessly shoot dudes. The other is due to the level progression these games now offer. The second, voice chat does not affect. The first, it does.

Coordination takes energy. It takes thought, and work. It is the opposite of the completely stress-less, mindless enjoyment I work for when I boot up a shooter. Again, in a setting made uniquely for that, I’m down, but I don’t really feel like Battlefield is. I feel like I can be effective by actually playing the Medic role, unlike some people, even without coordinating. If spotting and other game systems are actually working right, which, honestly, is not always the case, most of the benefit of talking on voice chat is mitigated as well. It just often doesn’t seem worth it to me.

You guys are awesome. I enjoy playing with you, and it’s not like I’m not going to get on voice chat and enjoy playing with you all. You are cool. But if I seem hesitant, I just want you to know why. It’s just not how I play the game. It’s not that I don’t want to play with you, it’s just counter to how I approach the thing. That’s all.

Hope that clears up any confusion.

Sincerely,
poetfox

Fuck you, look at this cool song.

There was a metric fuck-load of hype and anticipation of MC Frontalot’s new album, Zero Day. Then they started playing tracks from it on the Jick and Skully show, and I was like “Man, that’s actually pretty fucking good.” I’ve always kind of liked Front in theory, but I’ve never been a huge rapping person, but every time I hear Front on a podcast or something he’s completely fantastic and entertaining. I also enjoy the tracks of his that I have in Rock Band quite a bit. After a little debate, I went ahead and threw him some money, and got the album.

It’s pretty amazing.

And at the tip of the amazingness is that song up there, Charisma Potion. It pretty well sums up everything I feel about this album. His previous songs were good, but were not… full. I know that’s a vague term, but you could kind of tell it was a one man show. It didn’t have all the oomph behind it that a huge, full production sort of song would. Or maybe I’m imagining that. In any case, the back beats and music in these tracks just really get me on their own. They’re energetic, exciting, and significantly less repetitive. I like that.

And, of course, Front’s lyrics are excellent. I mean, just listen to that up there. It’s completely geeky but also completely bad-ass. It’s pretty well perfect in this regard. I love it so much. I have to sing along with it. Of course, I am not a professional rapper, so it doesn’t go very good on a lot of tracks, but I try, dammit!

Yeah, I’m listening to this one over and over, and it deserves it. I’m glad I bought Zero Day. You should consider picking it up too. It’s completely sweet.

50 Cent: Bitch Stole My Skull is a great game.

Okay, let me explain.

50 Cent: Get on that gun, 50! is a blast to play. It’s ridiculous, and it actually plays well, unlike another “bad” game I’ve been playing recently *cough*DEADLY PREMONITION*cough*

Seriously, this game is 50 Cent, writing fanfiction about himself. Every person knows who he is, and loves his music. He has enough money to hire personal armies. He gets shot directly and gets back up and fights another damn helicopter. He is deadly accurate with amazing numbers of guns. Every inch of this game just oozes “50 Cent wrote this game about himself, so him and his friends can play as themselves and shoot dudes.” And it makes it so fun. The voice acting, the plot, all of it is completely and utterly silly, and you can savor every moment of it.

You’ll savor it too, and not suffer for it, because the gameplay is actually pretty good. It’s a really competent 3rd Person shooter, which passable cover mechanics, a good variety of guns, and plenty of combat. In what might be the most “game-y” mechanic in a game I’ve played for a long while, the fact that the game is constantly popping up challenges of enemies to kill in a set time, and encourages you to get kill streaks and kill combos really makes the game much more engaging. It becomes much more fast-paced, and adds that additional element the game needs to keep you entertained.

The biggest strength and weakness this game has is co-op. As I’m sure you’re aware, co-op can take an “eh” game and make it fantastic, and co-op in this game does just that. It is so much fun. However, the lack of split-screen co-op is a huge, huge oversight. Online co-op is fine, and should be there, but this game NEEDS to be able to be played with someone else on the couch. At the same time, I’ll say that, wanting co-op so bad, I bought two copies of this game, and only paid $30 total. I feel like I still got my money’s worth, but I was shocked and displeased that single-machine co-op wasn’t in the game.

That’s seriously it’s biggest flaw, though. I’m sure all the music and fanservice is fun if I even vaguely knew who 50 Cent was. I thought it really accented the stupid crazy fanfiction feel of the game, so I really enjoyed it, but it’s not really my style. The gameplay is great, and the story is so ridiculous, it’s a lot of fun. You will enjoy 50 Cent: Blood Split Upon Many Grains of Sand if you play it. It’s not full price fun, but this is pretty well the pinnacle of excellent budget game. Get it from a bargain bin, shoot some bitches, and get your jewel-encrusted skull back, mother-fucker.

And seriously, if all that hasn’t convinced you, there is a button solely there to make 50 Cent say 50.

Play the game.

Thanks to Evil Trout, one of the main individuals behind the very awesome Forumwarz, which you know I love, I was able to learn about a small indie game called Digital: A Love Story.

It’s completely fantastic.

I mean, sure, it’s a little cheesy, but you would expect that from such a title. But it’s a very great experience. You should roll through and play it right now, before I talk any more about it. It maybe takes an hour or so to play through? Give it a go and see what you think.

Okay? Did you play it? At least a little?

I really like this game, because it works very similar, both in mechanics and just in what it is trying to do, to Uplink. Uplink was fantastic because it made the things you were doing seem difficult and complicated, while still making them easy enough for you to do with no computer knowledge. You had to type in all kinds of things that you probably wouldn’t have to in most games, but that just made you feel more like a badass hacker, even if actual hackers would be doing completely different things, conceptually.
Digital works the same way, in how it makes you interact with the various BBSes much in the way you would have had to back in the day, but still makes it a bit easier than it would have been back then. The Notebook program tracks everything for you, like a modern game, but you still have to dial the numbers each time you want to connect, which just works wonders for setting the setting and making you feel involved in what you are doing.

At the same time, it’s doing some really interesting things with narrative. You can respond to anyone, send them messages, and talk to them. However, you never actually see what you’re saying. You can only infer what your character (which uses your actual name, if you follow the instructions the game gives you) is saying by what the characters in the game are responding to and saying. This is kind of amazing. You have completely control over what your character does, but not what your character says or thinks. You don’t even get to hear what they think, as you might when playing, say, Nathan Drake in Uncharted or something, where he’s going to make what he thinks clear, because he’s a separate person talking on screen. It’s… a really strange disconnect, especially since the game is designed to look like you are looking at a computer monitor from that time. You are supposed to be the character, and yet you aren’t. It certainly shines even more light upon the characters of the various AIs in the game, and what autonomy they have in their feelings and actions, where you only have autonomy in action, and not emotion.

Highly recommended stuff. I enjoy seeing the gaming medium used in a smart way. This is one of those times.

There has to be a million cool games on the App store, surely. I mean, they’re completely impossible to find, but if I could find them, I bet they would be really great. Sometimes, I start looking around, just trying to find things. Part of me doing this made me download, completely at random, a game called “Let’sTans” because, I dunno, it was free. Then I ended up playing it pretty compulsively for a week.

I guess I’m suggesting you download Let’sTans.

Basically, this is a Tangram game. It’s no frills, really, though I appreciate that you don’t rotate pieces using a two finger gesture, as that can get really annoying after awhile. You tap to rotate, and double-tap to flip the piece. Then you drag it into position. Then you solve the Tangram. Really simple, honestly. There are other modes too, which give you crazy screens completely filled with Tangram pieces, and you have to find the various shapes in the screen. Those are a lot harder, but alright as well. Then, they offer you additional puzzles and modes for small DLC fees.

Frankly, I really had a lot of fun with this. Tangrams are basically perfect for on-the-go, five second entertainment. You can completely one quickly, and you can then completely put the game down. Similarly, it’s perfect to fiddle with while you listen to a podcast. It’s not much of a distraction, but it’s enough to get your brain working while you listen to something nice. As I said, I blazed through all the classic puzzles. The rest didn’t do as much for me, but I still appreciated them being there.

This is a great little package for something that’s free, honestly. Unless you think Tangrams are the dumbest form of puzzle imaginable, you will get some entertainment out of it. Download it and enjoy it. It’s fun, in a simple, uncomplicated kind of way.