Archive for March, 2008

Not many people know this, but I’m secretly married to Joakim Sandberg. Married to his work, that is! This dude knows how to churn quality stuff out, especially since Noitu Love and Chalk acting as perfect examples to rub your erotic unmentionables with all over like some slimy tentacle beast. Which brings us to Mr. Sandberg’s next project, the highly-anticipated Noitu Love 2: Devolution. Currently, a 10 MB demo is ready to be downloaded from his site, but the full game should be rolling eventually, albeit for a price. That’s right, you’ll have to pay for this pixelated beauty of a master emerald, but that didn’t exactly stop anyone from paying for AudioSurf, did it now? No, I don’t think so.

The best way to describe Noitu’s second iteration? Imagine the slick sprite work that high-profile developers like Treasure are known for, melded with the beat ‘em up majesty that is Gunstar Heroes (Yet another Treasure reference!), and you’re not too far off. I could throw a few more titillating tidbits, but really, where’s the fun in being a spoil sport? Gentlemen, start your modems!

Ever had one of those days when your private stealth jet’s AI decides to go sentient, rampaging all across the Middle East while trying to “find” itself the meaning for its existence - especially while on the day when you really, really need to get somewhere fast? It’s only one of the more creative excuses I could come up at this time, because despite being invited to the God of War: Chain of Olympus Launch Event in Mumbai (with a special appearance of Gran Turismo 5: Prologue), none of us from TAP went. I have a throbbing pain in my chest, and her name echoes agony!

Fortunately, such was not the case with GamingIndians stalwart and Gran Turismo junkie Sameer Desai. Not only was he able to break inside the Sony Auditorium with the utmost ease, Sameer tracked down Sony Computer Entertainment of India’s Country Manager, Atindriya Bose, for a little round of one-on-one (Latino Kratos need not apply). How conveniently convenient! Time for some “good cop, bad cop” - GI style. More after the jump, yo.

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Whatever Latino Kratos says, Latino Kratos means well. Milestone Interactive just so happens to be offering a kinky pre-order deal for those who have been looking for an excuse to pick up a PSP Slim & Lite (or two, if your name is Scrooge McDuck). Not only will you be cashing on what’s already the best playing PSP action game to come out in like forever, but in addition to that - you’ll also be chain-combo-ing yourself a Kratos action figure as well. Just what the mad doctor prescribed!

Thanks to Sameer for the enlightening news.

If there’s one publisher/developer out there that I love and respect almost as much as Valve or Westwood (R.I.P.), it’s gotta be Stardock. The folks there are a right decent bunch, having published a fair few decent games (Galactic Civilizations, mostly though) without going into all the copyrighting bullshit that’s bogged many a game company down. Thus when it was time for Sins of a Solar Empire to be released, I made it a point to pick up the game - out of principle, if nothing else.
Sins is probably the only game out in the market (other than Total Annihilation) that for all intents and purposes has beaten Supreme Commander at its own game. However, it’s not faultless. While Sins promises much, it fails to deliver on a whole.

Hit the jump below to find out more.

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We’ve seen All-Star American Hero, Homer J. Simpson, transverse to many impossible boundaries - from fan-made Japanese manga to the real world as a crude 3D model in hot pursuit of discovering humanly-baked Erotic Cakes. But what would Homie look like if someone took away all the gooey-yellow out of him and injected some hardcore manwich-tissue? Pixeloo has heeded your call! Not to beat around an old cliche, but it’s amazing what people can do with time, patience, tinkering around with image-manipulation software that we sometimes don’t pay for (ahem), and an affinity for portraying the characters we know and love in all sorts “Oh god.” Cheers, Pixeloo!

Be sure to check out his ode to the plumber-boss himself of Mushroom Kingdom, as well.

FX Labs - how about those guys, huh? After the “unique” attempt made to remodel Riverdale life and the subsequent announcement on Dhoom 2.5 (many months ago announced, with little to no info on it, and still counting), the wizards of WTFery have supposedly turned their attention to creating a third-person action game featuring sassy mama sita, Malaika Arora Khan, called Agni: Queen of Darkness. The real bamboozledness of the whole issue? Not the fact that several random sources erratically post about how great the gameplay is (even going on to the extent to say Oblivion and Prince of Persia can’t compare to it) by mentioning absolutely nothing about said gameplay. Not the fact that the vaunted Mumbai Mirror decides to criticize the game for using a woman to sell it, even though they know just as much about this game as the developers know about the effects of gravity on the above-average female anatomy (read: zilch). Heck, not even the fact that the game is being marketed with a music video that features the most delusional mesh of 3D modeling, live-action dancing and India tunes this side of…well, this side of nothing in the name of sanity.

Just the fact that this game was The Lost that Irrational Games teamed with FXLabs to create, and went by the name of an early vision of Bioshock before less hallucinogen-induced minds prevailed and Irrational took the game into their own hands, makes you twitch and feel nothing is sacred. Everything about the game provokes the same, as mentioned with the propaganda (it’s too biased to be anything else) likening this title to the second coming of Ram and the impossibly demeaning pivotal motion of the heroine Tara’s hips. Seriously, what can we honestly say about a game where nothing honest exists? One of us from TAP could probably pick up this game (and I mean that in the loosest sense) and review it, but I for one like my eyes. And ears. And God. And I’m an Atheist.

Official word on an Agni review: Never-ever-ever and counting, by the infinitely far looks of it. Maybe we should pitch this one over to Yahtzee.

About a few days ago, the World Cyber Games association announced their official roaster for this year’s global competition, and I gotta say, India better be getting a good chunk of what’s being offered. Project Gotham Racing 4 seems like a no-brainer, but Virtua Fighter 5? Oh, I’d be hitting that with a dash of chilli-sauce. And you should too.

Speaking of which, when we spoke to Cyril Ferry during last year’s preliminaries in Delhi, one thing Reggie and I asked him was the deal on the lack of recent game titles (Project Gotham Racing 3 makes an appearance, but Gears of War doesn’t?). He reasoned that because of the costs involved in owning either a high-end rig or next-gen console, older games running on older systems will always make for a bigger draw in the hearts of competitors. With a year already gone by, I hope to Hercules that this isn’t so much the case anymore, especially if you look at Guitar Hero 3, of all things considered. It’s widely available on a number of platforms (even on the DS, for Christ’s sake), and if folks don’t feel like purchasing the pricey peripheral, they can always jam for free on their keyboards with Frets on Fire. What does IndiaGames got to lose on this one?