Machinarium and Kill Screen

First thing first, my review of Machinarium is up on GW. Check it out dudes and gals.

Second thing, thanks to the lovely Leigh Alexander (birthday girl today), I found out about the upcoming new gaming magazine Kill Screen. Looks like someone is finally making the kind of gaming magazine that I've always been looking for:

"We were asking "Why doesn't something like this exist?" We talked about games all of the time but there wasn't something that met the bar, both intellectually and aesthetically, for this genre. That's not to say there aren't lots of lovely blogs that write wonderful things about games and their obvious cultural import, but we wanted something we could hold. An artifact. An object. It had to be beautiful. The sort of thing that stays on your shelf and you pass on to your children. We wanted Kill Screen to be an heirloom."

The only gaming magazine I was ever subscribed to was (shamefully now that I look back on it) Nintendo Power. I will now have to look for a place to store all those old mags to make place for the new ones if they, hopefully, make more than one issue. Suffice to say, their vision was enough to sell me backing them up with a nice 50$. Can't wait for more info on this.

New review

A new review is up on GW. Enjoy.

Oh yeah, I had a blog.

After a few months hiatus of Press A to jump, I am back in force. I am writing a bunch of stuff right now and I may as well post what I do here. So here's a link to two reviews I did on iPhone/iPod Touch games for GamingW.

Enjoy

The wall

No, not the Pink Floyd one.

Allow me to direct you to an article I wrote for GamingW.net

Byebye holidays, hello school.

So, how was everyone's holidays this year. Mine were pretty good. The only gaming related thing I got was an old Megaman NES cartridge from my brother. Some kind of collector's item even if it isn't really one as of right now. As for gaming itself, it was pretty quiet. I went through Banjo-Kazooie at 100%, something I would never have hoped to achieve when I was younger. I played a lot of Saint's Row 2 to get some of the holidays stress out, played a bit of Pokemon Diamond on long car trips and enjoyed that Iphone/Ipod touch gaming jewel that is Rolando.

I never got to play Locoroco as I don't have a PSP. Rolando is, from what I heard and saw, the closest thing I could ever get. To quickly resume the gameplay, you tilt your Iphone/Ipod touch to move the little rolando, you drag your finger up on the screen to make them jump and you can use your finger to interact with on screen contraptions such as catapults and fans. The controls are simple and instinctive. Everything acts the way it should. The simple gameplay really makes Rolando an addictive and very fun game. The colourful palette is also a nice change from the usual grey and brown tones most games are giving us these days. The music is mostly forgettable but at least won't fall on your nerves. A definitive buy for anyone searching for a nice little game to make time pass.

Bears and Birds

Banjo and Kazooie are not really what I remember them to be. I got Banjo-Kazooie on the XBLA yesterday and played a bit with it. I almost fully completed three whole worlds in about two or three hours. Something is wrong here.

It came out originally 10 years ago when I was still a little 10 years old boy with big open eyes in front of the wonders of 3D. In my memories, the worlds were huge and it would take hours just to collect everything in them. Yesterday, I rolled through Mumbo's Mountain in 15 minutes. Now, is it because of the nostalgia that makes everything bigger and better, my memory that fails me, the fact I was young and that 3D was so new, is it because I remember collecting all of those ten years ago, or am I just a better gamer ? I think that there is a little from all of the above that makes the experience different. Don't get me wrong, I still enjoy the game a lot, but it makes you take some distance and wonder. If a game like this (albeit with better graphics) came out today, what kind of score would it get, what would the critics and reviewers think of it ? What would I think of it ? Would I give it a try or just let it sit there on the shelf and look at the new shooter that just came out. I can't really judge since nostalgia is clouding my judgement, but maybe my opinion would be different about the game.

To para-quote my movie history teacher, Marie-Christine Breault: "The historical context around a movie is very important". The same applies to games. Banjo-Kazooie came out in the last leg of the platformer genre era before it's death around mid 2000, with some of it's last representatives being Super Mario Sunshine and Vexx. It all felt new and shinny, but today it can only appeal to the ones that remember that little twinkle in their eyes they had in their youth playing with a shorts wearing bear with a bird in it's backpack.

I need to write more

I've just (and by just I go back to last weekend maybe) finished: a 12 pages work on narration in video games, a 12 pages work on the of the Dead horror movies, a 13 pages work on the evolution of westerns, a 10 pages work on some stuff about society (the teacher killed what could have been an interesting subject), watched 5 movies of which 2 were fun and studied for 3 exams that I all did between last Wednesday and today.

I am drained. But strangely, doing all this, being proud of my works (I may just translate the narration one and post it here) and performing like I never did, I have a strange envy to write even more. Write about games, write about the gaming culture, anything and from the point of view of both an academic and a fan. Henry Jenkins would be proud.... if he knew about this blog. So my (early) new year resolution is to at least write something once a week. About anything that may grab my attention during the week. Just to keep me writing and keep me motivated. But not this week. Like I said, I am empty, my brain is dead, I'm out of sodas and the week sucked anyway. VGA's were misogynist (from what I've heard) and more people are loosing their jobs in the industry. I will start my weekly routine after I get drunk (this Friday) and hopefully keep it going.