A new game has come to my attention for the Android market that I thought was worth the time to upload some info here on it. PewPew; a vector graphic based shooter game very similar to Geometry Wars in many ways but a lot of fun anyway. You can pick up power-ups as you play like more shields so you can take more hits and new weapon boosts that give you a temporary power up on your firepower. On a tablet it is very cool to see running at the size though the controls can take some getting used to especially when things start to get hectic. It's a free game and worth a download for sure.

That image above shows some serious chops on a game for a phone. Now imagine that on the iPad. Even more possibilities spring to mind. Phone games have been gaining major traction in the mobile world and game development world. Rovio alone with it's Angry Birds game behemoth has shown just how popular it can be. Now lets move into the world of 7, 8, and 10 inch tablets and things begin to change dramatically. What can this larger form factor with bigger horsepower offer to gamers who are now moving into a more mobile future?

Mobile tablets like the iPad and Samsung Galaxy Tab are the tip of the iceberg that is tablets that will be coming our way in 2011. Acer, ASUS, LG, Blackberry, Toshiba, MSI, all are ready to unleash the whirlwind of tablets they have in their stables that are just waiting to be released. All they are waiting on is a UI designed to work on the larger form factors and specifications their tablets offer. In this case Android 3.0, or Gingerbread, which is due to release sometime in the next few weeks. Promising new features and optimization for larger form factors, lots of manufacturers have been waiting for this OS before releasing their tablets. What does this mean for games and game developers? Well Google has stated they are releasing new SDK tools for developers to make programming for Gingerbread easier and more intuitive and more control over native resolution settings. Meaning they can streamline the process of how the apps they develop will look on a larger or smaller screen depending on what it is being installed on. Also the Android Market will be tweaked to allow videos of games made to be seen inside the market place rather than just a link to Youtube as has been the case in the past. This means you can get a look at what the game is before you get it right there on the app page. Making the likelyhood of you actually buying it that much higher.

Another big aspect that will change gaming on tablets is the hardware being released on them. The LG Optimus pad will be sporting the new nVidia Tegra 2 processor that has plenty of horsepower to keep your games running smoothly on these bigger screens. Intel's going to be releasing some new chips to be used in mobile devices as well along their Sandy Bridge line of CPUs. This all means more power in those tablets and more variety on the types of games you can run on them. So developers will have more power to develop more sophisticated games with not only higher graphical capabilities but also more depth to them as well.

With a bigger screen comes more real estate to place controls that will not block the action on the screen when your digits get in the way to take control. So the game becomes more the centerpiece rather than having control images taking up a good portion of the viewable area. For action type games that take some pretty quick responses and timing this is essential. You cannot have a fast paced action game with your big meaty thumb in the way of a quarter of the screen for a large portion of the time and it remain an enjoyable experience.

Games like Angry Birds, Plants vs Zombies, Sam and Max, etc work well on these mobile devices due to the fact that most of the actions can be done with touching certain areas of the screen to perform actions without it being a hindrance. But now with the larger screens you can bet you will have a larger gamut of games to choose from in the following year when these devices really start to churn out. Developers will have a field day with the new possibilities these devices offer in terms of gameplay, storytelling, depth of character development, graphical capabilities, etc. This is all good news for the gamers out there. Giving them more options than ever in the mobile market that is dominated by phones and their inherent limitations.

Now you may say you do not need a tablet and you are just fine with your phone and its game offerings as well as more practical aspects. And that is fine as well. Just because they are being developed does not mean you are obligated to get them or even support them. But keep in mind that as it stands now many of the games that will be developed in the next year on will have options to upsize for tablets. So if you DO decide you want one after all just know you will not be losing anything from going to your phone to a tablet but gaining so much more.

Spotted this on Engadget this morning. Little bit of a nostalgia twist for a new device. Someone managed to shove the new iPod nano into an old Dreamcast VMU. I have to say the old memory unit never looked better. Now only if they can somehow port a way to level up your Street Fighter characters on there like you could on the old SF Alpha game for DC.

http://www.engadget.com/2010/09/27/ipod-nano-modded-into-dreamcast-vmu-magic-meets-nostalgia-vide/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+weblogsinc/engadget+(Engadget)

Ok, so today was my first little taste of some Dead Space 2 action. So far it looks just like Dead Space so no big change there. The atmosphere of undead alien creatures coming in on all sides waiting to tear out your organs and use them as party favors is still very much intact. It looks good with the right mood lighting and the screeches of the Necromorphs all around you keeping the pace very tense. So the beta is restricted to this one map so far. You are in an old mining station and your objective is to gather three components and place them on a center machine that will create a bomb and end the level in a victory for the humans. As Necromorphs your job is to stop them doing this within the time limit. Seems it is at a 4 v 4 setup right now. However even if you are only 4 Necromorph members the game will spawn AI controlled Necro to keep the pressure on. The humans also get to respawn but only at certain areas. The Necro can respawn from the classic places, vents. You choose what vent to spawn from that will put you in the best spot to attack the humans. All the while you can hear like a weird overmind voice that tells you to kill the humans and stop them from building the bomb. Similar to the voice of the cerebrates from Starcraft that gave orders to the Zerg. Hints at some possible plot developments in the single player game?

The humans are armed with standard issue space rifles that have auto fire and their secondary is the trusty line gun. Necro drop ammo and supplies as you kill them. You even pick up stasis packs though I have yet to figure out how to use them or the medical stuff. Been a while since i played Dead Space so I am still rusty. The Necro come at you from all sides so sticking close to each other and watching your backs is key to survival. You have to move around the map and collect different components of the bomb and whoever is carrying it is reduced to a slow walk. If they are killed they drop whatever component they have and someone else can pick it back up. As you play you level up and unlock new weaponry and equipment. I am guessing this will probably tier later on for a more even play. You have your melee attacks if the Necro get close, and they will, so make sure to swing away or stomp away as the case may be. The melee is especially useful against the pack Necro. Little guys that look like children that run up to you can swarm you. They move fast so trying to shoot them up close is near impossible. So melee seems to be your best bet. Though due to how the movement works the pack Necro have the advantage of movement and attack speed close up. A stasis module helps out then though if more than one is on you you had better hope a nearby team member can swat them off. The pack Necro also have a grab ability that initiates if they jump on you and make a successful attack. You have to rapidly press X to get them off though this leaves you in a vulnerable animation that other Necro can take advantage of.

On the Necromorph side so far there are three types you can be. There is one grayed out selection box that will most likely be opened up later for a fourth variety. The first is the pack Necro. The small, fast ones that can do a lot of up close melee damage and jumping grabs. A good Necro for getting up close and slashing away while the human is trying to kill you off. The second type is the ranged one that has three tentacles on its back it uses to fire projectiles. It is very small and can climb on any surface. I tried firing from the ceiling area but it was very disorienting. The third type is the common Necro you see in most of the first Dead Space. The human sized ones with two big slicing claws on its back. They are actually easier to kill than the pack ones due to their slower speed and size. They can however rush their enemies down with a slicing attack and have a sort of puke attack from range that does some good damage. There is a limit to how many can spawn though and you can see the respawn timer on that type in the selection area. The pack and ranged Necro are always available however.

The multiplayer is a good addition to the Dead Space franchise especially this type of survival mode. If there will be another mode like deathmatch I cannot tell yet but I doubt it due to the very nature of the game. The Dead Space vibe is still very strong in the sequel and loses nothing in this multiplayer format. If anything it feels very much like the scene from Aliens when the marines are in the xenomorphs nest. Tense, fast paced, and gripping. Just over the entire course of the map rather than just a minute or two. I am very eager to see more now come release time. Till then, stay frosty.

So I just got an email from EA telling me I am going to participate in their closed PS3 multiplayer beta. Seeing as this is an opportunity I will give you some details of it as I go through and let you know how it goes once I start it up. Till then, stay frosty.

Hi all, here is my new Leonardo Da'Pimp outfit.

Ok, after another day or so of Final Fantasy XIV I will give you some more tidbits that fell out of my beard. The game could use some improvement. Some are saying its not good. Even going so far as to say it is a 'bad' game. This is not the case. It is an average game at this point with some flaws. Flaws that COULD BE addressed if the higher ups are in the right mood and the moons align. This might be more difficult though since there is no obvious way to send feedback to Square Enix in their beta. A rather glaring oversight on their part if they want to know how well their game is doing.

Ok, on my second day or so of the game I went about smacking some monsters in the face. Each monster has little colored symbols that resemble shields next to their name when you target them. Blue is easy prey, Green is decent challenge, Yellow is tough, and Red is Very Tough. Forget trying to take on the Red guys. They will eat your lunch and make you fall down and examine the nice textures of the ground close up. So I stuck with little dudes. Beetles, rats (yes rats, cliche), and sometimes a sheep. Very menacing sheep! Anyway after a hour or two of that I decided it was time to go find a shield for my Gladiator. As he was a tank job I thought it would be prudent to have something to block hits with. So I teleport back to Laguna Laboona (not actual name but more fun to say) and began hunting for an NPC to buy a shield. This was to turn into an epic journey the likes of which I had not fully prepared myself for. Not one vender in all of the city, all of the land, had a shield. Not one. I figured maybe one of the Hand guys had made one and were selling them. So I went around looking for the Retainers that sell people's stuff. I could not find them anywhere. After searching for an hour it turns out the they are kept in a separate zone in the city called the Wards. You have to zone into each ward and there they stand. Waiting around to let you browse their wares. That this was not immediately able to be seen from the city map made things incredibly difficult. Nor did any NPC specifically state which area the zone started in (Southern Islands btw). There was no Market Wards post on the map anywhere. So I wandered around aimlessly until I said to hell with it and went to the internet for help. After a bit of googling I discovered this secret yet not secret extra zone within the city. You might ask why didn't I think they would be in a seperate zone to begin with. Well seeing as there seems to be no loading zone area in the world map (unless you count the ferry which I will touch upon later) there was no indication that there would be a separate zone. This is some shitty design mechanics at play here that need to be fixed before they decide to ship this thing. People cannot read your mind Squeenix. Especially not those minds you have over there that made something like Cait Sith a reality.

Well after I found that secret market area there was still no shield to be found. Well maybe there was but you have to search EACH INDIVIDIUAL RETAINER. There is no search function, oh no. You have to go to each NPC and search them. One by one. This is not acceptable. Here is a deal breaker for me. If your economy is based on this system it will not work. Period. No one wants to stop and go through hundreds of NPC just to find one thing. Make a damn search function Square. C'mon!

Now after that little escapade I found out that the only shield vendors were in another city. Uldah. Across the ocean. Well not such a big deal as there is a ferry you can take that takes you to the other continent. After hopping aboard, waiting about five minutes, I was in the continent I needed. Then I needed to hoof it to Uldah. About a ten minute hike. I stopped along the way to attune with the other Aetharyte crystals there. Once you attune to them you can teleport to any of them all over the world. Kind of makes the ferry obsolete after one trip but whatever. I am sure the fishing guys like it. So I get to Uldah and it happens to have a Gladiator guild. Which I can't join. Yet I suppose. This here is another problem with FFXIV. No clear cut explanations of what you can or cannot do. It never says you can join once you get to a certain level. It leaves you in the dark. We need some info here. How do you join a guild? When can you join? How do you get guildmarks? Guildmarks, btw, are special currency that lets you buy things from that particular guild. It is not explained how you get these but I am betting being a member of the guild helps. There is far too much left unanswered in this game and no real way to find out. The opening cutscenes only setup some overarching story that you are supposedly part of. But nothing on what to do or where to go. For a new MMO this needs to be part of the starting experience. Even though I played FFXI for years I found it rather daunting just figuring out basics of the menu system and combat. Give us a tutorial mode of some kind, Squeenix. C'mon!

Well that is all I have for today. I will give you and update some time later. I am hoping things will smooth out over the next couple weeks.


A lovely sunset and some Roeg ass in your face.