You’ve probably already all heard this, but just in case you haven’t you need to check out these amazing chiptune covers of Radiohead’s Kid A and OK Computer. via Pitchfork
Puxxels are cute little sets of sticky vinyl tiles you can use to decorate your walls. They come in a variety of shapes, including glow in the dark sets!
If you haven’t seen this one already, you clearly don’t spend enough time on the internet. Last month Emerald City Comicon in Seattle hosted a radioplay version of Star Wars starring all of your favourite voice actors, including Billy West and Kevin Conroy.
My little sis is getting ready to make me an aunty for a second time, so I thought I’d have some fun and whip up a little geeky gift guide for all of you expecting a little one or with friends/family expecting a level 1 human. As it happened, my favourite finds just happened to fall into two distinct categories: Star Wars and Video Games. If you have a favourite nerdy baby thing you’ve found, feel free to post it in the comments.
1. As anyone with a baby will attest, babies need multiple outfits everyday. To make it easier to theme your baby’s day, pick up a deluxe pack of video gamed onesies (they also have a super hero pack available). 2. Familiarize baby with popular controller shapes, and provide much needed gum relief with a carved maple controller teething toy. 3. Get ready for everyone at the shower to exclaim “Fus Roh D’awwww…” when they unwrap a tiny crochet Dragon Born Helm. 4. While not currently in stock, these super cute Xbox Controller plush toys can be customized to include a rattle!
I even opted to include a bonus FREE gift option: (more…)
Check out this awesome project by Instructables user pameroth. Click the link above for the full tutorial, including lots and lots of video game themed tile patterns for all your nerdy DIY needs.
As Rick and I are still very much in penny pinching mode, it’s rare that we splash out on an evening movie screening, but when we found out a friend had two extra tickets to a one night screening of Indie Game The Movie, we knew we had to scour the couch for change to make it work. The film was actually being screened as part of the Hot Docs film festival in Toronto, but as part of a special pilot program they were premiering it across the country on the same night by streaming the Toronto presentation live via satellite into dozens of theatres all over Canada, including downtown Montreal. And other than a couple minor glitches midway through the film, I’d say the experiment was a success. The film itself primarily follows two indie game developers, Tommy Refenes and Edmund McMillen of Team Meat, the sick geniuses behind Super Meat Boy and Phil Fish of Polytron, creator of the recent indie hit Fez. Jonathon Blow, the creator of Braid, the game most often cited as “Exhibit A” in the video games as art argument, also makes frequent appearances to discuss his own success and the challenges and joys of the indie development world in general.
Unlike 2008′s Playing Columbine, which tackled the issue of video games as art head on, Indie Game elegantly skirts the issue by focusing on the idea of individual creativity and expression (arguably key components in any work of art) and how they are better served in the indie development world. The film also drives home the stakes at play with a successful launch day often being the difference between living in your mom’s basement and buying your own house. The meat of the film centers around Team Meat preparing to launch their game on Xbox Live Arcade and Phil Fish bringing his first playable demo of Fez to Pax East, despite the game having been in development for over 4 years. The tension for both teams is palpable throughout the film and Fish’s nervous pacing and stressed out ranting while waiting to see if his ex-partner will bring an injunction against him at Pax nearly gave me a sympathy ulcer. The film is gorgeously shot in HD and fits in nicely with the grand tradition of great Canadian documentary making.
What really makes the film work, though, are the subjects themselves. All three individuals are presented as passionate creative types with uncompromising visions that took risks and sacrificed (usually personal relationships) in order to pursue that vision and, God willing, reap the benefits. There are a lot of nerd tears, and Team Meat in particular comes across as so likeable that you do cheer a little inside when you see their incredibly hard work pay off.
Part of me wishes the filmmakers had followed at least one unsuccessful game, in order to better contrast with Super Meat Boy’s astounding success, but being that the film was completed a year ago, there’s no way they could have known that Fez would end up being the critical and financial success it has become. As it is, the film ends with Fez’s fate up in the air with Fish promising to release it in 2011, but now that the film and the game have both been released, the idea of Fez being a potential “failure” seems rather disingenuous. Also, both games happened to have been released through Xbox Live Arcade, as opposed to Steam or Playstation Store, so a little variety in that respect also could have rounded out the film a little better.
At the end of the day, though, Indie Game The Movie is really more about people than it is about video games or the video game industry, which makes it gripping viewing for gamers and non-gamers alike.
Red flanked bluetail from the Torigun series by Sato
You’ll notice that I haven’t included anything Cinco de Mayo related because seriously, isn’t it kind of gross for non-Mexicans to pretend to care about Mexico for a one day excuse to eat tacos and have a disgusting piss-up?! However, go get your Free Comic Books and watch The Avengers. A much better way to enjoy your weekend, wouldn’t you agree?
Check out the Onion AV Club’s new home of all things videogame, The Gameological Society. And while you’re there, check out their new essary series, On The Level, where contributors muse about their favourite, most challenging or most puzzling levels from games gone by.
Woohoo! GamerWife fav Hanie Mohd (remember her from Tumblr Tuesday?) has an Etsy store where you can but art prints of her lovely super heroine inspired art, like the Batwoman print to the left. Time to fill up those walls…
Check out these tiny little bespoke Super Hero costumes for your fingers created by Tamara Maynes and photographed by Julian Wolkenstein. I would love to hear the story behind this one.
One of the benefits of having both a PS3 and an Xbox 360 is that Rick and I truly have access to some of the best the indie gaming world has to offer. I guess all we really need now is a Steam account and we really would be in indie game heaven.
Since we’re in the middle of a bit of a lull between big releases and Rick’s attention to The Witcher 2 has drifted due to its punishing difficulty and non-hand-holding design (“it feels too much like work sometimes”) Rick and I decided to finally check out a couple of popular indie games. While they are different types of games for different consoles, they do feel similar in a few key ways, which is why I’ve chosen to review them together.
I suppose the theme of this edition of Backseat Game Review is “less is more”. Both Fez and Journey owe much of their charm and enjoyment from their simple design and uncomplicated approach to gameplay, despite being very, very different games.
The product of Montreal, QC based Polytron Corporation, Fez is probably best described as a 2D platformer in 3D. Clearly, that’s a serious contradiction, except that it totally makes sense once you see the game in action. You control Gomez, a tiny white marshmallowy man in the titular headwear who happily resides in a cheery 16 bit 2D world. Suddenly there’s a galactic disturbance of sorts and Fez discovers that his 2D world now posesses a third dimension and it is up to him to collect a bunch of cubes and mini-cubes in order to return cosmic order.
The soundtrack itself consists mostly of drone-y ambient techno, reminiscent of early Tangerine Dream or something along those lines. Gameplay is frighteningly simple: you can jump, climb and in a couple of instances, swim. But, what makes the game so unique is the way it forces you to play with perspective as you turn your environment around. The environment itself is built in 3 dimensions, but other than turning the world, you move in 2D. Meaning that a jump that looks too far away is suddenly a simple step when viewed from a different angle.
Although the basic game can easily be completed in a lazy weekend, the depth of the puzzles and codes involved necessitate deep delving for the true rewards, making the game an absolute bargain at about $12 CAN.
That Game Company‘s Journey, on the other hand, doesn’t even really fit into any clear gaming genre. It’s not a platformer, there’s no shooting… there isn’t even dialogue. What it is, is a meditative experiment in virtual experience, emblematic of That Game Company’s “artistic” approach to game design (see Flower, Flow, etc). There are no puzzles as such, but thorough exploration is encouraged and rewarded, although not 100% necessary in order to appreciate the game.
Like Fez, the art design in Journey is simple in striking, although the style is completely different. Fez is colourful and detailed, quirky and evocative. Journey is sweeping, majestic and at times magical. You control a lone, nameless traveler, probably on some sort of pilgrimage, although that is intentionally never made clear. The game opens with you wondering the desert, interacting very simply with the environment to find the next waypoint.
During your travels you may find yourself joined by a random online player who you can invite to join you, follow doggedly or ignore altogether. The game does reward you for cooperating by allowing you to power-up by intermingling with a companion, but you have no way of communicating with them other than the one tone “chirps” programmed into the game. I enjoyed this twist online play, which was friendly and encouraging, unlike so much of online gaming culture. Rick and I even found ourselves becoming protective of our equally nameless companion when he became injured and you do feel a certain comradeship with the various players you encounter when their names are finally revealed at the end of the game.
The music is alternately soothing or stirring, making Journey much more of an emotional experience than a physical or mental challenge. I did find it a little short (probably 5 hours max), making the $15 seem a little expensive. But, if you consider the price an investment in the future of indie games, it’s a price I would gladly pay twice.
I highly recommend both games for both hardcore and casual gamers, not something I can say very often.
Back when I made my resolution to finish a video game, I honestly thought that I would just choose some SNES era RPG and slog my way through on an emulator. And while I still hold the delusion that I will finish Earth Bound one of these days, I never thought that I would have the patience or skills required to tackle a current generation game. Then came Mass Effect 3 and “narrative difficulty”.
I’d long been a fan of the Mass Effect series, eagerly watching Rick play whenever a new installment came out. I’ve been fascinated by the cult of FemShep and what it means for female representation in gaming. But I can’t say I really thought I’d be able to play a Mass Effect game myself, let alone be 25 hours into my first play through. I mean, I’d tried before, to play Mass Effect 1, but an inability to aim and move at the same time and my discomfort with the dual stick controller (fact: I had not played video games with any regularity since the days of the original NES, unless you count my localization testing days, which were mostly done with the num-pad) meant that any combat situation turned into me twirling around behind a rock with the camera alternating between the floor and the sky. I can still hear Rick laughing at me.
Then, a month or two before the Mass Effect 3 release date, Rick suggested that we complete a play through of Mass Effect 2 to get us in the Mass Effect mindset. He would take care of all of the combat, I would be charged with all of the dialogue and decision making. So using a preexisting Mass Effect 1 FemShep, we set about creating my Clare Shepard. Pragmatic, loyal and just a little bad-ass, my FemShep was a soldier through and through with little time for emo girls (Jack) or beauty queens (Miranda). Her boys were Jacob and Garrus, loyal soldiers who could kick ass and take names.
Rick even let me take the controls for non-combat situations like navigating the ship. Low and behold, in the intervening time since my disastrous first play through, I’d been playing more and more casual games, getting comfortable with the controller. It almost felt like I could do this.
Then enter Mass Effect 3 and the new Story Mode. Combat would be “de-emphasised”, meaning that shooter noobs like me might stand a chance. I knew I had to try it. And so, using the same FemShep as our joint play through, I set about concurring my very first current generation RPG.
Sexy custom armor
Lemme just say that without “narrative difficulty”, there is not a chance in Holy Hell that I would have gotten as far in this play through as I have. I suck at shooting, I suck at taking cover and I’m still not super good at using my squad mate’s powers mid combat. But, what Story Mode does for me is let me take a bazillion hits head on while I blast mo-fo’s with my grenade gun and turn them into spaghetti. It makes what would have been a frustrating exercise in humiliation and futility and transforms it into crazy, frenzied fun. I also like the addition of weapon mods in Mass Effect 3, which mean that I can put a scope on ANY GUN I WANT and thus improve my totally pathetic aim.
Rick, for his part, is impressed and surprised with the amount of effort I am putting into this play through. I’m modding my weapons, doing the side quests, talking to my teammates… I’m making it a real Mass Effect experience. And part of why I’ve gotten so far is the pride that I see in Rick. He loves it when I play and encourages me at every turn, sacrificing his own playing time so that he can bask in his wife’s blood curdling whoops as she defeats an even larger foe.
I know it’s just a game, that those hours could have been spent doing other things, but it’s also bringing me deeper into Rick’s world. It’s giving us experiences to share and debate.
And it’s boosting his gamer score since I have to play on his profile.
There are two big takeaways for me from both of these incidents. One: Sexism and misogyny are still a big part of gaming and geek culture. Elevate these things to a competitive level and the sexism and misogyny are similarly magnified. There are many reasons for this, part of it is fear that the previously inpenetrable He-Man Woman Haters clubhouse will be overrun by the unfamiliar female who they still have trouble recognizing as fellow humans and part of it is the permissiveness of the culture itself.
In a culture where women are still, more often than not, portrayed largely as sex objects, comments that sexual harassment is “part of the culture” can’t really be that surprising. Yes, things are getting better for videogames, the popularity of FemShep and a new, more down to earth Lara Croft are strong steps in the right direction, but we’ve still got a long way to go. While I will allow that trash-talking and frank language can be an integral part of any competitive activity (Exhibit A – Rick playing Risk Legacy), when those comments include musings on a woman’s bra size or calling for her rape, things have officially veered into very inappropriate territory. Saying otherwise is wildly naive and harmful. I mean, how do you know she hasn’t been raped? With statistics like 1 in 4 women in North America, isn’t it better to hold your tongue?
Which brings me to my other takeaway. Two: Sexist geeks need to learn when to shut up. In the Penny Arcade Report story on the Cross Assault controversy, the most vocal defender of sexually harassing language was also the worst perpetrator of such, and even took it upon himself to speak for the woman on his team when she tried to make the point that it was hurtful. This is something I’ve noticed in many people who say racist, sexist or otherwise abusive things. Without ever having been the victim of such abuse, they somehow claim to know whether or not racist or speech is harmful. It’s part of the “intention argument”. “I didn’t mean it in a sexist way…” Well, that’s great, but regardless of your intentions, the very language you are using belittles and mocks a specific segment of the population. Therefore, it is sexist.
End. Of. Story.
So, what do we do about this? Well, writing articles like this is a step in the right direction. Whether we like it or not, when sexist nerds air their views in public a) they are making themselves spokespeople for the culture, but, b) the rest of us have the same freedom of speech they do. If nerds don’t want to be taken to task for making sexist, bullying remarks, then they shouldn’t do so in public. That includes reality shows and Twitter feeds. And if we, as geeks and gamers, don’t agree with these self-appointed ambassadors, we should stand up as ambassadors ourselves. Call them out on their behaviour and their language. Make it clear that they don’t represent “our” culture.
And finally, don’t be afraid to participate. As top MtG player Jackie Lee said, “…as more women enter the tournament scene, women who play will finally be regarded as the norm, and we can all stop fussing about it.”
Then again, maybe we should just ask the guys what size bra they wear…
SSV Normandy II poster via UFunk
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