Quit bitching about having a netbook with no games to play.
Netbooks are notorious for not being very good gaming platforms, which is 110% true. Try running something like Left 4 Dead on an Intel GMA powered netbook, it’s rather funny seeing it try so hard and ultimately fail. Miserably. But just because it can’t run stuff like Left 4 Dead 2, or for those of you who play it (which, unfortunately there ARE many of you) Modern Warfare 2 doesn’t mean you can’t game on it. So occasionally I’ll be picking examples that you can get off of Steam that will happily run on these picky little bastards. Stock. I don’t have the RAM upgrade in mine because I’m too lazy to take the thing apart and get it in there, so this is stuff that will run on a stock Acer Aspire One netbook with a 160GB hard drive and 1GB of RAM running Windows XP Home. If you’re running Windows Vista … for one why the hell would you touch that with a 10 foot pole … or Windows 7, can’t help you that much. Anywhere, here we go with the first one. And by the way, these aren’t specifically geared toward netbooks, ANY kind of computer (in some cases almost literally) are good for these because, mostly, they’re just great games.
XBLIG Review – Johnny Platform Saves Christmas!
The original Johnny Platform game was (and still is) a great little platformer, originally designed for the Nintendo DS as a homebrew game that got ported later on to the 360. But it’s main problem was that fact … every level was limited to the middle of the screen because of the DS’ resolution and the way the game was set up for that system. Didn’t stop it from being a good game however.
Now the sequel is out with the potentially damning title of “Johnny Platform Saves Christmas!” … which implies it’s another one of those shovelware seasonal titles that people waste their time with releasing. Thankfully though, the Christmas nonsense seems to have been more of an afterthought than anything and it really is a true sequel bettering the original in every way. Other than the presents you push around and the other slightly holiday related stuff, this could’ve easily NOT have been a holiday game. And I personally would have preferred that. But hey, as I say, you can’t win ‘em all.
XBLIG Trial Impression – Mech Gladiator
Ah, the holidays are FINALLY over. And when I finally started paying attention to Twitter instead of playing Quake (yeah, that’s what I said. The game from 1996. I’m working my way slowly but surely through it on Hard difficulty to get ready for Nightmare) there were some neat looking games out in the indie games section for once. And Mech Gladiator was one of them. The trial honestly isn’t all that great in the fact that it only gives you the first level on Easy … not even 8 minutes worth of gameplay there because you actually have to TRY to die. BUT it is interesting.
The presentation is a mixed bag because even though the graphics are drop dead gorgeous with great character and enemy models (at least from what I’ve seen of the trial and the 4 minute video trailer) the sound is pretty generic, and the music sounds like something out of an old DOS game.
Christmas gaming deals abound from Good Old Games, Gameloft and Charlie’s Games
First off, Charlie’s Games has a 2 for 1 deal going on … well … 2 of their games. Bullet Candy Perfect and Irukandji. The kicker? How much do you think they’re worth because anything over $1.00 is game. You think they’re worth a buck? Pay it. You think they’re worth 10? Pay that too. A hundred? Go for it, and you get get both. Bullet Candy Perfect alone is worth the deal for being a pretty well done shooter. Click right here for more information about that.
Good Old Games has deals going as well, and even the NORMAL prices on a lot of the games are cheaper than Steam’s and you get more stuff. Here are some recommendations :
- Duke Nukem 3D : Atomic Edition - $3.89
- Duke Nukem : Manhattan Project - $3.89
- Rise of the Triad : Dark War - $3.89
- Descent 1 & 2 - $3.89
- Descent 3 & the expansion - $3.89
- Earthworm Jim 1 & 2 - $3.89
- Might and Magic 6 Pack Limited Edition - $6.99
And there are WELL over 100 more, so go there, make an account and check it out.
And finally, Gameloft has a sale going on a lot of their iPhone/iPod Touch games.
- Chuck Norris : Bring on the Pain – $0.99
- 1 Vs 100 - $0.99
- Hero of Sparta - $1.99
- Wild West Guns - $0.99
- Let’s Golf - $1.99
- Midnight Pool - $0.99
- Midnight Bowling - $0.99
- Castle Frenzy - $1.99
- Rise of Lost Empire - $1.99
- Castle of Magic - $1.99
- New York Nights $0.99
- Chess Classics - $0.99
- CSI Miami - $0.99
- Platinum Solitaire - $0.99
- Bailout Wars - $0.99
- TV Show King - $0.99
- Ferrari GT - $1.99
- Diamond Twister – $1.99
- Alone at War - $0.99
- Bubble Bash - $0.99
Duality ZF Insanity
Now, I don’t normally curse a lot in these types of posts, but this is different. All I’ve got to say is holy fucking bloody Jesus in a handbasket. I have a serious feeling this is gonna be one of those games where I lose a controller. If this sucker plays anywhere near as good as it looks we’re going to have one HELL of a shmup on our hands. And from the looks of it they paid attention to the hitboxes as well, which is good because a lot of these Xbox indie games that come out like this, they don’t pay attention to that. And it really kills the game.
Fuck man … I’m having trouble just keeping track of ONE of the ships let alone everything on screen. I wanna play this. Right fucking now.
The Unreal Engine running on an iPhone 3GS
This video is a tech demo of the Unreal Engine 3 running on an iPhone 3GS. And if you don’t know this engine it powers a LOT of games that are nowadays and is kind of the big ticket engine to use. Games like Bioshock, Batman : Arkham Asylum, Shadow Complex, the recently released Alien Breed game on XBLA, Borderlands, the Gears of War games, and not to mention the venerable Unreal Tournament 3 (which, if you haven’t played it by now, there’s seriously something wrong). And that’s only a handful of games that run off of this engine. And now we could possibly see future games on the iPhone running off of this engine.
Unfortunately, it's only for the 3rd generation devices. Something I don't personally have. But depending on the games that get released is dependent on whether or not I upgrade before mine becomes totally useless. :) In any case, this is damned impressive stuff here for the few seconds the video lasts.
And without further ado, here’s the video. And bear in mind, it’s just a tech demo. Not an actual game.
via TouchArcade
Even more outtakes from Lindsay Lohan’s Muse photoshoot
They just keep popping up. And with any luck, even MORE of them pop up in the future.
So far this is my second favorite shoot of the year … this one from Ashley Olsen for Marie Claire being the top of the list for me.
But regardless of that, you can check out my previous post about this particular shoot here which has all the shots and a bunch of stills from the video, or you can just hit the jump and see the not safe for work pictures that got added recently.
Personally, I’m all for more shoots like this. Say what you want about her, but I dig ‘em.
And I’m all about the fact that she hasn’t chopped all of her damn hair off. Just thought I’d throw that in.
Here are a couple of XBLIG mini reviews
The reason these are mini reviews is because these don’t even count as games to me. What they DO count as are complete wastes of time and MS Points. Not only that, but they serve to give the Indie Games section on the 360 a bad name. A bad name it already has in the eyes of the 13 year old Halo 3 players out there who look in there and only see these games instead of the great ones. Both of these are from a “studio” called Holographic Dreams, and I will admit they have a cool logo and a cool name. And hopefully they get to coding actual games instead of this garbage. The games are Pilot Test and Christmas Tree 3D.
Geek Gamer Radio Episode 8 – Fap Fap Fap
Avatar, Serious Sam 3, Pystar, Diablo 2, iPhone reception, DRM, Operation Chokehold and other stuff. Including me and the awkward half second of silence that ensues when I bash slow paced militiristic shooters. ;) Unfortunately I was on my cell phone, so I sound like I’m holed up in a bunker talking through a shitty CB radio, but hey.
And I haven’t had a hell of a lot of gaming time on my 360 OR the PC for that matter … been holed up in bed playing games on my iPod Touch. Such is the reason for the reviews of games on there. And I’m still not done, still gotta finish Modern Combat : Sandstorm. Stuck on mission 8. It’s like a shooting gallery from hell. Although I did pick up the original Xbox version of Call of Duty 3 for 5 bucks and have been playing that tonight. I actually like it better than CoD 4 … even though it’s all extremely scripted it just doesn’t feel as slow paced and RIDICULOUSLY boring. I still don’t see what people got out of the single player part of CoD 4 … it’s about as exciting as watching paint dry. I’m having to force myself to play it just to see what all the fuss was about.
But yeah, speaking of iPods, assuming you have one you can find GGR on iTunes by clicking right here. If you don’t you can hit up the site and use whatever podcatcher you use. And of course, if you leave a rating and a review on iTunes you’re registered to win free stuff … like Team Fortress 2.
Now I’m off to find me a USB headset that won’t cost me my fucking kidney.
An NES emulator for the iPhone/iPod Touch has made it’s way to the AppStore
You can snag it right here for $6.99, it’s called “Nescanline”.
- ”Kick it old school with home-brew games written for the original Nintendo Entertainment System. Nescaline allows you to play public domain NES games, five of which are included, or use Nescaline's download feature to add games to your library from any remote URL.”
- Features:
- Multitouch support; use the directional pad and A+B or many other combinations together.
- Works with many zapper-enabled games. Simply touch the screen where you want to shoot.
- Save-state allows you to save games in progress and later restore them to the state they were in when you left the game.
- Supports both landscape and portrait mode, in both full screen or original resolution
- Enter Game Genie codes to enable cheats for your favorite games.
- Alternate frame skip, palette, and advanced settings.
- Although, this is just a version of the emulator available for jailbroken devices called “NES 3” and from what I’ve heard it doesn’t work very well. And I can’t see those touch screen controls being much use for a game like TMNT 2 or 3 or any games like those. But for an RPG or something it may fit the bill. So it’s up to you as to whether or not this is actually worth the money.
via TouchArcade