My first Zelda related post: for Minecraft fans also!

Hey, just a short one popping in to basically let all those who own Minecraft know about a fun little on-going project I've found. It's called Legend Of Minecraft, and is simply one guy using Minecraft to re-create the original Zelda. It's really early on but he gives updates on his blog about it and I'm sure that some friendly comments or even offers of help for those who want to get on board would be greatly appreciated.
Peace,
Andy

Voting results! (And an apology!)

First of all I think an apology is due, I havent posted anything or any updates for a while and the vite finished a while ago. it's been pretty hectic in college and to add to that Dead Rising 2 came out. I might give it a mention at somepoint but I cant see myself completely and thoroughly playing it any time soon, its quite heavy!

So as you all know the first voting poll has finished and the winning RPG universe, by a long shot.. was Zelda. These voting polls will probably happen once a month because each one will have an affect on the coming few days and all other time will be the usual posts. So for the next few days I will review a Timeline (Based on time of release, not the 'fans timeline'!) of all Zelda releases. It wont be very deep but it'll just show what's changed over the years. Also, I'll be reviewing some Zelda related games that I've hunted down (re-makes & inspired games, Parallel Worlds FTW! ;D) with some funky little videos also hopefully being uploaded soon! Thanks to everyone for taking part! Hope you enjoy the forcoming Zelda treats!

On another note, I'd love to get some feedback from you guys, and I'm also up to reccomendations on games you'd like to see reviewed. Theres a nice list but it's all gonna be up here eventually! Contact me @ oglocisgangsta@hotmail.co.uk to give me your opinions and views.
Thanks again for viewing, hope your enjoying it :).

Peace,
Andy

Update: Dwarf Fortress & Voting Poll

Just making it known that I've updated and added to the Dwarf Fortress review, and to remind people to VOTE ON THE POLL. Two days left & at the end there will be a special post regarding a unique game based around the winning universe. So far looks like it's going to be Zelda!

Peace & Thanks for reading,
Andy

AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA!!! – A Reckless Disregard for Gravity. Yes, that really is the name.

I figured I'd give the creation games such as DF and Minecraft a rest for a while and give a shout out about another style of game, much less time-consuming and for more of a casual gamer.

The game is called AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA!!! – A Reckless Disregard for Gravity, and that pretty much sum's it up. Unlike the other games so far reviewed, this is really a no-brainer:

• Jump off buildings, scoring points as you fall by doing certain things such as flipping the bird to protesters, thumbs up for your fans, and 'hugging' & 'kissing' anything you can get near whilst falling imminently to a brightly coloured doom.
• Collect 'teeth' to unlock more levels, some pretty hilarious clips, and unlockables/upgrades.
• Some brilliant music with this game and a great light-hearted feel.

In fact it's because of the simplicity of this game that it's so fun to play. Here's a video to give a general idea of what a level is like:


(I know, I sucked. It was a sample, not a professional video ;p)
As you can see, them game is, to say the least, simple. Yet I recommend you try it out, because it's just so fun for such a simple game! The environments do change also, meaning that you can be free falling alongside a cliff face as well. There's a total of 80 levels and in all honesty I find the majority of them quite different from each other, unlike your usual 'same thing different background' basis expected with this kind of game. You unlock levels buy spending your 'teeth', and the level grid (which also has the unlockables and clips) looks something like this:



The game has actually won a number of awards and been nominated for several indie game categories and is only $9.95 at the moment. A simple, addicting, and lively game. Definitely presses the 'fun' button for a good few hours, and is well worth the money.
(A short review for a simple game, i probably wont be building on this one!)
Hope some people find this a nice little game :)

I wanna' jump off things too!

Peace,
Andy

Bridging the gap between WTF and Dwarf Fortress

Well. Here it comes. The Olympian task of trying to explain Dwarf Fortress. Really there are huge amounts of areas of the game that I've yet to completely understand, but here's what I briefly do know. A word of warning, to anyone who only looks for aesthetics and fancy music, this will NOT be something that you're gonna find exciting. But really, your missing out on some fantastic gameplay. Such as:

• Building your own fortress in literally any way you want. How many levels, assigning rooms to specific jobs (such as bedroom, even a room for litter), assigning each specific dwarf a job, crafting Hundreds of different items and tools from the mass of materials to be found.


• A randomly generated world each time a new game is started, including history of each faction, each new founded settlement, and even the stories of people of importance. I'm talking endless. This section can literally be endless.


• Go down to the tiniest of detail in each of your dwarves; their likes & dislikes, what kind of a character they are, and of the utmost importance: a description of their appearance more detailed than I would of thought manageable.

I can go on forever but I'd like to point out the insane amount of detail. We're talking on a Charles Dickens level here. Its nothing I've ever seen in a game before, and its new every time. Here's a list of all things currently craftable and materials. (I wouldn't recommend checking it out just yet until you finish the article).

The one problem with this game is however the sheer complexity of running it. Obviously in a game where you can go down the the tiniest detail the question of 'how are we going to fit this in, don't have enough keys for half of it!' is posed and this is where most people lose interest. For example, let me show you screenshot of the 'world' as it is in 'Dwarf Mode' (the main mode of the game), bearing in mind that the game runs on 'slices', which are different sections of height, e.g. at one 'slice' you will see the bottom of a tree or soil, move up some 'slices' and you will see the top of the tree (this is using a different tile set however. I will give link's to all things seen later.) I'll give a few pointers to things hopefully making some sense in the madness. I'd rather link to a image host because the screenshot probably wouldn't fit on the blog well enough for you to read so here's the link:

Help me see the fun D:

I will give this time to sink in for some people before updating this post with more explanation of the complex controls, how to actually play and more about the multiple game modes.

Links to some things that may help so far however if you are interested:

A guide to getting started (The best guide I have found, and believe me there are loads.)

Mayday's Tileset

Dwarf Fortress

One more thing. At the moment this game is completely and utterly free.

Free.

Okay, so I'm back to build on this and talk more in detail about the controls and several programs to help make it manageably and understandable. First of all, a lot of keys will have two different actions, requiring to hold down 'alt' to activate the secondary one. In general, to the game is really hard to keep up with learning to manage all these controls. For example, to move up and down slices you'll need to press [alt + <>], if you havent found this out your gonna be stuck on one level. Pretty tough, agreed? Also realising your ideas can be grotesquely hard, as the graphics cannot do a 'grand fortress' any justice. Not to mention managing the state of your dwarves, their roles and individual jobs, and how they are coping. Three programs I would like to reccomend to tackle this problem are; Stonesense, QuickFort & Dwarf Therapist:

• Stonesense - This program realises the current area you are viewing in an isometric but massively graphically superior view. You can't run the game through this, only view, but it is essential for two reasons: 1, It shows mutliple slices without having to move up or down them and 2, it gives a much better idea of how you are going to build your fort. (The link isn't just an image, if you look the download is on a Google Project page.)
• QuickFort - This program is complex to explain but it works along the lines of allowing you to use and create blueprints in Dwarf fortress for room's (e.g. bedroom) without having to go through the process step by step by step. Best thing about this in my opinion is that the blueprints can even be created in none other than the fable Microsoft Excel!
• Dwarf Therapist - This tool is beautiful. Beautiful. It's job is to present all information on your dwarves in a much more presentable way, and also allows you to control and assign jobs from within the program. One major hassle is keeping tabs on everything about your dwarves, this program maintains all of this for you. A must-have. (this project is looking for a new maintainer to anyone who understands games!)

Hoping that these helped a little bit more, I will add some video tutorials soon if I get feedback on this, anyone wants them then let me know in the comments.

Peace,

Andy

Oh hella' jeez....

Nearly 700 views in the past 30 minutes.
I really can't explain how grateful I am for all the views I've got, votes in the poll, re-tweets about my site. I really do thank you all. To anyone who's considering becoming a follower I'm really going to commit to this so don't worry. I'll do another review tomorrow, my promise, and will begin shooting my minecraft videos tonight, hopefully to be uploaded by Thursday 23rd September.
Once more a massive thanks for all this traffic, even if your just clicking on the link. I hope that when I start getting followers you will be pleased with the surprises and several possible gifts coming your way.

Next game to be reviewed (and hopefully made sense of for those who simply don't get it):
Dwarf Fortress

Peace,
Andy

First game of the blog.... Minecraft!

Okay so I'll try and sum this up first before explaining in more detail:

• Randomly generated map, with mountains, beaches, and a underground cave network beyond imagination
• A completely free-roam game, in which the player begins simply trying to create shelter from the various materials in the world, which then expands to anything you want (e.g. exploring the caves, creating a castle, mining operations, fighting the creatures hellbent on creeping you out)
• Block-based game, meaning ANYTHING (minus the bedrock block!) can be destroyed and almost any blocks can be used, all with various properties.
• Create your own tools!
• Game in alpha stage, with constant updates and development
• Prototype online servers are all up and running
• A committed developer always keeping people up to date with what is happening.

Minecraft. A game in its alpha stage, which can be considered a 'survival' or a 'sandbox' game. Fairly basic graphics are made up for with some of the most versatile and open gameplay which can be experienced. I'm talking the sky's the limit provided you can find the materials and have the patience to make it happen. Here's what the game looks like at its most basic from, a screenshot from when you start the game:

To put it simply, the world generated is huge. It can't be comprehended on the same lines as other games. Ill try a higher up point of view ( by placing a tonne of sand blocks underneath me, building a very simple 'tower' of sorts.)
Maybe this shows a little better, though it still doesn't do justice:

And even then there's double the length of land, beaches, hills. This also doesn't show the caves of Minecraft, where more of the glory is in fact held. The game is also very early on and is constantly being developed with biomes hopefully to be produced soon. Snow terrain can already be generated in fact! As nighttime hits (or you venture through caves) you also encounter creatures which you can kill for resources or simply out of bloodthirsty desire. In general the game has received brilliant response and already has a large online community (the server has in fact recently died with popularity.) Personally I'm really enjoying the experience and for those who want to see some gameplay before checking it out should follow this page as I will film some gameplay videos of the majority of things I review. I'd really recommend this game to a huge variety of different gamers as it is so broad in its capabilities. for now though I'll leave it at that and let you make up your own minds! A video viewer will be on my blog soon! Here is a link to the site for those of you who realise how much potential this game has:
MINECRAFT :D

Peace till' tomorrow,
Andy

LOLBBQSAUCE... Now let's talk game.

I realise that not only are there hundreds of bloggers reviewing games, but I also realise how tiring it can be hearing about the same games, same opinions and generally not getting anything new to try.
I'm planning to review several up and coming games or games which I feel deserve to be heard about from small company or indie developers. This will hopefully mean that you'll be able to find something which sparks a 'Ive always wanted a game like that' kind of reception somewhere in what will eventually be a large library of games reviews, explaining exactly what you'll be getting from each play.
I'll try and get this all up an running on a regular basis provided people actually what to hear what I'm going on about. Well hopefully you'll like the first few games I'm planning on giving note, but if not hold on! I'm almost sure to have a bit of everything in the end, expanding from just small games to reviewing almost every release I hear about.

Peace,
Andy