|
[img width=638 height=437]http://www.rfgeneration.com/images/games/U-005/ss/U-005-S-05200-B.jpg[/img]
Formulating a digital avatar, a representation of a player's interaction within a video game, is a construct often taken for granted. Given the importance placed upon player agency in many modern games, from customization and features in Skyrim to vehicle selection and colors in the Forza Horizon series, great effort is often taken to connect the player to what is on the screen. Upon reflection, four games I've played recently paint a fascinating picture of the evolution of where we started and where we are now.
Continue reading A Brief Tour of Avatars Through The Gaming Ages, From The Last Four Games I Played
[img width=251 height=377]https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/finalfantasy/images/4/4a/FFTSWPoster.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20130405010722[/img]
Summer 2001 was an interesting time for me. I had moved out of my home state to the East Coast and was trying something new in the work arena. Previous jobs had come and gone, and nothing really stuck, so rather than continue to flounder, I thought I would change my course. I quickly found out that my newly chosen path was a huge mistake, and within just a few short months, I would move back to my home state and get back on the career path I started on, albeit in a different direction. But for a few months in the middle of 2001, I lived about 45 minutes from the ocean, and had a fairly eye-opening experience learning about the differences between small town midwestern life and what life was like in the south.
During my stint on the coast, I spent a fair amount of time on my off days looking for entertainment. Whether it was browsing music shops, used video game stores, pawn shops, etc., I found ways to occupy my time when I wasn't working. And of course, there were also movie theaters. One of the more highly anticipated releases the summer of 2001 was Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, which was to be the debut film from Square Pictures. Having played and enjoyed Final Fantasy VII just a year or so prior, I was looking forward to the movie. I thought the idea of using full computer animation for everything was novel at the time and assumed the storytellers at Square had a good chance of coming up with a good story.
Continue reading In Defense Of...Final Fantasy - The Spirits Within
Well, it's been a while since I've done one of these! I was replaying Final Fantasy VII recently, and this track really stood out to me when it played in the game. I've heard it plenty of times while listening to the soundtrack on its own, but something about hearing it in the context of the game really made it hit that much harder. On the Other Side of the Mountain is already a pretty straightforward acoustic piece, so my cover is just a 1:1 recreation. Nothing fancy, no frills, just a quick playthrough of a nice tune. A little bit different from my usual metal covers, but I hope you all enjoy this one just the same!
So I'm finally doing it. I'm writing an article about one of my favorite games ever so far, an article I've put on the backburner of my writing for forever, a game that I have loved ever since I heard about its creation, DELTARUNE.
Now that's pretty high praise, and (I think,) deserving praise. Now, why do I love DELTARUNE so much? It has a really good sense of humor, has amazing music, and is a turn-based RPG. Those are all aspects of games I enjoy. Oh yeah, and it's made by Toby Fox. That too.
So let me elaborate on them all.
The sense of humor is mostly slapstick, and is really well timed for the moment. Everything is checkable, and either leads to a punchline or IS the punchline. Take this beginning segment of DELTARUNE Chapter 2. You just fell into a garbage filled area. There is a trashbag with an eggplant shape. When you see it, you think, "Oh, that's weird". Eventually you walk around and find "an eggplant shaped like a trashbag". I find these little gags funny, and can help relieve the "constant feeling" that most RPGs give.
The music is my next point. DELTARUNE and UNDERTALE's creator, Toby Fox, has an amazing musical talent. So much that I have listened to the soundtracks so much that my own music bears significant resemblance to it.
(Here, try comparing it.)
The music is so good it even earned a spot on Nintendo's list of games with the best soundtracks.
Turn-based RPGs have always been one of my favorite genres. Something about them is so relaxing, but it doesn't have the complete and total "lack of game" that a visual novel does. DELTARUNE follows in UNDERTALE's footstep for the most part (I mean, it WAS made by the same creator) in the battle system. It is a mix of turn-based RPG and bullet hell.
DELTARUNE is one of my favorite games ever, and I can't wait to see what comes of it in the next few chapters.
I've been koola, and one of my New Years' resolutions this year was writing more. Can you tell?
(I composed a whole song for an RFGeneration article.
It will be on Spotify sometime soon. Like, 2 days soon.)
I don't really have an intro this time.
Anyway, what I want to talk about is a fairly unknown game called Clubhouse Games: 51 Worldwide Classics. This game is a first party Nintendo title, so of course it got a lot of marketing.
But, here's the weird part to me: after release, it just kind of stopped. I think what happened was a direct response to the public's reaction to the game, which was very lukewarm. Nobody seemed to have any strong opinions one way or the other.
Clubhouse Games: 51 Worldwide Classics is a collection of.. well, 51 games that have survived for centuries.
There are also a few sports thrown in there.
My favorite games from this collection are Bowling, Mancala and Air Hockey.
Bowling plays in a very similar function to Wii Sports's Bowling game, with the exception of Miis 2 player slots, and the inclusion of more realistic bowling physics.
Mancala is a very simple recreation of the classic game.
Air Hockey is another simple recreation.
What I like about Clubhouse Games: 51 Worldwide Classics is being able to to play these games online. It is quite fun to be able to play these games online, because it gives me something to work my brain with while still being fun to me.
I've been koola, and this article was a last minute January article to stay on my nonexistant but very annoying schedule that my brain keeps me on for no reason.
(There will be another article today.)
[img width=700 height=617]https://i.imgur.com/enMg4RY.jpg[/img]
Title: Phantasy Star
Developer: Sega
Publisher: Sega
Platforms: Sega Mark III/Master System
Release Years: 1987 JP, 1988 NA/EU
In the now rather long history of role playing games there have been a surprisingly small number of examples of science fiction settings. It has become more common in recent years, and there are examples from every era, but it would not surprise me to see the difference between traditional fantasy settings skewed in a near ten to one favor against the smaller sample pool of science fiction. The late 1980s saw a huge growth in Japanese role playing games. They had existed for years, even before Dragon Quest became the consensus Grandfather of Japanese RPGs. However, only small developers really played around with them until Chunsoft struck sales gold with Dragon Quest III, coupled with Squaresoft's Final Fantasy series. Larger developers began looking at this design formula as an emerging market and began developing their own projects. Sega was rather quick to fill this growing niche on its own hardware, developing Phantasy Star for the Sega Mark III or Master System as it was also known as.
Continue reading Phantasy Star
Giddyap Partner!, you'll be late for this month's "A Brief Look At" with Neo!
This month, we check out West of Dead for Switch (shown), and all the other usual suspects!
[img width=700 height=466]https://i.imgur.com/8zoanL6.jpg[/img] Photo by cottonbro from Pexels
Tetris Effect - Like many before me I wondered "how can they make Tetris worth playing in VR?" before firing this up. I tried it out last year when I acquired my physical copy from Limited Run, but it didn't get its hooks in me at the time. In my search for VR titles to play, I discovered that the main game mode for this game (which is all I have played), is rather short, so I dove back in. The pull of Tetris Effect is that yes, it's the Tetris that we all know and love but set against some beautiful and fantastic backdrops and integrated with an amazing soundtrack by Hydelic.
Continue reading VR Season Part III
 |
Posted on Jan 17th 2022 at 01:00:00 PM by ( slackur) Posted under coop |
[img width=539 height=452]https://images.biglots.com/Mesa+Brown+Reclining+Sofa?set=imageURL%5B%2Fimages%2Fproduct%2F58%2F810349152-1.jpg%5D,env%5Bprod%5D,nocache%5Btrue%5D,ver%5B1%5D,profile%5Bpdp_main_med%5D&call=url%5Bfile:biglots/product.chain%5D[/img]
Now that we are a couple of weeks into '22, and since co-op is kinda my jam, I figured I'd do a quick recap on some co-op games you may have missed last year. This quick list excludes some better known titles such as It Takes Two, The Ascent, and Back 4 Blood, and instead focuses on some that may have slipped through the cracks. Oh, and I won't mention how much I enjoyed Aliens: Fireteam Elite because I've already mentioned it in a few articles, so I won't bring up how much fun I had with Aliens: Fireteam Elite again in this article and how you should find two friends and play through Aliens: Fireteam Elite. Also, I didn't get around to KeyWe or Very Very Valet, both of which I intend to pick up but have yet to do so.
Continue reading Some of 2021's Lesser Known Co-Op Games Worth Playing Into 2022
Truth be told, I've only dabbled in Final Fantasy XIV a bit, and I'm not sure if I actually heard this theme in the game or not. But when Torn From the Heavens came up as an 8BBG track, I was really intrigued and was looking forward to working on it. I was working on my recently posted Those Who Fight cover at the same time as this one, so that's where most of my creative energy went during that time, so this ended up being pretty much a simple recreation of the original track. Nonetheless, I still think this cover turned out pretty decent, and I hope you all enjoy it!
It is the express purpose of this column to bring light into dark subjects, to bring hope where there is despair. For every great game or game genre, there is a trope, game mechanic, or other characteristic that is often maligned, even hated. I am here to defend the defenseless, to uphold justice where none has prevailed, to give meaning where once none was found. No game is perfect, but not every flaw is glaring. My job is to show that some of these things have redeeming value.
Continue reading In Defense Of...The Mega Man Slide
TowerFall has to be one of my favorite games.
The people who know about this blog from slackur (about 99.9%) know that I love the Jackbox Party Pack series.
A game that I love about equally is TowerFall.
The reason I don't talk about it as often is it's often hard to get setup fast enough to be brought up as a valid suggestion for a family game night or just hanging out with some friends.
For those of you who don't know, TowerFall is a 16-bit 4:3 (usually) game with two main modes: a battle royale mode, and a campaign mode. I'll be talking about the battle royale mode in this article, as it is the one that personally I like better, and I have never tried to complete the campaign, as of yet. The gameplay loop is simple: kill the other players. Now the way you do that is similar to the game Killer Queen Black; each person gets one life per round, and you can kill another person by jumping on them (we like to call that Mario-ing) or shooting your arrow at them. There are many other layers to this concept though.
The safest place to be in TowerFall is most likely always the air, because in the air, you can easily dodge arrows. You can dodge in the air, and this can be used to easily grab onto ledges and climb, steal an arrow going through the air, or simply go places faster. This game was made by the people behind Celeste, so naturally you can only dodge once in the air.
You win the game simply by having enough kills. The points system is based purely on kills.
Using these rules and some background elements, the team at Matt Makes Games (I love that name) was able to create a very addictive game that can be enjoyed pretty much anywhere, anytime.
And that's cool.
I've been koola, and it's 11:09 where I'm writing this; I should probably be getting to bed.
(Falling towers is better than crashing castles.)
Final Fantasy VII's main battle theme Those Who Fight has always been one of my favorite tracks in all of VGM and was one of the main tracks I wanted to cover when I started my channel. I purposely held off on doing it though because I didn't think I could do it justice at the time and wasn't confident that I would be able to make the cover I really wanted to make until I had some experience under my belt. So fast forward about a year and half later, I've improved and somewhat learned the ropes with making these covers, and I finally feel like I've 'found my sound' if that makes sense. The time finally felt right to create my own interpretation of a very important piece of music. Was it worth the wait? Yes, it was. I can confidently say that I made the cover that I always wanted to make. I still don't consider it perfect, but after delaying it and working on it for an extra week, I knew I would never be 100% satisfied with it. It's time to call it done and move on. It's extremely gratifying for all the ideas I had swirling around in my head for the last couple of years to finally come to fruition, and I really hope you all enjoy this one as much as I enjoyed making it!
It's time to Duel with this month's "A Brief Look At" with Neo!
This month, we check out Ascension for PC and Mobile (and a physical card game)!
Well, I have just been in the RFGeneration swing of things lately. Two articles within four months?
Honestly, I find this a good way to convey my thoughts nicely, and it helps take up time.
So let's talk about Animal Crossing. Animal Crossing, for the two of you not in the loop, is a life simulation game where you are convening with "villagers" and as The Cutting Room Floor puts it, endlessly paying off your debt to a raccoon who has a monopoly over the entire island.
I like metal descriptions of things.
So, in every new Animal Crossing game they add new villagers and new features. Animal Crossing: New Leaf brought the most content changes, before Animal Crossing: New Horizons's newest update. In Animal Crossing: New Horizons you are the Island's Representative. People were lured into the game's new features when the its trailer first dropped. Terraforming (the ability to change the whole natural look of your island), placing furniture outside, and general doing more than you could in the other games, including placing villager's houses wherever you'd like, and better camp features.
When people actually got it into their hands, (myself included) most people were addicted to the game, and its new features.
However, getting used to these features, they quickly dropped the game and now it's getting more shelf time than play time.
The game went over 200 days without any updates at all.
And then, right as they thought Nintendo was done with it, a new update appeared.
This included The Roost, a feature from earlier Animal Crossing games where villagers and you can sit and drink coffee.
People played the game for around a day when this update came out, and then immediately lost interest again.
Now, why was this?
Animal Crossing: New Horizons was supposed to be a game you could keep playing forever. But the lack of new features (the only thing if you didn't have the DLC that came with the new update was The Roost), generally no new direction, and lackluster online (this was one of the better games(!)) made people not want to play.
Nintendo has made better games in the past, and I feel like this was one of their edge cases. I'm still for Nintendo, and they can learn from this, I think; if they learned from the Virtual Boy, they can learn from this.
I've been koola, and your 2012 Minecraft dog feels lonely. Please check up on him for me, would you?
(Crossing Animals sounds way worse than Animal Crossing.)
|
|
|
|
Blog Navigation
Browse Bloggers | My Blog
|
We are a community of collectors, gamers and the likes, and some of us enjoy to let the world know what is on our mind. For those members, we have the community blogs, a place where they can publish their thoughts and feelings regarding life, universe, and everything. Some of those members might even choose to write about gaming and collecting! Whatever they write about, you can find it on their blog. You can either see the latest community blog entries in the feed you see to the left, or you can browse for your favorite blog using the menu above. Interested in having your own blog hosted on RF Generation? It's rather simple, first be a registered member, and then click the "My Blog" link that you see in the navigation above. Following those two steps will certainly get you on your way to blogging.
Sit back, relax, and enjoy our entries, rantings, and completely unrelated series of thoughts. We write for you to read, so we certainly hope that you enjoy our material.
|
|
Hot Community Entries
|
|
Hot RFG Blog Entries
| |
|
