So I have been playing a surprising amount of GTA: Chinatown Wars. Even now, a week after finishing the main story, I find myself pulling out the DS in spare moments, loading up Liberty City, and trading some drugs. Even as I bemoan the point of games like Farmville, I find that I am drawn back into GTA just to reach for that unattainable 100%. I know I won't get there. Partly because I don't care THAT much, and partly because at my next available opportunity I'll be purchasing the new Zelda.
But here I am right now, taking random 30 minute breaks in my Saturday, trading drugs and dodging cops just to finish buying all of the safehouses in this little city. And it's terrible. I think the game is repetitive, I think its driving involves far too narrow streets, there are too many cops, I still have a hell of a time figuring out what section of the city I am in, I have trouble avoiding cars because I'm watching the GPS too closely (which is an annoying crutch). There are a lot of reasons CW annoys me, but I keep playing it. And I think it is for that sole reason that handheld games are really easy to start up and play quickly. A five-minute session is super simple. I even will gravitate toward internet games because I'm already on the web and I can just load up kongregate or Canabalt, or the link will be there as soon as I type the first three letters.
The point I find myself arriving at somewhat unsurprisingly (though I had no idea this was what I was going to say when I started writing this post), is that it matters to me a very great deal how quickly I can actually start playing a game. I don't intentionally work that way. I would rather play a wonderful epic masterpiece that takes five minutes to get into meaningful gameplay, but when there are those small opportunities to play a game during the day, I am going to pick the game that is right there in my pocket that will take thirty seconds to get into.
Showing posts with label Canabalt. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Canabalt. Show all posts
Sunday, December 13, 2009
Thursday, September 10, 2009
Amidst the fallout
I finished Fallout 3 a few days ago and thought it was a pretty solid ending. I will have to go back and play through things a bit differently, or realistically I will move onto another game and never look back, because I don't often return to games that I've actually gone to the trouble to beat. I am curious about the evil path (I always take the good path) so perhaps Fallout 3 will finally be the game to bring me round to a second playthrough.
Scratch that, there is another game I've played multiple times, possibly my favorite: Max Payne. Both the first and its sequel were immense pleasures to play and I reluctantly await round three. I've written previously about the location of MP3 and the attitude of the game, but I wait to see what they end up doing with it.
In other news the awesome Flixel Bros, Adam Atomic and Danny B, have released another awesome little time-waster. Canabalt is a simple procedural, six-tone game in which you're playing a one button, sidescrolling Mirror's Edge. All you do is jump obstacles and leap from building to building, crashing through windows as you gain speed, allowing you to leap the greater distances as the buildings grow farther apart. Fun for a short time or a bit more than that, I highly recommend the minute it takes to click on the link and get hooked.
Speaking of Mirror's Edge, I finally was tipped off by my girlfriend to a coupon that saved me half the cost of the ME map pack, so I grabbed the new time-trial maps the pack has to offer. They are slick levels, ditching the cities for giant floating boxes that feel like they should be designed by VW and Apple's lovechild. The levels are fun and challenging, just what I like, though I need to give them some more time to truly appreciate the $5 I added to EA's pockets. DICE did well, and I think that you should give Mirror's Edge a chance if you've never done so. [Factoid: I applied to intern at DICE, but this was when I had absolutely nothing on my resume that would make an international developer such as DICE recognize me as anything but ordinary. I still might feel that way, but my resume grows steadily, nonetheless.]
next week on []Musings: I discuss singleplayer vs. multiplayer tutorials.
Scratch that, there is another game I've played multiple times, possibly my favorite: Max Payne. Both the first and its sequel were immense pleasures to play and I reluctantly await round three. I've written previously about the location of MP3 and the attitude of the game, but I wait to see what they end up doing with it.
In other news the awesome Flixel Bros, Adam Atomic and Danny B, have released another awesome little time-waster. Canabalt is a simple procedural, six-tone game in which you're playing a one button, sidescrolling Mirror's Edge. All you do is jump obstacles and leap from building to building, crashing through windows as you gain speed, allowing you to leap the greater distances as the buildings grow farther apart. Fun for a short time or a bit more than that, I highly recommend the minute it takes to click on the link and get hooked.
Speaking of Mirror's Edge, I finally was tipped off by my girlfriend to a coupon that saved me half the cost of the ME map pack, so I grabbed the new time-trial maps the pack has to offer. They are slick levels, ditching the cities for giant floating boxes that feel like they should be designed by VW and Apple's lovechild. The levels are fun and challenging, just what I like, though I need to give them some more time to truly appreciate the $5 I added to EA's pockets. DICE did well, and I think that you should give Mirror's Edge a chance if you've never done so. [Factoid: I applied to intern at DICE, but this was when I had absolutely nothing on my resume that would make an international developer such as DICE recognize me as anything but ordinary. I still might feel that way, but my resume grows steadily, nonetheless.]
next week on []Musings: I discuss singleplayer vs. multiplayer tutorials.
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