Welcome to ask-a-blog, where I ask you! The reader! To answer a question posed in the blog. Today's questions comes from a bout of playing Katamari Damacy: What is the most trippy game you have ever played? Make sure to tell us what console the game is on, as well as what makes it so trip inducing. Is it the gameplay, music, visuals, or something else? Tell us all about it!
For me, the award for the trippiest game goes easily to Katamari Damacy on the PS2, pictured on the right. If you have played this game, you know what I am talking about. if you haven't, here's a little summary. You are the son of the King of All Cosmos. The king, your father, has accidentally made all of the stars go away, so he commissions you to roll "Katamari", and help bring the stars back. The Katamari is formed by rolling a ball into things that are smaller than it. This makes the smaller things stick to it. You can pick up anything. ANYTHING. People, cars, buildings, islands, towns, boats. The possibilities are endless. The game is quite short, but it has a high replay value. It is also highly trip inducing, and the music is even weirder. Man is that game odd. I recomend it to anyone wishing to have lots of fun playing a quirky type of game.
So, what do you feel the trippiest game is? Be it a shoot em up, a puzzle game, or a platformer, we want to hear about it! Let's see those comments!
Sierra Entertainment officially closed its door this year and thus comes an end to a true pioneer within the gaming industry.
The companies founders, Ken and Roberta Williams, were avid gamers and produced the first graphical adventure game for the PC entitled Mystery House, which became an instant hit and is a cult classic to this day. Sierra has endured a rollercoaster of successes, failures, acquisitions and the like. But this article is not about the history of this company, but more to celebrate and remember some of its landmark game series.
My ascension into adulthood ran a parallel course with the maturation of the the home PC. I remember being wowed when first firing up King's Quest on my Packard Bell computer after years of text-based adventure games. From then I was hooked - Sierra continued to deliver innovation and new technology into my PC gaming world. Let's take a step back through time and take a look at a few of the treasured game series from this noted software developer.
The King's Quest series is recognized as the true star that really put Sierra On-Line on the map. This adventure game centered on the plight of the Royal Family of Daventry and many within the series introduced innovative features at its time. Beginning in 1984, a total of eight ( 8 ) games were released, each subsequent plot building on the events portrayed in its predecessor. A number of these games had excruciating hard puzzles to solve without any discernable logic used in the development of these challenges. Still, game play was still a treat with an engrossing story and a satisfying experience.
This six (6) game series follows the space adventures of Roger Wilco, an every-day-Joe if there ever was one, and his antics as he unknowingly gets thrust into saving the universe from some foe. Unlike the rather somber tones of the King's Quest line, Space Quest is all about fun, silliness and taking a parodical approach to almost everything. Roger Wilco debuted in 1986 with the last game being released in 1995. This light-hearted affair is somewhat of a cult classic amongst old-school gamers. Technically, the series primarily used previously existed graphic engines that were released in King's Quest and Quest for Glory.
Writing this text is rather difficult for me, since it parodies my life. The Leisure Suit Larry series is another adventure series, this time featuring Larry Laffer - a balding, 40-something man still trying his best to score with the ladies and 'be fly' (or is it 'fresh'). This is the only series of games that Sierra developed with a strong 'mature audience' theme. Even before the days of ESRB Rating system, early games in this series required you to answer a set of questions to weed out the younger gamers. You can still enjoy the adventures of this 'playboy' to this day, though Sierra is not involved in these newer entries.
Probably my second favorite of the Sierra classics, in Police Quest you get to play as a rookie police officer working his way through crime and eventually up the ranks of his local division. These games were more of action-adventure than previous Sierra entries mentioned thus far and also featured some disturbing crimes/graphics for the time. Game play was somewhat open-ended and the best part of this series is that you really had to think about your actions and analyze data. Later games in this series also featured full-res digital crime photos which you had to scour through for clues. A true classic all the way.
Now this is one of the all-time best Action/Adventure/RPG game series of all time (IMHO). Often credited as being the first of its kind to incorporate meaningful statistical character building as a necessary component to move the story along (i.e. get past a tough bad guys in an area). Your Hero could be customized as a Fighter, Thief of a Mage - another first in this new genre. Quest for Glory was truly a landmark during its time and set the bar/base standards that many of today's games now follow.
The shortest series being featured in this article, this point-and-click adventure follows Gabriel Knight, a downtrodden horror novelist, as he unravels various mysteries of the occult. A total of three (3) games were released, all of which featured very different technologies. As depicted above, the first game started out as a pretty standard animated affair. Subsequent games in the series featured FMV cut scenes and live digitized actors. All of the games were rather dark in nature and the high tension was successfully translated to the gamer.
Hey you, random PlayStation 3 owner! I see you out there with your Dualshock 3 in hand thinking, "Hey I want a new game to play on here, but I'm cheap". Well, the good folks and Sony and Sprint have heard you and have decided to give you a FREE game for one week only.
That's right, Rag Doll Kung Fu: Fists of Plastic is free for all US Playstation Network members for this week. Why is it free? I guess it's because Sprint is sponsoring it.
If you feel bad for missing out on this because you don't have a US PSN account, well, there is a way you can make one if you live in another country, just Google around. Or what if you don't have a PS3 but want to add it to your collection, I'm sure there are people out there (HINT HINT) who might give you a helping hand in adding it to an account for future use.
Oh and, did I mention the game has trophies? So download it for free trophies!
For some time, I have been interested in using Linux as my primary operating system. My first experience was with Red Hat 9-10 years ago. Things have certainly progressed since then.
I have now moved on to Ubuntu. I have tried out each version of Ubuntu for a couple of years now and each has had one little thing that has kept me from switching. I tried the 9.04 beta with some higher hopes from what I had read about it. It does every thing I ask it to. I have found applications that replace my Windows versions and for those that still don't work, WINE has progressed to the point where many applications now work except for maybe the very newest.
I'm now Windows free in my house with my work laptop and home desktop running Ubuntu and our other laptop is a Mac. It is still somewhat of a learning experience and I do have to use Windows at work, but I'm not doing it to make a stand against Microsoft. I'm doing it because, honestly, I'm cheap. I don't want to keep buying an operating system. I haven't ever purchased a version of Windows and I'm not going to start now. I don't want to find ways around their protection. I want it to work. This works for me. I was still in my limbo stage when my mom came over one day and needed something printed off. I hadn't set up my networked HP printer yet, so this was just as good of a time as any. The XP driver download is something around 250MB for the full function driver. I ran the Printer tool and went to add a new printer. It found my printer and was installed within minutes. That really sealed it for me. The fact that my hardware of any type just works is already way ahead of Windows. No more installing Windows, reboot twice, install drivers, reboot, more drivers, reboot, updates, reboot, MORE updates, etc. I can now just install and have a base system with a solid web browser, e-mail client, office suite, image editor, and an adaptable media player. One reboot after install and many updates do not require a reboot during use.
If anyone is interested or wants some help with Ubuntu, I'd be happy to help out. Feel free to PM, IM, or e-mail.
Just picked up a vectrex off ebay with a multi cart for 100 bucks shipped. Had it a week been playing minestorm while I wait for the multicart to arrive. Not sure if everything is ok but minestorm plays well now that I fixed the controller-it needed a cleaning to work also ordered a new overlay for it as its current one was damaged (likely from previous cleanings and play) cool little system.
A lot of us here collect games, I'm assuming. Since this is true, I know that every one of you here has a game backlog. You know, that pile of games sitting in the corner, unplayed, unloved for various reasons. Maybe you lost interest in the game, or there's a shiny new game that captured your attention, or you just never got around to playing it. Regardless of the reasons why your backlog grows, I want to know what your approach to solving this backlog dilemma is.
Do you: Play a game for a few hours and see if it's worth playing through? Tackle a few games at a time? Prioritize games by interest? Stare at it in shame?
Personally, I find that a game goes in my backlog when there's something new that comes along and steals interest away from another game. Good example of that: Dead Space. I bought that game on day one and played through the first few chapters, but then a few weeks later, LittleBigPlanet came out and I found myself with no time for Dead Space. Then of course there was the rest of the fall games that pushed their way into my library, and pushed others into the backlog. Also, I find that games I spend less money on, especially Dreamcast and older games, tend to more easily go to my backlog because they're old and no one is talking about them anymore.
When it comes time to tackle my backlog, I look at the pile of games and decide which sounds most interesting, or which one I enjoyed most before it went into the pile. Unlike many other gamers, I actually try every game I buy for at least an hour or two, so that helps in the future when making backlog related choices. I usually only play one backlog game at a time because I find that if I add any more, my gaming time becomes too diluted across not only my backlog games but my current staples.
Anyone else have an effective approach to solving the game backlog issue? Let me know.
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.
Hey you, random PlayStation 3 owner! I see you out there with your Dualshock 3 in hand thinking, "Hey I want a new game to play on here, but I'm cheap". Well, the good folks and Sony and Sprint have heard you and have decided to give you a FREE game for one week only.
A lot of us here collect games, I'm assuming. Since this is true, I know that every one of you here has a game backlog. You know, that pile of games sitting in the corner, unplayed, unloved for various reasons. Maybe you lost interest in the game, or there's a shiny new game that captured your attention, or you just never got around to playing it. Regardless of the reasons why your backlog grows, I want to know what your approach to solving this backlog dilemma is.