|
Looking to get into digital PC gaming? You are? Well well well then, let me tell you: Steam's a great place to start. Valve's digital distribution giant has an easy-to-use client that houses all your games, a huge selection of titles to buy, and the famous Steam sales where you can pick up new games for criminally low prices of as little as one or two bucks. A lot of my favorite games on there are indie titles, made by individuals or really small teams. Indie devs typically have no tyrannical management to worry about, and they also tend to have a true passion for what they make. As a result, it's very common for fresh ideas and unbridled creativity to shine through their work!
Whether you're unfamiliar with this side of gaming or you just want something new to play, Steam happens to be running a huge sale at the moment: The Indie Spring Sale, going through March 29th. Countless indie games on Steam (if not all of them) are discounted, many at 75%+ off. It is absolute madness - thankfully, a wonderful kind. And hey, maybe you need a little guidance? A recommendation or two? Well, here are a few of my personal favorites that you can pick up on the cheap.
Note: Steam features a decent offline mode that works if you've signed in on your current computer before. But if you want to know which games are DRM-free, so that you can back them up wherever you want and play without an Internet connection, check out this handy list.
Gravitron 2
You pilot a space lander with thrust controls, similar to Gravitar or Oids. Gorgeous neon vector (!) graphics, combined with great flight & shooting controls make it an instant arcade-style classic. Every time you finish your mission exploring the underground depths of an alien planet, a countdown begins and intense music plays as you must escape to the atmosphere before the planet itself blows up. Exhilarating.
Thomas Was Alone
Excellent puzzle platformer: Graphics are slick but minimalist, and the story is told through an awesome narration. Gets pretty emotional. Even though you play as squares and rectangles!
Swarm Arena
VERY fresh, unique fast-paced action game with hints of strategy. As a glowing ball, you move around the arena to pick up little blips of light called drones that will swarm around you. Taking out your opponent - human or AI, offline or online - requires building up your army and swinging them using momentum to break through the other army, to strike the other colored ball. Tons of fun and something that's never quite been done before, to the best of my knowledge. You can get a better idea of the gameplay by watching a trailer.
Super Hexagon
An action game in the purest sense, Super Hexagon is an example of a simple design executed to perfection. You are a tiny triangle rotating around the middle of the screen to dodge incoming walls. That's it. And it's really difficult. But with practice you get a better feel for movement and you learn the patterns of the incoming walls, and it's really satisfying once you can survive for longer than five seconds. Also: The chiptune music is absolutely jammin, and the whole game pulses to the beat. Man, it's great.
Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP
Take a stroll through the most beautiful pixel-forest ever imagined, use the ancient magical powers of sworcery, battle horrible beasts, gaze at the moon. A modern adventure game, and it also has a bizarre-but-excellent sense of humor.
Ben There, Dan That! / Time Gentlemen, Please!
Two hilarious point & click adventures, bundled together. Almost any item combination you can think of will yield funny dialogue! And a lot of the humor actually comes from poking fun at quirks of the genre, so if you're a fan of these kinds of games, the Dan & Ben collection is a must.
The Polynomial
Explore the space of the music. Pop in your own tunes or listen to what's already there, and fly around incredible visual feasts as the lights pulse to the beat. There are enemies to shoot if you really want something to do, but you can turn them off. There are a LOT of settings you can play with - it's a gigantic visual music sandbox.
Super Laser Racer
A top-down racer with neon vector graphics, not quite as slick as Gravitron 2. But the racing can be a lot of fun, and the soundtrack is killer.
Data Jammers: FastForward
An action game that has you zooming down digital highways, racking up as many points as possible. All the different ways to squeeze points out of the level really make it interesting - there are collectibles, but then there are enemies. You can slam into enemies for more points, but that takes away some of your life, which regenerates over time. So it becomes a game of balancing your life bar while weaving in and out of the different lanes, exploiting every little opportunity for a higher score.
And Yet It Moves
A unique papery visual style combined with a strange ambient soundtrack and the ability to rotate the entire world make this a very interesting platformer indeed.
The Path
A dark, creepy, stunningly beautiful adventure inspired by Little Red Riding Hood. It blurs the line between videogame and notgame, and some traditional gamers are turned off because it's too "artsy". But if you're okay with a change of pace, and you can enjoy something that breaks the mold, I wholeheartedly recommend The Path. (just remember, it is seriously creepy)
I-Fluid
You are a drop of water, and there's a whole house out there to explore. Slick graphics, and some really cool 3D platforming. Just watch out for paper, stove tops, etc.!
Criminy, and it just goes on and on. There are many more I could mention. I could continue heaping praise onto the games I love forever and ever, on and on until the end of time. Or close to it. And then there are the bunches of indie games I haven't played and look great. But I'll cut it off here so this post isn't too too long. In summary: There is an enumerable amount of quality titles out there, and if you feel like giving a few a go, now's a good time to do just that!
Happy Black Friday and Belated Thanksgiving RFGeners - hope you were sufficiently stuffed with Turkey and Mom's old fashioned potatoes yesterday! Today, however, is chaos and maybe a few deals. Did any of you go shopping today? Did you find anything good? Maybe something for your secret santa buddy?
I personally had to work so I slept in until the boss called me and told me I had to come in  .
It's almost Black Friday time! Which leads me to an interesting question today: have any of the stores in your area announced any good deals on video games? Does it seem like in your area that the focus is more on toys than video games? Post links if you have them!
Updated 11/26 @ 12:36AM with Game Crazy deals.
So yeah, I haven't done a blog entry in quite some time, but I figured why not come back with a bang? Here's my yearly Black Friday deals post, a little early this time. As far as I know, everything on this post should be accurate. I used leaked scans from the ads found at blackfriday.info and some info from cheapassgamer.com. However, I did start working on this post about a week and half ago, so deals may have changed last minute. I'll review it on Thanksgiving day to check and see if what I have is correct. If you see any errors, please leave them in the comments.
Items in bold are ones that I think are pretty cool and worth checking out.
First things first: here's some notable deals I want to get out of the way from retailers that don't get a special spot in the listing:
Dualshock 3 for $30 at RadioShack
Lego Rock Band FREE when you buy $20 of stuff at Old Navy
Also, be sure to keep your eye on Amazon's Black Friday week section. They have some great deals going on all week.
For PC gamers, Steam is having day long sales every day for the next five days. They have some GREAT deals right now, like Osmos for only $2 and Batman Arkham Asylum for $25. Check this page every day for new offers.
PS3 owners, Sony is having a sale on various PSN games this week.
$5:
Bomberman Ultra
Comet Crash
Flower
The Last Guy
Prince of Persia Classic
$7.50
Invincible Tiger: The Legend of Han Tao
Smash Cars
$15
Fate/Unlimited Codes (PSP)
Killzone 2 DLC sale: Flash and Thunder for $3, DLC Bundle for $10
Anyways, now on to the brick and mortar stores. Click on the link to skip directly to the store you want to see.
Best Buy
Game Crazy
Gamestop
Kmart
Target
Toys R Us
Wal-Mart
Continue reading Black Friday 2009 Spectacular!
 Praise the Gods! Our humble beseeching was heard by our humble lords. Our penitent pleas have been recognized by Yevon and in doing so he has ensured that the Wii was in fact the top selling console in Japan last week. What will Yevon do for us next week? Might he protect us from Sin? I only dread the thought of what city could become the next Zanarkand. They embraced technology too much, and in doing so were punished for the techological zeal. That's why I use a laptop powered by a hand crank, praise Yevon. Oh lordy, praise Yevon, for he is GOOD. Like I know that the Wii only sold 1500 more consoles than the 360 last week in Japan, but it least the cosmic order remains.
Oh merciful Yevon, what won't you do to protect your people? How we citizens of Spira praise your magnificence! Save Spira from Sin, in the name of Maester Seymour Guado! May we never experience the same fate as Zanarkand! Guardians, protect us!
Xbox 360 The Best Selling Console In Japan? Media Create Says 'No'
 In what surely is to be a one in a lifetime occurrence, the Microsoft 360 was the top selling console in Japan for the week of September 8 through 14. It's... terrifying. What have we done to cause such a cosmic quirk to occur? Was it our capitalist overlords screwing with the subprime market, causing a financial meltdown? Could it have been the Japanese obsession with Used Pantie Machines finally caught up with them? Was it that as a world we're too preoccupied with shrubberies? I DON'T HAVE A CLUE!
Truly, someone must have done something to cause this strangeness to occur. It's not as though the Japanese could actually be genuinely interested in the 360, could it? I know it was popular in the US a couple months back, but the US and the Land of the Rising Sun are very, very different. They have Pachinko. We have Casinos. There's no way that the Japanese could be convinced to buy a 360 because of a price drop, could it? COULD IT? All I know is that last week the 360 was the top selling console in Japan, and it's scary. Such a freak oddity can not happen again next week, can it? CAN IT? I really hope not, I fear what would happen to the cosmos if it did.
OH MERCIFUL GODS! Hear my plea! Spare us from the impending cosmic rift! We humbly beseech you! We wish not to invoke your wrath! Please, take these shrubberies as a token of our most sincere acquiescence. Please, PLEASE! Don't let the 360 top the chart for another week, I don't know if the cosmos could take another week of such stress!
Holy Snot! Xbox 360 Tops Home Console Sales In Japan [Kotaku]
|
|
|
|
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
| |
|
