Recuerdo cuando logré acabar el Doom, no tenía ni idea de que sucedió, solo sé que sentía que mi vida dependía de el poder terminar con cada uno de los enemigos que la jauría lanzaba en mi contra. Era una locura, hace muchos años, hoy tengo 29 y jugué Doom cuando tenía 12 me parece (espero no equivocarme).

Y si le hecho al tiempo un retroceso mucho mayor, se van creando en mi mente el sonido de las espadas y los pisos falsos del clásico e inolvidable Prince of Persia, la primera vez que lo jugué fue en una vieja PC monocromática 386, se lo imaginan.

Gameplay DOOM

Seguro te pasó, era un loco, con mi humilde disco duro de 80 megas, me la pasaba cambiando juegos con los amigos y demás conocidos, todos estos juegos corrían bajo el sistema DOS, tuve sin mentir unos 300 a 400 títulos. No lo recuerdo, a veces solía como cualquier niño apuntar y hacer la lista de los que tenía y los que quería.

Gameplay Monkey Island 1 y 2

Que momentos felices, mucho más cuando acababa alguno, me pasó con el Monkey Island 1 y 2, igual con Indiana Jones y su aventura por la Atlántida, quería tener un disco duro infinito para así no tener que borrar los juegos para hacer espacio a otros (el dinero no alcanzaba para tantos diskettes).

Yo soy un desordenado (se darán cuenta por el post jeje), un día me gusta un género al otro me agrada uno diferente, tanto así que suelo dejar de lado por el momento algunos juegos sin terminar para ponerme a jugar el último de moda o que como imán me atrajo. Le pasa a todos supongo.

¿Pero cuál es el momento más feliz dirás?, pues el momento, el instante aquel cuando terminamos un videojuego (no tiene que ser el tuyo, todos somos un mundo), pero me sucede eso, que me éxito de gritos y festejos cuando logro acabar un videojuego. Es verdaderamente emocionante.

Gameplay Prince of Persia

Las locuras de niño se nos vienen de golpe, recuerdas terminar títulos como God, Duke Nukem 3D, Doom, Prince of Persia, Alone in the Dark, Descent, Heretic, Hexen, Wolfenstein 3D, Syndicate, Maniac Mansion, Worms, Supaplex, Day of Tentacle, Street Figther, Mortal Kombat, Sokoban, Warcraft, CD-Man, Flashback, Blackthorne, y un montón que no recuerdo pero siento que disfruté (si alguien los menciona seguro mi memoria se optimiza jeje).

Gameplay Sokoban

Hoy los desafíos son más complejos (la frenética evolución, creación e invasión), aunque ciertos títulos no llegan a ello y se supone son difíciles de terminar. Bueno, ahí encontraré momentos sublimes, para gritar y contarles a las personas que logre llegar al último nivel, sin importarme que a ellos no les importe.

Y tú, cuéntame, ¿cuál es el momento más apetitoso que como gamer tienes?, cuéntanos y menciona algunos de esos juegos con los que creciste, enriquece estas recontra humildes líneas con tu jugable experiencia. Volvamos a ser niños (seamos clásicos jugones).

Welcome to Flashback Friday, a Jupiter Beagle feature where I will review entertainment from the past.  I'm beginning the feature with one of my favorite games, and a game that many people are asking to be released on the Nintendo DS or Wii, LucasArts' classic graphic adventure game from 1990, The Secret of Monkey Island.

For those uninitiated in the way of the classic graphic adventure, this game has a point-and-click interface that is controlled completely with a mouse.  You move the character around by pointing on locations on the screen, and interact with objects with the verbs at the bottom of the screen.  These verbs let the game know how you wish to interact with an object (such as look, use, open, etc.).   In adventure games, the meat of the game comes from picking up objects which are added to your inventory, and using them at later parts of the game.

The music in this game is very memorable.  The theme music is among my favorites in any medium, film and television included.  There is no voice acting in this game. All dialog consists of text only, but the dialog is so lively you'll likely be so immersed in the game that you'll quickly become used to reading everything.

The Secret of Monkey Island starred Guybrush Threepwood, a goofy, lanky young man who is a swashbuckling pirate only in his own mind.  The game starts off on the fictional island of Melée, where Guybrush has just arrived, and is eager to become a mighty pirate of the Carribean.  However, his innocent looks and silly name kept him from earning the respect from anyone on the island, or elsewhere for that matter.  He must meet three pirates in the nearby SCUMM Bar (a reference to the Script Creation Utility for Maniac Mansion, which is used in The Secret of Monkey Island as well).  They send him on three trials that will prove himself a pirate: thievery, swordsmanship, and digging for pirate treasure.

Now, Guybrush must travel all around Melée, talking with the ecclectic natives, and taking anything that he is able to.  The conversations in this game are filled to the brim with humor.  From the traveling circus performers, to the sword fighting trainer, to the men of low moral fiber, you'll find yourself exhausting the dialog choices just to get the most from the game's jokes.

However, once you become a pirate, the game's storyline kicks into overdrive.  It quickly becomes clear that all is not as it seems on the Island.  The ghost pirate LeChuck is scheming to wed a living bride, so it is up to Guybrush to rescue her.  He must leave the island, but first he must buy a ship and find a crew.  This opens up one of the fan-favorite characters in the game, Stan.  He's a used-ship salesman who is a fast-talking con-man who would make many modern-day used car salesmen envious.  The animation for stan is my favorite in the game, as his arms and mouth both flail around rapidly while he talks.  Even when he is waiting for Guybrush's response to his questions, his foot is tapping as fast as his mouth was flapping earlier.  He wants nothing more than a sale, and having to talk to the customers is nothing more than a chore for him.  It's the little touches like that that make Monkey Island a memorable experience.

Ah, but the game doesn't stop there.  Once a ship and crew are secured, Guybrush must find a way to LeChuck's hideout on mysterious Monkey Island.  On the island, guybrush meets even more ecclectic characters, including a hermit who wears no pants, a group of vegetarian cannibals, and a living skeleton who keeps losing his head (literally!).  I'm not going to go to far into the final parts of the game, as I don't want to spoil anything, but I will say that the final battle with LeChuck is one of the highlights of the game.  I love how LucasArts was able to make a nerve-wracking boss battle with just the adventure interface, and didn't have to resort to action bits at all.

The Secret of Monkey Island is a bona-fide classic.  Almost all adventure game fans list this game in their top 10, and it has appeared on many general best games lists as well.  This affection is well warranted.  The dialog is clever and witty, the storyline is engrossing, and the characters are all memorable.  The music is wonderful and the art of the VGA version still looks good even today.  The only question that remains is why LucasArts is sitting on this gem when retrogaming is so popular on today's consoles?  This game runs fine on the Wii and Nintendo DS when the original, purchased, PC version is used along with ScummVM.  ScummVM has been used in the recent PC DVD releases of Revolution's first two Broken Sword games, so the precedent has been set.  It would be great to see the games for which ScummVM was originally written get the official treatment.

Final Verdict:  Five out of Five

Oh, by the way, the image on the top is a slight modification of one of the many icons available from ScummVM Icons. They weren't created by me, I just added "The Secret of" to the Monkey Island image for this review. Thanks for making those guys, I use them myself with ScummVM on my Windows machine.

You know, the ironic thing is that the most memorable bits weren't actually the graphics, it was the soundtrack: you spent so much time trying to find the crowbar that opened the latch that released the pigeon that distracted the pirate, that you could remember every single MIDI note that was playing in the background.

Maybe one of these days I'll compile a list of game tunes - but for now, here's a quick countdown of my top 10 favourite old school graphic adventure games:

And there you have it: the Progspot.com Top 10 BEST old school graphic adventure games. I have to admit it's heavily skewed towards Lucas Arts and Sierra, but they were really THAT good.

Are you a fan of old school adventure games? I've probably missed out a couple other classics, but hey there's only room for 10. Let's hear your thoughts on the list!

What I just found at home...

Originally uploaded by .iBOT

Da merkt man wieder, dass es sich eventuell doch mal lohnt sein Zimmer aufzuräumen. Mangels Lesegerät wird dieser Fund dann leider aber doch nur als Ansichtsgegenstand enden.

blue and pink plaid pimp coat which he pairs with a SOMBRERO

Elaine Marley

Part of the reason I am hyping up Monkey Island in this post is that it came up in conversation the other day.  We had to go on a "treasure hunt" as part of the orientation thing, which, while exhausting, was really useful.  In my group there was one girl from Germany (who is now my friend :D), a guy from Poland, and a guy from China.  Anyhoo, the girl from Germany (who is a nerd and likes Portal, huzzah) and the guy from Poland both really like Monkey Island - apparently it was REALLY popular here!  I was so happy.  I have found my people.

That night was the first bar crawl, but I only made it to two bars before dying.  We're always so busy (and I'm still a little jetlagged) so I'm always tired!  I also had cider for the first time, which was pretty good.

The next day I enrol-ed, which was a pretty painless process.  I was smart and brought a book to the queue.  LOOK HOW BRITISH I AM!  :D  Sorry, everyone was just talking about "the queue" which I think was hilarious, and reminds me that I need to watch Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.  And, other than getting signed up for random things on campus, I took the next 2.5 days off to sleep and relax, then I studied my butt off for this Japanese Placement test.  But before that...

Quiz night!  I went, not knowing what to expect, but it was a ton of fun.  I ended up in a group with my German friend (to stop calling her that, her name is Elena) and a guy from Sarah Lawrence and two British girls.  We had a blast: I knew a ton of trivia, some that they believed me on and some they didn't (I was the only one who knew what an ampersand was), but I failed them on some, like who the new Prime Minister of Japan was (TARO ASO!) and some other stuff.  Oh, I did know (guess) that Token Black was a character from South Park.  Colorado pride YEAH! :D  Anyway, we got 16 points, and the highest scoring team got 19, so we did really well - and one of the team members (we came into the group a bit late) named the team "Quiz on your face" - I didn't realize how dirty it was until much later, but people seemed to like it :)  There was a pub crawl afterwards too, but I was terrified because I thought that the Japanese Placement test was on Wednesday and I had missed it, so I didn't go.  I was lucky and it was on Friday!  All that worrying was for nothing, but it did cause me to go over there early Thursday and figure it out.  On Thursday I also got a duvet cover for my new duvet (blue and white is the theme of my things this semester) and a bowl and plate (huzzah!) and I also got a poster earlier in the week which I love!  It looks like this:

YAY.  'cept the background on mine is white.  Anyway, it helps take up the space on my enormous corkboard and now compliments Rinoa, Squall, Cactuar, my family, and my dreamcatcher (and my friends!) very nicely :)

Hmm.  Today was nice (cheerios YAY!  'Cept they're a weird flavor and I was actually craving granola and yogurt, go figure) I studied my BUTT off then went to take the test, which was somehat difficult.  The grammar part was medium difficult, but not killer - just a few of the questions were hard.  The translation from English into Japanese was... ok.  I think I conveyed the jist of the passage, but it definitely wasn't word for word.  Then... the yomimono.  Ohmigod, I died so hard.  I pretended to translate the whole thing in a column on the side so a) I might have some hope of understanding it and b) so they would know I at least somewhat knew what I was doing.  It was terrible.  I couldn't translate all of either part they asked me to, and I just guessed on the multiple choice questions.  Oh the kanji, it killed me.  So, I have a few options, but it all depends on the results, which I get tomorrow.  Until then... PARTAY!  :D I still need to get a bottle of wine or something delicious, but I did reward myself with a スタバ on the way back.  It was delicious.

So, yeah.  That's my life at the moment.  Now time to go attempt to make tortellini with borrowed pans (is it borrowing if I don't know who they belong to but promise to clean them and put them back where I found them? :()

If it must be so .//.

PS: I have decided to take the JLPT Level 3.  Huzzah.  Why do I do these things to myself again?
PPS: At the Japanese Placement test I met a cute law student from Columbia. Double huzzah!

Ahh, greeted by a refreshing, bright sunny morning.

Our tour guide of that day, Michelle, came and picked us up in van. Went to a pier at the other end of the beach before departing.

The view from the pier.

Lucky fish, living a good life, waiting to be fed, for free.

The famous Maya Bay. Guess this is the one related to Leonardo Dicaprio's movie, "The Beach". I didn't watch it though. Lalala.

Halfway, it rained, in the middle of the sea. We made a stop for shelter at Bamboo Island, for more than 1/2 hr.

Then proceeding to Monkey Island. Well, with big fat monkeys, lurking around, waiting to be fed freely, by tourists.

Different kind of big fish, looking for food. :P

Smart fish who knew how to stand, in the middle of the sea. :P

Made a stop over at Phi Phi Island, for lunch break.

There was still construction or renovation going on at the beach front. Mostly, hotels were being constructed during the low season.

Michelle shared with us the horror stories of the Tsunami 4 years back. It was totally unexpected and a lot of people died, mostly tourists. She volunteered to help during the disaster by being a translator at hospitals. Not many Thai can speak in good English, and she's one of the few. She said the Tsunami only helped to make the Thai people stronger and it showed that the world cared, when aids came pouring in from different nations to help the people affected by the Tsunami.

Nice eh? :)

Copyright reserved.

Listening to:

True Colours

by Cyndi Lauper

El problema normalmente es que esta clase de juegos está obsoleta para las velocidades que corren hoy en día en los ordenadores; requisitos demasiado salidos de órbita que hacen que el juego vaya a una velocidad de espanto...pero no hay problema amigos, hoy os voy a presentar una aplicación libre que hará que muchos sepan apreciar. Sin más divagar, presento a:

Un programa universal que soporta los juegos en formato Scummvm tales como el ya dicho Monkey Island, El día del tentáculo, Indiana Jones & Fate of atlantis, Sam Y Max, Loom, Woodruff and the snible of azimuth...etc

Bien. Voy a explicar los pasos que hay que seguir para instalarlo en cada sitio (aunque será una explicación sencilla ya que no tiene mucho misterio).

Antes de que se me olvide, si no quereis leer la explicación, solo id aquí y descargadlo:

www.scummvm.org

Windows: Un simple ejecutable, lo bajas, doble click en el exe y listo, lo encontrarás en archivos de programa.

Mac OS: Bajamos la imagen y la montamos, depués arrastramos el contenido a nuestra carpeta de aplicaciones.

Linux/Ubuntu: En los repositorios oficiales de ubuntu nos encotramos con esta maravilla. La marcamos para instalar, aplicamos cambios y listo. Lo encotramos en aplicaciones.

]]> http://whillifer.wordpress.com/?p=33 Tue, 23 Sep 2008 05:49:05 +0000 whillifer http://whillifer.it.wordpress.com/2008/09/23/el-secreto-de-monkey-island/ Hoy vengo a hablar de lo que es considerado por muchos un clásico de clásicos sobre aventuras gráficas.

Aquí abajo dejo algo más detallado pero para el que lo quiera descargar  (hay que registrarse) que vaya a:

http://www.selvacamaleon.net

Yo soy de los que opina que un buen juego es aquel que rompe barreras ya bien sea gráficas o argumentales, sin duda este es uno de los que se lleva la palma en cuanto a coloridos escenarios e increibles gráficos basados en el sistema de juego SCUMM (ya hablaré más adeltante de esto).

Guybrush Threepwood, valiente joven que sale de la nada con un solo objetivo: Querer ser un pirata.A medida que avanzamos,  vemos los acontecimientos que suceden en Melee Island y cómo el pirata, ahora zombi, Lechuck atormenta a todo el caribe con su tripulación cadáver pirata y sus intentos de conquistar a Elaine Marley, la gobernadora de Melee Island.

No os perdais una de las que probablemente esté en el top 3 de las aventuras gráficas por excelencia desarrolada además por el grupo LucasArts

Verbrochen Genialer Weise erfunden und umgesetzt von Majus.

Gefunden bei [bunix].

for the treasure!
chris

Um dos melhores point-and-click foi, sem dúvida alguma, «The Secret of Monkey Island». Neste primeiro jogo da saga, encarnamos Guybrush Threepwood, um jovem com o sonho de ser pirata, que vai parar à ilha de Mêlée, algures nas Caraíbas. Durante o seu tirocínio de pirata, Guybrush apaixona-se por Elaine Marley, governadora da ilha, que é raptada pelo terrível pirata LeChuck e levada para Monkey Island.

Os diálogos estão cheios daquele sentido de humor de rebolar no chão a rir (mas mesmo!), trocadilhos e referências geeks. Tudo em espanhol - sim, a versão inicial que me veio parar às mãos era em espanhol -, com expressões fantásticas como «perros asesinos», «nativos amistosos», «Mira, detrás de ti, un mono de tres cabezas» ou «¡Me das ganas de vomitar!». Ainda hoje, quando oiço a música do início, dá-me vontade de dançar, abanando os bracitos de maneira estranha.

Noone was hurt. But police suspect it was an attack by activists who are against the American nuclear-powered aircraft-carrier, U.S.S. George Washington, being stationed there starting later this month.

(I wrote a post about this ship coming to Japan here
(I also mentioned it in a few other posts. If you want to see them, you can use the Search function on this blog. A search for posts on my blog "USS George Washington" can be accessed here )).

+++
Speaking of 神奈川県横須賀市 (Yokosuka, Kanagawa-prefecture)...if you visit that town, the US Navy base is in 神奈川県横須賀市本町 (Honcho, Yokosuka-ward, Kanagawa-prefecture).
The closest train stations are JR 横須賀駅 (Yokosuka JR Station), 京浜急行汐入駅 (Keihin-kyuukou Shioiri Station), or 京浜急行横須賀中央駅 (Keihin-kyuukou Yokosuka-chuo Station).
You probably wouldn't be allowed inside the American base (unless it's a day of one of their "Friendship Festivals"), but the street across from the base (that many American sailors mistakenly call "The Honch" (because the town's name is 本町 (Honcho)) is ドブイタ・ストリート (Dobuita Street) with many shops and restaurants that are unique to the area.

神奈川県横須賀市 (Yokosuka, Kanagawa-prefecture) is famous for 海軍カレー (Navy Curry) because the Japanese Navy (which also has a base there) brought curry from India to Yokosuka.

Another thing that 神奈川県横須賀市 (Yokosuka, Kanagawa-prefecture) is famous for are the popular スカジャン ('Suka-jyan). Which are souvenir 神奈川県横須賀市 (Yokosuka, Kanagawa-prefecture) jackets that were popular with the U.S. Military but it's now mostly Japanese people who buy them.

There's also 猿島 (Saru-shima (which translates to Monkey Island...but there are no monkeys there anymore)), which can be accessed by ferry.
And 三笠公園 (Mikasa Park) with the Japanese battleship Mikasa that you can take a tour of.

made with a macbook, a printer and the best game in history: Monkey Island

for the treasure!
chris

Those who know me know that I love games. RPG's (Role-Playing Games), computer games, console games, ARG (Alternative Reality Games), boardgames... the list goes on and on. I can't really say that I have a favourite game, but I do have an obsession with The Sims. I've been collecting those games for a long time and had a lot of fun with them, but they don't really belong to my favourite genre - P&C (Point & Click) adventure games, like Monkey Island, Beneath a Steel Sky, Sam & Max and Runaway! I've always loved to solve mysteries and those kind of games bring that to the gaming experience. Another thing that I'm very fond of with most P&C games is the humour in the game. Some jokes you have to look for, while the rest are as visible as a red nose on a colourful clown. Monkey Island is a very good example, since those games has both kind of jokes. For a series of games with the 1700's pirate theme, you can spot a lot of modern stuff in it, like rubber chickens and soda machines. Then we have the weird things you have to do, like collecting T-shirts, put on a pink dress, feed cheese to a vulcano and be vulgar to a school teacher. And last, but definetely not least, we have the signs, labels, posters and commercials you can find a little here and there with some funny text on them. Some of them were actual commercials for future games, which was a little weird, but still funny.

I'd love to write some more, but I have a teacher to try to suck up to in a few hours and need some sleep. Let's hope he won't chew my head off...

Was macht eigentlich... Ron Gilbert, der kreative Kopf hinter Klassikern wie Monkey Island und Maniac Mansion? Der Spieldesigner hat auf einer amerikanischen Messe sein nächstes Spiel vorgestellt - und ist überzeugt, damit die perfekte Mischung aus Monkey Island und Diablo gefunden zu haben.

Death Spank: Ron Gilbert mixt Monkey Island und Diablo - Golem.de.

За всички който мигат тъпо, ще кажа две имена направи Ron Gilbert легенда:
Първото е Maniac Mansion, а второто Monkey Island поредицата (!естествено!). Ако все още има хора наричащи себе си геймъри, но не знаещи за какво става въпрос - моля ви, прилежно затворете тази страничка, ходете да се образовате "игрово" и тогава може да започнете да четете поста отначало :)

След като изяснихме, кой е Ron "Monkey Island" Gilbert, е време за следващият въпрос. Какво е DeathSpank?
Отговорът е:
[vodpod id=Groupvideo.1527527&w=425&h=350&fv=%26rel%3D0%26border%3D0%26]

НИКОЙ НЕ ЗНАЕ! :D

Иначе сериозно - DeathSpank е новата игра на Ron Gilbert, който в момента е Creative Director на Hothead Games (същото студио което прави Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness btw).

Самата игра, ще бъде микс от традиционен адвенчър и RPG, като RPG елементите щели да бъдат близки до тези на Diablo. Мда, никои няма идея какво точно ще представлява играта :D Поне сме сигурни, че ще е подплатена с чудовищно забавно чувство за хумор ;)

Всъщност единствената сигурна и потвърдена информация е, че DeathSpank не е супер герой, и че Ron Gilbert мрази супер героите. :D

Горното видео показва битките :) но това не е всичко!
Следва още едно което показва RPG страната на нещата:
[vodpod id=Groupvideo.1527554&w=425&h=350&fv=%26rel%3D0%26border%3D0%26]

и още едно, което показва... ъъ адвенчър страната на нещата:
[vodpod id=Groupvideo.1527558&w=425&h=350&fv=%26rel%3D0%26border%3D0%26]

:D Мда, много смях ще има. Не знам за вас, но аз чакам с огромен интерес!

Официалният сайт на DeathSpank (на който в момента няма почти нищо) :) е deathspank.com, а видеотата са взети от блога на Ron Gilbert - GrumpyGamer.com

DeathSpank се очаква някъде през 2009 г.

Ако имате желание, можете да гласувате за тази статия тук.

PS: И да, главният герой носи лилави прашки!

George Lucas has been talking about his World War 2 project Red Tails for a long time. Now rumors are going around that Samuel L. Jackson, who worked with Lucas on the last two Star Wars movies, may star in, and/or possibly direct the film. Jackson, who can currently be heard as the voice of Mace Windu in Star Wars: The Clone Wars, told IGN.com:

"I just read it like two weeks ago. It's a pretty good script," Jackson began. "At one point (Lucas) was asking me if I'd ever want to direct anything. I said, 'I don't know, man. I'm trying to find things.' He said, 'Well, let me send you this thing. Maybe you might want to direct it.'"

Jackson continued, "Well, I guess if I was gonna direct something George would be a great guy to kind of mentor me through that, especially a big ass special effects flying picture. The script's good. I like it."

But when pressed if he would seriously consider helming Red Tails, Jackson replied, "I don't know. I don't have a year and a half of my life where I wanna stop acting."

So there you have it, that seems pretty clear to me. It's highly unlikely that Jackson will helm the picture, but I think we can expect him to be in there. Also, according to the IMDB, Anthony Hemingway, an assistant director (Freedomland) and sometime TV director (CSI: NY) is currently attached to the project, which is set for release in 2009. Of course these things change so we'll just have to wait for official announcements.

Red Tails, which was written by John Ridley (Undercover Brother), will tell the story of the Tuskegee Airmen, the first African-American pilots to fly in a combat squadron during World War II (expect Spike Lee to throw a fit).

Lucasfilm was emerging as a big name production company back in the eighties and early nineties, with films such as Willow and Radioland Murders but has recently only been invested in Star Wars and Indiana Jones projects. I'm personally glad that Lucas is once again diversifying the company and hope that the trend continues (how about a Monkey Island animated movie?). The Movie Planet will of course keep you informed of any further developments.

Source

En muy poco tiempo podrás recrear en tu propia casa esa gran escena, con este Murray recortable: http://spacepirate.org/skulladay/papercraftskull.pdf

Para seguir leyendo pulsa aquí.

PC Gamer recently released the yearly update to their Top 100 Games of All Time list and have also set up a rather intriguing bit of democracy in the form of a public all-time voting system. Having duly registered and voted, I thought I'd give a quick rundown on my choices and why they were picked...

In reverse order:

10. Flashback

This golden oldie dates back to a time when I didn't even have a suitable gaming machine and had to make do with popping round friends' houses to sample the latest delights. Sort-of follow-up to Another World, Flashback was an ambitious platform adventure that melded the super slick animation of Prince of Persia with the plot of Total Recall, resulting in something that was quite unique in terms of production values and storytelling. Anybody that played this back in the day no doubt spent the first half hour of gameplay simply unholstering and holstering the gun, over and over, marvelling at Conrad Hart's rotoed leather jacket.

9. The Secret of Monkey Island

A game that needs no introduction, unless you're some kind of young thing that doesn't respect his gaming history, Monkey Island is a genre classic, the very pinnacle of the point-and-click adventure. Well, unless you prefer Sam & Max. Or Full Throttle. Or Grim Fandango (ok, ok, so you didn't actually point or click in that game, but it's the same genre!). The piratical adventures of Guybrush Threepwood riffed on all the great pirate stories and also succeeded in being one of the funniest games ever made. They don't write 'em like this anymore (well, unless you're Tim Schafer - see below).

8. Knights of the Old Republic

Bioware still haven't surpassed the storytelling in this Star Wars-set roleplaying epic and, tellingly, neither has George Lucas. KotOR captures the magic of Star Wars as we remember it from our childhoods, hitting all the right notes and showing an understanding for both the fans and the source material that was sorely lacking from the movie prequels. Bioware's two subsequent games, Jade Empire and Mass Effect, haven't come anywhere near to the effortless sleight of hand performed by the game's narrative, which is always in service to the wonderfully memorable characters.

7. Morrowind

As you may have noticed elsewhere on this site, I'm not too keen on Bethesda's Oblivion or their forthcoming, seemingly dreary interpretation of the Fallout series. Part of this negativity comes from my massively positive experience with their earlier game Morrowind, a majestic achievement in experimental gameplay and unbridled ambition. There's a depth of imagination and maturity to the island landscape of Vvardenfell that no other game has come close to bettering. Despite clunky combat, Morrowind remains one of the most atmospheric games ever made, packed full of fascinating politics, religion and incidental stories waiting to be stumbled across. Please, Bethesda, bring back the team that made this classic!

6. Portal

The big surprise of 2007 was Portal, a tiny little FPS that snuck into The Orange Box compilation. While most of us were eager to get our hands on Half Life 2: Episode 2 and Team Fortress, it was Portal that turned out to be the collection's gem. Taking the portal concept tentatively explored in the much more generic (but still good fun) Prey, Portal follows it through to its natural conclusion, crafting a unique series of puzzle before pulling one of the best and most mischievous plot twists in gaming history. Portal is evidence that short games most definitely have a future.

5. Darwinia

Brit developer Introversion's breakout game, Darwinia melds Cannon Fodder with the RTS genre to create a highly unique experience. Its TRON-inspired world is a marvel of imagination and lateral game design. Click here for my full review.

4. Deus Ex

Though the passing years have dated the turn-of-the-millennium, conspiracy-laden, X Files-inspired story, Deus Ex remains a milestone in game narratives. Throwing out all the established rules of both the FPS and RPG, it depicts a nightmarish urban future blighted by terrorist fervour and overactive government surveillance following an attack on New York (it's worth noting, though, that the game was released pre-9/11). Playing as cybernetically enhanced operative JC Denton the plot interweaves conspiracy theories, paranoia and globe-trotting to tremendous effect. The scope of the game is seemingly limitless and it's a tragedy that no other developer has yet attempted to follow in its footsteps.

3. Beyond Good & Evil

On the surface, this is a typical console platformer mixed with a smidgeon of stealth gameplay and a quirky art design. Beyond Good & Evil is very much greater than the sum of its parts, though, mostly due to its charming characters and world, which have an innocence and exuberance that is pleasantly distant from the usual marines-with-guns theme prevalent in the industry. That the protagonist is a woman is probably no coincidence, nor the fact that the few marines-with-guns that are present are most certainly the bad guys. Discarding weaponry for a camera and explosions for wit, this is a rare and memorable experience indeed.

2. Half Life 2

For me, game design doesn't get much better than Half Life 2 and its episodic follow-ups. Valve have honed their craft to such a degree that their achievements appear effortless; they leap over boundaries and hurdles that bring down other developers, constantly innovating and pushing the enevelope in unexpected directions. On the surface, Half Life 2 sounds fairly generic - you are the lone warrior that can stop an alien invasion. What really lingers in the mind are the characters, subtle, indirect storytelling, natural environments and instantly appealing combat. Throw in what remains to this day some of the most iconic and efficient art and level design in gaming history and there's no way to look at Half Life 2 as anything other than a classic.

1. Psychonauts

Endlessly inventive, Psychonauts is always bringing you something new. Just as you think you've got it sussed, it pulls another genius idea from the mind of creator Tim Schafer and wraps it in wildly imaginative and gleeful vision and sound. This is another game that refuses to play by the rules, despite initial impressions of being a standard platformer. Given that Psychonauts is about the power of the human mind, it's appropriate that it is so full of ideas. Fresh, funny and fabulous.

Disclaimer: As with all 'top 10' style lists, ask me in a month, or even tomorrow, and I'll probably give you a completely different selection.

Ja, das Zusammenleben zweier Menschen gestaltet sich, wie wir spätestens seit Loriot wissen, manchmal launiger als man denkt. Wobei ich hier nicht zwischen den Launen auf der Sonnenseite des Lebens stehender Jungs und deren Freundinnen unterscheiden möchte. Nein, ganz Alltägliches wird zum Parkour partnerschaftlicher Kommunikation, voller Bilder und Allegorien, so man diesen Alltag denn zeichnet und der Welt damit das zurück gibt, was ihr am meisten fehlt, Humor. Grundpfeiler dieser Humorattacke sind Beobachtungsgabe und gespitzter Bleistift (Tusche? Schnauze!). Aber auch ein Ego, dem es genügt, auf eine Handvoll Striche reduziert zu werden. BEETLEBUM, oder von Freunden auch liebevoll Johannes Kretschmar genannt, hat damit kein Problem und hält sich mehrmals die Woche selbst den Spiegel vor und gibt uns was zum „Gugg’n“. Manchem wird dabei auch auffallen, dass es fast noch mehr zum Denken gibt, doch das ist bereits Level 2 des „look and laugh“ Comicgames im Zeichen des Totenkopfes. 

Dabei sind es die Alltäglichkeiten, die den zweiten Blick lohnen und belohnen für die Zeit, die man sich diesem toonblog widmet. „Ja, das kenn ich.“, möchte man manchem Tagebucheintrag entgegen rufen und fühlt sich ähnlich vertraut, wie bei der Suche nach LeChuck oder der Weltherrschaft violetter Tintenfischmutanten. 

  BEETLEBUM Blog 

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Debido a mi exilio en el fin del mundo y mi reciente nueva vida en pareja, he vivido últimamente unos meses de desconexión casi total de la actualidad "videojueguil". Por fortuna, y aprovechando los minutos diarios de los que ahora dispongo para informarme y escribir me he encontrado con una noticia, fechada a principios de año, en la cual se daba cuenta del anuncio del próximo proyecto de Ron Gilbert (Maniac Mansion, The Secret of Monkey Island ), una aventura-rpg basada en un cómic online de creación propia. Su título: "DeathSpank".

Me congratula volver a tener noticias de este coloso de los videojuegos, y sobretodo saber que Gilbert vuelve a estar en el primer plano de la escena del sector. Esta vez no se trata de un proyecto por encargo, un edificio proyectado en el que Ron va a ser un obrero más. Nada de eso. Ron vuelve a tener la libertad de creación necesaria para dar rienda suelta a su talento e inventiva, y todo gracias a que el estudio Hothead Games le está brindando la confianza que merece.

Pero veamos ahora de que se trata exactamente DeathSpank. Segun los anuncios en su propio weblog y las diversas entrevistas concedidas a algunos medios como Gamasutra o Joystiq, Deathspank será una mezcla entre aventura gráfica y Action RPG; en palabras del propio Gilbert, "una fusion entre Monkey Island y Diablo". Su argumento estará basado en los cómics online que él mismo creó en su propio blog, con la ayuda de su colega y amigo Clayton Kauzlaric, y tendrá una distribución dividida en capítulos, al estilo del Sam & Max de Telltale Games. Al parecer, la experiencia conseguida con el notable Penny Arcade Adventures (basado en un famoso comic digital y primer producto de la unión Ron Gilbert-Hothead Games) ha sido una de las claves para convertir a Gilbert en el director creativo de este proyecto, en el cual parece haber inyectado todas sus ilusiones.

El hecho de que este señor vuelva a estar involucrado en un proyecto de su propia concepción, líder de un equipo con talento y puesto a su disposición me hace pensar que aun queda esperanza para los que, como un servidor, vivimos sedientos de aventuras gráficas como las de antaño. Está claro que los viejos tiempos no van a volver, que el SCUMM pasó de moda hace lustros y que en DeathSpank no nos vamos a encontrar con un nuevo Monkey Island. Pero el talento siempre queda. Desde ya, espero ansioso qué nos ofrecerá esta curiosa mezcla, en la que seguro no faltará el genial sentido del humor y originalidad de Ron Gilbert.

Victor Casado

I always used to get into trouble with people because I say a lot of things I don't mean. Or, rather, I mean them, but other people don't understand what I mean and think I mean something else, which amounts to the same thing from their frame of reference. It doesn't help that much of what I used to say that they didn't understand sounded like insults. Sometimes they weren't--sometimes they were true statements that I actually meant as compliments but due to disparities in ethical philosophies were considered insults by them--but that's not what I want to talk about, because those are easy to explain. I think this a is right, they think a is wrong, I tell them they're a and they flip out. Mathematics.

While I'm using the past tense throughout, of course, none of this is really gone, though it doesn't happen as often as it used to.

Anyway. The other cases, when they were insults, or sort-of, or whatever, are more interesting, because they're more complicated. I learned early on that words were words and that's all they were; that is, an insult was a sound out of someone's mouth and nothing more unless you made it more. ("Sticks and stones can break my bones / but words will never hurt me" was my motto back in the day. Not that I was a particularly bullied child, because I was actually a fairly sociable child in my younger years and anyway most would-be bullies learned quickly that I was quite willing to apply that mantra to the offensive as well as the defensive.) Since then I've always had a strange relationship with language: a fascination, to be sure (I'm an English major, after all), but also a detachment, an awareness of how fragile language is, how easily it can be broken and tossed aside, all its illusory control and power dispersed in a flash, like a flame consuming a cloud of gas.

How appropriate. You fight like a cow.

So insults never meant much to me. Coupled with later social isolation, some serious depression, and a penchant for linguistic experimentation, I spent a lot of time insulting people. And I became rather skilled at it. Verbal sparring, I thought of it as: play. Fun. Games. There were rare cases where I became genuinely angry and I went for the jugular; and there was always an underlying bitterness to it; but mostly, with my detachment from language and my growing detachment from the world at large, the insults I shot forth didn't mean anything to me. They were just empty noise ("animals howling in the night because it's better than silence": one of the few good things to come out of Torchwood, that speech).

Other people, of course, did not find my words so meaningless. Things did not go well. I should have learned--and I did learn, sort-of. It's just that I was an asshole, I was depressed, and I didn't give a damn. If I was hurting people with my fun, so be it. All the better, even. But that's not what I want to talk about, because a bitter teenager bitterly stabbing other people with verbal knives is not interesting.

I once owned a dog that was smarter than you.

There's a wierd phenomenon regarding insults within social groups. Take something that doesn't matter, that has no actual relevance to the interaction of the individuals within the social group, some random thing that's not money or grades or girls or whatever the currency of value is within a particular group. And turn it into a war zone. Whenever individuals have issues with each other, when somebody just gets fucking pissed to hell off at somebody else in the group, don't talk about the issue that caused it, the issue that might cause actual, meaningful confrontation, that might result in real consequences. Instead, make an argument about the random thing that nobody really cares about but that, because it's understood that this is the way it works, becomes a thing that everyone is suddenly ready to defend to the death, in a strange, fucked-up, post-ironic way.

That's how I work with everyone I know. Because the truth there's always something rubbing me the wrong way. I'm never really comfortable. Taking issue with people is what I do. I spent so many long years hating everyone that at this point, no matter what I may say or think in my head, it's subconscious and instinctual to analyze and critique and judge. I don't believe in judgment, really; I don't even really believe in right and wrong; but most of the time I can't accept people as people, as much as I want to, because that's goddamned fucking hard and it's a lot easier to see people as representations of values and structures and symbols and order and whatever bullshit our psychology constructs to hide reality. And so I take meaningless things and tear people up about them. "The violence of action": it's just something to do. Play. Fun. Games.

He must have taught you everything you know.

I'm not sure where I'm going with this, exactly. It's just--there something very wierd about the way this works. Perhaps wrong, perhaps fucked-up, perhaps just a coping mechanism for reality we can't face. But to tear people down, meaninglessly? Well, tearing people down is always meaningless. All insults are meaningless, because all words are meaningless; anytime you feel insulted, it's because you chose to be insulted, because you chose to feel badly about yourself, not because so-and-so said whatever. Words are words and nothing more, they're just sound in the air, particles vibrating. So what does it mean to reduce it, to take an illusory but validated construct and invalidate it, to make it illusory on another, more-acceptable level? Does it mean that we do understand the illusory nature of the first construct, as much as we act otherwise, but just can't face it? Coping mechanism.

That's the opposite of the mechanics I mentioned earlier--the meaningless, second-tier insults are to avoid dealing meaningful, first-tier insults. But I've found that those kind of parallels, apparent contradictions, paradoxes, whatever, are just--not signs of reality, signs of nothing, in fact, because that's how things are, everywhere, always. Look closely enough and something and you find its opposite starting back at you, because they are one and the same. Follow a line long enough and you end up at the opposite end, back where you started, because the geometry of the universe is closed.

You make me want to puke.

I'm reminded of a comment on PR-Otaku, a site annotating William Gibson's Pattern Recognition, one of my favorite novels, discussing a mention of Hello Kitty within Pattern Recognition:

The reason why Cayce doesn’t toss her cookies when faced with a wall o’ Kitty is simple: It’s “purest no-content marketing.”

I own an Hello Kitty key fob. It’s an excellent piece, and I’m running it into the ground. I required an East German with an Italian name at a leather bar to fix it one night. I am shopping for a replacement. But my loyalties have shifted. I have always preferred Bad Badtz-Maru. There is certainly no reason to do that, apart from girliness. It’s no-content marketing: Neither is better. Except I know I’m a Bad Badtz-Maru person at root and not, despite the incriminating evidence of my key fob, an Hello Kitty person. (I also very much enjoy my overengineered Bad Badtz-Maru mechanical-pencil set, a gift actually from Japan.)

I react rather like Cayce. Since there is no reason to prefer one over the other (it’s all kawai, though naturally I do also adore the absurd German-Polish-Japlish name “Bad Badtz-Maru”), rabidly preferring one over the other is OK. Meaningless rabid obsessions are.

That's what I'm talking about. No-content, meaningless, rabid obesessions. Viciously insulting people over nothing. I've been watching Generation Kill and the amount of homophobic and racist comments that get thrown around is staggering; but I understand, because soldiers are in like the tensest situation on the planet (besides perhaps the civilians stuck in the middle of their wars), and so they need that kind of meaningless outlet for aggression. But normal people? Normal people, living normal lives, without other people constantly shooting at them and other people constantly screaming at them and other people depending on them to save their lives? I don't feel like we have an excuse to act like this. Which is bullshit, because nobody needs an excuse to do anything, we just do things and that's that, but there's still something very, very whacked about it to me. I do it all the time. I don't get it. It frightens me.

You make me think someone already did.