Posted by: Dark Jaguar - 29th November 2012, 10:23 PM - Forum: Tendo City
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Crashmo just recently came out on the 3DS eShop. It's the sequel to Pushmo, a game I got last year but I don't think I talked about it.
They are puzzle games designed by Intelligent Systems, and fitting that pedigree they are both amazing games. The whole "feel" of it is something like a PBS edutainment cartoon, very warm and fuzzy. The "plot" of the first one is getting kids down from park rides (Crashmo involves getting birds back so a little girl can fly home). So yeah, very sweet.
Intelligent Systems basically has proven there is still a lot of life left in the "block puzzle" genre. The basic premise of Pushmo is that there is a completely flat panel at the "back" of each level, and you need to pull out "blocks" (as far as you want, it stretches) from these panels to form a platform to reach the kids at the top. They get incredibly clever by the end.
Crashmo instead has blocks of fixed shape falling from the sky. Pulling blocks from below causes blocks to fall down above and shoving blocks into other blocks will push them along. (There are exceptions to this with odd blocks like "flying blocks".)
In both cases, the games are amazingly addictive. Each stage can be quick or can stump you for a long time. One thing's for sure, there's really no temptation to check out "solutions", as solving puzzles is the entire game.
There is a puzzle builder mode in both games, and constructed puzzles can be shared as 2D dot codes (QR codes).
I'd highly recommend these games to anyone that has a 3DS. They're incredibly addictive and very fun.
Now, recent models of the Wii have already ditched Gamecube support so this revision's lack of it isn't surprising. It also lacks Wifi, but still has USB ports so it should still be able to connect online with one of those LAN adapters (I use one myself on the Wii U in fact, it's just a quicker and more stable connection, though not everyone has LAN ports run through their home).
Notably, this console has a very different design than either the Wii or Wii U, or even the 3DS XL. In fact, I'd describe it as EXTREMELY 80's, looking almost like the Famicom. It's been a while since I've seen that sort of very "rough" plastic (not just matte, very intentionally gritty), and that duel color thing it's got going, black and red, very 80's indeed.
Hopefully this thing will be labelled to prevent parents from buying it when they already own an older Wii.
I really don't get this show. Misadventures of Flap Jack I got. I loved that show. This? It's so... "regular", very "by the numbers" and ordinary to me.
Everyone everywhere seems to love it though. Could someone here please explain what I'm not getting? Supposedly a game came out that's getting rave reviews not for the gameplay but for "perfectly capturing" the humor of the show. That suggests the show actually has a style of some sort. What am I missing?
So here it is, I have a Wii U! The interface is a mixed bag of convenience and bizarre choices, but it's an improvement over the Wii for sure.
New Super Mario Bros U is, as is a series staple at this point, "the best one yet". I mean there's a level that looks like Starry Night! That's awesome!
The Wii transfer utility... I'm afraid to use it. I really don't know if it will transfer my "locked" saved data. Honestly I think Nintendo should never have given developers the freedom to "lock down" saved files to prevent transfer. I'm really not sure why any developer would think that's a good idea.
Still, so far, so good. Every last accessory for the Wii works perfectly. In fact I'm using the Wii LAN adapter right now (since the Wii U doesn't have a built in LAN port oddly enough).
So yeah, how'd I get one? I never bothered with preordering. I just showed up at Sears first thing because no one else EVER thinks to go there first for new game releases.
Posted by: Dark Jaguar - 13th November 2012, 5:50 AM - Forum: Tendo City
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Ever had trouble imagining what it would be like to ride on a beam of light? Well MIT just put together an open source game where you run around a small village picking up orbs. Every time you pick up an orb, the universal speed of light slows down, so pretty soon you're seeing relativistic effects at walking speed. Freaky.
So I'm hearing lately that twenty states are petitioning to secede from the union since President Obama was reelected Tuesday night. Although I doubt this crock of cow dung will come to fruition, if it did, hypothetically speaking, I would be directly impacted by it, being a native and resident Alabamian. The Republicans would be quick to cut off my student loans, so I would have to finish graduate school (and pursue a Ph.D) elsewhere. My only choice would be to move back to the United States.
My question then is... why? Why is there so much talk of secession? What is it about Obama that makes him the most unbearably, god-awfully, indisputably worst president of all time, as well as Hitler reincarnated, the Anti-Christ, etc.? What has he done that is so catastrophically appalling that we would have to break away from the union? Don't get me wrong--it's fine to disagree with him, it's fine to criticize his policies, it's fine to just plain dislike him and to have voted for Romney. That's the beauty of living in a free, democratic society: you don't have to pretend to like your leader and you can vote for someone else. Sometimes, though, you have to tolerate having a leader you don't like. I didn't like George W. Bush, but I survived eight years of him and I made the most of my life during his administration. But back to Obama--yes, the deficit is a problem; yes, the economic recovery is sluggish; yes, the housing market is in a bind (the inverse effect of deregulating the banks). These are all genuine concerns, but it's not as if Obama hasn't tried to resolve these issues, his biggest obstacle being Republican obstructionism.
So then why? Have Fox News and conservative talk radio so successfully painted their picture of Adolf Obama that the ignorant masses are now seriously petitioning for secession? Weren't these idiots trying to pass themselves off as patriotic Americans just a week ago, and throughout the midterms, etc.? Secession isn't patriotic--it's treason. They try to compare themselves to the Founding Fathers in that regard, but the Founding Fathers did not try to pass themselves off as patriotic Englishmen, and they knew that they would be labelled as traitors to the English crown. Furthermore, their issue was taxation without representation, about not having a voice in the government. Damn straight conservatives have a voice in the American government and media. What exactly is their beef? A healthcare mandate. Is Obama overreaching the constitutional authority of the federal government as outlined in the tenth amendment? Yes, he is (despite what the Supreme Court says). Are his intentions evil? Is this a diabolical scheme to turn America communist? No. That is the image that Fox News and Rush Limbaugh have painted of Barack Obama, and it's the image these idiots believe in. He's a Kenyan Muslim Socialist who wants to destroy America from the inside out, rather than the duly elected leader of the free world.
What gets me is that these idiots don't know that they've been brainwashed. They actually believe that they're free thinkers. If you fact check them with a website such as Snopes or Politifact, they'll accuse you of drinking the Kool-Aid and say that Snopes and Politifact are run by liberals (both sites run fact checks on lies that are made about conservative politicians as well, mind you). They believe in this myth called the liberal media. They believe that everyone else is brainwashed, and they're among the select few who are intelligent enough to resist the mind-controlling powers of MSNBC and Michael Moore. They believe whatever they want to believe if it suits their political agenda. They believe those stupid chain letters they get from their co-workers and distant cousins about the healthcare mandate killing old people. The most dangerous thing about these idiots is that THEY DON'T KNOW THAT THEY'RE IDIOTS. THEY THINK THEY'RE THE INTELLIGENT ONES.
It's going to be an interesting four years, I'll tell you that.
