Watch live video from playhearthstone on TwitchTV

When do you think the first round of Beta invites will go out? The game will be released? Let me know in the comments.

[via Blizzard HearthStone Forums]

The more I hear and read about Hearthstone, the more excited I get. I never did get into Magic: The Gathering because of the cost involved in even getting a reasonable deck built, and Hearthstone sounds like a way to get deep into the a strategy card game without any (or with minimal) cost in an intellectual property I’m already a big fan of (The Warcraft universe).

I’ve watched all the pre-recorded “Fireside Duel”s to date and I’d expect this one to be available afterwards, but just in case you want to catch it live:

TwitchTV: http://Twitch.tv/PlayHearthstone
Twitter: http://twitter.com/PlayHearthstone

Time zone help:
Los Angeles (U.S.A. – California) Thursday, May 9th, 2013 10:00:00 PDT
New York (U.S.A. – New York) Thursday, May 9th, 2013 13:00:00 EDT
London (United Kingdom – England) Thursday May 9th, 2013 18:00:00 BST
Warsaw (Poland) Thursday May 9th, 2013 19:00:00 CEST
Moscow (Russia) Thursday May 9th, 2013 21:00:00 MSK

Check out these other Fireside Duels on Youtube to get a sense what you might be in for:

Have you heard about Blizzard’s Collectable Card Game “Hearthstone”? It is a Free-to-play game that will be available on Windows/Mac and the iPad, with an Android tablet version in the works. People familiar with Blizzard Intellectual Properties will recognize from the title that it is set in the Warcraft universe. Check this out:

Of course, when I hear “Free to Play” and “Collectable Card Game” together, I instantly smell something amiss. The business model for traditional CCGs are all about buying packs of cards with the hopes of getting some better cards for your customizable deck. So what is the gimmick?

From their press release on 3/22:

In Hearthstone, players build card decks centered around one of nine iconic Warcraft^® character classes and duel each other for fun, glory, and the chance to win awesome new cards.

Ok, I get how I can acquire new cards to customize and build my deck, but what’s in it for Blizzard? To get that answer, I had to dig deep into the FAQ to get some semblance of an answer:

Clearer than mud, but not metamucil.

In the past, I’ve been pretty skeptical about playing any game for which a pre-requisite of advancement in a game is in incremental investments. World of Warcraft has been the only exception, given that the cost ratio is constant (1 month  = $15). But in CCGs, the cost of attaining a pack of cards guarantees nothing except a “rare” card – whatever that means. In my eyes, it is akin to gambling, or pay-to-level up schemes.

Of course, in order to argue against that perspective, they claim you can progress by playing matches and winning cards:

If you were a game designer who wanted to make money Bobby Kotick, you wouldn’t want to let players get all the cards they needed just by playing your free game would you? No, of course not. You would want them to spend money on the cards. Therefore, it stands to reason that there will be a “soft cap” to the progress you can make without buying cards.

I’m not against a company or an individual trying to make money. Actually, I’m all for it. But the problem I have with this model of business is that it exploits people’s sense of understanding about the value of what they are purchasing. Additionally, because it is so close to gambling, it tweaks a person’s unjustified superstition about risk/reward ratios. There is a reason why there is an age restriction in Casinos, and it doesn’t have to do with alcohol consumption: young people are more susceptible to errors of judgment involving luck than (educated) adults.

Despite, all this, I am actually going to play this, and I might just get a tablet in order to do it. There are some really kick-ass features about the game that are going to make it worth trying out:

• A crafting system, to break down duplicate cards and craft them into new cards
• Games are only 15 minutes
• Unlike real-life CCGs, the computer manages all the calculation and application of rules
• It’s in the Warcraft Universe and  play as a Warcraft Hero

Of course, being Blizzard, there is no release date, and even the Beta (which you can sign up for) doesn’t have a start date.Here is the FAQ.

Will you try out Hearthstone? Will you buy card packs for the game? What do you think about this type of business model?

It is a link to their SoundCloud page of  recording of another nerdcore rapper “recruited” to help with the album. That rapper is no other than

Kabuto the (MF’ING) Python

While this news is certainly amazing, it is what I discovered while on the Sound Cloud page that really set me off:

I could download the entire 8-Bit Diagrams album for Free. Although each song has to be downloaded individually, they are all there ready for your intarwebz to swallow that juiciness.. Also, Delta Attack regulars will remember that the 8BB were featured in my “Top Video Game Rappers” posts, and at that time, they were still charging for their album. Now it is yours, free.

Go download that hot mess of an album and get juiced for Kabuto to bring his parseltongue to the next 8BB album. It is going to be crazy.

Many people fell in love with Shadow of The Colossus back when it was originally released on the Playstation 2 by Team Ico back in October of 2005. I was preoccupied with World of Warcraft at that time, but fortunately that isn’t the case anymore and it has since been re-released on the combo title The Ico & Shadow of the Colossus Collection.

My initial thoughts with this title is that it helped lay the groundwork for one of my favorite titles of the Playstation 3 era: Demon’s Souls. There is no doubt that the art and music and cadence of the gameplay and power differential between Wander and the Colossus share some similarities with Demon’s Souls. Where the experience falls short however, is in the snappiness and responsiveness of the game controls. Every controller input action feels like it is more of a request, through a language interpreter, and Wander, Agro, or the Camera decides just too many moments later to take action.

Regardless, the take-down of the first Colossus, Valus the Minotaur, leaves you with the feeling of courage and determination that gives you just enough motivation to make it through the next challenge. I summarize my experience with each Colossus in a few lines below, and some fellow DeltaAttackers add additional color (charkicker, MarkhamAsylum, and myself). Be warned that there may be spoilers (if you are reading without having finished the game, tsk tsk).

[chairkicker]

By the time you’re cut loose into the ruined lands, you’ve been told and told what to do. In the opening cut scenes it is evident that you’ve stolen your giant, capable horse and that gnarly sword (the kid looks like a clown the first time he “brandishes” it), and you’ve probably stolen the dead girl, too. The gods say, look at that sword, son. Hold it up to the light! OK. You take a few steps outside, on foot or on horseback, and you’re taking in the scope and desaturated flavor of the blighted world, catching your — An on-screen help text says, press the button to hold your sword up! To the light! Screw you, on-screen help text. Wouldn’t it have been neat for the game to trust you to remember what the *gods* told you less than a minute ago, right as the music crescendoed and the game began?

Yep, that would have been neat.

You press the button. A beam of light shoots out of your sword, pointing you in the exact direction you are already facing.

Another short gallop, and a tutorial/obstacle course later, and you’re hanging on for dear life onto the grody fur of a tremendous creature, so all is forgiven, mostly.

Valus, The Minotaur

[IkeCube] Intimidating at first, but generally non-threatening, the first Colossus, Valus,  helps us find our courage, and learn the general technique and strategy that will assist us through the subsequent encounters. The satisfaction of taking him down with requiring a retry was incredible.

[Markham Asylum] I love how they introduce this colossus: a violent shaking of the earth, then you see that hoof come into view. It takes up most of the damn screen, which I’m pretty sure made my eyes bug out. One of the things this game does really well is the sense of scale, and this first guy makes you feel like an insect. Team Ico effectively employed Minotaur to teach you the mechanics of slaying colossi. It’s not too challenging, but also not a complete pushover for a first-timer.

Hit The Jump for the rest of the article.

Quadratus, Taurus Major

[IkeCube] Quadratus was a relatively easy battle for me, as the pathfinding on this otherwise formidable foe was broken enough to allow me to defeat him by maintaining a stationary position on the ramp while awaiting my opportunity to strike at his vital point. I appreciated the ease with which I was able to find this colossus – not something true of most of the others.

[Markham Asylum] This quadruped fooled me for a bit on my initial run; that hidden weakness is definitely out-of-the-box compared to Minotaur. I enjoy how they bring Agro (your horse, not to be confused with “aggro”) into the battle.

Even though it’s merely aesthetic, I like how one of Taurus’s horns is broken. It helps convey the implied ancient quality of the colossi.

Gaius, Earth Knight

[IkeCube] Oh Gaius – the poor soul. I’m not sure what the clue I received was about, as I never really found any way to reduce his armor, instead relying on regular attacks to take down this fool. The run up to the arena was fun, and getting the timing right to run up his sword was an interesting and novel battle mechanic.

[Markham Asylum] This tall warrior had me stumped for a while. I kept running up its sword, only to be impeded by the abundant armor. Once finding the trick and gaining lofty purchase, the sheer height made it feel as though the stakes were higher than with prior colossi.

Phaedra, Equus Prime

[IkeCube] Phaedra was fun and I was happy to employ the use of terrain to take this fool down. I found it hilarious the way Phaedra hovered over the cave entrance that I had entered expecting me to pop back out as if I were a mouse and Phaedra were a naïve kitten. That kind of personality in video game characters is rare – and especially for boss battles. Once I mounted Phaedra, the jig was up and the remainder quite easy.

[Markham Asylum] This bastard had me seriously stuck for a good half-hour. I kept getting high up on the hills above the catacombs to try jumping on, only to find that those long, spindly legs kept the beast unattainable. Only by observing its behavior, above ground via sight and below via sound, was I able to unveil the mystery. Once I finally grasped victory, it was a rewarding win.

Avion, Delta Phoenix

[IkeCube] Avion was ridiculously annoying but another example of an innovative battle that has never before been performed by playable protagonist characters. The annoying part was when you were forced to abandon your climb, fall into the water, and slowly swim back to the blocks in the water in order to get back up on Avion’s wing. Outside of the initial gimmick, I was disappointed with this fight as it felt more like a slow war of attrition that tested patience rather than skill.

[Markham Asylum] As with Minotaur, this colossus gave me a strong sense of the scale in the game. When you’re gliding high above the lake, desperately clinging to this avian aggressor, you feel pretty powerless. It’s also exhilarating and terrifying when it comes swooping down on you.

Interlude del Lagarto, la Primera

[chairkicker]

This kid isn’t any good with the sword, all wide clanging arcs. But that bow and arrow is totally his thing. So when you’re riding around the barrens and you see other animals — birds, lizards, fish — of course you’ll shoot ‘em, or try. That’s what this kid can do!

After a while, you’ll figure out to leap from horseback and grab an eagle mid-air, hanging out while it flies you in a sad, deterministic little circuit. Or to do a slower, clumsier underwater grab onto a fish, which will tug around around its stagnant little pool.

Before that, you’ll shoot some of these little lizard fellas. They die quickly, by arrow or trampled beneath a horse’s mighty hooves. Some of them leave white tails behind. These tails, when used (eaten? for all the world the boy looks like he’s stuffing them down his shirt) increase his Gripping Power, much like using fruits increase his Being Alive Power. Other lizards do not have white tails, and can be slain purely for sport. This is actually more learning and decision-making than the game has given you so far. So you continue on this path.

Barba, The Goliath

[IkeCube] I’m not sure if I broke something with this, but Barba wasn’t extremely aggressive in pursuing me through the walls. However, once I got to the other end of the arena, I was pretty confused about how to get to this guy’s vital spots. I was pleasantly surprised when after I took refuge under a coloseum ceiling, he ducked his ugly mug down and I jumped up onto that glorious Chuck-Norris worthy beard. After that, it was all down hill for Barba, but I’d like to think that he and I could be friends in another time and place – at least me and his beard.

[Markham Asylum] I thought it was a good design choice to have this battle start with a flat-out run for your life as this wall-breaker tries its best to catch up with and stomp your ass. By the time you get to the safe zone, you’re content with just chilling for a bit and collecting your thoughts, then working out how you’re going to climb it.

Hydrus, Sea Dragon

[IkeCube] I liked this guy (girl?) even though it required a similar amount of patience as Avian. I think it had to do with timing the chances when you can surface with him and run to the next vital spot. Those electrodes were pretty nasty though, and I’d been playing on the next difficulty level, I would have died several times trying to figure out how to avoid them while I waited for him to surface.

[Markham Asylum] The gimmick of this colossi is among the most straight-forward, yet there’s something about sharing a deep body of water with a huge opponent that plucks steadily at your fear. When you’re holding on and it crash-dives… when you finally realize that it’s trying to drown you and isn’t going to surface until you let go… that you have to break for the air through thirty feet of water… that’s pretty much pure panic.

Kuromori, Wall Shadow

[IkeCube] This may have been my favorite environment in the game. The multilayered coloseum give me the sense that I could be watched by an audience crammed into the structure to see my demise, or victory, in whatever glory is due to heroes that conquer the nastiness of Kuromori’s breath. Managing the spatial relationship with this colossus definitely required some finesse which I also found stimulation. When I first ran down the arena and then saw him climbing up the wall in front of me, I was momentarily scared with how unexpectedly close he was to me and thankful there was a wall between us.

[Markham Asylum] The size and relative complexity of the environs of this colossus made it confusing at first regarding what was even happening, let alone how I was going to damage it. The Salamander’s barrage of long-range energy bolts and accompanying widespread poison clouds created a tense situation in which it was difficult to think. When I finally claimed the battle, it was quite satisfying.

Basaran, Storm Echo

[IkeCube] This guy was somewhat annoying, but not so much as Avian. I found getting the positioning right to be a tiresome task, and then it wasn’t clear to me where I was supposed to end up at once I had the opportunity. It also took me several cycles to get Basaran dispatched which added to the weariness of this battle.

[Markham Asylum] Two colossi in a row with ranged weapons… this one let me know for sure that they had upped the ante in terms of danger. I found the trick of this fight to be clever and somewhat difficult to pull off as you race around on Agro and try to avoid those energy shots.

Dirge, Sand Tiger

[IkeCube] This was another innovative battle which I enjoyed due to the positional/spatial finesse required to successful reach Dirge’s vital point. Although the gimmick wore my patience thin toward the end, I would have liked some additional challenge in some form once learned.

[Markham Asylum] Though the Worm’s gimmick is only moderately difficult to discern, pulling it off is another matter entirely. This was one of the most frustrating colossi, and the feeling I got after it was slain was more of just being glad it was over than that I was proud of my accomplishment.

Celosia, Flame Guardian

[IkeCube] Wow, I totally missed how easy this fight could have been. I didn’t notice the ease with which you attain the fire used to take this guy down, and instead attempted to jump across the broken pillars. Sometimes it is best to just look for the easiest path rather than making it more difficult than it needs to be. With all the time I spent trying to make my method of acquiring fire work, I was just glad to conclude the battle and put Celosia behind me.

[Markham Asylum] Seeing a colossus closer in size to Wander was quite a surprise and a welcome change of pace. Once you finally break its armor, figuring out how to damage this squirrely squirmer is a whole other challenge. I really like the nod to Ico with trading sword for stick and using it as a torch.

Pelagia, Great Basilisk

[IkeCube] Again with the innovation! It was the weirdest feeling for Pelagia and I to work together to accomplish my goal of killing him. Of course, maybe he felt the same way up until the point my sword sliced open his skull. I was a little frustrated finding this guy though – as the path to the arena is a puzzle in its own, seemingly taking you across a wide chasm which has no actual purpose.

[Markham Asylum] Again with a huge enemy sharing the water… creepy shit.

Being able to so directly influence the behavior of a colossus is very satisfying. You’ll alternate between feeling like hunter and hunted as you steer it around and then get shot at.

Phalanx, Trail Drifter

[IkeCube] Another battle which requires finesse of space and movement – I’m noticing a trend of the battles that I enjoy. Boarding this neozepplin and finding the vitals are two distinct challenges that making Phalanx one of my favorites.

[Markham Asylum] This passive behemoth sails majestically overhead, impartial to the puny Wander and his horse. Bringing it down to sand-level is accompanied by gratifying pop sounds, and leaping from Agro to snag a lowered wing is breath-catching. Just when you think you’ve got it finished, it pops the Ace from its sleeve, leaving you whistling for your loyal equine friend and wondering if you’re going to get plowed when it reappears.

Cenobia, Destruction Luster

[IkeCube] Cenobia was clearly a matter acrobatic finesse that felt at times more like Prince of Persia than Shadow of the Colossus, but once you’ve opened up the vital spots, the rest of the battle feels more like your typical hack n’ slash. Over all, the battle was a good change of pace.

[Markham Asylum]  The cat-and-mouse feel of this battle is well written and somewhat akin to a Rube Goldberg machine. I found this to be one of the more enjoyable colossi.

Interlude del Lagarto, la Segunda

[chairkicker]

The colossi can wait.

You determine that there’s one white-tail lizard per shrine.

You wonder, is there a white-tail lizard at the main temple? (SPOILER ALERT: of course there is. And finding it feels better than finishing the game.)

Then you think, why is it “sad” to topple these colossi, when there is no moral dimension to killing dozens of lizards. Is it just OK to kill things that are tiny and helpless? The lizards run away when they know you’re coming, just like the big guys. You wonder, why does killing lizards make you stronger, but killing colossi makes you sicker and sicker?

Argus, The Sentinel

[IkeCube] Wow, this guy took me a long time to figure out – not just to get up onto him, but also getting to his vital spot. I must have spent at least an hour just getting to that point alone. But when you finally dispatch this ugly mouth-breather, you can feel good about the result of your effort and take pride in that.

[Markham Asylum] I got tripped up trying to figure out how to even start making vertical progress on this guy. Once I got as high as possible, I got stuck again with how to proceed. And after I finally grabbed onto its archaic fur and bled the majority of its vitality, I was stumped once more with where to find that final weak point. This colossus is one of the trickiest, but not in a cheap manner.

Malus, Grand Gigas

[IkeCube] Just getting up to this guy was an hour or more of trial and error, as the most direct path is the deadliest one. Then climbing up his chapel-bell shaped body to meet him eye-to-eye is a bit of a puzzle. And finally, when you figure out how to get up to his noggin’ you pray that you don’t have to do it all again, which I did. But the scenery and atmosphere on this one is worth taking the time to relish as it is easily the best in the game.

[Markham Asylum]  When I finished climbing to the plateau in the lair of the final colossus, I was impressed first by being able to simultaneously see all of the cloud-piercing beams of light across the land, each representing a slain colossus, then by the size of the building in the distance. As I got closer and triggered the cutscene that panned up the building, I saw that it was moving. Just as I suspected the truth, they confirmed it by revealing a massive clawed hand that curled into a fist. Talk about jaw-dropping… fittingly, the last colossus of the game is truly colossal, dwarfing the rest in terms of sheer height.

The climb up this monstrosity is low-key in terms of the platforming mechanics involved, but tense as hell since you know what’s waiting at the top. When you finally get up there and start scaling arms and clinging to hands as it tries to figure out what the fuck you are, I got sweaty palms the likes of which I hadn’t had since the clock tower in Mario 64. If — or perhaps when, that first time — you fall, it’s a long damn way down.

Though I recognize the obligatory nature of this feeling, it’s hard not to count Grand Gigas amongst my favorite colossi. That feeling of scale I mentioned previously is overwhelmingly evident in this final battle.

Interlude del Lagarto, Finale

[chairkicker]

When The Last Guardian comes out, it’ll have an iOS sidecar game called Wander’s Lizard Lagoon where you tap on lizards as they skitter across the screen. Each tap consumes a small amount of Gripping Power, which recharges twice daily, but can be instantly refreshed using a coconut (1 coconut for $.99 or 8 coconuts for $4.99). Some lizards, when tapped, drop white tails. These, of course, can be fed to the friendly creature in The Last Guardian. They’re the only thing that feathery fussbucket will eat.

So which is your favorite battles? Which ones left you with the greatest feeling of accomplishment? Of anger or disgust? Where did your humble DA authors go wrong in their analysis? Did you find all of the white Lizards? Any? Let us know in the comments.

I’ve been influenced by hip hop and rap my whole life, and I definitely have some guilty pleasures tucked up away in my closet, and 1990’s gangsta rap is certainly one of them. Recently I discovered that the Sega Genesis game, Eternal Champions, was sampled by Bone Thugs n’ Harmony for one or more songs on their E. 1999 Eternal album from 1995. It is known that most rap and hip hop get their tight beats from beat makers who sample old and obscure stuff, and modern “nerdcore” artists frequently sample their beats from video games. But can it be that Bone was the original nerdcore music artist?

Listen to the music videos and you decide.

Eternal Champions Original Music:

Bone Thugs n’ Harmony – Eternal

Eternal Champions + Bone Thugs N’ Harmony

When I am playing a PC game with my buds online (like Starcraft 2, Diablo III,  Team Fortress 2, Torchlight II, or *cough* World of Warcraft) it is always easier to coordinate your games and more fun if you have these two things:

• Online Voice Chat Software
• Beer

While I don’t know of too many free alternatives to beer, there are several good free alternatives to the traditional VoiP for Games software which is Ventrilo.

Before Ventrilo, there was Teamspeak, which my first MMORPG group used to chat while we slayed 1 million boars in the forest. The free version of Teamspeak was a bit weird to get set up, the sound quality not great, the lag was noticeable, and it seemed to lack some of the features that its hot cousin, Ventrilo, had out of the box.

So even though we had a moderate solution, and moderate beer. We still didn’t have a great solution for our gaming.

Ventrilo on its own is a great tool, the feature set large, and it doesn’t get in the way of game playing and isn’t a memory hog. The problem with Ventrilo though is that if you are only using a free version then you can’t have an experience that is good for everybody equally. Someone has to run the “server” software on their computer as well as the “client” software, and usually that person doesn’t have enough cpu and/or bandwidth to support more than 1 other person. Spending money on a hosted Ventrilo server in the cloud solves the problems, but it is a monthly recurring fee (and a somewhat pricey one if you only need it one night of the week).

My buds and I tried Ventrilo, and aside from the lag of the free version, it would have been fine. But it had lag, so it wasn’t. But we did have beer. And that was worth the money. Ventrilo wasn’t.

Skype was the next thing we used, and while it did allow each of us to connect with each other and have a free and mostly lag-free experience, the convoluted user-interface and its constant auto-tabbing of us from the game when someone else tried to “join the call” made it less than ideal for gaming.

Four to Five of us used Skype for many months, dealing with trying to add people to existing calls, splitting groups, and all that non-sense. This kept us sustained, but only it still felt like a sub-par gaming experience. At least we still had our beer.

Then I found Dolby Axon – which was is a lot like Skype without the Skype – so it is actually nothing like Skype, and that was a big plus with me. In fact, it is like the penultimate mix of TeamSpeak and Ventrilo – it is free (a paid version is available), it has persistent voice chat rooms so you don’t have to tab-out of your game to add people to the game (unlike Skype which tabs you out without warning), it has ad hoc chat rooms for when you want to split your group for 2v2 Starcraft matches, it has good sound quality and the lag is on par with Teamspeak. In fact, the worst thing that I can say about this tool is that the UI does take a little getting used to for the beginner. Ventrilo vets will have no problem with this, however.

“Beers we have! Virtual Pub we have! Let the debauchery begin!” – Midnight Ike

There are of course a handful of other solutions, and Mumble is one of them. I haven’t yet reviewed it because I found what we needed in Dolby Axon, but really, any of these solutions are solid if you are willing to pay. If I were to pay for a server however, I would probably go back to using Ventrilo, as hosting is as little as $2/month with some internet vendors.

if(needpaidsolution)

    {solution = “ventrilo”}

else

    {solution=”dolby axon”}

Ashes to Ashes; Dust to Dust; 2012 was a bust; but electing Game of the Year is a must.

This year, DeltaAttack’s authors each select a Game of the Year that was amazing for whatever damn reasons they feel like, on whatever damn platform they played it on.

Eager gamers want to know: What games does DeltaAttack consider Game of the Year? (hit the jump)

2012 was more a trip into the past for me, so I didn’t hit up as many current titles as I usually do. It was also something of a honeymoon period with iOS gaming; my PS3 was powered off for days at a time (usually unheard of in this household). But there was one game that I knew would be the cat’s proverbial tits well before I actually got my hands on it, and that game is none other than Borderlands 2.

What I didn’t anticipate, though, was just how much better it would be than the first. Smarter, funnier, deeper. The struggle to free Pandora from Handsome Jack’s iron grip is just plain awesome. Everything that made the first game tick so well was brought back and kept solid, including the original protagonists, who would have very important roles to play in this new, ass-kicking story.

Borderlands 2 is just crazy fun, and it has a sense of humor that doesn’t stop. Also, fucking gun slots. Need I say more?

Damn it, I need to start playing games the year they come out. Many pre-2012 games would have been contenders if only they were released in 2012, including Dead Space 2, Enslaved: Odyssey to the West, Ico and Shadow of the Colossus Collection, and 9 Hours 9 Persons 9 Doors. But what can I do about it? I’m only one person. C’est la vie.

Runner-Up

Theatrhythm Final Fantasy. Fuck yeah. For a nerd like me that has played nearly every Final Fantasy game and whose iPod is mostly filled with video game music, Theatrhythm is an infinite cornucopia of nerdgasms. I thought I was done with music-interaction games until this exceptional title gave a much-needed boost to the low selection of worthwhile 3DS experiences. Suffice it to say that I’ve played it for 23 hours, have accumulated over 42,000 rhythmia, and have unlocked 3 characters. And that was just in 2012…

Winner

The Walking Dead by Telltale Games, Season 1. I don’t think I’ve been so engrossed in anything since Final Fantasy IV (II) on SNES and Ultima Underworld on PC. It started with the comics; a friend let me borrow 7 years’ worth in trade format (6-month volumes), which I voraciously devoured in one long weekend. Then they made the TV series, for which I had pretty low expectations, but was once again blown away by a story that was quite different but just as gripping.  Now the game, which takes place in the same nightmarish zombie apocalypse, except that you have to make the tough choices about what to steal, who to back up, who to tell to fuck off, who to save, who to kill, and deal with the repercussions of those decisions for the rest of the game.

Though the graphical-adventure segments can sometimes be a little unintuitive and annoying, overall this is an amazingly done series. Like all things Walking Dead, when I finished it, I immediately went through withdrawal and wanted more. I look forward to experiencing the story of season 2 and to seeing how my prior actions impact new events.

2012 was a great year for all mobile gamers, but iOS gamers in particular got a treat. Perhaps it’s a trick, honestly, as Super Hexagon’s insane difficulty is borderline torture. Terry Cavanaugh’s mobile sadism simulation is as minimal as they come, but I cannot stop playing it. You guide a triangle through an ever-closing corridor by moving left or right. The premise is simple; the learning curve is steep.

I am awful at Super Hexagon. I see videos where people, including the game’s creator himself, last over a minute in the hardest mode, and I feel nothing but envy. I fail, over and again, despite my best efforts and hundreds of games. Then, all that practice pays off. Few things bring me as much joy as hearing “Excellent” and knowing I just bested my previous record, only to have that joy come crashing down as I slam into a wall milliseconds later.

Super Hexagon is a game that must be seen to be understood.

If that was a lot to take it, bear in mind that “Hard” is Super Hexagon’s lowest difficult setting.

While games like Lili and Infinity Blade II will sell you with graphics, Super Hexagon sells you with sheer action and hypnotic gameplay. “Just one more game,” you’ll say to yourself, and as you die 2.52 seconds later you’ll say it once more.

Super Hexagon would be easy to dismiss. Don’t. You’re just doing yourself a disservice.

Dungeon Village on Android & iOS was the game I sunk the most time into, and I felt it was one of the most interesting games I’d ever played with its mix of focus on both town-development and hero-development with a mix of “questing”. I’d never thought I’d play any mobile game as much as I played this since I am notoriously snobby about the depth and quality of the games I play and have thus kept to the PC platform for the majority of my preferred games. If Diablo III hadn’t been such a let down, perhaps this wouldn’t have been the first year that I elect a mobile platform game as my Game of the Year. Although I didn’t begin playing until December of 2012 (it was released on March 2, 2012), I easily logged more hours in this game than any other game on any other platform that I played in 2012.

So did we mention your personal Game of the Year for 2012? Let us know in the comments.

Even after my fallout of love with Blizzard over the reeking mass of moldy liquefied excrement  that is Diablo III, I still find myself checking the community website to see if there is any salvation for the game. It is like I am in denial about how far Blizzard has fallen since its wedding with Activision. I just don’t want to believe that Blizzard could have made such a bad game, or maybe secretly I just don’t want to believe that I’ve outgrown shallow games like Diablo. I don’t know which, but since this is my opinion article, I’m laying the blame on Blizzard.

Last night I must have had a relapse moment, because I yet again went to check if anything on Diablo III’s website was new, fresh, and might pull me back into a game world that I once threw a Christmas-fit over as a young teenager. I was surprised to find that news about patch 1.07 had just been published. Hurrah! A New Hope!

The exciting thing about this patch is the PvP implementation for Diablo, and as awesome as that sounds, it is nothing like what was previewed at Blizzcon years before the games release. In Blizzcon videos, you can see team PvP in arenas that imply balanced matchmaking and gameplay. What we have with patch 1.07 is just an opt-in Free-for-all gameplay experience that seems like nothing more than a lazy man’s implementation of World of Warcraft arena matches. They call it “Dueling” to differentiate it, of course, but here is how Blizzard says it will work:

• To duel another player, you’ll need to speak with Nek the Brawler at the inn in New Tristram
• Speaking with Nek will take you and your party to the Scorched Chapel, a new zone designed specifically for player combat
• This zone has custom geometry and features four different areas: the church, the graveyard, the river, and the lake
• Dueling currently supports up to four players in a Free-For-All format, which means you can battle your friends either one-on-one, three-player FFA, or a full four-player FFA

Now, to Blizzard’s credit, they say that they won’t be balancing PvP because it will adversely affect the balancing of the primary game progression. Smart on them. But this certainly isn’t enough of a draw for me to pick up the game as my primary go-to game anytime in the conceivable future, but at least it is a step in the right direction.

There are lots of other changes in this patch, but they all serve the existing player-base and only affect people who are really enjoying the game as it is. Check them out here.

Are you still playing Diablo III? Are you excited about PvP? Let us know in the comments.

[Source]: youtube.com

How many can you identify and name? Let us know in the comments.

It is hard to imagine this happening so soon after the game’s release in the days prior to the Activision acquisition, but the proof is in the pudding, and Diablo III’s obviously been built from the ground up for monetizing people’s wallets via the Real-Money Auction House.

Don’t go get your discount copy here.

Source [Diablo III Forums]

The thought of all those pixels air-humping were sadly left out of this video and a major oversight by Mr.Boe.

[Source]: youtube.com

Some guy over at youtube has produced this great little piece of media. Taking elements of PSY’s Gangnam Style and mashing them up with Skyrim, it’s a superfab geek’s fantasy and far better than Popcap’s Stupendous Chicken that surely will never exist but that I just made up while inebriated.

The thought of Dovahkiin air-humping sends tingles throughout my person.

[Source]: youtube.com (and some guy called FadeToSlack)

Today we have a special treat for the Indie-developer loving, mobile-gaming loving crowd: an Q&A with Jason Fader: the creative director and El Presidente Burrito of Iocaine Studios (an indie development studio that is odorless, tasteless, dissolves instantly in liquid, and is among the more deadly poisons known to man). During this Q&A, we get to find out about Steam Bandits: Outpost, and the unique vision for an all new creative world that will span multiple games but remain interconnected. Here is a quick summary of the game:

Steam Bandits: Outpost is a Free-to-Play steampunk/fantasy game in the sky.

• Oversee your own town on a floating island.
• Customize your character with hundreds of outfit combinations.
• Recruit airship captains on your path to fortune and glory.
• Send your captains out to duel your friends or work with them for special rewards.
• Collect tons of unique pets.

Before we get down to Q&A, meet the Iocaine Studios team:

• Jason Fader is a Level 60 Industry Veteran whose experiences include Blizzard, Obsidian,  and Founder of Iocaine Studios.
• Lindsey Laney is a Level 54 Art Weaver with 44 points in the Creativity tree (and 1  point in the Coffee-making tree).
• J.D. Cerince is also a Level 54 Art Weaver but spent all points in truncating his first two names. However, he is also an Industry Vet, hailing from the the humble origins of Obsidian.
• Brianna Garcia is like Chuck Norris and doesn’t play by levels, but I’m told that she has rocked Disney’s socks off once or twice (unlike Chuck Norris).
• Liz Fiacco is the designer on the team focused on character customization and doesn’t have a level because she decides who has what levels (this author has been since demoted to Level i^3).
• Alexia Fedail is a the Level 1 F.N.G. specializing in Narrative Design. By “G” I mean “Girl”…and “N” I guess I mean “Nerdy”.

Now that you’ve met the team, check out this video of the project (via Kickstarter) and find out what Jason has to say about Steam Bandits: Outpost!

[DA] I love the steam-punkish theme. What was the inspiration for the theme and gameplay of Steam Bandits: Outpost?

[JF] The theme came from my love of all things steampunk and my sadness that there are not more games out there using that style.  The gameplay came from my countless hours of playing Civ5 and thinking “I love building stuff, but really would want something I can play on my phone casually.”

[DA] How has your perspective changed about game design since your first Iocaine release (ThreadSpace: Hyperbol)?

[JF] Hyperbol was a fun project and a good lesson for me.  Sadly it didn’t do as well as I would have liked and the biggest reason was due to its lack of intuitiveness and foreign gameplay.  I’ve learned a lot since then and have set out to make a more mass appeal game with Steam Bandits, while still utilizing some deep strategies I love designing.

[DA] The Kick-Starter Project is a great way to raise funds for a project like this. What will the [money] be used for?

[JF] It will fund 4-5 developers full-time over the span of 6 months.  The team is larger than that, but the other folks are on the project part-time and can live without being paid right now (they’ll get profit sharing options on the backend).  Should we go above that funding goal, I’ll be able to compensate these guys better and release more content.

[DA] Will there be music that matches the theme of the game? Any thoughts about using a 16-bit generation sound emulator for the music to give the game a retro feel?

[JF] We’re using one of my composer friends to work on the sound track.  Since the art style is fairly cartoony and tropical, we’re going for a music theme that matches more closely to the old Monkey Island games.  Those games had a nice, light-hearted feel that I hope to capture with these games.

[DA] Is the plan to release on all targeted platforms at the same time?

[JF] Yup!  The initial platforms will be Android/iOS/PC/Mac.  A Linux and Web version is planned for later.

[DA] I have an Android phone and my girlfriend has an iPhone. Will we be able to interact with each other in the game?

[JF] Absolutely.  One of our core philosophies is to bring gamers together.  No matter what device you’re on, you’ll have access to your character and can link up with any other character on any other device.

[DA] I’m a little confused about whether the game is played online or offline or both. Can you elaborate how it is connected socially and what that implies for when I’m not connected to the internet?

[JF] Like all free-to-play games (to my knowledge), you must have an active internet connection to play.  The social media connection (like Facebook/GooglePlus) will be used to find friends, authenticate yourself, and brag about how cool you are in the game.  We also want to find a non-annoying way for you to rally some friends to join you in a group mission (since those are pretty awesome).

[DA] Mobile gaming has hundreds of town-building sim games. What significant play mechanics will set Steam Bandits apart from the rest?

[JF] The town is only half of it.  The other half is how you manage your captains.  Once you build up your town and start producing resources, you can apply those resources to make your captains stronger, which will make them more effective during their missions, which will then yield greater rewards and unlock even more rare items for yourself.  Also, while most other town-building games just have you build stuff up and maintain, we want to instill personality into your town by making practically everything in there customizable.  Your town is a reflection of you

[DA] Since Steam Bandits will be free to play, we assume you will earn your revenue via ads, in-game purchases, or both. If you plan on using ads, how will you ensure that they’re not obtrusive? If in-game purchases, how playable/”completable” will the game before players that choose not to buy them?

[JF] The goal with ads is that you will only see them during loading screens.  For microtransactions, the player will never be forced to put money down to continue playing.  I really hate that mechanic.  There will always be something to do, and some of the higher-yield things will take some time.  To speed those up, the player can apply some “enriched steam” (which costs money) to speed things up.  If they don’t, there’s still a ton of other things they can do in the game while they wait for that action to complete.

The biggest thing that real money will do is allow the player to expand their wardrobe and customizations.  I like the “Pay-To-Style” model better than the “Pay-To-Continue” model.

[DA] The Kickstarter page indicates that delivery for points and funding rewards is November 2012 but the “timeline” section suggests that the game will take 5-6 months to complete. So that means that we can start spending our points a couple months before release?

[JF] In theory…  Once we hit beta, we’ll have most things sorted out and transactions will be permitted.  Worst case, not everything will be available for purchase, but some things will be.

[DA] The Kickstarter page also indicates there are other title ideas in the works, like a League of Legends type of game with a Co-Op slant. Isn’t LoL already Co-Op?

[JF] LoL is pvp co-op, or team vs team.  I think LoL does it right and wouldn’t want to compete with them.  Our co-op will be more like partying up with friends in an MMO “group finder”.  Start your group up, pick a mission, everyone goes in and plays side-by-side completing an objective against AI opponents/environments.

[DA] I see that there are plans to make a series of games all connected to each other in the Steam Bandits: Outpost universe. I think that is a really cool idea. Can you give an example of what that might look like?

[JF] Sorry, keeping this one under wraps for a bit

[DA] What else should we know about Iocaine Studios, Steam Bandits: Output, or the Kickstarter project?

[JF] This is pretty much a new team.  I’m still working with some of the old crew, but most of these guys came from Obsidian and Blizzard.  Not too sure how this worked out, but the team is 90% female.  It was just kind of random really.  We were all in the right place at the right time, and had the right abilities.  If we don’t pull this Kickstarter off, these guys might go their separate ways and that would be a real shame.  We’ve built up a great working relationship from making Fallout: New Vegas together and I’d hate to lose that.  Plus, starting up a new studio in California will help create jobs.  I think that’s something worth donating for, right?

DeltaAttack.com and its contributors would like to thank Jason for taking some of his extremely valuable time to answers some of our questions, and give a personal shout-out from IkeCube. Please do Jason a good one and check out the Kickstarter Page for more info.