jdodson1

Joined 01/23/2012
  Admin

I'm an Engineer and built the video game community Cheerful Ghost and text based mini-MMO Tale of the White Wyvern.

2755 Posts

Been recently spending time playing another iPhone runner
Been recently spending time playing another iPhone runner game called "Don't Run With a Plasma Sword." I like the game because you can play in a story mode or a endless running mode where you try and get further each time. You can upgrade your abilities as you collect experience as with other freemium iPhone titles you can pay to upgrade immediately.

The game has a really fun style in that its styled after a old sci-fi B Movie. Before each level you are bestowed wisdom on how to handle your plasma sword such as "Don't stir your coffee with a plasma sword," "Don't shovel with a plasma sword" and "Don't duck and cover with a plasma sword."

Its fun and its also free so no reason not to check it out if you have an iPhone. I am only playing the endless mode right now, when I get to the story mode ill talk more about that.

Magical Games That Never Leave You
If I had a list of games that impacted how I think about art and life, The Legend of Zelda: Links Awakening would be on my list. I come back and play this game every three years or so simply because the story is absolutely stunning. I plan on writing more during my next playthrough on Cheerful Ghost, so expect more at some point.

I was never moved more by any video game ending than this one. Plenty of games brought me to thinking about life in certain ways, like Final Fantasy III and how frail humans really are. But this game sticks with me as a game that really made me feel invested in the world and I cared what happened to it. Being that the game was on the Gameboy thats saying something, then again Gameboy had some great games.

Magical.

Earthbound: Awesome Game, List of Shame.
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This game is on my list of shame for games I have not beaten but really should have. The game is basically from Square's SNES "golden age." Its the story of a kid from the burbs that wakes up because a metorite crashed close to his house. I am not going to spoil any of the story but things get interesting fast.

The game is unique because the main character is a regular kid from a regular town. The enemies in the first areas are skate punks, birds and other normal things. The art style is very unique but the game doesn't hide that you are going from town to town in suburbia. Until you go into the city and other later areas.

The game has a great story and the way it hops around was pretty unique for the time. This game has one of the biggest rabid fanbases on the net as seen through the used SNES price of well over $150 for the cart itself. Square danced around Earthbound 64 but it was later canned for whatever reason.

At some point I will come back and finish this amazing game. When I do expect many more posts full of my experiences and TONS of spoilerrific material. If you are so inclined, check it out, its a great game.

I try out many iPhone games because often times they are
I try out many iPhone games because often times they are free and are a great way to spend a few minutes when your waiting for something or before bed. Fruit Ninja is a popular game I downloaded for free to test out.

Basically you swipe your finger across fruit to cut it like a Ninja. You get points for doing that. It gets harder or something and then you slice more fruit with your finger. You get ranked for your fruit Ninja fu.

Its no longer on my iPhone.

Civilization Revolution is Great!
Civilization Revolution is the best turn based strategy ive played on a console. The game is stripped down compared to Civilization 4 on PC but that doesn't mean its less fun. In fact, I believe the game is stronger because it does less.

All you have is the PS3 or XBOX controller so they had to reduce the complexity for the game to work very well on those systems. For instance, your tech tree isn't as deep. You have less military unit options. Your diplomacy options are not as advanced. You have less details to manage. There is less world real estate too. All that said, its as much fun as I remember the original DOS version was.

There are a few kinds of victories: domination, culture, economic and technological. The easiest one is domination, which I often stumble to even if I mean to do another. One bad element the game does present with any kind of victory is that it has a hard end if a certain amount of time has elapsed. Which basically stops you from spending an eternity toying with the opposition. The fixed time ending is my only real gripe with the game. Id prefer to take my time and do whatever taking as long as I care to. Oh wait, no, time has stopped sorry. You win?

I have Civilization 3 and can't seem to ever win. Civilization Revolution allows me to start out doing well and I can scale the difficulty to match my growing ability. They even have online play if you are interested in going head to head with other players. Its one of those games I purchased when I first got my PS3 and still play it because its a lot of fun.

Beat My Distance in JetPack Joyride
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Just started playing this game the other day after hearing about it on Weekend Confirmed. Its free, so if you have an iPhone you should check it out.

The premise is you have a jetpack and you are running and need to avoid getting hit by rockets and traps. Its basically another runner game similar to Robot Unicorn Attack. You collect coins in the game and can spend them on you player customization and upgraded jetpacks and the like. Like many freemium games on the iPhone you can pay money to get coins so you can outright buy the items instead of collecting coins by playing it.

So far ive collected about 4.5k coins and my best distance is 2,678m.

Like @Adym, I too remember this game. I pretty much always
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Like @Adym, I too remember this game.

I pretty much always played as the Banker from Boston so I could buy a ton of bullets and shoot squirrels. One time a classmate and I shot a squirrel hunderds of times to see if the amount of squirrel meat in pounds would increase.

Sadly it did not. It was still only 2 pounds.

Portal 2: One of the Top Games of 2011
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Been listening to a lot of podcasts and reading articles and Portal 2 seems to be on most peoples game of the year lists. Im not sure I had a game of the year for 2011, but Portal 2 was on of the most unique experiences ive had behind the ps3.

For starters my wife enjoyed watching me play the game. She had the same feelings about Halflife 2, she wouldn't let me play it if she wasn't present to miss out on the story. Portal 2 starts out with a bang and throws you right back into Aperture Science as you wake up from a long hibernation period to a funny robot named Wheatley.

I never felt like the puzzles were impossible but occasionally I was stumped for a few minutes. More than once my wife helped me figure out how to complete a test chamber and I was on my way. The graphics are very good on the PS3 but some have said they are not jaw dropping. Everything looked just right to me.

One awesome bonus that Portal 2 came with on the PS3 was the inclusion of a free voucher for the PC steam copy. I bought it when the PS3 Network was down so I had to wait a few weeks to active the steam copy. I completed the game on the PS3 as I prefer shooters on the big TV in the living room, but it was fun to checkout the extras the steam version had.

Still have not tried out the co-op but plan to go through it with a friend a bit at a time. Ive heard co-op is where the game shines and I am eager to try it out.

Portal 2 was one of the coolest video game experiences I had in 2011, you monster.

This game wasnt launched on the iPhone but its perfect on a
This game wasn't launched on the iPhone but its perfect on a handheld touchscreen. Often before bed I play a level of this and its perfect in that pick-up and play setting. Ive noticed that since I played it PopCap has added quite a bit to it to spice it up.

They added the Zen Garden from the PC version and added new play types like puzzle where I have so far unlocked "i, zombie" and another mini game called "ZomBotany."

"i, zombie" is rad as you take you turn as the zombies attacking cardboard cut outs of the plants. "ZomBotany" is a mode where the zombies are fused with plants as they attack you.

There seem to be many other unlockables I can get by collecting tons of coins or I can outright purchase coins to unlock all this stuff. Cool feature, but makes me nervous as if my phone gets wiped it seems like ill lose all the unlocks? I don't know.

StarTropics is a cool game I never finished. I picked this
http://hardcoregaming101.net/startropics/startropics-7.png
StarTropics is a cool game I never finished. I picked this up for a reduced price after the Super Nintendo was launched and NES games were marked down signifigantly. I believe I never finished it because the graphics were not quite as good as the SNES RPG's that I was used to, like Final Fantasy 2, 3 and Secret of Mana. All told the game isn't in the category of square's "golden SNES catalog" but it was fun.

It was a quirky story and a unique backdrop as you were on a island and the characters and enemies had an island flavor. Still haven't seen much that has reminded me of this setting in recent memory. Its on my bucket list of games to return to and figure out if its a great game and I missed it or if it was just kind of forgettable.

Either way, ive been thinking about it lately because it stands out in my mind as being unique and something I didn't see a lot of back in the the day.