The Natrix

The Dark Side / Light Side beef has never been higher then after the murder of 2 Pacca and Jabba Smalls

Gamer Guru: Insanely Twisted Shadows Planet (XBLA)

The third installment of the Summer of Arcade series came out yesterday and once again, Xbox has hit it out of the park. The game is called Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet, but should be called Insanely Fun Shadow Planet.

It’s a single-player campaign with mini-game multiplayer (that I have yet to try). It’s a great 2D side stroller which focuses on fast-paced combat and creative puzzle solving. The game is similar to the Metro series or another XBLA title “Shadow Complex” (another amazing game).

Story/Premise: 6/10

The story doesn’t drive the game, but instead let’s you fill in the gaps and makes you think. You start as a little UFO investigating the sudden of appearance of this dark plantesimal, which spreads it darkness to neighboring planets. Your ship escapes the homeworld and takes the fight to the big planet. Throughout the game, you unlock concept art and pieces of the story. It’s a great way to deliver the story while keeping the focus on gameplay. All that said, the story isn’t all that thrilling and is lacking in many areas, but thankfully, it doesn’t need to be to make the game fun.

Gameplay: 9/10

The gameplay is amazing! It’s a exploration game at heart, with secrets nestled into every nook. You unlock items throughout the game that lets you go back to a previous area that you explored where maybe a door or two as blocked that the new item unlocks. So you constantly revisit, re-evaluate, and reap the rewards. Combat is fast-paced and requires the use of multiple items to effectively clear through the hordes of evil dark things trying to rip your ship to shreds. Puzzles are smart and requires you to actually think. The game will introduce concepts to the player through examples, but once the idea is established, it’s up to the player to figure out how these mechanics fit into the puzzles.

Presentation: 10/10

Every seen Samurai Jack? Very similar art style. The game is simply fun to WATCH let alone play. Each item, enemy, area, etc. has its own unique look and it all comes together for an amazing visual masterpiece. check out the video, my words do no justice.

Challenge: 8/10

It’s a tough game. Puzzles require thought, combat requires reflexes, and bosses require multiple tries! If your good at Metroid, you’ll pick it up quick, if not, might wanna bring a laptop with you so you can look up the answers to the area you’re stuck in.

Final Thought: A series of great games came out on XBLA, and this one is the best of them. I thought Bastion would be the only game I wanted, but each game is fantastic. The only downfall is that the game is quick, maybe 10 hours to fully complete, but easily worth the cash. Enjoy this epic title!

it’s the evolution of the piranha plant from Mario Bros

camelliatermini:

2headedsnake:

50watts.com

Abigail Rorer

 evolution will eventually get here

Saw this over the weekend with the Pops. All-in-all, it’s a decent flick with a little too much story and acting and a slight lack of good action scenes to hold you over to the climax. The main characters are sometimes a bit unbelievable, however, I never experienced an alien invasion, so I might be outta my element.

if you have to see it, you most likely won’t regret it, but it’s definitely something you can wait till Netflix gets it.

Gamer Guru: From Dust (XBLA)

From Dust, the second game from XBLives “Summer of Arcade”, dropped this week and after the awesomeness that was Bastion, I was ready to be floored again. Well it certainly didn’t disappoint! Ill break down this little gem in this edition of GG.

Story/Premise: 5/10
It is hard to rate a story for a simulation game,cause a lot of the times there’s no actual story. From Dust (FD) follows a very loose story where the player takes control of an entity known as “the breath” who helps lead an ancient tribe to success while at the sametime helping the tribe retrieve their ancient memories. There is lose pockets of attempts to make a cohesive story but it always come out a bit too thin, but that’s okay, because the game doesn’t rely on storytelling to make it a great game, it relies on the awesome mechanics which leads us to…

Gameplay: 9/10
Here’s where the game shines, truly awesome game mechanics. As the Breath you need to move earth, water, lava, flora, etc to help your tribe reach a goal or protect from a threat. Each mechanic works differently depending on the terrain and biome, but appears to follow physics pretty well. In addition to normal dragging and dropping of elements, you gain powers that allow you to interact with elements. Evaporate lowers water, Jellify freezes it (let’s you part oceans like Moses!) just to name a few. The best part is these mechanics aren’t limited to an A—>B reaction. Problems arise and there’s often many ways to go about solving it. Now, obviously, some plans will work better then others, but the option to fuck around makes for a great experience and encourages replay.

Presentation: 8/10
This game is BEAUTIFUL. Worlds are very, VERY, detailed, with shimmering lacks, raging rapids, explosive volcanos, stark deserts. The sound/music is pretty good, not perfect but fits the game world well. It’s subtle and relaxing. The tribe speaks gibberish and its funny to hear their little screams when a problem pops up.

Final Thoughts:
Even with a lack of multiplayer, weird story, sometimes repeatative mechanics, its an awesome game. God-sims are rare and rarely good, so this a worthy edition to the genre, being a strong and extremely fun game. With a story mode and challenges, you’ll be hooked for hours, keeping yo’ peeps safe (or not).

camelliatermini:

drink me

Snakes mouth looks like a lady part. Makes sense, both speed toxic venom.

It’d be the only CoD game I’d ever buy. Too bad it’ll never leave beta phases…

Lol, 34k is a bit low if you ask me

Daily WTF: Alex Trebek Chases Burglar; Injures Self

Alex Trebek injures leg while chasing a burglar at a San Francisco Marriott Hotel. What is “I will hunt you down, mofo”? Either way, if it had been Bob Barker, suspect would be in custody within 3 minutes, because no one can fuck with B-Squared

So, America is a representative democracy, meaning a person is chosen by many to represent their interests in dealings with the government. Of course, these politicians aren’t puppets, they have agendas and will do what they said they’d do, which isn’t always necessarily what the public wants.

However with recent changes, namely campaign finance reform, people’s voice is getting vastly diminished in the favor of larger entites; things like PACs, corporations, unions, and other groups. What’s more, a poll says 68% of Americans want their politicians to compromise on the debt ceiling, or to put it more bluntly, 2/3rds of America is sick of the bullshit and just want to know everything will be relatively okay.

Funny how our representative democracy is no longer very representative nor does it resemble a democracy. So let’s go flip some vans!