Bargain Bin Gaming 101 #6

Years ago, during one of the many hay days of PC gaming, a game called Dungeon Keeper came out to critical acclaim. Very rarely at this time did games let you play the bad guy, but Dungeon Keeper did this so well it was hard to forget. Soon after, they made a sequel and then EA lost interest. For some unknown reason, we never saw another game…even though this series had seen marginal success. This was much to the dismay of fans, because these games we nearing perfection for their genre.

Every few years, some company tries to duplicate Dungeon Keepers success by releasing games they call a spiritual successor. Most of these games failed miserably…but once and awhile one stands out. The cream of the crop of this style was Overlord and its sequels.

Overlord changes the dynamic of games styled this way, by making the player adventure with minions rather than playing defensively like Dungeon Keeper. It is very tongue and cheek, mocking everything Lord of the Rings. It is no easy task to establish good controls with great humor, but Overlord does this really well.

The basic premise is that you “The Overlord” have been awakened by your minions to take over the lands and show the people fear. This is not the case, because in most quests you are beating enemies that are ruling and abusing their populous. That’s where the humor comes in! The first major quest revolves getting food back from the nearby Halflings that have stolen all of it from the village.

The basic controls are that of your typical 3^rd person action game, with one exception… you have a second directional control that moves your minions into battle so you don’t have to fight. While you are not weak, you are also not the strongest ether, and life can be scarce sometimes. The basic strategy of this game is making you overwhelm your enemies rather than take them on directly.  Overlord has a fairly unique feel thanks to this concept.

As with all games, Overlord is not without its flaws. More often than it should, the game does not do a good job at pointing out where you need to go. I have spent an hour or two wondering around because of the lack of direction.  The difficulty of this game can sometimes be intermittent. Often most baddies seem way too easy and then all of a sudden it hits you with an enemy that feels way too hard. I can’t count how many times this drastic difficulty change made me want to punt my controller across the room.

I honestly put this game off until I saw it on sale with Steam. I had heard mixed things and been burned by too many Dungeon Keeper clones for me to risk too much. For the two bucks I spent, I got two weeks of playing. There is also an expansion and a sequel which are both good. Besides being on Steam these games are all very multi-platform and can be found on Xbox 360, PS3, and Wii. If you’re looking for a funny fantasy romp, you can’t do much better than Overlord.

Bargain Bin Gaming 101 #5

A Steam Summer Camp Sale wrapped up recently, and this was a great place for gaming bargains. This year I found a cleaver RPG that is part dungeon crawler, part store simulator, called Recettear: An Item Shops Tale. I thought it looked kind of silly at first, but Steam had it priced so low that I had to give it a shot. I originally heard about it on an episode of the Mobcast about a year or two ago, being recommended by freelance writer Peter Davidson. I was pleasantly surprised by how much fun all the mechanics were in spite of a silly overly anime-styled plot.

               The basic premise is that Recettear is a little girl abandoned by her father and now has to run his local item shop in a RPG style world. She is assisted by a fairy, sent from the bank, to make sure the mortgage gets paid about every two weeks. As the game goes on, this is no simple task because the payment almost doubles after every payment (sort of unrealistic but who cares.). Since you have to make scheduled payments, the game is broken into calendar days that are also broken down further to four segments a day.  In a segment, you can do one of three things, explore town, explore dungeons, and open your store. All of these cost one segment of the day except the dungeon aspect, it cost two.

               Recettear can get items for her shop in several different ways, which is a major part of the game. The first way is to buy wholesale from the local vendor. The second is to hire mercenaries from the adventurer’s guild to explore dungeons to loot items. Each hero has his or her own personality that expands your dialog with Recettear. The third way is to open the shop and buy offered items from browsing customers. If done right, this way can get you great items dirt cheap.

  Exploring the dungeons is where this game shows its weakness. It looks and feels like a bad attempt to copy A Link to the Past but feels way too slippery in the controls. Most of the enemies have little to no AI, and the bosses are fairly gimmicky with their patterns. To top all that off, it has a very strict system about how many items you can bring back with you. It usually allows you to bring back about twenty five at a time, but fifty percent of the item drops are unidentifiable so there is way too much guessing involved. Thankfully, once you return, they are identified for free or it might break the game economy.

                The best part of the game comes from the sale part of the game. When you open your doors each day, customers fill the store and bring items up to your register. You then begin to haggle with them over what they should be charged, so you can make a profit. The more reasonably priced you are with each sale earns you experience point that expand your abilities as a shop clerk. In the beginning you can only sell items… but as the game goes on, you can order items for people, help them pick items, and even buy second hand items back. All of this gives the vibe of a really great Farmville/Shopville clone that has a purpose besides earning Zynga money.

                The smallest part of the game involves talking to people around town. This shows you the plot of this game is fairly silly anime styled; mind you I do love anime, which is another flaw for it. I can’t tell if it is the translation or the original writing but it does feel like drivel. It does have its pluses in dialog too, because occasionally Recettear says things that are really funny as in the shown picture.

Don’t let the negatives deter you though, because at its core this is a very addictively fun game. I can say I have put in about twenty or more hours, and will be going back for more soon. While it does have flaws it is nice to see people like Carpe Fulgur translate and bring over interesting games we might not see otherwise. In fact they are working on two more that I can’t wait to play. So if you like RPGs and are looking for something out of the ordinary, take a look at Recettear. Steam is always doing a sale on it.

Amigurumi for the Geek's Soul

In my last post, I had talked about supporting a local artist/crafter on Etsy. In this post, I wanted to expand a little bit on some of the crafts and patterns I had ran into on there that help bring out the inner geek.

Today's topic: Amigurumi

I don't dare try to pronounce it, because I am afraid that I would butcher it like I would Aluminum. Alumin-nin-um. Gah. Nevermind.

Amigurumi is the art of knitting or crocheting stuffed objects. The katamari in my first blog post is an example of one. Amigurumi really has no real purpose, unlike a scarf, blanket, or sweater, but like a toy, has aesthetic cuteness. 

Durived from a combination of Japanese words, Amigurumi is a "Japanese-y" way of showing off your inner geek! Typically, amigurumi are in the form of stuffed animals...but can also come in forms of objects, such as the katamari.

My favorite amigurumi is the Sackboy dolls. Based on the video game, Little Big Planet, the Sackboy is a cute version of the original sackboy from the game. There are versions out there for knitting like the character from the video game is, but since I can't knit my way out of a paper bag, there are other versions that are crocheted. 

What is great about these Sackboys is the option to dress them and make them into your favorite charaters from your favorite games, movies, and even family members....sort of like a costume for your Sackboy.

For those into crochet, below is a link to my favorite patterns for these amigurumi Sackboys. There are the basic Sackboy tutorials, as well as some character Sackboy tutorials that I can't wait to try out for myself! I just have way too many project ideas going on for me to start another project....

http://www.youtube.com/user/GoldenJellyBean#p/u/0/Pc4OEbajGvA

In tradition with Japanese culture and need for "cuteness," there are many forms of food and sweets that are crocheted into amigurumi. I personally don't understand the need for stuffed, fake, food...but I suppose that it is part of the Japanese culture. If any of you reading this can expl in the aethetic value of stuffed, fake, food, please share with me. It makes me thouroghly confused.

Amigurumi food brings me to another point...food-shaped erasers? I can walk into any Newbury Comics and find packets of cute-sy food-shaped erasers. I even find them in my local craft store. First off, who other than a Japanese-culture fanatic would buy those? I can understand if you use them that they are scented like the food they represent...but...I guess it is just something I don't understand. That is the way it is with certain things in Japanese culture.

Many patterns are available through basic internet searches for free, but to support my other fellow crafters, there are amigurumi ideas and patterns available to purchase (cheap, I might add) through Etsy.

Please go check them out and let me know what you think! 

Pictures of your projects are welcome!