POrTAlTwO

I spent the last few days playing the 13 games from the "Potato Sack" sold by Steam. All of them include (temporally, I assume) exclusive Portal-themed DLC which ranges from the amusing to the amazing, with even whole new levels to play. If you followed some instructions described on the "Valve's PotatosFools ARG Wiki" you earned complimentary potato badges. After earning all the 36 potatoes and a final "golden potato" award, you were supposed to get a "a very special, non-hat-based reward" (Thank god! I hate the whole TF2 hats craze...)

Well, I was going to title this entry "I spent several days playing indie games and I only got this stupid XXXXX", but the thing is, Valve just silently added to my game list Portal 2. For free, on release day. Allegedly, all the Valve games are added, but I already had them.

Thank you, Valve. I have to admit that I didn't expect such a nice reward.

Retro gaming: Who Dares Wins II

Forget about Dragon Age II, because today we'll talk about Who Dares Wins II, an old game by Steve Evans (credited in the C64 version as Tommy Atkins). Who Dares Wins was initially a shameless Commando clone which was released two weeks before the real Commando. Elite sued WDW developer Alligata, so the game was immediately pulled from distribution... until Evans rearranged the content and the game was re-released as Who Dares Wins II.

WDWII was one of the first games I ever played, renamed for Spain (in the cover art, not in the game) as "Mercenario". The 8-bit Commando was a much more visceral experience, and insanely enjoyable, but WDWII was a great piece of design. Let's see why:

Amstrad CPC version < --- The one I played back then

Commodore 64 version < --- It looks similar, but it had scroll!

At first glance it looks like another Ikari Warriors-type shooter. You push forward with your soldier shooting all the enemy soldiers and throwing some grenades. (You can't ride a tank here, though) But after a while you realize that you are expected to make some tactical thinking.

-Enemies are limited. No infinitely spawning baddies, which is actually good. You can memorize the enemy placement so you won't suffer a nasty death. That was great to get a little further each time you played.

-There are some special rules: trenches stop bullets, water and almost invisible quicksand (you can see how it looks here) will drown you, you can only shoot entrenched enemies while they are peeking out (like in a modern cover shooter!), soldiers behind barricades and tanks flee when you are close to them, and you have to clear the last screen of enemies before reaching a new stage. It feels fair and it motivates you to plan your advance. Staying for a couple of minutes in a single screen trying to get rid of a few strategically-placed enemy shooters is as Un-Commando as it gets.

-I love the extra touches like the possibility of saving prisoners who are about to be executed or destroying passing vehicles. That was completely optional, but at the time you had to do that to "play right" (also, the extra points were useful to get more lives). I don't care about that style of playing too much anymore, but back then it was really important, probably because games only offered gameplay and not much else.

WDWII was an unexpensive game (being released seemingly as a cheap Commando knock-off), but it was legitimately great, and I would play it again in a heartbeat. Maybe I should try the C64 version to check out the scroll!

Sources:
Retro Gamer Magazine
Retroview (Spanish)

It's 1996 all over again

This looks insane... and awesome, too. A Greek Tex Murphy clone!
I hope it's better than the previous one.


Do you miss those 1990's games with actors in the middle of your 3D-generated world? Then you'll be pleased to know that GOG just released the amazing Realms of the Haunting.

But if you prefer old-school 2D, then go this way. Hey, no problem. I love both styles.

Guess who's back?

No, I'm not back. I'm just taking off-time to deliberate on our choice for GOTY 2010 (yet!). But SuperViv is back from Australia! We hope she'll resume playing where she left one year ago so we can keep chatting about games.

And big bad EA is also back as a major villain. Last week I played lots and lots of Mirror's Edge and Dead Space (both amazing games) and I was thinking "I definitely liked where EA was going a couple of years ago". Now, I'm not so sure I even like them anymore, after the evident watering-down of Bioware's games (just look at the recycled rush job they did with Dragon Age II), the Call-of-Dutization of their shooters, etc. With Activision completely out of control and Ubisoft acting crazy like a videogame-world Charlie Sheen (why would you want to sell a sexless sex game?), I don't know who can deliver us from video-game evil now. Valve? The indie developers? We will see.

A brief aside

I just want to take a minute to quote this comment from RPS:

Jim Sterling really ought to be stood down from his job at Destructoid – he’s totally hateful and mysoginistic, as a recent public Twitter spat between him and Auntie Pixelante’s partner has proved. I won’t be reading Destructoid until they eject the idiotic, infantile shithead from their payroll.

That's what I think, too. I stopped reading Destructoid altogether because that professional troll annoyed me so much. That's the reason I haven't written any "Jimbecility" posts tracking his insane foulmouthing for months.

Speaking of losing readers by the hundreds, did you know you can keep reading Kotaku without the annoying new layout if you type "UK" or "CA" in front of the url? Just try it:

http://uk.kotaku.com/

http://ca.kotaku.com/

Luckily we don't have to worry about anything like that because we don't have any readers.

Call of Juarez 3 - Modern Cowboys

For months I've been trying to find some time to write something about the great Call of Juarez games, but I've failed. Just this: play them. Start with the second game (Bound in Blood) and then continue with the first one, which has the best story and design; it's better this way in terms of story (even if the first game is technically inferior).

Now we learn that there will be a third game, but... it has a modern setting. The only thing I can say is... WTF? I don't think it's a change justified by the story, but who knows... I'm afraid maybe Ubisoft asked Techland to do something "more like Call of Duty", and this weird concept is the result. We'll see. But it really looks weird.

Happy new year!

I've been on holiday for a month with no internet connection, but we'll be back soon! We missed very interesting conflicts, like Activision making insane accusations against Zampella and West, and lots of bad news (Bizarre Creations facing liquidation, Harmonix being discarded by MTV like an used tissue and being sold off for the price of a copy of Rock Band 3...). Anyway, soon we'll present our own 2010 GOTY and we'll keep talking about games as usual. So... happy 2011 to you all!