Hawken Pt. 2: Brix have been shat.

Though the fans didn't get a jump on this, as the devs had fiendishly planned, by getting photos of landmarks, today the public got a looksee at... well, just look at it:



Done hyperventilating, giant robot fans? Good.

What's not to like about this gameplay? Awesome bayformers sound effects? Kooky bladerunner meets saigon cities? Heavy controls that make you feel like your piloting a breakdancing brick shithouse with guns? Check. Love 'em.

There's a lot going on in this trailer: first there's a very awesome EMP effect with interface screw. Zoom cutting out cockpit details. Was this a shortcut or is it to increase user focus? Deployables, also seen earlier as static emplacements of similar design. And something falling out of this guy's mechanized bung.

Fabulous!

But, as mech heads usually are, they love to get psychotically obsessive over robot customization. There were a multitude of weapons in the trailer, such as the machiengun, at least 3 types of cannons and those whooshy itano circus missiles. What about the myriad robot designs? Do they have different playstyles? Abilities? Weapon limits? The world may never know.

Not until Adhesive Games gets on with it and releases the thing, at least. I wish them godspeed.

Hawken: You will shit bricks

Is it District 9? Is it mechwarrior's cool, young cousin? Is it one of Ukita Kumuki's dark cyberpunk paintings come to life?

No! It's Hawken!

I don't know about anyone else, but ever since Exteel went six feet under after jumping the shark like some bastard child of Demopan and Gundam SEED, I've been hankering for giant yet slightly believable metal machines and the gigantic cannons that shoot them to tiny bits.

Is Hawken that game? I certainly like the design aesthetic, less mechanical super samurai and more functional walking tank. Tigsource (whom I first saw this trailer from. Big up, you guys!) has already noted there will be deathmatch and team deathmatch modes. How much will we be able to customize our stompy doom generators? How will the balance play out? What's the price point? How much content will be available?

Digital Eel on Fastforward

We once again take a step into the minds of the staff of famed game developer Digital Eel:


Woo, what just happened there?

So I'm going to take this opportunity to showcase more about this game. Since my last post, it has only gotten faster and more brain-stupefyingly, deliciously chaotic.



I'll update my original appraisal of the gameplay and say that you now seem to play a cracked out gyroscope that thinks its stuck in a game of tetris, constantly trying to knock enemies and green cerealboxes alike into each other. The cereal boxes appear to have also invited their cousins, the longitudally translating green walls of blocky death.

AaAaAA! A reckless disregard for consonants

I know I'm late to the party here, but AaAaAA! by Dejobaan games, rocks!



I got it for $2.50 off of steam today. Let me tell you, though, it's worth an order more than that. This is simple, visceral yet unique gameplay. It's a reflex-challenge not matched by any other game (except maybe 1...2...3...KICK IT, another Dejobaan game)

Anyone who wants to experience future extreme sports 1,000 feet in the air should try this, also maybe if you like flipping off people on walkways who don't like you.

Show Me the Games; An experimental indie commune of hippieocracy

So this is fresh news to me; Cliffski, the guy behind Gratuitous space battles, just posted some very intriguing stuff.

He's got a site, show me the games, up for some odd amount of time where he and other indies have put up their games. Apparently; they're sharing webspace and advertising to try and pool sales via returning customers. In short; it's a shared sales personality that they can advertise as one unit.

Note they've got Defcon in there. Defcon pulls a lot of hits. Mr. Robot, not so much (still a good game, that's for another post.) But since htey're both together, they're essentially advertising for and supporting each other.

Very novel, very neat and very amazing that he actually got it to work out. Indies aren't the best at co-operating, there's a reason they get GOTY awards yet somehow don't work for big studios, and it isn't just for their health, either.

Fast Forward

From the many Warped Worlds of the Digital Eel empire, it's... wait, what the bloody hell is this thing, anyway?



By my ascertension you play a cracked out gyroscope knocking around racing cereal boxes and avoiding red UFOs and angry trapezoids of death while eating corn pops strewn about a superhighway through the game tempest.

But that's just me, and I'm weird. If you're weird, too, you'll probably want to play this. I know I will!

Gratuitous Space Conquest

Cliffski over at Psotech Games seems to have outdone himself yet again with a superb new offering for his Gratuitous Space Battles game:



I mean, the galactic con quest mechanic has been discussed at length at his blog and, I'll admit, I've always thought it was neat that you'd have an asynchronous Multiplayer element to it (think; Spore, where you pull content form other players into your game passively.) But, just look at this video. Everything is so... shiny!

Highly recommend checking this out, especially if you're not familiar with GSB. To sum it up; it's essentially tower defense as imagined by Admiral Ackbar. You set up a fleet for a given challenge, assign complex orders with differing priorities to effect how the ships behave, then you pull the safety tab and watch everything start blowing itself up. I relented and bought vanilla GSB a while ago, it's definitely unique and worth a try, check out the demo here.