Barkley, Shut Up and Jam: Gaiden is like a joke

There’s a new Indie Impression up over at The First Hour, and I participated in it despite my disinterest in all things basketball-related. However, Barkley, Shut Up and Jam: Gaiden is more than an annual sports romp; it’s a fan-made, freeware sequel to Barkley, Shut Up and Jam!, which was, by all accounts, a traditional two-on-two street basketball simulator for the SNES. Except the silly minds behind it created something truly unlikely: a post-apocalyptic basketball RPG.

Um…

I didn’t understand it and never even got to see a turn-based fight. I shut the game down when I…well, you’ll just have to go over to The First Hour and do some reading to see where Barkley, Shut Up and Jam: Gaiden lost me. I have to imagine one would have to have both an interest in RPGs and basketball to really enjoy this Frankenstein’s monster, and that person is not me. However, when they ultimately make Barkley, Be Quiet and Tee Off: Redemption…please, please, let me know.

Ain’t no broken cog in this machine called Cogs

There’s another Indie Impression up over at The First Hour, and it’s constructed around the steampunk-inspired puzzler known as Cogs. A number of the site’s writers put down their impressions and thoughts, including me, and it seemed like many enjoyed their time, even if they believe the game is better suited for a mobile phone than a PC platform. Seeing as I still live in the Dark Ages and use paper cups tied to strings to make long-distance calls, I like having it on Steam, as I can quickly move a puzzle around with the click of a mouse. But enough from me here; if you want my thoughts on building rockets, blowing steam, and turning cog wheels, head on over to The First Hour.

And here are some Steam Achievements, just because:

Apprentice: Complete 10 levels in Inventor Mode

Aptitude: Earn your first triple-gold award

Tinkerer: Earn 100 stars

Evidently there’s one for completing a puzzle in under five seconds. Yeah, sure. Okay, cogheads. Maybe if you’re like one of those androids from Ghost in the Shell, but I am not. Gah, now I’m depressed about my lack of robotics. But yeah, Cogs. It’s a puzzle game, and a fun one at that. I’ll be back at it some time soon, for sure.

Ghosts, grueling headaches, and retro graphics in The Blackwell Legacy

Another day, another little game discussed over at The First Hour for its new Indie Impression series. Just kidding. They have been nicely spaced out, though I’m sad I missed my chance to write about Cave Story+, but I was in crazy con-prepping mode and didn’t have an ounce of brainpower to spare elsewhere. Oh well. I do have thoughts on that game, especially considering I ended up buying it for my Nintendo 3DS despite having a working copy on Steam–I guess Skyrim is no longer the only game I now have doubles of–just to have gamepad controls, but I’ll write something up later on it, whether here or there or in your underwear. Wait, what? Nevermind.

Anyways, the game up for discussion this week is The Blackwell Legacy. It’s a point-and-click adventure game, no doubt. You point, you click, you observe. The mechanics are by-the-book, so it’s the story that really shines here, and from what I can gather, it’s a good mystery to unravel. Like a mix of The Sixth Sense and The Ghost Whisperer and maybe, uh, The Truth About Cats and Dogs. Rosa really reminds me of Janeane Garofalo. Plus, just like in L.A. Noire, you have a notebook of clues to try out on everyone; I love elements like that. You can read my quick thoughts on it, as well as Greg’s and Steve’s by clicking that link in the first sentence. Seems like Steve completed the whole adventure, while Greg and I only dipped our toes into the puzzle-limned water. I’ll be going back to Rosa this weekend as it’s a relaxing time, and I’ll need some relaxing after stressful car stuff is (hopefully) taken care of.

Super Meat Boy is the beefiest platformer out there

Quick, look over there! It’s another Indie Impression, and this one’s based on Super Meat Boy.

As you’ll soon read, I was able to beat all the levels in the first world save for the final boss. I gave up after too many fruitless attempts to slide down a vanishing wall into a hole before a sawblade turned Meat Boy into bits for a shish kebob party. But it was still a good time, and I can see why many love the beefy platformer, but I just can’t see myself going on, especially if I was getting stuck so early on. But yeah, great controls, great style, great boy made of meat. Eat it up, you masochistic fanatics.

Dungeons of Dredmor hides its death behind doors

A new type of article is slowly going to be popping up over at The First Hour, and it’s called Indie Impression. I’m sleepy and still need way more coffee in me, so instead of describing it in my own words, I’ll just use Greg Noe’s:

Welcome to Indie Impression, a brand new type of article for 2012. As the name implies, these articles will be impressions on some of the numerous indie games that have been rapidly appearing recently. We here have built ourselves very large collections through cheap package deals via Steam, Humble Bundle, Indie Royale, and more. Some have amazing production values, some don’t. Some are incredibly fun, some aren’t. But without question, these indie games generally offer creativity vastly beyond anything you’ll find in mainstream gaming and will likely be the main driver behind industry innovation for a long time.

And as our indie backlogs have grown exponentially, we’ve decided to start sorting through our games and trying them out to get a good impression of each. To add credibility to our impressions, we will try to have at least two people play each game until they feel they have a solid, concrete opinion for writing. Impressions may be from ten minutes of gaming to ten hours, but in this case, we feel like it’s important enough to have multiple strong opinions on each game. With that out of the way, let’s continue to our very first candidate, Dungeons of Dredmor.

Basically, all those countless indie games we’ve been acquiring over the years are going to get some coverage, but not simply first hour reviews. Quicker coverage. A lump sum of impressions and thoughts. Fine by me, as I’ve struggled lately to sit down and take notes for an hour as I play new games. This was more off-the-cuff writing, which is to my liking.

However, I was saddened to discover that, upon the purchase of the indie bundle that contained Dungeons of Dredmor, I was unable to play it on my flailing Macbook. I recently blew my Christmas bonus (keep it clean, kids) on a new Windows-based laptop, and can now run a ton of games I once could not. It’s exhilarating and also kind of funny to watch me get excited over the fact that I now have a computer that can run Diablo II at a decent clip. Yeah. Which is good, because if I’m going to play a dungeon-crawler, I’m probably gonna play one that doesn’t kill me immediately after I go through a door.

Just read my impressions on Dungeons of Dredmor.

It’s been suggested that I give the tutorial a spin, which I might…but not in the near future. I can see why many like this type of masochistic RPGing, but it’s not clicking with me.