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• Derrick's Top 13 Games of 2008 - Part 3

  Catching up? Read part 1 and part 2. 5 - The World Ends With You (DS): The insanely ambitious action-JRPG probably makes the most use of all the DS hardware has to offer of all DS software with the possible exception of The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass, and even then The World Ends With You does it with so much more style and flair that the comparison seems woefully unfair. It's clear that Square Enix's Kingdom Hearts team put years of thought and research into what the DS could and could not do and the result is a game that breaks all expectations like so many angsty teenage hearts. It takes a truly great game to affect me outside of my gaming time, and much like Wii Fit got me thinking about jogging to the train every morning, The World Ends With You got me wearing pins on my bag for the first time since college, picking out just the right ones that may, someday, save my life in heated battle. Oh lord, did I love that dual-screened battle system... Read More... Posted Dec 11 2008, 02:30 PM by Derrick Sanskrit with | with 2 comment(s) Filed under: the world ends with you, little big planet, playstation 3, nintendo ds, derrick sanskrit, wii, top ten, super smash bros, world of goo, super smash bros brawl, de blob, eden, pixeljunk, echochrome, pixeljunk eden, braid, cubello, top 10 of 2008, cicus atari

• For Indie Games, These are the Salad Days

  Good news, everyone! MSNBC.com is reporting that somehow, the beautiful, excellent labor of love World of Goo actually made a good amount of money for its innovative creators. This is probably the most heartening story of the long list of heartening stories that have come out about indie games this year. World of Goo managed to make money with a slim marketing budget of approximately $0.00. Other things, like Braid and Castle Crashers, had a minimal marketing push—yet the most accurate predictors we have for this kind of thing (VGChartz might usually be wildly inaccurate, but their XBLA chart is based on information pulled from a massive collection of real GamerTags and is generally considered to be as close as we can get to true XBLA sales numbers) believe these games generated millions of dollars in revenue, each. We are talking games that were made by no more than two men, games that were built on laptops in coffee shops. Could it be possible this era of HD gloss and budgets approaching nine figures could also be indie gaming’s greatest days? Read More... Posted Nov 25 2008, 01:00 PM by Joe Keiser with | with 2 comment(s) Filed under: world of goo, braid, castle crashers, joe keiser, indie

• Watcha Playing: World of Goo

  Have you ever become aware of a game that other people talked about enthusiastically but it just didn't interest you, only to play it and fall in love? I'm not a puzzle game fan. I like some action in my games. I like interesting characters and adventure. Puzzle games tend to be, at best, rentals for me. There are exceptions of course, individual games that were so addictively enjoyable that I would play them obsessively. Tetrisphere was one puzzle game that I loved, and regret not buying. Now, around a decade later, another puzzle game has taken over my life. Welcome to the World of Goo. Read More... Posted Oct 21 2008, 10:00 AM by Amber Ahlborn with | with 4 comment(s) Filed under: wii, amber ahlborn, world of goo, wiiware, watcha playing

• Virtual Console: Now the Best Thing Ever

  Remember back when the Virtual Console sucked? Of course you do; it was just this past summer. During those hot, boring months, I sat on about 2000 Wii Points; hope soon became a forgotten concept as Nintendo slowly trickled out games I've never given a damn about. By the time August rolled around, I was half-expecting to see a Virtual Console Monday featuring the Sega Genesis version of Chuck Rock along with a free Wii screen saver that would scroll the words "KILL YOURSELF" across the screen if you left the Wii-mote idle for more than 20 minutes. But since the beginning of Fall, Nintendo's really gotten their Virtual Console shit together; and today's release of both Secret of Mana and World of Goo is proof of that. Sure, I'm in the dead center of a semester that's left me so haggard I can barely type this post without using my keyboard as a makeshift pillow, but... Secret of Mana. Read More... Posted Oct 13 2008, 08:45 PM by Bob Mackey with | with 6 comment(s) Filed under: wii, world of goo, square, bob mackey, virtual console, secret of mana

• Handjobs for Homebrew: Mario Paint Composer DS

  There's never been a better time to be an independent software developer. College students are designing original concepts that are then developed by established publishers into big games like Portal and de Blob. Small teams working in bedrooms or coffee shops are developing downloadable console games like Braid and World of Goo. And then, of course, there are the homebrew developers, releasing their software often for free or a small donation. Widely seen in less-than-100%-legal light, homebrew software is often a means of "hacking" the platform of choice to add functionality that had not originally been intended. While there's never any guarantee of quality when it comes to these things, there are some fantastic pieces of homemade software out there, and we hope to spotlight a few of them here on "Handjobs for Homebrew" (this is Hooksexup, I can say "handjobs," can't I?) Originally demoed just about a month ago, BassAceGold's homebrew of the Mario Paint Composer for the Nintendo DS was released to the internet masses last week. There have already been a number of homebrew applications to add the painting and animation components of the Super Nintendo classic Mario Paint to the touch-screen handheld, but MPC emulates the feature that always seemed to me (and, apparently, the YouTube community) to be the most engaging element, its cartoonish music composition score. For those who've never played Mario Paint, allow me to explain… Read More... Posted Oct 06 2008, 01:00 PM by Derrick Sanskrit with | with no comments Filed under: nintendo ds, derrick sanskrit, portal, world of goo, korg ds-10, de blob, mario paint, braid, jam sessions, electroplankton, homebrew, lsdj

• World of Goo: The Art,The Design, The Anticipation!

  Written by Derrick Sanskrit One of the most anticipated games of the summer has nothing to do with espionage, ninjas, plumbers, cars, guns, monsters or anything else from the typical gaming milieu. Its a game about globs of goo and action puzzling. Most impressively, its a game made by two dudes with no studio support. I'm referring, of course, to 2D Boy's World of Goo for the PC, Mac, Linux and Wii. Within the short period of time since its announcement, World of Goo has become a shining beacon of what can be done by indie game developers. The trailers and critic reactions so far have earned World of Goo a reputation as a charming, original experience, a real labor of love for designer Kyle Gabler and Ron Carmel. As their mission statement says,  "(We) make games that everyone can play, with gameplay nobody has seen before." Just look at the love and care put into this one graphic for the game: Wowzers! And the gameplay after the jump looks even better! Read More... Posted Jun 09 2008, 01:00 PM by John Constantine with | with no comments Filed under: derrick sanskrit, wii ware, world of goo