Thursday, September 30, 2010

Brave and Bold, indeed

Oh, look, a video-game trailer...

Tuesday, September 28, 2010

Jason Isaacs sells you a "Castlevania" game

"Castlevania: Lords of Shadow" is setting itself up to be 2010's other divisive direction-change for a longstanding NES-spawned franchise. Turning Castlevania 3D has never worked out very well, but Konami put some serious money and creative muscle into this attempt - which started out as a game "like" Castlevania that eventually got co-opted into a kind of reboot. In this trailer, actor Jason Isaacs - at this point probably best known to most as Lucius Malfoy - gives us a very thorough rundown:

Monday, September 27, 2010

Texting of The Bread

Below, the trailer for "Texting of The Bread" - a new mobile game that marks ScrewAttack.com's first foray into game development:



The basic idea is it's a 2D spin on "Typing of The Dead" (re: "House of The Dead" as a keyboard-training game, cult-classic) with mobile texting and evil Gingerbread Men instead of zombies. I saw it in action back at SGC, and it looked like a lot of fun.

You can pick it up for your iPhone, iPad etc HERE.

Wednesday, September 22, 2010

Guys...

Look, I appreciate and am grateful for people posting and linking the show throughout the web, but can I ask a small favor?

When you do, can we maybe NOT do it as part of an "eff you!" or "your opinion is WRONG, here's the RIGHT one!" thing on a forum or talkback or whatever? I appreciate the passion and enthusiasm, but when the show - and, by extension, *I* - get used in such a way, it reflects bad on the show and reflects bad on me. Y'know?

Especially since, regarding the "Other M" episode... I wasn't looking to "refute" or "take-down" any other game critic or site; mainly just respond to recurring message-board trolling and memes.

So... by all means, re-post... but let's all have some tact, eh? ;)

Sunday, September 19, 2010

EPISODE 40: "Heavens to Metroid!"

update: as of 9/13/11 this video is at THIS LINK

Because YOU demanded it!!!


Remember: ALL NEW Game OverThinker episodes appear
EXCLUSIVELY on ScrewAttack.com!

Thursday, September 16, 2010

BUMP

The "Extra Credits" folks graciously did me the honor of giving "Episode 33: Building a Better Gamer" an (unsolicited) plug at the tail of their new episode this week. Since that WAS about half a year ago, I'm popping it back up right her for anyone who's come looking for it:



Coming Soon: An episode about a Special Lady.

Coming Later: Revolution.

Monday, September 6, 2010

Give "Other M" a shot

Alright, I don't generally use the "OverThinker" blog for anything but important stuff or new episodes, but I really want to jump into this whole thing:

If you've got a Wii, whether you're a "Metroid" fan or not, and if you ever take my advice on anything: Give "Metroid: Other M" a chance. Yes, even if you just rent it or buy it and sell it back right away if you hate it.

In this business, ANY game that takes a big risk deserves attention and respect, but taking a big risk with an established "franchise" deserves something close to a ribbon just for showing up. And make no mistake, ditching close to a decade of First-Person-Shooter "Metroid" games in favor of - think about this for a moment - a third-person 3D "Super Metroid" successor developed OUTSIDE the Nintendo inner-circle whose controls are mapped to what is essentially an NES CONTROLLER* is easily the biggest risk Nintendo has taken on a license since "Windwaker."

And though I've not beaten it yet, thus far I'm comfortable calling it dangerously-close to amazing.** So if my opinion counts for anything, I'm calling this a must-play - and it'd be a real shame if Nintendo and Team Ninja got the idea that this wasn't a direction they should continue pursuing.

So give it a shot, eh?

* Speaking of which, I would love someone from Team Ninja to explain to me exactly WHY this game - controlled with what amounts to an NES controller and, occasionally, an NES Zapper - controls better than any of their "Ninja Gaiden" games did with Dual Analogs and twice the buttons.

** Before anyone brings it up: YES, melodramatic voice-acting and YES, someone really should've caught what the unintended subtext of the narrative based solution to the "where do upgrades come from" problem might be to some people.