G-g-games.

(note: I don't have much free time, so I've been writing this post for like 4 days. Some information might be quite old).

Ryan got his copy of Super Street Fighter IV yesterday. He texted me at midnight wanting to fight. So of course I did and it was a lot of fun. Lindsay was uploading some stuff so it was a bit laggy, but it's not a big deal.

Street Fighter handles lag in the correct way for a fighting game, which is to freeze the action on both ends, so every frame is still represented correctly. There's no room for the teleporting tricks that make an FPS playable, so the freeze frame lag is totally tolerable. It might throw you off here and there, but you don't keep fighting normally only to find out you've been pummeled when the connection catches up.

I picked up Mount and Blade: Warband on the PC. It's an expansion to the original Mount and Blade that adds multiplayer. Otherwise, they're basically identical from what I understand. I grabbed a demo a few weeks back and I liked it. It looks kind of rough and it's not exactly easy to pick up and play, but I really like the idea behind the realistic combat. The single player was already pretty intriguing, but the added multiplayer sold me.



I actually bought it a week ago, and so far I've put about 15 minutes into it. But it's definitely a cool little game. I'm terrible on horseback, but I really like how you have to really be precise and work for every hit. It's not for everyone, sure, but it seems pretty good.

There was also a really good deal on SWAT 4 Gold, so I snatched that up as well. Gold includes the original SWAT 4 as well as the expansion, The Stetchkov Syndicate. I've always been curious about SWAT 4 since I knew it was developed by Irrational Games (who made Bioshock, System Shock 2 and Freedom Force). I guess I didn't know what the game would be, though, since Irrational makes these atmosphere-heavy games with lots of story, but the SWAT 4 title seems to... generic.



I've only played the training and the first mission (three times) but so far I'm totally, totally digging it. It turns out it does have some of the atmosphere Irrational is known for, but none of the story. The missions are completely unrelated, but there settings seem to have a lot more character than you'd expect. It's believable and even a bit creepy.

The game itself is very, very tactical. You lead a team of five on each mission; 2 two-man fire-teams and a sniper. You can order the fire-teams around together, or split them up and use the cameras in each unit's helmet to see what they see, issue orders and scout out levels. You use the camera to control the sniper, as well.

You can give orders from a contextual menu, and depending on the target, there can be up to a dozen commands. But it all works pretty slick, so it becomes fairly effortless.

Add civilians, hostages and uncooperative innocents into the mix, plus some random NPC placement, and things get interesting. The also stresses non-lethal force, so in addition to guns you have a multitude of tools to take out suspects and help subdue belligerent innocents.

Very, very cool. Already completely worth the few bucks I spent.

I won't say much about it, because I haven't play it yet, but today Zeno Clash came out on XBLA. I've been following this game for a long time. I downloaded the demo on PC once, but it ran like crap so I decided to wait. Now I finally get to try it out.



Zeno Clash is so bizarre I can't help but be interested. Father-Mother is the stuff of nightmares.

And finally, you probably should go download the videogame/rap mashup Gold N' Fly by Alex Kresovich. It samples from Goldeneye 007 from the N64 and I almost didn't give it a listen. I thought "N64 music? Goldeneye? Did that even have memorable music?" and the answer is "holy crap. it totally did."

I instantly recognized all the music, and the mixes are outstanding to boot. It's good stuff.



And finally, check out the Humble Indie Bundle. It's a pay-what-you-want promotion for a group of indie games that is hard to pass up. You can't go wrong if you're looking for a worthy cause. It supports indie developers and awesome charities, and you can split the money as you see fit (I split it 50/50).

Aquaria and World of Goo are both phenomenal games, and I've heard enough good things about Gish, Penumbra Overture and Lugaru to make me interested.



The 'rap' might be kind of embarrassing, but it's a pretty righteous deal.