As many of you know, most of the writers for this blog live in Australia. And for that fact we have been subjected to one of the most backward and condescending ratings systems for computer games in the developed world. Whereas movies can receive classification up to R18+ – restricted to individuals aged 18 or more – the maximum rating allowed for computer games is, at present, only MA15 – that is, restricted to people above the age of 15. Anything which might breach that limit is therefore refused classification, and hence is banned from our shores. This has seen the watering down or total ban of various supposedly wonderful computer games in the last few years, having us local computer gamers disappointed and angry.

Continue reading Australian Government puts R18+ Rating for computer games on the table

DOOM is one of those games that helped to define a genre. From running around with a myriad of realistic and ridiculous weaponry, to the blood and gore, and even the occasionally questionable imagery, DOOM helped define the First Person Shooter for what it was going to become. If you want proof of the games importance, you just have to watch the video here to see Bill Gates deliver a talk about Window 95 from inside the game. The games popularity saw it ported to pretty much every system available at the time in various flavours and forms.

Now, John Carmack himself, has brought it to the iPhone.

Continue reading DOOM Classic now available in the App Store for the iPhone

At long last Wolfenstein 3D, the classic first person shooter that helped define the genre (if not the industry), has been released for the iPhone. It’s all here, the cheesy sounds and music, the funny ‘Aiiieeee’ of the Nazi’s that you kill and the flat world that has no stairs. I spent far too much time playing this game, and I mean far too much time. In order to illustrate how much time I spent playing this game, as a right handed person, on a bet, completed the game left handed… Yes, that’s right, I had no life at university…

Continue reading Wolfenstein 3D on the iPhone

Of all the wonderful things you can do in Dwarf Fortress, one of the glaring omissions is the lack of a multi-player mode. Fortunately, the rabid Dwarf Fortress community has thought of a great way around this – the Succession Game! For those of you unfamiliar with Dwarf Fortress, check out this post. The game is a real-time simulation of a Dwarven colony. So each player takes over the running of the fortress for a single year, handing over the reigns to a new player, who must deal with the situation left behind as best they can.

One of the most well-known and best loved succession games tells the story of Boatmurdered. This town was beset by numerous problems, including a never-ending feud between the Dwarfs and the seemingly endless supply of rampaging killer elephants, a population of useless and lazy nobles, miasma, floods and criminals. The whole story can be read here. The game was played right the way through from embarkation until the fortress was finally abandoned by its 2 sole survivors, the mass murderer Guerilla Burialgears and a child, Dodok Sabrefrenzies. The tale is extremely funny, and even those completely unfamiliar with Dwarf Fortress should find it amusing.

“Welcome to F@#%ing Boatmurdered!”

I’ll get right to the point – I love this game. It has an awesome visual feel to it – very Diablo in mood and atmosphere and the controls and game play are simple but effective. The graphics on the game, and the polished feel really add to the games appeal as well. Despite having great controls, this is also the first iPhone game to give me the beginnings of RSI (although I suspect that is more due to the hours I have spent playing it than anything else). Like some other games, I struggled at first, so I thought I’d post the lessons I have learnt playing the game in the hope that it helps a few others out there.

Killing Vampire ‘Bosses’

This stumped for a little while. At the end of a couple of levels, you need to kill the ‘Dracula’ boss (the vampire in the long red cloak). You can throw a lot at this guy and he’ll keep hurting you with his annoying green beam of hurty energy and not go down. This all changes if you are using the crossbow. Obvious, I know, but it didn’t occur to me that the developer’s would have thought of that (sorry guys…). One or two shots with the crossbow at the right spot, and the dude is out, leaving a nice glowing pentagram for you to collect…

Power Ups

This again stumped me the first couple of times that I played. There is a little green square that lights up when you earn a power up. Click it, and you are presented with a random list of power ups to choose from. I have my favourite combo’s, which look a bit like this:

• Bonus loot + Telekinesis = Lots of extra ammo and health. The bonus loot is really handy to get extra stuff dropping from slain werewolves and the like. This extra loot can be hard to run around and collect at times, so why not have it come to you. This is where Telekinesis comes in – the loot starts drifting towards you as you run around making the collection job a heck of a lot easier.
• Crossbow Master = Killing Spree. You get to fire three shots from your crossbow at once, and as crossbow bolts fly straight throw monsters and into the monsters behind them instantly killing everything that they touch, this is quite effective.
• Power Shot + Telekinesis = Safely keeping your distance. Power Shot pushes monsters away with each shot that doesn’t kill them to a safe distance. If you hit them again, however, any loot that they drop will be quite far away. Telekinesis (see above) is the obvious solution to this.

There are others that are useful to, like Fieldrunner (move quickly) Deep Pockets (carry more ammo) and Bloodlust (cause more damage when you are hurt).

Keep Moving

If you stand still, you are going to get swamped. It may be tempting to get your back to a wall, but that isn’t going to help you very much when you are surrounded by an endless wall of monsters. If you are worried about moving through packs of werewolves (and realistically, who isn’t these days…) then get the Ninja power up (allows you to deflect some of the attacks).

What the Weapons do

• Pistol – push back a little, require multiple hits per kill
• Shotgun – push back more, require two or so shots to kill, small area of effect
• Crossbow – no push back, usually one shot per kill
• Blunderbuss – no push back, like a grenade launcher, one shot per kill, area of effect
• Mini-gun – big push back, haven’t worked out shots to kill ratio (too dizzy from spinning the gun around wildly)
• Rocket Launcher – area of effect, great range, big damage

iDracula (iTunes link) $0.99 (AUD 1.19)

Zombie Attack! for the iPhone has kept me happily distracted protecting the beer shack vigorously against the zombie onslaught for more hours than I care to admit. The recent update has seen the game improved immensely with new ways of controlling the dude, cheaper building, a “secret” weapon in the beer shack and the dude and shack healing themselves.

With the upgrade of the game I have started getting to level 30 pretty frequently, and I assuming that that is not too bad seeing as a lot of my friends who play the game struggle to get to level 15. Being eager to help my fellow man during the zombie apocalypse (not a guarantee…) I am posting Rupert’s Guide to Killing Zombies for Zombie Attack!.

Step One – Hurt Zombies are Easier to Pick Off (or, Why the Cannons Don’t Suck)

Hurt zombies in Zombie Attack! suffer huge penalties. For lost limbs, they lose attack strength, for lost legs they start to wander in circles (taking longer to get to the shack) and if they lost their heads they wander aimlessly only attacking if they get to a target by accident.

Using this strategy we do two things. Firstly, use the Cannon to hit the groups of zombies as they arrive through the gate. The area of effect weapon is a good way of hitting lots of zombies with one hit. Flank the cannon with swinging axes as this will definitely remove a limb or two (see above).

If your cannons and axes are doing the job properly, then your zombies will be ready for step two.

Step Two – The Beer Shack Must Be Protected

Once you have your cannons and axes chopping up zombies, its time to clean them up. The Guns are not particularly good at taking out a healthy zombie before it gets to your shack, but they are very good at polishing them off if they are hurt badly.

I place one gun at the corner of the shack first so that it can hit the three areas you need to concentrate on – the direct line to your shack and the right and left flank. Build this gun up to its maximum and be prepared to man it bravely (see Step Three below). Follow this one up with a gun on each flank to protect the sides of the shack and to proved some crossfire (see Step Four below).

Step Three – Be Prepared To Die

One of the new additions to the game is that you get a 20% bonus to any gun that you man. This is extremely useful if you start to get swamped or just haven’t got the money to upgrade yet.

Zombies will also sort of chase your dude for a little while as well which can be very useful in distracting them from breaking into your beer shack.

If you are like me, the death of the dude is not important – he comes back and its not about points, its about killing zombies. Its not unusual for me to go through 3-4 dudes…

Step Four – Crossing Arcs of Fire

After the initial set up of your defences is complete, its time to make sure that your zombies are getting hit by at least 2 weapons at any given time. This is best done by making sure that your weapons at the back of the line are upgraded first so that they can reach the zombies at the front, and also adding new weapons around the central line as soon as is feasible.

If you aren’t playing the game, you probably should be, its not expensive and lots and lots of fun.

Zombie Attack! (iTunes link) USD 0.99 | AUD 1.19

If anyone is getting much past level 30 50, can you let me know how in the comments please?

Update: I am getting past level 45 almost every game now. I am posting the set up that I am using in the hopes that it will aid my fellow zombie hunters…

One game has been sadly missing from iPhones – a Rogue style game. Well, better than getting ‘a’ Rogue style game, Gandreas Games (the same people who brought us the awesome RPG dice roller Dicenomicon…) have released ‘the’ Rogue game for the iPhone. Those of you who have played Moria (a game we are VERY fond of around here…) will immediately recognise the game (Moria was heavily influenced by Rogue). Each game is randomly generated with each dungeon level different from the last.

The iPhone port of the game is really well done. There are two views – in landscape you see the traditional ASCII generated levels, in portrait view you get a zoomed in look with graphics.

The developers have also been really clever with the commands, building in custom swipes for each command making control of the game quite simple (once you familiarise yourself with the commands…). They have also included the help manual in the game as well, preventing the need to open a browser or exit the game.

Feature list from the developer’s website:

• Playable in either “ASCII” mode, or graphics mode (just rotate the device to switch)
• Obscure keyboard commands replaced with a simple taps for movement, or a handy command picker.
• Commands can also be activated by a unique gesture based command – want to search for a secret door? Swipe across the top of the play area (all the gestures are shown on the command picker for easy reference)
• Graphics can be zoomed in/out via pinch
• Completely faithful Rogue experience (all the levels, monsters, potions, scrolls, etc…)

The game is free in the App Store (iTunes link).

By the title of this blog you may think I am talking about people who spend so much time on Facebook that they become like zombies, Pale skin, unable to communicate in person except by grunts, but despite this rather patronising geek stereotype I am talking about the instances of Zombie culture on the worlds favourite social networking site.

When I first joined I was invited to install the VAMPIRES application, where, Zombies Vampires and Werewolves attacked each other on a daily basis. A simple concept, everyone else seemed to have it, and who could resist attacking a Catholic Schoolgirl vampire?

Recently I have been playing two of the Mindjolt applications games. Zombie Hell, and my personal favourite, Zombie Kitten. Zombie Hell involves protecting your house and ten inhabitants from waves of zombies by collecting cash, buying weapons and attacking the zombies. It reminds me of the old game SYNDICATE, or as much as a flash game can. Zombie Kitten fits my previous rules for a good game and would look familiar to anyone who played the 80’s Dr Who vs Daleks game.

But there is more to Zombies on Facebook than the odd application alone. After all the Zombie talk on Dice of Doom and replays of Simpson Halloween episodes I decided to do search for Zombies on Facebook. A quick search will show more than 30 Applications, over 500 events, 40 pages and over 500 groups.

The groups particularly interested me, titles such as “Real friends kill friends who become zombies.”, “All You People Who Don’t Believe In Zombies… you’ll be dead first”, and “EQUAL RIGHTS FOR ZOMBIES”, certainly tweek the interest of anyone who watched too much Twilight Zone as a youth.

Living in the Hunter Valley though I looked straight away at Australian Zombie Outbreak Defence, Newcastle and Hunter Region. This band of 30 brothers is officially classed as a Volunteer organization by facebook and discusses such important matters as possible outbreaks and bases of defence. Personally I think Christchurch cathedral is the best place to be in Newcastle, or failing that, I will just drive to a mine site out of town, away from food sources and with lots of explosives at hand.

In short, if you are worried about the Zombie apocalypse, Facebook could be the place for you to prepare. And people say the internet is a waste of time.. PPfftt, First to be brain food come the undead rising.

There has been a sudden rush of Tower Defence games released for the iPhone recently, and for the most part, they OK to play. What there hasn’t been is any real innovation in the genre as it is played on the iPhone – and this is what makes Zombie Attack! absolutely brilliant…

First of all, the setting – you control a ’survivor’ who runs around a fenced off area protecting the shack. The shack has a health score, so it can get hit once or twice and it’ll be alright, but if it gets hit too much, you lose the shack (and the game). You also have as many ’survivors’ as you need (just in case they don’t live up to their name…). You control the survivor by tilting the device (you can change the calibration in the options…) and he can build/upgrade various defences around the paddock.

Zombies come charging in pretty quickly so you need to build swinging axes, mounted machine guns, flame throwers and canons as quickly as possible. You can also get the zombies to follow your little dude into traps as well, or distract them from attacking the shack (remember, the beer is in the shack, so you have to look after it…).

How the game is different, and true to its setting (something that can be surprisingly rare) is that you don’t really build mazes. You have to concentrate on setting up crossfire, funnelling the attackers and distracting (engaging in hand to hand combat at times…) the zombies. In this way it is not a typical Tower Defence game, and some people might be thrown by that at the beginning. But believe me, this is better.

There are little details as well that I love. Zombies that lose a limb, lose 25% of their combat efficiency with each one. Zombies without a head wander around aimlessly until they get to something they can attack. This gives an incredible feeling of actually being there and panicking trying to save the beer shack from the hordes and hordes of mindless shack hating zombies that come rolling in.

Overall its an incredible game from IUGO and the best part? Its only a dollar to buy…

• iTunes Link USD 0.99 / AUD 1.19)

Whether we talk of gaming, movies, or literature, a single important choice is the setting. By this I mean the time period, level of technology, and the like. In particular, the time period is a very strong influence on a game or story. However, whilst all time is equal, some periods are not as equal as others.

If we look at games and literature, we can see a definite trend to favouring certain time periods. These time periods are chosen because they make for interesting stories and games. But what are they? Lets start at the beginning:

Ancient Rome: A strong choice for several types of game and story. Prime games included Caesar and Age of Empires I. These particular games thrive in this time period because they show off the dramatic architecture and techology of the era. Book series, such as Falco, also thrive on this age of enlightenment.

Medieval: We take a big skip forwards. Why? Because the dark ages are boring. But a good medieval setting is fantastic. A true medieval setting has little or no gunpowder, which maintains the relative elegance of combat, which is important for many stories and games. Games such as Age of Empires II hit this age perfectly, and there are many others. Stories of King Arthur, and knights in general, fall into this category: it is immensely popular for storytelling. The combination of dramatic battles and the perpetual struggle of a chivalrous knight make this setting perfect for almost every kind of game or story. The first modern novel, Don Quixote, falls into this category.

Medieval Fantasy: A side branch of medieval, it is also very popular, both now and historically. Elves, Dwarves, and magic are added to an already strong setting. Gunpowder is still generally limited; if gunpowder is present, we tend to end up with medieval fantasy steampunk (let everyone remember: Warhammer has steam tanks). D&D, Lord of the Rings, Warcraft… there are too many to list. The exact flavour of fantasy varies, but it works well.

Fantasy + Sci Fi: I honestly didn’t want to mention this, but it exists. Early Ultima games, Might and Magic, the Shannara books… they’re all fantasy with random bits of sci fi mixed in. I think it’s silly, but hey. Now, lets move on as quickly as possible.

Age of Gunpowder: Specifically muskets and cannon. Strictly no rifles; why? Because rifles break the delicate balance of dramatic, heroic combat, which is important in many stories and games. An example of a classic tale of this era is The Three Musketeers. Any stories or games involving pirates fall smack bang in the middle of this age. Sid Meier’s Pirates! is a perfect example of a game using this time period.

Renaissance: (Post-Rifles) No. No no no. Combat is boring, because everyone has rifles which can kill too easily, and social interaction has moved on from stories of heroic chivalry to silly romantic squabbles. Oh, sure, there are a few decent stories, but mostly you get stuff like Pride and Prejudice. *sigh* Unfortunately there are a lot of novels of this age, but you’ll be hard-pressed to find many games.

Steampunk: Gunpowder or Renaissance with steam powered everything. Or, alternatively, simply with pre-electicity technology that is far too advanced. It’s not big by comparison to other areas, but it’s there. Frankenstein could be considererd steampunk, but considering it was written in this era it’s more a Modified Present Day (see below). Medieval fantasy settings that go one step too far can end up here: Warcraft II has submarines, for example, and don’t get me started on Eberron. Anything with pre-modern airships is pushing into this category.

WWI: I’m mentioning this because I’m not mentioning this. Almost nothing is set in WWI. WWI is dull, and was historically a stupid slugfest with a lot of people dying in not very nice ways. Not fun for anyone involved. You’ll occassionally get movies dealing with WWI, but overall they deal with how horrible it was. WWI is a terrible setting for a game or story.

1920s-1930s: Once we get past WWI, things start becoming interesting again. Many games and stories of this period are focussed on organised crime in the USA. Games such as Mafia use this perfectly. There are other stories as well: HP Lovecraft’s stories are this time period, although they also fit into Modified Present Day (see below), and you’ll find a huge variety of other types of stories in this period.

WWII: A perfect modern setting. Combat is interesting because people got good at it again. Drama is interesting because of the occupation of France and the fact it was a total war. The force of evil is perfect because Nazis are the perfect enemy: everyone says they’re evil, they fought with a good mix of fairness and sneakyness, and they’ve already been defeated; no one is going to complain if you’re fighting Nazis. There are too many war books and movies to list. Great games include Battlefield 1942 and the like, plus Commandos, several strategy games, and a few tabletop miniature games. Indiana Jones movies fit into this category because he’s fighting Nazis.

Current Day: I skip Vietnam and such because many such things count as Current Day, having been written then, and now there’s nothing you can do with Vietnam that you can’t do with the Current Day or WWII. Anyway, the Current Day is a great setting simply because people are familiar with it. Drama is more interesting if someone can relate with the people in the story. For games, the Current Day has good combat mainly because of small squad-based operations, like counter-terrorist operations. Overall, it’s a pretty decent option.

Modified Current Day: Command and Conquer, I’m looking at you. The whole series is a prime offender. In books and movies, any time the writer suddenly thinks the story would be better with robots, vampires, or lasers, you get Modified Current Day. As commented above, many stories written some time ago, such as Frankenstein, fit in this category.

Futuristic: Science fiction has long been popular. Star Wars is arguably the best in this category, because it also feels like it’s set in WWII, making it a blend of two excellent settings. The overall technological level of the setting varies, but there’s often spaceflight, or advanced AI at the very least. This setting is strong because of the perpetual human desire to expand and discover what is beyond our horizons. When you have a setting that is literally the size of the galaxy, or bigger, the limit really is the imagination. Perfect game examples are Halo and Freelancer, whilst literary examples include Asimov’s books, and there are many movies as well, such as The Matrix. There are also piles of TV series, such as Stargate.

There we have it. Overall, the most popular of the settings for games seem to be Medieval Fantasy, WWII, Modified Current Day, and Futuristic, with literature branching out more. These settings are deep enough and interesting enough to provided oodles of entertainment, and keep people coming back for more. Besides, as Pokemon has taught us: if something’s selling, keep producing more of the same. I predict we’ll keep seeing more of these settings for many years to come.

If you think there’s more to anything above, or think I’ve missed something, join the discussion by clicking on the Comments link below.