Space Pirates and Zombies Review

Space pirates and zombies is an indie game that is available for download from Steam. It focuses on building an empire of ships that will allow you to gain control of large quantities of Rez, a rare and useful element.

To accomplish this, you build a fleet of ships that must be strong enough to travel to the galactic core. There you will find the fabled "mother load" of Rez. Along the way you will be fighting government ships, pirates, and presumably zombie ships.

What I discovered after twenty minutes of earnest game-play was that the game core is enjoyable, but there are many flaws surrounding it. The first flaw is that after reading paragraphs upon paragraphs of introduction text you finally get to fly a ship around and do some tasks. However, in order to build a ship not only do you have to click through screens and screens worth of conversation, but you also have to navigate through numbers of frustrating options to actually build the ship.

It doesn't help that when I'm reading text on how to perform a task, there is a voice in the background saying either "I hope you are reading this," or "There will be a quiz on this later." I'm being honest when I say that the ratio of reading to game-play is about 4/1. Given these issues, I'm giving this game a 5 out of 10. I'm sure that if it was streamlined it be much more enjoyable.

Game App: Curiosity

This new App is the brain child of British game designer Peter Molyneux and is available from the apple and andriod stores free of charge. The game involves clicking on a myriad number of cublets that fall off to reveal the unknown number of successive layers of the cube and what lies beneath. The designer has promised that "something amazing" lies at its center and that "the whole world" must help in chipping them away. In the end only one person will be allowed to see a special message, who's context is yet unknown.

Having downloaded the app and played it shortly, I can vouch for the fact that clicking off the cublets is very satisfying. The app takes advantage of your natural curiosity to know what lies inside of a locked box. And, provides a direct outlet for your inner competitiveness to be the only person to learn the secret message.

I'm left curious what the purpose of this experiment is. Perhaps there is no center and everyone will be chipping away forever? Perhaps it is actually testing wide spread cooperation? Your guess is as good as mine, however for all of it's genius there is one big issue that many people seem to be running into.

I can hardly play this game for a solid minute before getting an "error connecting to server" message. And believe me, I've troubleshot this to best of my ability and it's not an issue on the user side. After some research I found a forum post from the Molyneux camp stating the following:

",so sorry for the 'error connecting to server' problem, we (and our server) are overwhelmed by the number of     curious people. Programmers have been on it since last night. We're surviving on coffee, sugar and looooong discussions right now."

While this game has the potential to be one of the most popular ever created, their ability to cope with high server traffic leaves me stunned. If I was able to play the game more I would probably give it a higher rating. However, their lack of capacity has caused continued frustrations for me and I have given up on the game for now. I may revisit it in the future but for now I'm putting it down until it's fixed. I would definitely suggest checking it out, but you may have to wait until it gains stability before you can enjoy it.

Halo 4 and The Forerunner Trilogy

343 Industries dropped Halo 4 today, marking the beginning of a new story arch in the Halo universe. 343 stated that they are planning on making this the start of a new trilogy that will focus on the legacy of the forerunners and how humanity has begun reverse engineering/emulating forerunner technology to their own ends.

After watching the trailer it's clear that this game's purpose is to inject new blood int a very profitable brand. Grander vistas, fewer covenant, and brand new enemies/weapons are a given. However, the nature of the new enemy is still unknown. It appears that Master Chief will be facing advanced mech-suits piloted by what look like burning human souls.

The trailer introduces the concept that A.I.'s loose stability over time, therefore stating that Cortana may have a life span. This will no doubt prove to be one of the central points of the game. And, I am personally interested in seeing how Cortana's rampancy affects her relationship with John-117.

I am personally very pleased that we will see more advanced tech and learn more about the history of the forerunners (and maybe possibly see them make an appearance??). However, I am unsure if this juggernaut will have enough momentum to carry my interest through two more games. I'll give 343 the benefit of the doubt and hope for the best.

The 2012 Rhode Island Comic Con

This past weekend, I went to the RI comic-con and had a blast. Having been to both the Boston and RI con's this year, I am surprised to say that this one was better. Where the Boston con was slightly larger, had a few well known celebs, and was completely over crowded; the Providence con was compact, had variety, and a lot of quality entertainment.

I walked around for about an hour and a half and found the usual merch/comics for sale. Several people were offering 3comics/1$ so I couldn't pass that up after finding a couple of gems. Then, after about 10 minutes of walking my inner fan-boy went crazy when I saw Richard Hatch, who is by the way an amazing actor and was featured in both the old and new Battle Star Galactica series. Continuing on through the crowd, my girlfriend also started going crazy for Nicholas Brendon, of the buffy the vampire slayer.


When you go to one of these things you expect to see a lot of the same thing. You'll see emerging artists, new comic series trying to gain momentum, and a lot of people wearing their favorite garb. However, the strangest thing I saw wasn't they guy dressed as a first generation game-boy. It was the reptile exhibit that took me by surprise as a man lifted a small crocodile into the air for people to take pictures with. They were selling snakes and tarantulas in fruit containers along with God knows what else.

After exiting the main area I got a look at two Delorean's one of which was used on the set of Back to the Future 3. Those along with a replica Adam West Batmobile and star wars speeder made the day well worth the 25 bucks I paid to get in. I definitely would suggest attending the next time they come around.

Check out: http://www.ricomiccon.com

Free Game: Nitrome's Ice breaker

I recently built myself a new bad-ass computer and am now ready to start doing something with this blog.

To that end, I started a new playlist on my youtube channel. I've been uploading videos to it about one of my favorite free miniclip games: Ice Breaker.

For real, if you have some time to kill and don't want to spend any money then this game is your ticket. Nitrome did a fantastic job with this flash game.

As far as free games go, it's hard to find one with replay value. And, this one has it in spades. It's challenging and rewarding while simultaneously frustrating and focused on small movements.

All in all I give this game a free game 9/10. Keep it up Nitrome.

Click here for the link to go to the playthrough.

Welcome!

While this blog is still under construction feel free to enjoy it's content. It is a part of my YouTube channel. This blog will feature my videos, images I find interesting, quick thoughts/commentary and whatever else I want to post.

For now feel free to enjoy this picture of a hot chick...

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