STORY 8/10 : While the story is barebones, the way it’s presented and experienced is unlike anything else. Without giving away too much: it’s about a robot who wants to save his girlfriend from a bunch of bully robots. The theme feels like the developers wanted to take the most basic video game story and prove they could do it better. It’s presented without any dialogue, filled with emotion like a classic silent film, it even interjects slapstick humor the way a silent film would. It’s an amazingly refreshing experience, that is easily accessible for anyone. While the story was very good it wasn’t the driving force of the game which I think the developers knew. They’re times where you forget the story because you’re so deep into the setting and puzzles.

GAME PLAY 8/10: The game play of Machinarium is your typical point and click of adventure game from a side scrolling perspective.  The controls are very simple: Use your mouse to move around by clicking on various things within the frame, if you see something of importance you click on it and interact with an particular way like picking up or grabbing something within your inventory and applying it to something within the world. Oftentimes point and click adventure games can be very boring and generic (due to a simple nature: point and click) and while Machinarium fits the typical mold,  It has so much charm and character that you hardly realize you’re playing a point and click game. Machinarium can be very challenging, it’s puzzles are deep and thought provoking and can often make you sit and think for a while. There are few surprises within the game that really break the mold. I’m not going to spoil anything but the game is really worth checking out just to experience those really amazing surprises. What really sets machinarium apart is its atmosphere, it’s atmosphere  is nothing like any other game.

AUDIO/VISUAL  19/20: Games today are more often viewed in their polygon count rather than artistic integrity.  We often forget how beautiful game can be because we’re inundated with beautiful graphics but terrible art.  Machinarium is a game that really bridges the gap between work of art and playable piece of entertainment.  I would often stare at one screen for various amounts of time and just enjoy the hand drawn animation. The surprising part with all the beauty that the visuals present; the audio doesn’t lack and lives up to the high standards the visuals set.  The soundtrack is comprised of serene gentle pieces that fit the game perfectly. Even considering  that there’s no dialogue in game you still have a strong sense of connection with the characters because of their chatter language is very cute. .

LONGEVITY 7/10: While the game is relatively short and can be beaten in roughly 6 to 8 hours and there’s enough charm to keep going back for more.  Once you solve puzzles there’s hardly a reason in playing again, it loses a lot of its charm because a lot of the fun is solving the really challenging puzzles.  But it’s definitely worth playing again, it’s one of those games that you let sit for a while, forget how to solve the puzzles, pick it up dust it off and realize what made you love it in the first place.

OVERALL: 42/50 For 10 dollars you can’t beat machinarium; Play it, enjoy it and fight with your girlfriend while you solve the harder puzzles like I did,  you will have a great time.

One trend that really gets under my skin is when a company decides to release promotional content for their game and thinks it is better to release a trailer; that has only the vaguest game-play similarities to the actual game. Rather then spending money to improve the game, they decide to waste it on something that pushes me further away, promotional content. Because of their trickery; It draws my attention further away from the game.

A good example is recently released “Section 8″ , a shooter game of some sorts, for the xbox 360. I only had the most minute details about the game; hoping to be educated about the game I looked into it, but unfortunately the developers fell into the crux of realeasing a trailer that gave no real information about the game:

Still, while I respect that it’s a fancy trailer, it seems like such a waste of time to put important assets into something that will just mislead your customers.  We  have to expect that the game shown may or may not look anything like the final game. Here’s the actual in-game trailer released much later:

While impressive, I still had to go out of my way to look it up, and I’m not saying it’s a bad game. It’s probably a great game, (well it looks generic but that is another issue) I just expect a game to impress me when I first hear about it not be mislead with information (or lack of) that I’m not going to care about. I wish we were always presented with someone that was an actual representation of the game.

If this is a trend the industry wishes to keep, then why not make material that is cinematic, but  tells something the final game wont  give us. Give us the incentive to go out of our way and look up the game, not blow it off because it’s mindless promotional content.

Your Colour Coordinator, Dan

Sorry folks! I know I’ve left your hearts and minds empty, you were all saying: “where’s my GFC?” Well, the GFC returns!

You thought: “The interstellar light came back for Dan and  returned him to his home world.”  But alas, it’s an earthly problem thats burdened me: school and vacation! It’s all over, all dead and gone. The GFC will return and flourish once again.

Check out the new posts!

Your Color Coordinator, Dan

Do your self a favor; don’t be a pussy.

Brutal legend was released the 13th of october 2009 on the PS3 and Xbox360.

STORY: 3/10 Deadly creatures is your typical third person action adventure, you move from point A to point B and the next level loads. It never quite deviates from this rail ideology, while you still have the illusion of three dimensional movement you still are constantly, blindly moving forward for no reason.  Both the scorpion and the tarantula can walk on walls which may seem like you’re moving away from the path mentality, but this is just a cleaver illusion. The only time the game it deviates from the path is to present you with a boss battle which always involves you fighting something much larger or much stronger. Which seem epic if you couldn’t defeat each one with an incredibly boring or simple gimmick. Like, what, for example; headbutting a rattle snakes tail, I really wish i was kidding about that but, sadly, I am not. The whole game sums up with you finding one of the guys you were following for no reason, stinging him and just keep trudging forward, how poetic.

GAME PLAY4/20 The game play in deadly creatures, is it’s biggest downfall. When you’re not spending your time walking in a strait line, you’re using your arsenal of fighting moves. Which play out like a match from the WWE…. except without the awesome!!!, in concept sounds fun but the execution is tiresome and difficult, not because of the inter-species blend of fighting styles, but because they are hard, sloppy and do not flow with the game. For example when you want to do a technique which makes the scorpion burrow into the ground then pop out and attack.  You have to flip the wii remote up side down then flick it upwards to pop out of the ground,while still controlling with the nunchuck…. It’s like flipping a burger while trying to piss.  The moves don’t match with the action presented. Anyone with a dogs intelligence realizes digging is a scooping action. In deadly creatures its a flip upside down and waggle action…..great…. if you have the capability of making a digging action, make a fucking digging action! While the fighting could be redeemable if you could adapt to it, it doesn’t flow into the movement, there is a slight pause after every time you leave a battle or do any kind of action, so when trying to have fun you’re always interrupting yourself with out any choice. Its like they’re trying to stunt your progress intentionally to lengthen the game.

AUDIO-VISUAL 6/10 The one area where this game shines is in the A/V department. The audio in the game its Eire, clean and minimal, the nature of the audio fits with the premise of the game. It builds the atmosphere and helps you feel small while still feeling powerful.  The graphics are good for what the developers have to work with; animations are smooth, graphics are clean and its style is very interesting, if it weren’t for the lazy execution. Randomly the insects and NPCs will move in a hexagonal pattern, they wont turn their hips to place themselves in the correct direction, rather they will just snap into the correct direction they need to face, which just looks strange.

LONGEVITY 1/10 Why after beating the game would anyone want to try it over again, could be an exersize in frustration, or perhaps, you’re a sadist. Whatever the reason, Once you finish this game there are no incentives to play it over again. Nothing is unlocked, nothing special is revealed, nothing special happens. The laughable ending could be a reason, if you wanted to show someone how ridiculous the game is but, I’m sure someone has already beaten us to that. Actually I’ll check, found it: Deadly Creatures Ending, I just saved you money, you ungrateful bastards.

OVERALL 14/50 Don’t play deadly creatures, unless, you love it when someone accidentally flicks you in the eye, or when you stub you toe, and if that’s the case, enjoy!… You fucking sicko…

Your Colour Coordinator, Dan

I, Daniel Karlberg am the fortunate one to be granted such a divine place in history by passing my interstellar knowledge to you. Before I give away any of my secrets about the universe, I wish to concentrate my knowledge onto one aspect of life: video games! Because video games share such a close relation to the interstellar power, I have a close relationship and can analyze games in a new, magical way.

So, I’ve started this review blog because I play a lot of video games, and I write a lot. Also, I spend a lot of time online. I figured I should bring my unique perspective on life, gaming and etc. to the masses. I’ve decided that the blog is mostly going to start off as more of a personal blog and perhaps branch off from there. If it begins to catch on I will update it more often, add news, previews and other such things. If it remains small, I promise to continue to update it at least once a week.

Based on reader feedback, I will write more, or write less. When reviews and other articles start to go up please comment, review and spread the word around about the blog (if you like it), so I can give you good people more of what you love! And, if you don’t like anything, don’t be afraid to say something “constructive”, I appreciate the feedback. With the reviews, I’m trying to play catch-up with the current release schedule, so it will take me a while to get newer games on the blog. But, for now, some of the games are at minimum a few months old. I promise I will catch up very soon. I will also report and review some obscure games on here too, just to even things out a bit.

Thanks for reading,
Your Colour Coordinator, Dan