Cloudphobia – are you afraid of clouds?

Almost every sci-fi anime about huge robots (and underage lolitas piloting them, but I digress) features a scene where the robot is manouevering wildly between hundreds of rockets flying in space, smoke trails tracing curvy lines behind them. I have sometimes asked myself a question – why hasn’t this become a motive of a videogame just yet? Wouldn’t it be cool to dodge myriads of rockets and fire kabongazillions of bullets in the sky balet?

If you ever had similar thoughts, here is your game: Cloudphobia is a classical 2D shoot’em up like the ones we used to get in the good old times, featuring giant robots and anime schoolgirls. Note: my first connotation when seeing the title was the vision of someone who totally hates Final Fantasy VII and its main protagonist.

As for the game itself, there are a few interesting twists to it – player cannot allow enemies to pass them and slip through, as they can damage the mothership, there are markers showing were the enemies will arrive and there are missions in which you pilot a robot that carries a sword instead of the gun. Yes, giant robot with a sword – quite neat, eh? Where Cloudphobia got me, however, was in the level where player is guiding their robot between hundreds of missiles swirling around. Sure, the gameplay is essentially a 2D affair, but the beautiful animated background gives the game some depth and sense of scale. Also, it’s damn pretty in movement, as you can see in the video below:

You can also see a more anime-ish trailer here. Once done, go check the game homepage: there is a two-level demo begging to be downloaded and since Cloudphobia is available in digital distribution, it’s easy to buy a full game immediately after trying.

[Found via AVClub]

Harpooned

I love Japan, I really do. But despite many things that make it great, Japan also has its dark sides. One of these rather dreadful things is the Japanese approach towards whaling. I wouldn’t be mentioning it here on Barts News (this is principally a game blog after all), were it not for Conor O’Kane, a man who has chosen a rather unusual media channel to draw people’s attention to the issue: he made a PC game about it.

Called Harpooned, the game is in fact a clever satire disguised as your average shoot’em up game. Player controls a whaling ship, killing whales and collecting their meat, while taking care not too shoot protesters. All this is accompanied by sarcastic messages such as “scientific bonus” taking a jab at Japanese explanation that this cruelty takes place just for scientific purposes.

As player progresses through the game, more whales get harvested for scientific research and fewer of them remain in the sea. The comments between the game levels will be saying things like “Our research shows that there are less and less whales in the area – we must kill more of them to find out why it is so” until finally there won’t be nothing in the cold waters but scientific vessel and icebergs…

Average player will be able to complete the game in couple of minutes, but it is not really so much a game but rather a statement disguised as a game, a way of drawing attention to the real-life problem. Therefore I couldn’t really say that its brevity is a handicap, on the contrary – average player will be able to reach the end of the game before they get bored and witness the empty cold sea themselves. I think this was intentional in order to make an impression on the player – it certainly worked in my case.

It’s also worth noticing that the production values are high for an indie game made by one man – from pretty graphics, through blood effects, to sad music, everything is polished and carries a sense of style. There also is an online score board for the best whalers scientists.

Download the game at Harpooned website (there is also a Mac version available) and if you can’t spare five to ten minutes to complete it, at least have a look at the trailer below:

Now, will anyone make a similar game for Taji dolphins?

Also, tits

The flood of PSP titles has recently diminished to a trickling stream and now is reaching drought status. This is going to be my excuse for describing two incoming PSP titles that I am itching to check: Ikkitousen Eloquent Fist and Moe Moe Niji Taisen Deluxe.

The first one looks like a simple scrolling beat’em up game with added RPG elements and “pantsu flashing”. The game’s name contains a pun, since in Engrish “eloquent” becomes “ero-quent” (check here why this is funny to some). Still, graphics are cool even if somewhat NSFW. I think I’m going to give it a try, if only to check whether the actual game part is worth anything (and train my Japanese, of course).

The second one is a mixture of strategy game, World War II and breasts. As much as I don’t think Nazi references should meet with some extreme retaliation unless the context suggests they are being used in their real evil meaning (Nazi propaganda), I also feel a little uneasy about the game with cute little Nazi girls.

I personally can’t forget visiting Japanese izakaya where Iron Cross was hanging on the wall in a central place, right above the little altar. Not that I was angry or anything, but it seemed a little, hmm, tasteless to have Nazi decoration out there. So this game is a little on the risky side for me – but I do not condemn it, it’s only somewhat tasteless entertainment after all.

Nevertheless, now you know what PSP games I am waiting for, having already finished God of War and being stuck in Crisis Core. And I’ve brought it to your attention in order to just signal certain cultural differences in approach to digital entertainment.

Also, tits

The flood of PSP titles has recently diminished to a trickling stream and now is reaching drought status. This is going to be my excuse for describing two incoming PSP titles that I am itching to check: Ikkitousen Eloquent Fist and Moe Moe Niji Taisen Deluxe.

The first one looks like a simple scrolling beat’em up game with added RPG elements and “pantsu flashing”. The game’s name contains a pun, since in Engrish “eloquent” becomes “ero-quent” (check here why this is funny to some). Still, graphics are cool even if somewhat NSFW. I think I’m going to give it a try, if only to check whether the actual game part is worth anything (and train my Japanese, of course).

The second one is a mixture of strategy game, World War II and breasts. As much as I don’t think Nazi references should meet with some extreme retaliation unless the context suggests they are being used in their real evil meaning (Nazi propaganda), I also feel a little uneasy about the game with cute little Nazi girls.

I personally can’t forget visiting Japanese izakaya where Iron Cross was hanging on the wall in a central place, right above the little altar. Not that I was angry or anything, but it seemed a little, hmm, tasteless to have Nazi decoration out there. So this game is a little on the risky side for me – but I do not condemn it, it’s only somewhat tasteless entertainment after all.

Nevertheless, now you know what PSP games I am waiting for, having already finished God of War and being stuck in Crisis Core. And I’ve brought it to your attention in order to just signal certain cultural differences in approach to digital entertainment.

Status update – iPhone hacking, Japanese, Ubuntu on M200

This time instead of pitifully justifying my absence, I will just briefly let you know what has been devouring my time :

- I try to revise Japanese for my JLPT exam. Due to other activities this is not going well and I am probably going to fail it. Here are some cool pages that are very helpful when studying Japanese : Kanji test, Kanji reference, Japanese Word of the Day.

- I bought Toshiba M200 tablet on Ebay. Great piece of hardware and I have been secretly lusting for a tablet for a long time. I intend to use it for digital drawing and also it is small enough to carry around. I am setting it up for use, making it dual-boot with Ubuntu. This is time-consuming as hell.

- I bought iPhone. Yes, you heard that right. I have already hacked the activation lock (following this excellent tutorial), but still am struggling with hacking SIM cards and installing extra software (yay for BSD subsystem!).

- Programming a 2D game engine in SDL for a game we are working on with Bellamy, who currently is working in Japan. You have read the post about XML library – that was just one step on the way to create a full 2D alpha version of the game.

- There has been an outburst of PSP games recently : Castlevania, Silent Hill Origins, Syphon Filter : Logan’s Shadow, Manhunt 2 (with the whole story behind it, including creating uncensored version).

- Also, my private life has suddenly exploded (to paraphrase Leonard Cohen). Not at all computer related, but also time-consuming.

The bottom line is that probably it will take a while for the next post to appear.

Polish accent in Japanese megastore

When I was strolling through Yodobashi Camera in Akihabara in Tokyo, Japan, I accidently saw and managed to photograph this :

Now, if you’re not from Poland, you probably won’t get the joke, but the movie on the screen is Włatcy Móch, Polish equivalent of South Park (in my opinion nowhere near the level of its predecessor, but that’s just me). However crappy that TV series might be, it is very related to Polish everyday grey reality and probably not funny to anyone not living in our Potato Country. Hence, seeing it in Japan (hey, there was even a guy watching it!) was kinda absurd.

Polish accent in Japanese megastore

When I was strolling through Yodobashi Camera in Akihabara in Tokyo, Japan, I accidently saw and managed to photograph this :

Now, if you’re not from Poland, you probably won’t get the joke, but the movie on the screen is Włatcy Móch, Polish equivalent of South Park (in my opinion nowhere near the level of its predecessor, but that’s just me). However crappy that TV series might be, it is very related to Polish everyday grey reality and probably not funny to anyone not living in our Potato Country. Hence, seeing it in Japan (hey, there was even a guy watching it!) was kinda absurd.

Once more on inappropriate touching

Remember how I wrote about the witch-touching game paedophiles and some suspicious merchandise that goes with? Well, how about full size body pillow spotted at SNK booth?

Or actual busty mouse pad?…

This is … I don’t know, I intended to write distasteful or something like that, but then again, to each one his own porn. If someone actually likes it, let him have his underage witch body pillow to cuddle. After all, as I already quoted from Penny Arcade, who the f… cares?

Once more on inappropriate touching

Remember how I wrote about the witch-touching game paedophiles and some suspicious merchandise that goes with? Well, how about full size body pillow spotted at SNK booth?

Or actual busty mouse pad?…

This is … I don’t know, I intended to write distasteful or something like that, but then again, to each one his own porn. If someone actually likes it, let him have his underage witch body pillow to cuddle. After all, as I already quoted from Penny Arcade, who the f… cares?

On witch touching

There is a game that for me qualifies everybody playing it as borderline paedophile. It’s called Doki Doki Majou Shinpan and it seemed to be quite popular on Kotaku. You can see a trailer here and some actual gameplay here, if you really must.

What really scared me, though, was a whole set of derived products. Why am I even writing about this? Well, first of all it is one of many Japan-only curious oddities, and secondly, I have stumbled upon a T-shirt related to the game. Just look where this little hand goes, awww, gross.

Personally, I think that Penny Arcade summed it up in most excellent fashion in their comic strip. Who the f… cares?