A little change to my blog

Well in short, I got a sixth month trial in writing for the online gaming magazine “end-gamers” where I have a slot for a column every tuesday, and maybe bits and bobs here and there.

This most likely means that my flash game reviews will stop being here but will be there instead under the pen-name “Shabah17″. If you are interested in this website and even want to contact them for work, then visit it here and you can contact them here.

Also, a quick note, they are still taking off so it is more voluntary work, but an excellent way to get your name out and join a community of people with similar interests.

Also check out the forums here.

Hopefully this will take off, and if it doesn’t then it will still be a good experience in meeting new people!

Flash game feature – Wolfenstein 3D

Yes, if you are familiar with the old Wolfenstein game produced by ID software, it has been converted into a flash version that can be played directly into your browser.

The platinum version (including all the levels of the Spear of Destiny expansion back) is also available for free for the iOS for today (Thursday, 5th May, 2012).

This game was released just one year after I was born, 1992, and it was one of the first games that my awesome father introduced me to. I remember it barely fitting on a floppy disk, and now there is a version which can fit onto an i-phone and another that can be played directly in your internet browser. Oh how far we have gone!

One of the first ever 3D first person shooters, this game pits you against a “castle” full of Nazi soldiers (among other enemies), that you have to fight your way out of and escape. Featuring fairly linear levels, with a score system and secrets to be found, it was a game that was definitely fun for its time, and as I have discovered, still fun today.

(p.s. the “secrets” are basically wall decorations that you can “move” by pressing the open key, exposing compartments full of ammo, a weapon or even treasure).

Although it was not the earliest shooter game with a first-person perspective, Wolfenstein 3D is often credited with establishing the first-person shooter genre. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I am not sure about this, but I think it’s engine was upgraded to produce the game Doom, which set the bar even higher for first person shooters in 1993.

The game certainly brought back a lot of memories, and if you haven’t played it before then I hope it will create pleasant memories.

Flash games review – Disaster will strike

Disaster will strike is basically Angry Birds, but with a fairly interesting twist…

Gameplay – 7/10

Okay, so imagine angry birds. Replace the green pigs with evil looking dinosaur eggs, and replace the angry birds with…natural disasters, that’s right, natural disasters; earth quakes, wind, meteor strikes and even landslides.

In a sense, it takes away the fun element of Angry Birds in calculating the angle at which you want to launch your bird. In this game, you get a selection of disasters, each with a limited around. You click and point, so your aim is pretty much precise, it becomes more about doing things in the right order; it is more puzzle than action to an extent.

Evil egg is smug…

That said, each disaster (you can see them at the top left of this screen cap) has its own style. The earthquake makes an entire block shake and any ice with anything on top of it will shatter and break, while the landslide makes a small part of it disappear making everything above it fall through. The meteor is pretty cool, because as you click on it it comes down and patrols the sky until you click on a point for it to fly at and blow whatever up.

Yep, took care of him

This style of gameplay can sort of make things feel a bit restricted. You have to do things in a certain order which takes away the flexibility, it feels like you can’t approach things in different ways. They could have also added more disasters and levels. It does have a creative twist though, and it makes an interesting game.

Graphics/Presentation – 8/10

The animation and physics is pretty smooth. One cool part is that if an egg is being subject to disaster they have a funny worried expression before they break and release their yolk quite violently.

Bee attack!!

Overall score – 7.5/10

Credits go to:

Developer – Anton Koshechken

Music – http://www.shockwave-sound.com

Physics engine – box2d

Go and play it! 

Flash game review – Convergence

Start

Story – 9/10

Convergence is a game about life and life choices. You are an average human being who goes through three stages, within each stage the decisions you make will affect the next. It is thought provoking and a really well done piece of art. Yes the graphics are basically a bunch of pixels, but this game focuses on the realities of life rather than just giving us a good show.

Game play – 7/10

The three stages mentioned are of your life as a baby, adolescent life and then adult life. The most fun of all was playing as a baby, where you had to race against a rather evil sibling (who locks you in the attic by the way) to collect all the toys. The other two stages are just walking around and hitting the action key which can get a little boring.

Make your choice...

With that said, each stage is not too long and fairly simple so that you are encouraged to go through the multiple possible routes. While the first stage was the most fun game play wise, the second stage I found very thought provoking.

I have always had a personal fear of becoming an over worked office drone, and the faceless characters, each sitting at their desks, really made me think about that. The music in the background was ambient and suited the middle stage very well. The bar at the bottom shows how much you care about work or love, and the initial starting point on the meter is determined by your choice in the first stage…I will leave that to find out for yourself.

The third stage is just a conclusive stage with not much going on, it just shows you where your choices got you in the end. I guess the reason that the life story of this character is so “average” is because the “average person” will be playing such a game, but I think a lot more could have been done in terms of the story itself and the endings (although one ending was quite saddening). But it is thought provoking in the end and it carries out what the developers intended it to carry out.

Achievement room!

Graphics/presentation – 9/10

The monotony and simplicity of the game’s graphics help us to focus more on how the game affects us emotionally. The music is great, especially in the second stage as I have mentioned before, and it also has a similar simplicity. Funnily enough, I just couldn’t imagine a game like this with “better” graphics.

Overall score – 8.3/10

Go and play this game now! – I am going to look for more thought provoking stuff!

Credits go to:

Streetlight Studios - Ray Chan, Mike Hadley Sean Li

Music by Kevin MacLeod

Flash game review – Awesome Tanks

AWESOME TANKS was a game made by the guy who made AWESOME PLANES.

I like tanks so I thought I should check it out. Now, just like most flash games it is more about time-killing fun than telling a story. Then again, the simplicity of flash games usually go with that.

Game play – 9/10

I don’t think I had any major gripe with the game. A top down shooter, it has a familiar structure to Awesome Planes; there are 15 levels in the single player game, and after you finish you unlock a new game play mode, which in this case is a level editor:

Say hello to the map editor: HELLO!

I like the map editor because it is very easy to get the hang of and endless fun could be had. Although I have the feeling that it could have worked better with a survival mode in an arena or something. Nevertheless, it is refreshing to see a map editing option in something as simple as a flash game.

Now of course there has to be an upgrades menu. It was a bit difficult (or I am just crap at the game) at first to collect enough money for weapons so it has a nice learning curve. The key is to never stop moving and be tactical about it, it is not a run and gun game. Health power ups are not so common, but you can upgrade things like armour, movement speed and turret speed.

One of my favourite weapons was the rocket because you could control its course with the mouse. That means that you can carry out tactical strikes or hit a tank or turret that is around the corner.

Lasers! PEW PEW!

There is a laser in the game, and yes it is powerful. I was afraid that it was going to be an overpowered weapon and I admit, it can take out tanks and some turrets quickly. But there are also boss tanks in the game, some of which aren’t affected much by it. Also, all the weapons except the minigun (which you start with), have limited ammo. You can refill them by buying more at the end of the level or through power ups.

I guess the only problem was the lack of a survival/arena mode, but the idea of a level editor kind of balances that out.

Graphics/presentation – 10/10

One thing that immediately caught my eye was the changing weapons animation. I really liked how one turret pops out then another pops up in a very cartoon-y way. The movement and aiming is smooth, and the explosions are done just right with the added *oomph* of the screen shaking slightly. I can’t say I saw any major visual bugs while playing.

Overall – 9.5/10

Credits go to:

Programmer – Alexander Gette (also programmer of Awesome Planes)
Artist – Jurij Krivonos
Music – Christian M. Krogsvold

Flash game review – Awesome Planes

I like the name, so I am going to type it again…AWESOME PLANES (also link to it).

I will not really include a story rating because there isn’t one, and not all flash games need any semblance of stories, besides, it is all about having fun!

Game play – 7/10

Upside down towers and lasers: PEW! PEW!

So you control a plane with your mouse inside a futuristic city area fighting aircraft, tanks, towers and upside down towers too (the wonders of the future, eh?). There are also random stationary buildings you have to destroy like radars…and buildings. The first thing I noticed was something that kind of annoyed me at first. You don’t have the option between firing your main weapon (minigun, rockets, plasma or laser beam) or dropping bombs. When you click both of  the weapons fire at the same time, end of story, deal with it.

Controlling the plane with the mouse is a bit hard, but I really like it. As you panic and do twists and turns it really becomes chaotic and colourful (by “colourful” I mean explosions), which really suits the pumped up music of the game.

Did I mention upgrades?

Weapons, armour, afterburners (boost thingy) and cluster bombs are all upgradeable by collecting money from destroying enemies. There are also achievements at the bottom, but not many of them and they don’t tell you what they mean. That said, it is quite easy to collect enough money for all the upgrades you need. At first, I found the laser to be quite over powered but when playing survival mode it can be very useful, and oh yeah…

There are only 15 levels in the game but when you complete them, you can play that survival mode after that (think of it as a training course). Survival is basically fighting wave after wave of infinite enemies until you are defeated. The levels don’t vary, you just destroy things, but this is what this game is about. This is the kind of game where you unwind while blowing things up and flying around. I like the gradually increasing difficulty and the survival option after completing the levels.

Graphics/presentation – 9/10 

If a game has explosions, there is one thing that I look out for; the screen shaking ever so subtly when it happens. It just adds that nice level of detail which gives the explosions extra power and it can easily win me over. The rest of the game is smooth, colourful and the music is very suitable.

Overall score – 8/10

Here is the link once again (so you don’t have to scroll up).

Credits for the game go to…

Programming - Alexander Gette 

Art - Jurij Krivonos

Awesome music - Christian M. Krogsvold

“Israel, the Middle East’s sole democracy”

Haaretz has released an article concerning the pro-Palestinian fly-in activists who have been blocked from travelling to Israel. Another article, published by Maan News Agency, mentioned that Israel sent a letter to those pro-Palestinian activists who have been denied entry in Israel on their way to Palestine. Here is what it says according to them:

You could have chosen to protest the Syrian regime’s daily savagery against its own people, which has claimed thousands of lives,” the letter read. “You could have chosen to protest the Iranian regime’s brutal crackdown on dissent and support of terrorism throughout the world.”

“But instead you chose to protest against Israel, the Middle East’s sole democracy … We therefore suggest that you first solve the real problems of the region, and then come back and share with us your experience. Have a nice flight.

Now let us say, for purely argument’s sake, that Israel is a fully functioning democracy. I am not even going to dispute that here, but there is something that is very worrying about this kind of attitude.

Firstly, it reminds me of Europe during the colonial times. “We are civilized, they are not, we are showing them the way and we have a right to”, this way of thinking has not really changed as you can see from this letter, as it has a very similar angle. So I would like to ask a few questions…
1. So if it is wrong for Syria to take thousands of lives, what about you Israel? Can you remind us what happened from before your creation until now? What of Qibya, Deir Yasin, Haifa and Tantura? What of the King David Hotel bombing and the Lavon Affair? Can you remind us of the casualties in the 1982 invasion of Lebanon and the Sabra and Shatila massacre as your minister of defence stood and watched? What about the first and second Intifada, followed by operation Cast Lead in Gaza? These are only from the top of my head, Israel, but I would love an answer.

2. If it is wrong to crack down on dissenters, can you tell me why you won’t let professors like Norman Finklestein and Noam Chomsky into Israel? If Israel is meant to be a Jewish democracy and a safe haven for Jews, then why can’t Norman Finklestein, whose parents were holocaust survivors, come back? Is it because you have a larger Zionist political agenda? Don’t you remember how in the first Intifada, you would sent little children to military court just for carrying a Palestinian flag? What about the peaceful protests in Palestinian villages and the 180 deaths committed by your forces in the past year? Can you tell us about your treatment of Arab members of your Knesset/parliament?

There are a lot of questions, I know, but I genuinely want to know the answer. But I noticed how many people who use the argument of Israel being the only democracy don’t deny the atrocities I mentioned among others, atrocities that are historical fact. It seems that people are placing democracy on a pedestal, something to sacrifice everything for unquestionably, something infallible…it kind of begins to sound very similar to the concept of a partisan God.

But here is the thing. We despise dictatorships because people can’t make any decisions, it is just down to one man or one political party taking every single matter into their own hands. However, if people are fooled by straight up lies , then what happens? A dictator is a person or a group of people, and the common people are people too. What use is democracy if you lie to the average voter, make them irrationally fear something or is completely misinformed or deceived by a certain policy? If the government was willing to lie to us about something, how can we ever trust them again, as voters, and how can we function properly?

Am I asking for a total reform of democracy? Maybe I am. Am I saying I have an amazing solution? No I am not. But what I definitely want is the worship of “democracy” to be taken down a notch. If you pride yourself on being a liberal democracy, then you should not close your ears to this article and be open minded about it, lest you be a hypocrite.