Humor

Console dweebs frequently say things like "PC games suck because you can't be sure they'll run," and its true that sometimes there are configuration issues. Of course, we PC gamers sneer at console gamers for this kind of thing, because it's rarely a problem post-DirectX, and anyway, we know what a goddamn DOS prompt looks like and know how to use a Linux shell when we need to, and suspect that console gamers' coffee pots are all blinking "12:00". But Jesper makes me think maybe they have a point.

If you like Game and Adventure, SUPER BIG GUN ADVENTURE for you! Shoot enemy! Shoot down to move over lava! Shoot more enemy! Are you gentleman enough to save yourself from other gentleman with smaller gun!!??? ...I'll stop now. This game is my choice pick from the Game Jolt Minimalist compo, and reminded me why I dig indie games so much. One interesting mechanic as its crux, chunky graphics, and thinly veiled innuendo via intentional Engrish. Nice time waster, and the chiptune soundtrack is catchy too.

No, you aren't going crazy. Yes, that picture is accurate. That is Mario, and he is indeed fighting an MS Paint shit monster. I should add that a MIDI rendition of The Phantom Menace battle music is played throughout this scenario. I should also add that this boss fight is broken and obtuse, and so far I can't figure out how to pass it. I think this segment encapsulates the experience of Mario's Adventure for me, and is pretty fucking hilarious. Super Marco (Mario's autistic cousin) is also entertaining in the same MST3K kind of way, and is tantamount to playing a platformer made by Andy Warhol circa 1986. Today is an exploration of amateur design, a meditation on the earnest and unintended Shit Games out there.

The usual rigamarole of jumping, grabbing keys and reaching point Bs is ripped up and partially erased in GENERIC, yet another platform game that tries to turn a mirror on the underlying logics of gameplay and genre, but this one does it better than the usual. Many platform games have come out featuring excessive difficulty, Braid and a host of retainer breatheren have played with the interval-driven reload cycle and temporal causality. GENERIC goes even further, this game lets your tear the levels apart. It´s like Little Big Planet with a big bottle of white out.

Flashbang is back with a flash and a bang, the staple physics-based viscerality, and the staple removing dialectic of destruction vs. capitulation. Instead of being Taurus trying your hand at entreprenuership, you´re a lazy entitlement-jockey trying to do the bare minimum to get through the day while collecting guaranteed pay. Your job is to man a crane, though man-handling it is more accurate. The controls, like those of Minotaur In A China Shop, are intentionally difficult. There´s an inherent delta in where you move the mouse and how the crane follows, and they tuned the gamma up real high, it makes running in the original Super Mario Bros. feel like walking in The Legend of Zelda, by comparison. This sloppiness is amplified by the inability to directly control the height of the crane hook. There´s something in the noise.

Just when you get jaded about genre derivations and overly "zany" aesthetics from the casual game sector, coupled with a sense of market saturation and imminent collapse oddly reminiscent of the US housing market, something like this comes along. Plants vs. Zombies is the latest hyper-polished, QAed-to-the-max casual fiesta from PopCap, a company whose success is driven by one part design innovation, three parts user testing, and two parts production value.

Derek Yu has powers, he has the ability to kill a yak from 200 yards away with mind bullets, and he has the power to move you. He does perpetual service to a collective fetish amoungst the "hardcore" gamer population. It's an almost infatuated sense of comfort and awe at any 2D platforming space involving some kind of RPG or exploration dynamic. These are the millions who had a crush on that girl in third grade and thought, "I bet she feels like Super Metroid." Or Castlevania:Symphony of the Night if you were a bit older. Spelunky! is wet, it's a gamer's game, it exudes interesting decisions in a non-linear series complete with dank pixel art and emergent humor that teaches us something about ourselves. You know what I'm talking about, like that first time you threw the girl in order to pick up the bag of jewels, didn't mean to do that did you? And then she landed on the spikes? Or how about that time you got shot in the face by a totem statue that looked like Dick Cheney? You my friend, got spelunk'd.

Kianis, maker of You Have To Burn The Rope, brings us a interesting social-metaphor-based game about riding the subway. It´s pretty simple; you pass the time by looking at stuff people are wearing, the longer you look the more points you score, but if they see you staring then you lose all points due to the flash of awkwardness. You can´t win or lose, you can just stare are more stuff for longer. It´s very Seinfeld, an interactive joke about nothing in particular. It´s really funny because the fear of making a connection with another human being is implied by its fundamental mechanic.

He's done it again, Paolo Pedercini has made a fun, polished, punk-positive satire, but this time instead of focusing on a particular industry or scandal, he's taking a broad-view of a world economy driven and chained by oil. In Oiligarchy you play the CEO of an international oil company, drilling your way to riches and dominance. I've been looking forward to this game since Paolo mentioned it to me at Games for Change in June, he told me "the better you are at the game, the worse you'll do."

It's tempting to write a review of Og using the only words available to characters in this game of caveman chaos, but the simple lexicon of 18 words would probably hamper communication more then it would help. In fact, that's the point. The characters of Og are stupid cavemen, and the words available to the player is one of the driving factors in the game. Words lead to most of the humor of the game, as well as being one of the best rewards a player can get.

Og is a game that reaches off the page and says not only how characters can act, but how players interact. Sitting at a table with a limited selection of words is not just a recipe for comedic disaster, but also a mental exercise. Most games have rules for physical actions, and even for social influence, but Og places some rather amusing and occasionally thought-provoking rules on every utterance that leaves a player's mouth.

It's easy to lose track of the other great features of Og in the shadow of its most notable mechanic, but the game actually has a lot to offer. The class system is simple, but guarantees that choosing a class is not just a guideline, but a guarantee that you are one of the best at what you do. Og does not allow the equivalent of a musclebound wizard who can lift more then the fighter, or an academic who can out-shoot the solider. If you're a strong caveman, you're going to be one of the strongest cavemen in the party.

The writing style is also worth noting. The game purports to be the oldest roleplaying game in existence, having been found in cave paintings, leading to rather amusing 'academic' footnotes that nicely complement the humor sprinkled throughout the rules. The art is a bit sparse, but effectively conveys the style of the game.

As a comedic game, Og is easy to dismiss, but it is actually a soundly designed system. It makes you think in new ways and imagine what a world before Google and online translation might be. As an Og character might say, Og is a "shiny thing."