Kicking off a new series of weekly round-ups of the most essential just-released games (spanning retail, indie, downloadable, iPhone, freeware, and all otherwise), this week takes us on a trip through heavy metal fantasy, jellybean puzzle solving, rusted robot worlds, and Indian-spiced psychadelic shooters.
Brutal Legend (Double Fine, PS3/Xbox 360)
Certainly one of the highest profile games of the season, Double Fine's Brutal Legend (at top) has been garnering all the media acclaim it richly deserves following its release earlier this week.
Created by former LucasArts adventure vet Tim Schafer (Day of the Tentacle, Grim Fandango) and starring Jack Black alongside a league of metal legends (Judas Priest's Rob Halford, Motorhead's Lemmy Kilmister, Lita Ford, and, of course, Black Sabbath's Ozzy Osbourne), the studio's open-world/driving/lite real-time-strategy opus is every medieval-apocalypse album cover brought to glorious life, finally fulfilling the wishes of two generations of disaffected patched-jean-jacketed and notebook-cover-doodling Hessians.
A Boy and his Blob (WayForward, Wii)
On the polar opposite of the spectrum, WayForward's A Boy and his Blob is a spiritual sequel to a game that, even if you aren't directly familiar with, you will appreciate the lineage of, having been the 8-bit NES platforming debut of David Crane, former Activision designer behind genre-defining Atari 2600 game Pitfall.
Blob's essentially ludicrous premise (the titular boy's titular sidekick transforming into a series of helpful level-navigating utilities after eating one of many various jellybeans) is softened by its gorgeous cel-animated art-style, which itself belies the challenges you'll find within. It's also one of the first (but hopefully not near the last) games released to contain a dedicated 'hug' button, a detail which should seal the deal for many.
Machinarium (Amanita, PC/Mac)
Amanita's point and click adventure was featured at much greater length here earlier in the week, but suffice it to say the studio's third major release is well worth the wait, and well worth showing your support for a group of indies trying to keep the limping genre alive with true hand-polished passion.
Gridrunner Revolution (Llamasoft, PC)
Finally, cheating the system just a bit to mention a game that's fallen between the cracks for the past few weeks, Gridrunner Revolution -- the latest evolutionary chapter in creator Jeff Minter's decades long quest for the psychedelically sublime -- would be a worthy choice for weekend gaming if only for a dose of the eye-searing light-show seen above.
But the truth is that behind its happily harrowing hallucinogenics and ungulate-fancy are surprisingly complex mechanics (see Minter's 'Sheepintology' video for an introduction to those) that's made it one of the most rewarding indie shooters of the year. Don't pass this one up if you have already -- download the demo version for PCs here.
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Gridrunner: Revolution is the best twenty bucks I've spent in a long time. I suspect I'm gonna be pulling that one out every so often for years after I've beaten it.
Admittedly I'm a total Minter fangirl since the c64 days, so I may be biased - but I find that GR:R creates the same kind of timelessly synaesthetic experience as Rez.
(also you might want to change the headline to actually mention Gridrunner instead of Space Giraffe…)
Just a suggestion, but how about putting price tags on the games along next to publisher and system?
And in the realm of flash games, Mateusz Skutnik's famous Submachine series got a new installment today:
http://www.pastelportal.com/stories/submachine-6/
(Creepy, Myst-like - in principle, not in terms of visuals - point-and-click adventure series about vaguely steampunky mysterious machines left over by an ancient civilisation. Possibly.)
Uncharted 2 is a stunning omission, to say the least: perhaps the best PS3 title yet, with certainly the best graphics, but instead we get . . . Jack Black? Too bad!
Brutal Legend's pedigree alone trumps Uncharted 2. I'm not saying it's better than Uncharted 2, but it's certainly more quirky and unique. In general Brutal Legend fits in more with the Boing Boing/Offworld mission than Uncharted 2.
If only Brutal Legend would come out for the PCs. Maybe if enough people ask nicely.
I got to hang out and drink beers with Jeff many many moons ago.. dude is so much fun.. and he can eat some amazingly spicy curry.
I'm halfway through Brutal Legend and I must say there's lots to love about this game. I'm not put off the critical response at all. I find what a lot of critics see as a fault -- the "uninspired gameplay" -- as more of an all-you-can-game buffet. A little taste of gameplay styles, served in just the right amounts. Neither am I a "Heavy Metal" fan, but its such a unique theme and suits this kind of game so well. I wouldn't call it his best, with both Grim Fandango and Pyschonauts preceding it, but its a worthy companion to both titles. Its a cluttered game to be sure, but one with heart and soul.
Failing to surpass Grim Fandango and Psychonauts seems like one of the mildest forms of failure known to man.
Machinarium is very cool. A must have for those who enjoy Myst and The Neverhood. I just got the game and Im stuck on a certain part lol. Its challenging but easy at the same time. The story line is cute and funny and the animations are breath-taking. It is well worth the money.
Whoah... Someone else knows the term "Hessian." I stopped using it because I'd become convinced that I'd just dreamt it up. No one to whom I had not personally taught it to used it, and I couldn't remember where I'd learned it. And here it is, 15 years later, on Boing Boing.
Anyone know where this term came from? I think a friend of mine from Nebraska was possibly the first person I knew to use it.
And why is a metal dork a German mercenary?