I couldn’t figure out why I was having so much trouble birthing this final update for the current issue until I realized, oh, hey — it’s the final installment of Issue 13, being posted on the 13th of April. I guess I was just taunting disaster with this one. Anyway! Unless I suffer a heart attack and die before I can click “Publish,” we’re past the rocky waters of our ill fortune. Our personally-tinged Pivotal Moments edition wraps with not two but three pieces. So read up. Next issue: something magical will happen.
BioShock
Proving that you don’t have to suffer from verbal diarrhea to be a new gently-used games journalist, reibeatall offers up a concise summary of the single most profound video game moment he’s ever experienced. Danger: it involves spoilers.
Deadly Rooms of Death
Nearly two years in the making, Merus delves deeply into a game that you’ve probably never heard of (or at the very least, never played) but which had a tremendous impact on his life. Personally, this piece made me feel like an unappreciative jerk for never spending more time with DRoD.
Sword of Vermillion
Finally, Mightyblue looks deep in the soul and wonders, how it is that I could ever have experienced so much affection for an infuriatingly awful video game? The results of his geeky vision quest are splayed across the page for all to experience.
3 great articles.
I especially enjoyed the article about DROD. I haven’t played it, but the gameplay sounds very familiar for some reason. Have there been any copycat puzzle games? Maybe it could be re-released a DSi downloadable game.
I’m going to find it and play ASAP.
As I mentioned, it’s drawn from a game called Robots/Daleks, and it superficially resembles roguelikes. The only actual clone is a game called Wonderquest, and there’s a very large amount of crossover in the fanbase to the point where the company that owns DROD hosts the game’s official boards as part of their own forum.
Actually, wait. On the forum, someone mentions the Lolo games, and they’re probably the games you’re remembering. They’ve got similarities, for sure.
Aha, yes, I did play some Lolo back in the day.
I miss the Underdogs. I enjoyed many old strategy and role-playing games that I probably never would have discovered, had I not frequented the site. Obviously, I should have checked out the puzzle games too.
Also, I’ve never seen so few comments on a great post. It’s not the prime time of day I guess.
Something said in the Sword of Vermillion article resonated with me; blaming myself for doing poorly at bad games. My folks and I used to rent many games, and when dad and I weren’t kicking ass in Contra or Streets of Rage, we were dying in games like Robocop. I always felt that my own skill wasn’t up to PAR though, and never blamed the horrid game design.
I’ve been waiting on my forum account to register for a week now and still no luck. Is this normal or are the forums going through problems right now? When I log in to the forums it says I don’t have permissions and when I click the “activate your account” link in the initial email I got, it says I’m in a queue waiting to be added to the forum.
I emailed the webmasters address but it rejected my letter. Any help would be appreciated. I know this isn’t the proper place, but I want my forum account dammit!
Jeremy’s main home computer is being repaired right now, so that may well have something to do with slow forum confirmation.
Oh man, Sword of Vermillion. I can sure relate. This game was also one of my first RPGs I’ve ever played. I also share that feeling of getting my butt whooped time and time again. If the hit detection was bad, the knockbacks and interrupts from getting hit by the enemies pretty much meant certain death. Everytime you tried to pull off an attack, and enemy would hit you and knock you pack, pretty much negating your attack. And it just keeps going on until they either knocked you out of the screen or you died. This game totally brings back memories.
Those evil little girls…they still haunt me.
I didn’t realize a geeky little group of developers known as atlus were controlling my every move in bioshock. Now I know.
editor gaffes are awesome
Merus, that Deadly Rooms of Death post? Straight to the heart. I miss the wide-eyed wonderment of exploring the Internet for freeware way back when. Wonderful article.