the2bears.com

Warhawk DS

the2bears — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 19:58:07 +0000

Warhawk DS is a very professionally put together homebrew shmup for the Nintendo DS. It’s very fast, with some great pixel work for the graphics. Seems to be a lot of content here in terms of levels, too.

There are a few glitches, not sure if they’re unique to my particular setup. There are some odd artifacts on the top screen (more on the first level, but still some later on). The movement seems odd as well, as you move vertically at a much higher velocity than horizontally. Might be the way it’s suppose to be.

Experimental Gameplay Project

the2bears — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 05:51:24 +0000

The Experimental Gameplay Project has been rebooted. The first of the seven-day challenges had as its theme Unexperimental Shooter.

Three entries, ProtoShooter, Frobot, and Egg Worm Generator were submitted. The last is the most interesting of the group, though, is not even a shooter anymore (the game became a fishtank with the shooting aspect dropped). ProtoShooter might have been interesting with its time-based mechanic, but it suffers from under powered weapons. Frobot has lots of style, but it is pretty standard take on Robotron.

ProtoShooter:

Frobot:

Egg Worm Generator:

Shmup-Dev Down

the2bears — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 17:37:06 +0000

Shmup-Dev seems to be down, or rather incapacitated due to a database error. I have not been able to reach motorherp (Dan) who owns and runs the site. So if anyone can reach him or let him know, he has been pretty busy recently and probably has no idea about the problem.

Update: Shmup-Dev’s back up, but Dan is looking for someone to take over the reins. It’s probably a fair amount of work, and I can understand him being burnt out.

Gratuitous Space Battles

the2bears — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 15:19:42 +0000

Gratuitous Space Battles has a new trailer up. “Imagine tower-defense with space fleets…” says all you need to know. It’s a trap! Now you too can play at being Admiral Ackbar. Seriously, this looks very good. Via Rock, Paper, Shotgun.

GENETOS Ver 0.60 (and Ver 1.00 Trailer)

the2bears — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 01:26:44 +0000

As has been mentioned in a few places, GENETOS Ver. 0.60 is now available to download. There’s also an awesome trailer previewing the final generation. Great stuff! Via Shoot the Core.

DUX Revisited

the2bears — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 05:01:51 +0000

I’ve had DUX about a week now, and I’ve played it 3 or 4 times. I have to admit I don’t understand what the big deal over the scoring bug is. I am really enjoying this game. It’s been mentioned by others, but I can tell a lot of effort and love of the genre went into creating this. It certainly has some eccentricities, but at least for me it’s proving very entertaining.

The game mechanics are based on R-Type, with the force orb being the first of a few “old friends”. The pacing is all IREM too; you can start to take it too easy drifting through the levels and all of a sudden another wave of enemies appears and the screen is suddenly full of bullets.

One of the mechanics added is Hyper Bullet Soaking. Build up your Obvious Energy and trigger this to start soaking up bullets like magnetized tokens. The more you soak the longer you can keep this going, and it’s a great way to get through some of the more narrow passages. At first this didn’t click with me, and I tried to play without it. Bad idea, you’ll need this.

The music is great and the graphical style is fairly unique. There could be more contrast, and visibility could be better, but this can be adjusted in the options. The whole game has been packaged and presented very professionally, and it’s a shame there’s been a bit of a hoopla over at the Shmups forums.

DUX

the2bears — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 20:57:38 +0000

The train wreck that is DUX. It’s a shame, as it’s not easy to produce and release a game like this, especially for a console like the Dreamcast. Anyway, seems like playtest, playtest, playtest is the theme. My copy hasn’t arrived yet, so I’ll withhold any criticism. At least I’m usually incapable of playing for score

Circuit_Strike.One

the2bears — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 01:47:09 +0000

Circuit_Strike.One looks like an arena Rez. That’s a pretty good thing. Since I don’t have an iPhone, I remain a little unconvinced that the controls will work. Via Offworld.

R-Type 3rd Level Battleship

the2bears — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 20:33:45 +0000

Wow… just wow failrate sent me this link. The detail and the amount of time that must have been invested in this model is astounding. If there was a kit available, I would be tracking the package at this very moment. Image is originally from www.hobbymedia.it.

Gravity Crash

the2bears — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 23:12:02 +0000

Gravity Crash looks pretty good. It seems to punch the right buttons for me, including my new favourite “content”. What I mean is both levels to play, but also (and just as important) an implied back story. That seems lost in a lot of games these days. The Bydo Empire is a compelling foe, not because of reams of text, but because of great graphics and enemy design.

Also, Gravity Crash reminded me just how much I love Gravitron 2 (*cough* support indie, only $5 *cough*). Actually, I suppose Just Add Water is fairly indie too.