Off the top of my head, the only other game I play that has the "just one more time" addictiveness of Angry Birds is Fruit Ninja. It's easy to play, but tough to master. You slice fruit that pops up on your touch screen all while trying to avoid bombs that are thrown in there for good measure. So imagine my joy when my cousin and I went to the arcade, and saw a Fruit Ninja game standing right near the entrance.
Fruit Ninja FX, as it has been named, takes the sixty second Arcade mode from the smartphone/tablet game, and actually puts it in the arcade as a redemption game (a game played for tickets), much to my initial pleasure.The game looks great on what appears to be a 30 or so inch monitor. It looks and plays like the original game, with one glaring problem: the touch screen is crap.
Now don't get me wrong- it could have been dirty or it may have needed to be recalibrated. But I can't imagine that either of those is the problem; the touch screen registered my swipes late and messed up my score. In a game like Fruit Ninja that requires players to be precise, that is a big flaw. I'm no pricing expert when it comes to touch screens, but a capacative touch screen with a durable shell shouldn't cost all that much to manufacture.
The game is meant for kids, and as such, most won't even care. But for some reason, I do, and because of the screen fault, I can only give Fruit Ninja FX a 6.5 out of 10.
Let me just say this: I love my Xbox 360. Between playing games, catching up with my teams on ESPN, or watching movies on Netflix, it is a major asset to my meager dorm room. But still, I feel that the system could do better. With a major console makeover last summer, and the introduction of Kinect last holiday season, the Xbox is looking to make the transition from the grimy gamer basement to each and every living room in the country. Although they've come a long way since the console's debut in 2005, I still think that there are 5 things that the console can add to really displace the PS3 and Wii.
1. Better Facebook/Twitter Integration
So with the advent of the new Xbox 360 user interface (dubbed NXE) in November of 2008, Microsoft slowly began introducing apps to Xbox users. Facebook and Twitter came in together, and aren't bad. The problem? Well, they're not all that useful. Nothing about the apps stand out, and with my smartphone at hand at all times, there's really no reason for me to exit a game or movie just to post something to either site. Microsoft should look into possibly adding a feature to the mini menu (the one that shows up when you press the Xbox logo on your controller) that would allow people to post achievements, status updates, tweets, and more without having to ever leave their current program. It could also end up driving sales of their keyboard attachment.
2. Skype on Kinect
This one, in my opinion, could be big. Adding value to the already awesome Kinect by being able to video chat on the world's most used video chat software? Killer. Some say that it won't happen because Microsoft has already released Video Kinect, which is compatible with Windows Live Chat. But honestly, who uses IM software to video chat anymore? Seriously, when's the last time you've opened up a chat box not located in Skype or Facebook? I'll watch the clock.
EDIT 5/10/2011: Microsoft has bought Skype for $8.5 billion.
3. Add My Media Easier
Honestly, playing music on my Xbox is a pain in the ass. I have to do one of four things:
1. Pair my Xbox with Windows Media Center on my laptop
2. Burn music CDs and then rip them on my Xbox
3. Purchase a Zune Pass
4. Plug my Mp3 player into my Xbox and hope to god it can read my music
The first isn't too bad if you're on a secure network...but I still can't be in my game at the same time. The second requires too much work, as that means I have to add songs only 15 or so at a time....and if the album information isn't copied over to the Xbox perfectly, then I have to painstakingly type everything in manually. The third is just an unneeded expense, unless you're such a music fan to spend $15 monthly- I guess I can't talk though- I do pay $10 a month to have Netflix. The fourth isn't great either, since I have to navigate folders, and I can only play music one folder at a time. Since most music players separate songs into folders by artist, I'm basically screwed. Either way, I should be able to plug in a jumpdrive and add all my music like that- or at least allow me to transfer my music over through Windows Media Center. If I have a 250 GB hard drive, I'd like to use it for something other than game installs and dust-catching demos.
4. Live Tiles
I like the Xbox's "Cover Flow" interface, but I also like the tile interface seen on the Kinect version of the UI- I think that the latter could make live tiles possible. For those of you who don't know, live tiles are program icons that change as the news changes. For example, instead of going into my Weather Channel app on my Windows Phone, the live tile tells me it's 68 degrees and sunny; if I want more information, I just go into my app. The ESPN app would be an obvious choice to convert to a live tile app, as are The Weather Channel, Facebook, Twitter. This opens the door for even more, like a gamerscore tile that scrolls through recently played games and achievements, or a news app. Live tiles would give the user all the information they want without entering and exiting multiple programs.
EDIT 6/6/2011: Microsoft has announced that the Metro UI found on Windows Phones will now carry over to the new Xbox 360 user interface. Nice.
5. More Community Games
Xbox had a big hit on their hands with the free, massive multiplayer trivia game 1 vs. 100. Sadly, it was yanked last year, presumably to make room for the GSN revival (which, as of this point, will not be renewed for a second season). It was fun because it was free, had lots of players, and each game was played live, with some games entirely composed of a single subject matter, like video games or current events. Users could also send in questions to be used on "User Question" nights, where the entire stack was composed of user-submitted questions. Even more awesome was that you could win stuff while playing- the top prize (if you were the lucky 1, playing against the 100), was 10,000 Microsoft Points, and even still, high scorers not in those 101 could still pick up free Xbox games and points along the way. 1 vs. 100 really brought the Xbox Live community together, as casual and hardcore gamers enjoyed the experience. Xbox is trying to recreate the experience with their newest community (but not free) offering, Full House Poker, so it seems as though they may be on the right track.
Did I miss an addition? Is there something else you'd like to see? Post in the comments section below!
If you don't know yet, I'm a HUGE trivia buff. So it comes as no surprise that Qrank is one of my favorite trivia apps on the iOS, and even if you don't have an iDevice, you can still play the game by finding it on Facebook. The best part? IT'S FREE.
A game of Qrank in progress. Note the
three current events questions in the
400 point zone marked with a leaf. There's
also a question counter at the top that
keeps a tally of right and wrong answers
for that game.
The premise is simple: there's a game board with 20 questions, as seen to the right. Questions are ordered by difficulty and split into zones worth 200, 400, and 1000 points. Each day, 4 different categories are used, and any unused question with a leaf on it means that the question covers current events, so if you're an avid news reader, you're more apt to be more successful with those questions. You can play any 15 questions on the board, but the big catch is that you can only play the game once a day. So once you've played all 15 questions, you're done.
The game has a cavalcade of achievement badges attached to it- one of the most notorious being one that requires you to play the game every day for 365 days. But the one that I was most adamant about earning is called "Published", and is only given to players whose submitted questions are used in the game. It's a really smart way for Qrank's creators to generate content without running into writer's block.
So I've submitted a couple questions, but imagine my surprise when I saw that I had earned the Published Badge myself. I was a little nervous because I hadn't played the game in about a week, and my question could have been used anytime over that span. But I was lucky enough to catch it on the day it was used- the writers edited my question by switching the question content and the post-question anecdote, but I'm ecstatic that it was even used in the first place. Check it out below- sorry I didn't get screens of the four answer choices.
If you're not playing Qrank, you need to. Even if you're not a trivia buff, it's a great way to spend a couple of minutes each day- hey, you may even have a shot at beating my score!
Revolutionary changes are on the horizon for the NFL. They are addressing safety concerns (even if their concern rivals that of an overprotective mother), a new CBA is on the horizon, and there's a very good chance that the league will extend play to 18 games in the near future. But one thing that I wish the league would do is create a two tiered system like in British Football.
In a tiered league, you have the top half of teams playing in one division, while the lower half play in another. At the end of each season (or a cycle of seasons in some cases), the best teams in the bottom league replace the worst teams in the top league. The promotion/demotion system forces teams to play their best year round, especially those who play in the upper league and fear demotion.
There are 32 teams in the NFL. What you do is you put the top 16 teams in the upper conference and the other half in the bottom. For the sake of things needing names, we'll call the upper conference Tier 1 and the lower conference Tier 2. You play each team in your tier once, which is 15 games, and you play 3 opponents in the other tier, supporting the league's goal to move to an 18 game season. Playoff spots go to the top 8 Tier 1 teams, and the Top 4 Tier 2 teams would act as Wild Cards in the current system, playing teams 5-8 in the Wild Card playoff week. In soccer, Tier 2 teams can only look forward to getting promoted, as the overall championship is only for Tier 1 teams. At least in my system, any team can make it to the Superbowl, allowing fans to make a fain investment in their team since they're not doomed from the start.
At the end of each season, the top 6 Tier 2 teams move up into Tier 1, where they replace the 6 worst teams there. This makes teams more responsible to the welfare of the game, and not to obtaining a high draft spot. People will be more apt to ask their teams "Why can't we get promoted and not just "Why don't we make the playoffs?" Tiering gives teams another way to take small steps toward becoming a better team. Instead of having to make goals that are three season away (like taking a cellar team to the playoffs), a smaller, yet more achievable goal in the short run would be to earn one of the 6 spots into Tier 1.
A two tiered system would also make it easier for more markets to enter the NFL, as the system would allow any competent market to enter Tier 2, even if just on a 5 year trial basis. Instead of having to re-do schedules and restructure divisions, all you have to do is add a team into Tier 2. For every pair of teams that enter the league (and this wouldn't happen very often), you even the number of teams in each tier. Schedule-wise, the tier with the extra team plays one less inter-league game. The league requires a 65,000 stadium seat minimum for a team to be considered for entry into the NFL, but there is no reason why Toronto and Los Angeles should not have NFL teams now. A more open league entry policy would make this system really work, but knowing the NFL, the interest always have been and always will be those of the owners. No commissioner is going to have balls to stand up to the owners and say "Hey, this is about creating a competitive environment for all parties involved, not making you a truckload of money." Somewhere along the way, the love of the sport got lost in the mix, and the NFL has lost its way.
I've come to the conclusion that an iPhone user has no choice but to download Angry Birds. Sure, to some of you, this may be crazy game-loving Jeremy stuffing more content down your throat, but believe me on this one- you will thank me later.
At 99 cents, Angry Birds doesn't require you to make a huge financial decision, yet it comes jam packed with content which the developer, Rovio, keeps updating. All in all, the game touts 195 levels and counting, and let me tell you, conquering them is no easy task.
Here's the very odd plot: A group of birds are watching over a set of unhatched eggs. The birds are so protective that the second a mosquito lands on one, the birds then proceed to give him a mob-style beating. While this beating is going on, a set of pigs nearby are eating grass. Seemingly unsatisfied with their meal, the pigs spot the eggs and decide that the eggs would make a better meal. So they steal the eggs and the birds, horrified that they let such a thing happen, become angry and vengeful. Hence, Angry Birds.
Anyways, the pigs have retreated to structures made of glass, wood, and stone in what eventually escalates to a twisted version of The Three Little Pigs.. At the start of each level, you're given a set amount of birds and a slingshot. Your job is to launch the birds at these structures and "kill" the pigs living inside them. Make no mistake, these birds are on a serious kamikaze-type mission.
The Three Little Pigs this is not.
To help you out, each bird has a different ability. The basic red bird works like a cannonball, while the yellow one thrusts itself at a high velocity. The blue bird splits into three, another acts as a boomerang, and another acts as a ticking time bomb. The structures start out easy enough, but as you gradually move through the game, things start to pick up. You may be given birds that really aren't suited to take down certain structures. The structures are made of more stone than wood or glass, and the structures themselves are more architecturally sound in that they use a lot of triangles and reinforcement so that it takes quite a bit of damage to topple them.
Make no mistake though- this game is addictive. Because a level can take you less than a minute to complete, it's easy to pick the game up and play anytime you have a couple of free minutes. Like I said, it's 99 cents, and if you have an iPad, the HD version is $5- a steeper investment, but considering the larger screen and better graphics, it's still worth it. Either way, there's a reason why this game has been a top seller since it's release, and I hope you buy it and find out why for yourself.
Ah, the pizza arcade. The hotbed for children!s birthday parties and broken dreams. When I was a kid, I was lucky enough to have birthday parties at two of the best pizza arcades I've ever been to. That, combined with my having been to a slew of birthday parties, I've had my fair share of battles with the games at these places. In a nutshell, these places are like kiddie casinos, with kids paying money to play games of random chance and skill, winning tickets that can be traded in for worthless prizes that eventually litter the bottom of your toy box. The goodie bags you got at these parties often had more valuable stuff in them.
I, along with thousands of kids, have racked up tons of tickets. In some cases, we've saved from birthday party to birthday party, hoping that we earn enough to buy whatever the top prize was. In my youth, there was a signed Michael Jordan poster that took 20,000 tickets to buy. Soon, these places began offering Xboxes and Playstations that not only would take you 2 years worth of your parents salary to get, but by the time you had enough tickets, the Playstation 4 would be nearing the end of its life cycle.
Basically, I've had a lot of broken dreams. Simply put, if these machines took over the world, they'd screw the children first. So today, I take a look back at the games which shaped and ultimately crushed my childhood dreams of winning a large, overstuffed Marvin the Martian replica:
1: Wheel 'M In
Despite the fact that this game paid out a bunch of tickets, I HATED it. Basically, you'd shoot a coin onto this conveyor belt. It would have to land EXACTLY on one of the colored ticket strips painted on the belt, or you'd win nothing. If your coin was just a little off, the machine wouldn't cut you any slack. To make things worse, the Uncle Pennybags-meets-creepy uncle at the top of the machine would taunt you and say something like "Missed it by that much!". What an arrogant bastard.
The company has come out with a new version of the machine to swindle a new generation of ticket hunters called Wheel 'M In Extreme. It's the same game play, which, in turn, probably induces the same punch-a-hole-in-the-glass feeling deep in my gut.
2: Colorama
Colormama was made by Bromley, the same company who produced Wheel 'M In, so you know there's some sort of scam going on here. Colorama was the most thinly veiled way to bring the roulette wheel to the pizza arcade. You'd put a coin in and bet on which colored section a small bouncy ball would land in. Each colored section was a different size; the smaller the section, the more tickets it would pay out if you bet on it and won. This is probably the fairest game on my list, but that's not saying much. On top of that, when the wheel would spin, the machine would break into poetic verse, spouting "Round and round and round it goes// Where it stops, Nobody knows!" Actually, yeah, you do. You know goddamn well where it stops. Because you're a fucking machine with a twisted computer brain."
3: Progressive Skee Ball
Now don't get me wrong- I love Skee Ball- it's one of my favorite games in the arcade to this day and will probably be the first thing I buy for my future rumpus room (I just wanted to say rumpus room)! But Progressive Skee Ball is a bastard. The premise is that there's a bank of Skee Ball machines, all connected to this one ticket jackpot. To win the jackpot, you have to hit a really high target score (which is usually damn near a perfect game). Every few unsuccessful jackpot attempts raises the jackpot until someone hits it or the arcade shuts down for the day, at which point the jackpot resets to a paltry 200 tickets, or something like that. If this system sounds familiar, it is- it's the same one that casinos use for slot jackpots.
4: Cyclone Alright, now everyone has played this game before. I've dropped more coin in this machine than most people ever will, and I'll tell you what- I have NEVER won the jackpot. NEVER. You see those two arches right in front of that button? The object is to stop a rotating light (seen here near the pink arches) in between your arches by hitting your button.
I hate this game. With a passion. I used to mindlessly drop tokens in this one just hoping to win. Then, once I began to see how rigged this game was, I dropped more tokens in, eventually hoping to win just to spite the machine. Yes, I said it- to spite a MACHINE. If Wheel 'M In didn't make me crazy, this game did.
5: Coin Pushers
Every pizza arcade had them, but nobody ever quite understands how they work. I'll tell you- shitty. That's how they work. You basically drop coins down a Plinko-like wall, and they work their way across a pusher. In essence, you're hoping your coin is the one that causes some of those coins on the edge to fall off. You win those coins that fall off (and in the case of cheaper arcades, you get a couple tickets for each coin instead. Unfortunately, no matter the theme of the machine- whether it's outer space themed, music themed, or even Price is Right themed (yep, there's one of those), you never win a goddamned thing. Only one of every 60 million people has lived to tell their happy ending with these gold coin stealing whores.
6: Any Kiddie Machines
Technically, all of the machines on my list are kiddie machines, but I mean the ones that are for the kids who are too young to ever know what they hell they're doing. The smaller basketball machines with a 2 foot hoop, the Bozo Buckets machine, and a couple others fit this category. If you were 10 or 11, you thought you found a way to cheat these machines- you'd rack your score up to like 58,000 and you got rewarded with a paltry 7 tickets, since that's the ceiling that the operators set for it. Dejected, you went back to playing big kid machines, since the effort definitely wasn't worth the reward.
So, after winning Army men with faulty parachutes, half opened Warhead candies, the occasional Whoopie Cushion, and a few temporary tattoos, I can't say I didn't have a good time. But I would have been a lot happier with a bunch of stuff that ultimately, would have been cheaper had I bought it at retail price.
