| Like all our download games, the Vista-enhanced titles have a free trial version, so if your system is running Vista, I really recommend trying them out! Geometry Wars in particular was a treat for me, since I love it on Live Arcade, but of course I couldn’t play it here at work until now (while conveniently sized for the home, an Xbox 360 isn’t something you generally carry around in case you want to spend a few minutes over lunch playing Geometry Wars; if nothing else, it’d be difficult to stuff a high-def TV into your backpack).
Anyway, they’re all available right now, and I plan to reacquaint myself with Crystal Quest this weekend. Since I can’t be retroactively fired from a job I quit more than a decade ago, I’ll admit to having taken frequent unauthorized breaks from my work as a file clerk back in the early 1990s to play the original version of this game on the computer in a neighboring department. Embarrassing, but true: that game hooked me, big-time! Snag the new version, and see why for yourself.
Island life, now with extra coconuts
More coolness: we’ve got Virtual Villagers 2! It launched exclusively on MSN Games this past week, and of course I had to start playing immediately. Now, you may remember that my previous village didn’t do so well (I kind of neglected it for two days and all my little villagers starved, d’oh!), so this time I’m determined to keep everything going smoothly. Actually, it’s a bit easier to get started this time around, since you can fish from the very start of the game. There are also coconut trees to be harvested (thank goodness, since the beach eventually becomes polluted with algae and nobody wants to fish in it anymore). But having two food sources to start with allows you to build up a surplus before putting your villagers to work on research.
Coconut trees aren’t the only new goodies in this sequel, though. My favorite new feature is the “collection” system; shiny pebbles, shells, butterflies, and beetles occasionally appear across the island, and you can direct children to pick them up. Every item you find is displayed on a trophy screen to commemorate your discoveries; better still, any duplicate items you find are turned into tech points. I’ve found myself scrolling around the screen for ten or fifteen minutes at a time, just looking for little treasures to grab.
The game also features 16 new puzzles to solve, six areas of research, and the usual random events that could be good or bad for your little villagers (nasty flooding or a bobbing barrel o’ babies… which will it be?). I’ve been checking up on my island every few hours for the past three days, and I’m pleased to say that this time, I think they’re going to do just fine. I kind of wish I could burn down the coconut trees, though; the food storage bin is about two inches away from fertile farmland, but my supposedly master farmers have been known to eschew the easy bounty of ripe veggies in order to walk all the way across the island and climb the trees to harvest coconuts. There must be one heck of a nice view from up there, or something.
The gauntlet is down!
You may have heard of a web comic called Penny Arcade; they’ve been poking good fun at games and players for several years now. (Please note that they can be really, really rude about it sometimes, so do not click the link above if you are easily offended. I’m serious. Just in case they’re swearing up a storm again.) Anyway, who’d have guessed that they’re also really addicted to the game of ping-pong? Well, it so happens that they offered to demonstrate their skills to any team of game developers willing to take them on. And it also so happens that we have a ping-pong table right here in the lounge area. This sounded like a match to me, and indeed it will be: they’ll be stopping by next Thursday after work with their best players, and we’ll just see who has the ping-pong skills to brag about.
I’ll try to get a photo or two for next week’s Coffee Break, hopefully of our home team crushing the cartoonist interlopers!
Tech time
No big tech issue this week, but I want to thank everyone out there for being patient with our recent site maintenance; this latest update made improvements to the Ratings matchmaking system in multiplayer web games.
Oh, one more note: if you appear as a Guest when logging in, it may be due to a Nickname database outage (part of the maintenance schedule). It should clear up within 24 hours. Please don't attempt to change your nickname during this process, or your old nickname may be permanently lost! Just wait a bit, and we'll get everything back on track. Thanks so much again!
See you next week! | |
