From Comments of DGR: 02.27.2009

Your comments on Flower are pretty interesting, John, in light of the podcast I heard right before this week’s episode. I was listening to a recent episode of The Geekbox in which Ryan Scott was discussing R-Type Dimensions. His take on the game was essentially this:

“It’s good, it’s really hard… Thank God they put in Infinite Mode because it’s too hard for me to get through otherwise. But the game’s really short– I mean, you can blow through it in 45 minutes.”

While this is technically true, as shmup fans, we get a [i]lot[/i] more out of the R-Type experience than this guy did. Perhaps the same is true for Flower. Obviously, you can’t directly compare Flower with a shmup– DJ Incompetent is likely to vomit upon reading this, in fact– but for many folks, the experience that they get from playing through Flower is good enough that the length isn’t a concern.

- M.C.

I hear what you’re saying. Flower is a “flight-ish” game for certain, reminding me almost of Nights.

I have no problem with short games. Hell, I wish a lot of games were much shorter than they are. I just don’t have time for it anymore. But it wasn’t just the length of Flower that gave me pause. It was just the feeling of, “They could have done so much more with this” that I had when it was done. But like I said, I sort of go back and forth with it. The experience I had playing it was mostly great and often unlike any other game I’ve played. That itself is worth the price. But when I finished it I just had this sort of unfulfilled feeling.

- John

As far as I’m concerned, short games are fine, but I put a lot of value in games that offer options and alternate ways to play through the content. That is what earns the timeless replayable triple-A award for me. Did you know one of the bigger complaints expert players have on Gradius V is that it’s too long? This game clocks in at about an hour, but the ideal time STG players (myself included) want to spend on a one-credit session is roughly 30-something minutes. This is a large complaint for many Compile games as well (Aleste series, Zanac series, etc.), being long stages are a fault and not a feature, especially when they have dead zones of no on-screen enemies for several seconds. An ideal way to maximize content of a single shmup title is to have several different ‘courses’ of 5 stages instead of one massive 8-stage trek. Developers have not thought to include this option besides the compilation multi-game packages. Raycrisis explored this by allowing users to plot a course of five stages out of a selectable eight.

But what’s the issue here with the semi-controversial Flower and FlOw?
They’re great stand-alone games, but players complain not enough is done with it.

(more…)

I bring you another batch of iPhone apps, dear reader. All of which are free, all of which will make your phone so much more than the device that brings Youtube to entertain during your bowel movements.

Yeah, the metaphor well’s dry tonight. So on with the apps.

Frotz: This is perhaps the most badass application to grace the iPhone since Stanza (see last apps article, a must-have). Frotz is labeled as an “Interactive fiction” collection. What this means is you get a free application that comes chock-full of text-based adventures, along with a link to the IFDB, which allows you to download thousands more. The downside: typing commands with the iPhone can be a little clunky. The upside: You have access anywhere to hundreds of thousands of hours of content. Any text-based adventure fan with a commute should have this.

Lux Touch: It’s Risk. On your iPhone. For free. One touch and you start a randomly generated board with 3 computer opponents and race to global domination. The touch controls are fantastic, and the game is amazingly intuitive. The downside? Only one play mode and no frills whatsoever. This is still a fantastic app for any risk fan or owner of Lux for the PC/Mac/Linux. To put this in John terms: Once I downloaded this I ceased playing Aurora Feint.

Cannongame: Like Worms, only without moving or worms. You control a cannon and have 15 shots to destroy a variety of targets, adjusting for range, height, etc, etc. Velocity and height are both adjusted via cool little touch-sensitive dials. Sponsored by the Discovery Channel, this isn’t a bad little free application. It is rather short, though, as you only have a handful of levels that don’t really change. You can’t knock it for the price, though.

AroundMe: A cool app that uses Google maps to tell you just what’s nearby. Fantastic for being on foot in a city, or just for finding a gas station on a road trip. The app will tell you with reasonable accuracy where anything from a gas station to a movie theater to a fast food joint to a hospital, with most other reasonable needs accommodated. Gives you one-touch dialing for phone numbers, or allows you to drop the spot in as a pin on iPhone maps.

AirSharing: Turns your iPhone into a network drive. When you just can’t be asked to get up and go over to the computer and dock it. Not a bad way to juggle files, really, as the iPhone can then replace a flash drive for most situations and you don’t need to worry about lugging the USB cable for it with you. Works through Mac or PC, and is Bonjour for PC compatible, if you happen to be one of the 3 people that uses that.

Wikipanion: A quasi-useful app that brings Wikipedia to your iPhone. Which already has internet. Which obviously has Wikipedia…

…

Ok, that aside, the application does seem to run a bit faster than Safari-ing over to the site, and the text is automatically formatted for the phone on each entry. There’s also some handy search functions added. Altogether not a bad application for those of you who can abide redundancy.

So there you go. Another handful of semi-useful or nifty applications for the most powerful device you’ll ever take to a public restroom. Tune in for more free stuff to shove into your phonehole.