Due to my occasional browsing on 4chan this morning I remembered an old game I used to play on my PS/1 when I was 5 or 6 years old. After some googling I finally remembered its name too and I managed to play it from start to finish. Overkill is the game that started my shmup addiction and gave me many false hopes because it’s really easy. You can download it for free here but you’ll need DosBox to run it.

The second news, not to put him in the shadows but because I couldn’t figure out a better heading, is Richard Stallman’s speech at the Academy of Fine Arts Carrara in Bergamo, where I’m currently studying. He mainly talked us about the faults in proprietary software, proprietary file formats and online services.

His words: “You may agree or you may not agree with me, but I respect your opinion”. Well, I do not agree on most of his choices. Although I admire the efforts of the Free Software Foundation and all they have achieved there are still targets that can be only attained with proprietary software, in a word where everything comes with a price. Honestly, I would already be a GNU Linux user if it wasn’t for the fact that I need to work with graphics and I play games for half of the time I spend awake. Maybe when I’ll own a netbook solely for web design…

Though I’d rather be playing Donkey Kong Country Returns instead of writing this but I couldn’t delay it any more.

Long story short: Donkey Kong Country Returns (DKCR from now on) is like New Super Mario Bros Wii for hardcore players straight out the 90s. Think of it this way: in the original Donkey Kong Country every enemy/platform was synchronized so you could run through the level at very high pace while in DKCR everything is asynchronous, leading you to get hit if you don’t move perfectly. I’m a little sad that the pace of the game has been slowed down but this represents a greater challenge and I’m fine with that. Other notable features of this “revamped” classic include pieces of puzzles hidden in each level in the least likely places you’ll ever go look and dozens of new enemies. I miss the kremlings! What you’ll love the most in this game is the absolute detail and polish Retro Studios put in each level. Almost every level has a particular challenge/enemy/vehicle that you won’t find elsewhere in the game. This keeps my “surprise and awe” meter high while I play in a way I’ve never felt before.

I’ll now tell you what the downsides are: These continous surprises sometimes don’t leave the player enough time to react. For example, there are platforms that shake and crumple when you step on them, but while they’re shaking you are already falling with them and you can’t jump off, taking you to certain death. In some cases then, you’ll face obstacles that you must have previously met (read: faced and died with) to know how to avoid them.

To sum up, you should definitely buy DKCR if you got bored playing Kirby Epic Yarn or Super Mario Bros Wii but you should avoid it if you hate to replay the same part over and over because you keep dying at the same spot five minutes away from the last checkpoint.

On the Team Fortress 2 front (I bet you were expecting this) the Australian Christmas event is currently ongoing. You can now craft and drop three new sets of items and pallets of hats, or uncrate them, assuming that you’re willing to pay for software you already own.

There’s also a new “medieval “game mode where you can play only with old weapons. The perfect place to blow off the steam you accumulated from critical rockets or randomly flying arrows.

If you want to take another peek at my latest map I’ve taken a screenshot during the “surrounding detailing” process. The map is playable and I’ve tested it with bots to make sure that everything worked fine from start to finish. I’ll release it when it reaches the beta stage, with textures and ammo packs in the right places.

I was unsure if it was the case to post these because they’re just cinematics but whatever…

Regarding Mass Effect we have some bad and good news:

The bad news is that the Call of Duty styled FPS from Bioware you may have heard about does not exist. The good news is that it’s Mass effect 3 instead.

Uncharted 3 is due for November 1st. It looks gorgeous as always.

On November 2011 it’ll also be the time to be a criminal scum once again in the lands of Cyrodiil.

The short making of for the two droids in Portal 2 gives us a little glimpse of their inexplicable personality.

You might not know, but here in Italy we’ve a small holiday on December 13th in which children receive the gifts they asked some weeks earlier. Well, my childhood times are long gone but I still get something every year and today it was the turn of Donkey Kong Country Returns. I didn’t have the time to try it though, so you’ll have to wait for my comments on the spur of the moment.

After a long back and forth of postal services and internet payments my Laptop is complete with italian keyboard, gaming mouse and ultra-bass headphones. Isn’t it beautiful?

It cost me less than you can imagine and it’s already paying off having it render two videos at the same time while I design a new TF2 map in hammer.

Don’t worry, it won’t be an orange map. It’s just still at an early stage of development though it’ll be playable shortly. Considering that my first map had performance issues due to its wide-open areas i designed this map with more corridors and buildings and a very heavy fog outdoors.

As for games, I played Darksiders and Street Fighter 4 at max detail. Who said that Laptop gaming is a myth?

Dark Void, or pretty much like that.

After my recent purchase of an ASUS G51 I’ve had some extra expenses like a power cable, keyboard replacement and the ridiculous amount of €250 in custom taxes. I wanted to take some photographs of the unboxing but the aforementioned events rushed things a little. You’ll probably have them after the keyboard substitution.

About that keyboard, I had to buy it on eBay with a brand new PayPal account and that gave me the idea. This is for all the people that at least once told me “Are you really doing that for free? At least put a donation button somewhere!”: I added a PayPal donation button to the sidebar. You can donate any amount from almost any credit card, it’s as simple as that. The donated money will be probably used to pay for the yearly hosting but I don’t have any idea beyond that fee. Just joking, I have an Idea but I must be sure it’s affordable first.

Strictly speaking of games, I’ve recently spent time in Puzzle Dimension, Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light, DarkSiders, Minecraft and Shank (and the always present Team Fortress 2 due to the Halloween Event).

Puzzle Dimension was suggested to me on 4chan when I asked about some good recent indie games and I have to admit that its name nails it. It’s just a tile based game with tiles that force your movement in a direction or prevent it, they crumple or appear when you approach them with so many combinations that the possibilities are endless. The game itself is something I build with Lego or other construction toys when I was a kid that to me it feels like a dream came to life.

I uninstalled the Guardian of Light after the second level I think. The reason? It’s too straightforward. The strong point of Tomb Raider has always been looking around for clues, inspecting mechanisms and turning the camera around to check what they activate. The new perspective view takes away this whole aspect of the series making the game a simple flow chart: push block, open gate, kill baddies, repeat. The environment, although very detailed, is repetitive and can’t be compared to old games, switching from jungles to mountainsides to water temples.

DarkSiders was really fun. Let’s forget for a second that every hack and slash since God of War is described as “like God of War but:”. It has its mechanics, gimmicks and combos borrowed from other titles among the current generation of consoles but they fit nicely and in the end it has an entertaining set of characters and story. The learning curve is also good, placing in front of you harder opponents every time with less and less health refills.

The non-unimportant time I spent in minecraft doesn’t still convince me. For some reason I can’t like the game. Mostly because i know that beyond digging and stacking cubes there isn’t anything else and that’s the same reason that kept me away from playing World of Warcraft for since its release.

I just started Shank, but I keep getting flashbacks of my youth spent in front of Cartoon Network, just more violent. I don’t have more to say. It’s so smoothly animated you want to press the buttons randomly just to find out more and more combos with different animations.