Age of Zombies = time travel, shooting zombies in the head and retro cuteness

 Console, Indie Games, Video Games  1 Response »
Feb 082010
 

There, I said it.  “Cute”.  Not normally a word I associate with violent death, undead hunger and head shots.   Age of Zombies features protagonist Barry Steakfries as he hops through time destroying undead brains, battling what looks like giant robots and there’s something about a zombie T-Rex too.

Styled like those ancient 2D shooters you used to have to pay quarters to play it does look like a good time.  Hell, if I had a PSanything, I’d probably check it out.  With a price point of $4.99 it’s well within impulse buy range too.   You can live vicariously through the power of YouTube as I have with this video.

Here’s a witty information post from the folks who created the game as well as a few more screenshots.

We at Halfbrick are very happy to announce Age of Zombies – Rated T for TEEN – for the PSP and PS3 minis. We know what you are thinking – “Great, another %@&$in zombie game!”

We thought about that too. After years of research at the Halfbrick Researchalogical Datafiler Department, our team discovered a unique formula which determined that:

(Proximity of gamers to zombies + stupidness and stuff) x Headblast Ratio 7.4 = Increased ability to spend money.

There’s no denying it. Zombie games make money. No one has anything against a good zombie game really, it’s just that there’s a lot of them. So we needed to try something different. We didn’t want to kill zombies in the usual way. We didn’t want to survive a deadly undead army in the ruins of some scary-ass town. We wanted to travel through time and shoot zombie dinosaurs and mummies and junk. So, we created Age of Zombies!

To conduct field research, the development team actually journeyed back in time to experience what it meant to really blast zombie faces with guns while standing around the Pyramids and Japanese villages and such.

Mr. Morowitz, the game’s lead programmer, found the entire experience fascinating:“I particularly enjoyed the artwork of the Ancient Egyptians and their ability to persevere under extreme environmental circumstances.”

Creative consultant Anthony Hansen on his adventure: “I learned how to make moonshine in the 1930s.”

And lead artist Murry Lancashire: “I liked shooting cavemen.”

Truly an enlightening experience for the entire team! Upon returning to 2010, Halfbrick set about creating Age of Zombies, where the hero Barry Steakfries employs the use of time portals to stop the evil zombie scheme of Professor Brains. Using a huge pile of weapons and explosives, Steakfries is the real deal for blood-splattering needs.

And yay, the game was. Age of Zombies, releasing on PSP and PS3 minis for $4.99 on November 25th. We hope, in the future, you do try it!

[tags]zombies, ps3, psp, video games, cute[/tags]

Comics on the PSP

 Video Games  3 Responses »
Dec 202009
 

There seem to have been some improvements to downloadable content for the PSP in recent firmware  and Store updates. One of these I have been testing out is the digital comics.

I never read comics when I was younger (OK, I will admit to Debbie & Judy but I was a girl and I didn’t know any better then). I read a lot of geeky blogs and always feel I have missed out on something. So when I saw that there were some comics available for free download I thought I would check them out.

There are quite a few free to download comics available under the ‘Comics’ section of the PlayStation Store; they seem to be the first editions so you can get a flavour of a few different ones. I have downloaded a selection and I must say that I am fairly impressed with the way they are viewed.

First off you have to download the software to your PSP which is quite easy through the internet browser, then you can go to the Store and get your free copies. Opening up the Digital Comics on your PSP you are offered choices; browse collection, recently added, unread, bookmarks and options. The options obviously allow you to change the way you view the comics, what controls do what etc.

I was wondering how the software allows you to view the comic but found it quite intuitive. Using the < or > arrows takes you through the logical reading sequence of the page and once at the end turns the page for you. Alternatively you can use the joysticky thing to move around the page as you wish. The triangle button zooms out to view the whole page, press it again and it zooms back in to where you were.

The graphics are lovely, gentle moving around the screen and a nice page turn effect. Naturally the PSP screen renders everything clearly (FYI I am on one of the original models) and I can see how I could easily get hooked into comic reading through this medium. Priced at 79p or £1.19 they’re not unreasonable either. Not having been a comic reader in the past I cannot vouch for the selection but there seems to be genres for all tastes.

Verdict: another reason to use my PSP instead of it gathering dust.

Monster Hunter Freedom Unite: Six New PSP Screenshots

 Video Games  8 Responses »
Mar 262009
 

The Monster Hunter family of games for the PSP is a big, big title in Japan and is also doing fairly well in Europe and the states.  The newest title, Monster Hunter Freedom Unite (known as Monster Hunter 2G in Japan) is going to hit Europe and hopefully the States this spring.  Here are six new screenshots as well as some quick facts about the game.  It’s being touted as the biggest Monster Hunter game so far with over 500 hours of game play.  Not bad for a PSP title.

• The biggest Monster Hunter title to date with over 500 hours of gameplay
• Huge variety of character customisations including 1500 weapons and 2000 armour sets
• Players can form a team of up to 4 players through Ad-Hoc play and experience the multiplayer social gaming phenomenon
• Media Install option where players can save the game to a memory stick, allowing the game to load from the memory stick and UMD simultaneously for faster loading times
• AI Felyne companion who will accompany players on quests and gather extra resources. With the ‘felyne casting’ feature players can share their companions with other players, transferring data using the PSP’s sleep mode.
• Fans of the series can transfer their data from Monster Hunter Freedom 2.

[tags]monster hunter, psp, video games, screen shot[/tags]