IM HERE TO TALK ABOUT ONE THING...

Gnomoria.

What? You want to talk about Video games???

Do you like dwarf fortress? no? What can't you read idiot! well any way...like to be immersed in amazingness? what?? you do? why the hell are you reading this then?? Wait...well that's besides the point. Gnomoria is a "simplified" dwarf fortress with 98% more graphics. In fact it has beautiful pixel art and sweet music.

Also with gnomes instead of dwarfs. Its in alpha right now but don't let that stop you. It may still be a little neck-beardy now but not as much as Dwarf Fortress. Owned nerds.

 Buy this game if you want to have a lot of in depth fun with systems (or fun with in depth systems) and gnomes. If you don't then buy it anyway.

"Thirsty gnomes = Complex fucking system"

It can be purchased on Desura or from here. I had absolutely no trouble buying my copy from the website. On sale for 8 dollars? Worth it. Many hours will be spent. Here is a rad video for you poor unfortunate people who can not read.

TL/DR Cheaper and looks better than Towns so buy it.

SAND GAMES.

"Kind of like mine craft if notch was cooler."

I'm sure by now every single person who is manifested in some form or another has herd of  the Video game known as Minecraft. In case you live on a different dimensional plane then most Video game players do here is what it is in short: You build things. Mine things. And craft things out of volumetric pixels or voxels. there feel better? 

 Another sub genre of  Video games I can't help but be reminded of when talking about block-based-crafting Video games are "sand games" or "physics games" and I'm not talking about non-freebase here. These Video games are usually open ended and completely sandbox. The similarity to the Re-popularized Crafting/building sub genre comes in to play as a result of the creation element and their open ended nature. The user is free to do as they please. There is one game particularly that I really just like messing around in once in awhile:Powder game

This is a very good example of this "sand game" sub genre. In game there is a display of panel of what I would call elements or materials or what ever.

 

you can choose any of them and place them in the world. you choose sand, and you can place sand But, where the Building in a game made from blocks differs from this is the fact that each individual pixel of sand has physics applied to it so your mouse click manifests sand in a pleasing stream of pixels. (note: you can quote me on that, "a pleasing stream of pixels".) So placing sand in the world r what ever you want to call it, actually feels like terraforming a planet and not just placing some sort of condensed essence of dirt-brick. Not that that placing blocks int charming as all hell.

But, creating worlds is not all you can do. This Video game allows you to spawn small men to run around and jump and do all sorts of wacky things. Not only this but, many of the materials have varying effects: Clone for example: What ever material touches it comes out of the touched area in a fountain of amazingness. Virus: takes over any material and turns it into its self. You can also fire lasers and light gasoline on fire with them and explode c4 with fire lit from a fuse. A very sweet thing I discovered is (spoilers I guess):

By adding virus to clone it makes a really strange pulsating material with clone running through it in waves. when you fire lasers in to the clone waves when they pass by, you will end up with a liquid that shoots lasers. The fact that, that's probably completely emergent and not programed purposely makes me very happy.

Any way there are many differing variations on this sub genre of sand pixel physics games and what not. But what I'm really extremely excited for is the coming of the game: pixel sand, which was successfully funded on Kickstarter a month or two ago. So please check that out. It's basically Powder game but the best thing ever instead of the second best thing ever (Rampart).

Here are some links to a few example games:

http://www.scuzzstuff.org/oe_cake/ (amazing and non pixel)

http://www.pixelgames.com/game/330/SandTest.html (very basic but nice looking)

http://dan-ball.jp/en/javagame/dust/(complex still nice looking)

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/564944684/pixel-sand (BEST THING)

 

"YOU'RE LATE AND WRONG": II worlds

"its like a video game doing a video game thing."

II worlds is basically the video game equivalent of battlefield earth, and when I say that its because that movie was fucking ridiculous and that's why I liked it. I am a sucker for bad things but, II worlds isn't actually a bad game if you throw away all your dumb expectations of an in depth story line, great voice acting, or even not falling through the world. 

 A major complain of this Video game seems to be  about how its completely swarming with insects filled with bugs that make it unplayable. The bugs in this here Video game to me seem no more game breaking than "The Touch of Bethesda" has on any of Bethesda games. A big proponent of me loving Bethesda games as much as I do is because they are fucking ridiculous and hilarious. If there was never a time in fallout 3 in which a man ran full sprint up to me and screamed "HEYAHHH" and still-legged, rotated 360 degrees around and full sprinted away, I honestly do not know if I would have loved that game at all...besides the satisfaction of popping off dudes heads with a sledge hammer. The same goes for II worlds.

II worlds finds this subtle hilarious blend between bugged hilariousness and actual genuinely satisfying game mechanics. 

"Subtle"

I'm am not trying to justify the buying of the Video game but at least download the free demo off their web site. Oh and another thing, this is one of the few games I've played where having a bunch of useless weapons is almost non existent. II worlds allows you to combine any weapons of the same type a seemingly infinite amount of times. you can also combine a seemingly infinite amount of the same kind of gem in to a weapon also. For example: you find a spiked club. you find another, another, another and so on. All you have to do is just drag and drop all on to one and you can stack their effects. Same goes for any kind of elemental gem (even stacking gems on other gems to make them more powerful). There are no sockets, you just drag and drop. So from a simple spiked club you will end up with some sort of insane lighting overpowered man smashing device. This staking of items can be done with any kind of item: armor, shields, pants, you have to have really strong pants. Every one knows that.

"Bludgeon of Blood. Serious business bro."

Not only is there an amazing loot game but, there is also a potion crafting feature.You will Find a multitude of different kinds of herbs mushrooms, minerals, and you can mix and match them to make a large amount of potions with different effects. The best part is when you have made a specific potion you can keep the recipe and every time you mix the two things you get that same potion. 

In the end this is just a really fun Video game doing a Video game thing. Ok I'm done here, I'm going to go play this fucking retarded piece of shit amazing Video game again. 

"you"