When I first considered tackling the vast library of GameTap games for our cheap gaming feature, the first title that popped into my mind was Beyond Good & Evil. Subsequent deeper considerations unavoidably retrieved the same result. It grabs you by the soul. I’ll try and restrain repeating the “propaganda”. So, with news of the sequel on its way, let’s discuss the original.

Released in late 2003 to positive reviews, the game nevertheless sold rather poorly. It was a new franchise with an image that didn’t grab gamers’ attention… until later. Through word of mouth alone BG&E steadily grew a base of adoring fans long after it was considered a financial failure.
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Due to a mishap involving two ferrets, half a jar of peanut butter and an unstable set of crutches, this week’s post is a few days late as well. That is, relative to my regular schedule; if you’re simply expecting a new post every 7 days, I am right on time. In that case, disregard this prelude.

I’ll preface the rest of my post with a caution that this week’s game is not for everybody. It can be irritating, frustrating and a general source of vexation. I’m willing to bet that it just won’t be fun for you unless you’re a certain type of person who has a high threshold for pain. That said, if you enjoy playing games like Riven: The Sequel To Myst with no walkthroughs or you aren’t satisfied walking away from a challenge in Tony Hawk without a “Sick” rating, then Trials 2: Second Edition may be for you. I am hoping that I have not steered you wrong with my recommendations up to this point. If you’re ready to take a chance on me, I’ll cue some inspirational music and tell you about this game.
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Every week I usually can’t wait to watch a new episode of The 1UP Show. For this week and the last they’ve been running “special” episodes; I put this weeks’ episode off for a couple of days, but I just now finished watching it and I couldn’t help but to rush here and share it. As much as I’ve come to dislike recycling content here, this must be seen!

This weeks’ episode is 40 minutes of a dinner meeting between Mark MacDonald (Editor: EGM), Erik Wolpaw (Writer: Portal), Dylan Cuthbert (President: Q Games) and Jonathan Mak (Creator: Everyday Shooter). This video is utterly fascinating. If you’ve never thought of game designers as artists, or of games as art, and these discussions don’t make you think twice about your stance, I can’t help you. The designers give insights into their varrying creative processes, talk of their past projects and even their gaming habits and what it’s like to play a game as a designer. Please, do yourself a favor and give this a watch. Also, feel free to comment with your thoughts and if I should keep posting things like this or not.

I’m a little late this week. I am coming off of several days of testing various Linux distros on my notebook in an attempt to find one that will cooperate with my Wi-Fi cardbus adapter. Now that that’s behind me, I can get on with writing this week’s cheap game post. I settled on Ubuntu, by the way.

I have another “Shmup” (Shoot’eM-Up) for you here today, similar to Geometry Wars from a couple of weeks ago. Unlike Geometry Wars, however, and more similar to Every Extend Extra Extreme from Q Entertainment, the object of this twin stick shooter is to create chains of explosions over top of some pretty interesting music. The game is Everyday Shooter, created by Jonathan Mak of Queasy Games, and this formerly PS3-exclusive shooter is now on the PC. As the winner of three IGF 2007 awards including Design Innovation, Excellence in Audio and the GameTap Indie Award, it’s very much worth a look.
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I’m in the middle of setting up all my computer components on the new computer and ironing out issues. I’m not suave enough to have made a comic ahead of time as I’ve been installing other things around the house (’Blu-ray’ player, new sound system, Death Ray, etc). So I’ll be skipping this week with all kinds of new content next week. Until then!

If you are anything like me, you’ve tried to do well by your wallet and living space by not falling into the trend of buying the console-based music games, and subsequently, a glut of plastic instruments. I’ve got nothing against them as games, but they can be costly, so I have resigned myself to latching onto the fallout of the rhythm gaming revolution by playing the PC-born music games like Audiosurf or Frets On Fire instead of two or more Guitar Heroes per year.

This week I have finally gotten around to playing IGF’s 2007 winner of the Best Student Game award, Synaesthete. Created by four students at DigiPen, Synaesthete is something of an “action-rhythm” game set to electronic music. It received some press a few months ago when the awards were doled out, and I am sure there are others, like me, who downloaded it but just let it sit in a forgotten directory for all this time. Time to give it a look!
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So after a lot of talk about just waiting for digital download, I went and got a Blu-ray Disc Player. It apparently converts normal DVDs up to a higher quality. Well I’ll find out soon enough. So now we have a DVD player/burner and VHS all in one, and then a Blu-ray player. Everything runs off of HDMI cables. Watching movies on the big screen is about to get a whole lot sweeter in this house. I’ll let everyone out there in HD-land know how it looks as soon as I get it hooked up and try out a Blu-ray disc and a DVD on it.

From Xbox to Xbox 360, from there to the PC, Wii and DS, this week’s cheap game has made the rounds. Despite its rather pronounced presence, it’s still good, still cheap, and still worth a look.

The game is Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved for the PC. Developed originally as a mini-game within Project Gotham Racing 2 for the Xbox, chances are good that you’ve played at least one iteration of this highly popular game. However, you may not be aware that it is available on the PC, and for less money than anywhere else.

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Here’s a compilation of the quirky TF2 class upgrade comics Sokkratez and I made for Downloadable Suicide.

Heavy Upgrade
Soldier Upgrade
Spy Upgrade
Sniper Upgrade
Medic & Pyro Upgrade
Engineer Upgrade
Scout Upgrade
Demoman Upgrade

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This week’s cheap game combines a classic puzzle concept and independent flavor. Also, it’s free!

The game this week is a puzzle game by the name of Tripline. It was independently developed and distributed by one Joakim Sandberg. You may have seen him recently on the 1UP Show during a segment about his most recent game, Noitu Love 2. If you didn’t, you should probably go check that out; it’s a very nice interview and Noitu Love 2 looks incredible. We’ll leave talk of that for another time.

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