The Quixotic Engineer

Great news for you Wii owners: Okami, one of the overlooked gems of the Playstation 2, is being ported to your system. One of my personal favorites, Okami is an adventure game not entirely unlike The Legend of Zelda in execution. However, what has made the game truly iconic are the unique graphics and the creative Celestial brush system.

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Having picked up the Orange Box late last week, I finally got a chance to play through Portal this weekend. Despite its brevity (3-4 hours for the main story), I can say with conviction that it will be remembered as a classic for years to come.

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A friend of mine from work got Joystiq’d today. In his free time, Renaud is the lead programmer for a game called Fez, a platformer game being developed by Kokoromi Collective, which is also entered in this year’s Independent Games Festival.

Having tried the beta firsthand, I think the game will be a strong contender. Similar 2D/3D mechanics have been explored in games like Super Paper Mario and Crush, but Fez has enough interesting twists to be original in its own right. The graphics are vibrant and have an Earthbound-like quality to them, accentuated by the intentional 8-bit look. Furthermore, the physics for jumping are as tight as any Mario game, which is essential in a platformer.

Best of luck to Renaud and Phil Fish in the IGF!

Rainy Woods has been described as “Silent Hill meets Twin Peaks”, but it reminds me of the film Se7en more than anything. Either way it looks fantastic, I’ll be looking forward to this next year.

On a slight tangent, not only does the Orange Box come out this week, but it seems that Puzzle Quest is set to arrive on XBLA on Wednesday as well. With today being a holiday, this is shaping up to be one fantastic week. Happy turkey day, fellow Canucks!

All the hype and anti-hype about Halo 3 left a sour taste in my mouth and made me question whether or not I should bother writing anything about the game. While it certainly doesn’t deserve the release madness it has created, the fact is that Halo 3 is a very solid FPS with extremely refined balance and great production value. Taken objectively without the fanboy hype, the game is just good fun.

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