Saturday, October 31, 2015

TIF’s Snuggle & Scream Ep. 03: Until Dawn
Podcast

Snuggle and Scream as you listen to this podcast about horror films! In this special seasonal spin-off of The Impact Factor, Alex is joined by his co-host, fiancee and fellow (begrudging) horror movie watcher Justine to discuss some scary movies! Each episode we’ll talk about a new horror movie we’ve seen together and give our thoughts.

This week Justine and I discuss 2015’s Until Dawn.

Send questions & comments to:impactfactorpodcast@gmail.com
Alex is on Twitter @alexsamocha
Follow all things TIF: http://www.theimpactfactor.blogspot.com

Intro: ‘Horror TV’ by FoolBoyMedia, freesound.org. Attribution Noncommercial License.

Friday, October 30, 2015

News & Views
10/24/15-10/30/15

Happy (almost) Halloween everyone! It’s sad that we’re coming to the end of my favorite month of the year. But it’s exciting that the holiday is almost upon us! It’s not too late to join me in my Scare Fest 2015! I foresee candy and pizza and scary movies in my future. This time of year is great, too, because right after Halloween we go headlong into Thanksgiving and Christmas. Party time!

News & Views is back and awesome as always. This week I found great writing about why Halo’s story doesn’t matter, how Miyamoto wanted to create an entirely different GoldenEye, designing SOMA’s unforgettable monsters, and how the original Assassin’s Creed was so revolutionary.

In honor of Halloween, this week’s Spotlight is the 25 best horror movies since 2000. So now you have no excuse: get out there and watch some great stuff this spooky-scary weekend! Keep an eye on The Impact Factor on the 31st for something special!

And of course you can check out the brand new episode of The Impact Factor podcast that was posted today! You can subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, or if you prefer other methods, check out our SoundCloud. We’re on YouTube too!

Spotlight
Joshua Alston et. al, A.V. Club

Worth Reading
Latoya Peterson, Fusion.net

Kris Graft, Gamasutra

Daniel Hunter-Dowsing, Gamasutra

Michelle Ehrhardt, Kill Screen

Ben Kuchera, Polygon

With Comments
Ben Gabriel, Kill Scren
Gabriel writes a fascinating piece about how video games can be perfect vehicle for creepypasta. I love creepypastas. /r/nosleep is fantastic. This article really makes me want to borrow my fiancĂ©e’s 3DS to see Aika’s nightmare for myself. Spooky stuff fit for Halloween weekend!

Keith Stuart & Jordan Erica Webber, The Guardian
Miyamoto is such an interesting figure. His approach to game design is so thoroughly unique. I’d love to see his full vision of N64’s GoldenEye. A shooter with less violence, in which all of your downed foes greet you at the end of your playthrough sounds awesome. Stories like this are always fun to read, too. You’ve got to assume there’s some parallel dimension in which this version was released.

Mitch Dyer, IGN
Game ads are notoriously deceptive. They often lie about graphics (use pre-rendered cutscenes) and gameplay (show live actors). But I’ve never seen them lie about a game’s story, like what has happened with Halo 5. I’ve only played the first Halo and even I was captured by the concept behind the new game’s story. Master Chief is the bad guy?! And Spartan Locke is going to try to take him down?! So it came as a huge shock to me that this never happens in the game. I feel cheated, and I don’t even plan on buying Halo 5. It’s so bizarre.

Tyler Lee, Polygon
A boss battle best-of list with some nice visual flair. Like any superlative list, Lee misses out on a lot of great fights. The bosses he did choose, however, are all fantastic. It’s a nice graphic that brought a welcome bit of nostalgia. Man I need to play Shadow of the Colossus again.

Johnny Chiodini, Eurogamer
Chiodini puts together a video conversation that the industry has been collectively having for the past couple years. When should we review a game? Games are often broken at launch and improved in the week or two that follows. But what about online features? What about lasting impact? It’s a tough question and one that I suspect doesn’t have one good answer. Something to think about for all of us who share our thoughts on games.
The Impact Factor Ep. 26: Shameless Pug
Podcast


Welcome to the 26th episode of The Impact Factor! The Impact Factor is what happens when two scientists, and two best friends, get together to talk about video games. Hosts Alex Samocha [biomedical scientist] and Charles Fliss [social scientist] sit down every week to discuss the week in gaming! Listen in for the news, views, and games that made the biggest impact!
Please send your suggestions and feedback to: impactfactorpodcast@gmail.com

In this episode Alex and Fliss talk about Paris Games Week, No Man’s Sky, PS VR, Detroit: Become Human, SFV, SXSW, Persona 4 Dancing All Night, Until Dawn, Halloween & more!

The video game guide to sex--reader feature:metro.co.uk/2015/10/24/the-vide…rs-feature-5459168/


For articles and reviews from Alex, check out: www.theimpactfactor.blogspot.com
For a blog about Japan, pop culture & more from Fliss, check out:
www.flissofthenorthstar.blogspot.com

YouTube page:www.youtube.com/channel/UC_zpRq6h1O7d2MlMYWhNNjw 

Follow Alex @alexsamocha on Twitter. 
twitch.tv/megalodonphd
Follow Fliss @
thecfliss on Twitter.
twitch.tv/flissofthenorthstar

Intro song:
You Kill My Brother by Go! Go! Go! Micro Invasion, East Jakarta Chiptunes Compilations. Freemusic Archive. (Attribution Noncommercial Share-Alike License)
freemusicarchive.org/music/Indonesi…s_Compilation/
Transitions:
News & Views and Perspectives transitions from victorcenusa, Freesound.org (Creative Commons 0 License)
freesound.org/people/victorcenusa/sounds/148785/
freesound.org/people/victorcenusa/sounds/148784/
Experimental Methods transition from Sentuniman, Freesound.org (Attribution Noncommercial License)
freesound.org/people/Setuniman/sounds/143994/

Thursday, October 29, 2015

TIF Plays: Hearthstone Ranked! [13]
Gameplay

Another day, another Hearthstone stream. Check out an archive of my stream linked below, and be sure to catch me when I go live by following me on Twitter (@alexsamocha) and Twitch (MegalodonPhD) Enjoy!

Tuesday, October 27, 2015

On Horror, Games, Death, and Immersion
Article

Abstract: Horror is a balancing act between immersion, momentum and tension. The movie genre is one of my favorites for its ability to create and draw me into a new worlds. Horror is not my favorite game genre, however. Player deaths can break immersion and halt forward momentum, which weakens them as horror experiences. My favorite horror games, Dead Space, Resident Evil 4 and SOMA however, are able to find this balance and each accomplishes this feat it it’s own unique way.

Horror speaks to me. I love the thrills, chills, kills. All of it. Slashers and monsters and psychological and supernatural. Every October I throw together a Scare Fest list, compiling a bunch of horror movies to watch and review. This year I even started doing a special seasonal podcast in which my fiancĂ©e and I discuss a recent scary movie we’ve seen together: Snuggle & Scream.



There are a lot of reasons I love horror, too many to write out in this article. One of the main reasons, and the inspiration for this article, is immersion. The genre as a whole is routinely effective at world building. The movies craft their characters, motivations, and the antagonist  clearly—and have them fit into a cohesive world. The source material mandates this. To be scared you need to be involved. A part of that world. Often this can be difficult when the ‘truth’ of your world involves werewolves and ghosts and preternaturally strong psychopaths. Horror movies often create worlds entirely dissimilar to our own. So they work to create a setting detailed enough that the viewer is transported there. Once you’re in the world, you can be scared.

John Carpenter's The Thing brought me into a new world. A terrifying one.
The immersion typically found in horror films is a strange one, though. There’s limitations. You’re in the world, you are the characters… right up until they die. As a viewer, you’re free from the deaths and murder. In the best horror films, you’re affected by it as if you were the character themselves but there’s that crucial separation that occurs at the character’s last few moments. The observer-participant hybridization is something that continues to fascinate me about horror, and one of the main reasons it’s my go-to movie genre.

Horror’s observer-participant dynamic allows for several things, the most important of which is momentum. Deaths do not remove you from the experience. Quite the contrary, deaths are a key facet of the experience. Despite rapid ends to character arcs, you’re (almost) always treated with one continuous experience. Culling, whether it be of characters or questions, is additive in horror—it narrows the focus and builds towards the film’s conclusion.

In Alien, you are the crew of the Nostromo. Until you're not. Because they're dead.
Despite my fanaticism for horror movies, that level of adoration hasn’t directly translated to a passion for horror video games. Don’t get me wrong, I do love horror games. I’ll talk about my three favorites here shortly. Several horror games have even been seminal in the understanding and implementation of modern game design. I would say, however, that as a whole horror games struggle to recapitulate the feeling you get while watching a scary movie. All too often, horror games fail at preserving momentum.

How do horror games, even some of the best, struggle to maintain a brisk momentum throughout? It all comes back to immersion. Like I wrote above, in horror movies you’re immersed right until the point of death. Your immersion breaks for a few moments, and then you’re right back in with the characters who’re still alive. But dying is a serious issue in games. The immersion in games does not end when a character dies. You are that protagonist whether you die or not. Death results (usually) in a game over screen and being sent back to your last checkpoint. This loop is problematic in three important ways. First, you lose momentum. The actions of your hero are halted dead in her tracks, only to be repeated once you make your way back to where you died. Second, it breaks immersion. Dying and coming back to life five minutes before you ate it isn’t something that happens in real life, nor is it a part of the game world that’s ever explained. To clarify that last point: when you die and respawn in Outlast it doesn’t fit within the reality of the game. There’s no explanation to it. There isn’t something like “In this insane asylum, those confined within its walls are doomed to live and die endlessly.” Or something to that effect. You respawn in a horror game because you have to, not because it fits the truth of the world. Functionally, the game just pretends you didn’t die. And finally, player deaths remove tension. Knowing what killed you and where it’s hiding (usually) strips fear from the encounter, and makes the final experience weaker overall.

Friday the 13th had a great / terrible game over screen. Seeing this too often
can kill the 'horror' of your time with any horror game.
Horror works when you have a perfect balance of the three: immersion, momentum, and tension. Horror games work when the balance of difficulty and death is titrated in such a way that you need to just barely survive. You are constantly in fear of dying, but death comes infrequently. Because you’re ostensibly one of the few characters that survives the ordeal, or at the very least makes it to the end of the ordeal (i.e. the end of the game), death is more set-back than an intended possibility. So few games get this balance right. In some, you die far too often and it kills momentum, tension, and immersion. In others, you never die and the game loses its scariness, transforming into either an action or exploration game depending on the underlying systems. Fortunately, there are a select few horror games that do an excellent job at maintaining this delicate balance. They also happen to be my three favorite horror games of all time. Let me tell you about how all three get the balance of difficulty, death and momentum correct, each in their own unique way.

2008’s Dead Space, by EA Redwood Shores (a.k.a. Visceral Games now) is first on the list. Let me make something clear from the start. Unless you’re incredibly, overly, pain-stakingly cautious, and good at third-person shooters, you will die during your time with Dead Space. It’s going to happen. Isaac Clarke, space-engineer turned space-alien slayer, can die in some pretty gruesome ways. Why deaths work in Dead Space as opposed to other titles, though, is how intimately they are a part of the game’s narrative and world. Ok, sure, Isaac Clarke isn’t supposed to die and the game offers no explanation on why you respawn. Death in Dead Space, however, is edifying. It builds immersion. The mysterious necromorphs are at the heart of your experience. Necromorphs are these emaciated, gory humanoid forces of dismemberment and death. Throughout most of the game, though, their particular brand of evil is a mystery. Why they are, what they are, and what their purpose is. While the game offers other types of narrative to answer these questions, one of the key ways in which you begin to understand your foe is death. They ways in which they decapitate you, disembowel you, build Dead Space’s world. There aren’t very many characters with which to interact in Dead Space. The necromorphs have no other way to communicate with the player other than tearing you limb from limb, so your early deaths act as a conversation. On top of all that, the ways in which they kill the player (rending extremities from torso, generally) reinforces the central gameplay mechanic of ‘strategic dismemberment.’ Shooting off necromorph limbs is the only way to kill them. Well, that plus a swift stomp to their noggin. Your death works synergistically with both world building and gameplay. In that way, Dead Space finds it’s own way to balance player deaths with its horror intentions.

Deaths are used as both conversation & world building. They're essential
to your experience with Dead Space.
Resident Evil 4 is next on the list. I love the Resident Evil franchise, but it wasn’t until the fourth entry into the main series that it really clicked for me. And I think a large part of why it felt so good to play, and felt so authentically horror, is because it nailed the balance of death and momentum. What I didn’t expect, however, is that the infusion of better action elements would be the reason behind this balance working so well. Leon Kennedy isn’t your standard powerless horror protagonist: he’s a government agent who has already proven his skill at killin’ zombies. With that knowledge, it makes sense he comes equipped with plenty of tools to handle his situation: guns, knifes, grenades, you name it. And you know how to use them. In addition, you have access to a fairly generous merchant who shows up everywhere to keep your personal armory stocked. All of this is necessary though, because Resident Evil 4 pits you against unfathomable odds. While playing the game you always feel like you’re on the cusp of dying. After each fight you’re left with precious little health and even less ammo. But you made it out alive. Resident Evil 4’s scenarios are perfectly designed to give the player this feeling over and over again. Case in point is one of the game’s earliest encounters in the town square. The player is tasked with fighting off a seemingly endless horde of angry villagers. The fight can last upwards of 15-20 minutes. Every time I’ve played the scenario I feel like I’m teetering on the precipice of death—my health is too low so I’m forced to sprint to a distant house to hide and heal, or my ammo is low so I try to bait the angry mob to come at me one at a time by strategically running way and re-engaging. Sure, you can die (and I did), but with skillful play and the right difficulty setting (normal or hard depending on player skill) Resident Evil 4 kills the player only a precious handful of times, and has them spread out often enough they don’t severely impact immersion or momentum.

You might be a badass, but Resident Evil 4 continually finds way
to put you on the precipice of death.
The most recent addition to this list is Frictional Game’s SOMA. The game does so much exceptionally well, and it’s easily one of the best games I've played this year. On top of having an incredible and mature sci-fi narrative that leaves the player with lingering existential dread, SOMA also has created a stunningly immersive world that is reinforced by a perfectly crafted balance of death and momentum. Perhaps most importantly, SOMA tries to scare the player very differently than most other horror games. SOMA isn’t about the fear of death and dying, like in Dead Space or Resident Evil, but rather the fear that arises when you ask questions like ‘what is death’ or ‘what does it mean to die.’ SOMA would be terrifying even if it were impossible for the player to die. But there are monsters, and you can die. Smartly, SOMA moves away from one-hit-kills like those in games like The Evil Within or Amnesia: The Dark Descent. It’s always two. This maintains momentum and severely limits replaying sections. Further, monsters appear frequently (or infrequently) enough that you’re constantly on edge that they might appear, but you’re never bogged down having to move past monster after monster. It maintains their scare factor. And finally, SOMA gives the player interesting ways to avoid dying. Some enemies, for example, can only see you if you are looking at them. This creates a new kind of tension. The player not only must move without looking at the monster, but it also places you physically closer an enemy than most other games. That quasi-safety in proximity creates a near-death feeling horror strives for. As a result, SOMA is a fantastic horror experience. Game or not.


SOMA moves away from scaring the player with death. It scares the player
by making them think about what death actually is.
The best of the best, whether movie or game, balance the many tensions that exist in horror. Horror games must be exceeding hard to design in this way, which makes the exceptions I described above all the more worth commending. So maybe give one of them a shot this Halloween weekend. Happy Scare Fest everyone.

Monday, October 26, 2015

TIF Plays: Heroes of the Storm! [5]
Gameplay

I decided to finally get around to streaming and playing Heroes of the Storm with friends! This will continue in the weeks ahead, so be sure to let me know if you want to play together. Check out an archive of my stream linked below, and be sure to catch me when I go live by following me on Twitter (@alexsamocha) and Twitch (MegalodonPhD) Enjoy!

TIF Plays: Hearthstone Ranked! [12]
Gameplay

Another day, another Hearthstone stream. Check out an archive of my stream linked below, and be sure to catch me when I go live by following me on Twitter (@alexsamocha) and Twitch (MegalodonPhD) Enjoy!

Friday, October 23, 2015

News & Views
10/17/15-10/23/15

Another Friday closer to Halloween and another heaping helping of great video game writing from around the web! If you haven’t already, please give the second episode of Snuggle & Scream a listen: my fiancĂ©e and I talk about The Guest!

In this week’s News & Views I found stories about one player’s quest to achieve the (nearly) impossible, surrealist humor in Undertale, and how a first-person shooter helped someone to discover their sexuality.

And of course you can check out the brand new episode of The Impact Factor podcast that was posted today! You can subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, or if you prefer other methods, check out our SoundCloud. We’re on YouTube too!

Spotlight
Jason Schreier, Kotaku

Worth Reading
Nico W., The Mary Sue

Leigh Alexander, Offworld

Patrick Klepek, Kotaku

David Bennett, Kill Screen

With Comments
Eric Van Allen, Paste
For Hearthstone addicts like myself, this week was pretty huge. One of the most dominant cards in one of the most dominant decks was made substantially less powerful. It’s a change I understand, but done in a way that still upsets me. Blizzard has a strange way of weakening cards, one that almost always makes them so bad they come unplayable. Still, the Warsong Commander change will be ultimately good for the future design space of the game. A new meta awaits.

Askel Junkilla, Polygon
This piece is worth reading if only for the stir it caused online following its publication. While Junkilla raises some fair points about the state of mobile development and the mobile games market, his bitterness (and ignorance) takes center stage. Many of his complaints seem to boil down to blaming consumers for his misreading of the market. I feel for the struggling developer, I really do, but his mindset isn’t a great one to have moving forward.

Jeffrey Matulef, Eurogamer
I included this article as well because of controversy. Skullgirls developer Lab Zero is trying to crowdfund their new RPG, Indivisible. There was some anger online about how much money the developers asked for ($1.5mil). The anger is demonstrative of ‘gamer’ ignorance about what it costs to develop games, though. I’m sick a tired of seeing Kickstarter games asking for a meager sum and pretending that it will be enough to make the next Skyrim. It’s BS. Mike Z in his interview with Eurogamer breaks down the ‘big ask’ and attempts to demystify game budgets. I’ve always respected Mike Z and the team at Lab Zero games, but it’s always great to have my trust re-confirmed. Tell the folks like it is, Mike. 
The Impact Factor Ep. 25: Match Fixing Your Problems
Podcast

Welcome to the 25th episode of The Impact Factor! The Impact Factor is what happens when two scientists, and two best friends, get together to talk about video games. Hosts Alex Samocha [biomedical scientist] and Charles Fliss [social scientist] sit down every week to discuss the week in gaming! Listen in for the news, views, and games that made the biggest impact!
Please send your suggestions and feedback to impactfactorpodcast@gmail.com

In this episode Alex and Fliss talk about eSports, YouTube Red, Battleborn, Aurion, Prey for the Gods, Shadow of the Colossus, Indivisible, Snuggle & Scream and more!


Subscribe to us on iTunes: itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-i…id993404882?mt=2

For articles and reviews from Alex, check out: www.theimpactfactor.blogspot.com
For a blog about Japan, pop culture & more from Fliss, check out:
www.flissofthenorthstar.blogspot.com

YouTube page:www.youtube.com/channel/UC_zpRq6h1O7d2MlMYWhNNjw 

Follow Alex @alexsamocha on Twitter. twitch.tv/megalodonphd
Follow Fliss @
thecfliss on Twitter. twitch.tv/flissofthenorthstar

Intro song:
You Kill My Brother by Go! Go! Go! Micro Invasion, East Jakarta Chiptunes Compilations. Freemusic Archive. (Attribution Noncommercial Share-Alike License)
freemusicarchive.org/music/Indonesi…s_Compilation/
Transitions:
News & Views and Perspectives transitions from victorcenusa, Freesound.org (Creative Commons 0 License)
freesound.org/people/victorcenusa/sounds/148785/
freesound.org/people/victorcenusa/sounds/148784/
Experimental Methods transition from Sentuniman, Freesound.org (Attribution Noncommercial License)
freesound.org/people/Setuniman/sounds/143994/

Thursday, October 22, 2015

TIF Plays: Indivisible!
Gameplay

Indivisible is a game currently in development and seeking funding over on IndieGoGo. Lab Zero is combing 2D platformer elements with JRPG gameplay. I wanted to see what the game was all about, especially after I discovered that they released a prototype version for the Mac! Check out an archive of my stream linked below, and be sure to catch me when I go live by following me on Twitter (@alexsamocha) and Twitch (MegalodonPhD) Enjoy!

TIF Plays: Hearthstone Ranked! [11]
Gameplay

Another day, another Hearthstone stream. Check out an archive of my stream linked below, and be sure to catch me when I go live by following me on Twitter (@alexsamocha) and Twitch (MegalodonPhD) Enjoy!

Wednesday, October 21, 2015

TIF’s Snuggle & Scream Ep. 02: The Guest
Podcast


Snuggle and Scream as you listen to this podcast about horror films! In this special seasonal spin-off of The Impact Factor, Alex is joined by his co-host, fiancee and fellow (begrudging) horror movie watcher Justine to discuss some scary movies! Each episode we’ll talk about a new horror movie we’ve seen together and give our thoughts.

This week Justine and I discuss 2014’s The Guest.

Send questions & comments to:impactfactorpodcast@gmail.com
Alex is on Twitter @alexsamocha
Follow all things TIF: http://www.theimpactfactor.blogspot.com

Intro: ‘Horror TV’ by FoolBoyMedia, freesound.org. Attribution Noncommercial License.

Tuesday, October 20, 2015

Retrieval Mission
Review
Xeodrifter, Renegade Kid (PS Vita)


Abstract: Xeodrifter is about retrieval, both mechanically and narratively. Renegade Kid’s 2014 action-adventure game takes the ideas established by games like Super Metroid and Castlevania: Symphony of the Night and implements them to great effect in Xeodrifter. For brief moments, I felt the same thrill I experienced when I first played those seminal, genre-defining games. At others, the game’s limited scope reminded me I was playing a title with a different ambition than it’s forefathers. The game is fun, functional and well made but doesn’t have much of its own voice.

Xeodrifter’s premise is simple enough. You play as an astronaut who, after a collision with an asteroid, finds his ship critically damaged and unable to continue lightspeed travel. The astronaut is then subsequently stranded in a small solar system of four planets, tasked with traveling down to each in search of the components to repair his derelict vessel. On each planet you find challenges—small monsters, traps and difficult areas to traverse. As you progress through your short time with the game, you will find yourself frequently hopping between planets as you become better able to explore them. By the end of your adventure the astronaut barely resembles his starting self. You have the ability to jetpack upwards, run at phenomenal speed, transform into a submarine, and more.

Submarine exploration is just the start of your journey.
It’s clear to me that Xeodrifter was made with longtime genre fans in mind. Everything has a place. The game felt immediately familiar, like returning home. Xeodrifter knows its pedigree and acknowledges the kind of people likely to play it. That manifests itself in a couple ways. First and foremost, Xeodrifter is not a game that’s going to hold your hand. You’re not told which of the game’s four planets to start on, that’s something you discover when you realize you can’t make progress in all but one. And even after that, it’s up to you know find where and how to use your new exploration abilities. Xeodrifter also has an exceedingly punishing first hour or so. You start the game with an extremely limited health pool. A couple hits and you’re dead. There’s no checkpoint system mid level either. You die and you’re sent back to the start of the world. I wouldn’t call Xeodrifter a difficult game, but it is certainly one that will make you pay for your mistakes. As a fan of 2D action-adventure games, and metroidvanias, it felt perfect.

Try not to get hit. Dying, at least at first, comes pretty often.
Xeodrifter’s 2D gameplay is kept simple. You run, jump and shoot. The former two aren’t done exceedingly well at first, though. As a metroidvania, a key aspect of your progression relies on unlocking new abilities that both open up new avenues of exploration and make your character feel more powerful. How do you gain these new abilities? Boss fights. Bosses test your understand of the game’s mechanics, as well as the use of all previously acquired power ups. Fights like these are often a high point in other metroidvania titles. That’s unfortunately not the case here. Every boss shares the same model, only with different colors. Though each fight proceeds a little differently (each new boss will have one or two new moves), they all play very similarly. It’s monotonous and the game’s biggest misstep. It would have been so nice if the repetition of visiting the same worlds several times over was in-part ameliorated by exciting boss fights.

Wait, you again?!
Like I said earlier, Xeodrifter is all about retrieval. Renegade Kid has retrieved the bare bone essentials from Super Metroid and repurposed them for the game. It felt as if the developers had a checklist of everything a metroidvania game needed to feel complete. They made sure to check all the boxes but, unfortunately, Xeodrifter doesn’t have much beyond that. Much of the criticism levied against Xeodrifter when it first released was that the game was ‘too short.’ Time to completion is never something that affects my review of a game, period. But there is a nugget of insight in that complaint. Xeodrifter is fun, functional, and well-executed. It also feels like it could have been more. The game is content to be a charming throwback to some of your favorite games, rather than try to strike out on it’s own and become a new classic. Xeodrifter felt like an appetizer to a more complete experience.

Straight out of Super Metroid. Not that that's a bad thing.
Renegade Kid can sure nail visuals, though. The game looks and sounds fantastic. Xeodrifter is a perfect fusion of 8- and 16-bit graphics. The end result is a game that would be at home among its NES/SNES inspirations. One of the most striking aspects of the game’s presentation is what the developers have adapted from their previous title, Mutant Mudds. A power up you unlock mid-game allows the player to hop between the foreground and background to traverse past obstacles. The way in which Renegade Kid pulls off this effect needs to be commended. The fidelity of the miniature background combined with the focus blur on the foreground that happens seamlessly between hops is remarkable. You could tell this was the developer’s signature. It never stopped being fun.

Background-foreground hopping was my favorite thing to do in Xeodrifter.
Xeodrifter filled a perfect niche in my game time. I was looking for a tightly designed, compact experience with solid mechanics and a competent foundation. All of that is true about Xeodrifter. The game felt at times like it lacked ambition, however, which was clear in the repetitive gameplay and uninspired boss fights. Still, I was happy with the time I spent with the game and would recommend it to anyone looking for a quick metroidvania fix. You’ll retrieve what you need from it.

Xeodrifter
3/5

Sunday, October 18, 2015

TIF Plays: Heroes of the Storm! [4]
Gameplay

I decided to finally get around to streaming and playing Heroes of the Storm with friends! This will continue in the weeks ahead, so be sure to let me know if you want to play together. Check out an archive of my stream linked below, and be sure to catch me when I go live by following me on Twitter (@alexsamocha) and Twitch (MegalodonPhD) Enjoy!



Saturday, October 17, 2015

TIF Plays: Hearthstone Ranked! [10]
Gameplay

Another day, another Hearthstone stream. Check out an archive of my stream linked below, and be sure to catch me when I go live by following me on Twitter (@alexsamocha) and Twitch (MegalodonPhD) Enjoy!


Friday, October 16, 2015

News & Views
10/10/15-10/16/15

News & Views is your source for the week’s best video game writing! I found a lot of great articles for you all to enjoy. Check out below for links to writing about the neuroscience of survival horror, colonialism in Metal Gear Solid V, and gaming’s reinforcement of the ‘American dream’.

And of course you can check out the brand new episode of The Impact Factor podcast that was posted today! You can subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, or if you prefer other methods, check out our SoundCloud. We’re on YouTube too!

Spotlight
Maral Tajerian, Gamasutra

Worth Reading
Reid McCarter, Kill Screen

Chris Kerr, Gamasutra

Omar Elaasar, Paste

Jeremy Parish, US Gamer

Askel Junkkila, Gamasutra

With Comments
Sarah E. Needleman, Wall Street Journal
The Legend of Zelda symphonic performance on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert inspired me to include this article. Orchestrated video game music can be amazing. I’m so happy to hear that these kinds of performances are drawing huge audiences back to the concert hall. While I understand criticism from long-time orchestra fans, I find most of their complaints unfounded. Perhaps video game music will get a new crowd to attend Tchaikovsky?

Riley Macleod, Kill Screen
Macleod gives a fascinating take on how video games have consistently reinforced for the idea of the ‘American dream.’ A dream that’s often an illusion, writes Macleod. His argument centers around how success is almost always represented as a feature of a person’s character, citing that in reality, you can do everything right and still fail. It’s a great perspective and well worth reading.

Kaitlin Tremblay, Unwinnable
Tremblay’s short piece about horror is a good one. Horror so often plays upon what it means to be humans, and the fear surrounding the human condition. Tremblay uses two of the most iconic video game horror franchises of all time, Resident Evil and Silent Hill to comment on this. To put it briefly, Resident Evil displays the fear of losing your physical self, and Silent Hill is all about the fear of losing your mental self.
The Impact Factor Ep. 24: When Live Gives You Snomel
Podcast

Welcome to the 24th episode of The Impact Factor! The Impact Factor is what happens when two scientists, and two best friends, get together to talk about video games. Hosts Alex Samocha [biomedical scientist] and Charles Fliss [social scientist] sit down every week to discuss the week in gaming! Listen in for the news, views, and games that made the biggest impact!
Please send your suggestions and feedback toimpactfactorpodcast@gmail.com

In this episode Alex and Fliss talk about Hearthstone, Overwatch, Firewatch, Indivisible, Friday the 13th The Game, Black Ops 3, Star Wars Battlefront, Snuggle & Scream and more!

TIF’s Snuggle & Scream: Theimpactfactor – Sns_ep01


Subscribe to us on iTunes: itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-i…id993404882?mt=2

For articles and reviews from Alex, check out: www.theimpactfactor.blogspot.com
For a blog about Japan, pop culture & more from Fliss, check out:
www.flissofthenorthstar.blogspot.com

YouTube page:www.youtube.com/channel/UC_zpRq6h1O7d2MlMYWhNNjw 

Follow Alex @alexsamocha on Twitter. twitch.tv/megalodonphd
Follow Fliss @
thecfliss on Twitter. twitch.tv/flissofthenorthstar

Intro song:
You Kill My Brother by Go! Go! Go! Micro Invasion, East Jakarta Chiptunes Compilations. Freemusic Archive. (Attribution Noncommercial Share-Alike License)
freemusicarchive.org/music/Indonesi…s_Compilation/
Transitions:
News & Views and Perspectives transitions from victorcenusa, Freesound.org (Creative Commons 0 License)
freesound.org/people/victorcenusa/sounds/148785/
freesound.org/people/victorcenusa/sounds/148784/
Experimental Methods transition from Sentuniman, Freesound.org (Attribution Noncommercial License)
freesound.org/people/Setuniman/sounds/143994/