In the following video, released as the first in a series of developer diaries for the upcoming Worms Revolution, lead designer Kevin Carthew offers a history of the franchise, as well as reasons why Worms Revolution takes that history and allegedly brings something new to the table.
How could you NOT want to play a Girls with Slingshots FPS?
You have to give it to the Penny Arcade guys. I think its great to see their game series get the third installment. Its great to see people as outside commentators on the video game industry get the chance to actually get involved in making a game. Not every webcomic creator out there is a gamer I would love to see any of these games get made.
Tried something a little different on a technical level this time. Doubled the size of the comic to work on before scaling it down when I was finished. Hopefully the line art looks a little smoother this week.
After being air lifted onto a strange island, you get a job at a fast food joint to make ends meet. When things don’t go your way on the job, you quit abruptly and your entrepeunial spirit drives you to open up your own greasy restraunt. Thank goodness the economy of this island doesn’t require you to have any money or get a loan to buy a business! These events may sound like the premice of a fantastic new TLC reality show called Survivor on Restraunt Island (no one steal that idea, I may want to pitch it to a TV executative next week), but in fact they unfold in the beginning of Order Up!, a game from UTV Ignition just released on the Nintendo 3DS eShop. This game tasks players with overtaking a heap of dining establishments and turning them into five-star eateries.
Gameplay
Essentially, Order Up! is like a gaming salad composed of some leafy Diner Dash, crispy Cooking Mamma, and a smidgeon of FarmVille. Once you are settled in your own restraunt, you will need to effectively manage customer flow to keep everyone happy and eating, which you do by paying attention to the little emoticion over each table’s head. Grouchy customers should be waited on first to ensure you get the maximum tip from them. When you begin preparing their orders, you must also know what kind of seasonings the patrons like. One guy liked brown sugar on EVERYTHING, and was willing to tip handsomly for you to pander to his disgusting desires. Another patron wanted barbeque sauce on every dish – from a cold cut sandwich to his macaroni and cheese.
Here is where you will start each day in Order Up! -- in front of your restaurant
Preparing the food is no simple task. Each entree has several ingredients that must be prepared sperately. For example, when making a hamburger you have to cook the beef patty, tear up the lettuce, chop the tomato, and fry the fries. All of this is done by performing different gestures on the touch screen. There was some missed opportunity here; tasks such as tilting a frying pan around to coat it with butter would have been a lot more fun if it could have been tied in to the 3DS’s motion sensors instead of the touch screen. Every item will have a small indicator guage hovering over it so you can easily tell when you’re preparing it correctly and it is fit for consumption, but you can easily lose track of something and it will burn or eventually ignite and cause a kitchen fire. This is why utilizing your assistant chefs is extremely important. You get the first assistant for free, but each chef after him costs a certain amount of coin to hire. They come with certain strengths, like prowess at the deep frier, and a seperate ability such as inspiring diners to order the chef’s special (which will net you more profit). You will want to make sure you have the right assistant to achieve your goals, and you delegate tasks to them to help you serve everyone in a timely fashion.
Having a large variety of dishes on the menu, seasoning things to fit your guests’ strange tastes, and making food well will all have a huge impact on the amount of money you make. You will need large quantites of gold in order to upgrade your restraunt and its equipment, as well as hire the right assistant cook to get the job done. You can also spend coin to buy new recipes for your menu, spices for your rack, and level up your knife skills for the ultimate chef blood sport! Okay, that last bit was a fib but once you’ve improved your business enough to achieve a five star rating, you can move on to a bigger and better place. This is a game made for people that love to grind your way to success, but it has a much faster pace than other games in this vein.
Here is the spice vendor. This couldn't be considered racist, right?
Presentation Order Up! looks much better than one would expect from a downloadable handheld game. This is an eShop games that was crafted especially with the 3DS in mind, and the 3D effect looks great. For the most part, I was able to play with the slider turned all the way up without any loss of framerate or the doubling of images that happens with older 3DS games on the maximum setting. Character designs are very cute and display a whimiscal and cartoony style. A lot of care was taken to give characters at least a dash of personality. Unfortunately, not many unique character models were used so when looking at the filled tables of your restaurant it’s a bit like you have been cooking for an island full of clones.
The sound is good, though the music is a bit banal. The voice acting and dialogue is where this title’s strength lies. You are sure to get at least a couple of light chuckles from the lines exchanged between the various characters that occupy your tables.
Keeping the health inspector happy will be one of your many tasks.
When reading the premise for Order Up! and seeing the $9.99 price tag, it would be easy to dismiss it. There are similar games available on mobile platforms for a fraction of the price, but they are no where near this quality. Order Up! successfully combines a cooking and restaurant management sim game into a fun game with a surprising amount of depth. Is it fun enough to make you pack a suitcase and parachute into a bizarre clone-filled island in the middle of nowhere? Probably not, but perhaps it will inspire you to try new things in the kitchen, like maple syrup on your macaroni and cheese.
[review title=”Order Up!” pros=”Nice visuals and good voice acting complete the package on this well done game.” cons=”Price tag is a little hefty, it would have been nice to see a little more diversity in character models.” verdict=”Order Up! Will definitely please a younger gamer, or anyone who likes the grind of the “Ville” games.” score=70]
Phantasy Star Online was the first online RPG that I really cut my teeth on. It was so fun back then on the Dreamcast to play with your friends. It also had a great sound track to boot. Even hearing one of the songs now sends me into a nostalgia fit. While Sega tried to re-kindle the flame with Phantasy Star Universe, it didn’t stay hot long enough to really give me that old burning PSO feeling I wanted. Now, Sega has been working on Phantasy Star Online 2 and it is currently in open beta. If you can’t read moonspeak, it can be quite challenging to get into this open beta, but lucky for us there is someone with a handy dandy guide to help you try and make sense of all those wacky squiggly lines. If you are interested in giving it a try, be my guest by clicking this link.
It will help a lot with the basics of set up and installation. Beware though, I had trouble mapping buttons to my controller, so I had to use the keyboard and mouse, which honestly wasn’t so bad. Character creation is VERY in depth, and the guide is a little confusing when it comes to that, so I pretty much just clicked something and went for it. It definitely has that PSO feel, especially with the music. The tutorial has you teamed up with an NPC and gives you the basics of combat. From there I got to wander around the main hub where I ran into another English speaker and we chatted for a moment. I then went on a mission and was joined by a healer half way. I didn’t do a whole lot, because it being in Japanese, all the stuff I wanted to do was overwhelmingly difficult with the language barrier. I did figure out where the shops were and how to equip weapons, so that is good. I hear that someone is working on an English patch to hold us over until we get an American release. I’ll have my fingers crossed and update you as soon as we learn more. Until then, enjoy the video!
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One of the greatest aspects of the ever-growing digital games market is the re-releasing of original versions of classic games. I especially love when older games that are hard to find and sought after are released for much more reasonable prices than you could ever hope to pay for them before. It’s not just because it makes playing them easier. I was never above emulation if I didn’t have a better option. What I really love is that every time a publisher gets a hold of and re-releases a crazy license for some bizarre Japanese game they’re essentially giving the middle finger to every jerk on the internet trying to take advantage of curious gamers for much more than these games ever retailed. It’s especially great when it isn’t some boring jRPG that everyone has already played and talked to death. Tomba! is one of those games. Monkey Paw Games has brought another zany PSone cult classic to the PlayStation Network, and for that they’re heroes in my eyes. Continue Reading
Nintendo announced, via its Japanese twitter account, that the next Super Smash Bros. game will be developed by Namco-Bandai. Director Masahiro Sakurai is still supervising and his own studio, Sora, will assist. Continue Reading
"BEAT PANELS ARE THE SECRET TO COMEDY" - Jeph Jacques
I am not a paranoid conspiracy theory type of person. I don’t believe in them. However seeing a video game come out about a bunch of LEGO superheroes in the time frame that I am psychologically inclined to want to relive my childhood AND have disposable income is kinda creepy. Intentional or not I feel worried someone in a lab is trying to make products based on my childhood. LEGO Batman 2: DC Superheroes looks like a lot of fun. It would also be great to play a GOOD game that had Green Lantern in it for once.
Pleasantly surprised I got to put a shout out in the caption this time.
Capcom has just announced that it will be bringing the renowned adventure game Okami to the PlayStation Network this fall for 19.99. In addition to a shiny new HD resolution and trophies, it will also support the PlayStation Move controller.
XSEED Games announced that previously the unveiled Unchained Blades will hit the PSP as a digital-only release on June 26th, with a price point of 29.99. Later on in the year, a 3DS version of the game will also be released. Unchained Blades is a dungeon crawling RPG with a first person point of view, and it directed by Toshio Akashi, known for the classic Lunar series. It is also being written by Takashi Hino, known for his involvement in the Grandia series.
Bethesda Softworks has given Doom fans a date to keep a close eye on. On October 16 in America, and the 19th in Europe, Doom 3 BFG Edition will launch. At 29.99 on the PC and 39.99 on the PS3 and Xbox 360, BFG Edition promises to be the definitive Doom experience, including a remastered version of Doom 3 with several new features, and the original Doom and Doom II as bonuses.
RoboAwesome was a fun place for some friends to get together and write about games, and get on Skype to talk about poop and stuff. We had a fun few years, but have all moved on to other projects. This exists solely for prosperity's sake.
You can listen to old episodes of our podcast here or find it on iTunes. There are a few episodes in the middle of the series that are missing from the feed, so you can download the .zip file of them here if you wish.
A big thanks to all of those who supported us over the years. If you are sad that we're gone, don't worry. Just don your jet pack and find us in the floating RoboFortress that hovers over the earth at all times. There you will find us, eating crunchy snacks, guzzling energy drinks, and talking about tentacle rape (still).