This film highlights the early phase of that conflict as it follows the lives of three RAF pilots: George Burges, John Waters and Timber Woods. These pilots flew Gloster Sea Gladiator biplanes in the heroic defense of the island against more modern Italian fighters and bombers. In all, about six Gladiators were involved in the fighting–some were cannibalized for parts–but only three could ever be scrambled for a single sortie.
I watched some of the hour-long film, and it’s really quite good. In particular, I was really impressed by the cinematography and sound work. The voice acting wasn’t terrific, but I’ve heard much worse in amateur and fan-made projects.
Does anybody know what game they used? I asked Bob, but I haven’t heard back.
You may recall that a few weeks ago I helped spread a plague of lost corporate efficiency by blogging about Desktop Tower Defence. Somewhere I recently encountered this blog post, describing five such tower defense games. In the interests of science and delaying any number of vital software projects, I checked out all five.
The best of the bunch is Onslaught. It’s more complex than DTD, each games lasts longer, and the strategy seems more sophisticated. The only down side is that there’s currently no sound, though this may be a bonus if you’re trying to avoid raising your boss’s suspicions. I also like the game’s pace. I can start a game and have it running in the background for the first 40 or 50 levels. In fact, there’s a game running on an adjacent tab as I write this blog post.
As you can see, they’ve borrowed the ‘yellow exclamation mark equals quest giver’ convention from World of Warcraft (there’s also the ‘yellow question mark equals finish off your quest, stupid’ convention). The practice may predate WoW–I’m not sure. I wondered if big yellow punctuation marks have now become a standard in online roleplaying games.
Given the ubiquity of WoW, I thought it’d be funny to design a hat (kind of a variation on the cheesehead, I suppose) that was a foam yellow exclamation or question mark supported above your head by a halo of wire or something. These dudes have made a nice-looking ballcap, but I was thinking of actual foot-long 3-D punctuation marks. They’d be ideal gag gifts for gamers.
If nothing else, they’d make for great field marketing costumes for a game-related marketing campaign. Imagining positioning a few of those at street corners in cities. Gamers would be drawn to them like a schnauzer to spilled ice-cream.
Can’t wait for 28 Weeks Later (I can, the first one was frickin’ terrifying)? Play the gory The Last Stand, a web game in which you slay zombies by night and gather weapons and survival by day. In truth, it’s not all that great a game, but I like dysoptian scenarios and carnage.
Are there any analogous PC or console games set in zombie-filled post-apocalypse worlds that aren’t first-person shooters? Something in an RPG, perhaps?
Incidentally, 28 Weeks Later comes out on May 11, 2007. I was curious, so I looked it up.
Thanks to Kirsten, I discovered Boomshine, which is kind of the Aveda spa of web games. It’s got calming music, and pretty bouncing dots, and is exceptionally simple to play. Simple doesn’t equal easy, though, and I’ve only gotten to level eight.
Aside from playing the corners and planning for hitting fast-moving dots, I haven’t really developed any sound strategies for winning the game.
The lack of posting here in the second half of this week (especially to my linkblog) has been a direct result of attempting to beat this highly addictive game.
Whatever you do, please DO NOT click the link and start playing that game. You may find yourself in the very same time warp that I did…
You have been warned.
He was so right. Proceed at your own risk. I’m writing this post while listening to my trusty pellet towers mow down all the bad nasty creeps.
Silly me, I was happy with a score of about 1500 (thanks, Waxy):
Jostiq (no, uh, pun intended) has an interesting column (again, sorry) about the technical problems involved in convincingly rendering in-game sex. It’s a problem the gaming industry refers to as ‘collision detection’:
Some of the designers in the room had worked on fighting games and explained grapples that you see in games are all canned. Simon Strange, a designer on Godzilla: Destroy all Monsters, said, “Single point of contact between two people in games is already difficult enough. If you’re going to have people having sex, there is ultimate contact. How do you support their weight? There are multiple points of contact. That is the difficulty.”
Any gamer knows what they’re talking about. I’ve yet to see a really convincing handshake in a game, let alone any full-on nookie.
The state of the art looks something like the “Hot Coffee” hack (that link goes to Wikipedia, and is safe for work. This link goes to YouTube, and is not) in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, which is no more titillating that the puppet sex in Team America: World Police.
The other day Meg pointed to this little game where you try to name all the American states in under 10 minutes. I went 45 for 50, which I think is fairly respectable for a Canadian. I’d be a little worried if I knew all fifty.
Much trickier, however, is naming all 53 African nations. I got just 30. The job is all the more difficult because those countries change names on a fairly regular basis. I’d never even heard of a couple of the countries I missed. I was, for example, entirely unaware that there was an island nation between Madagascar and mainland Africa.
How did you fair? I’d like to try Europe and Asia as well.
