Ingress

When Niantic Labs @ Google announced Ingres,  I was very excited and immediately signed up for the beta.  But when I got in,  and tried the concept of real life gaming overlay,  or want nearly as cool as i had thought it would be.

I was expecting a treasure hunt and to find gold occasionally,  but not to be playing against others.  And I remembered why I have up so easily when playing first-person shooters in the early days. I want expecting to be the prey.

Granted it is somewhat possible to get around Ingres undetected,  collecting XM being anonymous.  But as soon as you begin to interact with a portal,  building or hacking,  you garner the ire of real people.  Some players are trolls, some protectors,  some warriors, and some are rogues,  but all are players and in the real world too.   There isn't much to escape back to once you've left the game.

I played for several weeks in the beta release.  My game crashed or seized often and it was discouraging.  But I reset and continued on.  I played for the Enlightened because I saw them as the Alliance from Blizzard's World of Warcraft. I played Horde for nearly 8 years,  and I wanted to see the enemy's territory from their eyes.

Of course Ingres is not much, if at all,  like WoW, but there are still sides, communications, and targets to consider.  There is no hand-to-hand combat,  only the indirect conflict of node generation and destruction.  It is however on a global scale and for a game that is free, making the stage the whole planet is fairly impressive.

What I could really go for is Google Glass or some other heads up display for a more realistic augmented reality feel. And maybe some gun-toting robots... yeah BIG, gun-toting robots.

Angry Birds GO Kart Racing App

Unbelievable!  If you've had the opportunity to play any of the Mario Kart games, then you already have an idea of how much fun this game could be.  It's great to see Rovio not slowing down in the face of its biggest competitors King and Zynga.  Angry Birds Go is HUGE step up from any previous ventures and looks to be a solid winner.

I can't tell you how many hours I personally wasted playing every iteration of Mario Kart.  I thought was pretty good, but if Angry Birds GO mirrors the fun of its prior apps, then it's got my attention.  When I think back on all the games that I played in the last 30 years, Mario Kart definitely sits in the top 10 of my favorites.

There's not a great deal that we can tell about interplay of the Angry Birds GO kart racing app from the trailer.  The characters, upgrades, and special powers are really just the internals of the game itself.  You can probably bet that kart upgrades will come with a price as the app itself is free.  I wouldn't even be surprised if there was no "buy" option for the app, so that the only way to get all the upgrades was to pay the incremental costs.

I sincerely hope that this game is not just cross platform single player, but cross platform multi-player over WiFi and Mobile data.  If the graphics are any indication of the awesome that is yet to come, I am looking forward to it all.

Check out the Trailer for Angry Bird GO

Ouya Android Gaming Console

One of the fastest products to go from the drawing-board to a actual product, the Ouya gaming console is a minor miracle.  Beginning on July 10th 2012 via Kickstarter and reaching its goal within 8 hours, Ouya proved to be non only the fastest growing project but also the most successful.  By the time the project closed or had netted $8.5 million.

But what is the Ouya, you might ask?  Based on the Android mobile operating system,  produced by Google,  Ouya is a video gaming platform.  This tiny box houses some fairly impressive specs comparable if not better than the most powerful smartphones and tablets available today.  

• System on a Chip: nVidia Tegra 3
• CPU: Quad-core 1.7GHz ARM Cortex-A9 MPCore
• GPU: nVidia GeForce ULP @ 520 MHz (12.5 GFLOPS)
• RAM: 1 GB DDR3-1600 SDRAM
• USB: 1x 2.0, 1 Micro
• Video: HDMI 1.4
• Audio: HDMI
• Storage: 8 GB
• Networking: 10/ 100 ethernet, 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.0
• Power 4.5 watts
• Size: 75x75x82 mm
• Weight: 300 g
• OS: Android 4.1 (Jelly Bean)

As promised to the many tens of thousands of contributors,  the Ouya has been shipped,  although many are still awaiting their copy.   As of June 25th 2013, the public may purchase the device for the promised price of $99.  Each controller runs an additional $49.  If you were unable to find the Ouya via Amazon,  it can be found at Best Buy as well

Candy Crush Saga: an introduction

I never thought I would review a game here, but since a good friend began playing the web-based version of Candy Crush, I decided to check out the Android version, Candy Crush Saga. I rarely play games on my android devices merely because they tend to destroy battery longevity and the graphics are often sub par, but when it comes to

Made by King, Candy Crush Saga (CCS) is like a combination between Angry Birds and Bejeweled, a slight extension on the web-based version. I've used the comparison of Angry Birds because of the progression and scoring system in Candy Crush Saga. You won't be throwing candy at birds or vise versa in CCS.

I can't fully review the game here as I have yet to make more than a dent in the progress chain, but the if the tutorial is any help, I can probably estimate how the rest of the game will be.  Like Bejeweled, there are several point scoring techniques, and I will not describe them all because there are so many, but here are some of the basics

• Any 3 clears
• Any 4 clears and returns a striped candy
• Any 3 from 2 directions clears and returns a packaged candy
• Any 5 clears and returns a sprinkled candy
• Any 2 striped, both vertical and horizontal rows / columns are cleared, returns an exploding candy that clears the surrounding 6 
• Any striped with packaged, 3 rows and columns are cleared, returns an exploding candy that clears 6
• sprinkled with any candy clears all of that color
• sprinkled with any striped changes all of that color to striped and clears 3 columns for each
• sprinkled with any packaged changes all of that color to packages and clears 3 rows for each

There are still a great deal  more pretty amazing things that can be done to clear and yet still more animated graphics and prizes to be won.  I have only gotten to level 24, but then I do not participate in the pay-to-play model.  If you fail to meet the requirements of the level you lose a life and can play again until you run out of lives.  But once the lives are gone you either have to wait to play again or you can pay $0.99 to get another full set of lives.  

Personally, I do not agree with the pay-to-play model, although I can definitely see how it could be profitable.  I spent seven years and $3500 on the Blizzard game World of Warcraft.  I think I got my fair share of entertainment, but I can't see myself ever doing it again.   Like so many other games that survive because of human addiction, Candy Crush Saga makes the desire to continue a bittersweet one. 

If you think you can resist the sweet temptation of Candy Crush Saga, check it out on the play or app store.