Armchair Diplomat

You lack motivation. You need to listen to this man, the man who motivates men.

In Leroy Smith’s words, and I quote:

In tenth grade, I beat out MJ for the last spot on our varsity basketball team, igniting a fire that inspired him to greatness. Since then I have motivized countless people with my inspirational DVD series and workshops. Now, with the launch of my revolutionary website, I’m finally able to motivate the world, including Canada.

Via his new website, full of “Leroy Smith Interactive Multimedia”, he guides you through the process of being motivated.

But, I digress. Leroy has produced a game that, in some people’s words, is the greatest video game ever made. And, considering my love for flash games, I’d tend to agree. His Leroy Smith’s 2 on 2 Hall of Fame Challenge (my vote for longest flash game title of the week award) is a faux 3D basketballer, reminiscent of NBA Jam or BasketBrawl.

Controls are simple, the game is quite fun, but it’s complex enough to keep some people entertained for hours.

Favourites are the crazy ass dunking that Leroy drops on you from time to time, cutting to an overlaid video of him yelling motivational obscenities at you. For example; he slaps the ball from you like the small child you are, leaps into the air from the three point line, and from a height of 60 feet, dunks you in a perfect 12,000 degree aerial pirouette, and then yells out “Butterscotch!”.

How, ladies and gents, can any game possibly counter that?

You need motivation. Head over to the official site and follow the link on the top of the page to play some awesome.

Fr-fr-fr-fr-fresh!

Record Tripping is a lovely flash game by the Bell Brothers featuring a few of my favourite things: vinyl scratching, cats, and an old lady reading me Alice in Wonderland in a funny voice.

It’s a wonderful, pretty example of excellent puzzles combined with a no-nonsense interface. At most, you’ll use the scroll wheel (or trackpad for Mac fanboys!) to scrobble forwards or back, shifting time ahead or backwards. You can also hold down the mouse button to slow the track, and hence time, giving you the chance to get your puzzle on.

The entire game should take under five minutes, but what a fantastic five. Personal favourites are the cats in the box factory, bobbing head to the beat.  My best time is like 3:28 or thereabouts.

Head over to the official site to take a geez.

This image depicts me jumping out of a window onto another building. Hard. Core.

OK, so true, the flash games of the week have been few and far between, especially considering it was many weeks since my last offering, but this came off boingboing, and is a real time waster.

Canabalt is a sidescrolling running slash jumping slash crashing game where the sole aim is to make a daring escape ala Bond films or 24. You click (and on the iPhone, tap) to jump. That’s it. Acceleration is generated simply by not screwing up, although sometimes you need to stumble on objects a bit to slow yourself down.

Seriously, it’s quite fun. If you haven’t yet tried it, play it. And if you enjoy it, then buy it … with your moneys.

Head on over to the Canabalt homepage to check it out.

Caution: Physics clean-up in progress

One thing I have never, ever been is a fan of puzzle games.

Just never enjoyed them. However, this game easily makes the list at #3, and I remember quite clearly when a friend was explaining to me the concept of Portal, Valve’s highly-celebrated FPS puzzle game, which came out in 2007. And I was enthralled.

He explained it thusly:

“Okay, so you have this computer that wants to test you. And the tests are getting out of these puzzles, like a platform game. Except you have a gun that fires portals.”

Portals can be spawned on any two compatible surfaces with the portal gun, one orange and one blue.  The way in which portals interact is kind of difficult to explain on paper, but highly intuitive when it comes to gameplay.

Essentially, the game is a physics and timing game. You are Chell, a silent character who finds herself amidst a computer-run testing facility. The computer is GLaDOS, who’s eerie robotic voice will lead you through the testing grounds with an ever growing scientific interest in watching you die.

Chell is given two parts that make up a single portal gun, or “Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device”; one trigger firing an orange portal, the other firing a blue portal; these portals join to enable Chell to walk through one portal (fired onto one wall) and walk out the other (fired on any other wall, ceiling or floor).

It is as simple as this!

Okay, for those who haven’t played it, it all sounds too complex. But it is a wonderfully simple game that taxes the brain just to the right level: when posed with a problem that one cannot solve, you have a finite amount of time before you crack a wobbly and through the controller at the television.

Every one of the problems will have you thinking just up to the point of frustration, and you feel so clever at the end of every level.

The puzzles are a combination of physics problems (how to use inertia to jump a very tall wall, etc…) and timing problems (platforms suspended above acid moves around the level, so you have to jump on and off these platforms). And they are all fun.

The story is very light-on, which is to say that there isnt much said, but the game’s brilliantly constructed atmosphere provides just enough of an edge to enforce the feeling that something just isn’t right at Apeture Sciences. You find blood-scribbled laments from previous test subjects hidden through the levels, and GLaDOS (the centre’s AI) is so wonderfully menacing in such a cold blooded, logical way.

It is testament that every person I’ve ever spoken to has only good things to say about Portal, and moreso that it is still on sale (granted, as part of the Orange Box, which I still say is tip-top-value).

I started replaying this through a few weeks ago, and it still has the charm and fun of an original playthrough. A truly great offering from Valve and certainly one of the gaming highlights of the decade.

Three down and two to go, check back in tomorrow to see who claims the runner up in our personal game of the decade countdown!

Scroller / Magic Puzzle Winnination.

Came across this little game, called Continuity, from Kottke and felt it deserved a re-posting.

An awesome concept, and brilliantly simple. Get the key into the door, and go through.

So four squares, and you can move them like a magic puzzle (you’ve all played one, usually a tiger or something and have to make the picture look like the tiger again, after being jumbled up). Except, pressing the space bar zooms in on your little dude, and you can jump and run your way through the changing map that is the magic puzzle.

Fun!

Proof!

Proof that it hasn’t been taken off the shelves.

After the rumour-mill went wild with the word that the game would be pulled from the shelves early morn (read more here and here), I’m glad to actually have a copy after that video got leaked that apparently ‘promotes terrorism’.

I’m more glad, in fact, that our archaic non-R rated games system didn’t pull rank and push back the release, or even worse, cripple what is shaping up to be a game of the year.

Unfortunately, I’m still at work.

This game is going to get the shit reviewed out of it, so stay tuned.

A sea of geekdom

Well, the whole Armchair Diplomat crew has rocked along for the eGames Expo; a mass of games titles (both new, unreleased, and old) are up for the playing.

So far we’ve checked out Assassin’s Creed 2 (hands on to come), Fairytale Fights, A Boy and His Blob, Just Dance (which we have christened Just Pants, and expect a highly embarrassing video to come).

We have yet explored the gadgetry “Digital Lifestyles” side of the expo, but I’m sure we’ll make our way over there at some point today.

Stay tuned for updates, and if you want Twitter action, follow @ACDiplomat and @xutraa.

Proof!

Well. The end of the first week.

It’s been a trial of sorts. And a lot of jogging. But not necessarily bad.

So, the background: I bought a Wii a week ago, and decided to set an experiment. The rules for this are simple:

1. Using the WiiFit, I’d do 30 minutes a day.
2. Every day, I’d measure my weight (using the built in Body Test).
3. Try and clean up my diet a little (cutting out the ridiculously bad foods… but nothing too taxing).
4. Chart the results.

Read more

Okay, here’s the lowdown. My house bought a Wii. With Wiifit. We also bought Mini Ninjas, the new Harry Potter game, and Link’s Crossbow Training.

Now after Matt has gotten blind drunk for science, I too must put myself through grief and pain in the name of Armchair Diplomat. Hence I offer unto you, our readers, a story; me putting myself through an exercise regime and writing about it.

I’m planning to do the following. Consider this a manifesto, perhaps…

The device in question.

1. I will do approx. 30 minutes of WiiFit a day. I’ll mix up the different activities (yoga, balance games, cardio, and muscle).
2. If I find 30 minutes not enough, I’ll do more as I see fit. But 30 mins at a minimum.
3. I may mix in a little WiiSports, but to be honest, only the boxing game will offer any cardio work. So maybe some of that.
4. In 2 months, I’d like to lose 10kg. That is just over a kilo a week. Achievable? I think its 1.3-1.4 kg a week.
5. In case I cannot achieve 1.4kg a week, I am happy to extend it to three months (still putting me in time for summer).

Read more

Twitter, the great micro-blogging tool of our age, is an interesting project. For all the “what I had for breakfast” tweets, and any other from the plethora of topics, it hasnt been monitised.

Monitised? What the hell is that, I hear you ask…

Making dollar-dollar bills. No ads, no subscription model, no selling-harvested-information (that we know of). But dammit, I’ve monitised Twitter.

I just walked into my local EB Games, bought a copy of Halo 3: ODST (which launched today, and expect a review shortly). As soon as the transaction was paid (which cost me $98), I left, walked around the corner, and my phone went off.

A message from Matt: “BigW have it for $68″. Why not a few minutes beforehand?! He heard this off the #ACDiplomat twitter!

Alas, I figure I’ll return it, and then get a discount.

Back in I go, only moments from being there previously.

$30 bucks in my pocket, and I declare Twitter to be a success story. Thank you, Twitter.