And Yet it Moves

And Yet it Moves is an indie game with a unique art style that requires platforming and the manipulation of your environment in order to solve puzzles. Sound familiar? While the description I provided bears a striking similarity to that of Braid (or a vast number of other indie games for that matter), I assure you that this game is special.

You play as a man who is merely a drawing on a piece of paper, yet you have the remarkable ability to navigate a beautiful world composed entirely of bits of paper. The game gives you 2 sets of controls-one for moving yourself, and a second for rotating the world. This rotation mechanic is required to complete the puzzles. Although this is not very difficult there is loose debris that will also rotate when you rotate the world and will try to crush you, thus making navigation more difficult. Additionally, moving these loose objects is sometimes required in order to remove an obstacle blocking your way.

To sum up physics + puzzles + platforming +paper environments+ monkeys= amazing game (demo). Oh, I forgot to mention there are monkeys sorry about that. I have only played the demo but assume that the full game is even better. The full game will include 16 levels in 3 environments and will be released April 2 on Steam (If you pre-purchase now you can save 10%). I'm not sure that I'll buy this one right away but I think its a great game none the less.

CHOPPED!!!!111111

Don't forget to watch Chopped tonight (Tuesday) at 10 PM Eastern time. Its sure to be intense and exciting. If you are in the US this week you should watch it.

Videos 4 Dead

Because of some strange holiday called "Spring Break" I won't be playing a lot of Left 4 Dead this week. I've been playing a little World of Goo (which is great fun) but doesn't really give me my zombie fix. These two videos should ease some of the pain of Zombie withdrawal.

Epic Left 4 Dead Action

On Tuesday night my gaming group and I had an epic 6 1/2 hour play through of No Mercy on Expert. Half of this time was spent on the finally alone. That night I went through the full range of emotions- I, laughed, I cried (only a little), I was scared and finally I was relieved to get out of that hell hole and reach safety. Unfortunately, one of my friends had to leave and we were left to complete the finally with two AI characters (Francis and Zoey). Though we thought it was hopeless, decided to try anyway and guess what... it actually worked. I will attempt to explain what happened using the thoughts of the characters (in italics), spoken lines, stage notes/narration (bold) and screenshots taken after the fact. Enjoy the story!

Setting the stage: It is just before dawn on a stormy night and the survivors are tired and a bit shell shocked from a long night of fighting and after Zoey's lobotomy they didn't think there was much hope... still, in these times, a little hope was enough. After all they could give up and die as cowards or fight like hell and die as heroes. They chose the latter. We open this scene in the radio room on the roof top.

Louis: [answers the radio signally the nice man in the news chopper that goes around rescuing people to come and rescue them] "Hello? Nice man in the news chopper that goes around rescuing people? Sup dude, we aren't infected and want you to pick us up"

Nice Man in the news chopper: "Yeah dog I'll be there soon call me back in a minute I'm a little busy makin' some dinner. Oh and by the way when you call back again a whole bunch of zombies will come after you because it makes the your life more intense. K bye"

Louis and Bill: Man I really don't want to die. I hope we don't screw up and die because we've been fighting for a really long time.

Zoey and Francis: Well I really don't know what to do so I'll stand in your line of fire

Zombie 1: ROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRR [So begins the terror. The survivors decide to hold out in the radio room with automatic shotguns and make it through the first wave of zombies]

Zombie #1 is angry (and hungry for brains)

Louis and Bill: Wow! were really doing it. Die zombie scum. Click Bang! Boom headshot! lets stay alive.

Nice Man in the news chopper: "Hey I'll be there in like 10 min and oh by the way a Tank is coming soon"
Louis and Bill: Tank! Ok we need to run up on the roof of the radio building and then start kiting the Tank around the hospital roof and turn occasionally to shoot it. Hey this is working pretty well. Whoa he almost got me... ok I'm still alive. Hooray its dead run back to the radio room. [The tank dies but Zoey are Francis weren't as lucky as Bill and Louis one can only imagine there dying thoughts.

Zoey: Ooohh, shiny is that a quarter over there. Maybe I'll go and look...UUUGggggghh [Dies]

Francis: Man I wish I had a new vest. I really like vests, you could see I love thee... [Dies]

Louis: "Bill lets get into this closet and melee like there is no tomorrow... because there isn't if we die"

Salvation, in closet form

Bill: "Ok I'm getting in... Ow don't hit me zombie bastard...ok i'm in." [quickly decides to heal without telling anyone but somehow both survivors survive the attack. Even some boomers decide to puke on them but they both live and have ample health]

Nice Man in the news chopper: "Hey I'm almost there but a second tank will spawn before I get there"

Louis and Bill: "Run!" I guess we'll use the same strategy as before, yeah good its working, I think its almost dead.

Louis: "Bill, run and don't look back, he's right behind you. Keep running!" [Bill keeps running but eventually Louis gets knocked down... but have no fear because Bill is very close by.]

Bill: "Get off my friend tank punk!" [Pumps tank full of lead and it dies before killing Louis. He quickly gets his friend up and they get on the helipad running towards where the chopper will land. They can hear it they know it is close]

Awww. They look kind of cute when there not trying to kill you.

Louis: "Throw a pipe bomb" [They both throw pipe bombs at the same time for some reason but as the rescue vehicle opens its doors Louis has a siezure and falls off the helipad]

Bill: I gotta get in there, I gotta get in, ok the doors just opened. JUMP! I made it come on Louis [He didn't notice that Louis had fallen, but luckily Louis wasn't injured and made it on the rescue chopper, they all lived happily ever after the end... until the next time that they have to escape from another zombie infested town.]

A Life Well Wasted

I just finished listening to the second episode of Robert Ashley's A Life Well Wasted podcast (though as he says it is more of an internet radio show). In this episode he discussed the collecting and preservation of video games (and pinball machines). The interviews were insightful and paint a vivid picture of what goes on inside a collector's head. Also, this episode seems to plea that things that are here today are quickly forgotten tomorrow.

This podcast and the first episode (on the Death of EGM) can be found here (also available on iTunes). Download it now! Even if you don't think you'll enjoy it it may surprise you... and tell your friends too.

Shalom

Jews in the News

This first installment of Jews in the News focuses on the horrible and disturbing issue of the Holocaust. From 1933-1945 the Nazis callously murdered over 6 million Jews as well as millions of individuals from other ethnic and minority groups. This was an event so horrible that it is still the cause of fear today.

Via Kotaku comes the story of Rabbi Micah Kelber who overcame his fear of Nazis by playing Call of Duty: World at War. This game gave him the ability to face the Nazis in a safe environment. Additionally, the moral choices provided by the game "help make war a more 'visceral experience' for Jews". Rabbi Kelber used to have nightmares about Nazis, though he still has dreams about Nazis, they no longer scare him.

Although I have not played this game, I would like to give Treyarch and Activision the Half-Life Jew Seal of Approval for making a game that is such a big help to the Jewish community.

In related Jew News, Art Spiegelman's graphic novel Maus was named the 4th best graphic novel in Time Magazine's Top Ten Graphic Novels. Maus is based on the true story of Art Speigelman's father's experiences in a concentration camp.

If Gordon Freeman was Jewish...

When I was thinking about ideas for this site, I thought that Gordon Freeman was Jewish and wanted to design a site around that. It seemed like a logical conclusion for the following reasons:

1.) Many surnames traditionally associated with Judaism end in -stein, -berg, or -man.
2.)He is ruggedly handsome, and incredibly brilliant (he was a theoretical physicist at Black Mesa, after all)
3.) He single-handedly defeated the Combine forces using the teachings of the Torah a crowbar (sorry, I got a little carried away).

Unfortunately, after looking at the Wikipedia entry for Freeman I learned that he probably isn't Jewish (the name Freeman literally means "free man"). Although this saddened my it also got me thinking, what if Gordon Freeman was Jewish?

To start constructing this picture, I think that the first thing he would need is an obviously Jewish surname like Freestein or Freeberg, or Steinstein. I think Gordon Steinstein has a nice ring to it. Also, replacing the lambda symbol on the HEV suit with a Star of David (see image below) shows the citizens of City 17 that Steinstein doesn't mess around. Other than these two changes I guess he would be the same as Gordon Freeman

Gordan Steinstein

I think that it would be great if game developers (like Valve) had powerful Jews as the protagonists of there games. Also, Valve, if you are looking to do a spin-off of the Half-Life series with a Jewish protagonist feel free to use the name Steinstein (you know you want to).

If anyone knows of any games with a Jewish protagonist (or any other games that would be improved if the protagonist was Jewish) feel free to mention them in the comments section.

Shalom

Welcome

Thanks for visiting this blog. This is definitely a work in progress at the moment but I hope that this will be a worthwhile place to visit in the near future. I have some ideas for where I want this site to go, so lets see how they work out.
I encourage you to comment on any of my posts. Also feel free to include any ideas you may have to make this a better site. Shalom.