This is simply way too cool. It is probably illegal to be this cool really. Of course, my sense of cool is obviously skewed heavily to the ‘geek’ end of the spectrum, but still, way cool.

This cube was made by 4cr forumite ExMachina and pictures can be found here.

Watch it here.

How could you not be excited for this? It’s Batman! Batman I tell you!

There’s a short little game that’s been making a bit of well deserved news lately across the web. When I say short, I do mean that quite literally.

The game is called ‘Passage‘ it it’s about, well, life…

I suggest you first run through it without any instruction on what is going on, then read the author’s comments on the game and give it another go.

Passage is a game that does a lot with only a little. In five minute’s time I found myself very confused and in another five minutes I found myself pondering my own life. The music to the game is simple, the graphics are simple, in fact, there’s nothing about this game that screams “this game is great” upon first seeing or even playing it. But with time and thought I came to realize how deep this game is.

Ultimately, it comes down to how you view it. If you’re looking for a piece of five-minute-fluff to entertain you and whittle away your hours, go play something else, because Passage is not that game. If you’re looking for a piece of art and a reflection on human nature, you might find something that resonates with you in Passage.

On a separate note, does anyone know where fireblend has gone to? I haven’t seen him in the vast world of online in what seems ages.

Since this blog hasn’t seen a whole lot of activity recently, I promise to get some impression up once I find the time, but for now, just read the title.

*fireblending minion#1 signing out*

now you might ask “Who the hell are you and how did you get into my monitor?”, and to answer that i would say something like this “I am DaveMcGroin and im a swede, that should explain all”.

Hello everyone! I’m a new writer here for Expansion Port, name’s Ian Snyder, but I’m sure many of you will know me better as Captain_404. You’ll probably see most of my posts ranting about either Nintendo or Flash games, and now I’ve managed to combine both.

Now, to the point!

I don’t think anyone outside of the Flash dev community would know this, but Nintendo has been quite reserved in regards to Flash developers. We have been limited to using mouse coordinates and a pretty lame excuse for a click in making games. No z-axis, no B-button, not even a little d-pad love, and while wiicade may boast over 100 flash games that can be played on your wii, how many of those aren’t rips of some random game for PC. Perhaps it’s too early to really start seeing games, but it’s safe to say that The dearth in wii-specific gameplay is because of Nintendo attitude toward flash.

There is a way to use the wiimote to its full potential though. It’s through a special mod that hooks up a wiimote to a pc to be used like a mouse for a roarin’ good time. With the specific mod that I tried (on a friends computer, not mine) it was possible to map certain buttons on the wiimote to be keyboard keys, such as d-pad = arrow keys, thus making it possible to play previously unplayable games with the wiimote. In regards to flash support, Nintendo is really shooting itself in the foot.

The game N was a beautiful example of what the wiimote can really do. They keyboard scheme that N is forced to use is very uninvolved, very lifeless, as are all such control schemes like this. In order to adapt N to the wiimote, just assign the right buttons to keys and BAM! Finger lickin’ good fun. N is amazing on a PC, the physics, the style, and the gameplay all mesh to make an entirely wonderful experience. But when played with a wimmote held NES style, N becomes something of a dream.

But this isn’t the only great game you’ve been missing out on, flOw, which is confined to the pc and ps3 do to it’s flash 8 status, is also a great example of a game that was made for the wrong platform. (only because sOny snatched up the game though, not because flOw likes ps3 better) The game is basically the same experience, but not confined by the maximum tilt of a joystick. Another play-like-a-dream game is Valo and it’s respective, still unfinished editor, which is only made worse on the wii by large amounts of lag. (I’ve done all I can…it’s playable at least) Running in Safari on a mac, I encountered no such problem. This is probably a game that will end up much better next generation of Nintendo home consoles.

In conclusion, flash on the wii has a lot of untapped potential, I mean a lot. The game N alone proves what platformers can truly do on wii. Nintendo would do itself a ton of good by letting Flash devs to use all the wii remote buttons, even access to the acceleration values on the wii remote. I think that once a second generation wii comes out, with increased processor speed, Flash can really soar to new heights on wii, not to say it can’t now, but Nintendo is severely crippling it, it’s a shame too.

There’s been much hype around Super Paper Mario, mainly because of its retro gameplay style and the great looking videos and pictures we’ve seen. Plus I have this other secret reason; I was heavily disappointed with New Super Mario Bros. and since then I’ve been wanting to play a game worthy of the Mario platforming franchise. Anyway, the game has been set to release on April 9th, so be sure to save some money for then (shouldn’t be too difficult, there’s no big Wii game coming soon other than SSX Blur and Sonic).

Oh, and Clover Studios apparently revived in the form of SEEDS. Let’s hope for some DS and Wii love it’s on the way.

P.S.: Also, I’m thinking about expanding the site, but then I would need some help from someone with time who would like to help me on articles; I don’t really think buying a domain or something like that would work with me so busy at the moment.

This is exactly the reason why I just love indie gaming. Force Majeure is the entry for the AutoFire 2007 Shooter Competition by junkboy of Monokey and it’s probably one of the best indie games I’ve ever played. After about 30 mins. of playing with it I can conclude it has entered the ranks of Cave Story, Warning Forever and Cho Ren Sha68k.

I don’t play that many horizontal shooters. For some reason, the indie community insists on making bullet hell vertical shooters (I’m not complaining, I love them as well), but this kind of them don’t come as often. Anyway, featuring a set of awesome, beautiful and detailed graphics Metal-Slug style, this shooter is just outstanding.

The best thing is, it doesn’t stop in the graphics. The music is incredibly good as well, and the gameplay is as fluid and challenging as you can imagine. The fact that it features 2 characters (or ships) to play with is also pretty good.

For now, the game only features one stage, but it’s one really worth playing. We should probably expect a full game later this year tho, and I can’t wait for it.

So make yourself a favor and go download it.