The Biggest Bimbo of Them All!

As you all know I'm a HUGE sucker for games where you can customize little avatars. Miss Bimbo has managed to pull me in it's little web. I stumbled on this game as an advertisement on One Manga.

Your goal is to become the biggest Bimbo amongst thousands of other Bimbos. In order not to get lost amongst the massive sea of Bimbos you have to keep track of your Bimbo's stats. You have to make sure that your Bimbo is well hydrated, fed, maintains her ideal weight and the such to maintain her happiness. You can earn Bimbo attitude points by completing various games, goals, or challenges. You can earn Bimbo Dollars by getting a job, boyfriend, or buying them via PayPal.

The game is geared towards the preteen to midteen demographic. As one would guess its plastered with sparkles and neon pink. The games are basically new skinned versions of familiar casual games. You get your own (female) 2D avatar that you can customise like in popular casual games like Zwinky (but better drawn).

When I was playing this game it brought up an interesting thoughts about games geared towards females in general in general. Can games geared towards females contain more than rehashed older games? Should such a game that idealises such shallow ideals be geared towards such a impressionable audience?...but that's for another blog post...

Stinky Pants

I recently finished playing this called Don't Shit Your Pants. The object of the game is to make shore that your avatar on screen doesn't defecate in his trousers. That task was harder for me that it needed to be.

It took me some time to figure out how to make the avatar to do what I ask it. I had to reset my thinking. I was typing full sentences but to no avail. My pants were shat it. After frantically typing at the keyboard I figured out that I can make the pink dude obey me a bit better by giving simpler commands. Still, I shat my pants. Finally I figured out how to use the toilet.

It seems that it takes others a wile to figure the controls as well. My friend desperately failed at opening the door several times until he figured out to open it. I had to help him how to figure out the commands to have the balding man on screen do his bidding.

The game was slightly entertaining but mostly frustrating. This became more apparent when a friend of mine trying to gain all the achievements couldn't figure out the last two. She finally wound up looking for a walk through and finding the commands. The commands were nothing her or I could have thought of or figured out ourselves. I can understand that the creator of this game wanted to give the players a challenge but it was still more difficult than it needed to be.

I'm Still Crazy For Crazy Taxi: Part 2

I was over by Mr Pizza the other day. Wile waiting for my order to be completed I decided to get a few quick rounds of Crazy Taxi. As I was playing I noticed significant change from when I first played this game and now.

Back during the early 2000's I was around 13-14 was when I got the game for my Dreamcast. Needless to say one would expect the controls to be considerably different from the actual arcade version. Still it made me wonder. If I were to play the arcade version back then how I would fare? I remember when as a child having a low depth perception. This showed itself time and time again whenever I tried driving go carts. I would always smash into the walls and wait for the operator to pull me out and set me off on my merry little way.

I'm 21 going on 22 with four years of having my driver's licence under my belt. Even though I don't drive very often (I don't own a car) I imagine I would fair better if I was set up against my early teen self. This makes me think my skills in the real world and bringing them into virtual worlds. This doesn't just go for arcade games like crazy taxi but a game like GTA as well. Unless I'm in a REALLY desperate situation I don't crash into buildings or (mostly) crash into other cars.

Its real interesting to think about something like this. Is it because of being older with a more developed brain that makes me a better gamer or is it that real world experience that makes me a better gamer? I guess time will only tell.

My Little Princess

Over the this past summer I've been hooked on an older Japanese title called Princess Maker 2. Its a child rearing sim with a few RPG elements.

Apparently you (the player) were sort of great war hero who saved a kingdom from the forces of evil. On a starry night the gods entrust you to raise a child of the heavens to raise a child from age ten to eighteen. From then you choose out your family name, your birthday, your daughter's name, her birthday, and her blood type. All this decides her personality and temperament.

To help you to rear your child is a little demon called Cube. Basically he's a butler who just wants whats best for your daughter. At the beginning of each month you have to set up a schedule for you child to follow. You can have your daughter go to school and learn the art of painting, dance, protocol, poetry, science, theology, fencing, strategy, fighting, magic. In order to pay for that fancy schooling she has to take part time jobs. Both of these increase or decrease your daughter's stats in Cooking, Cleaning, Strength, Morals, Faith, Magic, Conversation, Charisma, Sin and etc. If you work her too hard she will begin to rebel or become ill. All these stats are important to determine you daughter's future.

Once a year there is a harvest festival. Around this time you get your yearly pay and chose what compition to enter your duaghter in. The four contests are Combat, Exibition, Dance Party, and Cook-off. Depending on what stats you focused your daughter in will determin how well she fairs in each event.

Another feature is the RPG Adventures you can send your duaghter on. You take controle of your duaghter and have her explore for several days. There are four areas to explore: Forest, Desert, Glacier, and Lake. On this little outing your duaghter can find items and have battles with the local creatures. Most of the battles are random encounters. Just like a regular RPG your duaghter will need armor, weapons, some magic skill and a few potions to fend off the badies. Your daughter never dies if she does happen to get defeated. She will simply get knocked out and your faithful butler, Cube, will sweep in and bring your darling daughter home.

The major thing I love about this game are all the mutliple endings. If you try hard enough your daughter can become queen of the kingdom or queen of the underworld. Its all up to you!

I have mostly fond memoires playing through this game. I found the Advenure element entertaining and cute. Intrestgly enough, I found out that if your duaghter has high enough charisma or refinement monsters don't attack you. My greatest acheivement playing through was when my duaghter ended up as a Bondage Queen and then married Saten. My only major problem with the game was the fact my daughter kept running away. Even when I made shure she was happy and all her stats were up she would run away randomly and that would totally screw up my sceduale. That was majorly anoying. Other than that flaw I found this tittle to be and entertaining game.

A Time For Mourning For One Of Our own

There is a time for laughter and there is a time for weeping. I was on Kutaku this morning when I came across this tragic article. Melissa Batten, a software developer for the Xbox 360, was horrifically murdered by her estranged husband on Tuesday, July 29. After he brutally slaughtered his wife he turned the gun on himself and committed suicide.

This is a great loss for the gaming community. I read more on what happened on the Seattle Times website. According to the news article she had requested a protection order against her husband and told the court that he had recently purchased a gun. He at one point called her about 30 times and threaten her not to hang up. The man even barged into her place of work but was luckily caught by security personnel.

This really struck home not only as a gamer or as someone who hopes to get into the industry, but as a woman. Domestic violence is no laughing matter. Its horrifying to think of living in fear of someone like that. To be constantly be looking over your shoulder and worrying where or when the other individual is going to strike just sends down shivers down my spine.

I was reading the comments to the article on Kutaku. Most were respectful but there were a few that were highly inappropriate for the situation. Thankfully these offenders have been banned (eight thus far) from commenting on the site. have had a bad reputation for being lazy, apathetic, testosterone driven, violent, immature, and sadistic. Still, we can't let a few ruin things for us.

I would like to give my condolences to both sides of this tragedy. I didn't personally know this woman but its still sad when these things happen to a fellow human being. We shouldn't just lend our thoughts and our prayers to the dead but to the ones left behind as well. May your spirit rest in peace. She will be missed.

A Sad Sad Song

It's amazing what one finds during a Google search. I was doing a search on the Scout from Team Fortress 2. Lets get this out in the open. I think he's pretty cute. Square jaws just aren't for me but a narrow face is just perfect. Anyway...

So I was looking for some pictures when I stumbled upon LitFuseFilms. It's a machinima site. For those who aren't in the know. Machinima are movies created using video game content. A popular series is Red vs Blue which was created using Halo 2.

Another game that is popular machinima making tool is The Sims 2. I even dabbled in it a bit back in my high school days. Of course mine are ultra low quality and very amature video editing. I might remake this particular film with better quality and better editing. If that's done I'll be sure to post it up on here.

Once on LitFuseFilms' site I came across this one film called Jil's Song written and directed by Zachariah Scott. I have seen my fare share of machinimas but I am by no means an expert. Still, I have to say that this film was simply beautiful. This has to be the best machinima I have ever seen and probably one of the best short films I've seen in general.

Jil's Song is about about a middle aged man in therapy describing his relationship with his lover/wife. He compares love to a song beautiful when it heard but missed when its gone. A haunting piano melody plays in the background as the main character gives his narration. The cinematography is like nothing I've seen before in a machinima. The character models are realistic and the facial expressions are subtle and almost believable. The lip syncing is done very well but I felt a bit distracted by the lower lip strangely stretching at some moments. The voice acting is just terrific. The monologue has enchanting rhythm and flows from the character's lips.

This short film brings up an important discussion. You often see characters in movies, books, and games living happily ever after. If you've read my previous article on Our Passage you would know that I don't have a rosy picture on love. Being a child of divorce I have seen first hand that love does fade. From personal experience I know how desperate one can feel when you find that your feelings are no longer returned. I can truly empathy with the man in this film. Love is such a beautiful tragic song.

Where the Hell is My Ceiling Fan?!

If you have read my previous entry you would know that I am a pretty huge Sims fan. I've been really into Sim games since Sim Town. Today wile I was browsing Kutaku I came across the new E3 trailer for The Sims 3. Watching the new trailer made me wonder what features were actually going to be in the game.

I first found out about the Sims from the back of the Sim City 3000 CD case. It looked pretty interesting but never gave it to much thought. I saw it in the store and I begged my father to get it for me. When I first saw the little virtual people it was love at first sight. I wasn't a plumber or a pirate. I was playing with real people. I became obsessed.

I never saw the trailer for the original The Sims game before I purchased it. I decided to check it out since I was already on YouTube. The trailer is basically a glimpse of what the Sims will look like. All of it was pre-rendered and didn't even show any game play. I don't know how far in production they were in but I assume it was pretty early.

Since I was so obsessed it would only make sense that I would anticipate of the release of The Sims 2. I was a freshman in high school then. When I first saw the trailer it was like falling in love all over again. The graphical improvement were dazzling and all the new things the Sims could do were short of jaw dropping. I just couldn't wait until the release date. Then the release got pushed back TWICE. At that point in time I felt lied to. Some piece of me had been taken that I could never find again.

Once I finally got the game I noticed some things things were missing that I saw in the tailor. For starters, I noticed children couldn't slide down banisters, swing off ceiling fans, and babies couldn't breath fire! Frankly, I was a bit disappointed that there wasn't an option to rip off your shirt as well. Some of the hairstyles weren't included but I think that was for the best. Despite all this this didn't discourage me for purchasing almost all the expansion packs.

Now many years later The Sims 3 is coming out. To be honest I don't have that giddy feeling like I did when I heard about the game before it. There seems to be some graphical improvement but its not a jarring as with The Sims to The Sims 2. The uncanny valley really hits the models in this one. I appreciate being able to move from house to house without having to go into some strange time warp. Still, until I am given reason otherwise I remain unimpressed.