“I love Space Deadbeef.

Kind of an unusual start for a review, to be honest, but it feels unusual enough that a free shooter that’s short to the point of being a “tech demo” should be far and away the best thing I’ve played on my iPod Touch that I’m not really worried about it.”

As Contributing Editor for Gamasutra I spend quite a lot of time working on the sites related to it – you may have noticed I’ve spent most of my time recently editing Worlds In Motion – but because I like doing reviews I’ve decided to start doing them for the one site on the network that does them, Finger Gaming.

And here’s the first one! A neat little review of a free app that pretty much everyone who likes shoot-em-ups (and owns an iPhone/iPod Touch) should have. Don’t listen to what people say about flying into bullets when trying to shoot enemies – that’s part of the challenge.

I think, anyway.

“There are a lot of films out this week, and a lot of them played at TIFF. In fact, we caught a few of them at TIFF after their public screenings, so let’s take a break from our usual format and give them proper capsule reviews!”

Capsule reviews of Blindness and Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist; neither of which I liked.

Also – I’m on twitter, now. I’ll be linking any interesting work related things there that I don’t think warrant a full post here – as well as other nonsense.

“Well now. The original Arkanoid was (and far more blatantly than Space Invaders) inspired by the original Breakout, only in this case the difference was – to put it charitably – “subtle”. That’s not to say that the things that Arkanoid added aren’t appreciable – moving enemies, power-ups and even bosses were all added to the original design to spice up what was otherwise a clone – but the series hasn’t stuck in our minds the way Space Invaders has.”

The second part of my diptych of reviews of Tatio’s franchise re-inventions. Arkanoid DS is so poor that when I first played it I was nearly physically sick. I’m not even joking! I think it was the realisation that I was painfully bored and was forcing myself to be so by continuing to play the game – and my body just revolted against whatever small part of my brain kept me playing.

Thankfully, I need never play it again.

“Hey! Did you know that Space Invaders was originally inspired by Breakout? I didn’t – until I looked at Space Invader’s Wikipedia page in a desperate attempt to come up with an interesting fact to begin this review.

As it turns out, it’s not only a suitable theme for this intro, but I can use it to link to the Arkanoid DS review too. Thanks Wikipedia!”

I’m pretty sure that all journalists, not just the lazy ones, use Wikipedia the minute they want to find anything out. If you’re a good journalist, you’ll bother to find a second source for whatever you find out, so I really think there’s no shame in it.

In other news, Space Invaders Extreme is very good indeed.

“Let’s admit it: last year we were incredibly spoiled when it came to good writing in games.

As a result, we’ve probably got a bit cocky about the state of game writing. But as we all know, pride comes before a fall. And that fall is Army of Two.”

This must be the article with the most juvenile title on The Globe and Mail ever, surely!

Other than that, this review just recounts my painful disappointment with Army of Two. I’ve been paying attention to the title since I spoke to Alain Tascan (I actually called it “one to watch out for” at the time) and the missed opportunity here is almost heart breaking.

I think the saddest think is that a sequel will probably be produced, and will probably go some way to fix the game design problems, but will be unable to “retcon” all of the horrible, horrible writing from the first game out of existence.

“This week I watched as Mario, without mercy, beat Princess Peach around the head, body, and legs with a baseball bat until she could barely grip onto the edge of a dangerous precipice in the Mushroom Kingdom. The second she started to climb her way back up, without a moment’s hesitation, he whacked her so hard in the face that she flew off into oblivion.

A little later, I placed bets with a group of other people on the outcome of a battle between a small blond boy, known only as Lucas, and a cheerful little monkey dressed up like a person. I didn’t look away once while Lucas electrocuted the monkey over and over again, before finally setting him on fire to finish the job. (I’m ashamed to say I won a lot of money on that fight.)”

I have never been a fan of the Super Smash Bros. series, and yet have found myself utterly captivated by its latest iteration. However, it’s a backhanded compliment when I say “for any Nintendo fanboy there is arguably no better game available on the Wii right now,” as it’s the continued discovery of new Nintendo fetish objects that make it enjoyable – more so than the actual gameplay (which is still way too floaty for my liking.)

It’s a very interesting (indeed, even culturally significant) title as a result, though. Tim Rogers also has an excellent review of it, up on Action Button, one iteration of which is similarly backhanded in its compliments.

“It’s nostalgia that binds me to the Contra series. Since I first played ‘Gryzor’ in a caravan park’s amusement arcade in the late ’80s I’ve been a fan of the series, enjoying a great Amstrad CPC port, the brilliant 16-bit Probotector titles and then gritted my teeth through 13 years of terrible Contra games.

Thankfully, Contra 4 has been produced by California-based Wayforward Technologies (developer of Sigma Star Saga and, er, Ping Pals) with an eye on faithfully recreating the feel of the original Contra titles. They’ve succeeded in doing so, but whether that’s truly a good thing or not is debatable.”

I wish I liked Contra 4 more than I do, but once I wrote the review I put it down and haven’t picked it back up again. On normal difficulty it just feels unfairly hard rather than a rewarding challenge, which (for me) is a stark difference from previous Contra titles.

“This is really a release made for, and by, Castlevania fans. If you don’t think much of the series, this isn’t going to change your mind. I wouldn’t think much of it either if it only included the remake, but the tip-top ports of the original Rondo of Blood and Symphony of the Night bump the score up a couple of marks easily.”

As I say in the review, I really don’t rate Rondo of Blood. To be completely honest, I don’t even think Symphony of the Night is “all that.” However, if you want (and are willing go to the trouble of unlocking) them, you really couldn’t go wrong with this collection.

“If you were believe the opinions of many members of the forum for Twin Galaxies, the organisation that tracks videogame world records, and which plays a major role in King of Kong, King of Krap, as they so wittily call it, is the most egregious misrepresentation of the truth since, I don’t know, the Hitler Diaries or something. As any good active viewer knows, however, there’s no such thing as the absolute truth – especially when it comes to documentaries.”

I really enjoyed King of Kong, and I’m amazed at the reaction to it from certain members of the, er, classic-arcade-high-score-gaming community. I’m always surprised when people think documentaries purport to show some sort of absolute, objective truth, though I suppose I should be getting less surprised. The journalist panel at MIGS (which I still haven’t found time to talk about) similarly surprised me with the amount of people who think reviewers intend to offer the same, but that’s another story.

I thought some reviewers were a bit cruel about King of Kong (to the level where they missed the point entirely.) The quote from Ann Hornaday of The Washington Post “The competition is so vicious because the stakes are so low” stands out in my mind, because I don’t think that’s true, but I do feel like the reaction to the film is so vicious because the quibbles are so small.

We actually have a thread (began by Robert Mruczek, who looks like a horrible unwashed nerd in the film with no effort on the filmmakers’ part) where people don’t seem to understand the concept of editing!

To be fair, a lot of people have their head on straight, and see that there really is no issue. Twin Galaxies is represented very fairly, and even Billy Mitchell, who, if you’re to believe some people’s reaction, may as well be seen eating babies while driving a combine harvester over a field full of puppies during the film, is given depth. In both cases, though, that is within the framework of the narrative that Seth Gordon has (to an extent) constructed using the power of filmmaking techniques! Oh the humanity!

I do wonder what the reaction within the spelling bee community to Spellbound was. I bet it was just as angry.

“Let it never be said that the world of downloadable content is boring! Since October’s launch of import games on the Wii’s Virtual Console service it feels like the landscape has been constantly shifting: in November Sony opened an online PlayStation Store for PSP owners who don’t own a PS3 (er, most of them) and December’s Xbox 360 Dashboard update includes the ability to download a range of classic titles from the Xbox back catalogue (including the original Halo and cult hit Psychonauts.)”

A look at Sony’s new PlayStation Store, Super Mario Bros. 3, Alien Soldier, Axelay, and a brief mention of Vampire The Masquerade: Bloodlines.

I don’t look at the Xbox Originals service, but I’ll be taking a look at it this month, where I’ll complain about the lack of achievements, just like everyone else.