Sunny and Golf Escape 1

post from Escape Games 24 on 14 October 2011 11:05:56 PM. © Escape Games 24

Sunny and Golf Escape 1 is another Japanese point and click type room escape by Haretoki. In this game, you try to escape the room by finding items and solving puzzles. Good luck and have fun!Play This Game

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-1-walkthrough.html

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Plaisir

post from Escape Games 24 on 14 October 2011 11:05:56 PM. © Escape Games 24

Plaisir Escape is another new point and click type escape the room game by Usawanhouse. In this game, you try to find items and solve puzzles to escape the room. Good luck and have fun!Play This Game

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tml

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Lodge Escape

post from Escape Games 24 on 14 October 2011 11:05:56 PM. © Escape Games 24

Lodge Escape is another new Japanese point and click type room escape game created by Two Riddle. Try to escape the forest by finding items and solving puzzles. Good luck and have fun!Play This Game

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The Binding of Isaac update delivers improved
save system

post from Destructoid on 14 October 2011 11:05:50 PM. © Destructoid

The Binding of Isaac update delivers improved save system screenshot

If there's something that all The Binding of Isaac players can agree on, it's that the game is bloody difficult. The way Binding of Isaac saves has played some part in this and its creators have finally fixed it up a bit in the game's latest update put onto Steam. Edmund McMillen has told Destructoid that the improved save system basically, "saves every detail in the hard save now instead of the temp save," due to, "some people's cleanup tools," deleting the actual saves.

Said update, on top of the improved save feature, fixes a couple of problems with the music including both ambush and boss instances, as well as pick-up sounds playing properly. Another, more mysterious fix of "a few exploits" that apparently "breaks the game" is also in it.

Lastly, the update prepares The Binding of Isaac for the big Halloween update which will add more bosses, more items and two more levels for absolutely free.

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Dark Souls Review

post from The Escapist : Latest News on 14 October 2011 10:25:00 PM. © The Escapist : Latest News

If you're willing to approach Dark Souls and learn its ins and outs, its one of the most rewarding and enjoyable titles out right now.

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Sunny and Golf Escape 1 Walkthrough

post from Escape Games 24 on 14 October 2011 10:06:34 PM. © Escape Games 24

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The DTOID Show: Syndicates, Battlefields, and
Bagmen!

post from Destructoid on 14 October 2011 10:06:28 PM. © Destructoid

The DTOID Show: Syndicates, Battlefields, and Bagmen! screenshot

Good evening, little darklings. It's the last day of our Giveaway Week and we gave out a total of $900 worth of prizes! Special thanks to those of you who spent minutes painstakingly drawing and MS Painting photos for a chance to win one of our many awesome treats. You shall be rewarded in the afterlife with karma and women.

Now, for news. It's getting close to the home stretch, so EA just posted tidbits of information on all nine of Battlefield 3's multiplayer maps. Ten full minutes of Syndicate gameplay footage also got posted to the internet machine, along with new characters for Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3, and those of you lucky enough to score an iPhone 4S today (read: me) will be happy to know that GTA III is heading to mobile devices. That dapper dandy Jim Sterling also sent us a video review of Batman: Arkham City, which we watched and then promptly dismissed because it does not have glittery vaginas.

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NVIDIA's 3D Vision gets a boost with some new
products and tech

post from Gaming Nexus on 14 October 2011 09:30:00 PM. © Gaming Nexus

by: John Yan
NEWS - While the opinions of 3D has been split, I love gaming with NVIDIA's 3D Vision. For some games, it adds that extra dimension (pun intended) that makes the games really immersive. I do have a few complaints about the glasses, but those might be addressed with the upcoming products that NVIDIA briefed me on. You can consider this the next generation of 3D Vision products from NVIDIA.

First up, a new set of glasses are going to be made available. The NVIDIA 3D Vision 2 Glasses have larger lenses, 20% to be exact, so you can get a wider viewing area. The area around the lenses hug your face a little more so that they do a better job at blocking out any external lighting. NVIDIA also went ahead to make the glasses out of a soft material and the arms are designed to be flat against your head so that they don't interfere with headphones. The glasses are also thinner and more flexible. For those that have the old emitter, the new glasses will be backwards compatible with them as well and you can expect similar battery life when compared to the old ones.

Along with the new glasses, a new display panel is being introduced from ASUS. The ASUS VG278H is a 27" LED monitor that will run at 1920x1080 and will have HDMI 1.4 allowing you to hook up a PlayStation 3 or Blu-ray player to watch 3D Blu-rays. The improved panel will reduce ghosting. The monitor will come with a pair of the new glasses and run $699.

Now if you use both of these items together, you're going to get a brighter picture. That's because there's a new technology called LightBoost that will hopefully make one of my big complaints about the 3D Vision setup moot. The way it works now, any dark game is going to be really dark and any bright game will have the colors a little muted due to how the glasses work currently. With LightBoost, NVIDIA's saying that you'll be getting a brighter, more vibrant 3D image, which I'm dying to see.

The glasses with IR emitter or sold stand alone for $99 will be out this month. The ASUS monitor will also be available in October and Acer and BenQ will be bringing out LightBoost capable monitors as well in the near future.

I'm anxious to check out both in conjunction to see if they really do bring a much brighter picture to the fold. The new design in glasses alone should make for a better experience. It's great to see improvements in the technology and even though some people might shy away from 3D because of the glasses, NVIDIA seems to be doing a good job to promote the technology and try to bring some quality products for gamers to use for those wanting that 3D experience.

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Villains: An analysis of Psycho Mantis

Villains: An analysis of Psycho Mantis screenshot

_{[Our final promotion this week for our Villains topic is from Revuhlooshun, who focuses on Psycho Mantis from the Metal Gear series. If you want to see your own work on the front page next week, make sure you finish up your Integration blogs by Monday! -- JRo]}

I have a confession to make: I cried at the death of Psycho Mantis. In fact, it still brings a tear to my eye each time I replay Metal Gear Solid. Psycho Mantis is remembered for his neat memory card tricks and the incredible fight he puts up. However, these accolades gloss over his more profound accomplishment of being perhaps the most well crafted and sympathetic villain in our culture. He is one of the most tragic figures in memory, one which has a lot more to say than the words he speaks.

Twin Snakes really pissed me off, for a number of reasons. The most significant was the butchering of Psycho Mantis’s death. Through the game and your encounters with him, his character is a playful, almost childish one as he runs around possessing people, playing pranks and showing off before finally deciding to kick your ass. He has an insistence and need for the recognition of his power and importance, going to great lengths to receive it. Mantis needs that attention, that affirmation of his significance and relevance.

But once he’s on his deathbed, lying on the floor after a few kicks upside the head, he cuts the shit. We finally get to see the man behind the mask and talk to him on a personal level. In Twin Snakes, he keeps his nefarious routine going, ruining that element of sincerity which makes the scene so compelling. In the original game, we get to actually hear what he sounds like – he stops acting and he lets us in. He drops his guard, revealing himself to the world due to his own vulnerability – it is only near his death that he reaches out for others after shunning humanity for so long.

What makes Mantis so tragic is that his entire life and fate could have gone the other way. Mantis shuns humanity because humanity had shunned him: his birth took the life of his own mother and inspired hate and resentment for him in his father. From the very moment he is born, Mantis is abandoned and left on his own as he must carry the weight and blame for the death of possibly the only person who could have ever loved him.

It is not until he discovers his telekinetic powers that he realizes the degree of his seclusion, peering into the mind of his father only to become terrified by his contempt. He then unleashes his psychic powers to kill not only his father but to torch the entire village, though this could perhaps have been on accident: Mantis is permanently scarred and disfigured from his uncontrolled rage, perpetually the victim of chance and misfortune, which in turn further exiles him from society due to his grotesque appearance.

His past explains his behavior early on. Children thrive on stability, not on chaos. It is why Mantis must be noticed and respected, and why he goes out of his way to ensure so. But it is that further exclusion in adulthood, as a result of his physical distortion, that sheds light on his behavior at the end of his life, which is far more reflective and gripping.

There is a particular quote from Mantis which always stuck with me:

“In my lifetime, I have read the pasts, presents and futures of thousands upon thousands of men and women. And each mind that I peered into was stuffed with the same single object of obsession. That selfish and atavistic desire to pass on one’s seed…it was enough to make me sick. Every living thing on this planet exists to mindlessly pass on their DNA. We’re designed that way. And that’s why there is war…humans weren’t designed to bring each other happiness. From the moment we’re thrown into this world, we’re fated to bring each other nothing but pain and misery.”

You get a sense from the man that he is both one who despises and envies everyone around him. He is an extrovert forced to be an introvert, wanting so badly to embrace the world but constantly pushed away from it for the simple faults of his birth and who he was born as. Of course procreation appalls him: his birth was a curse, the beginning of a reviled existence which he is forced to endure. Yet deep down he yearns for the tender, womanly care and touch he was and is denied through no fault of his own, making his mutilation that more heartbreaking.

Life dealt him an incredibly shitty hand, invoking anger and disgust towards anyone able to enjoy it. It’s why he joins the Boss’s revolution – not for world conquest, as he explains, but for the simple excuse to kill people. If Mantis cannot be happy, no one can be happy. It’s what makes his interaction with Snake so captivating because they are literally the same character. The player gets a sense of respect between the two of them, with Snake showing extreme mercy and reverence for this man’s dying breaths as he confronts him not in a battle of blows, but of ideas and spirit.

It is because of their similar natures, their pasts, that Mantis allows Snake to see him for who he is, and it is why he reaches out to him. It is why he pulls off that mask, figuratively and literally, which he uses in an attempt to filter out the filth and corruption that surrounds him. But what is most telling is that despite their shared experience of horror and solitude, Snake is the negative to Mantis: he does not allow his suffering to define and disfigure him mentally, whereas Mantis has. Everyone has problems – what differentiates people is how they deal with them. Mantis seeks to shield himself from the wickedness amongst him, but he cannot expunge the poison already in his soul. And it is what makes the Mantis character even more tragic.

What if Mantis was able to come to terms with what had happened to him? If it hadn’t seeped into his heart and infected it from within? What if he had the strength Snake had, and could have used it to better his self and others?

It is what gives Mantis’s last words a deep, emotional sting:

“This is the first time I’ve ever used my power to help someone. It’s strange. It feels kind of…nice.”

Was Psycho Mantis the most effective, destructive villain ever? No. Is he the most interesting one?

You bet your ass.

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The Question: Is Arkham City's 'Catwoman Pass'
too much

The Question: Is Arkham City's 'Catwoman Pass' too much? screenshot

[Every Friday, Destructoid will pose topical a question to the community. Answer it if you want!]

One of the biggest news items this week was the confirmation that Batman: Arkham City would feature a unique spin on the "online pass" phenomenon -- locking the game's four Catwoman stages behind a code that could only be redeemed online.

My thoughts on regular online passes are clear enough, but this is a new thing entirely. It's not just a handful of small bonus rooms like RAGE, it is four sizable chapters from the story mode. Furthermore, those who play with their consoles offline (still a sizable chunk of the population) will have no way of playing these stages, whether they buy new or not.

Of course, there are those who will say, "I'm online and buying new, so it's not a big deal." Are they right? If you're looked after, does it matter about anyone else? In lieu of an actual online mode in Batman, is Rocksteady correct to section off a portion of the single-player mode? Is this the start of games locking even more content behind codes, and does it really matter in the grand scheme of things?

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