OK, so this is kind of late for a post on Insert Credit, and extra late for PAX coverage, but I have something going for me that no one else does.

I'm the only person who went to PAX and finished Machinarium.

That makes me the only person* outside of Amanita that's seen the game start to finish. I am uniquely qualified to tell you about how, man, it's real good. I'm familiar with the Samarost games from the same team, as well as the Quest for the Rest advergame they did for the Polyphonic Spree. I really enjoyed all of those, but I honestly think Machinarium is the strongest work to come out of the company.

Just to get it out of the way, the game is stunning. Quick Google searches will find previews that consist of almost no information beyond "PRETTY." It's all true, and in fact, I love the visuals so much, I'm not including a screen shot. I didn't want to squash any of the art down. Check out the site itself for some preview art. Beyond just the wallpaper worthy backgrounds, the characters are fantastically designed and animated, conveying heaps of emotion and pathos. Which is good, since none of them talk.

The game is silent, with story (and often hints) given in the form of simple pictograms and black and white cartoons. The story conveys beautifully, and as a bonus, the Czech developers don't have to worry about translations. I like the way plot points are unfolded in the game, so I'll avoid any details, but I will point out that the game is similar to other Amanita games in that we start with a lone protagonist, marooned somewhere, trying to set things right. It's not Samarost 3 though, and they take the journey in a very different way.

The puzzles are a strong mix of logic and inventory, with the occasional mini-game, or Myst style puzzle. Most of these are very solvable, though I'll admit that having a rotating audience of PAX attendees offering input definitely sped me through the game. While I like this style of variation, every game play element I had a problem with was related to one of the mini-games. The Space Invaders clone is played by using the mouse to click buttons on an in game interface, which is maddeningly imprecise and slow. Some of the puzzles, especially around the end-game were just too damn hard, with even the crowd-sourced solutions failing, and eventually calling Jakub, the creator, over to solve one of them (well, two, but one was a music puzzle was was simply impossible on the noisy show floor). Still, this leaves an overwhelming majority of puzzles that I enjoyed, including some with the kind of solution that leaves the player saying "OH! OH! OF COURSE!" after scratching their head for half an hour.

I played the entire game on the show floor at PAX. That means I did the whole thing standing up, with a mouse on a surface just low enough to make my wrist hurt. I did this within earshot of the What Is Bothering Carl booth, which resulted in hearing the theme song, I'd estimate, once every ten minutes. It stops being charming quite rapidly. (One of the Story Fort guys apologized that night.) I did the whole game in one sitting, in these conditions, because I was throughly entranced by it. The design, the music, the puzzles, and the almost-offensively-cute main character kept me there, because, fantastic artwork aside, this is a truly beautiful game.

*Actually, Frank was there the whole time. He actually controlled the mouse for part of it.

What with insert credit closing, I recently launched a separate mecha gaming specific news site called Mecha Damashii. The plan is to offer a variety of news, reviews, features and gameplay videos. We've launched with a bunch of content already, so there's plenty to keep you interested if you're mecha inclined.

Back in the 80's when the early iterations of Battledroids (then later Battletech) surfaced, many of the designs had been not very surreptitiously lifted from various anime shows. Notably that of Dougram and Macross. FASA were suitably sued for their troubles. That said, over the years FASA did their best to throw several olive branches in the direction of the anime industry. Especially when they hired Shoji Kawamori to pen the designs for the Japanese edition of Battletech.

Fast forward to the recent trailer for the MechWarrior reboot featuring a Warhawk (or a destroid Tomahawk from Macross in case you're wondering) and it seems that this has opened up the legal can of worms all over again. Considering the original case was with FASA it is interesting that the same designs can come under dispute when the rights are owned by another institution.

Personally, I don't understand why they just didn't get Hajime Katoki, Yutaka Izubuchi or Junji Okubo to pen new designs for the reboot and be done with it. At the very least they'd have had mecha that at least looked awesome.

The long-standing Taito shooter Darius is getting a new entry in the form of the PSP exclusive Darius Burst. The news was recently announced in Famitsu, but Gpara have done an update on it. The Burst suffix apparently refers to the Silverhawk's ability to channel and reciprocate an enemy's attack (something that was seen last in G-Darius). Naturally, as this is Darius, there will be a total of 11 branched paths through the game along with music by Zuntata. The new nerdy development is that Kanetake Ebikawa is helming the mecha design for the game, something that is a bit of giveaway when you look at the new Force-like power-up as it seems to be covered in GN Blades from Gundam 00. Darius Burst is released in Japan on 3rd September this year.

Now this is videogame music. Here you have a bunch of old ladies in fancy hats (the Raspberry Jam Band) performing the athletic theme from Yoshi's Island. This is probably how Koji Kondo would've wanted the game to sound anyway - and these pink-clad grandmas do a bang-up job even if not. The camerawork in this video isn't going to blow you away - whomever took it was likely a friend of the tuba player, so you don't get to see the full spread. Sound quality is quite good though, and that's what matters here. The arranger is Ron O'Dell (AKA Keeper), and you can download the sheet music for his piano score here. Thanks to Frank, who should also update his website, for the link.

The Bit is a custom-made fuzz pedal for guitars and suchlike, that according to its maker: "creates tones reminiscent of C64, Atari, and other old video game consoles." In truth, it sounds absolutely miserable. But it sure does look neat! Thanks to Jeff for pointing it out, primarily in order that none of you be fooled by its pleasing exterior. If you hate your neighbors, you can buy it here, for $95 entire dollars.

In Fallout 3, you can access a small text adventure in one of the terminals in the Hubris Comics building (incidentally, don't read the walkthrough on the aforelinked page, if you don't want to spoil it). Not everyone found it, and there's no real reward for completing it, but someone (named Chris Marjason) liked it enough to remake it in flash. I approve of that sort of ridiculousness, and here's my post saying so.

A couple weeks back I was a guest on 1up's Retronauts podcast along with my coworker Christian Nutt. We talked about the Turbo Grafx/PC Engine, I made a few chronological errors in my brain, and generally had an alright time. If podcasts are the sort of thing you listen to, you could check that right on out over here. It's about an hour and 20 minutes long.

The awesome superplay/combo DVD group Insanity Naked Hunters has released lots of neat stuff over time, some of which we've covered here in the past. Most recently, they released a 120 minute superplay series for Grev's Mamoru Kun wa Norowarete Shimatta to coincide with the game's 360 release.

I fully advocate purchasing these DVDs, and supporting the company - but for those that can't, or want a preview, a youtube member by the name of tobemorecrazy has put this Fighters History Dynamite all character combo exhibition up for viewing. It's pretty much the only Fighters History combo video you'll ever need. Incidentally, tobemorecrazy has a whole slew of other combo vids collected from around the net, as he's apparently part of newchallenger.net, which I remember existing in the past, but no longer seems to.

Shocking news, indeed, even though you won't find anybody else noticing. This week's Famitsu, besides featuring the next-Darius-episode-after-a-whole-decade-is-being-made-for-a-portable-system tragicomedy, is also unveiling (for the Japanese public, actually -- a couple of screens emerged some days ago in the Western side of the world) the HD remake that Raystorm will be getting soon in the form of both, XBLA and PSN titles. The most interesting part though is that it seems to come with the announcement of R-Gear as an extra in Raystorm HD, which is no other that the actual sequel Rayforce was going to get before Taito decided that you needed polygons to sell a game.

There's not much hope that we can enjoy a proper version of this prototype given the HD systems' inability to display low-res graphics, but it's still a wonderful addendum we couldn't expect from these days' Taito, isn't it?

All the best!

Update: Seems it's not the game, but the players' ships from R-Gear what has been added for this iteration. Though, hey, you never know. Thanks to Aries no Kobayan for the clarifying picture!