UniWar is a hex-based, turn-based strategy war game for mobile devices (iOS and Android). Having heard good things about it, I decided to finally download it and give it a shot.

The second game I played from the Humble Bundle was Shadowgrounds: Survivor, a top-down sci-fi shooter. The narrative concept lies somewhere between Aliens and Starship Troopers and is for the most part generic sci-fi; a human colony has been overrun by hostile, insect-like aliens and a few survivors are attempting to somehow make it out of the situation alive.

Score one for considering Facebook a useful part of society. Due entirely to the fact that I am a “fan” of a certain Facebook game news page, I received a message telling me about The Humble Frozenbyte Bundle; a special limited promotion where indie game developer Frozenbyte offered three of its games, along with soundtracks, editors, a pre-order for a new game and access to a canceled prototype project, all as part of a single bundle, and the buyer could name their own price. Even better, the buyer could choose how much of that money went to the developers, and how much went to one or both of two charities. Good games, good price, and helping to support both an indie developer and charities, while I am looking for games to play and evaluate. It was an easy decision, especially since one of the games, Trine, had been on my “radar” for a while.

More recently, mobile gaming giant Gameloft has also entered the Facebook gaming arena. In typical Gameloft fashion, their Nova Elite is a fairly derivative but well crafted game. Using the same visual style but little of the narrative of their Halo-inspired NOVA universe, NOVA Elite is more reminiscent of the early Unreal Tournament games, and perhaps even more directly, Quake 3 Arena. Like those games, it’s a competitive first person shooter. Unlike those, it is coupled with some rather unsubtle (but effective) Facebook integration and some light RPG elements, such as leveling and purchaseable upgrades, weapons, armor and equipment. Much of this equipment has direct requirements such a having a certain number of Facebook friends playing the game, or cost Facebook points that are only obtained by purchasing them with real money. Still, there are some that may be earned simply by leveling up ones character, and in my limited experience with the game this equipment is not drastically overpowering. Player skill and reflexes outweigh the level-based and equipment-based benefits, much as they do in similarly structured games like Global Agenda.

The next couple of entries in this notebook will deal with a platform that is not known for its high-quality games: Facebook. At first Facebook seemed a fad, likely to be replaced and made obsolete the same way it had replaced MySpace. As time passes however, it seems that Facebook will not disappear so easily. Companies like Zynga have already made huge fortunes from games created for Facebook. These are stereotypically somewhat shallow and formulaic, though they do interesting things to incorporate the social aspects of Facebook into their gameplay or scoring mechanics. Now, the success of Zynga and others has attracted the attention of companies that have previously focused on more traditional platforms and game types.

In 2002, Retro studios released Metroid Prime for the Nintendo GameCube, revitalizing the Metroid series, and in the process created an inspiring genre hybrid that that remains a unique accomplishment to this day. Unique, that is, except for its sequels. It was followed in 2004 by Metroid Prime: Echoes; a great game that nonetheless felt a little disappointing, mostly because of some dubious choices concerning art direction.

In 2007 Retro moved the Prime series to the Wii, with Metroid Prime 3: Corruption.

Ian Bogost’s “A Slow Year” is next up on the list of assigned titles. It is made up of four “game poems”, programmed to run on the Atari VCS, perhaps better known as the 2600.

As the title implies, “A Slow Year” is meant to be experienced slowly. I must admit to only having spent a few minutes with each title, and having read only the first part of the accompanying booklet. I must further admit to not having read any of the booklet’s “machined haikus”, though I’m likely to give them a glance out of curiosity alone. I will likely revisit this “game” in a later entry, once I’ve had a chance to spend a bit more time with it.