One man, one cave, one seriously awesome story.

While shuffling through the gaming blogs, I came across several posts announcing the release of Studio Pixel’s Cave Story via Nintendo’s handheld content delivery service, DSiWare. While I now understand that Cave Story was initially released in its native Japan in 2004, I had actually never happened upon the game.

The title debuted for the PC as a free executable. Free. And since I didn’t even have a DSi, I figured that I’d just track down a copy to play on my computer.

Liquor in the front, poker in the inventory

It is the third week of November, and I'm sure that many of you are preparing to be joined at the table by loved ones to share some of the season's most precious, jubilant, and sometimes aggravating moments.

What was that? Oh. No, actually, I'd nearly forgotten about Thanksgiving. I'm talking about Steam's five-buck crossover collage, Poker Night At The Inventory. I'm almost certain that if you're reading this, the game most likely needs no introduction. Though for those unwitting dark age architecture enthusiasts whose search terms may have mislead you into our geeky abode, I'll make it quick. Poker Night is, as it sounds, a video poker game featuring internet and computer game pop culture legends Max (from Tell Tale Games' Sam and Max series), Tycho Brahe (of webcomic Penny-Arcade fame), Strong Bad (from Homestar Runner Flash cartoons) and Heavy Weapons Guy (from Valve's own Team Fortress 2).

Panic Room 3: Already?

What's that noise...?

YOU GOTTA BE KIDDING ME!

Now, Im gonna level with you people... I haven't really been playing a ton of video games lately. So instead of the usual fare of me writing moving poetry, I think I'll show you around the Not Another Castle castle.

Super Scribblenauts (Guest Review)

Hey,


So I picked up "Super Scribblenauts" for the DS last month I haven't played it all the way through but I am digging it so far.
The Scribblenauts games were developed by 5th cell media, the same group that gave us the game "Drawn to Life".
For those of you that don't know about the scribblenauts games, I'll just hit ya with a quick description.

NONE WILL BE LEFT TO MOURN YOU BUT GHOSTS

There was a time when I was working way too much. Between putting in upwards of 55 hours a week at my desk job and chipping away at my art projects, I had little to no time to play any games.

One dragging lunch break, however, a co-worker of mine pointed me to Loren Schmidt’s Star Guard, an independently developed Flash game that took Schmidt a long 16 months to complete. What resulted was a convincingly epic yet simplistic interactive space opera that gorged itself on several well-spent hours of my time.

Panic Room 2: Panic Harder

That annoying sound can only mean one thing- it's time for me to sit at this dingy keyboard and scrape together another BS article. Once I hit "publish" the magnetic locks that hold me in this sub-basement will open, and I can get back to doing handstands on my martini keg.

The evolution of gaming part 2: I am Heavy weapons guy, and this is my new weapon.

Don't miss out on Evolution of Gaming: Part 1

Team Fortress 2 had finally arrived and it only took seven years! Leading up to the release, gamers who had pre-ordered The Orange Box, a compilation of games including Portal and Half-Life 2: Episode 2, were treated to beta play of the game. Sadly I had failed to find this out until the night of release so I had to wait until midnight to play! But the servers were so crazy I had to wait even longer! It was grueling, at first Steam, Valve's digital distribution program, would not accept my debit card information because so many people were overloading the servers. Finally at one thirty in the morning Steam accepted my card and my download promptly started.....at 50kb a second. It was downloading slower than good ol' Compuserve. It was torture, I filled my time watching my download percentages slowly raise, scouring the forums and salivating over the Meet the Class videos Valve released to promote the game.

Atlus! What HAVE you been up to?!

Atlus is a video game company that is based out of Tokyo Japan. They are a very well known for publishing, and creating some very creative games, specifically within the RPG genre. They have published many acclaimed RPGs, such as Disgaea: Hour of Darkness, Odin Sphere, the Growlanser Series, Dual Hearts, Tactics Ogre and many more. Atlus has also developed the cult classic franchise Shin Megami Tensei. In other words, they have produced and published many excellent games, and none of them disappoint.

The Panic Room

Hi. You may not recognize me because I mostly work behind the scenes here at Not Another Castle, but my name is Shane and my job is Editor-at-Large. I come to you today because, for one reason or another, one or more of our regular contributors are unable to dazzle you with new content.

There's no business like show business, and the game industry is no exception.

As much as I hate to plug Spike TV, it turns out that the much rumored Guillermo Del Toro game will be announced during the upcoming Video Game Awards, as reported by the folks at Joystiq. So far, we know that the game is being developed with THQ, that it will embody a horror narrative (yet not fall into the survival horror genre), and that it is “Lovecraftian” in nature. With Del Toro having directed chilling and beautifully twisted films like Hellboy, The Orphanage, and Pan’s Labyrinth, developing a horror game seems like a perfect fit for him.

Condemned 2: A Post Halloween Review

Condemned 2: Bloodshot, a game by developer Monolith Productions, Inc, came out March 11th 2008. That's right. Two years ago. I overlooked the game and heard a lot of mixed takes on its story so I wasn't incredibly eager to play it. Here I am, two years later and I've finished the game. It's pretty good.

Welcome to a walk down memory lane.

First off I would like to wish everyone a late Happy Halloween! I was meaning for this post to be up last night but movies, carving pumpkins, sweets, Beavis and Butthead and The Walking Dead devoured my time. Second I would like to introduce a second series that I will be posting. I don't have a name for it yet, it's something I decided to do just a day or two ago. But I hope you all enjoy it. It'll be every other week, meaning The Evolution of Gaming will be on weeks this series isn't posted. So look for Part 2 of the TF2 evolution next week.

With that all out of the way, welcome to my new series. I will be discussing games I grew up playing and have fond memories of.

Clock... Tower...? Oh God...

Clock tower is a 15 year old Super Nintendo Game that is perfect for playing around Halloween. It was never released in America, but you can find some fan made translations for it. It is made by Human who also has made a creepy NES game known as Monster party, and also other games for SNES, NES, Playstation... the list goes on.

The very eerie title screen for Clock Tower

First Impressions: Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit

I like it.

Smartphones: coveted, compact and capable...

.. so give me a game that I give half a shit about!

Smartphones are becoming ever more prominent in the cell phone market. With hot sellers like the iOS and Android platforms providing third party developers with accessible markets, gamers are growing more curious as to how the smartphone development paradigm will effect mobile gaming.