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The Darin Project

The Evolution

Continuing on the theme of this blog, the Battle Field franchise is a great example of shifting from realistic hard core gaming to a casual lite concept.

The battle Field franchise has always produced strategical first person shooters. emphasizing on the community and the realism of battle. They have done quite well with this concept. having 3 very successful titles and a hard core loyal community to buy any thing they sell. The next title, Battle field Heroes, is a very different game all together. Gone is the ultra realistic battles, the gritty realism of war. Say hello to the cartoon like characters blasting their way to victory in a comical cartoon way.

Did I mention this game will be free? That's right it will be free, The publishers are utilizing their community they already have and converting them to advertising dollars through advertisements in their free game.

It's too soon to tell if this game will be fun or not but Guaranteed it will be a standard business model for other companies to follow.

~Adonis

Spore, The Final Frontier

After 5 years in production and 3 years of hype it finally came. Spore. Promising more than a deluxe Swiss army knife for a cave man, this game has been set up to change the way we game and interact with each other. So the question is does it deliver?

The entire premise around this game is taking a creature from the cellular level and evolving it all the way up to the space age. Not enough? well you can customize your creatures body, looks, color, pattern, abilities, buildings, vehicles, cloths, and flying saucer all along the way.

Under the hood this game is absolutely amazing. it seamlessly uploads all content created by you to its server, organizes it and seeds it to other peoples games. Likewise all content in your game was created by some one else. at the time of this posting there was over 11 million creatures uploaded to the server. 11 Million! that's like populating all of New York and LA.

The game it self plays relatively well. Game play is very simplistic. With out the creature creator and the seamless content manager, the majority of the game would not stand on it's own. However the game really shines when you evolve your little one celled objects to the space age. Suddenly you have an entire galaxy with the potential of millions of worlds to interact with.

Over all Spore delivered all it ever said it would. Further showing the trend in computer games towards a casual, light feel.

Casual Games

In keeping with the last post, here is the best of the best in causal games. Funny enough most causal games are free.

Best of the old school.

Casual games have gotten a nitch all there own. There are literally hundreds of games right now made in Flash that take advantage of the web browser as a distribution method. My personal favorite site that hosts these free flash games is Kongregate.com. Whats so good about this site is that it gives your account levels, cards, and rewards for playing these games.

The absolute best casual flash game on the market right now is Desktop Tower Defense. Nothing and I mean nothing is so incredibly addicting as this little flash game. you will spend hours defending the other side of the screen and watching little line drawn monsters assault your defenses wave after wave. Check it out here.

Best new stuff

So you have played tower defense till your fingers are raw. You can see little monsters in your sleep. Now its time to get to the really cool stuff. There is some new technology available that has allowed complex computer games to be run through your web browser. The only company worth mentioning in this new market is instantAction.com. What a crazy cool sight. Just think of it, hooking up with your friends instantly and blasting each other in a first person shooter. Then instantly swapping to another game while taking your group with you. This site is a must for any one interested in casual games.

~Adonis

Somthing Wicked This Way comes

I come From the first generation of hard core gamers. The generation that cut their teeth on the original Nintendo. The generation that has dominated the market interest for two decades.

The gaming market has gone through some very interesting changes. Always following one specific age group. It started about 20 years ago with the Atari and became solidified with the Nintendo and lesser so the computer. These games geared toward the adolescent child under the age of 14. Funny enough the market never left that generation. As the generation grew up so did the games. By the early 21st century games were all but exclusive too the hard core gamer that has been playing for years. As this generation grew up they no longer had the time and resources to invest in the gaming market. Suddenly the gaming market for the first time needed to really look for new blood.

Don't believe me?

in 2002 a little game called Half life 2 (sold over 4 million copies) came out in the ever popular first person shooter game style. This was and still is the leader in FPS games. However in 2008. another big title called Mass Effect came out only selling 1 million copies.

The problem?

The people that love these types of games are no longer as active in the gaming community as they used to be.

The solution?

The gaming community has made a dramatic shift in style. for example Valve, the same company that made the ever popular half life 2 comes out with a game called portals. This game sets a new benchmark for other companies to follow. boasting great graphics, easy to use interface, unique game play and comical and light atmosphere.

It will be interesting to see if this casual game style sticks with the market or if it returns to its complex game play roots. All in all it should be fun to watch.

~Adonis