Sunday, July 10, 2011

Sanctum

Wow! I haven't posted here in almost a week. Oops =/
Scratch that, two days. Forgot about S.978.

Anyways, I may as well plug some stuff.
I've been a bit busy with several things.
Among them, an anime, and a game.

The game is called Sanctum. It's an indie somewhat-multiplayer somewhat-online tower defense first person shooter and how can I string along tags to make the description longer? The game is like tower defense in that there are successive waves of enemies which try to make their way to your "Sanctum" - a glowing blue orb - taking the shortest path possible. You construct towers to both obstruct their paths and hurt them, and if too many enemies reach your Sanctum, it's game over. Of course, the game is played from a first-person view point, and you have a set of guns as well - an assault rifle, a sniper, and a slow gun. There's a minigun rumored to be coming out as well. Guns certainly help pass time during the waves. The game can be single player, or can accommodate up to four total in multiplayer. In multiplayer, you can shoot your allies to send them tumbling, too!

The game runs really smoothly - even on my computer, which essentially has no graphics card - and the gameplay is fast and addicting. It's graphics are well-made, and the game doesn't feel like the tower defense and FPS genres had to be forced to mix together - it manages to make a cohesive mix of the two. You could theoretically forsake all guns or all towers - which I imagine would make for an interesting game - but it's more strategically sound to invest in both. The game also has a "DPS" meter in the top-right which I especially enjoy in multiplayer when butting heads. In addition, the game is only $15! (It's currently $3.75, until tomorrow at 9 AM I believe)

However, the game does have a few downsides. There isn't too much variety in towers, maps, guns, or enemies, it seems. Then again, no tower defense has that many towers or maps or enemies, and when compared, this game seems to have an "average" amount of each. While it would be interesting to have a variety of guns to choose from, the game has all the basics covered - a fast, inaccurate one; a slow, high-powered one; and a purely tactical non-damaging gun.

I'd urge you to get Sanctum.

Anyways, on to the anime. I've always had a certain penchant for stories which involved heavy usage of mind games. Death Note, Liar Game, and A Song of Fire and Ice among them. I enjoy the intrigue which goes on, and the drama which spawns partially from heavy usage of dramatic irony. Then again, it's always great when a character pulls a plan out completely from left field. I guess that's how I got hooked on Code Geass. (Yeah, yeah, I'm a bit late to the party.) In short, it's like Gundam and Death Note combined in one, if you're any fan of manga/anime. If you're not, Code Geass is robots and mind games. A third Michael Bay, a third drama, and a third intrigue. It's great, and it's free online.

Surprisingly, Code Geass also hits on some heavy issues, and really left me reeling at a few points. (I haven't even finished the first season yet!) The concept of "the ends justifying the means" is definitely a theme, as well as "survival of the fittest"/social darwinism, nationalism, imperialism, and free will. It's led me to think that manga/anime can actually address heavy issues like this a lot better than western literature. Anime and mange in general are more dramatic - that is, their characters behave less realistically by overreacting. This allows messages to be conveyed a lot more easily, and put out for the reader's consideration. Action is a lot faster due to the images, so you don't have an idea spread out between paragraphs, or going on in a huge block of incomprehensible text.

Aaaaaand that's my plugging for today.

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