3D remaster of Riven,You can say  it's "RealRiven". 7 years in a making. Looks gorgeus!

Happy Holydays!

Russels fanies in X Beims

FEZ

In our village there was a saying "if something doesn't go right - give another spin for the dimension". But everything is cool now, I am walking around this world and everything I see is really beautiful. Well, there are few scary spots, but generally I feel like I'm in a resort. I occasionally find some pieces of gold cubes and also I have found few blue cubes... These are a lot harder to find and they are called "anticubes". Oh, yeah.. I also have found some kind of an artifact, my little ignorant companion said that this artifact was used for writing. He doesn't know a lot of things, but when he knows something, it is usually truth. I can see myself that this artifact might have been used for writing. It is  cube with forms of letters sticking out, and it looks like you could press a letter into clay or something similar, but cube has only six sides, so does that mean that their language has only six letters ? I'm not sure.

One of the things that you can learn from this game:

There are a lot of things in your life than you can learn in boiler room.

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Phil Phish is quite disliked person in the game world. I don't know and don't really care about this personal stuff, but I like him because of his creation. He sees games as art, which I really like. And when this game came out on Xbox 360, he said that PC is for spreadsheets, because when this game is played on PC it loses a part of its original form. I understand what he means by that, because a gaming console is more like a solid object of gaming, which lets you skip all kinds of graphical options and all technical stuff, what you get is a creation being presented for you in its complete form. While on pc you have to go through steps of installing it (of course you need to install games on console, but it is very simple), setting it up and etc., after that some players will play using a keyboard, set up the controls and this it might create different experience from what the creator intended it to be (especially when a game is carefully crafted with attention to tiny details). But as far as the statement of Fish goes, I wonder if he said it honestly or it was just a marketing trick, because as far as I know,  FEZ first was intended to be released on PC.

For the first time I played FEZ on pc, but not long FEZ was released on ps3, ps4 and Ps vita and now I'm playing it for the second time and the colorful world really looks awesome on a beautiful OLED screen of Vita. I can say that it is my favorite game on Vita so far. I have been playing it for a long time now and almost 200 percented it :] yeah, and I can tell you that on my opinion it is the best puzzle game since Myst. While it looks like simple 2d platformer its puzzles are very deep and unique, it feels like you really have to dig the game inside out. I really like this kind of immersion. It keeps you coming back and trying to figure out a little bit more about this world.

Also I like when all elements of the game forms a perfect symbiosis in way that the game world just feels natural and real, without the things that you just have to imagine separately, like for example : skill points or damage points.

    This game has pixelated graphics and lo-fi sound effects, but it really feels like this is some kind of different universe that has this type of material :] It is really good that now there are a lot of game developers who like to experiment and merge games with art. But the trend is that after every unique work, comes 10 of copies, but that is not allways a bad thing. 

Sure, there will be people who will totally dislike this game. Some will dislike pixelated graphics, or lack of reflections and so on. It is just my opinion that this is a great creation of art, but after all what other criteria there are to evaluate the greatness of art than just an opinion or feeling, especially for the creation purpose is not to please the masses of people. 

Not so long ago, in one of Sage Francis interviews I noticed his observation about how most of the computer games are about war, its like these games are preparing kids for war and forming their admiration for military and all that. And for real, most games use violence to be successful, and not saying that there are no interesting games about war against something and maybe this is related to our instincts, but I feel that games like FEZ teach you about better things nad take you to etter places also it leads you towards the discovery of new civilizations and not towards destruction.

Spin these big old tires

Yes, people, well... and other organisms, but I doubt that you'd be interested because you most likely don't understand our language, so.. Yes, people,  another game has emerged from the beard and for this one I suggest you imagine a muddy Kraz truck slowly emerging out of the thick beard and if you don't like this image thiat might be because of two reasons: One - you don't care about old off road trucks, so you most likelly won't like this game; two - you don't like the idea of truck driving through facial hair so you really might like the game because it isn't about that.

SO, ok this is the game that I have been dreaming about (and at some point I doubted if it will by possible any time) since the days of Screamer 4x4. I mean screamer was best off road sim and still is one of the few and one of the best, I was just dreamingg how nice it would be to have trucks driving over realistic deformable terrain with 3d vegetation and to be able to get stuck in realistic mud (not just by rolling over or falling into some deep hole). At that time, simulated off roading was done on huge triangles :]] cuz only low res terrain was possible. So I waited and waited, waited and waited (I had many ideas during that time, but it was just Ideas cuz I haven’t gotten myself into game making yet), couple of crappy off road games showed up, like motorm4x and uaz: full drive. UAZ was fun for some time, but it was really annoying too, because it was made on half shooter half racing engine - Chrome engine, so after that I almost gave up hope on driving games because all of them were increasingly arcadized :], but then baaam, some developers shows new technology of realistic digging of dirt and terrain deformation, at the time I thought that was just a demonstration of technology (which won Intel award), but then few years later I saw some news and new build of their technology demo and the guys were saying that they will make a real game out of that and than again few years later I was anticipating the final game of Spin Tires to be realesed soon, and now it is out, it came out not too long ago and for me it is almost perfect. You may sayk that it lacks in content for a game that has been in development for so long, but first of all it was made (is being made)by a really small developer and second - attention to detail is outstanding and it is optimized very well. So we can always get additional content later with DLC and mods (it's moddable) but the basis to off road playground that they created is awesome. Physics are top notch, all the effect that you would expect from off road sim are there and there are even more :] Damage is not yet done properly, but they said that it will be updated and there are many things that can be improved, but you better go play thisthe game and you will find your self loving it, or hating it I don’t know :]

If you are looking to try it, it is up on steam for 25 euro. You might see that there are a lot of complaints about lack of content, but if you are into hardcore realistic games and old trucks in Russian forests than definitely buy it. It will receive free additional content, so hurray, but even without it  is great, after all it emerged out of the beard.

 

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Recently it was updated. Driving wheel support was added, it works great just we have to wait for cockpit view now, because driving with wheel while using outside view feels strange.

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Come here, son. What is the biggest fish you have seen ? No don't lie that it is Atlantic Cod, you have never been near the Atlantic ocean, oh these books.... anyway, son, the largest fish that you can meet around these parts is Maz 537, I swear, son, one time I drove this beast underwater and came out to shore, not kidding, when I think about it now I think I might have died, but I didin't, I even received an Achievement award from our Great Leader. 

I have been climbing pretty steep hills for such fat trucks

Oh, and this is a picture of me sleeping on the side of the road, hungover. Hungover in Taiga.

And also I can tell you sir, son, that all these Maz, Kraz, Ural, Kamaz and Gaz trucks was sitting in mud up to axles many times

When you will be tall enough to drive these trucks, don't be afraid, they might look scary at first, but later you will roll few of them over , get stuck a little bit and you'll get used to the mud baths. Look how my first try ended: