From Linuxaria


Some time ago Mark Hadley (AgentParsec) created a game that captivated gamers around the world. Slender: The Eight Pages, available for free on Windows and Mac this was a short, experimental game that helped to breathe new life into the horror genre through its use of pure, uncensored fear.

Inspired by this game and its success Haunt (formerly known as Haunt: The Real Slender Game) is an adventure/horror game released for Linux, Mac and Windows that bring you in these terrifying setting.

Synopsis

An unnamed male character comes across an abandoned pickup truck outside the fenced off Green Park in Poland. The truck belongs to a paranormal investigation/historical preservation organization known as, Project: HAUNT. Along with the truck the character discovers a portfolio with a document regarding the purpose of Project: HAUNT. Out of curiosity, the unnamed male ventures into the park to investigate the whereabouts of the organizations members and their discoveries by collecting a set of documents and photographs as well as keys to locked off locations within the parks grounds.

The story of Haunt is different from the original Slender Man mythos and story. By reading the scraps of paper found in the game (if the player has the chance to do it, since standing still for too long will make Slender Man kill you), the player discovers that the Project: HAUNT members caught a group of periodists that were in the building area. Mark Slender (one of the periodists) managed to escape the building and was able to hide in a bunker near the building, but the project members found him and burned him inside the bunker, which failed to instantly kill him but managed to burn his face beyond recognition. The group then left Mark for dead and the “Mark Slender case” was closed, but the project members began to experience paranoia as well as other symptoms.

The gameplay

The point of this game is to find all the scraps of the notes, in which each one has information about what happened. The player will also find the park map billboard in a lot of areas, to find out where they currently are. In addition, there are keys you’ll need to find to unlock access to some of those places, and there are special photos to find on the Gamer and Paranormal difficulty level settings.

The game has 3 difficulty settings:

Noob – Infinite Flashlight / Map Markers / Small Slender Agro / No Extra Photos To Find / Darkness Will Never come
Gamer – Batteries / No Markers(This is currently bugged) / Medium Slender Agro / Extra Photos To Find / Night Will Come
Paranormal – Batteries / No Markers / High Slender Agro / Extra Photos To Find / Game Starts At Night

So to see all the photos and information available you should end the game at “Paranormal”, but I suggest to start as “Gamer” in your first couple of games, and if you are killed right from the start don’t worry…it’s normal.

Installation

The files are waiting for authorization (IndieDB and Desura) and the game it’s on the greenlight program on Steam so at the moment the best way to get the .zip file with the full game it’s download it from Game Front, if your country it’s on the “white list” of this provider, Italy is not :( , while it’s allowed from United States and many other countries.

If your country is not allowed on Game Front you can use atomicgamer as alternative, but for me it’s been painfully slow.

Once downloaded the file unzip it and rename the folder Haunt_1_Data in Haunt_1.1_Data, after that you should be able to run Haunt_1.1.x86_64 and play the game, from a terminal you can use these commands:



Please remember that it’s still a beta version and there could be some bugs in the game.

Every once in a while we come across a really intriguing game that sets the stage for something new. One that will present a new dynamic and different type of adventure. Such is the case of the up and coming Tangiers from Andalusian.

What is Tangiers?

Tangiers is an atmospheric and intelligent sandbox stealth game in the spirit of Thief – inter-cut with open world exploration akin to both Shadow of the Colossus and Morrowind.



In Tangiers your character is a fragile, weakened being recently arrived in a strange world. Leaving you to explore a bleak landscape searching for pockets of urbanization to infiltrate. Sneaking in, kidnapping a target, then finding a way out. Figuring out your own path through levels, keeping to the shadows, lay traps, stalk, distract, back-stab – or with enough skill, ghost your way through without leaving a trace.

Expressing the fractured, surrealist reality of the world, the game rebuilds itself in response to your actions. In an adaptation of William Burrough’s cut-up technique, fragments of previously visited areas will become mixed with undiscovered areas, building an experience unique to each play-through. Tangiers narrative is similarly reactive, adapting to the ethical considerations of your actions.

The Game Features:

• Tense Stealth Game-play
• Sandbox, non linear approach to all situations.
• Abstract approach to interactions – Eavesdrop conversations – watch the words materialise, then collect them, using them as distractions when needed.
• World that constantly evolves in response to the player – unique with each play through.
• Unique setting, building upon the works of 20th century avant garde – Marcel Duchamp, William Burroughs, J.G. Ballard, Throbbing Gristle amongst others.
• Full length, dark ambient soundtrack.

What about Linux support

“A Linux build is definite - we’re using the Unity3D engine, and while they’ve only got a preview build of their Linux platform up at the moment, I’m fairly comfortable that by the time we come close to release in a years time, a full platform will be released. The popularity of Kickstarters such as Wasteland and Torment, Steam coming to Linux and the Humble Bundles gives us confidence that the vicious circle of lack of support for Linux gaming is being broken. Indeed, as support improves, we would like to envision ourselves moving to an entirely open source development base, something that I can see as a definite future possibility even with our limited technical knowledge of the platform.

The game’s been in slow development for around 6 months now - we’re at the point where all the underlying elements have come together and we can start to release regular previews of the game. The idea for the game came from my love of 20th century avant-garde, and wanting to explore many of the concepts behind it in a new medium. Equal to my love of art are the more mature game designs such as Thief - it came across as natural to bring the two together.

Given the small team, I don’t see it as a realistic possibility to bring it to consoles. We do hope that the Ouya is in a healthy state this time next year - if it is, I think that it’d be very interesting to tweak and adapt the game to suite a 10 feet away, more relaxed living room environment.”

Alex Harvey
Andalusian

Who are Andalusian?

Andalusian are a new, Bristol-based indie studio. There’s two of them working from a bedroom – Alex Harvey and Michael Wright. Alex is the pretentious arty one, spending most of his free time listening to odd music and wishing that he was Antonin Artaud. Michael currently lives on other people’s sofas, and is really pinning his hopes on people buying this game.
Andalusian seeks to create mature, confrontational game that take inspiration from a wider range of culture. Neither of them have created a game before, but they are very dedicated about making this one a good one.
A pretty egalitarian pair, using Open Source software in the office at every reasonable option.

The game is currently in development, with a projected release date of mid 2014.

There are thousands of Kickstarter projects asking for your money, and it can be difficult to decide to which ones you should donate. With only 5 days left on the campaign, its time to get in on the action, if you have yet to do so.

What is Jagged Alliance: Flashback?

Jagged Alliance: Flashback is a role-playing game with turn-based combat, base management, and mercenaries to hire as you explore the island group of San Christobal during the Cold War. Your job is to assemble a mercenary team to restore the democratic government on San Christobal and drive out the U.S.S.R presence before fighting breaks out with the U.S. It’s a a thinking man’s game—a thinking man with lots of guns!

Why should you support Jagged Alliance: Flashback?

Full Control—the group that’s working on Jagged Alliance: Flashback—has been making turn-based games for the past 9 years. They’ve also worked on popular well-known titles such as Crysis, Star Wars: The Old Republic, Unreal Tournament, and more. Jagged Alliance: Flashback won’t be their first game, which increases the odds that it will be good.

They also have the engine already built, so they will be putting the Kickstarter money into the art, story, and other gameplay features you’ll be able to see.

The Jagged Alliance series has been around since 1994 on a variety of platforms, and Full Control wants to reset the series to bring it back to its roots with Jagged Alliance: Flashback. They’re taking the second game as their inspiration, and based on what I’ve read, that’s a great game that unfortunately hasn’t been available to Mac gamers. Jagged Alliance 2 looks to be a game that’s worth updating.



On a personal level, playing turn-based strategy games and want to see more of them. While twitch-based combat is popular, there’s something satisfying about thinking five moves ahead and leading your enemy to their doom.

Where can I find out more about Jagged Alliance: Flashback?

Full Control’s Kickstarter page has more videos, screenshots, and details of future plans for Jagged Alliance: Flashback.



They also have a website with a forum you can use to talk to other fans and the game’s developers. If you like what you see, you can donate as much as you want to make this game a reality. The campaign ends on May 23rd, and is currently $120,000 short of its $350,000 goal.

Can gaming be the turning point for Linux on the desktop?

By Neil Mohr from PCFormat

Steam’s arrival on Linux is a pretty big deal

Dear old Linux, what are…

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Atomhawk is a UK art studio currently Kickstarting the beautiful adventure game, The Realm. Here, studio director Cumron Ashtiani tells us about the process and offers advice to developers considering the crowd-funding gamble

Now reaching the end of its Kickstarter appeal, Atomhawk’s The Realm, is a visually stunning adventure game, set in a future England now re-taken by nature. A young girl named Sarina sets out from her village to find a cure for her sick mother, encountering and befriending a gigantic stone golem on the way. Originally conceived as an experimental side-project, the beautiful artwork soon started generating interest online – encouraging the development team to consider an official release.

The thing is, Atomhawk isn’t really a development house; it is a specialist art studio, providing assets to a range of Triple A titles from the likes of Sega, Ubisoft and Disney. The company was founded by a group of industry veterans who have all been through the ups and considerable downs of this volatile business; it would have been easy to leave development behind. But somehow they couldn’t.

The Realm is now just days away from funding – or, god forbid, failure. Here, studio director Cumron Ashtiani talks about the fear and potential of Kickstarting a project, and the pleasure of making a full game again.

So The Realm was originally meant as a portfolio project? How did it come about?
As an art studio, it is easy to fall into being “art guns for hire” and that could lead to us losing touch with our own desires to create. In my experience, people can become jaded if they find themselves letting go of the majority of their ideas, in return for commercial success. Don’t get me wrong, we love working on all the amazing projects that we get to collaborate on, but sometimes it’s nice to make something for ourselves.

The Realm is different. We decided that we would set ourselves an internal project of our own design. We embarked on an experiment to see if we could generate a universe, back-story and characters from scratch just as I did when I was an in-house art director at numerous game development studios. The project was designed to teach the team the art of IP creation.

Let’s quickly talk about your past. You were at Midway’s UK office when it closed – can you tell us about that experience?
It was very harsh at the time. In my case, it was the third time I’d been through a studio closure and I just couldn’t believe it was happening again – and my wife was expecting our first baby at any time. What was especially tough was that we were not paid our notice or severance and so we were all left broke and in need of work.

However, nearly 4 years on I have a very different opinion of what happened. Midway closing was a blessing as it liberated a load of very talented guys who may have otherwise been too scared to move on. Nearly all of the team moved on to better jobs at more successful developers, or moved into other industries, and a large portion of us went on to found new companies. Between Atomhawk, CCP and Pitbull Studios, that all founded from the ashes of Midway, we now employ nearly 60 people. Midway was only 78 in its final days and a lot of that team now work at companies like Sumo, Ubisoft and Rare. So Midway’s closure actually went on to generate more jobs in the North East by creating three new successful companies.

When did you start considering making The Realm into a full game?
The idea to make it into an adventure game was born out of a partnership between Atomhawk and a former colleague, Tom Szirtes (Lantern Interactive’s Director). We previously worked together, many years ago, on the horror-survival game The Thing and have been friends ever since. We were having a few beers at GDC in San Francisco last year and I showed what we had been working on. He was very excited and suggested we make it into a game. The next thing I know he’s quit his day job at Orange and was working away on the Realm… the guy’s a mad man but for all the right reasons.

What is it about the project that’s inspired people? I mean, it looks beautiful of course, but what else?
I’m so pleased that people have been inspired by its beauty, there are not many games out there that create a believable, non-abstract world and at the same time don’t go down the dark and apocalyptic route. I really liked Journey and Enslaved for that reason and this has resonated.

I think it also has appeal because it captures that sense of mystery, fantasy and adventure that people remember from great stories they read or watched as children. We deliberately wanted to create a universe that raises a ton of questions and sets your mind wondering. The idea was to mix the Western, high quality art of Pixar with the epic scale, fantastical stories and odd characters found in Miyazaki’s work. And this has also gone down well.

What has inspired you to move away from traditional games industry influences and forms?
I’ve always made horror games, war games, violent games… but I became a dad a couple of years back and having a daughter just made me realise that while the games I had been making were great, I can’t share those with her. We all wanted to make an ‘oldskool’ adventure game that relies on a great story, great puzzles and great art and audio, something everyone can enjoy at all ages.

But then, the fantasy genre is rather over-populated. Titles like Skyrim, Dragon’s Dogma, etc, all seem to be essentially inhabiting the same spaces…
Skyrim and Dragons Dogma are big budget action RPGs – we have little in common with them. We are doing something different with our blend of Ico-inspired co-dependency gameplay and point-and-click style emphasis on story, puzzles and stunning environments. The Realm should offer something to gamers tired of the same old stuff.

Why Kickstarter? It seems after the honeymoon period last year, developers are finding it hard to get funding in this way…
There was an inevitable boom at the start as people discovered crowd funding and jumped to try it. Like all new frontiers, there was a lot of scope for big gains. However, the people that went first had to find that secret key to success themselves – we’re now able to look at what they did and learn from it. I do think that the public are suffering a little from fatigue but it’s still a very good way to find funding if you are prepared to put the preparation work in.

One big problem is that Kickstarter in particular is still very US-focused and US backers tend not to look at projects outside of their locale. That is what we really need: the British public’s support.

So what if The Realm is a huge success – do you think you’ll return to development on a fulltime basis?
Atomhawk has no intention of becoming a game developer again, we’re quite happy doing what we do – that is why we have partnered with old friends. We’re truly embracing the movie industry model that we’ve been used to from working with our film clients: it’s about bringing a team of experts in their field together to make a project happen, rather than feeling we need to build a development studio.

Atomhawk will provide the art, Tom and Lantern will handle development, Richard Jacques on audio and Andrew Curtis will lead the project’s design. Just like how a team comes together to make a movie. Which means less risk but also better talent as it can take a very long time to hire people of that calibre as employees.

Do you think this is generally a good time to be an indie developer? It seems elements such as digital distribution and crowd funding have opened up opportunities but at the same time, there is the huge problem of discovery…
You’ve hit the nail on the head in your question really. The market place is a lot more open and accessible which is great, but at the same time the competition is fierce and the market is crowded. You have to create something really special to stand out, plus spend a lot of time making sure people know about it.

Do you have a key piece of advice for developers thinking of using crowd-funding?
Make sure you set up your social media networks and start to gain followers and build a community before you launch. For a project like the Realm, we average £20 per backer and so we need around 9500 backers. Reaching that many people in four weeks is hard and so anything you can do in advance to generate more awareness really helps. Have a Facebook page, Twitter account, etc, and start collecting supporters early as they then help spread the word on launch.

The other big one is make sure you get set up for US payments. Running a UK only Kickstarter means that people have to pay by credit card. Fine here in Britain, but a lot of Americans don’t have one or have one that is not compatible with UK payment systems. If you get set up for a US bank account then you can use Amazon payments and that is really easy for US backers. We’ve also only just discovered in our own campaign that a lot of Germans also prefer to pay in USD and use Amazon payments and so for an adventure game like ours, this has made it harder than it needed to be. Getting the US bank account take six-eight weeks and so that needs to be started early!

What has this process taught you about contemporary game development in the ‘indie’ space?
Indie development is “seat of your pants” and that comes with some great positives but also some negatives. The positives are that you can explore ideas that are beyond the normal safe threshold of most publisher business models. You can also retain more control over your games and connect directly with the players. This means that rather than working in isolation for three years on a AAA console game without even knowing if people will actually like it’ we can test things out and see what resonates with the player.

The downsides are that as the budgets are smaller, you have to really get creative to make that money go further. Indie dev also comes with a degree of personal risk as often you have to invest your own money and time which could be painful if the project fails. It’s all about calling in favours whenever you can and generally being cheeky!

Linux Support (Update from The Realm on Kickstarter)

Thanks to all of you who answered our poll. We’ve had a lot of conversations with Linux users and there was a strong feeling that Linux shouldn’t be a stretch goal.  So we decided - we are going to do The Realm on Linux together with the Windows and Mac version as part of our normal release!

But we need your help, we’d like to get a small group of volunteers to help us test the game on that platform and advise us on any technical issues. So if you think you are interested in doing this please drop us a line at info@therealmgame.com and following the successful KS campaign we’ll sort out the best way to move forward on this.

Thanks again so much for all your support. Its really touching and can’t wait to see this game on as many platforms as possible!

Don’t forget we really need your help reaching our goal, so please keep spreading the word!

“Twisted Metal” and “God of War” creator David Jaffe is taking a step back from AAA game development and embracing a smaller scope with his next project, according to a report Thursday from Gamespot.

Jaffe, who left Eat Sleep Play — a Sony first party studio he helped found — last year, has now joined independent game studio Pixelbionic as part of the company’s advisory board. He will serve as a creative advisor for the company’s first title — a vehicle car combat game, “Autoduel.”

Obviously, if there’s anyone in the industry that knows anything about car combat, it’s Jaffe, who helped establish Sony’s dominance in the console space in the 90s with the “Twisted Metal” series on the Playstation. He helped resurrect the series in 2012, but the title was met with critical and sales apathy.

With a smaller budget and a tighter focus, “Autoduel” will pay homage to classic car games like “Interstate ‘76.” The PC online multiplayer game will combine “high-octane thrills and spills of a team-based car combat with RPG-influenced persistence and progression.”

The new title is set in a post-apocalyptic world where warriors “drive to survive” in armored vehicles scavenged from the cursed Earth.

The studio will fund the game through favorite crowd funding method Kickstarter. No date has been announced for the Kickstarter campaign, but Pixelbionic said it will launch “soon.”

From Linux Game News:

With a Kickstarter campaign on the way and a relatively new Indie Game studio, it looks like we could see Linux support. Americas Army had native platform support and Return to Castle Wolfenstein which still does support Linux, are two of the game listed on the Pixelbionic website.

So it’s likely that further progress from a company with a bevvy of solid AAA game titles in their history will make the jump to cross-platform gaming.

Psychological horror Among the Sleep achieved its $200,000 Kickstarter goal this morning. That means the happy, innocent-looking faces of Krillbite Studio can endeavor to provide us with nightmares when the game hit PC, Mac, Linux, and Oculus Rift in Q4 this year.

While Among the Sleep was already close to its Kickstarter goal, we suspect some of Krillbite’s cheer comes from the validation of doing so after releasing the playable alpha yesterday. That’s still available for free on the game’s Kickstarter page, if you’d like to experience how the game leverages its scares from a two-year-old’s perspective. You can also read Richard’s thoughts on a demo which made him “love a teddy bear within the span of a half-hour.”

Among the Sleep has already cleared its first stretch goal: $200,030 got bought ice creams for each member of the team - which might also explain those happy faces. With three days to go, Krillbite only has two other stretch goals currently listed, with $225K allowing the team to optimize Oculus Rift support, and $230K unlocking in-game commentary.

The new computer should outmuscle Android consoles using mobile chips, and may be able to run the Linux version of Steambox.

Android gaming at home has mostly been limited to low-power consoles like the long-awaited Ouya, but a new company hopes to beef up the platform with some serious gaming PC hardware.

Unlike competitors that rely on mobile chips like ARM processors, iConsole.tv is readying a device that uses an x86 CPU, 8GB of DDR3 RAM, 500GB hybrid disk drive/SSD, and an undisclosed GPU. In other words, it’s built more like a mini-gaming PC than a feeble Android console.

It also will run a Linux Desktop mode, which means users will be able to access Steam for Linux to get even more games than the Android ecosystem already provides. Mobile Media Ventures even throws in support for CableCARD to turn iConsole.tv into a home theater PC.

Currently, the company is offering a $999 Developer Kit that features an Intel Ivy Bridge processor, but only integrated graphics. It explains that Ivy Bridge vastly outperforms other chips running Android, and that the graphics card that will ship with the actual console will be “at least two to three times more powerful” than Intel’s integrated graphics.

The device lacks a price yet, as well as a firm release date. Right now, Mobile Media Ventures says it hopes to launch iConsole.tv in the winter. That vagueness leaves open the possibility that this will turn out to be vaporware, but the company did let Engadget gets its hands on a Developer Kit to show off its capabilities. In an interview, CEO Christopher Price extolled the potential of Android not only for serious gaming, but also as “the future of personal computing.” He also said iConsole.tv will be priced well below the cost of the Developer Kit.

Does iConsole.tv have a future as a gaming PC for your HDTV and built on Android? Hopefully, we’ll have a chance to find out several months from now.

YoYo Games, creators of the cross-platform game development software GameMaker: Studio, has announced support for Tizen, an open-source, Linux-based platform for smartphones and tablets.

“We strongly believe that Tizen will be a significant platform for mobile and other devices and we’re keen to show our early commitment to the platform,” says YoYo Games CEO Sandy Duncan.

GameMaker: Studio for Tizen will be releasing later in 2013, but its beta will also be available for attendees of the Tizen Developers Conference in San Francisco from May 22nd to 24th. YoYo Games representatives will be on hand at the conference to demo the software.

For those unable to attend the conference, YoYo is also offering the Tizen beta for free to customers of its GameMaker: Studio “Professional” and “Master Collection” versions. Users of the “Professional” version will have to pay for the Tizen Export module after the software leaves beta.

By Cormac Foster @readwrite.com


After a longer-than-expected wait, some shipping glitches, and a good deal of anticipation, open-source, crowd-funded, cloud-gaming, Android-powered Ouya game console arrived in Friday’s mail. Unpacking the box, plugged it in, and fired it up. After 24 hours, having come to some conclusions about the device – though maybe they’re not all positive.

Ouya: Out Of The Box

The Console: The first thing noticed about the console itself was its size. The thing is small – about the size of a Rubik’s Cube. With no optical drive or expansion slots, there’s no reason for the device to be any bigger, but it was still a little jarring. It’s also pretty idiot-proof. Plug in the included power adapter and HDMI cable, press the only button on the device, and you’re ready to get started.



The Controller: The controller was reputed to be the system’s crown jewel, and overall, it’s a success. The pop-off panels for accessing the dual battery compartments seem a little insecure at first, and we would have preferred a more traditional hinged compartment on the back, but the Ouya design seems rigid enough once everything is snapped together, and it’s probably cheaper to fix, down the line.



Other than that, the pad, sticks and buttons worked as planned, the controller fit my average-sized hand nicely, and a player would be able to forget about controls and focus on the games immediately. And that’s really the point. Worlds more comfortable than any Sony controller, and somewhat more natural than the Xbox 360’s. If this controller shipped with a next-gen system, it wouldn’t be an upset. Ouya Setup

The hardware was great, and pairing the controllers was straightforward. When logging into an account, though, the Ouya’s Kickstarter roots started to show. Setup went smoothly enough, but even a little documentation might have been nice. The box included only an FCC-mandated warning: no manual or diagrams. The log in process was simple, but to retrieve the username registered months ago, having to swap to a laptop and Google “Ouya username retrieval” was essential. An inline “Retrieve Username” next to the “Lost Password” link in the setup screen wouldn’t have been terribly hard to add.

With any luck, that retail units will ship with more documentation and a smoothed-out interface. As an early backer, a reviewer and someone who’d like to see this type of project succeed, the Best Buy set is accustomed to a higher level of hand-holding.

The Ouya UI

Once you’re logged in, the Ouya interface is pretty clean, but there are not too many more positives worth noting. It’s tough to make four menu items a jumble, but Ouya somehow succeeded. The designers may have been trying a bit too hard to make things cool.

The menu items:

PLAY: Play the games you’ve downloaded. Simple enough.



DISCOVER: This is the Ouya app store. DISCOVER is a horribly awkward list of downloadable games, with confusingly named sub-menus (What’s the difference between CHECK IT, STAFFPICKS, and FAVS, anyway?). The GENRES section is more useful, but it reveals an unfortunate lack of content designed for the device. As of the weekend, there were only six games in the DUAL STICK category and only three applications in APPS.

MAKE: Information for software developers that really doesn’t belong in a main menu.

MANAGE: System configuration.

Understanding what Ouya was going for, but everything abut the interface screams BETA, and it wouldn’t have been that hard to do it right. Dropping a user straight into PLAY, provide a prominent link to the store, and link to games that are related to the one currently playing. Hide the rest somewhere boring. Done.

Some of the gaps should get filled when more titles become available, but that list is likely to to see a lot of static. The bar is pretty low for Android games, so not every entry will be up to par for console games.

That’s where some content curation could help. Branded channels (e.g., something by IndieCade or one of the gaming mags) could really help users find games worth playing. So could a healthy peer rating system and some filtering based on past ratings. The good news is that all of this can be fixed in software. The bad news is that the retail release date is coming up fast.

Ouya Games

For the most part, the available games are what you’d expect of Android games: small, fun, potentially addictive and disposable. There were some standouts like Dub Wars, which took advantage of the hardware in interesting ways, and some others that locked up my system (Beast Boxing Turbo never made it past the loading screen and forced a hard reset), but there’s certainly no “must-have” franchise Ouya title yet.



Final Fantasy III: What about Final Fantasy III? If you’ve played the Android version on other devices, you know what you’re getting. If you played the original version 20 years ago, it’s a refreshing trip down memory lane. FFIII offers Game Boy mechanics with 3D graphics: think Pokemon Stadium on the N64 compared to Pokemon Yellow and Red. Younger gamers without an appreciation of history will probably get bored very fast. It’s great to see a major studio throw some weight behind the Ouya, but this game is not a kingmaker.

The Ouya Verdict

The gaming industry needs a kick in the pants, and having been glad to have helped support the Ouya’s attempt to provide it. Having hopes that in time, the Ouya can provide exposure to indie game developers, add playability to Android games that could really use a solid controller and function as a valid over-the-top box for Netflix and other TV apps.



As a geek and freedom fighter, money was well-spent. If it was a parent on a shopping mission or hardcore gamer looking for a fix, though, the Ouya just doesn’t deliver. If you’re looking for anything resembling a AAA-title gaming experience, your $99 would be better spent on a used Xbox 360 or a new video card for your gaming computer.

Ouya has the potential to fix the bugs and round out its stable of apps and games to make a really viable complement to traditional consoles, but the company needs to move fast, before gamers decide to move on.