PixlBit

Does Tryst find a way to liven up the slowly changing real-time strategy genre?

Having purposely kept away from real-time strategy games after an unhealthy period with Age of Empires II over a decade ago, I was unsure what crazy changes had taken place in the genre.  What insane new systems had evolved and how would I cope with them?  If Tryst is any indication, not too much has changed in all that time, though Tryst tries really hard to inject some new ideas.  Even adding on a few good-intention bonus points, Tryst is still a bland sci-fi entry in a genre that could really use some juicing up.

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Classic games come boop-boop-booping their way onto DSiWare.

If you have fond memories of lazy Saturdays taking turns with a friend’s Game & Watch, the possibilities for recreating those experiences have been pretty sparse in the last decade. Today, the primary way to get your hands on LCD-style games is through Nintendo’s own Game & Watch collections for the DS and, strangely, in this summer’s Deadlight on XBLA. Outside of those cases, though, the LCD game is essentially dead.  Or so it seemed, until Retro Pocket swooped onto DSiWare and packed several Saturday afternoons’ worth of LCD-style games into a package that will have some peering over the top of their sunglasses to take in something so rad.

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Come out of that basement to bask in the sun and ridicule, all for a good cause.

We’re at a crossroads, my friends.  Now is a critical time to set out to change the world’s attitudes towards our beloved video games. Even though we have to suffer through mainstream press articles about how big of a money maker Call of Duty is relative to Hollywood blockbusters, and even though everyone from toddlers to grandmas got pretty nuts about Angry Birds there for a while – gaming is still looked down upon.  As more and more people who grew up playing games stick with them as adults, our little hobby has been gaining more and more legitimacy, but it’s still not enough. 

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The party’s over.

Probably the worst part of playing alto sax in middle school band (besides having to play on braces-tightening days) was rhythm practice.  If you’re not familiar, there are entire books of rhythms written out – no notes, just the rhythms – which kids have to sit and verbalize.  “Ta ta tee tee tee tee rest ta-a-a-a-a tee tee tee tee ta ta” can be heard coming from the mouths of dreary band halls across the country as kids prepare for that next chair test or concert.   This despised exercise is what is at the core of Rock Band Blitz, and somehow they almost made it fun. 

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A fun romp found in the seedy dark corners of the arcade.

Can you remember being at the arcade and spying a strange Franken-cabinet offering a game you’d never seen before?  Perhaps a black spray-painted Pac-Man with a generic marquee above the screen with a name you’d never heard of and would never remember. You peered into the screen despite the bland trappings and ended up spending a wonderful afternoon trying to conquer a B-tier action game you would quickly forget. This is certainly not an experience Cinemax was trying to recreate with Commando: Steel Disaster, but it’s what they’ve done and I love them for it.

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