The end of 2009 is almost upon us, and what a great year it was for gaming! Some incredible indie titles made their way into homes this year, and it looks like 2010 is going to continue to roll with that momentum.

Though we love indie games at IGR (dur), we still have a soft spot for games no matter what platform they happen to land on, or even how big the publisher. While I enjoy games on the PC and Xbox 360, you’re most often going to find me planted in front of the TV with a SIXAXIS in my hands while I try to trounce a PS3 title. Xbox LIVE may be the king of the online experience, but the PSN is no slouch, and has tons of great games to enjoy.  So I present to you: 

Callabrantus’ 2009 PSN List!

Picking faves is never easy, and it gets tougher when you love a mix of action titles, puzzlers and casual titles. Love ‘em or hate ‘em, these are the games that kept me most busy in 2009.

Super Stardust HD

Although it wasn’t released in 2009, I still find myself itching to play this frantic shoot-em-up from time to time. In a nutshell, you pilot a craft flying around global meteor defense grids, eliminating gigantic hunks of rock in a fashion akin to Asteroids, but with a control scheme similar to Smash TV. Large rocks break into kinda big rocks, which break into smaller rocks, etc, ultimately presenting you with point tokens or weapon upgrades.  Different weapons suit different types of meteors (rock, gold or ice).  But the rocks keep on a-comin’, and with literally thousands of comet fragments on screen at a time, you need to be on your toes to avoid destruction. Throw in a few enemy spacecraft with your destruction in mind, and you’d better hope that your toes are on their toes.

It took me months to play through it successfully, only to realize that there is so much more to this game. A successful completion starts the game again, with your score intact, and a higher difficulty level to tackle. A check of the leaderboard will make it clear that those interested in racking up top score had better be prepared to play through a few times.

That’s the Sound of the Man…Workin’ on the Chain… (Oh Don’t You Know?)

My advice is this: Get used to using your boost attack to chain point tokens. Picking up point tokens while in a boost will attach a multiplier value for each token you manage to grab in that state. This is the best (and really, the only) way to get a super high score. With this in mind, and the possibility of attaining a 10X multiplier by staying alive long enough (I still can’t top 9X), you can see how the points will rack up. If racking up a score gets dull, take on time trials, or even Survival mode, and see how long you can stay alive amidst a constantly increasing difficulty level.

Super Stardust HD by Sony Computer Entertainment America is available on the PLAYSTATION Network Price – $9.99 USD. Solo pack/Co-op Pack add-on price: $4.99 each, or $7.99 bundled.

If you want a completely different spin on the same theme, give Everyday Shooter a try.

Zen Pinball

I spent more time playing pinball in college than I should have in front of the pinball machine at the student pub (especially when it was Star Trek: TNG). I’ve always found that the video game adaptations of the pinball experience have been somewhat lackluster.

Enter Zen Pinball, the self-named PSN excusive version of the engine Zen Studios brought to the Xbox 360 with Pinball FX.  It comes with 4 tables, with one downloadable table and a Ninja Gaiden 2 table to appear…uh…two months ago…so I suppose it will be here soon.

Pinball physics have never been so tight and responsive in a video game. You need to find the sweet spots on the tables if you hope to excel.  Learn to “nudge” the table at just the right moment, and even a gutter ball can be saved.  Stay focused though, because every once in a while, your ball will nudge ever so slightly off course by “imperfections” in the table. Sometimes it will save you; other times, it will ruin your day. My personal favorite tables are Tesla, Shaman and the Street Fighter 2 Tribute table.

Be the Ball (nananananana….)

Into modding your cabinet? You can tweak all the settings and angles to make your game as tough or as easy as you would like. Take an online challenge and see you fare against the reigning pinball wizards.

Zen Pinball by Zen Studios is available on the PLAYSTATION Network. Price: $9.99 USD. SF2 table add-on price: $2.49 USD

Want to see some of the greatest pinball cabinets of all time? Check out The William’s Collection for PS3, Xbox 360, Wii and PS2.

Fl0wer

Jenova Chen (of Fl0w fame) is back, with Fl0wer. With this title, he proves that while SIXAXIS motion-control scheme was poorly thought out, there are still a few games that can make it work in ways conventional game designers may have overlooked.

I Am a Leaf on the Wind!

Flower is a far more colorful experience than its predecessor, and it takes the motion control scheme into the third dimension. And the concept is simplicity itself: You are the wind. You start with a single flower petal in your gentle embrace, and by moving the SIXAXIS, you control where the breeze will travel, carrying the flower petal with it. By connecting with flowers in your path, they will give up additional petals.

Different petals release different musical notes, and eventually you not only control a breeze, but a swirling, heaving orchestra of sounds. Move your petals across a dingy, mechanical landscape to bring beauty and colour back to the world. It all leads to a finale that has to be seen and heard to be believed.

Fl0wer by Sony Computer Enetertainment America – PSN Network – $9.99 USD
Check out Fl0w on the PSN to see the game that started it all.

2009 was good to us gamer-types, and 2010 is shaping up to give us all kinds of new game experiences to sink our hooks into. With Natal and…whatever Sony plans to name its motion control device both scheduled to hit shelves, there’s no telling what directions new games on the PSN will follow.  One way of the next, Indie Game Reviewer will be here, bringing you the highlights and the low points.

See you in 2010! Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from adam@indiegamereviewer.com!

Written by: Luke Fimio

Indie games?  Social?  Those words don’t go together:

Picture this: A single individual, eyes transfixed on the monitor, huddled over a full pot of coffee, hammering away endlessly at his or her keyboard just for a chance to bring a few strokes of creativity to an often uninspired gaming world. This was once the world for an indie video game developer.

But guess what?  There’s been a revolution.

The programmers have found each other, banded together and what’s more, they’ve invited artists, musicians and anyone with creativity and a passion for video games to the party. And together they are building the Hand Eye Society.

Canzine Artcade 2009: The hand is quicker, because the eye is gawking at the games.

At the Gladstone Hotel, in downtown Toronto, ON, comic book artists, poets, and writers alike form a hipster-bazaar, offering their wares to the strolling patrons. The creative, eccentric and nerdy elite have all amassed within this one building. And deep within the buzzing crowds, an entire room has been dedicated to independent video game development. To say the least, I’m impressed.

I watched as hundreds of different people strolled through the room, amazed at the fully-interactive displays and workshops that the Hand Eye Society has provided.  One display allowed people to use the Gary’s Mod engine (the famed mod of the Half Life 2 engine) to create interactive levels and props in 3d space. Another allowed people to play with a program called Scratch, in which they could quickly and easily build levels using simple buttons (no coding involved, for us lay-people). A rather ingenious workshop, and one that I think showed people just how creative they could be, allowed people to draw a character (as simple or as complex as they wanted)in 4 frames of a walk cycle. Then via web cam, each frame was taken into a program that created a fully interactive, video game sprite right before their eyes. For me, watching my own little creation walk back and forth across the screen was a thing of beauty. If I had named it I would have wanted to keep it.

The crown jewel of the show however had to be the extremely impressive Torontron. Yes it sounds like a beast, and yes it could take over Tokyo.

This ain't your daddy's Tron. User beware!

However it was only beastly in terms of its gaming presence. For all of us retro-gaming nerds the Torontron’s story is a slice of gaming heaven. The original arcade cabinet was home to a 1981 Italian arcade game called Magic Worm which was actually just a clone of the classic game we all know and love Centipede. The game no longer played so Hand Eye Society member Jph Wacheski gutted the entire cabinet and re-worked and re-fitted the controls to play six different games all created by different indie game developers from around Toronto, ON. If the machine itself wasn’t amazing enough, the 6 games that it contained were equally stunning. The games it ran were:

• Night of the Cephalopods by Miguel Sternberg
• lockOn 2 by Jph Wacheski
• Albacross by Rosemary Mosco
• Mondrian Provoked by Jim McGinley
• Monster Puncher by BananasInPajammers
• Heavy Weather by Team Entelechynt

Each game worked off of simple but engrossing game play mechanics, and contained a unique art style that you could only find in the culture of indie games. The show was capped off by an interesting and informative slide show in which Jph Wacheski demonstrated step by step how Torontron was created.

Jim Munroe, one of the Hand Eye Society’s founding members told me that he considers the society to be an indie game advocacy group, and that’s exactly what I found them to be. The show seemed to provide many video game lovers with a breath of fresh air, showing them how easy it can be to bring your talents to life. And to those whose only interactions in the video game world consist of Rockband and possibly Wii Fit, it provided a simple spark of imagination and a look into the culture where video games all started.

Gamers, new and old gather around Torontron.

Visit the Hand Eye Society at their website!  http://handeyesociety.com

So Indie You: Developer Profiles

Andrew Roberts, Cosmic Logic.

The indie gaming scene is here and growing like a CA brush fire, but it wouldn’t be what it is today without the dedication of programmers, designers and companies willing to release quality titles without the backing of major publishers. Here at IndieGameReviewer, we want to know what makes ‘em tick.

We had a chance to interview Andrew Roberts, CEO of Cosmic Logic, a new and talented team who are already making a name for themselves in the indie gaming community.

IndieGameReviewer: Andrew, can you tell us how Cosmic Logic came into being?

Andrew Roberts: Cosmic Logic officially became incorporated in April of 2008, however, was in conception for over 4 years before that point. In 2004, while still in college studying business, I had the idea that someone should start a video game company that was rooted in the 80’s. I thought it would be unique for a company to start making games as if it were 1983, and simply make a game as if it were to be launched on NES or Atari 2600. From that, the company would take that same game, and do a 16 bit sequel, followed by a 3D sequel, etc. The main point however, was to start small with a game that could be realistically put on the market with minimal development time, while at the same time building brand recognition by designing strong characters and planning sequels.

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