Phil Fish Quits Games - Fez 2 Cancelled

Writing that title made me a little sad, but reading all the tweets and comments levied at Phil made me even sadder, yes it is true that Phil Fish can be rather... well... outspoken at times but there is no way anyone deserves the kind of treatment he has been getting since way before Fez was even released.

But I think his shooting into the public eye so quick also has a lot to do with what has went down, not just the fact that a lot of the people tweeting about him and commenting on his companies website are massively out of line. It is a lot easier to post nothing about a situation than type the words "Suck my dick, choke on it" as a comment, which is what more than one person on the Polytron site has done. Sickening. If you don't like someone, keep your mouth shut.

This isn't to say there hasn't also been people saying positive things about and to Phil Fish, but as everyone knows it is a lot easier to listen to negative things than it is to listen to positive things.

So yes, Phil Fish has quit games, no Fez 2.

Everyone here at Fair Play wishes Phil the best in everything he goes on to do, we don't know him personally, and I have no beef with anything he has said or done. We won't be attacking anyone's character here.

The official announcement on Polytron reads as follows:

FEZ II is cancelled.
i am done.
i take the money and i run.
this is as much as i can stomach.
this is isn’t the result of any one thing, but the end of a long, bloody campaign.

you win.

InDev Spotlight - Fatal Theory by 2Hit Studio (PC)

Today in what I hope becomes a recurring feature of the blog, I will be reviewing a game that is very much still in development, hence the title "InDev Spotlight." Makes sense right? Good, so let's get on with it:

Fatal Theory by 2Hit Studio is, in the simplest terms - fun.

But that isn't much of a review, is it? So lets go deeper. The game, as I said, is still in development so any nitpicks that I may have still have plenty of time to get worked out and sorted. The story follows our hero - Nick Mayhem, who is just a regular guy with a baseball bat who hits the street for a spot of zombie skull crushing when he hears about the zombie apocalypse that has befallen the world, but before too long finds himself embroiled in a deeper plot featuring demons, ghouls and a kickass Chainsword with the disembodied spirit of a demon, a demon he just defeated no less, contained within. After that fight, the best line I have seen so far in the game is spoken: Vlad : "...Have at you" Nick (after a well timed baseball bat to the skull) "How's THAT for at having!?." I laughed probably a lot more than I should have at that, but t hat brings me to my next point.

"How's THAT for at having"

The humour laced throughout Fatal Theory is my favourite mix of dark but cheesy which helps to add some depth to the characters, Nick isn't the only one who uses humour throughout the game, in the very comicbookesque cut-scenes even the enemies will crack jokes before or even after a fight.

The controls of Fatal Theory are simple to grasp, and the unreleased demo version I was lucky enough to be privy to also adds game pad support. Which is perfect for the kind of game that Fatal Theory is. The controls feel responsive and attacks are satisfying to land, especially with the Chainsword. There is one slight issue with jumps seeming to take slightly too long to register with both game-pad and arrow keys, the issue is more prevalent with a game-pad however. As is often an issue with games that have less attack buttons to chose from, Fatal Theory feels to lack attack variety but  after you receive the Chainsword, you are able to use a series of inputs to pull of some special moves using the Rage mechanic, which adds a little more variety to the attacks you can do and helps keep the combat fresher for longer.

The sound and music in Fatal Theory are both excellent and fit thematically. A small problem I have is the repetitive Chainsword sound clip, after 20 or 30 attacks that all play this clip, it gets a tad grating, but that is a minor issue that is dusted over by the music being great and the game-play solid.

The art has two distinct styles, from the comicbook style cutscenes to the in-game pixel art, both are nicely done and give the game, at least to me, a kind of Scott Pilgrim vs The World: The Game, mixed with a well presented graphic novel feel. Which is something that is only to be applauded. The retro style of graphics is something that I have come to love over recent years and this game pulls it off well.

I am glad that I contacted 2Hit about reviewing Fatal Theory and I am even more glad that they were OK with me doing it. Keep your eyes on 2Hit, these guys could go far. They are also in the process of getting the unreleased demo version I was given onto Desura which will only help this game grow and be even better. We don't give numerical scores for games here at FairPlay but if we did, Fatal Theory would get a bloody high one.

You can follow the progress of Fatal Theory here

Gun Monkeys (PC) Review - Oh the Simianity!

In a bleak future where mankind has been exterminated from the folly of creating a perpetual motion machine and monkeys are now seemingly infinite... Never in a million years did I think I would start a review with those words but that is now the case in the new game from Size Five Games, Gun Monkeys.

You run a power company in the future, staffed by monkeys toting guns, which could very well be where the game gets it's title from. Through the course of the game you collect little blue power cubes, up to three at a time, and you have to transport them back to your base to send them to the past to power all the appliances that modern day living says we need: kettles, TVs, computers etc.

The gameplay is easy to grasp but seems like it will be tricky to master, in my 3 games I have around 11 kills and 7 or so deaths but I have yet to win a game, finding the balance between killing the opposing monkey and collecting energy cubes is something I, as of yet, have been unable to do.

Above I mentioned an opposing monkey, this game is a 1v1 arena shooter, you on one side, your opponent on the other and energy cubes spawning to be collected at random intervals, to be returned to the players respective energy core. As well as the energy cubes the player is given power ups: stronger weapons, attraction of energy cubes and the like. This makes for some interesting gameplay scenarios.

From the moment I played the tutorial of this game, I was hooked on it. The humour brought to the narration by Kevin Eldon is masterful to say the least. I asked Dan (the developer of Gun Monkeys) why Kevin Eldon was chosen and his response was "Kevin Eldon is a hero of mine, he was just hugely influential on me. When it came to getting the voiceover done, I chanced my arm and sent him an email; he's not a gamer but liked the look of the game, it all just went from there. He is a very lovely, friendly man. It was amazing to work with him!"

What more do you need than that? Kevin Eldon has been in some of my favourite TV shows of all time, shows such as The IT Crowd, Stewart Lee's Comedy Vehicle, Green Wing, Nighty Night and Black Books and every time I have seen or heard him, I have cracked up. Gun Monkeys is no different.
The music in Gun Monkeys is another strong point, fitting the action on screen perfectly and not at all jarring.

I pried for information about the game's development from Dan, being curious as to how the game formed the way it did. His response "OK. So, the game started out years ago as a silly game called Gibbage. It was local-only, 2 player 1 on 1. It was just incredibly good fun - the core mechanic of trying to grab cubes and return them to your base without dying just worked really well. When I had an opportunity to make something small in Unity, it seemed like a good concept to revisit, only this time I could make it online! The 1 on 1 thing stuck because that's what I knew worked- any more than that and Id need to invest in some serious prototyping, so I deliberately kept the project's scope small and manageable, but expandable if the game took off" 

The one problem I can foresee with Gun Monkeys is will the one game mode be enough to keep most players invested? It's not a problem for me in the slightest because it is such a fun game mode, not too hectic but hectic enough that you will end up blowing yourself up more than once (at least 3 of my deaths were from my own bombs.)

Gun Monkeys is great fun and well deserving of your time and money, especially if watching multi-coloured virtual monkeys explode into gore is your thing. You can find Gun Monkeys on Steam

Steam Group

Hello there, Fair Players.

A Steam group has just been set up and we would love to game with you sometime.

Find us on Steam - FairPlayGaming