A visit to ApatureScience.com gets you a rather humorous Holiday greeting from the Portal team, a video of a room decked in Christmas decorations with the imfamous cake (IT’S A LIE!). There is even a holiday version of the GLADos tune. So go check it out!

This is probably one of the few games with such a bizarre premise to make it state side, especially back in 1993 when most of the weirder Japanese titles stayed over in the land of the rising sun. However with the Turbo Grafx 16, having very little 3rd party support in the US market, Atlus brought this eccentric game to us. Somer Assault (AKA Mesopotamia) is an action title where you play as a sacred slinky like creature with guns mounted on it that hatches from a pink polka-dotted egg dropped by god.. bear with me.. it sounds very odd but the game plays surprisingly well.

The graphics are very nice, with color mixing used very nicely with the Turbo Grafx 16’s 512 color palette used to create a vibrant world with a mythological theme, as the design of the game follows the Astrological Zodiac for each level and it’s boss character which are a mechanical manifestation of their respective animals/figures. The animation of the slinky is pretty fluid however the enemies have only a few frames of animation and the bosses are pretty static but it doesn’t detract much from the presentation. While a late contender in the US on the cartridge media, the graphics actually show just how much the TG-16 could compete with the much more powerful SNES and the Genesis back when NEC was a contender in the 16-Bit War.

This game came out late in the era of the Turbo Chip (AKA Hucard), the credit card sized cards that they stored their games on before the Turbo CD, so it had the space limitations of any other cartridge media. Hence forth you wouldn’t expect much in the sound department but surprisingly Somer Assault’s soundtrack is steller and very catchy. The sound effects are clever but not all too impressive.

What sets this game apart from a lot of other action platformers from the early 16-bit days is that gravity works very differently, in that there is none. You move along the tops and bottoms of the platforms only jumping to attach to another surface. You start out with one set of turrets and rather slow but killing the enemies which include Knight Chess Pieces, Spiked Lanterns and other odd contraptions yield power-ups to increase your speed, make your bullets ricochet, increase your max vitality, give an extra life and increase your turrets to a set of 3 for killing on the move. There is also an negative power-up that reverses directions as well. The only thing about this game that is especially irritating is the timer, in the later levels you’ll find yourself losing lives to it because the developers gave you just barely enough time to get to the boss chamber in each level, it starts to make the game lose it’s appeal as it’s such a trivial way to lose a life when some key factors in the game play is finding your way through a maze with blocks that either teleport you, expand a bridge or flip you to the otherside. So more time is required to traverse the levels then is provided. Also you lose your gun and speed upgrades when you die..

The game has some replay, it’s fun, it’s challenging and the music is good. But once you beat it there isn’t much else to do but play through again. But then again, that was how most of the games from the early 90’s were.

Somer Assault is one of those obscure treasures from the golden age of gaming and if you ever find a copy at a flea market or online you could probly snap it up pretty cheap. So I would say keep an eye out for it if your looking for a bizarre but good time.

If you’ve got Half-Life 2 for PC, you may not be aware that you could qualify for a free download of Half-Life 2: Lost Coast.  This is a “missing level” that was originally going to take place within the original Half-Life 2 game, but didn’t make the final cut.  The level, however, is available for free (via Steam) for owners of Orange Box, Half-Life 2, or people with new Radeon video cards.  It’s also available for purchase as part of several Half-Life 2 packages, for as low as $9.95 in the Episode One Package.  This is a good technology demo, and is worth playing especially if you can manage to pick it up for free.

Graphics: 100/100

This is a tech demo, and as such, it is extremely beautiful to look at.  The game features high dynamic range lighting (HDR) which gives a new level of realism to the environment.  The lighting is superb, with a warm glow peering through windows or reflecting off the surface of the gorgeous water.  The character models are the same as Half Life 2, with the same impressive weapons and explosions.

Lost Coast also features a video stress test, which does a flyby of the area to determine what your average frames-per-second is.  It’s a nice feature that more games should include.

Sound: 90/100

The impressive graphics are complimented by quality sound effects.  You can hear the Combine troops in the distance, and you know immediately to turn to that side and prepare for a fight.  Headphones or a good surround sound system are a must for this game.  The soundtrack doesn’t really stand out here, although it presented a strange ambiance when you enter the church level.

Gameplay: 90/100

Half-Life 2: Lost Coast is, at it’s core, just a single level that would fit right in the middle of Half-Life 2.  As such, it’s extremely short.  If you’ve played the original HL2, you will have an idea of what’s going on, but it’s not really essential to the enjoyment of this game.  However, Lost Coast presented me with the same feelings I get with the rest of the Half-Life games.  I always feel like I’m stuck.

This isn’t necessarily a bad thing.  In fact, this is what makes the Half-Life series stand apart from most first person shooters.  Unlike a game where you must simply blast your way down a path, Half-Life constantly throws you into an area where you are stuck, and you must figure out how to move forward.  These puzzle elements make Half-Life games a much more intelligent game than the Quake or Halo series, but it can be frustrating to some gamers who just want to keep blowing stuff up.

Replay: 40/100

The level can be run through in probably 15 minutes, so if you’re looking for a lengthy experience you’re not going to find it here.  However, the game does feature a commentary track, which allows you to listen to the developers describing different facets of the level and why they made them as such.  It is a great feature that Valve is incorporating in all of their games (it was also included in the Orange Box titles), and more developers should really follow their lead.

Overall, Lost Coast is a good game to show off your gaming rig, and is pretty fun while it lasts.  If you can nab it for free, or missed out on Half-Life 2, it’s definitely worth a look.

In their yearly Christmas Card, Rare has dropped hints that it is possibly working on a sequel to the successful fighting series Killer Instinct.  On the card, next to images of Viva Pinata characters and Banjo Kazooie is a stocking labeled “KI3″.  Now this is hardly a confirmation of anything, but it’s a not-so-subtle hint that Killer Instinct 3 is a real possibility.

[Via CVG]

2007 has been an amazing year for gamers around the world. Not only have we been inundated with hit after hit, but the next gen consoles have finally hit their stride. Choosing the very best game of the year is like being a kid in a candy store. Several titles could easily vie for the honor, but this year’s game stood out as a testament to solid gameplay, and that’s why we play, isn’t it?

The 2007 Contraptica Game of the Year goes to: Halo 3.

Despite the amazing single player experience of Bioshock, and the complete package of Orange Box or Call of Duty, the multiplayer of Halo 3 and the sheer amount of fun it is capable of producing make it this years Game of the Year. Halo has not gotten a lot of love from much of the press, with Bioshock taking most of the limelight. However groundbreaking that game was, it simply did not give you the same amount of fun as our Game of the Year. Once you’ve played through the campaign, you have just one more option: play through it again. Halo delivered not only a pretty compelling campaign (especially if you’ve followed along with the story through the previous games and books), but one of the greatest online systems we’ve ever seen. Even the seemingly simple fact that you can use saves and replays on a console to archive your greatest moments makes Halo’s experience legendary. And simply put, I found the most enjoyment this year playing through the campaign in Halo 3 on co-op. This is not an option on Bioshock or Orange Box, and makes it difficult for me to put those games ahead of Bungie’s new classic.

So there you have it folks, congratulations to Bungie and Microsoft Games Studios for winning the inaugural Contraptica Game of the Year for 2007!

The long awaited (there we go, I just wrote the understatement of the year) and much maligned Duke Nukem Forever, a game that has been delayed time and time again since it first began development in 1997, will have it’s first new teaser trailer since 2001 released today!  Over at the 3D Realms forums, producer George Broussard made the announcement last night.

Last Saturday we had our annual company Christmas party. It was a lot of fun as usual but it featured one special surprise. It turns out that several people had been secretly working late nights and into the wee hours of the morning preparing a special video for those at the party. They created a short teaser for Duke Nukem Forever.

After seeing the teaser we thought it was something we should share with all of you and while it’s just a teaser, rest assured more is coming.

Tomorrow, Wednesday the 19th, around noon CST, we will release the first teaser trailer from Duke Nukem Forever. To tide you over until then, here is a screen shot taken from the teaser.

Thank you for being fans of the game and for your continued patience.

I’d like to thank the people on the team that worked so hard to create this teaser and the friends of 3DR that helped create it (Jeremy Soule and Julian Soule, Frank Bry, Jason Evigan and of course, Jon St. John).

This has been a long time coming, and it should be interesting to see just what they’ve been doing all this time.

The AP has released a list of what it deems are some of the best games of 2007, with Bioshock taking the top honor.  The credibility of the author has to come into serious question with his proclamation that Bioshock is available for Playstation 3, but he really begins treading on peoples’ toes with his statement that Halo 3 was the most overrated game of the year.  Check out the list for yourself over at ABC news.  Do you agree with it?

In their latest Weekly Update, Bungie has begun talking about the next round of Halo 3 downloadable content. From the post:

We’re playing the next batch of DLC. This first trio has been very well received. Eventually your Halo experience will be so swollen and engorged that you’ll have a hard time even remembering what the original map selection was. In the future, we’ll be bringing you more fully custom built maps and they may include one or more of the following:

• Symmetrical arena maps for competitive play.
• Returning classics demanded by the fans.
• Crazy new stuff you never expected.
• Unusual maps with lots of potential for interesting game types.
• Graphically spectacular settings.
• More Forge objects to use on new maps.
• Surprises.

We’ve really liked the newest maps, but the price was a little steep for just 3 additions. It sounds like maybe the next round of content will be a little more extensive.

Apparently there’s a console by Nintendo called the “Wii”.  However, I’ve never seen one of these mysterious items actually for sale in a store, only empty boxes of what they might look like, had they been in stock.

Gamestop is trying to appease some of the demand for the Wii this Christmas by offering rainchecks for the system.  It seems the raincheck will be linked with a specific console, so you are guaranteed to get one.  This would theoretically avoid you simply having an insane waiting list to fulfill your raincheck.

My guess is that this probably means that most early 2008 Wii shipments will be going towards fulfilling rainchecks, rather than appearing in Gamestop stores.  So the shortage continues.

Somehow I think a raincheck is going to be a little less exciting than actually being able to play your games on Christmas day.

We recently mentioned the site FigurePrints which will enable World of Warcraft players to purchase figurines of their very own customized in-game characters.  Now WoW Insider has an interview with former Xbox team member Ed Fries, who describes the process of printing the figurines.  The project was year in the making, with little help from Blizzard apart from some special access to the Armory.  The $115 figures take about an hour per inch to print, and are available through a lottery system at first.   With over 4000 orders in the first 12 hours, and a process that takes a week for each figure, I think this company is going to have a very busy next couple of months.