Physics Games and Physics-Based Game Downloads

A friend over at inXile pointed out that they’ve officially announced they’ve acquired the rights to bring Line Rider, the physics-based Flash sensation, to Wii and DS in spring 2007:

NEWPORT BEACH, Calif. — Dec. 20, 2006 — Having already amassed a worldwide cult following on the internet, inXile entertainment announced today that it has acquired the rights to the hugely addictive ‘toy’ Line Riderâ„¢ and that the popular game will soon be available for both the Nintendo DSâ„¢ and Nintendo Wii.

This is huge. It’s a perfect example of compelling content taking on a life of its own. The press release has a great quote by the Slovenian creator, Bostjan Cadez: “Line Rider began its life as a project I did for illustration class…” Now here it is positioned to be the next big thing on DS. Congrats, Bostjan!

Thanks to the incessant prodding of my brother, I implemented a WordPress ratings plugin. I hacked it into place to support arbitrary post IDs, too, and went through the pains of updating the master physics games list so you can rate games there as well (that’s a static page still, which is both ugly and sad).

After the rating DB has some time to populate, I’ll add a sidebar widget to list off the most popular games and whatnot. So get rating!

(Rate this game! 136 votes, average: 3.37 out of 5)

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RoboBlitz is a great new FPS-ish physics game by Naked Sky Entertainment. The game plays quite a bit like your standard shooter with a delicious physics coating on everything. The characters are actually physics rigs; they’re “animated” through physics simulation rather than hand-created keyframes. This setup rarely means much in second-to-second gameplay, unfortunately, although the game does employ some clever physics puzzles overall.

The official description is:

RoboBlitzâ„¢ is a humorous, physics-based action game full of inventive gizmos, weapons, characters, and environments. Players take on the role of Blitz, a multi-talented robot who must activate an aging Space Cannon to save his world from a band of maladjusted space pirates.

Physics Puzzles

While the RoboBlitz marketing emphasizes the puzzle aspects of the game, I actually think they could’ve done much more in terms of physics puzzles. There are some neat designs–I particularly enjoyed the laser levels–but on the whole the game makes little use of physics during the standard enemy encounter. You’re usually better off just blasting your enemies, rather than using your grapple/connection beam or utilizing the physics of your environment in some ingenious way.

Because of the weak tactical advantage of using your environment versus simply using your weapons, RoboBlitz plays out much the same as any other shooter or FPS. It’s certainly a challenge to encourage the players to use physics for gameplay, but the designers could’ve done much more (especially with the grappling hook and playing with gravity).

Scrumptious Content

RoboBlitz does a great job delivering plenty of content. The game has 18 levels broken into six groups of three. The third level of each group is a boss fight. I found the boss fights to be somewhat frustrating. I’m perfectly willing to accept that I might be a little daft, but I usually had to wait for the automatic hint before I figured out exactly what the level designer wanted me to do.

The game also employs a user-driven unlock system for new weapons and upgrades, which is a welcome feature. Even though your choice isn’t very significant, since you’ll unlock everything before too long, any level of control makes me feel like I’m more in charge of the experience.

(RoboBlitz Game Screenshots)

Available on Xbox 360 and PC

Overall RoboBlitz is a very polished looking game. The artwork is fantastic, the game makes impressive use of its UE3 engine underpinnings, and the overall production quality is very high. It’s an especially impressive title considering its rather affordable $15 price point.

Download RoboBlitz Game (181 MB)

The full version of the PC game is available on the official RoboBlitz page for $14.95 or on Xbox 360 Live Arcade for 1200 points ($15).