Indie/Mod Mondays the Thirteenth
Dear Esther is a game that eludes attempts to describe it. It’s the type of game that someone who sees gaming as a legitimate art form could not resist. It’s a game that can be purchased, downloaded and played in little more than an hour. Is the narration mechanic nifty? Yes. Is it really pretty? Goodness, yes. Is it one-of-a-kind? It is impossible to think otherwise. Even so, this game makes it hard to give a definite judgement.
Underrated Games & Things Part 2: A New Domain
In an industry where a new triple-A release is always just around the corner, and the average game costs a solid sixty bucks, most people aren’t going to look twice at a title they’ve never heard of. Binary Domain is just such a title. It is a game that most people will never buy and will never talk about and I think that’s a god damned shame. Made by the team behind the critically acclaimed but Japan-bound Yakuza series and produced by Sega Europe for the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3, Binary Domain is a curious game that seeks to fuse Japanese ambition with more of a concern for Western sensibilities.
To put it bluntly, Binary Domain is tough game to characterize. It’s part Uncharted and part Mass Effect, and balances a Japanese story with characters and action that the West can relate to. Set in a 2080 Tokyo split between the poor flooded undercity and glistening metropolis above, Binary Domain clearly draws influences from the likes of both Blade Runner and Ghost in the Shell as it tells a distinctly Japanese take on the classic story of men and machines and the line that separates the two.
Free 2 Play Fridays Week 2: Gods & Bullets
Developed by Wildshadow Studios in conjunction with Spry Fox and built almost entirely in Flash, Realm of the Mad God (RotMG) is a self-described “massively cooperative bullet hell shooter,” that mixes the classic shoot-em-up mechanics and action-RPG stylings of ages past, with a rogue-like twist. Whether you’re just messing about on your browser during lunch or flipping through you library on Steam, Realm of the Mad God poises itself to make an impression.
For starters, Realm of the Mad God is not a game for those who don’t like losing. At its core RotMG relies heavily on the simple fact that your character will die permanently many, many times. In fact much of what makes RotMG fun and playable is that endless cycle of death and rebirth. The speed with which one lives and dies in RotMG is exactly what makes it an ideal lunch time companion or quick break game.
Indie/Mod Mondays Crystal 12: Bastion
“Proper stories supposed to start at the beginning. Ain’t so simple with this one.” This is how the smoky-voiced narrator opens the game of Bastion, and boy, does it set the pace. Your character sleeps in till half past apocalypse, and wakes up to find himself and his bedroom floating in space. As he walks around, ground rises up from nowhere to show you the path forward. He picks up his trusty hammer, bashes in a few skulls, picks up a few new weapons, and ends up at the Bastion, the last refuge. There you meet the narrator. From there, the game structure is one you’ve seen before: collect the crystals to complete the Bastion, but it’s the refined edges of the game that make it memorable.
Free 2 Play Fridays Episode 1: To Boldly Go…
Captain’s Log Entry Stardate 46.18
Last month Cryptic Studios’ Star Trek Online (STO) went free to play. Two and a half weeks ago I started playing Star Trek Online. It was a long time coming as I’m both a huge fan of Star Trek and a notoriously cheap gamer. One-hundred and nineteen hours later having weathered both fever and flu among countless Klingon and Romulan starships I finally reached level 50 and became a certified Vice Admiral within the United Federation of Planets. As I boarded my newly christened Odyssey class starship and set off once more into the distant and strange reaches of space beyond the Alpha Quadrant, I couldn’t help but think, how the hell am I supposed to write a review on this game.
For several days now I have labored over this predicament. The crux of the issue is simply the vastness of all that Star Trek Online tries to achieve. Namely the question at hand is does STO deliver the quintessential Star Trek experience it strives so hard to be?
Serious Sam 3: BFE Review
Serious Sam 3 is a first person shooter developed by Croatian developer Croteam. I’ll explain the plot later but for now all you need to know is the eponymous Sam goes around shooting aliens in Egypt. The game itself is an old school style shooter with no cover system or NPC allies, a wide array of weapons that can all be carried at once, and an absurd amount of enemies. On top of that it can be fiendishly difficult.
When thinking about this game my mind consistently breaks it into three categories: navigation, gameplay, and plot/dialogue, so I'll talk about those three things separately.
Assassin’s Creed Reviewlations
Assassin's Creed Revelations is the latest installment in Ubisoft's Assassins' Creed series. Let me say right off the bat that if you're not familiar with the series this is not the places to start.Most of the characters are established at this point and the story generally assumes that you not only have played the earlier games but remember them rather well, and played through portions of the optional content.
Revelations continues the story of Desmond as he tries to escape from the damaged state the Animus machine has left his mind in. Apparently the only way out is to keep syncing up with his ancestors. To accomplish this he plays out the final act of the story of Ezio Auditore, but this time instead of Rome the dashing Italian is patrolling Istanbul looking for Templars to stab.
Indie/Mod Monday Commentary World 11: The Road Not Travelled
Every gamer older than 20 misses the good old days of gaming when design took precedence over shiny graphics and you could count the pixels in your protagonist. In 2004, Cave Story brought back the nostalgia with a 2D Metroidvania shooting platformer that was truly faithful to the genre. This game was retooled, remastered, and re-released as Cave Story+.
As a study in game design, it is nearly perfect. The graphics are low-fi, but the colors are specifically chosen to make everything come alive. The controls are fun, unique, and respond perfectly, and the levels are very much tailored to them. The dialogue is as witty as anything you will read in a video game. The boss battles are interesting and challenging. I don’t want to talk about any of the above, though. This is an example of a game that plays brilliantly, but still manages to royally tick me off.
Double Fine Kickstarter Grosses Gross Amounts of Capital
For those of you not in the know, Kickstarter is a site where entrepreneurs can showcase the idea for the public, soliciting donations to expand their operations. In return, the donors get prototypes of the product and/or shirts and neat stuff depending on how much they give. So what? Great idea, but what does it have to do with gaming?
Hawken Closed Beta and Release Announced
Hawken, a game first introduced to me via a Youtube video several months ago, has opened sign ups for its closed beta. Additionally, the game's release date has been announced as 12-12-12, and frankly I can't wait until 2013, when there won't be a stupid date when seemingly every game is released because it sounds cool. The game itself does look pretty promising from the various teasers and trailers seen so far. While not a traditional mech combat game, Hawken does seem to be an interesting mech flavored take on the FPS genre. Anyways, if you are interested in signing up for this closed beta, feel free to here.
