Fisherman's Friend
By Adam Smith on April 16th, 2013.
Anodyne’s blend of surreal images and retro graphics appealed to me when I saw the first trailer but I only managed to find time to play through the game this weekend. I’m glad I did. It’s an amusing, confusing, disturbing, perturbing action adventure that owes as much to Earthbound as to the Legend of Zelda, and almost as much to Silent Hill and Luis Buñuel. Here’s wot I think.
Creationism
By John Walker on April 15th, 2013.
Beginning life as a LudumDare #24 winner, Evoland is now a complete, released game, that sets you on a journey through RPG history. Literally. As you play, the genre evolves around you. Mixing together elements from Zelda, Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest and Diablo, is the result the sum of its parts, or falling through the cracks between? Here’s wot I think.
A Whole New Angle
By John Walker on April 3rd, 2013.
One of the most intriguing games to appear at this year’s GDC was unquestionably Perspective. While certainly robbed at the IGF Awards, it received much positive attention, and deservedly so. A fresh approach to perspective-arranging platforming, blurring 3D and 2D gaming in a way that you’ll not believe your brain will put up with, it’s entirely free to get hold of. Here’s wot I think:
Road Squalor
By Adam Smith on March 21st, 2013.
We’ve had quite a lot to say about SimCity but I haven’t told you wot I think yet. I posted my initial impressions two weeks ago, feeling like I’d only just scratched the surface. I’ve been scratching away since then, off and on, and now I’m ready to tell you what lies beneath.
A Rare Gem
By John Walker on March 15th, 2013.
“The game John is meant to review,” said the email attached to Driftmoon review code. Well, I’m not one to argue, so in I went. An RPG from a two-person team – Instant Kingdom – made over seven years, is an intriguing prospect. Having been intrigued enough to finish it, here’s wot I think:
The Next Action Hero?
By Adam Smith on March 11th, 2013.
Congratulations! You made Magicka and have finished creating odd DLC content for the friendly fire(ball) simulation. What do you do next?
1) Go hiking in the Pyrenees.
2) Why not craft some sort of single player Magicka RPG?
3) Form a band sort of like Daft Punk but with all the sci-fi robot vibes replaced by wizard’s robes and jokes about willies.
4) Create a fast-paced multiplayer homage to eighties action movies, of course.
If you picked four, you are probably Arrowhead and you have made The Showdown Effect.
Grave
By John Walker on March 6th, 2013.
Tomb Raider is out, and I’ve played the single player to the very end. How does Lara fare in this reboot of one of gaming’s most famous series? Here’s wot I think:
Squawks and Doves
By Adam Smith on March 5th, 2013.
There are all sorts of Paradox games these days, which can be confusing for a fellow who is mostly looking for armies to command and maps to paint in his chosen colour. Fearful that March of the Eagles might be a Napoleonic era take on Angry Birds, I was pleased to find an internally developed strategy title, but this is a wargame rather than a historical playground. I am rubbish at war.
Arch suspension
By John Walker on February 26th, 2013.
Obeying the new law that all puzzle games must rotate is The Bridge – a black and white, Escher-inspired set of reality bending puzzles from The Quantum Astrophysicists Guild. The last time we heard from it was a demo released in late 2011, but now it’s here, on Steam, GamersGate and the Humble Store. But should you spend your £12? Here’s wot I think.
Negative Space
By Jim Rossignol on February 22nd, 2013.
This is the problem: there’s too much other stuff. I run a PC games site, and even I missed this one arriving late last year. And I shouldn’t have. A top-down, claustrophobic horror-shooter with procedural levels. It’s brilliant, horrifying, commanding, excruciating. We’ve posted about Teleglitch before, of course, but last night the boy Quinns told me that we hadn’t written enough about it, and that it was “a phenomenon”, like a top-down System Shock, he said. Coming back to it today, I realised I’d played a few minutes of it and become distracted, thinking to return later. Short-term memory was over-written. Forgotten. The old beta is still here, installed and abandoned on my gaming desktop. I had no idea. I grabbed the latest version and went back for the afternoon.
Well. Quinns wasn’t wrong.
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Maximum Graphicsability
By Alec Meer on February 21st, 2013.
Crysis 3: a first-person shooter set in a post-apocalyptic, alien-invaded New York, in which you wear a Nanosuit which enables you to temporarily become invisible, damage-resistant or able to leap moderately-sized walls in a single bound. It has a lot of graphics. It’s out now in the US, and tomorrow in the UK. Here is an opinion.
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