Based on yesterday’s flurry of bad press for Obsidian’s new Spy-PG, I’d decided to contradict myself (when I said I would buy regardless of reviews on account of Chris Avellone’s penmanship) and hold off on Alpha Protocol. After all, I still haven’t finished Final Fantasy XIII or Mass Effect 2 or Metro 2033 or Splinter Cell Conviction or Tropico 3, Dobry just loaned me Bioshock 2 and Assassin’s Creed 2 and sooner or later I’ll …
It’s not easy being a Mac owning gamer. For so long the deserved recipient of the industries jokes and PC gamers distain, gaming on Mac has always been something of an afterthought, falling some way down on Apple’s priorities both from a hardware and software perspective. With games software remaining overpriced, underpowered and largely unsupported, Mac gaming has existed as the proverbial wasteland for the mouse and keyboard loyalist. However, to quote the ever quotable …
While the rest of the T-R silo dwellers are wandering the wastelands of Fallout 3, painstakingly making their way back to a bloodstain in Demon’s Souls or negotiating the jump mechanics of Portal I decided to go retro with Cranberry Production’s new point-and-click adventure Black Mirror II, the sequel to the reasonably well-received Black Mirror (well, except for the voice work of the main character).
“It’s like the most retarded action movie ever made,” said the message Dobry left me. “It is totally awesome. Good call, dude.” Earlier that day he’d called from Best Buy, laden with gift cards and a screaming toddler, asking what he should get. “Just Cause 2,” I said. “Are you sure?” he replied dubiously. “It’s basically… running around and blowing shit up, right?”
Anyway, I got the impression that he wasn’t going to buy anything, but then later he left me that message.
Darkfall is enjoying its first birthday this year. Born on the 26th February 2009, and developed by Aventurine SA, the game was plagued upon its release by a catalogue of problems that stretched as far as Agon’s land mass. One year later, has the game really managed to overcome its shortcomings, and will it ever prove Ed Zitron and his infamous review wrong?
EA Digital Illusions CE (DICE) have been around for a while. Since the days of Benefactor on the Amiga, and the first of the Battlefield series, they have carved out a name for themselves in an industry flooded with militaristic games. With ten Battlefield games (including expansion packs) across three platforms under their belt, many critics were wondering how far DICE could continue to develop the sub-genre of team based warfare…
A quest for revenge. Blood spilled on the cliff sides of Mount Olympus. Betrayal from an ally. Untold numbers of casualties slain by the Blades of Athena, etched into Kratos’ flesh and chained to his arms. A boss battle. The slaying of a God at the hands of a vengeful Spartan and the resulting condemnation to the depths of Hades. At that point, the opening hour of God of War III draws to a frenetic …
It’s mortifying to be cheated and robbed by a hooker in a videogame. I mean, sure, if it happens in real life, I guess it’s to be expected. But when you’re playing a game where survival is a daily challenge, where ammunition is money and money is scarce, knowingly paying a whore for some sweet loving is kind of like inviting failure. It’s not my fault, though, I am a sucker for Russian accents. I …
Mortal Online, currently in Open Beta, is a new massively multiplayer online RPG by the Swedish video game developer Star Vault. Inspired by Ultima Online, the game places significant emphasis on sandbox-style game design. Unlike other MMOGs, MO proposes to offer the player a level of freedom yet to be experienced in the current generation of World of Warcraft clones…
Mat and I were talking about this just the other day, but the poor fellow had work then a soccer game, which doubtless delayed him. I’m hoping to see his first impressions of Square’s latest epic soon, but you know how those football fans are…
I love Dragon Age Origins. I really do. And Mass Effect too. They are slick, engaging games that hold my attention, more or less through to the ending sequence. BioWare has delivered the goods recently, ladling out Mass Effect 2 and threatening to release a followup expansion to Dragon Age. What is there not to like? Well, a lot of things. The silly dialogue with its stilted choice system. And the story. Snort. Right. But …
It’s a QTE game. Anyone who sez otherwise is incorrect.
So I feel badly about implying this, and am fully cognizant of (and in agreement with) our Meho’s postulations regarding this sequel. In fact, years ago a friend of mine ruined the original Mass Effect for me – I’d been absolutely loving it until he deconstructed the entire game before my eyes, embarking on a litany of completely valid complaints ranging from the miniscule to the monumental. I still blame him for shattering my illusions. …
Okay, okay, I’m behind on this one too. Look, I’ve got a lot of games to play. Some slip past. It happens. I’m only human, right? Thankfully there’s a jolly old elf who comes by my house every December in an attempt to rectify the fact that I miss a lot of games most people grabbed on Day Zero. Heck, I never even played the original Uncharted. That, however, is a failure I intend to …
I’m a bit behind on this one, the game having come out in November, but I recently unwrapped a 360 copy of Infinity Ward’s latest freedom-is-awesome, terrorist Russian Arab South American buffet-of-crazy-insurgents-killing shooter. I’ve put in a good two hours now, which means that I’m probably 97% through the single-player campaign if some of the early complaints about the game are so (that’s not true, I kind of suck at shooters unless I play them on a PC, but Call of Duty games, including Modern Warfare, have always been 360 fodder for me, and always will be), and here’s my Close Impressions of the First Kind.