Lewis Denby has written an interesting piece for his column over at GameSetWatch about the way in which we engage with games and more specifically the nature of embodying player characters. The article came about after he attended and contributed to a discussion on video game narrative held by Kieron Gillen at GameCamp in London a few weeks ago. Lewis spoke of how he tried to explore ‘context as narrative’ in his two Half-Life 2 …
…And gave it a respectable 7/10, complaining about the game’s overall lack of polish and balance while complimenting its ability to keep you playing despite these issues. Obsidian Entertainment has never been great at polish; the company is much more about design and writing than technology, but they’re nowhere near as bad as Troika used to be. For some people, the fact that Chris Avellone (Baldur’s Gate, Fallout, Planescape Torment, KOTOR 2) is lead designer …
There’s a rumor – thanks 1UP – that a PS3-based, high-def collection of famed games Ico and Shadow of the Colossus will appear sometime in 2011, like the recent God of War HD collection. No official announcement has been made, but as 1UP points out, it would make fiscal sense for Team Ico to release an HD bundle of its games just before launching its still-mostly-under-wraps new title, The Last Guardian. Rant follows.
In what could quite easily be a direct follow up to our last Wow, I Was NOT Expecting That post, Sony have finally placed an official rubber stamp of confirmation on Killzone 3, to the surprise of just about nobody. Indeed, there are more than a handful of parallels to be drawn with this announcement and that of Gears of War 3. Like Microsoft, Sony were pretty much cornered into the announcements thanks to more …
If you aren’t aware, and as I haven’t seen much coverage on XCOM since Steerpikes last post on its development, alongside the revelation that 2K Marin were the developers leading the charge, I thought it would be nice to give those of you who don’t buy PC Gamer (before press coverage at E3 goes wild) the opportunity to feast your eyes on a couple of screen shots (7 in total) I managed to get my hands on. …
Well it’s that time again folks, where we take a look at the latest software chart. Those amongst you who have managed to keep up with my past chart posts will remember my love of Just Dance, and you will be pleased to know that the tragic game (which does not know when to die) has bounced back from its blip last week (phew!) and has managed to claw its way back into the top …
Potentially bad news for Remedy Entertainment, as its long-awaited horror title Alan Wake, an Xbox 360 exclusive, apparently moved only about 88,000 units in its first week of release.
Remember multiplayer games before the internet arrived? I couldn’t until recently. My brother was busying himself at the weekend, showing me a wonderful little tower defence game on the PlayStation 3 that goes by the name of Comet Crash…
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 …
By now, I’m sure we’re all aware of EA Sports’ ghastly intentions of charging used game buyers extra for the use of online play within their games. As the uglier sister of the already rather ugly “Project Ten Dollar”, EA’s Online Pass system means all future EA Sports releases will ship bundled with a code, which when entered correctly will allow access to the online components of their games. Although similar to the bundled codes …
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).
Review by Helmut Metro 2033 Developer: 4A Games Publisher: THQ Released: March 16, 2010 Available for: PC (played), XBOX 360 Time Played: Finished twice (20-24 hours total) Verdict: 4/5 Thumbs Up “The good parts are as good as it gets in an FPS, but the overall experience is tarnished by a handful of missteps “
For my third MMOG news piece, Blizzard and the World of Warcraft Armory has finally begun testing the long awaited Remote Auction House for the iPhone, iPod touch and web browser. The free App (and desktop download, available now) allows players to log into the WoW Armory and browse any in-game Auction House that characters on a players WoW account have access to. Once beta testing is complete and the Remote Auction House is truly live, players who …
As the second of my three news items relating to MMOGs (look away now if you’re no fan!) and one which will see Blizzard grinning ear to ear, Chris Hager the producer of Aion: The Tower of Eternity, has announced that server merges are planned for North America and Europe over the coming weeks. As the biggest MMOG to launch in recent years, and what was hotly tipped to ‘de-throne World of Warcraft’ (aren’t they …
If you aren’t already aware, news is finally trickling out of ArenaNet about Guild Wars 2. As a sequel to their fabulous episodic Guild Wars series (originally announced alongside the final Guild Wars expansion Eye of the North in 2007), and having been waiting for what seems a life time, my excitement level has now reached dizzying heights. Still taking place in the fantasy world of Tyria, 250 years after the players defeated the Great …