Gregg B
Gregg B is tired and wondering where the day went.
Gregg B is tired and wondering where the day went.
As some of you around here may know, I like tower defence. I like tower defence because I’m a real-time strategy wuss; a turtler who loves nothing more than holing up, hunkering down and awaiting my eventual demise. Venturing out was never my thing. AND IN-GAME (sorry). Most of my favourite tower defence games however, have offered a lot more besides mere towers and defending. In this regard Gratuitous Tank Battles is no different. Tipped as an RTS/simulation/tower defence hybrid, GTB marks Positech Games’ follow up to the highly praised Gratuitous Space Battles. It’s hardly Gratuitous Hoverboard Battles but it’ll have to do.
Sorry Dark Souls, I didn’t mean to leave you. It just sort of happened. I’ll be back soon, I promise.
The previous Cat’s Away Chronicles featured the fine chaps over at Arcadian Rhythms having a wee drink and a chat with Electron Dance’s Harbour Master. The latest in his series sees him venturing up North to visit me where we talk, talk about playing some games, talk some more, talk some more about playing games, play some games, then talk some more. Thankfully Harbour Master is awfully good at editing and managed to focus our chatter on the games we played and a round of quickfire questions. Chainmail skirts, stealing Steerpike’s concubines, evolution versus creationism, the meaning of Braid… it’s all in there. Go see!
Whenever I go to the pictures (or ‘cinema’ as most people call it) I make every effort to avoid trailers. Over the weekend I went to see The Cabin In The Woods, a film I knew absolutely nothing about other than it was apparently good, and it was written and directed by Drew Goddard (Lost, Cloverfield, Angel) and co-written by Joss Whedon (partly responsible for quite a few things I’ve not liked, particularly that fourth Alien film after the trilogy). We arrived early, got into the screen early and I had to watch the trailers. Looking back, I wish I’d had some ice cream to distract me.
Vessel is unique, as mesmerising to look at as it is to hear, brimming with smart mechanics and puzzles, and just a joy from start to finish. And after a two year wait since that first trailer, I couldn’t be more relieved to say all that. For $15 (less than £10), it gets my heartiest recommendation. If you’re still on the fence, there’s also a demo available on Steam which will hopefully push you off the right side of it.
For a two or so hour long experience I couldn’t recommend And Yet It Moves enough; it’s a beautifully presented game, full of great ideas and really quite unlike anything else.
Usually I wouldn’t even consider writing one of these lists because my playing throughput is so spectacularly bad that I’m always — and by some margin — behind the curve with releases. The 2011 wave has been a particularly overwhelming one for me with game after game crashing in and yet, somehow, I’ve managed to stay afloat and play enough — merely enough — of them to warrant chiming in.
From the 21st of October through to the 24th, myself, Lewis B, Matt “Steerpike” Sakey, Joel “Harbour Master” Goodwin from Electron Dance, Armand K from BnB Gaming, and a couple of friends by the name of Luke and Evan got together to play Bloodline Champions, a free-to-play arena and team-based player versus player title by Stunlock Studios. Blows were exchanged, blood was rent and the victorious were left flailing around randomly. We also managed to get …
A few weeks ago… no, wait, a month or so ago me and Armand from BnB Gaming had a brief chat about Cardboard Computer’s Ruins. If you haven’t played it yet then you might want to check it out here. It probably won’t take you longer than 15 minutes. Our chat went something like…
About a month ago just before the run up to the Eurogamer expo 2011 (which Mat C and myself covered here), Joel Goodwin, a.k.a. Harbour Master of Electron Dance, posted up a discussion the two of us had about our experience with the little miracle that is the Portal 2 co-op campaign entitled Men of Science. Joel without me realising also recorded some of our antics and spliced them together to form a very special …
At the beginning of September, 100% Certified Member of the Alliance of Awesome and Tap-Repeatedly compadre BnB Gaming hosted their first annual Celebration of Games, a weeklong festival that aimed to celebrate everything great about gaming but more specifically this year: what made us dungeon-dwelling dweebs gamers. Rather than hashing together more words of my own I’ll hand it over to Martin Watts, BnB Gaming Editor-in-Chief: Though some may tut or roll their eyes in …
Developer Splash Damage Publisher Bethesda Softworks Released May 2011 Available for PC (version played), Xbox 360 & PS3 Time Played 42 hours Verdict: 5/5 Gold star! “Minor gripes aside, Brink is a clever, bold and unfortunately underrated addition to the team-based multiplayer canon. It isn’t for everyone, but for those who can appreciate what Splash Damage were aiming for and what they have achieved, it’s nothing but a breath of fresh air in an overcrowded …
When my brother Lewis and I were little we used to play ‘army’ a lot. It turned out that other kids called it ‘war’. We had a grandad with a shed full of wood-working tools and it wasn’t unusual for him to kit us out with wooden guns, swords and shields to act out our pretend fighting (I even got him to make a wooden brick once — yeah I know, I have no idea …
Over the last couple of months I’ve been researching the new computer I’ve been wanting for years and years, partly explaining my absence around here lately. You hear that Mat C? Research. Y’know, legwork, toil, hardship. None of your blatant lifting nonsense. Anyway, the other week after finalising my build, ordering the parts and receiving them, I set about building the thing. Several hours and a couple of hiccups later I was the proud owner …
Developer Muse Games Publisher Muse Games Released 2010 Available for PC and Mac Time Played 3 hours (single player campaign completed, multiplayer unplayed) Verdict: 3/5 Middlin’ “Given its short development time, Guns of Icarus is an impressive feat. Most disappointingly however, is that it only flirts with greatness; hinting at a game that it could be and more damningly one that we’d all rather be playing.“