Review by Dix Limbo Developer PlayDead Publisher PlayDead Released 21 July 2010 (XBLA), 19 July 2011 (PS3), 2 August 2011 (PC) Available for Xbox 360 Live Arcade, PlayStation Network, PC (via Steam; version reviewed) Time Played 3.5 hours (Finished) Verdict: 4/5 Thumbs Up Uncertain of the fate of that fifth point (out of five), a …
Typically I don’t publish my Culture Clash columns here until they’ve been run at the IGDA website, but honestly, in the last few months I’ve had no fucking clue what’s going on over there. So I present to you my latest – sort of, in that it was filed on June 10 and I haven’t heard anything from an editor yet, which is uncommon because my editors there are apparently of the opinion that I have no professional writing experience whatsoever – with all hopes that it pleases you.
This one comes on the tail of a column that… well, it caused some chaos, let’s put it that way. And while its final published form didn’t spark any particular controversy, it was quite an adventure for those behind the curtain. As such I went for a more innocuous, if not entirely cheery, thesis this month. Enjoy!
It’s no secret that the Nintendo 3DS hasn’t exactly been lighting up the cash registers since it launched back in March this year. With its main USP still seen by many as an unwanted gimmick and under increasing pressure from iOS and mobile platforms, this particular $250 dedicated handheld was always going to be a difficult sell. Even judged by already tepid expectations, the 3DS has endured a rough start to its life on the market, struggling to sell units, and with only Super Street Fighter IV and The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time – both ports of existing titles from various points in the last 10 years – doing the business on the software front. When Sony matched Nintendo’s launch price for the shinier, more powerful and altogether more striking PlayStation Vita, Nintendo’s reaction almost became an inevitability.
Starting from 12 August, the 3DS will now cost just $169 in the US, £130 in the UK and 160 Euros in Europe.
Harbour Master, he truly is the best of us. Alliance fellow HM, steward of the delightful Electron Dance, has been playing the games that made us. The latest – Chris Crawford’s unforgettable 1981 SCRAM: A Nuclear Reactor Simulator, required plenty of manual-reading and reflection on the misapprehensions about nuclear disasters so prevalent in today’s world. Harbour Master’s …
Back in ’03, a small French game development company, Nadeo, created a racing game within a system designed to allow people to easily build and share a plethora of community-created content. This Trackmania was a platform with so many outlets. It had fresh racing gameplay distilled down to bare essentials. It had a track editor …
You! Yes, you there! With the bowler hat and the suitcase leaning against a lamp post sipping a fine cup of delicious Yorkshire tea. Have you played VVVVVV yet? No? Why not? Because you’re a bad person? Yes, that must be it. In fact right here it says you’re a terrible person. And we weren’t even …
Today I learned there’s such a thing as the Video Privacy Protection Act, a piece of 1998 legislation that apparently requires information about customers’ rental habits be kept secret by those doing the renting. Today it’s a thing because Netflix wants to integrate with FaceBook, and it can’t because of the law’s wording.
So because I don’t actually own an Xbox 360 (nor an Xbox, for that matter), I’ve always had to find other ways to play the (very few) exclusive games in their libraries that I cared about. So it was that I find myself blitzing through Halo: Reach on my brother’s console during a recent trip …
I’m a little busy with stuff that pays the mortgage right now, so Steerpike will be quiet here at Tap for a while. Happens every year around this time.
In the interim, though, I’d like to note that it is currently – according to my neighbor’s outdoor thermometer, at 7:58 PM – 113° in Ann Arbor. That’s 45° to you Metricles. My poor air conditioning is struggling to keep it a mere 82° in my condo.
Naughty Dog’s Uncharted series are some of my favorite games of this generation, or ever. They are well-made, exciting, and have the sort of gripping storytelling and character development that so often eludes game developers entirely. Their cinematic nature makes the series seem like a shoe-in for film adaptation, but the director attached to the …