Path of Exile is an ARPG in which everyone’s either a criminal, an undead or a spider. It’s basically 18th Century Australia: The Game. It is also one of the best games of its kind I have ever played.
Truth be told, I’ve never been a fan of JRPGs. And that’s putting it as lightly as possible. Technical limitations of yore becoming design decisions of today is what bothers me the most about them, and it does so to no end. The scrolling text, the endless, unsophisticated menus, the insignificant random encounters, the lack of mouse support... It’s all a load of bollocks is what it is. I say this only to try to put the following statement in perspective: Standstill Girl is bloody brilliant.
Games seldom have me grinning like an idiot, or make me want to listen to The Young Tradition. Far, far too seldom. The Faeries’ Curse does both in less than ten minutes. Verily!
I have an innate fear of motorbikes. Basically, moving at a ludicrous speed protected by anything less than a titanium exoskeleton is not really my thing. Luckily, there’s Hotline Trail, which looks like what I imagine riding a bike at night in the eighties to be. Without the mangling crashes, natch.
It’s the Year of The Ice-Pick once again. Those in the know have probably already acquired and consumed the Russian team’s latest offering by now. The fortunate fuckers outside it should read on to find out why they are lucky to be able to try out an IPL game for the first time.
Utterly insane. You play a masked figure dressed in a purple pimp outfit, collect broken CDs to gain powers so you could shoot at balls more effectively. Utterly fucking insane.
I’d love to call Firepoint a firefighter simulation, but it’s missing some key ingredients. Mainly, undressing yourself and doing calendar photoshoots. Or undressing yourself in front of crowds of celebrating women. But it is a game about fighting fire.
Before even playing Wrack, I was linked to an article by Brad Carney, the man behind most of the game. In it, he vehemently dismisses the notion of his brainchild being a “retro” game in any way. I do get how someone could mistake it for one, though. It is an FPS that relies heavily on genre conventions of yore, like SPEED, DIFFICULTY and CARNAGE.
I feel as though the new Amnesia would have had a much easier time finding its place under the sun if it wasn’t regarded as an Amnesia.
This is the second part of a diary of my first playthrough of XCOM: Enemy Unknown. The difficulty setting is Ironman Classic, and the recurring theme is things not working out like they are supposed to. First part here.
Oh god. The scientists want a live alien. This will not end well.
I don’t really remember Sectoids. Nor Mutons. All I do remember is that, back in the mid-nineties, kid me found X-Com to be brutally punishing. He loved it for it, but never could get a good enough grasp of it’s workings to get far. The memories are hazy at best, so I fired up this year’s remake not knowing what to expect. Overly confident, I chose Classic Ironman as my desired difficulty level. I can do this. I am devil incarnate. I’ve been playing turn-based strategies all my life. What could possibly go wrong?
The chaps at Dreampainters aren't doing a very good job marketing Anna, their upcoming horror adventure. First of all, that sentence up there sounds like they're trying to make me feel guilty for masturbating. Second of all, I'm not even slightly enthused by their videos, which seem out of context at best, while the words they say make me feel as giddy as a schoolgirl.
Antichamber (also known as The Game That Won Every Award Ever) is something of a mindfuck. From what I've gathered (not by playing the game myself, unfortunately) it will not only challenge the player's perception of space, but also his perception of... pretty much everything. If it sounds like a great deal of work, that's probably because it is. Which is, in turn, why boss-man Alexander Bruce is taking his time making it.
There's something ominous about children's voices when they aren't yelling. It scares the life out of me, in the right conditions. Like when everything else is silent, and I'm being shown pictures of an abandoned spaceship with flicking lights, and they're talking about death and souls and whatnot. The new teaser for Chris Bischoff's Stasis has all that. It's scary.
NEO Scavenger is a cruel game. It is a game of survival, and in it's post-apocalyptic world, survival does not come easy. During the few hours I've committed to the demo, I died dozens of times. Danger lurks around every corner, and your task is to juggle the scarce resources in order to hold onto the dog's life that you lead. Malnourishment, dehydration, weariness, hypothermia, poisoning and injury were instruments of my countless demises. Leave your dignity at the loading screen, and tread carefully. Or keep on reading about my time with the demo. Whatevs.
A Valley Without Wind has come a long way. After switching the view from top down to side scrolling, Arcen Games have updated the publicly available beta a million times. Now they finally feel it is time to move on into the Final Phase of Beta. The game is now more streamlined and accessible, with a lot more content and a fully functional multiplayer. Or so they say. I've not the courage to see for myself. Way back when the demo came out, I spent an unreasonable amount of time playing it, so I'll just take their word for it, in fear of relapsing. Celebratory pictures, both moving and still, after the break.
Just a couple of days ago, I was tidying up my RSS feed list, when I bumped into Retro City Rampage. As I was reminded it was being developed exclusively for the Wii (or some similarly sad thing), I decided to stop feeding on it's RSS. If you don't want me, Retro City Rampage, I don't want you either. Hmpf! But, oh, what is this? Only a few days after our imaginary breakup, the devs are proud to announce it's going omni-platform. Well that was unexpected.
In the mood for some physics-based puzzling? Of course you are. Here's a thing - Cubium. Sadly, it is currently available only in A-Language-Not-English, and the trailer gives the impression that it's hardly self-explanatory. So, no news of an international release yet. But it does look rather dashing, doesn't it?
Oh, look, here's a cute little orange alien! He's so round and glowing and cuddly, with fat, wobbly antennae and such. Look at him. He's such a darling, isn't he? Wait, he just disintegrated some scientists. Well... they probably deserved it. Scientists often do. What's he doing now? Why is that man bloating? He... he just blew up, entrails flying, blood gushing. Oh my. This is not right.
A couple of months ago, Adam Smith of RPS did a write up on Mr. Bree: Returning Home, a spike-ridden platformer developed by the Brazilian Taw Studio. I decided to follow the development of this one closely, as I was captivated by the premise - one about a gentlemanly pig who awakens in the woods, with no recollection of how he got there. Sadly, the devs have gone rather quiet shortly after, turning to other projects instead, only to release the game on Kongregate in the most stealthy of manners.
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