Back in April, I loved Dark Souls III. It had beautifully written but underwhelmingly less lore expanding story. Had some frustrating technical hiccups, but amazing feel and mechanics. And now when we know what poise actually does (“hyperarmor” during attack and roll animations) a lot of issues have been fixed and some things rebalanced, the core game is better than ever. So what’s the first DLC all about?
Read more“Dark Souls III – Ashes of Ariandel. Faded colours”
The remake of Shadow Warrior was pretty unexpectedly good. At least for me, since the first game of Warsaw-based Flying Wild Hog Hard Reset wasn’t very good, in my opinion. And yes, Shadow Warrior 2013 did feel more like Serious Sam or Painkiller than a classic FPS, but it still also felt good. So I had high hopes for the sequel, even after it was announced that there will be randomized level elements in the game and coop and other things that pointed, that the game might go the loot shooter way, something I’m not particularly a fan of. Yet, now the game is out, I’ve spent more hours with it when I ever needed and parting with it is a bit sad. Even if it’s not a fantastic game, really, this Wang entered deep into my very being.
From time to time I stumble across the games I have something to write about, but not enough to warrant a separate review. Both Tick Tock Isle and The Girl and the Robot are games like that.
Ahh, The Longest Journey… Despite the original and Dreamfall being pretty flawed adventure games in their own ways, there was nothing like it in terms of stories. Mix of cyberpunk and fantasy in such a magical way that feeds your imagination. A tale that feels so unique, doing “it’s own thing” and in such a good way too, despite some clear influences. These worlds of Stark and Arcadia, technology and magic, were always something I wanted to see more of. Besides, Dreamfall: The Longest Journey didn’t really have a proper ending, with Dreamfall Chapters being planned from the start to continue from when that game left of. But those plans were shelved for… how long was it? Almost 8 years? And if you count the release of the final chapter (released just a few months before me writing this), it’s been 10 years since Dreamfall was released. And it’s such a strange feeling that this continuation is a tighter budget, community funded (via Kickstarter) project too… So, then, how is it? Is it a proper ending to all the story threads that were started before? Let’s find out.
It’s hard to write a review about The Beginner’s Guide. Not because it’s some life changing experience. Not because it’s hard to understand or describe. Not because I feel in any way emotional about it, despite quite a lot of it’s themes hitting close to my own experiences. Simply because I don’t know how to feel about it myself. About it as a game, or at least an interactive story on creation and creators and the public perception of it, that is being sold for real money. About it being… well, a product that’s being sold. And it’s not even a question of the “are games art” or whatever (especially since I’ve always felt that games are a form of art/entertainment). Rather just a feeling that it’s a nice little experience, that maybe should’ve been free instead? I don’t know… So let’s look at it in a bit more detail.
STASIS is one of those Kickstarter projects that went for the nostalgic feeling. The ones that usually get most attention and love, because they promise a return of something that wasn’t done in quite a while. Some perform way above expectations (Pillars of Eternity). Some are better than nothing. And STASIS? Well, it does deliver on a lot of it’s promises and is certainly better than nothing. But by how much?
It’s been a while since I’ve played Deadly Premonition. Funny story – I was actually one of the seemingly few, who were waiting for the game to get released way before it was named Deadly Premonition. Originally it was announced as “Rainy Woods” in 2007, was even more Twin Peaks influenced and for me, a huge survival horror fan with soft spot for that David Lynch series, it was enough to get excited. But then the game just kinda dropped off my radar until suddenly popping up in a Destructoid review by Jim Sterling in early 2010, who loved the hell out of it. I didn’t even recognize the game back that from the start, since it has changed the title and even the looks (and name) of the main protagonist (the original name went to the next Swery’s game – D4). But when I finally did I knew – I need this game in my life. I never had an Xbox 360, but my friend did, so he grabbed the game, lent me the console for few weeks and I found a new game to put in the list of absolute favorites. But it was flawed. It needed a remaster. Is The Director’s Cut here to do the job? I’m going to spoil it right away – it isn’t in the slightest.
Read more“Revisiting Deadly Premonition: The Director’s Cut”
O tempora is a series of retrospective posts where I play games from ages before to see if they stood the test of time.
Last years of 20th century and first years of 21st were really interesting for FPS game genre. The genre was slowly turning from fun mindless shootouts to story-driven events with Half-Life being the example most tried to follow. There was some resistance to this idea – Serious Sam being the best example of that, a mindless action game where you killed hordes of enemies with only basic outline of a plot. But most developers tried to go for something very cinematic, something that mixes shooting with other elements and ideas. In between release of Unreal 1 (released just half a year before Half-Life) and release of Unreal II we had Halo, Kingpin, Jedi Knight 2, Return to Castle Wolfenstein, several Medal of Honor games, Aliens versus Predator 2, Undying, Red Faction and even Metroid Prime (which is not a pure FPS, but a hybrid) all trying out very different often innovative things and new ways to mix storytelling and first person shooting. And then we have Unreal II, which at the time of release received mixed reviews and was completely ignored by me. Was it really that weak? Hahahaha, oh I couldn’t even predict how much.
O tempora is a series of retrospective posts where I play games from ages before to see if they stood the test of time.
Unreal – the name probably came from just how beautiful the game looked at the time of release. Yet, for me and my friends back in the day the name became a joke – it was “unreal” to make it work with a respectable fps count, unless you had a really powerful PC. And my friends didn’t. So we could either play the game on much lower settings or watch the amazing jaw-dropping slideshow of a game. And that was one of the main reasons why I’ve never actually played the game properly until now. I have played all the “Tournament” games (which I won’t be covering), but both singleplayer Unreal games passed me by. Was the game all looks, or did it really have something good about it?
It may be done by the team behind LIMBO. It may start like LIMBO. It might feel like LIMBO. But INSIDE is very much not LIMBO.
