Weekly Gaming: Donkey Kong Country Returns (3DS)
N.B. The following review will have no screenshots due to the 3DS’ lack of screenshot capabilities. I’ve never played a Donkey Kong game before, they’ve always been on my radar, but I’ve never felt inclined to give them a go. I never even played the much revered N64 versions, as my family never bought it when I was young. So having a lovely 3DS XL, I felt it was time to jump straight in to what is known as a timeless classic when it comes to precision platforming. The game starts out with a simple premise: Donkey Kong and Diddy are sleeping at home, when some Tiki’s come to their island, brainwash all it’s inhabitants, and use these brainwashed slaves to steal all the banana’s. The tiki’s come across DK and Diddy, and try to brainwash them too, but are unsuccessful in doing so. The reason for DK and Diddy…
Weekly Gaming: The Room 2 (iOS)
The Room One was a fantastic experience from Fireproof Studios, a newly formed company that comes from Guildford and where most staff members have had previous experience working on Little Big Planet’s content. It was a fantastically intrinsic puzzle game which seemingly come out of nowhere and managed to sell by the bucket load for its intuitive controls and mind bending puzzles. The sequel has a lot to live up to, with Fireproof games now having reputation rather than being a upcoming indie team, can they succeed in bringing a second hit? You start the room two like you did the original: being shown a box in the middle of a room which you must solve. What’s different this time, is your ability to go between two boxes within the same room, meaning that some puzzles are no longer related to the one item you see before you, and some…
Weekly Gaming: Castle of Illusion (PS3)
This week, I take a look at Castle of Illusion, a remake of the original Disney game that came out for the Sega Mega Drive (Genesis for those American readers out there!). I loved Castle of Illusion as a child, huddled around a small CRT TV with my brothers taking in all the games gloriously smooth animations and lovingly crafted graphics was one of my favourite things to do when I was 8. The game was difficult for how young I was, but my determination and countless hours of gaming allowed me to preserver and finish this hard game. The platforming involved a lot of memorisation and pin point accuracy, making it one of my favourite accomplishments of my youth. Has Sega Studios Australia succeeded in reimagining what I hold so dear from my childhood? Or is this a shameless money grab from an ailing company looking to cash in…
Weekly Gaming: Little Inferno (iOS + PC)
If you’d had given the pitch of a game where you can set things on fire, watch as items burn slowly and give coins after they demise, to a boardroom ten years ago, the executives in there would laugh you out of the room, claiming you were crazy and that it’d never make any money in a million years. Little Inferno is just that, but has been released in a time where it can be truly appreciated with the current indie renaissance. It’s a premise so crazy, you’d be surprised that Tomorrow Corporation could even make a game out of it, yet alone one with an intriguing and cute story. You start off as the game means to go on: in front of a fire place called little inferno, sold to you by the Tomorrow Corporation (an in-game company that makes products of all shapes and sizes). Using coins collected…
Weekly Gaming: Shelter (PC)
Shelter has been on my radar for a while. I mean, a game where you play as a mother badger caring for its young in this harsh reality that is life is certainly a unique experience that doesn’t come around often, if at all in todays fast paced, adrenaline-fuelled industry. It’s a new game from the indie studio Might and Delight which brought us Pid, and is certainly ambitious for this young studio. The very premise is emotional in nature, but does the game deliver on that emotion, or is it just a selling point in this crowded and hard market to break? You start the game in a cave, with you (the mother badger) and 4 cubs huddled around a grey cub on the floor, moaning and crying. The game gives no prompts, no instructions, but you just know that you somehow have to help this cub out. It’s…
Weekly Gaming: The Stanley Parable (PC)
You think you know what the Stanley Parable is, but do you really? That’s the question the developers at Galactic Cafe will keep asking you throughout the course of the Stanley Parable, including before you even buy it. The whole game centre’s around the premise of getting your pre-conceived notions of what a game is and messing with them to the point you’re not even sure whats happening anymore. It’s something that interested me profusely, to the point I had to pick up a copy of the game and play it as soon as possible to ensure that I heard no spoilers whilst listening to the Giant Bombcasts Game of the Year deliberations. You start the Stanley Parable in an ordinary office, taking control of Stanley, who’s job is supposedly different today as there seems to be no one around. From here, it’s all down to you as the player,…
Weekly Gaming: Papo & Yo (PC)
I recall reading a edge article about how Papo & Yo was a landmark game for the Brazilian games industry, and how it showed they were starting to mature, becoming a part of our inclusive and unique industry. Whilst all of this is true, Papo & Yo isn’t just a great game because it’s Brazilian, it’s a good game because it’s unique and charming, and tells a story like no other medium can. You start the game off as a little child named Quico, who’s stuck in a cupboard as a monster is stomping around outside the doors trying to get him. Out of nowhere, a teleport appears next to Quico, inviting him in to get out of this current nightmarish situation. Going through the teleport, Quico is transported to a warm, tranquil, sunny town; a far cry from the nightmare he just got out of. It’s here that you…
Indie Spotlight: Clobbr (iOS)
With Clobbr’s imminent release on Apple’s App Store, I managed to get a review copy from Czarcade, as I felt this lovely mobile game from a fellow indie studio would definitely be worth a look. The trailer looked quirky, and the screenshots certainly looked great in the time I’ve been following Czarcade on Twitter, so I had to jump head first into Clobbr, and bathe in this fellow indie’s beautifully polished game. As you start Clobbr, you’re introduced to your three main protagonists that will stay with you throughout the duration of the main 5 worlds. These are Clobbr (the blue gentleman at the top of the screen), the three mice, and the orange kitty. The main characters have a Tom & Jerry vibe going on, with each level pitting them in a similar situation: the kitty never learning from it’s mistakes, and Clobbr himself coming to the rescue of…
Weekly Gaming: Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons (PC)
I’ve read about Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons in the past, with articles usually talking about how its producer is a movie director by the name of Josef Fares, and how his background has shaped and influenced the design of the game. It’s certainly been on my radar, and I wanted it the day it was released, but being stripped for cash last year, I had to hold off. Over Christmas, Brothers was reduced to £3.59 on Steam; without hesitation, Brothers instantly became a part of my game library, ready to be explored until I was satisfied I had seen every nook and cranny. You start Brothers with your story explained within 5 minutes: your father is sick and needs a special ingredient from a tree to survive. With this little bit of information, the Brothers embark on an epic journey to find this tree, taking on all the elements…
Weekly Gaming: Gone Home (PC)
The gaming media have salivated over Gone Home since its initial release in August, with critical acclaim coming from every news outlet I read. Being tight on money, and having the game never come down in price until the Christmas sales meant that I didn’t get to play this until recently. I’m glad I did get around to buying and playing it, as I feel this is a landmark game for our industry, and one that changed my GOTY list instantly. You play the role of Kaitlin Greenbriar, a 21 year old who has just returned home after a year of travelling abroad across Europe. In the hallway of your house, you notice that no ones home, which is surprising considering how long you’ve been away. A note is found on the side in the porch explaining to Kaitlin that whoever wrote the note is sorry that they’re not there…
Weekly Gaming: State of Decay (PC)
Having seen brilliant reviews on State of Decay over the summer whilst travelling, I was curious as to how another zombie game had managed to entice journalists. Thanks to a friend, when my Birthday came around in Novmeber, I was given the gift of accessing State of Decay during its Early Access program, something I am extremely thankful for, and put to good use. The game starts you off in a camp site next to a lake, making you fight off a hoard of zombies that are attacking your friend. It doesn’t give you much context as to where these zombies came from, and just explains it away by saying that because you were camping, you haven’t heard anything from the outside world. Once you make your way to the ranger station, you meet your first group of survivors, who set about tasking you with gathering resources and scouting the…
My New Years Resolutions.
In 2013, I managed to keep to my new years resolution, and completed 1 game a week for 52 weeks, writing a review every week on what I thought of it. This coming year, I’m going to continue to write a new review every week, but I feel I also need to push myself one step further. So this year, I want to do the following: Write a game review once a week. Produce a Video Quick look once every 2 weeks. Make 2 full games that will be pushed to every platform (iOS, Android, PC, Ouya), documenting and pushing builds to this site. (Project stargazer and Project Timeshift). Migrate my server from wordpress.com to wordpress.org to allow people to run unity games within my site rather than Dropbox. There are a lot more things I want to do, BUT I don’t think they should be posted on my blog…
52 Weeks of gaming, ITS OVER!!!
So that’s it, I done it. I made a New Years Resolution to complete a game/piece of media a week, and I managed to fulfil that resolution, even when I spent 3 months on the other side of the world. I’ve enjoyed it all, and I feel it’s made me a better person when it comes to critical analysis and thinking about different points of view. I started this journey to get through my massive game collection on Steam, and to experience all the different emotions games and media in general can give. It’s been a fantastic journey, one which I’ll continue after the new year in the form of contributing to The Indie Vault, and adding even more content to this site, from lets play videos to opinion pieces, as well as continuing my weekly gaming review every Friday, 10am GMT. I’ve managed to get over 5000 + views…
My Top 10 Games of the Year.
It’s been a long and fantastic year. I went to my first and second gaming conventions, I spent 3 months of the year in America, and started working on 2 games, both of which work, but aren’t polished. I quit a retail job, and went solo to try and make it in the gaming world (which hasn’t happened yet, but will one day!). It’s been a hectic year, but in that time, I’ve made sure to stick to my new years resolution, and have completed at least 1 game a week (it started as 1 piece of media a week, but being as I have a huge steam library and far too many consoles, it eventually changed it to games alone). So to round the year up, here’s my top 10 list of my favourite games I’ve completed this year. Honourable Mention. State of Decay. State of Decay could easily have…
Gaming Week 52: Pokémon Y (3DS)
People of the world, I have a confession to make. I have never played a portable Pokemon game from start to finish. Let that sink in for a moment, and be even more shocked when I say that I was raised in the perfect environment, perfect time, and given every opportunity to do so, but never did. Yes, I’m 26 and have talked about Pokemon with friends, colleagues and family, but I didn’t feel I needed to, since I knew enough about the lore and Pokedex that I deemed the games unnecessary. How wrong I was. The game starts out with a Professor explaining what Pokemon are, and who you are. It’s here, where the story begins, that you get to create your own hero or heroine before embarking on your adventure. Your options are limited, from picking your name to what gender you are, but these options soon increase…