Gaming Week 51: Gunpoint (PC)
I’ve had Gunpoint on my radar for a while now, learning about it whilst it was still in development, and going so far as to show my friends and family what little footage I had found as I thought it was a genius concept. After finally getting it around my Birthday a month ago, I jumped in without hesitation, eager to immerse myself in this sublime and wonderful creation. Gunpoint is a 2D platformer with strategy mechanics, which sounds like a weird combination until you see how flawlessly they’re pulled off. You play as Richard Conway, a private eye investigator who is forced into his line of work after purchasing some Bullfrog trousers which malfunction and put him at the scene of a crime. Through clearing his name, Conway is lead deeper and deeper into a rabbit hole, one in which innocent bystanders request Conways assistance to clear their name,…
Gaming Week 50: Batman Arkham City (PC)
I absolutely adored the original Batman Arkham Asylum, going so far as to 100% the game twice on both normal and hard difficulty, doing every online challenge, and playing it to the point I was once 42nd in the world on the leaderboards for one challenge. To say it was going to be a difficult act to follow up would be an understatement, something the gaming press agreed with unanimously. The game starts out with Bruce Wayne at a press conference outside the portion of the city sanctioned off for prison use (hence the name, Arkham City), making the argument that the prison is a disgrace to the citizens of Gotham. He’s arrested by police guards, and chucked straight into the pit with all the inmates he helped arrest breathing down his neck, waiting to pounce. You’re soon introduced to Penguin, and upon escaping and reaching higher ground, don your…
Gaming Week 49: Rock of Ages (PC)
I recently bought Rock of Ages after years of seeing journalists giving it praise for being random, yet successful for such a small studio. I knew it was a physics based game, where you control a ball and destroy levels, but nothing could have prepared me for the craziness that ensued. Rock of Ages starts out with a cutscene comprised of old portraits from history, and tells the story of Sisyphus snapping after constantly pushing his rock up a hill for it to fail many times. He decides to take on the other gods and notable heroes of history, and so begins your campaign through this weird and wonderful world. Each level is comprised of a tower defence style set up, with the ability to then control your ball to defeat your enemy. The enemy is doing the same as yourself, which means you have to spend most of your time…
Gaming week 48: The Swapper (PC)
The Swapper was recently on Steams Halloween sale, and having heard a lot of positive buzz about it this past summer, I decided to take the plunge and give it a go. Giantbomb praised it in their podcast, and I felt this indie studio needed all the help they could get, and in hindsight, £3.50 wasn’t a pad price to pay for such a solid game. The game starts out with some fantastic cut scenes that starts with your character being sent to a planet from a space station. Upon landing, you can take control of your character, and proceed to explore the planet on which you’ve landed. Eventually, you come across a strange looking device, one that allows you to make clones of yourself and switch your “soul” between them. It’s an interesting premise, one that The Swapper makes good use of, with puzzles that’ll push you to your…
Gaming Week 47: Crysis 2 (PC)
Crysis was the brilliant successor to Far Cry, a game that was original and ground breaking for its time. Giving you the ability to approach any mission how you liked, Fay Cry set a trend that the games industry would follow for quite some time, Crysis took the torch and continued this trend to new heights. Crysis 2 was only the natural successor that took this torch to a new audience: the console gamer. In order to cater to this new gamer, the Crytek team had to dramatically change a lot of what made Crysis, Crysis. It was a shame, but a necessary evil to cater to this new market of customers, so the nano suit was revised to make for quick and easy allocation of powers, and the graphics were scaled down to compensate for the console’s lack of power. Don’t get me wrong, Crysis 2 is still a…
Gaming Week 46: Superfrog HD (PC/PSN)
I have extremely fond memories of Superfrog as a child, my dad would get his amiga out and let us play it for hours back in 1993. At the age of 6, I found it far too difficult for my young age, but everything about it fascinated me, from the Lucozade (Americans read: Energy drink), to the slot machine, all the colours and charm rubbed off on me as if it was a genuine product for a kid. Nostalgia has a weird way of changing ones perspective of pervious events, so I decided to take the plunge with Superfrog HD and see if it lives up to my high expectations from my youth. Superfrog starts out like most 90’s and 80’s platformers: with a small intro to show how your hero begins his adventure and his motivation for doing so. Apart from the HD drawings, nothings changed in this respect…
Gaming Week 45: The Binding of Isaac (PC/Mac)
Like most of my steam collection, I’ve owned The Binding of Isaac (which will henceforth be shortened to Isaac to save my sanity) for a while now, but have never actually gotten around to playing it properly. That was the whole point of my one game a week idea, but in this time I’ve collected more and it’s becoming a impossible task to finish my game collection. I’d played Isaac before, for about an hour, and just couldn’t understand why people found it so addictive and enjoyable. That’s how it’s been left for years, until these last few weeks that is, I’ve been hooked, playing dozens of hours of the game to try and beat the game over and over again. The game starts out with a little intro to let you know the plot of Isaac before giving you the main menu. The general gist of the story is…
Gaming Week 44: God of War: Ghost of Sparta (PSP)
Note: The following will not include screenshots of gameplay due to the PS Vita’s inability to take pics of PSP games. If you wish to see screenshots or gameplay, by all means Google Ghost of Sparta. Earlier in the year I bought both the original God of War PSP titles on the PSN sale, something that I felt was a huge bargain for only £2.87 each. I wrote a piece here about my feelings and experience with it. (I apologise for it’s length, during this year of writing I feel I’ve gotten better at writing, something I feel a comparison to this article would show easily.) This is the second game, one that I finally re-downloaded and played whilst I was on the bus and any spare moments I had around the house. Ghost of Sparta starts out with Kratos, on his throne as the God of War (chronologically, this game…
Gaming Week 43: Pressure (PC)
Looking through my games library for things to play for this weeks review, I stumbled upon a game I have no recollection of purchasing: Pressure. Intrigued, I went online and instantly searched for a gameplay video, to see what the game was about. Needless to say, I enjoyed what I had seen and proceeded to instantly download the title and start playing. Pressure is a top down driving shooter that doesn’t push any boundaries when it comes to reinventing the genre, but does make itself stand out with its fantastic design and art style. You control a car as you race through 30 different levels and 3 bosses, killing as many enemies as possible whilst also trying to race to the end of the level as fast as possible. You have 2 bars that track your progress through a level, your health and your pressure. Health is pretty self explanatory,…
Gaming Week 42: Anna (PC, Mac, Linux)
I’ve always noticed Anna on the Steam store, appearing here and there whenever I boot up my PC, but I never took the time to find out what it was. Eventually, I watched the trailer video and looked through some screenshots, and decided that it was easily worth the couple of quid Steam was asking for, every sale helps to feed a developer right? Well the first time I booted up the game, I was introduced to a screen that wanted my username and password, something I didn’t have and I had no intention of making. Upon pressing cancel, I couldn’t go any further, the game just closed and wouldn’t let me do anything unless I registered or already had a account. This was extremely frustrating, and goes against the first rule of business/game design: don’t annoy the customer. The customer is doing you a favour by buying your product,…
Why I Feel Double Fine Studios Are Taking The Piss
Disclaimer: The following is an opinion piece. People may not agree with what is being said, but I by all means encourage readers to engage in discussion about the following views and opinions. I originally wanted to write an article about the frustration I felt towards Double Fine when they announced that Broken Age would be split up into two pieces and the first part would be sold on Steam Early Access. I felt that Double Fine were taking advantage of their fanbase, and were gambling with fan’s money as if no risk is involved. Double Fine themselves had admitted that they had taken their idea to publishers before, only for publishers to turn them down, saying there wasn’t a market for adventure games. For all we know, Double Fine has that entire market already invested in its project, but are acting as if their sales for Broken Age…
Latest Build of Project Dandelion (play in fullscreen recommended)
Hi all! Over the next few days/ week I’ll be working on making sure my player doesn’t go off screen (still a bug I haven’t fixed yet) and also adding enemies and pollen to collect (for points). Once the above is done, the game will be complete in a simple state, and will just require to be polished on top. Polishing will require remaking the menu’s using my own art style rather than the built in unity code, making stages other than open field and forest, and making lots of animations for the player. I plan to have this game finished and released before Christmas, and will continue to support it afterwards with updates that improve functionality. (such as online leaderboards rather than local high scores.) Either way, enjoy the latest build!
Gaming Week 41: Fotonica (PC/Mac)
I stumbled upon Fotonica whilst browsing notonsteam.com, a website committed to popularising indie games that deserve recognition, but aren’t getting said recognition due to their inability to get on Steam. Fotonica stood out to me, with it’s sharp graphics and weird name, I decided to take the plunge and paid the developers the whole $2.99 they were asking for (It’s on sale at 50% off right now). All I can say is: I’m certainly glad I took the plunge. The mechanics of Fotonica are simple enough, it’s an endless runner game that gives you the task of surviving for as long as possible by jumping over gaps between platforms. You’ll pick up the controls in no time, and from there on out its a case of learning the levels to make sure you get as many points as possible in your run up to the end of a level. Each level…
Gaming Week 40: To the Moon (PC)
To the Moon is a 4-5 hour game from the creative mind of Kan Gao of Freebird Games, that takes you on a emotional roller coaster through a deep story, rich characters, and seemingly fantastic locations. The fourth game to come from Kan, it’s certainly one of his best, and easily tugs at your heart strings and makes you want to play more and more to conclude the epic story. You start To the Moon playing as a pair of scientists(/doctors/employees? Who knows, they’re in white doctors jackets so they must be important) that accidentally get into a car accident on their way to a old, drying man. You make your way up the hill where you crashed, to find a huge house on the cliff edge overlooking the sea and a lighthouse. The characters you control acknowledge that this was the place they were meant to be, and proceed…
Its Been a While…..
It’s been a while since I updated my Game Development section, so I thought I’d post my latest build: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/55177814/project%20dandelion%20site.html I’ve now made a main menu, which will be updated to be more polished when the game is complete and done. I’ve also added a score system, which isn’t currently saved, but will be in due time. Let me know what you think and by all means give feedback. This is very early, and I’ll soon be adding enemies and items for you to collect and get more score with, so keep coming back for more builds.