Gaming Week 20: Dust, an Elysian Tale (XBLA)
Dust is a very unique game in its ability to portray very serious topics, whilst looking like something a kid would play with its art style. This isn’t a bad thing by any stretch, in fact it adds to Dust’s ability to get your pre-conceived notions and turn them on their head. So although this may look like a game about furries, overlook that and you’ll be transported into a very deep and troubling world where it’s realities aren’t too far from our own. You start Dust as a person (fox?) that’s just been caught by a tiny flying fox stealing a sword. Turns out that the sword talks, and explains that it can only be welded by it’s true owner, therefore it hasn’t been stollen. You’ll come to know these characters as Dust (your main protagonist and playable character) Fidget (the flying little fox that’s the swords guardian) and the blade…
Gaming Week 19: Far Cry 3 Blood Dragon (XBLA)
Far Cry 3 was a fantastic release last winter, combining a gorgeous open world with a solid story, it made for a very fun and addictive game. Fast forward 6 months and we have the release of Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon, a stand alone expansion that doesn’t require the original game to work. So the question is, what is Blood Dragon? The answer isn’t as straight forward as you may think. Blood Dragon is Far Cry 3, except, it technically isn’t. The main setting and plot for Blood Dragon centres around an alternate universe in which the world has undergone 2 apocalypses (I shit you not) and the 80’s are here to stay. At face value, this is basically a few reskins of the original Far Cry 3 whilst also messing things up for comedic value, but some of the changes really are hooking, and make for a unique…
How Thomas Was Alone has changed my thinking on platformers and emotion in games.
Thomas was alone is a strange strange game that I’m falling in love with in a weird and wonderful way. Its a game about some programming errors (represented as squares and rectangles) that each have their own personalities, and are trying to find their way through this strange and confusing world. Each character has his/her own opinions on the others, and each have their own motives. It’s really quite crazy how much Mike Bithell has made me care about a mere set of squares and rectangles. He stripes away all of the pretty graphics, and shows that in order to care for a character you need a story/personality, not fancy art. This has really changed my mindset in regards to my own game, and has got me in turmoil at the moment as to what I want my game to look like. I mean, you don’t need a gorgeously realistic…
Quick update on my future weekly gamings
Hi all! Just a quick update really, in the future I’m going to give my weekly gaming article a review score. As much as I think reading a whole article will give a better idea about how a person feels about a game more than a score, sometimes a score is a good way to sum it up. (especially with my writing skills, I sometimes can’t articulate my feelings on a game.) So as of today, I’ll be going through all my old reviews and giving them a score, whilst also giving any future review a score. The scoring system will be as follows: 1/5: Do not touch this game, its a waste of money and I feel for the devs that made it. 2/5: A lot of flaws makes for a strange game. Buy it if you must, but be warned, it’s not for everyone. 3/5: A great game…
Gaming Week 18: Antichamber (PC)
I’ve wanted to play Antichamber since I first ever laid eyes on it about 2 years ago. It looked so different, and so fantastically intelligent, that I just wanted to experience this new way of gaming. It doesn’t go so far as to invent any new ways of gaming, but intelligently pushes you to the limits, ensuring you poke and prod the game environment until you understand its rules, and as a result, feel empowered in this puzzle world. You start Antichamber in a black empty room, with no context as to where you are, and what to do. You spin your mouse around to discover you’re in first person view. From here you can then adjust the settings of your computer using a wall, and just clicking the elements you want to change. Its a pretty nifty way of doing things, and I feel it’s quite intelligent game design…
Gaming Week 17: Gears of War: Judgement (360)
(This review won’t touch multiplayer, just the main campaign.) Gears of War judgement starts as it means to go on: A mediocre GoW game that can’t quite reach the highs of the previous instalments. New ways of playing don’t help to make the game anymore immersive, and it all just ends up leaving a player deflated once finished. So the premise for GoW: Judgement is that it’s a prequel, based around Damon Baird, Augustus Cole, Sofia Hendrik and Garron Paduk, just months after emergence day. Baird and his band of merry men, are put on trial for activating a light mass bomb that could of been used for other purposes, and against orders not to. Most of the campaign missions follow Baird and his crew through recollections of what happened up to the point of activating the bomb, and slightly after. It’s quite a good story telling mechanic, and allows…
The problems with game mechanics
Hi all, So recently I’ve been thinking more about the structure of my game, and considering whether I want levels in the traditional sense (Like Mario, or most other platformers in the world.) or whether I want one linear long journey (similar to limbo). Thinking about this comes up with a lot of problems most people wouldn’t dream of when considering how a game is made. I want my game to feel like the player has gone on a journey, that they’ve accomplished something, and I feel breaking the game down into levels would destroy that feeling as there’d be chunks of the journey the player never experienced. There are also disadvantages to having one long, continuous journey though; players can get very bored very quickly, especially if there isn’t much difference in the scenes. My idea for ending the levels was that Jacob would have to board a train in the…
Gaming Week 16: Deadlight (PC)
Deadlight throws you into a realistic, post-apocalyptic world where a man can only move left and right. Joking aside, this is a truly realised world, where a simple platformer can have more depth and style then I’ve seen before (I shall overlook Limbo for now, although it is definitely in the same league.) Deadlight follows the story of Randell Wayne, a man who wakes up to all manner of chaos unfolding before him, at which point you have to take control of him and set off. During the course of the game, you’ll learn about Randells past, and his current relationship with other characters, ensuring that you’re clued up on what’s happening in this world. The main things you’ll be avoiding in this game are Zombies. These stupid, slow creatures feel slightly out of place in a platformer, but do allow for some interesting puzzle sequences (e.g. shouting for them…
The ideas behind project TimeShift
Hi guys and gals! Hope everyone is all good and fine. I decided I should explore my concept more, and give it a proper working title, so that’s it! Project TimeShift! (working title) The project name gives a lot of the game away, but I hope to still keep quite a few secrets to keep the game fun and new for most people. If you don’t want any spoilers in this game, then I suggest you stop reading, as I’m going to be revealing a lot of the plot devices about project TimeShift. Firstly, I’ve named the main character Jacob McCarthy. He’s an 11 year old boy who’s being evacuated from London during World War 2 (much to his dismay). The year is 1940, and the Nazi’s have invaded and conquered France, so Britain initiates its second evacuation. Jacob comes under the care of an old, abusive man called Jack…
Gaming Week 15: Borderlands 2 (360)
I’ll sum this up now: Borderlands 2 takes the successful formula of the first game, and goes to town, making sure it impresses and expands upon everything that made the first one such a runaway hit. If does nothing new to the formula, but certainly makes sure that you’re left satisfied, something that the 36 hours of gaming I’m endured can certainly ascertain to. If you’ve played Borderlands 1, then you know what you’re in for. Borderlands 2 encompasses a big open world full of objectives, and a whole lot of loot waiting for you to collect. The guns are ridiculous and over the top, but thats the whole point, and it’s fantastic. The sheer size of this game is enough to put anyone in awe, it truly is a big game. Don’t get me wrong, a lot of the side objectives do have you running to places you’ve been…
Gaming Week 14: Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception (PS3)
Oh Nathan Drake, you careless adventurer you. How you made me not give a single damn in the first unchartered, then flipped my perception on its head in the 2nd is beyond my comprehension. So here we are with your third outing, and I must say, you’ve certainly impressed. The Uncharted series have been a mixed bag of highs and lows for myself. The first one, I was extremely unimpressed. I could see why people enjoyed it, but I felt like it was a poor mans Tomb Raider and was just a knock off. It was stunning in graphics, it wasn’t original in gameplay or story telling, it was just meh all the way through. This all changed with the second game. In Uncharted 2, Naughty Dog left me stunned at every turn. With improved art assets, and dynamically scripted sequences like the train level, (a level in which the…
Gaming Week 13: I am Alive (360)
I am Alive is the survival game from Ubisoft set in the future, after a catastrophic event has fallen mankind, and left only a few survivors on earth. A few people may remember the original trailer from 2008: If you count yourself as one of those people, then prepare to be disappointed, as Ubisoft changed majority of the formula from what they was showing in the original trailer, and instead made a fairly action orientated third person adventure game. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing mind you, but I think majority of the gaming community would agree that the original trailer showed a lot of promise and originality in an otherwise over-saturated market. The game centres around a unnamed protagonist who is searching for his wife and daughter in his hometown of Haventon, after a year of walking across the states to reach there. We are greeted with a view…
Gaming Week 12: VVVVVV (PC)
VVVVVV was my first foray into Terry Cavanagh’s (Creator of Super Hexagon) games, which in my opinion is a fantastic jumping point into the madness and simplicity he’s become famous for. Although this was made 3 years ago, I still think it’s a fantastic example of how graphics aren’t what makes a game, and how the mechanics of a game are what keeps it interesting. VVVVVV looks like a classic 8bit retro game, it’s not much to look at, but it gets the job done. It conveys a captain on his ship who suddenly has inter-dimensional problems and loses all of his crew. Thus begins an epic adventure to find his shipmates, and bring them back. (A note to those who may not know, VVVVVV is named after the names of the 6 crew members: Captain Viridian, Doctor Violet, Doctor Victoria, Officer Vermillion, Professor Vitellary and Chief Verdigris.) Controls are…
Expansion
I felt I needed to expand on my idea I put forward to other day, as I didn’t really put across any of the specifics of this project. (mainly because I don’t have specifics yet, just a bunch of ideas!) But here are some pics of what I have planned so far: So my initial idea was to switch between realities so that the world changed, and maybe the physics was different (so the character could jump further/higher). I liked this idea, so decided on 3 different worlds that you chose between; Normal, Future, and 3D. (Which for the moment, don’t have any different physics, but this may change in due time.) My thinking was that you could come across stumbling blocks in one dimension, that would be solved by jumping to another dimension. An example of which I’ve provided below: In this example, the character needs to get to…
My idea
So, these last few days I’ve been wanting to make something from scratch, but I feel the big game I want to make is too advanced for me right now, so I’ve decided to scale it back and make a platformer for now. This platformer will allow me to recall a lot of what I’ve learnt in Unity in the past, but will also allow me to learn some fundamental differences between developing 2 years ago at uni and developing now. So my ideas for the new game are as follows: Game will be a 2D side-scroller, with 3 levels tops. Game will have 3 characters, each with unique abilities that can be swapped between at any time. (Enabling player to jump further, or be immune to a certain enemy.) The game will have 3-4 different types of enemies. There will be lives, a timer, and a progress tracker for…