I've just finished reviewing this gargant of a game. It's quite a time consuming game to play and took me quite some time to sample all of the elements to get a good feel for it.
Obviously it looks pretty fantastic, but how did it play? You'll have to read to find out!
That's right, but don't worry. Firstly there'll never be in-line adverts (ie, when some words in the content of a page are turned to advert links) and hopefully they'll all stay relevant to the site!
They're google ads for now, but these will eventually be replaced with a proper, and neater, ad system that will display adverts for independent developers for reasonable price. What this will be depends on what the visitor count is at the time.
So I'll run these for a few weeks and see if it falls in line with the page counters I have (which is always interesting to compare!
Ok, that's not the name of the article, but that's the name of my fictitious product I use to make a point in my new article PC Game Prices :: Are we paying too much for PC Games.
I wasn't even going to release an article now, but after a great day for visitors yesterday I feel like it'd be good to show that I am working on other things all the time.
The video is slow going this month due to relying on others to be around, which they will be eventually!
Tank Attack! No nonsense tank blasting fun, or so I was led to believe! In the end I thought it was...well, you'll have to read the review to find out!
I've always been a big fan of huge space battles. In fact when younger and believing it was simple to make a game of todays graphical standards on my Spectrum+2, those were the kind of games I designed.
Later on in life I'd see the StarWars films, star trek and Babylon 5 which all blew my ideas out of the water. Especially Babylon 5, which has only so far been captured in part by the wonderful developers at Kerberos who make "Sword of the Stars" and it's expansions. Of course they were responsible for Homeworld Cataclysm too which I'm reliably informed is awesomeness in a can.
Anyway, it's great to know that ambitious independent developers are still with us. This time they're with us in the form of Cliff "Cliffski" Harris, over at Positech games who is currently working on the fantastic looking "Gratuitous Space Battles" game which, rather than featuring tactical RTS type controls, concentrates more on the ship building and design!
For me, a tactical nub-cake, this sounds like a dream!
But the look of the thing! Woohee! I don't usualy get too excited about graphics but this is so up my street so this has shot to the top of my "Can't wait for!" list, just before Borderlands.
If you have steam installed you would have noticed a strange update over the last few days to some of the more famous games, such as the Half life episodes, portal and even Team Fortress 2.
The update is for the Novint Falcon, a new FPS game controller device. Basically, if a joystick is the right controller for a flight sim, the falcon is (supposed to be) the right controller for a shooter game.
It's been out for a little while, but these days it's pretty much a gun handle connected to a device that, probably totally by accident, looks like the portal gun itself. There are several levers that keep the gun handle in place, but when you move it, these move and tell the computer which way you want to look. You can then aim and fire as if you were holding a real gun.
The idea is sound, but it looks a little alien to me right now. I think I need to have a go with one to see what it's like! But I'm not ordering one from America with those ridiculous postage costs. Plus the pistol grip part is not available for sale in the UK anyway!
Anyway, here's a demonstration video of it in action. The next best thing? Or the next soon-to-be-over fad? Who knows...
With the number of decent game releases coming up I was very kindly given Far Cry 2 as a Birthday present and thought it would be a good opportunity to review it! Plus I feel more productive that way.
Far Cry 2 was released at almost the exact same moment as Fallout 3. Both big games from big series. I thought Far Cry 2 was...Well you'll have to read the review to find out!
I'm working on a total site redesign at the moment. Coming across a few problems on how to sort the side menus I have planned so I don't have to re-upload every page on the site every time I do an update. This is because I'd like to keep the new updates in a right hand column list rather than just the banners on the front page.
It's going to take a few weeks to get right but it should be worth it in the end!
Oh yes, the future is here! This gun features a gyroscopic mouse attached to a toy rifle, fitted with a notebook-sized LCD screen.
The result?
An interactive control device that looks even more interesting than MS's Natal. The video below shows the chap who built it playing through a section of Fear 2. I'm guessing he moves forward by using the controller he's fitted to the front of the gun.
It actually irks me that I can't release something every day on the site/blog, but even though I spend every spare second of my time playing games and writing about them!
Firstly I'll mention that the wonderful New Star GP has had an update to bring it into line with the 2009 gp tracks and such. It's one of the best games I've played this year and since it's by and Independent developer I love it even more! Click here to read the New Star GP review
Next I'll explain why there was no article last week, even though I started off great guns making my own Team Fortress 2 map. Well, my good friend Richard came up with the idea for the next video, so I completely changed tack (I'm not usually that fickle) and started work on that because it's an awesome idea! For more info on this and a preview, Click here to take a peek!
Finally, it was my birthday on Saturday so I received lots of great games to play thought (w00t for Steam's gifting service!!) so there should be some commercial review offerings this week, starting tomorrow with Far Cry 2!
Thanks for reading so far, as I plough on towards post number 200!
In one of the strangest pricing stratergies I've seen, the famous RPG Oblivion game by Bethesda were re-priced overnight on the 18th of June. The "Deluxe" version changing price from £15 to £20 without any explanation.
I'm not sure why this was, nor if people will buy them at the current price if they know about the change. I for one am not completely surprised - what it achieved was to get the games in the top 10 bought games list. I'm sure this helps sales in the sort term at least.
However it's not done wonders for public relations - over 6000 people have read or written their views about this in the public steam forums after noticing the change. Has this reached the attention of the price setters? Probably not. Should we worry about it? Again, probably not. There are plenty of other great games out there for even less than the previous price of Oblivion.
So I would say to all those who are upset about this price hike - don't just grumble about this and not buy Oblivion - go and spend your money on a competitor! That's an even better way of sending the anti-price-hike message in my opinion.
Here are a few suggestions:
Plants Vs Zombies - great build/defence game where you grow plants that defend you against a zombie hoard. A must try!
Beyond Good and Evil - I feel like I've been a been a broken record with this game recently, but it's true! This game is awesome and shouldn't be missed by anyone!
Mr. Robot - great RPG game by independent developers Moonpod where you play as a service droid trying to save a massive starship from an evil AI.
These are all great and pretty long games that are worth checking out. So fight the price hike! Support people who support gamers!
Just put the droplets review on the site. This is another great flash/browser game from Nitrome, my favourite flash developers. This one involves dropping bunnies from great heights so that they collect carrots and land on certain platforms to earn points. Personally I thought it was...well you'll have to read the review to find out!
I don't think this article is going to be ready for tomorrow though! But perhaps it will, maybe I'll make a series out of it like the Mmorpg one I've not finished yet!
I've had to change tack on what game to review this week - I had originally planned to do a flash game review, but then I noticed that America's Army 3 had been released - for free! I thought that would make a more interesting review however after downloading it for almost a day(!) I had a terrible job getting the game to work properly!
Basically you can play it in the unnecesarily hard offline mode, but if you try to play with an online profile it keeps timing out with the servers and not recording your progress correctly! I assume this is just a teething issue, but it's no good if you want to review something!
Therefore I'm very very behind in my review schedule as well as my article schedule! Which means, although there will be a review tonight the TF2 level building article I've been working on may not be finished tomorrow on account of it being my Birthday that day (wahey!)
Anyway, for those bargain hunter types of you out there, Steam are doing a couple of very juicey deals right now:
Sword of the stars complete pack which is the original game plus all the new expansions. (something I'll be reviewing next week I think...or soon)
I was going to suggest the Oblivion ultimate pack but it appears to have drastically climbed in price while I've been asleep! But perhaps this is a temporary bug with steam, it certainly doesn't seem right. Maybe check back later?
The review of Lord Of Twilight is up. It's a fairly traditional Japanese RPG style game where you travel across the known world, fighting monsters along the way.
I'm a bit of a sucker for these games because they provide many hours of gameplay with a strong story and manga style graphics. And I found this one to be...
Well you'll just have to read the review to find out!
Tomorrow there will be a review of the excellent "Aveyond: Lord of Twilight" which I've been very much into the last few days. But I'm also working on my latest article, of which the attached pic is a teaser of!
Otherwise there's eventually going to be a TF2 page on the site, since it really is my current favourite game (and has been for over a year!) and plus I want to return the link back to my clan's website!
The end of the week should bring a review of a neat flash game I've been playing but more on that later.
I'm also going to start a new weekly entry on the blog where I talk about upcoming games that are looking very promising. There's plenty out there to choose from but I've got my eye on a select few in particular.
And a quick hello to everyone new who's been visiting recently! Visitor numbers to the site have tripled in recent weeks so it's good to know everyone is finding the site an interesting read! Thanks for taking a look!
This week I'm talking about adventure games on the PC. These are often overlooked as the PC is generally thought of as only good for browser games and FPS games.
Therefore I've gone through my 5 top adventure PC games, and why they're so damned good.
Some of these you'll probably have played - however I'll bet there's at least one you haven't! Take a look and let me know!
Zombies, zombies everywhere. I've wanted to review this for a few weeks and had resisted due to a few negative comments I'd heard.
I've had a bit of server-joining trouble which seems to have magically sorted itself out today, just in time for me to play more and write this review. It's obviously quite like Left4Dead, but is it any better? Well you'll have to read the review to find out!
I've written 2 articles this week, but neither feel right to publish! One was about my computer game playing memories and how they seem to attach themselves to events in my life but it was just a little too individual. The other is a Team Fortress 2 fan tribute, but I think I'll post that as a main page one day.
So tomorrow's article is completely unwritten, apart from 6 lines of notes I took about 30mins ago! Wonder what I can make of that...
Just published the latest review on the site - BOH the game is an interesting top down, adventure/action/puzzle game. It's quite intriguing in many ways! And I thought it was...Well, you'll have to read the review to find out!
I've just been checking out my list of games I'm waiting for. It's not very long at the moment so it doesn't take long!
One of the games is the new Ghostbusters game that has had it's ups and downs over the last year. I thought it strange that I heard nothing about it being at E3 (it may have been, but it wasn't one of the major headlines anyway) so I went to check out exactly when it was going to be released.
I was pleasantly surprised when I noticed a release date of the 19th of June this year! That's less than 2 weeks away! And then I noticed the format for that release.
PlayStation 3.
Isn't that a little strange? From what I hear PS3 is more difficult to program in so it doesn't really make sense that the release date for the PC is 4 months after this. But it's not just the PC version being delayed. It's the Xbox360, WII, DS and PSP versions that are all coming out a whole 4 months afterwards.
Could they be sending any more of a message to us all? E.g. Sony have paid us lots to stagger the releases this way.
It's not like they can play the "piracy" card when every other format is delayed. If this was the first time it had happened I'd probably be bothered or angry or something, but these days it's just the way they operate. I wonder what the given reason is though...
E3 ended fairly quietly I thought. There were hardly any huge revelations this year but a few things caught my attention:
Borderlands:
The new art style really seemed to work in the trailer I saw. I'd have preferred to hear more about this and I know some sites are saving their experiences with this until a few days when they've had time to write it up.
This really was the highlight of E3, even thought I knew about it already. Just to hear that it's so close to completion (either this year or early next year) gives me something big to look forward to. The idea of class based co-op combat in an FPS environment is just...well it makes me wonder what TF2 with a story would be like!
Milo
Possibly the scariest thing I heard about was a console add-on called Milo. I wouldn't normally mention console based stuff here but I reckon there's some overlap.
Essentially this is a futuristic virtual pet in the form of a young lad called Milo. He can apparently talk to you and hold a conversation with you and actually see you thanks to the "Natal" device from Microsoft. It's being developed by famous game designer Peter Molyneux and has some pretty sky high promises attached.
Some people have actually had a go with this and say it works. But every report I read said there was a shadowy figure nearby, working on a laptop connected to the games console being used. It kind of reminds me of the film "Shooting Fish" if you've seen that (probably not, you're not missing too much) where they managed to sell an AI to several companies that turned out to be someone else on another computer speaking into a microphone.
If this is real then it's probably the most amazing piece of gaming news this century. However, from my own experience I don't believe things have moved on fast enough to make this kind of AI real or possible.
Also, the subject matter worries me. The idea of a virtual 10 year old boy in my living room is not something I care for. It's almost disturbing that this was chosen rather than some kind of alien or talking creature instead. There are certain industries that can't wait to get hold of this, I'm sure.
For me though this will actually be something to avoid. I don't much like the idea of using my body as the "controller". It's a little too "lawnmower man"...
Left 4 Dead 2
Yes, this will be my last post including this until I hear something solid and promising (or even more annoying). I'm sure it will be an ok game, but then, so was the first.
It doesn't make any sense to me and Valve have asked us to "trust them a little". I'm all for that but unless something amazing is pulled out of the hat this will be one to wait for the discount.
In fact there is big news about over 15,000 fans boycotting L4D2 in a bid to ask it is made an "addon" to L4D rather than a full sequel. I couldn't agree more but that doesn't mean I'll buy it. The problem has rather been the lack of support for the first one compared to TF2. No-one wants to put any money into something that isn't cared for by it's creators.
I'll leave you with the "ironic" logo they chose for L4D2, linked straight from the L4D homepage. (has no one British told them about this?!)
Yes today I've decided to start a new section of the site that will host PC Game wallpapers. It's something I've been thinking about for a while but had resisted because...well I'm rubbish at making them!
So I've decided to ask for eveyone else's help as a kind of free exchange thing where you send them in, I'll put them up and everyone can download them!
Obvously there are a few rules (gotta be carefull these days) but generally it's as simple as emailing it to me and downloading anything you want.
I've started off with a Team Fortress 2 wallpaper I created myself with my limited graphics skills. It's quite a good screenshot that I used, which is actually a "death-cam" shot from TF2 where you can see me chasing a spy. It sums a lot of TF2 up for me so I thought it was appropriate!
I'll be trying to add one every week or so to keep the number of new ones appearing up, and I'll expand the site structure when more are put on.
So, please send in any wallpapers you've made and hopefully we can make this a great part of the site!
I realised I forgot to mention the first review this week, which is quite strange for me! I guess it's because of all the E3 news that was bouncing around the last few days. Anyway - the first game this week was Slide Colors which is a hard core puzzle game where you must slide whole rows or columns of tiles in order to arrange them into a particular pattern.
The next game I reviewed couldn't have been more different! Alien Shooter 2 is a fast paced isometric gun running game which was really quite...Well, why not read the review and find out!
There's a lot going round about this, a lot of people are obviously for it. Others are dead against it.
RockPaperShotgun especially have an interesting comments thread (that I also had to stick my oar into) about the whole thing. People do have some compelling arguments on both sides.
Most of the "gaming news world" appear to think this is all well and good. My personal feeling (as a consumer) is that it's going to bite them in the arse. My prediction for the sales of L4D2 are as follows:
PC version: fewer than expected x360 version: sky high
And I would think that's what Valve expect too.
Valve managed to get an update onto the Xbox version for L4D1 for free. As Doug Lombardi (Valve Marketing) has said "this wasn't easy". And it think this is the whole crux of the matter. To release DLC for a price is against the norm for Valve. But creating a "sequel"? Well, that fits in with their episodic model.
So, for xbox users who are used to paying for these kinds of updates (I'm not saying it's right, I'm just saying it's part of the xbox way) this isn't going to be too much trauma for them. However for PC users this is going to make a huge difference to the sales figures.
I can understand where Valve are coming from, but it's astounding that no PC user they initially asked about this idea (asuming they did) said "Um, wasn't all this supposed to be coming in L4D1?"
Overall I'm not too worried about all of this. Valve have always had good years and bad years in terms of public opinion. Remember when HL2 got delayed? Those were bad days too but they turned that around eventually.
Luckily there's something to look forward to from E3 at least. Gearbox's Borderlands sounds like it's just as good as I would have hoped from reports I've read. I only wish I'd been there to do some reporting.
I'm not really suggesting that IGN take bribes for high review scores. Nor am I suggesting that IGN would give a bad score on a game that was not advertised there. Neither am I suggesting that IGN would give a bad review for a game created by people they don't like. I'm sure none of that is true - but this is the lowest score I have seen from them for a big name title for some time!
In their review of "Damnation" the given score is 2.5 out of 10. From the videos around I can't tell if it really is that bad, but it doesn't look that great from the motorcycle video they posted.
They are reviewing the PS3 version of the game, so the other ports may be better. I had previously thought about getting this on steam but if even IGN gave this a score lower than 30% I don't think it will be worth my while - I've got plenty of cool indie games I'm playing right now anyway.
Damnation itself reminds me of "Gunman Chronicles" from 9 years ago. Do you remember that? Well probably not - and there's no reason that you should! That was a western-cyber-punk shooter (as opposed to this western-steam-punk shooter) and it made me avoid anything with a western theme from then on.
It's a shame becuase the premise doesn't look to bad - kind of like Mirror's Edge with guns. I have to admit the developer videos made me worry a little as they thought they had to explain what steam-punk meant to us, and to take a whole video for it.
Weird.
Anyway, this may be something I pick up at a much later date when it's dirt cheap and I can decide if IGN were right to put their vast number of visitors off buying this, or if they were dead wrong...partner.
Telltale games, the people behind the great return of Sam & Max, the ingenious Strong Bad games and the (unfortunately disapointing) Wallace and Gromit adventures have today announced that they are to start releasing Monkey Island series of 5 episodic games!
Compared with Wallace and Gromit I reckon this is far more up their street. There have been numerous attempts at bringing this IP back over the years but this could be the biggie.
I for one shall definetely be getting this but I have to admit - when the original Monkey Island games were released, I didn't have a PC! So I've never played them. In a way this is good because I have no expectations for the game.
Valve software, over the last 10 years have been community favourites, pumping out a number of top quality games.
This, of course, all started with Half Life. It took me a couple of years to get into Half Life, but once I did I was hooked! There was obviously something special about the way their event driven story telling worked.
It took many years for the sequel to be finished. It was worth the wait and thus in 2004 came another turning point in FPS gaming history. Half Life 2 was one of the first mainstream games to weave physics based game play into the story rather than just having it as a "feature" of the engine.
In 2006 we were surprisingly introduced to "Episode 1" an immediate sequel to HL2. Although not quite as good as HL2 itself, we were treated to far more character interaction than previously used to in the series.
In late 2007 things went a bit nuts and we were treated to 3 brand new games in one package. Episode 2 (continuing the HL saga), Portal - a brilliant FPS puzzle game and another example of Valve's story telling skills, and Team Fortress 2 - my now favourite team based shooter game of all time.
However, for me this stopped in December 2008 when I finally bought a Valve game I didn't like too much. Left 4 Dead, the zombie shooter co-op game which i had longed to play for well over a year up to that point was a huge disappointment for me. It didn't have the last-ability of Team Fortress 2 as it was hard to build a community around a game where the maximum player count is 4 (8 on the versus mode which I enjoyed even less).
Recently Valve have announced Left 4 Dead 2. A sequel to the original featuring 5 new campaign levels, new weapons, new characters and a whole bunch of other stuff.
I've had to wait a whole day before posting about this as my first reaction was akin to remorse. However since then I have tried to reassure myself that we do not yet know the full story. Is this going to be a full priced game? If not will L4D owners get a discount? Will L4D be updated ever again? Is this just a round-about way of pretending Console players won't have to pay for L4D updates?
It looks ok, and by the looks of things you get to kill Angelina Jolie... Also the date given is November 17 (no year given I notice) - and if that is this year I'll eat my golf clubs (I've not played for 10 years, don't need 'em) if they release on that day.
Assuming the game will cost over £20 (lets remember killing floor is now out and looks pretty good) I'll be avoiding it for some time for several reasons. Firstly there doesn't feel like any point in reviewing a non story based game sequel that is only an updated version of the original. Secondly the price will drop almost immediately after release like L4D, and if it doesn't I'm sure I'll hear if it's worth the cost from someone I know.
Again, assuming the worse, I'll be hanging my official HL2 fan-boy cap up. Unless Valve can announce anything that will make me eagerly wear it once more.
Yes, I have put a google ad column on the blog - but don't run away! It has a purpose other than advertising.
Basically, if you've ever used blogger as your blog you might notice that the statistics you can get on page views, etc... is, well, absent. I could use google analytics but that looked a bit bizarre to me, I'm not really bothered where everyone comes from or what my "bounce" rate is.
Therefore it serves a dual purpose. Possible giving me a little towards buying some of the games I review (not everyone gives me a free copy yet!) and letting me know how many times they show up (therefore: how many views of the blog there have been!)
They're pretty unobtrusive so hopefully they won't bother anyone too much.
Yes, E3 is almost upon us! It's probably the most exciting time of year for any PC game fan due to the sheer magnitude of news, information and rumour that oozes from it's intensive media orafices (ugh..well, okay).
So what am I looking forward to hearing about?
Valve's new projects! - No one knows exactly what this will be, or how much. They'll definetely be there but will we be hearing about HL2:Ep3 or Portal 2, or even TF3/L4D(2) is anyone's guess. It may even be a totally new project!
Borderlands - The Gearbox project that lots of people are talking about. Four player co-op game set on a distant colony where anything goes. Having over half a million weapon combinations and incorporating character classes like an RPG...this has been worth waiting for and there's already a teaser trailer:
Deus Ex 3 - I have unusually high hopes for this, mainly due to how the lead of the project gushes on his forums about how great the game is. That's not a concrete reason I'll grant you, but you don't see project leads talking about their games like this very often. A trailer would be very nice indeed!
So there we go, hopefully there will be news on one or more of these. I heard that the Montreal team for Deus Ex may not be there? But who knows what will happen over the next week! I can't wait...
There have been a few more wallpapers added this week!
This week I'm talking about adventure games on the PC. These are often overlooked as the PC is generally thought of as only good for browser games and FPS games.
