Trine was a 2D yet 3D platform puzzler, in which you controlled 3 different characters each with unique skills, as they fight/swing/levitate their way across a traditional fantasy world. It was really charming, had simply gorgeous visuals and had some really clever little physics-based puzzles. I was sold on it from the demo, but I went and bought it from Steam as soon as it was out and played through it both by myself, and with my 10 year old cousin in the local co-op feature (I was on the keyboard, while she used a 360 gamepad). The only thing it was lacking was online co-op, which the game would have benefited hugely from. Apparently, Trine 2 will have such a feature, and its going to be great.
There was a trailer released at E3 and it looks to continue the story of the knight, thief and wizard, though how exactly they’ll justify them getting back together will be amusing, since if I remember rightly they managed to separate themselves at the end of the first game, after the ridiculously difficult final level. Not that it matters, I just want more cool physics puzzles to jump around in and I’ve never seen such a quality looking giant toad in a game before. The original Trine only came out on the Playstation Network and the PC, so I hope this time they release it on XBLA since it’d fit in very nicely. Though again, I’m mostly interested in the PC version, since it’ll clearly be the prettiest.
Dome Keeper is an excellent little spin on the tower defense game, in which you play the role of a jetpacking miner defending his base from swarms of aliens, whilst searching for a hidden relic buried somewhere beneath him. And now, with this huge free update, you can play it with friends.
I want to talk about Cloudpunk, a game where you get to be a flying-car delivery driver in a futuristic cyberpunk city. Its world is an incredible achievement of environmental design, and while the gameplay itself may be basic, the city of Nivalis is a thing of beauty to behold. Nivalis is built out of hundreds of hand-modelled cuboid buildings; there’s nothing procedural about it. Apparently it took 3 years for the devs to design the city, and it really shows.
I do love me some quality pixel art, and it doesn’t get much better than this. Cast n Chill is a cozy side-scrolling fishing game by small indie dev team Wombat Brawler, with absolutely gorgeous visuals. It’s simple to play, and you you can dip in and out of it at your leisure, making it a fine addition to our collection of coffee break games.
Return to Castle Wolfenstein introduced me to the world of PC gaming. I have my uncle Dave to thank for this. He used to play two games, Wolfenstein and Fighter Ace, and I loved going round his house because he had a gaming PC, curiously built by a company called Gateway… The PC was something so alien and awesome to me that it made my N64 seem like the toy it always was (I still love you, my 64). Wolfenstein became Enemy Territory, a free standalone multiplayer component, but it was the ‘original’ Return to Castle Wolfenstein that dragged me into PC gaming, and I’ve never looked back since.
Format: PC
Year: 2000
It may look clunky as hell thanks to the original Unreal engine, but Deus Ex was a pioneer in videogames because it gave the player so many choices to make. It resulted in one of the deepest gaming experiences of the time, because it went to great effort to show the consequences of those choices. The story was spread across many ‘hub’ levels, giving you total freedom to approach your objectives whichever way you wanted, aided by an RPG style upgrade tree that you invested in as you played. Wanna finish it without killing a single soul? That is entirely possible. Prefer to tool up with a rocket launcher and just murder your way to the end? Nothing could stop you. Your NPC allies would respond differently back in the Unatco base, depending on what you did out in the field. This level of responsiveness was unparalleled for a long time, to the point that even if you walked into the ladies toilets, your boss would scold you for it during the mission debrief later on. It was many little moments like that which made the game so memorable for me.
The latest trailer for Dune Part Three just dropped. It looks rather splendid.
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