This weekend, Anders Behring Breivik murdered 76 people in Oslo, Norway. He has written a “manifesto”, explaining his actions, and among the 1’500 pages of whatever bullshit a psychopathic zealot might discuss are several refrences to video games. He claims to have used Modern Warfare 2 as a “training simulation” for his operation, and WoW as an excuse to his friends and family for spending so much time in isolation. This is no doubt going to dig up the age-old misguided media-fuelled argument that videogames are responsible for making people go around killing people. I expect Jack Thompson will rear his ugly face soon enough, but I want to get in here right away: the man who carried out this attack is INSANE.
Even his own lawyer thinks so. Ever since Columbine, the media has tried to blame games for inspiring tragic events, blowing it completely out of proportion, and never being able to provide any tangible evidence to back it up. The fact that Breivik has openly admitted to enjoying games, so much as to say he used it as a way of training himself is troubling indeed, and will no doubt give the media the fuel to bring it up again, but let’s keep this in context shall we: this is a single, highly unstable man with a ridiculous agenda. He has a serious mental condition, the likes of which is found amongst only the rarest of people. When you consider that the millions of people who enjoy playing games such as Call of Duty on a regular basis do it purely as a way of harmless entertainment, you can understand why we get pretty pissed off when misguided ignoramuses start looking for a story where there is none.
You don’t need me to tell you there is a monumental difference between clicking a mouse button to simulate killing digital soldiers, and physically pulling the trigger of a real gun aimed at a fellow human being in real life. To expect that the former can be used to prepare yourself for the latter is only something a lunatic would say. And Breivik has proved exactly that.
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.
I’ve been pretty absent from PC gaming for some time, since moving to Canada in early 2017, because I haven’t had a proper computer to play games on. That has recently changed, since I got myself set up with a new gaming rig that can handle pretty much anything that’s out at the moment. I […]
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
Release date: 1993
I have 2 memories of this game that are separated by over 20 years.
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