So Battlefield 3 is out soon, but we just got hold of the Vietnam expansion to Bad Company 2 and had a three hour blast on it last night. Hughie’s, flamethrowers and NAPALM. Oh yes.
Paul
I have Battlefield fever and I had a severe urge to shoot lots of (virtual) people online. Vietnam is an awesome expansion to BC2, but christ is it difficult.
Matt
We were unfortunate with the teams, not to mention being rather late to this particular party. We had no idea what any of the maps were or where to go, or what good guns were…but I’d forgotten how much raw fun you can have just by squadding up and going for it.
Paul
It’s certainly a different experience when you make an effort to sneak around, picking off targets carefully, instead of attempting to impersonate Rambo. It took me about 100 deaths to realize it wasn’t working.
Matt
Ha, yeah, running across open rice fields is a sure way to get sniped. Some people have godly skills with that thing. You haven’t lost your touch with flying choppers – mowing down Charlie with a mounted m60 on the side of a Hughie hasn’t been this much fun since the original Battlefield Vietnam…
Paul
It’s a pity the snipers you mentioned also had the sickening ability to shoot us out of the cockpit or passenger seats of the helicopters, regardless of how fast you’re flying.
Matt
At least you get a nice view as you fall to your death. This game is gorgeous. Hill 137 looked particularly spectacular – it put Black Ops Vietnam level to shame.
Paul
Was that the one with the incinerated jungle, scorched to oblivion by the napalm bombs? I was astonished by that level, the change from the first segment of lush green foliage to charred, black, burning hillsides had me looking around longer than I was fighting. It would explain my extremely poor performance.
Matt
There was a moment where we both crept around by the river, and looked up at the hill as two jets flew past. We literally stopped and both gawped at the horizon as it lit up in a bright flash, and smoke started to rise. The next section of the map was set in that utterly destroyed jungle and it looked amazing. Even if it wasn’t dynamic level changing, it did an awesome job of convincing me otherwise.
Paul
Absolutely. The new selection of weapons available in VIetnam have given us so much stuff to play with that I still haven’t even used it all – in fact I haven’t even driven a tank yet.
But the flamethrower. Oh god, the beautiful flames. Sneaking up on two enemy soldiers camping at the top of a hill and then burning them alive with a hose of firey liquid death was extremely satisfying, but also kind of.. horrific. (Note: I am not nor have I ever been an arsonist in real life)
Matt
It’s the best flamethrower since Return to Castle Wolfenstein. It’s safe to say we like Bad Company Vietnam. It’s the perfect way to kill the time between now and Battlefield 3.
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.
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is a depressing game. It’s epic and majestic, but undoubtedly bleak. Luckily, it also has some hilarious moments timed with comedic perfection, which somehow never feel out of place. It’s a credit to the writers, and the performances of the voice actors. These are my favourite funny moments of Expedition 33.
There’s not a lot I can say about Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 that hasn’t already been said, but here’s my take anyway. The game deservedly garnered a heap of attention when it came out for being a fantastic example of a JRPG, that happened to be made in France. Technically, ignoring the fact that the team includes a bunch of ex-Ubisoft veterans, it’s the debut title from developers Sandfall. And what a debut game it is.
Portal is one of those games that sprang out of nowhere, taking everyone by surprise and causing a storm all across the internet. With almost no hype, and zero expectations, it came bundled as a throwaway extra in The Orange Box, arguably the best game bundle ever made.
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