There’s some exciting yet controversial news for Bioshock fans! There’s an all-new game on the horizon (woo!) but it’s not set underwater, not about Rapture, and well, seems to have next-to-nothing to do with Bioshock 1 or 2…
The trailer below (courtesy of PC Gamer) starts off with what seems to be the only reference to the original games throughout, but mere seconds later we are thrown into disarray as the main character of the clip is suddenly grabbed by what appears to be a giant bio-mechanical machine (no, not a Big Daddy) and thrown out of a window! What happens after that? Well, you’ll just have to watch this awesome trailer to see for yourself!
I’m a huge fan of the Bioshock series, and with the sequel to the first game having been released only earlier this year I had no expectations of seeing another release from this franchise for at least another year, so seeing this trailer was a very nice surprise, even if I was a little bit confused about the setting for the game so far.
How the designers decided to go from deep underwater in the chaotic city of a secret society gone wrong to a huge airship city called Columbia way up in the sky is beyond me, but I for one am excited to see how they are going to pull it off gameplay-and-visuals-wise! Assuming that plasmids may still be the main gameplay element of the game, I’m expecting to be able to use telekinesis to pick enemies up and throw them overboard into a long free-fall to death or bounce them off the sides of the hot air balloons keeping the city afloat. Of course there will be a lot more to the game than just that, but if I can simply do that then I’ll definitely be happy!
I just hope the hardcore Bioshock fans don’t immediately boycott the game because of something as trivial as it not being set underwater anymore. To be honest, since we’ve already had two very deep stories about the city of Rapture (no pun intended) I think it should be fantastic to have some brand new and totally fresh scenarios and gameplay opportunities thrown into the mix thanks to the new setting and likely a new storyline. The game is apparently set for a 2012 release though, so that’s a damn long while to wait. Let’s hope it’s going to be as good as we might hope for!
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.
Now and then one can’t help climbing aboard the hype train. You work yourself up into a frothing frenzy in anticipation of some new game whose trailers and screenshots make it seem like the best…thing…EVER. That’s how I felt about Conker’s Bad Fur Day when I first read about it in N64 Magazine (before the internet butchered the magazine industry). They did several preview write-ups about it in the years before it was released, and it changed from being a cutesy 3D adventure, to merely looking like a cutesy 3D adventure plastered with a layer of adult filth. I couldn’t have been more excited to play it. Did it live up to my expectations? Hell yes.
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.
Format: PC
Year: 2001 – present day
If Return to Castle Wolfenstein was my first date with PC gaming, Battlefield 1942 was when she invited me to meet her parents, and the relationship went to the next level. My god, did I really just write that analogy?
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