Search-o-Saurus
Recent Highlights
Tags!
... of the week alan wake battlefield 3 bethesda bioshock infinite bioware co-op comic crysis 2 currently playing dead rising 2 dead space 2 demo deus ex 3 deus ex: human revolution dice dlc duke nukem forever e3 2011 ea eidos free gaming memories gearbox guest article ico indie limbo mass effect 3 minecraft notch PC portal 2 rage review skyrim starcraft 2 the last guardian Top Ten Games of 2010 Top Ten Games of 2011 trailer ubisoft upcoming valve zombiesOther Stuff By Us
Category Archives: Thoughts
Starcraft 2 – First Impressions
I’ve never played the original Starcraft, so I had no expectations about how good the sequel should be when I installed it and logged in using a free trial key. Barely 3 hours into the 7 hour trial, I decided I had to own this game, so I took a bunch of Xbox games I wasn’t playing anymore to a shop and traded them, which left only £2.50 to pay in cash. Win!
Gaming can make a better world – blimey.
As if I needed even more reason to play videogames, an intellectual woman goes and does a heap of research about it and provides the most convincing argument for why we should all play more games that I’ve ever heard. Below is a video of Jane McGonigal, a games designer and all-round awesome person who believes that “Reality is broken and we need to make it work more like a game.” It’s a 20 minute presentation, recorded in February 2010, and it’s one of the most thought-provoking things I’ve seen all year.
No Gold, No Games…
I have a habit. It’s a fun habit, but it’s also a very, very bad habit. It’s buying almost every new game that comes out for the 360, regardless of whether it has a review or not, good or bad. This has cost me dearly in situations where I’ve bought numerous games before knowing anything about how good they may or may not be, only to be left massively disappointed (i.e. Lost Planet 2, Naughty Bear).
This is a habit (addiction?) I’ve been forced to give up, and not because somebody said I should, or because I had some kind of epiphany about how life could be so much more without games. It’s because I have no money…
Currently playing… Limbo, Wolfenstein, Demon’s Souls
I have a terrible habit of playing too many games at once. The result is I have a huge backlog of games which I’ve bought and simply haven’t had time to look at yet. I got Bad Comany 2 the day it came out, and it’s still sitting here on my desk in its cellophane wrapping. I bought Final Fantasy XIII ages ago too and thats still sealed. And I even did install and play the first few hours of Bioshock 2, but then my PC decided to die on me, and I lost my savefiles…must get back to that soon. However, right now I have 3 games I’m focusing on, and aside from the fact they’re all dark and depressing, they couldn’t be any more different – one is a creepy 2D indie platformer, one is an old school FPS, and one is the most unforgiving RPG I’ve ever played.
Syndicate – Retro Tactical PC Goodness
You may or may not be aware of this old tactical PC title by the name of Syndicate (1993), created by the legendary Bullfrog Productions. It was one of my favourite games back in my hay day of PC gaming. Playing as a squad of genetically and cybernetically altered, upgradeable cyborgs enslaved by a multi-national corporation, your sole goal is to take over the entire planet, wiping out all competition in your path. What a superb concept; no heroes, just raw carnage with a totally selfish goal in a dystopian, Blade Runner Esc future setting.
With the possibility of a new Syndicate game on the horizon, I wanted to try and enlighten any retro game fans about all of the supreme gaming qualities this game combined to make something I found incredibly fun, even only a few months ago when I downloaded and played it again for the first time in over ten years.
Minecraft – How to Build a World
This is Minecraft. Paul and I, along with a few other mates have been playing this deceivingly simple-looking indie game for a few months now. It’s been made in Java, and is currently in pre-alpha, yet has gathered so much interest the maker has all but turned his full attention to the game, even quitting his day job so he can focus on adding more features to his game, which has the potential to be massive upon its release. In its current state, the best feature is the multiplayer creative mode. It’s all about building stuff out of square shaped bricks – think virtual Lego, only everything is made of differently textured cubes. We have been slowly building up our own little world, and I thought it could be fun to take you on a tour of our weird creations. Welcome to the Realm of Bal’dock. Be warned, this post contains a ton of pictures. Read More ››
Fallout – How I stumbled into the Wasteland
It’s only a few months now until Fallout New Vegas is released, and personally I just can’t wait! In great anticipation and as a huge fan of everything Fallout, I thought it could be fun to revisit my own story of how I found Fallout, and the path it has taken since the very first game by Black Isle Studios in 1997, right up to the brightly-lit release due out this Autumn.
Team Fortress 2: Some VERY late first impressions:
Yesterday I somehow found my way into playing Team Fortress 2 again properly on my PC, despite only ever playing games on my 360 for the last 4 years or so. I felt like reminiscing a little about when I used to play games on my PC, and have been considering the possibility that I might well go back to PC gaming soon.