While I’m on the subject of game demos today, I might as well mention the Crysis 2 demo too. Sadly, it’s only a multiplayer demo, and really, who wants a fucking multiplayer demo of a predominantly single player game? I don’t care about leveling up my persistent character before I get the full game, I’ll do it when own the full thing. I want to shoot some aliens in Times Square first! Anyway, with my frustrated mini-rant over, read on for a quick opinion on the demo gameplay itself.
Despite my complaining about the demo being focused on the multiplayer instead of on the single player, I have to admit, I’m very impressed so far with the visuals and the gameplay, as far as a sequel to such an awesome original game goes. Though the controls are a little bit funny (jumping doesn’t occur until about half a second or more after you hit the button, making evasive maneuvers slightly too sluggish for my liking) the graphics are still very nice, and the guns look really cool, and feel like they really pack a punch when you unload a clip into somebody.
The most important thing we want to know about though are the super-suit/super hero powers that made the first game so damned fun to play. Now, I’m fully aware that most games water down certain aspects of single player content (Red Dead Redemption) to make it more appropriate for online play, so it’s probably just because of that – but all of the powers you get a hold of, at least at the very start of your online career in Crysis 2, have a very short period of activity. Hitting the cloak button will keep you invisible, but only for about 5-10 seconds, and if you run around or move at all you aren’t very difficult to spot. I know this because I killed a bunch of folks trying to sneak up on me, from the front. Idiots.
The other powers I had a blast with were the power armour ability, which increases your damage resistance (though in the frantic action taking place in multiplayer was almost entirely useless, as I didn’t feel like I took any more shots before dying the same amount of times as I was without it on), the super speed, which is essentially just sprinting quite fast, and only really good for trying to escape. But my favourite power, right after invisibility, was the jump-smash move (I forget it’s real name, but it makes no difference) which allows you, whilst in mid-jump, to hit the ‘B’ button, sending you slamming down into the ground, complete with your own mini-micro-shock-wave, killing anybody you hit in the process. It takes about a second too long to recover from though, and so if you do manage to pull the kill off, you are left vulnerable to attack from any other sucker who comes along and tries to get a dig in.
Obviously, I’m saving any judgment for when the game is released, but in all honesty from what I’ve seen in the demo, I can only hope that the single player gives the player a lot more freedom to take their time with stealth kills, or go absolutely nuts with the super jumps and super slam attacks (and hopefully, super throw-people-against-the-wall) against the pitiful weaklings who don’t all have suits just like you, like the chaps in multiplayer. Most of the fun for me will be knowing I’m playing as a bad ass, unstoppable mofo (yes, I said mofo) where the hundreds of puny men I get to mow down and punch into space will not be able to do a damn thing about it.
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.
Is bingeing bad for us? It seems an obvious question, but I have been thinking about it lately, while revisiting Lost, the tv show that started 22 years ago (cripes, I feel old). Back when it was airing, my friends and I watched it religiously every week, talked about it in great detail, eagerly awaiting the next episode. It was the definitive show of its time, sparking debates and endless theories. It felt great to be a part of that, the sense of all experiencing the same thing together over a long period of time – most seasons had over 20 episodes, which is way more than most shows get these days – and they aired one by one, every week for several months. In today’s age of bingeing a show from beginning to end, I wonder what we are missing by not taking our time.
Last night I finished Firewatch. It’s a first-person mystery game, being rudely dubbed a ‘walking simulator’ by some of the reviews I’ve seen elsewhere. While it’s true, the game has you fulfilling various tasks in a forest in which you navigate solely by hiking, that description completely ignores the beautifully told story and the reason you are there at all. Having completed it, I want to recommend it to everyone because it’s fantastic. I also would say that the less you know the better, so don’t read the rest of this review, just go and get it.
I’ve played many versions of Mario Kart, first on the Snes at a friend’s house, followed by my own copy of the N64 version. The Nintendo DS edition got a lot of play during the various anime conventions that I attended between 2006 and 2011, where you could LAN it up via Bluetooth with anyone else in the vicinity. But the version I truly have the fondest memories of has to be Mario Kart Wii.
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.
