The summer gaming drought is drawing to a close at long last. These past few months have felt very much like the ‘calm before the storm’ because while there were no new releases to get particularly excited about, this autumn is looking to be an unbelievably expensive time. The likes of Battlefield 3, Skyrim, Uncharted 3, Arkham City, Rage, Modern Warfare 3, the latest Assassin’s Creed game and of course Minecraft, are all due out between now and Christmas. I’ve no idea how I’m gonna find time to play them all. Kicking off the big releases last week was Paul and myself’s most anticipated game of the year and the prequel to one of the best games of all time – Deus Ex: Human Revolution. Is it any good? Well, we’re not willing to go into too much detail yet, but the short answer is a definitive ‘yes’. I also picked up the top-down indie adventure Bastion, and the visually stunning Alice: Madness Returns. Read on to find out what I think so far…
Deus Ex: Human Revolution
It is not a disappointment. After months of anticipation and drooling eagerly over the many, MANY trailers that preceded its launch, the wait was over and Deus Ex 3 has been unleashed upon the world. I’m approximately halfway through the game, taking my sweet time to explore every nook and cranny, hacking my way through as many secret doors as possible, completing every side mission, robbing every innocent shopkeeper of his credits…er yeah. It totally is living up to the original, and so far at least, is a more memorable experience than Invisible War. The graphics are unfortunately consolified, but the art style is lovely – the colour palette is full of soft yellows and oranges mixed with industrial greys and blacks which somehow complement each other. Its a unique visual design that I have never seen before in a game, and I love it. Paul is playing through the Xbox version too, so one of us should have a review of it soon enough.
Bastion
I have only experienced the first hour or so of this charmingly made indie game. You are a young kid who has survived an event known only as The Calamity, which has apparently destroyed most of the world. As you make your way through the environments, the ground literally forms around your feet, flying in from nowhere and planting itself in front of you. It’s a nice visual touch showing off the game’s intricate artwork. The game has a fantastic soundtrack too, with music that sounds very reminiscent of the tv show Firefly with its western riffs and melodies. But the star of the show is the narrator. The omnipotent voice follows you and narrates everything as it goes along in a deep, husky style that feels like his sole existence is inside a cheesy B-movie trailer. But it absolutely works, and he is constantly funny and endearing with his endless quips. The story seems basic at first, but the further you play, the more everything gets explained and all the pieces slowly fit into place (both figuratively, and literally as you rebuild the Bastion itself). So far, so good, its the perfect relaxing game to enjoy after a tense bout of Deus Ex.
Alice: Madness Returns
I must admit, I have not gotten around to installing this yet. Reviews and write-ups seem to suggest the gameplay is rather repetitive and even tedious eventually, but I’m a sucker for pretty graphics, and the demented, crazy world of Wonderland was too much to resist, especially in game form. I’ll leave you with this deliciously dark trailer:
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.
Fighter Ace was a free-to-play Second World War dogfighting game. You just logged in, spawned in a big sky with about 20 or 30 other people and shot the shit out of each other. It taught me that the Japanese Zero was one of the greatest fighter planes of WW2. Sure, it was lightly armoured and went down easily with just a few direct hits, but it was so manoeuvrable, so fast and agile that it could take on pretty much any other plane and come out on top.
It’s difficult to describe the levels of hype that I felt leading up to the release of Half Life 2, and I know I wasn’t alone. This was a generation-defining moment in gaming, the likes of which has never really been replicated, and likely never will, for multiple reasons. Not only was HL2 a huge leap forward for its artistic and technological design, it ushered in an entirely new way to buy games and changed the gaming landscape forever.
One of my all-time favourite gaming memories is playing Haunting Ground with my mates at the flat in Baldock for 16 hours straight. It was me holding the controller for almost all of those 16 hours. It’s a bit obscure, so if you haven’t heard of it, it’s a survival horror game by Capcom, in which you play as a pretty little fragile girl called Fiona, who must escape from a huge labyrinthine castle. Oh, and you can’t fight. Your only option is to run away and hide from the nasty people that are out to get you. You do have a companion throughout though, the best dog in gaming, a white German Shepherd called Hewie.
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