So I finally got round to getting my First Access Club demo key for Duke Nukem Forever, but to be honest I was a tad unimpressed by the experience.
For some reason the resolution, despite being at maximum, is still kind of bad; everything is sort of fuzzy. The models of the characters are quite out-dated, and the gameplay itself feels like that of something released nearly 10 years ago. I still had some fun with it, though, and I never truly had any expectations of any groundbreaking gameplay or ideas. It’s a Duke-fest, with nostalgic comments and scenes that take me back to some of the memories of Duke 3D, but so far nothing more.
The highlight for me was writing ‘dick’ and ‘tits’ in varying colours of pen on the whiteboard next to a commanding soldier who then proceeded to praise my plan to take down the huge monster on the football field, so I did get at least a few laughs out of the typically immature-but-spot-on Duke humour. The demo is only about 30 minutes long so I can’t imagine it’s really enough time to get a great feel for all of the content in the game, but apparently the full game is going to be around 17 hours long. This is ample time for there to be a lot more to see and do, and maybe even redeem the let-down of the simple, rather empty demo. Pretty sure this won’t be a day-one purchase though, as I simply can’t afford to gamble at the moment; I learned my lesson about pre-ordering on faith alone when I bought Naughty Bear.
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.
I don’t get on with the Souls games at all, but I really wish that I did. For me, the combat was just a little too clunky and, oh, you know, fucking difficult.
Beyond: Two Souls is a paranormal action thriller starring Ellen Page and Willem Dafoe. You’d be forgiven for assuming it’s a Hollywood film based on that description, but it is in fact the latest game from Quantic Dream, the studio behind the equally cinematic Heavy Rain. It’s tempting to compare the two, but Beyond is a different experience, opting to tell a linear story with fewer choices and consequences. As a big fan of Heavy Rain’s dynamic storytelling approach, I expected to be disappointed but as soon as I started playing I realised what writer and director David Cage was trying to achieve and felt satisfied to go along for the ride. Because what a ride it is…
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