Format: PS3
Release date: 2009
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. (Come on, the PC version of Dark Souls is called the “Prepare to Die” edition.) I love that these games exist, it’s just they require a level of patience that I simply do not possess. Fortunately, my good friend and ex-housemate Robbie does. I watched him play through most of Dark Souls 2, all of its DLC, and then Dark Souls 3, quite content to sit back on the sofa and enjoy the gruelling, oppressive show. My favourite memory of these games started with the original on PS3, Demon’s Souls.
Robbie chose to play as a lightly armoured thief type adventurer, armed with swift daggers, or a short sword & shield combo. His tactics were to always have enough stamina and agility to dodge attacks and roll out of the way. (He sometimes liked to hide in a spot and fire 600 arrows at a boss that didn’t know where he was; Robbie’s not a man above exploiting enemy AI when you’re balls-deep in a terrifying Souls dungeon). About 5 hours into Demon’s Souls, he found himself exploring a vast, ruinous castle, a typically grim location, full of undead skeleton soldiers, a gigantic blob monster riddled with spears, and a couple of fire-breathing dragons.
We were both busy gawping at one of the dragons from what we thought a safe distance, as it lay on a mound, sleeping at the end of a long stone rampart. Between it and us was a small army of skeletons, but by this point Robbie had gotten the hang of dealing with them. So, he crept onto the rampart and began meticulously dispatching the skeletons one at a time, heading towards the sleeping dragon. Suddenly, its wings opened up and it took to the sky… ah, not asleep, then. Within seconds, it had swooped towards the rampart and rained hellish dragonfire down across the walkway burning every skeleton and us in the process. “YOU DIED” appeared in big red capital letters in the middle of the screen, not for the first or last time. “I guess you can’t go that way,” I said to Robbie when he respawned at the nearest bonfire. “Of course I can!” he declared. “I need my souls!”
He died on the second, third, fourth and fifth attempts to cross the rampart, before giving up and going to another area of the castle. But eventually, many days later, he came back and defeated that pesky dragon. How? He hid on the rampart and fired 600 arrows at it until it died.
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.
Format: PS3
Release date: 2010
Heavy Rain is more like an interactive movie than a game, and it is mostly excellent. It’s a game about choices and living with the consequences. I played it through twice myself, just to see how different decisions affect the story and its ultimate conclusion, but to say that my first try was emotional would be the understatement of the century. This game almost broke me. I’ll tell you how soon, but first I want to recount the story of one of my friend’s choices… Like I said, watching Heavy Rain is just like watching a movie, but watching your friend play Heavy Rain gives you an amusing bit of insight into their psychology. The results can be hilarious.
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.
Doki Doki Literature Club has dug its way into my chest and ripped me apart over the last couple of nights. It’s a free visual novel game where you get to know a bunch of girls in an afterschool book club… except not really. It looks exactly like any other tropey Japanese dating sim type game, but what lurks underneath this cutesy exterior is something really quite sinister and thought-provoking. The game’s tagline does a good job of reminding you that all is not what it seems: “This game is not suitable for children or those who are easily disturbed.”
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