What a load of crap this is. Notch, creator of Minecraft and all-round indie-game legend, is being sued by Bethesda. Mojang have upset some uppity bigwigs by trying to call their new game ‘Scrolls’, which apparantly is too similar to ‘The Elder Scrolls’ (Morrowind, Oblivion, Skyrim, etc). As a gamer with enough basic knowledge to understand they are 2 completely different games based on 2 very different genres – one is a sprawling third-person RPG, the other is a card collecting game with a fantasy theme – I can’t understand why such a fuss should be made. Surely you can’t copyright a single word, especially one so generic as ‘scrolls’. And yet here we are – its like Tim Langdell all over again. The world of copyright and trademarks can be pretty damn infuriating sometimes. The fact that this one involves two game developers I am very fond of is saddening.
Amusing Creeper Lawyer pic from Minecraft Lawyer.
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: Sega Mega Drive
Year: 1992
Another rare game in my long list of memories that include my brother, Sam, is Streets of Rage 2. It was the best in a trilogy of side scrolling beat-em-ups on the Sega Mega Drive. (Genesis in America). We would always play as the same 2 characters: I was Axel, and my brother would be Skate. He loved the agility and bombastic acrobatics that the tiny skater dude could pull off. Many of the boss fights would end with Sam leaping onto their necks and pummelling them in the back of the head. I liked Axel’s swinging flaming punch, and his multi-hit special combo. It’s a simple but satisfying game built around stylised hand to hand violence.
There’s not a lot I can say about Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 that hasn’t already been said, but here’s my take anyway. The game deservedly garnered a heap of attention when it came out for being a fantastic example of a JRPG, that happened to be made in France. Technically, ignoring the fact that the team includes a bunch of ex-Ubisoft veterans, it’s the debut title from developers Sandfall. And what a debut game it is.
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.
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