I never actually played the original StarCraft, and so I’m not that excited about the ridiculously-long-awaited-and-hyped-to-shit sequel, but any follow-up to the game that became a national sport in South Korea is worthy of attention, especially since it’s out on Tuesday. That, and I’m a sucker for Blizzard’s truly masterful CGI animation, of which the newest trailer is mostly made up of.
Blizzard have apparantly banned any reviews of this being made public until the game is officially out. This has been happening a few times recently (APB did it last month). There’s definitely something dodgey about not allowing any reviews to be released before a game comes out. Since this is Blizzard, it’s a damn safe bet the game will be highly polished and is gonna sell by the bucketload, so theres very little risk of them losing much money due to a couple of negative reviews before its launch, but the principle of physically trying to control what critics have to say about a game always makes me a bit suspicious. Blizzard’s justification is due to their BattleNet service not going live until the game is out, so anyone with an early copy who attempts to play the game before then won’t be getting the genuine experience they would if they did have access to all the features of BattleNet (in fact, I don’t think anyone can play the game at all right now, until they flick the big red ‘on’ button). This makes sense to me, but is it naive to wonder why they couldn’t just open up the service a few days before, allowing reviewers and whatnot to try it? It’s pretty common practice to see a heap of reviews for a game out there on all the regular sites a few days (sometimes weeks) before a game comes out, and a lot of people rely on them to decide whether or not to buy a game in the first place.
But then this is Blizzard, and we all know they can do whatever the damn hell they like, so who’s gonna argue? That, and I’m positive StarCraft 2 is still going to be an awesome game. Drool at the lovely CGI below:
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.
Don’t kill people. That’s the ARC’s job. Make no mistake, I ain’t no softie. Just coz I won’t attack you first, don’t mean I won’t defend meself from a rat bastard who likes the look of my backpack! The rustbelt is a volatile place. I’ve seen what it’s done to us. What it does to the mind. But we gotta stick together, fight for humanity, and focus our efforts where it truly matters – FOR SPERANZA!
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.
It’s safe to say that Fumito Ueda’s third game was one of my most anticipated titles of the previous generation. Announced in 2009, I eagerly watched every gameplay trailer and read up every snippet of information I could. Ico and Shadow of the Colossus remain two of my most beloved games, and I found the idea of another game by the same studio a mouth-watering temptation. A multitude of delays and long periods of silence from both Sony and the developers led many to believe it would never see the light of day, not to mention the troubling news that Ueda himself had left the project due to creative differences with Sony. The game lingered in development hell for several years and its fate was uncertain. Ueda and his team remained with the project as consultants and the game eventually had a release date set for December 2016. My excitement rekindled and I wondered how it could ever live upto 7 years of anticipation. So, was it worth the wait?
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