The Video Game Awards were this weekend and some games won some prizes. More importantly were the new game trailers that were released, and I’ve embedded 3 of my favourites below for your viewing pleasure. Check out the new Alan Wake game, awesome footage of Mass Effect 3, and the first footage of Naughty Dog’s new game The Last of Us.
Alan Wake: American Nightmare
Not Alan Wake 2, as Remedy have been clear to explain, this new game is download-only, so expect it on the Xbox Live Arcade sometime next year. It looks like more Alan Wake, basically. That can’t be a bad thing, but I hope they really do get the chance to make a true sequel somewhere down the line.
Mass Effect 3
So, its a video of Shepherd running towards a Reaper by himself, and I say out loud “what can even Shepherd do against THAT?”. And I am immediately hushed when a thresher maw leaps out of the ground and tries to eat it. Oh, fuck yes.
The Last of Us
If Naughty Dog were working on this during the development of Uncharted 3, then it explains a lot. They should have focused on making Uncharted less of an unfair balls-ache before coming up with a new IP. Still, can’t deny I’m intrigued by the prospect of a post-apocalyptic game made by these guys.
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.
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.
The successor to Goldeneye, Perfect Dark improved every possible aspect of the classic shooter and created an original masterpiece. 4-player multiplayer game modes, with the option of adding 8 extra bots made matches frantic chaos and endless fun. The singleplayer was fantastic at the time, featuring such state-of-the-art features as realtime lighting, blood spatter effects, and fully voice acted cinematic cutscenes. It even let you play the story in local co-op with a mate – player 2 got to be Joanna Dark’s weird-looking blonde sister – the first game I ever encountered with a co-op singleplayer mode.
The first horror game I ever played, and I never got beyond the room in the attic where the wolf attacks you. All 5 polygons of the terrifying beast were enough to send me fleeing from the room, leaving my father to deal with it.
Copyright © 2010 - 2026
Site designed and hosted by Tekamutt Media