Sometimes, a game comes along that does something extra-ordinary.
Before you play it, you can't help but wonder if you're going to like it - exactly because of it's differences - but once you have played it, you see the world just a little bit differently. The game opens new possibilities, new vistas.
Loom's story isn't wholly original, but given it's run time and the themes it's trying to convey to the player, that's just fine. What is masterful is the way it presents this story. Read more
Game Changers is a semi-regular column featuring games which have had a significant impact on me over the years. Games that were so incredibly stunning and awe-inspiring, they changed my conception of what a game could be at the time. Previously, I have written about Out Run, Street Fighter Alpha 3, and Red Dead Redemption.
When the first-person shooters first rose to prominence, they were almost entirely non-existent anywhere besides the PC. Console controllers at the time simply weren't equipped to handle movement and aiming together in any kind of intuitive way. That all changed with Rare's 1997 smash hit, GoldenEye 007.
Rare made expert use of the uniquely designed Nintendo 64 controller when implementing the control scheme for the game. They utilized the brand new controller features like the analog joystiq, yellow C buttons, and gun-like Z trigger for more natural-feeling movement and shooting than had been possible before. The brilliance of their control scheme was that it worked so well with Nintendo's oddball controller. A device design that had previously left many fans scratching their heads suddenly made (some) sense. It seemed almost as if Nintendo had designed the controller for GoldenEye, and not the other way around. What's more is that for the first time, a game developer had successfully created an acceptable way to enjoy the wildly popular first-person shooter genre on a home game console.
While the first-person shooter control scheme may not have ultimately achieved perfection until 2001's Halo on the original Xbox, GoldenEye represented an absolutely crucial stepping stone along the path; basically, the only real stepping stone. The game opened up the world of first-person shooters to millions of people who only liked to play games on their television sets. The genius of this timeless classic cannot be overstated and the controls are only but one of the numerous reasons why.
Sure, I may be cheating by not counting this as a Nonstiq topic. But I do think it's time we talked about how a Green Lantern game could work if done by a competent studio with a full development cycle. Why am I doing this? Well mainly because I just recently got into the Green Lantern Mythos and have been rather disappointed with myself for putting it off for nearly 20 years. Because as a huge Star Wars fan, the Green Lantern lore has been right up my alley, but more on that later. In about 3 years we’re going to be seeing Warner Brothers take another shot at the Lanterns on the big screen with the Green Lantern Corps film. And of course, I hope the rumors about CW maybe taking a crack at a Lantern's Light are true. I would honestly trade all that for a proper Green Lantern Game, not just a movie-tie in serving as a quick cash grab.
Hey. You guys ever play the Lost Planet games? I never played the first one but I did play the second. Heads up, it's aged like Melanie Griffith. But the third installment wasn't half bad. Stick around and I'll tell you why it could be worth going back to now. Read more
Welcome, everyone to another edition of game club. Game club is not at all like Fight Club. We absolutely encourage you to talk about it.
As ever, we go in rounds and for this particular round, I’ve picked the stellar adventure game Beneath A Steel Sky.
Read on past the break to find out how this is going to work and what you need to do to get the game. Read more
Alright so I guess I'm late to the party here but after much anticipation of the Warmastered Edition's release date tomorrow (the 25th of October) it turns out there's been a delay.
According to THQ Nordic, they'll be pushing back the release until November 29th for PC and November 22nd for console. Unfortunately there were no reasons given for the push back but it looks like we'll have to wait another month to jump back into War's Story.
My original article can still be read below, and you can bet that I'm still excited for this one.
You guys know I really like Darksiders from my review of Darksiders 2: Dethinitive Edition that I did did a few months back right? Well, not terribly long ago Nordic Games also announced the remaster of the original Darksiders called the Darksiders: Warmastered Edition, and it's live on October 25th.
I'll certainly be picking this one up. Darksiders was a killer title when it came out and it was one of the first games I got when I built my PC back in 2011. I'm really excited for this one especially if it's anywhere near as good as the last remaster Nordic did for the series.
The Warmastered Edition will be available for PS4 and Xbox One, boasting 1080p at 60 fps. There will also be a Wii U version that will be capped at 30 fps. For those of us who flex our PC muscles, we'll get up to 4k resolution and lots of additional video and control options. All versions of the game will be treated to improved textures and post processing as well as better shadows etc. There won't be any new content but it should still be vastly improved over the original Darksiders, and that's ok with me -I'm very important.
We'll get all the improvements and badassery one would expect from a current gen remaster for the so good price of $20. I can't wait to see how it is and write extensively about it in one of my all too long reviews that I occasionally bore you all with. Of course the rumor mill is still churning with speculation that these remasters are in fact a test for the audience reception of a possible Darksiders 3. One can only hope.
Recently we did a play through of Alan Wake for Twinstiq Game Club and after it was over I had an itch for a good fast paced shooter. I had played Doom not too long ago and as good as it was, I didn't want to start that over again quite yet. I Considered Rage: It was fun and it had some cool elements even if it was hampered by poor texture resolution and lots of pop-ins. Then I saw a rumor going around that there was likely going to be a remaster of Bulletstorm in 2017. "That could be fun" I thought "I haven't played it since it was new". And guess what? It holds up pretty well. Be forewarned that this article contains some bad language... because it's about Bulletstorm. Read more
Last week, we talked a little about Brothers and games very like it. These titles are often experiences more than they are games. You get into them and you direct a protagonist, but you don’t do much actual video gaming: there’s no one to kill, there’s no score to beat and – most tellingly, often, no way to really fail.
There’s just you, the story and whatever medium the story passes through as it unfolds. Sometimes, this is a walking simulator, [you are in a 3d environment where you can roam around and encounter the story] sometimes, it’s a text-driven experience where the narrative unfolds as a collection of still pictures and verbose writing, but sometimes – as is the case with To The Moon – the entire affair is top-down and looks remarkably like an old-school 16 bit RPG.
At first, that sounds like a supremely odd thing to do, but it works here. It works because a lot of the story is conveyed by dialogue and RPG’s can sometimes by very dialogue heavy. Read more
Gaming is largely made up of two big landmasses.
On the one hand, we have games that are truly games – with systems and high scores and scores of people to kill.
On the other, there are experiences. The industry hasn’t been kind to these, calling them walking simulators and then writing them off, but these experiences are part of the glue-that-binds. You see, there are just things that cannot be done in a book or movie form. You can only have them as games.
Brothers is a game like this. It straddles a quite-fine line between experience/walking simulator and “game” but it thrives exactly because it’s on that knife edge.
And, in one short play through, it has become one of my very favourite games of 2016. Read more
Every now and then something pretty special makes it to gaming that is able to share something real with the world. Song of the Deep is one of those games and if you'll stick with me I'll tell you a little about it and my experience playing. Read more
