Because negative press isn’t challenging enough: remind ourselves that good things are in plain view.
F***heads – Brawl For One
“Durp!” – Pachter: “Two + Two = SEVEN!”
Oh boy, here we go again. Only our favorite videogame analyst in the world, Michael Pachter, could be obnoxious enough to drag me out of hiding. And it’s a three-fer, so enjoy a triple helping of Pachterd Sandwich…
The Last Of Us – Videogames Growing Up
After turning the gaming world upside down with the Uncharted games, Naughty Dog is about to revolutionize gaming again in a whole new way. Game Director of The Last of Us, Bruce Straley (God), recently took time out of his busy schedule to talk to Siliconera about the most anticipated game of 2013.
F1 2011 (3DS) – Wildly Unplayable
Formula 1 has arrived in full 3D glory on 3DS, and it’s every bit as fast and impressive as I hoped! The physics are good, sense of speed fantastic, and the game is not plagued by bugs like the latest console versions. Unfortunately, there’s some bigger fundamental problems that make it a hard game to spend time with.
You’re Playing It Wrong – Mario Kart 7
Let’s get straight into it, because every time I play online there’s at least one dumbass who shouldn’t have a karting license.
Capitalism Ho!
I hope you’re all enjoying the devaluation of intellectual property in the Steam summer sale. Spare a thought for those who live south of the equator in Australia, who not only have to contend with winter but have daily deals look something like this.
I was thinking of captioning this but the picture says it all really.
Mutant Mudds – A Cool Game
Look at this man. Isn’t he a rugged, handsome, well-learned individual? He’s not the new Miyamoto, he’s not going to predict the future of videogames, and he wont try to sell you a graphics engine. He’s just a guy who wanted to make a cool game. Mutant Mudds is that cool game.
Silent Hill: Shattered Expectations
Silent Hill: Shattered Memories is a horror game without weapons. You’ve got a flashlight and a map, and the only way to deal with the horrific creatures in the game is to run for your life. It’s a psychological thriller with a world that is constantly adapting to what you learn, and it keeps you on your toes by completely ignoring gaming conventions and doing it’s own thing.
Alan Wake’s American Nightmare – Blatantly Awesome
Fresh from my adventures in Bright Falls, I eagerly dove straight into American Nightmare. I had to know what happened next, and I needed to challenge myself further after mastering the gameplay mechanics. Right from the title screen, the newness and individuality of American Nightmare struck me. The words “ARCADE ACTION” got my blood pumping, and I was surprised at the environment in the background, vastly different to what I had seen in Bright Falls. It felt like a sequel, even the font was different. “New Game” fever hit me in a way that had eluded me since I was a kid, and I hadn’t even started playing yet.
Continue reading “Alan Wake’s American Nightmare – Blatantly Awesome”
F***heads – Mega Man vs Boss Man
Gaming Journalism should be better, but…
My good pal EarthViper on the Nintemple forums posted this lovely little piece of GAMING JOURNALISM in my 3DS XL thread, and it was… interesting. Read it then come back, alright? I’ll wait for you.
…
Came back? Good. So what exactly is the problem?
The Week that Shaped the Future of Gaming.
The way we game today is vastly different from just five years ago and worlds apart from prehistoric times when we blew into cartridges in the vain attempt to bring them to life on our fuzzy cathode ray tubes. Gaming is so different and continues to change so fast that many warn against trying to predict the future, for fear of looking foolish in hindsight. You won’t find such cowardice from me though and unlike some, who have built careers out of looking like fools, I’ll be correct. I’ll be correct because I’ve already had months of hindsight, using my incredible brain to critically evaluate last weeks news and extrapolating an accurate future from it. There were five key pieces of news last week that taken alone barely warrant comment but together shape the future direction of video game delivery. In decades to come I will be seen as a gaming prophet, the chosen one, able to divine meaning from these cryptic runes.
Continue reading “The Week that Shaped the Future of Gaming.”Resident Evil 6 – Demo Impressions
It’s here at last, and you can play it on your Xbox 360 now if you bought Dragon’s Dogma; or with some (legal) USB trickery if you’re too cool to buy games.
Like many fans of the series, I feared Resident Evil had turned into a generic action game and lost it’s campy survival horror charm; but thankfully I can put those fears to rest now after playing Resident Evil 6. This is definitely a horror game. In fact it’s so scary that the screen itself has become a monster! Right from the first cutscene I was horrified as my TV began eating itself. The cameras in this game have been infected with the T-Virus, and the effect is very convincing; every few seconds the top half of the screen falls onto the bottom half and then quickly collects itself, creating a smudge effect. Like popcorn being thrown up at the movies, this definitely adds to the experience and makes you feel like you could be eaten by zombies behind the camera at any time.
SimCity Social is a disgrace
The SimCity brand has been through a lot. The last good SimCity was SimCity 4, released back in the start of 2003, but even that wasn’t a true step up from SimCity 3000 until the Rush Hour expansion. Future expansions were theorised but never eventuated, leaving the game’s enthusiastic modding community to push the game engine to it’s theoretical limits and polish SimCity 4 into a kind of modern society simulator come digital train set. Since then, EA have kept original developer Maxis distracted with Spore while conspiring with Tilted Mill Entertainment to ruin the franchise with SimCity Societies and forcing their Japanese affiliates to badly port remixes of SimCity 3000 to DS and iOS. Apparently they also got the work experience kids to make a unique SimCity for Wii but no one actually played it because, you know, it was a third party game on the Wii. EA’s latest betrayal of Will Wright’s legacy is assigning Playfish to develop SimCity Social for Facebook.
Pietriots 