I’ve often wondered what it’d be like to be Canadian and therefore a lumberjack. Apologies if that stereotype offends, I don’t really think all Canadians are lumberjacks. Some of you are Mounties too, but I know what that’s like, thanks to daytime TV. I’ve often imagined it a bourbon-swilling, axe-swinging sort of job. Holding away wolves with one blistered and splintered hand while felling trees right and left with the other. I didn’t however, think it would involve werewolves, rock traps and blessed bullets. Which shows how much I know about the logging industry.
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Posted in February 2013 …
Preview: InFlux
A sphere crashes to the ground, cast down from the sky into an abandoned landscape. Emerging from a crater, the ball rolls along a beach to encounter an incongruous cube, blighting the sands with its stark sterility. The surface of the cube ripples as the sphere approaches and breaches the wall between this reality and the next. This is InFlux.
Review: Capcom Arcade Cabinet
While most gamers are busy salivating over the PS4, retro gaming fans have a lot to look forward to over the next few months, thanks to the debut of the Capcom Live Arcade Cabinet on the PlayStation Network and Xbox Live Arcade.
The PS4: Glass Half Empty
When a new console is announced, it appears to be customary for games writers to fall into one of two camps. On one hand, we have those who devour press releases and regurgitate them in sprawling paeans to god given silicon form, frothing wildly at the mouth and genitals for the chance to touch the very future of gaming. On the other, the cynics. The embittered husks where joy and enthusiasm once dwelt, their faces a sculpture of disdain and ill-hidden sneers.
I am going to try to avoid falling into either camp, but I’d like to apologise for the inexorable decline into cynicism and sarcasm that I’m pretty confident will happen throughout this article. You see, I don’t really hold out much hope for the PS4 as the future of gaming.
The PS4: Glass Half Full
With the spectacle of Sony’s PlayStation 4 conference past, the chaotic swirl of speculation, criticism and reaction to the first look at the next generation of consoles has begun. It’s now the time gaming media and gamers themselves begin to pick apart Sony’s presentation, and sort out exactly what to make of the information they’ve been given.
There will inevitably be criticism of the PS4. Much of it, such as the lack of information about the cost of the console itself, is justified. I personally still have a lot of questions and concerns about the PS4, and won’t be making any decision on purchasing anything until I learn more from Sony and see Microsoft’s response with their own next-gen console.
Yet despite much of nay saying you’ll hear, there was still was a lot of promise in what was presented in New York that night.
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Fail State: The Pitfalls of Game Creation
On New Year’s Eve, I decided to break my no New Year’s resolutions rule. On Twitter, a new challenge had been issued to would-be indie game developers, and it was #1GAM. That’s (for those challenged by acronyms) one game a month, which in my mind sounded simple, trivial even.
Oh, how I was wrong. Now, this article is by no means meant to discourage you from making games. I’d prefer to inspire, but with the experiences I’ve had so far, I just want to pass on a few tips that I feel may be of use to any aspiring Notches or Cavanaghs. So without further ado, here are my tips for any budding game creator.
Preview: The Showdown Effect
Everyone who knows me knows that I love cheesy action movies more than a bloodthirsty mouse. Whether it be Arnie flinging doors from the side of cars, Jackie Chan running over villains in a hovercraft or Van Damme holding a be-rollerbladed foot in someone’s face, I will be there cheering them on. I know they can’t hear me. Deep in my heart though, I wish they could.
However, the 80′s action movie hasn’t had as much of an effect on the gaming scene as it should have. We could have had wildly over-the-top shooters complete with cheesy one-liners and hilariously low-production-value set-pieces instead of staid man-shoots, with po-faced military professionals firing at a series of foreign targets. Somewhere between the need for antagonists with sentimental back-stories and the rush to be the most inwardly sceptical about the violence proffered, games forgot that action should be fun. We need less Red Dawn, more Last Action Hero.
SSE Presents: Mercy Mode (I Wanna Be The Guy)
Mercy Mode continues unabated, over at our fantastic Youtube channel. This week, Fiona has difficulty with apples when she plays I Wanna Be The Guy, complete with our new-fangled death counter.
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Review: Celestial Mechanica
I have a journalistic bias towards adorable robots. I should make that perfectly clear before I begin here that my heart melts at the thought of R2-D2, Josef and the unnamed hero of Celestial Mechanica. They’re so adorable, they think they’re people. Thankfully, Celestial Mechanica has a lot more to offer than just a cute mechanoid with a nostalgia-inducing retro aesthetic and the most powerful soundtrack I’ve heard in a game since Bastion.
