Ludum Dare, for those of you who aren’t familiar, is a competition where games developers and like-minded individuals gather to create games around a theme. They’re given 48 hours to do so and this year’s theme was minimalism. I bravely put on my indie hat and leapt head first into the thousands of games on offer to pick out a random selection (a twenty-sided die may have been involved) for your pleasure/displeasure/apathy. Here’s the first lot.
Kairo intrigues me. It’s been longer than I like to remember since I last played a game that drew a line in the sand and said, “Here’s some puzzles and nothing more”. It’s become the fashion for puzzle games to be narrative-led and Kairo stands as a striking counterpoint to both the folly and genius of story-based puzzlers.
Mix super-powered lucha libre wrestling with classic Metroidvania open-world gameplay and what is the outcome? A mash of Mexican madness which is one of the hottest action-platformers during this gaming generation. Designed by little known developers DrinkBox Studios, responsible for Tales Of A Blob From Space, this Playstation 3 and Playstation Vita exclusive game is a unique, visually pleasing and astoundingly amusing game to play and certainly has a lot to shout about.
Contrary to the experiences of every other reviewer of Impire, I’ve never played Dungeon Keeper. I certainly tried, back when my family first bought an old PC from my Mum’s office. It did not go well. The game would stutter and lag and despite my expert technical knowledge (I was 10), I couldn’t ever actually play it. I did, however, play a lot of Theme Hospital, so before you condemn me for what you’re about to read, know this: I do have experience with this building management genre.
At first, I’ll be honest…I didn’t love BioShock Infinite the way I did its predecessors.
In fact, I kind of disliked it. It didn’t feel like a Shock game. The palette was too bright, the characters all human and in good cheer. Yeah, sure, the soundtrack in just the first ten minutes was incredible, and the visuals great, but I wasn’t…terrified. I wasn’t sprinting wild-eyed as an unknown person screamed at me, or trying to lay low in a bathysphere while a maniac tried to claw her way in. Where was the heart-pounding terror? After the first ten minutes, there wasn’t even anything super, overtly sinister happening! It took a little while for it to catch with me, but when it did…it all sort of made sense. Be warned, there are minor spoilers in this review.
I didn’t love Starcraft II for the gameplay. I didn’t love it for nostalgia; hell, the first game’s multiplayer basically turned me off all multiplayer for years, until Warcraft III, which did the same thing. I didn’t love Starcraft II for the mechanics, the design. I loved it for the story and the flavor. It was one of my favourite games of the year, and it remains one of my absolute favourite gaming experiences. And, for those worried about spoilers…this review is completely free of them, even for Starcraft II.
I love Mass Effect. Let me make that clear- the original was a wondrous sanctuary where I got away from a hard time in my life. The second was a dark adventure that consumed every free moment of time I had through my first year of college. I hold the series to an extremely high standard, because it’s proved that it can be held, judged, and deal with the criticism. I was excited (and more than a little nervous) about the announcement of the Citadel DLC. Leviathan had proved to be an exercise in attempting to justify the ending; I was understandably a little gun-shy. I’ve tried to make this review as absolutely spoiler free as possible- mostly because there are so many surprises in the DLC that I don’t want to give away.
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.
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.
