I think it’s the music that has the most impact for me. Sure, the game has gorgeous 2d platforming, looks to have interesting, unique mechanics for the multiple classes that you can switch between on the fly, and looks like a blast to play, but I think the music really helps set the pace.
Get hyped.
http://kotaku.com/5102418/trine-casting-a-lovely-spell-on-psn
Slumdog Millionaire is an easy movie to recommend. It has a story that everyone can enjoy: a slumdog (very poor kid from the slums) of India gets on to the Indian version of Who wants to be a Millionaire. Despite coming from a very uneducated background, he knows many answers. The movie shows his life and how his experiences formed the answers he gives, giving him a chance at a new life.
So, who owns Burnout Paradise? Would anyone be interested in playing this / picking it up as a regular pLayday title for a mere $20 clams?
It is getting a large free patch soon that will rebalance the game and add Restart as a race option (the thing holding me back):
http://www.criteriongames.com/article.php?artID=384
Note: there is a soon to be released DLC that will include Kitt, Ecto-1, the DeLorean, and the Dukes of Hazard General Lee.
Screenshots http://www.criteriongames.com/article.php?artID=382
With the recent Oscar talk, I can’t help but remember all the hubub people made about this year being the year of games. How so many great games were coming out in such short a period of time. I remember them saying that the year before, too.
But they are wrong.
2004 was the year of games. Period. Here’s a quick link to Gamespot’s list, though with a little research I’m sure you could find another title or two they missed. Continue reading
Most people think adding Wiimotes to custom jobs is cool. I think adding L4D to anything is cool. Therefore, this may be doubly cool to some of you.
To everyone else, it will at least be signularly cool:
http://www.engadget.com/2009/01/21/left-4-dead-pc-wiimote-hack-for-the-gamer-who-has-it-all-hates/
Fallout 1 is going to be a difficult game to tackle. I think I’ll write up a more conventional post, covering the basics of gameplay and avoid spoilers, like I normally do, for gamers who may still want to retro game this title. I’ll be writing a second post that dives more into the themes presented another time.
From a gameplay standpoint, Fallout 1 is one of the best open-ended RPGs. The world is completely open and explorable. Your main quest is to find a water chip for your Vault. Unlike most games, there is no artificial progression through the story line. One quest does not lead to the next. There are hints scattererd around the world; completing quests sometimes reveals the next piece of the puzzle, other times it just helps or hurts the world a little. Each quest can be solved multiple ways, often with different morale dilemmas. In cities filled with the destruction and decay of a nuclear holocaust, do you uphold the morale values of yesterday, or adopt the attitude necessary to survive the wasteland?
Here is an article I ran across awhile back. It picks out 6 retro games that can run on nearly any PC (or even emulated on Linux or Mac). Just about every title here is a classic.
http://giantrealm.gameriot.com/gaming/six-titles-thatll-work-on-nearly-any-machine
There is one negative of steam:Â Individual packages can be cut up even further.
When Half-life 1 launched: any mod of it was freely available. Now: TFC and Counter-strike are considered separate packages. Half-life 2’s Deathmatch is actually a separate component from HL2, and was not included with Orange Box.
However, owners of Nvidia or ATI graphics cards can download HL2’s deathmatch (and Lost Coast) for free.
http://www.steampowered.com/nvidia/
http://www.steampowered.com/ati_offer1a/
Thanks, Cheapassgamer
Planescape: Torment. Made with the Forgotten Realms: Baldur’s Gate engine, but significantly more plot focused and less about combat. It almost plays like an adventure game.
It has a similar feel and presentation as the movie Momento. However, it came out well before Momento. Great writing overall, and great dialog.
Here are some of my previous posts on it:
Zombies are fun. Recently, there have been a lot of good material where zombies have re-entered our lives. They are so delightfully cliche that no matter where you see them, there is a familiarity that is enjoyable. Between Walking Dead and Left 4 Dead, that’s a lot of different mediums with Zombies. You would think that a “history” book, without all its fancy pictures and graphics would be left out of the zombie fun, but we see that books can still be enjoyable.
World War Z is an oral history of the Zombie invasion. Written by the same author as the one who wrote The Zombie Survival Guide, this book is based on the premise that a Zombie Invasion had happened, and in the aftermath, someone interviewed various survivors of the event and recorded their stories. It is a great concept and he gives his characters their own unique personalities. While I was reading though, I always had the author in the back of my mind.