The Thoughtshake Games Club: Episode 1 – Super Metroid
Video Games are pretty cool things, but there are a lot of them. We are not super men, and as a result quite a few games have passed us by. Whether this was by accident, wilful disrespect, or simply through good old fashioned ignorance is unimportant. In an attempt to remedy this, we’re starting a kind of book club for video games.
On Call of Duty
It’s no secret that a lot of people hate the Call of Duty franchise – on the face of it, it stands for everything many perceive as wrong with the industry. A franchise that comes out with a new title every year? Check. A focus on cinematic set pieces rather than engaging gameplay? Check. Published by Activision? Check. It’s a strategy that could kindly be called ‘safe’, and less kindly be called ‘willingly holding back the progress of video games as a medium and industry for what must surely be an unsustainable development model’. Despite all this, though, it does seem as if Call of Duty is receiving more than its fair share of detrimental remarks and snide jabs. I’ve compiled some thoughts on why that might be.
A Portal 2 Script
Taken from an proposed project between myself and Aaron Seaton, the following is an incomplete script for a Portal 2 mod.
ACT 1, SCENE 1 – FACILITY 4. Set just hours before GLaDOS takes control of the Aperture Science facility, prior to the events of Portal.
The player is given control of the character as a slow fade from black reveals they are ascending rapidly on an elderly-looking lift. The appearance of the area implies that they are currently in a ‘behind-the-scenes’ area.
Voice Over: We apologise for the current appearance of your lift. We are undergoing a transitional period here at Aperture Science, and expect to have brand new lifts installed shortly.
Hard Reset Demo Impressions
Polish developers The Flying Wild Hog yesterday released a short demo for their upcoming Blade-Runner-meets-Painkiller PC FPS Hard Reset onto Steam, ahead of their full release next Tuesday. Being a fan of both Blade Runner and Painkiller, and being in the position of writing for a video games blog, I thought I’d better take a look.
An Ethical Pirate
Ubisoft has been getting a lot of poor press recently due to its tyrannical hold over legitimate customers, through an always-on system of DRM that demands that players be connected to the Ubisoft servers at all times. Their reasoning for the implementation of this DRM is that piracy rates on the PC were too high for the publisher to bear, and have previously announced that the system is seen as a “success” by the company. Accompanying this, the developers of the upcoming Driver: San Francisco have recently spoken with Eurogamer, praising the system – even throwing around the phrase “quite morally correct”.
But with an increasing amount of indie success stories beginning with word-of-mouth, and developers coming forward to claim that piracy directly helped their game sales, one could begin to wonder if such a thing as an ethical pirate might exist.
Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine Demo Impressions
Relic, the long-standing guardians of the Warhammer 40k license, are best known for creating the well-oiled RTS series Dawn of War. However, with Space Marine they’re looking to set forth into new approaches – specifically into the Third-Person Shooter genre. With a demo out for Xbox 360, PS3 and (currently limited to certain newsletter subscribers) PC, I thought it would be a good idea to take a look at what the Strategy-centric studio has mustered up.
The demo showcases two missions from the main part of the game – both singleplayer only – following the exploits of Captain Beefy McTinCan (his name was something that I had no motivation to remember) and his friendly space mariners on their journey through a sea of angry subhuman homicidal maniacs. Similarities to my recent walk through a council estate aside, it makes for a fairly straightforward introduction to both the universe of Warhammer 40k, and the game itself.
Fallout: New Vegas – Old World Blues DLC Review
I’m not sure whether this is a gauntlet I’m throwing down, or something everyone else agrees with, but I found Fallout: New Vegas to be better than Fallout 3 in pretty much every way. The main storyline, the setting, the writing – everything seemed more cohesive in Obsidian’s sort-of-sequel. So consider how impressed I was when I found that Old World Blues betters the base game in almost every way.
Sniper: Ghost Warrior Review
One of my favourite weapon classes in the first person shooter genre is definitely the sniper rifle. There’s something oddly pleasing about sleuthing around to pinpoint the best hideaway for plucking the heads off your enemies.
At first I was quite unsure as to how Sniper: Ghost Warrior was going to work; it struck me as a concept that might tire itself out early on – admittedly some of the best sequences in the Call of Duty series have centred around picking off targets from a distance and they add a level of intensity that you don’t often find in the straight out street-battles. The thing is, the sequences are well placed and scarcely used – they are akin to stealth missions or tasks centred around vehicular mayhem; they’re used in such a way to break up the monotony of combat.
By basing an entire game on the concept do you run the risk of becoming nothing more than a tedious trudge from Alpha to Beta will ensuring that you click on the right man, right place, right time?
It’s time to grab the game by the ghillies and find out.
Terraria Review
There’s not much I know about Terraria besides the negatives I’ve heard that explain it as a poor man’s Minecraft set to a side-scrolling 2D world. I’m sure the developers are sick and tired of being compared to its older more dimensionally affluent brother but that’s generally the feeling you get when your game is tipped as a sandbox world in which mining and fighting are your main pastimes.
Rumours and reviews lead me to believe that the first ‘few hours’ of play are going to be incredibly tedious as you’re left without objective or instruction – for me it seems like a welcome challenge so I’m going to try my hand at playing without the assistance of a single page of the Terraria Wiki.
My adventure begins with a traipse through the vast Interweb to obtain vital updates that don’t seem to want to install of their own accord. Searching the Steam forum yields little information beyond the fact an unlimited quantity of idiots seem to think Valve have been dishonest in their pricing of Terraria and as such are urging people to boycott the product.
Good luck with that, guys. I can see the plan is working well as Terraria holds the number two spot on top sellers, directly after a 50% cut on Portal 2.
Splinter Cell: Conviction – Postcards From A Stealth Game
Playing through Splinter Cell: Conviction, I couldn’t help but feel like the developers had misunderstood the idea behind making a stealth game. Take a look at these shots, and see if you can help me put my finger on what doesn’t feel quite right.
Nobody will notice anything amiss if I hide behind the car.
