Viewing entries tagged
colourful
Oh how I love a good twin-stick shooter. The simplicity of the mechanics, the awe of the aesthetics, and the challenge of the moment-to-moment gameplay. All of these things make up one of the purest and most satisfying gaming experiences you can get, so why do people keep insisting on adding lore into the mix?!
I always think it must be difficult to carve out a visual identity for a game development studio, as it kind of puts the cart before the horse in a lot of ways. After all not every game will fit into the same style guide, unless their scope remains limited as well. Is it worth giving up a little bit of depth to retain a strong identity? I'm still not sold either way.
Sometimes it's worth remembering that when you've created something excellent, it needs to speak for itself. When you have a core set of compelling mechanics presented beautifully, there's no need to inflate the facts. Countless little indie treasures could learn from this, and She Remembered Caterpillars could as well.
Welcome back to the land of beautifully realised, small-scale, narrative gaming excellence. I'll never ceased to be amazed at how a great little game can stick with you far beyond an average big game. Then again, we all know that sometimes good things really do come in small packages.
Every now and then a game comes along that does exactly what it sets out to do, but it's not the biggest or best game in the world, it's just very well made. I'd be lying if I said that I expect nothing less from Platinum Games, so as good as Transformers: Devastation is, I'm not surprised for a second.
Lately it might seem as though the only innovations made in narrative game design, have been from the so-called 'walking simulator' end of town. A lot of games enhance their narrative side by removing gameplay elements, which sometimes works, but often ends in boredom. However, keeping in gameplay doesn't automatically fix the problem.
While we wait for ThatGameCompany's next game 'Sky', those of us who fell in love with their previous social narratives have been left wanting. Maybe we're waiting for 'Dreams' to finally drop, but Media Molecule are taking their time to polish it off before release. Let me reassure you though, as there's no need to fret when lower profile games like ABZU exist.
At some point when arcade games were losing their audience to home consoles and computers, we lost a whole lot of fun genres. Of course, we can't all have a light-gun setup at home, or a full sized motorbike to sit on and race, because it's just not practical. Even with the return of peripherals like plastic guitars and skate boards, we still couldn't replicate the arcade experience all that well.
I'll be honest from the start: I've never been a big fan of brawlers, and I've only played a little bit of the original Double Dragon before. I consider it a big compliment then to say that this remade classic is a damn good time. If you've ever needed an excuse to see what an old school brawler is all about, this might be it.
For the longest time "procedurally generated levels" was gaming blasphemy and an immediate turn off when used in a game's description. It felt like as soon as Minecraft hit it big, everyone and their mother was including procedurally generated elements in their game. The promise was millions of combinations and infinite replay-ability, which ultimately wound up meaning an endless gauntlet of bad content to slog through.
