Viewing entries tagged
shooter
As recently as about a year ago, if anyone had asked me whether I liked zombie games or not, I would have replied with an emphatic "hell no" and left it at that. I've never been big on horror in any form of media, but especially in games, as I find the interactive nature of the experience a little too visceral. That and I never understood how anyone can find it entertaining to be scared and stressed when they could be doing literally anything else.
I've never really considered myself to be a 'retro gamer', as I rarely go looking for older titles to play when there are modern options available. It's not that I have anything against older games, in fact I fondly remember many classics and hold them in high regard. Perhaps playing those games when they came out means that I'm not left pining for something I never experienced, but whatever the reason, I'm just not into playing old games on outdated engines.
I've heard it said before, that a sequel of a smash hit is always doomed to fail, and there isn't a lot anyone can do about it. This is especially true in certain forms of media, but I would argue that video games are something of an exception to the rule, as making a hit sequel doesn't appear to be all that difficult. At the very least, just repeat what you did in the first game, make it look nicer, and you'll make everyone happy. No?
Sometimes a game comes along that you've never heard about, but thanks to its strong aesthetic and firm genre, you wonder how you could ever have let it pass you by. I love experiencing creations without any expectations or preconceptions, and when they turn out to be the kind of creation you've spent a long time looking for, the satisfaction could not be more palpable.
For most of my life, I've been a PC gamer. Yes, I am a member of the master race I do believe that there is no better way to experience gaming than with a personal computer that allows you to play however you want to play and with little to no limitations. However, as of the Playstation 3, I have also enjoyed the reliable and predictable experiences that console gaming can bring. There's something to be said about knowing that every game you buy for a system should be able to run well on it, as the hardware is the same for every single player. Not to mention the many console exclusives that get released regularly as an enticement to buy the hardware, which is why about a year ago I found myself with a brand new Xbox One X - the first Xbox I have ever owned.
There's something about the latest Tomb Raider trilogy that always leaves me with unanswered questions. After finishing each game, I think back on the story and the gameplay, and find a large hole where something important seems to be missing. Even though I've enjoyed these games and have been wonderfully entertained by the updated adventures of Lara Croft, I feel like I'm still left wanting. Now that I've finished the third in the recent series, I feel like I might be able to put my finger on precisely what could be missing.
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?!
Sometimes I wonder if a good game is actually not that good, but I have some irrational interest in one tiny element that makes it worth playing. Other times I wonder if I dislike a game that's actually brilliant, but there's one key part that ruins it completely. All of me knows that both of these things are true, so let's try not to think too hard about it.
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.
As an artist, I love abstraction just about as much as the next guy. In fact, as a designer it's one of the most important tools in the box, as the essence of good design is arguably the ability to abstract concepts to their furthest point. Thankfully, this doesn't only apply to visual art, but I'm sure there are threads of abstraction found throughout video games as well.
I think I might be able to pinpoint the moment when I lost all interest in online multiplayer. Well, maybe not the exact moment, but it would be whenever voice chat became the norm. Back when I played Team Fortress, Counter-Strike, and Quake III religiously, voice chat was the exception and text chat was the rule. Turns out hearing strangers yelling into their low-quality microphone didn't add much to the online gaming experience.
There are times when I think I might be a glutton for punishment, but maybe it's the same for everyone. You see, there are a number of game genres that I will always love to play, despite the fact that I am always terribly skilled. While racing and fighting games are the finest examples of this, my other favourite genre of difficulty games would have to be the twin-stick shooter.
To this day, no music driven game has managed to get its generation formula as precise as Audiosurf. I love the idea of using my own music library to automatically generate levels to play in a game, but it turns out that coding for procedural creation is really difficult.
There are times when it's easy to forget how relevant the cost of a game can be when thinking about quality and enjoyment. After all, my experience with the original Destiny was quite mediocre, so I never expected to be playing the sequel anytime soon. That is until Bungie and Activision decided to discount the game heavily not long after release.
This may be the only Halo game I ever play, which might seem a little strange to some, but obvious to others. To this day I've never played another Halo game, because I've never owned an Xbox of any kind. This could have been any other twin-stick shooter and I still would have given it a go, but it just so happens that it's a spin-off from one of the biggest Xbox franchises in history.
It's no secret that I’m a big fan of the big budget open world games we've come to expect from some of the most popular series in gaming. What I love most is the amount of detail and deliberate effort that has gone into creating a world. It's something unique to 'triple A' games in particular, as they have the team and budget to make it happen in a way that wouldn't otherwise be possible.
Okay, it's fair to start off with a statement: the last Battlefield game I actually enjoyed was the first Bad Company. I even spent many hours playing the Bad Company multiplayer, thanks to the novelty of its destruction system that seemed incredibly "next-gen" for me at the time. I'm not about to say that Battlefield 1 is better than Bad Company, but at this point it probably gets the silver medal.
There once was a time between when I got my first job, and when I actually had to start paying bills. This was a time of spending money on anything at all, without responsibilities or obligation to tie you down. It was the perfect time for feeding coins into arcade cabinets, long after the arcades had gone out of fashion and jacked up the prices.
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.
In the last decade we've seen a lot of indie darlings make a splash for being small little creative games that big studios wouldn't even bother thinking about. It's been an awesome period in gaming, as we've seen smaller games have a bit of a boom, which has introduced some truly unique experiences, and even defied traditional genre definitions. At the same time though, there's been a flood of games that piece together seemingly random elements to form another eye-rolling attempt at grabbing the hype for a few minutes of success.
