Remember the first time you installed Half-Life 2 and were forced to use that silly DRM launcher program called Steam? It was obtrusive and clunky; to the point that I found a hacked version of the game that didn't require it so that I was able to play Half-Life 2 without it crashing every time my internet connection dropped.
Looking back, it feels like there's been a long-standing side quest happening throughout the history of PC gaming: who can make the best pinball game?! At the very least it's been an element of PC generations that stands out to me as a marker of technological advancements. A new pinball game meant that there had been a breakthrough and a new generation of tech was on its way; but it seems like this pursuit may have only been a fetch-quest after all.
In a time before broadband internet and the proliferation of online video streaming, the only way to see footage of games before they released was to find a web site hosting a file, then wait weeks for it to download over a dial-up connection. This is how it was when Unreal Tournament 2003 was due to be released, and I dutifully sourced a keynote speech from Cliff Bleszinski where he talked about and showed off the latest tech to feature in the game. I think it was only about a forty-five minute video, but seeing those rag-doll effects and new weapon models for the first time really blew my tiny little mind.
I think it's fair to say that narrative focused games got a real boost when TellTale came out with their version of The Walking Dead. It was arguably when the mix between visual novels and point and click adventures became popular. So why haven't we seen more clones of the formula? Why is it that Life Is Strange feels like the only direct competitor around?
The first time I saw the computer game version of Monopoly, it blew my tiny little mind. As with Battle Chess before it, here was a game I'd played in the real world enhanced by animations and sounds that seemed impossibly immersive. However, when the novelty wore off, the lack of physical interaction with a game like Monopoly only served to expose its weaknesses. The more you play the video game version, the more you realise it's one hundred percent dice rolls, with little else happening along the way.
Rhythm games are another genre that I've never been all that good at, but love to play. Perhaps it's because I'm a big music fan, but it could just be because Audiosurf is one of the greatest games ever made. However, unlike Audiosurf, most rhythm games are stuck to a rigid progression tied to some average music. There's no better case of an entire genre living and dying by the quality of its soundtrack.
As much as I often cringe at multiplayer focused games, there's something about MMOs that I find fascinating. The first time I entered a persistent online world was with Ultima Online: Third Dawn, way back when it was amazing that something so complex could work over dial-up internet. Now with PCs packing more power and the average internet connection offering reliable pings, the options have grown to accommodate a new range of genres to enter the MMO space.
A long time ago, in a basement not so far away; a friend and I spent an entire afternoon trying to get Doom II running on their PC. They had a brand new 16-bit sound card to try out, and I had a copy of the full game backed up on about sixteen floppy discs. It was astronomical to conceive of such a huge game that used the cutting edge technology of the time. When we finally got it running, the 16-bit grunts of the Pinkies would forever be etched into my memory.
With Steam Greenlight slowly dying at the side of the road, it might be worth having a think about some of its relative success stories. I say relative, because there's a bit of a well-earned stigma around Greenlit games, which are arguably considered to be of lower quality than the dreaded Early Access title. On the flip side, we now have a bunch of weird little games that probably would never have seen the light of day without the Greenlight entry point.
For the longest time, I didn't have a console in the house to play games on. Since the SNES I had been a PC gamer, but when the shiny new Playstation 3 was released, I knew it was time to dive back in. One of the first games I played on this fancy new generation was Ninja Theory's hack and slash Heavenly Sword. It was the pinnacle of graphics, but suffered from a short campaign with uninspired combat. I didn't care at the time, because I was blown away by the experience, so continuing the journey with Enslaved: Odyssey To The West couldn't go wrong.
I find it increasingly hard to put up with a game that leans on easy one liners and fourth wall breaking in an attempt to shoehorn humour into its writing. It's often on the nose and fails to add any actual wit to the writing, so I'm a little surprised at how much I forgave Her Majesty's Spiffing after it quickly stumbled across the finish line. There's something to be said about self-awareness, but there's something else to be said about it being the sum total of an experience.
For a new console to have a killer game available on release day, it usually takes something special. Recently a whole bunch of people got excited about a new Zelda title gracing the shelves along with the Nintendo Switch. So much so, that the game has outsold the console (at time of writing). When I think back to awesome launch titles I've played, I inevitably draw a blank. Often it's much easier to remember the disaster of a game like Lair (PS3 launch), or some shoe-horned Kinect driven abomination.
You know how no-one can eat all the eggs? Well sometimes in the midst of artistic narrative story telling games, I need a diversion from abstraction and meaning. It's why I'm a fan of button mashing games like the Dynasty Warriors series, and it's why I enjoyed the B-Movie hack and slash antics of Onechanbara Z2: Chaos.
This year has been insane so far when it comes to quality big game releases. So much so, that my backlog of recently released games is pretty stellar with Nier: Automata and Horizon: Zero Dawn waiting patiently for their turn. However, after being convinced by the beta, I did manage to spend over a hundred hours messing about in the huge open world of Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Wildlands.
I'm always up for abstract ambiguity in games and stories in general, so as I danced my way through the beautiful environments of Bound, my mind wandered to theorise on elements in the game. This Playstation 4 indie darling has a lot of good ideas and hints at a bunch of interesting themes, but I'm not sure if it ultimately succeeds.
An exercise in simplicity and elegance, Zen Bound 2 is a beautifully realised puzzle game. It's attention to detail and minimalist mechanics serve to keep this sequel evergreen as technology grows. It goes to show that if you do something right, you rarely need to change it later.
Do we enjoy short narrative games with innovate methods of story-telling? By now it should be obvious that a game like Wheels Of Aurelia, with an interesting premise and unique gameplay, is right up my alley. Sure it's a small, short indie game that was released to little fanfare, but it's a game that exemplifies how unique telling a story while driving a car can be.
Remember those old Apple Mac computers that were cutting edge in the mid-90s? They had this native program where you could put a bunch of clip art style images on a page and make them interactive and animated. I spent too much time making basic hidden object games when I was in school, but the process was satisfying and really allowed for some creative thinking. Now imagine that same type of game, with the modern power of an engine like Unity and you'll get the idea behind Hidden Folks right away.
I've often wondered why the visual novel format has mostly been adopted by the weeb anime crowd as their format of choice. Of course it's a short jump from manga and anime to a visual novel game, but this particular genre could be utilised in many more ways. Visual novels aren't inherently bad, as when they work they can be an enjoyable way to tell a story. I'd just like to see it used for something other than hentai or dating sims.
SteamWorld Dig is not a deep game with a compelling narrative and complex mechanics. It's not an action platformer with knuckle-whitening controls and precision timing. There's absolutely nothing about the game that warrants excessive hyperbole; but make no mistake, this is a very, very good game.
