Category Archives: Games
Life is Strange – Episode Four Review: Hello Darkness, My Old Friend
Next week marks the release of the final episodes of both Tales from the Borderlands and Life is Strange. As someone who is reviewing both games, that leaves me a choice of which game I should play first when both finales come out on October 20th. After playing Episode 4: Dark Room, Life is Strange proved that it is the best in class in the episodic adventure game genre.
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Life is Strange – Episode Three Review: Truth and Consequences
Newton’s third law states that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. Put simply, for every action take, there is an opposing force pushing the opposite way with equal strength. While that’s a law of physics, Newton may as well have been a philosopher with that one. I’m not sure that there’s a law of physics more appropriately applied to life.
The whole point of Life is Strange is actions and their equal and opposite reactions. You could make the argument that all games that are designed to change themselves to fit your decisions should act like that. If there’s one thing that Dontnod has gotten right through three episodes of Life is Strange, it’s that your decisions cause real and obvious reactions in Arcadia Bay. It certainly extends beyond just little changes in dialogue too.
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2015 League of Legends World Championship: Lessons Learned from Week One Champion Selection
I think I’ve mentioned it before on the blog but an acquaintance of mine is trying to drag me back into playing League. He’s an ADC and he’s looking for a regular support main to keep him dying. So not only have I been scrambling to learn new champions (I’m not very good at Bard or Soraka but I picked up Sona and Thresh surprisingly quickly) but I’ve been watching the World Championship to pick up a thing or two.
One of the more interesting storylines from Worlds, besides the Western teams doing surprisingly well, especially Cloud 9, is how diverse champion selection has been through the first four days of group stage matches. In the 2014 Worlds, only 58 champions were contested during the whole event. In one week, the teams have contested 59 champions and we could see more champions introduced to counter other team comps as the month progresses.
But what lessons are there to be learned from picks and bans from the first week of Worlds?
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Hitman to Launch with Half of Levels at Half-Price
Just when you thought that triple-A couldn’t quite figure out how to do early access properly, Square Enix seems to have hit on a model that is tolerable. Continuing their rather interesting news week last week, Square Enix unveiled the launch plans for next year’s Hitman. Half of the game’s content will be available at launch with the remaining half rolling out over the course of the next three months.
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Life is Strange – Episode Two Review: Chiaroscuro
Chiaroscuro is an art term for the use of strong contrasts between light and dark in a composition. It’s the concept that forms the basis of most strong black-and-white photographs. No, Life is Strange – Episode Two: Out of Time isn’t presented in black and white in a literal sense. It contrasts light and dark themes to pull off emotionally impactful moments in just two episodes what it takes Telltale five episodes or BioWare dozens of hours to achieve.
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Square Enix Cancels Deus Ex: Mankind Divided Pre-Order Scheme
About a month ago, Square Enix and Eidos Montreal announced one of the most ridiculous pre-order programs for the upcoming Deus Ex: Mankind Divided. The scheme, called “Augment Your Pre-Order,” had five tiers of pre-order content that had options for gamers to choose from but each was locked until an unspecified number of pre-orders was achieved. The highest of those tiers was an early launch date for people who pre-ordered the game.
In the month since the launch, Square Enix was raked through the press and gamers mocked SquEnix. It seems that as a result of overwhelming public pressure, Square Enix and Eidos Montreal have cancelled the Augment Your Pre-Order program.
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Life is Strange – Episode One Review: If I Could Turn Back Time
With the final episode of Life is Strange, Square Enix and Dontnod’s surprise hit episodic adventure game, coming out on October 20th, I think that’s as good an excuse as any to play through it and get it all reviewed between now and the release of that last episode. Critics adore this game and review scores are getting better with every episode. My interest comes in that I find that my reviews often contradict the critics in that where critics see improvement, I see it differently. Will I see a game floated as a game of the year contender differently that the rest?
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Video Game Voice Actors Could Go on Strike
The video game industry could be getting a massive behind the scenes shake up. Video game voice actors are voting in potential strike action as negotiations between their union, the Screen Actors Guild‐American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA), and video game publishers continue negotiations over several issues, including compensation and residuals.
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Absolute Drift Review: Get a Little Bit Sideways
Racing games tend to be very complex. It’s not just the Assetto Corsas, Forzas, and Gran Turismos of the world that are complex. Even the likes of Mario Kart and even all the way back to the old NES racing games that seem fairly simple and arcadey have a lot of different moving parts (pun intended).
But what happens when you strip away most of those moving parts? What happens when you build a game around a car, a track and your right foot? Absolute Drift attempts to answer that by taking the drifting game and distilling it down to just drifting.
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Deus Ex: Mankind Divided Comes with a Ridiculous Pre-Order Scheme
Sometimes, it really pays to read beyond the headline. For example, if you were sent a press release that says “Deus Ex: Mankind Divided Launch Date Revealed,” you would think that the press release was mostly about the game’s launch date and a little bit about what is available for pre-order.
That what I thought it was until I got to the subheading of “Player Choice Prevails with Augment Your Pre-Order Campaign; Collector’s Edition Unveiled.” At first glance, player choice and pre-order bonuses seems like it’s a long-awaited change to the typical pre-order plan. Then you see how Square Enix has put it together and you can’t but help but hit your head off your desk.
et geekera 