The old Building (Critical) Consensus posts were never exceptionally popular and I was getting tired of doing them so I’ve decided to reboot the concept. I like the sort of meta-review summary of BCC but I’d like to try something a bit different. Rather than overall conclusions or summary statements, we’re going to look at detailed critical assessments on the game with specific opinions about gameplay elements, story, graphics and so on. So welcome to the Critics Corner.
I don’t think that Double Fine Games were planning to revolutionize indie gaming when they launched their Kickstarter campaign for Broken Age but that’s exactly what happened. What was just a project to make a Tim Schafer point-and-click adventure game ended up turning the industry on its head by showing that crowdfunding was a viable means to fund game production and that small devs weren’t always beholden to the whims of big publishers.
Still, Double Fine showed some of the issues with crowdfunding. Almost two years after the campaign launched, Broken Age is finally here but is being released in two parts to help fund the completion of the second half of the game. Scope creep and delays weren’t really considered a major risk to crowdfunders at the time but people think about it now.
So what do the critics think of Tim Schafer and Double Fine’s return to point-and-click?
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Sometimes the best way to remove the risk of third-party actions affecting you is to just buy them out. Microsoft didn’t outright buy Epic Games but they did buy their hottest intellectual property. Microsoft bought the Gears of War franchise from Epic and have handed it off to first-party developer Black Tusk Studios.
The graphic quality of games has come a long way over the last eighteen years. Perhaps the best illustration of the changes in graphic and art design since 1996 is the progression of Lara Croft in the Tomb Raider games. Lara has come a long way from a 540 polygon character best known for her chest size to the high-def character in the Tomb Raider reboot.
To examine the change in the character’s look, we have a handy infographic for your perusal.
I think we all knew that the United Kingdom’s so-called porn filter would end up causing more harm than good but I don’t think that gamers thought it would hit so close to home. League of Legends gamers have been experiencing errors after a recent update that included files with names that triggered the filters.
Anybody who is overly positive about almost anything in the gaming world is almost instantly hit with accusations of being bought by a publisher. Most of the time, statements like these are completely outlandish and unfounded. On rare occasions, though, these accusations find the mark.
Recently, it came to light that Microsoft was paying Machinima content creators for positive coverage of the Xbox One. Now, various outlets on the internet have revealed that EA has also been paying YouTubers for positive coverage of its games.
While Sony and Microsoft’s new consoles have been out for a couple of months and are in a quiet period before the next big wave of next-gen games come in March, the upcoming Tomb Raider: Definitive Edition could reignite the battle between fans of the two biggest players in the home console market.
Recent reports indicate that TR:DE will run close to 60 frames per second for the majority of the game on PlayStation 4, the Xbox One version of the game will be floating between 30 and 45 FPS.
There’s a line between everyday villainy and cartoonish supervillainy. The folks at King, the company behind the popular cash cow Candy Crush Saga, may have crossed that line.
While the internet collectively scratched their heads and said terrible things about King’s trademarking of the word “candy” in relation to gaming, educational services and clothing, they’re also claiming rights to the word “saga.”
The folks at Stoic have found this out the hard way. In late December, they were served with a Notice of Opposition by King for their game, The Banner Saga. The worst case scenario for Stoic would result in punitive damages levied against them.
The Canadian currency market is probably not something most gamers pay attention to but it might be something that will concern Canadian gamers if what EB Games is doing becomes an industry-wide trend.
The Canadian arm of GameStop has very quietly raised the prices of some much-anticipated upcoming games. Rather than being $60 as it was for new games in previous years, EB Games is charging up to $70 for new games that are available for pre-order.
You can say a lot of things about fans of BioWare’s Mass Effect 3 but you can never accuse them of not being dedicated to the cause. Last week, Mass Effect fan, Gerry Pugliese, released his year-long passion project, Mass Effect 3: Vindication.
One of the terms that I’ve been hearing a lot lately is “experimental gameplay.” The other popular descriptor for games is to refer to some as art. They’re labels that seem to be haphazardly applied to anything that doesn’t conform completely to bog standard gameplay conventions. Gone Home was a game that the critics referred to as both experimental and art. While last week we found out that I disagree with those sentiments, I have found a game that both labels could apply to and certainly qualifies as experimental.
The Stanley Parable is an updated, full release of a 2011 Source engine mod. Like Gone Home, there’s no combat in The Stanley Parable. However, that’s where the similarities end. The Stanley Parable is so experimental, so unorthodox and so brilliant that it certainly earns its place as one of 2013’s best games.
et geekera 