Blog Archives
NASCAR ’15 Review: Black Flag
The most recent NASCAR game that I played prior to picking up NASCAR ’15 was EA Sports’ NASCAR 06: Total Team Control. Before and after playing that, I regularly played NASCAR Racing 2003 Season. NR2003 is over 12 years old at this point but it’s still considered the best NASCAR sim ever made and still has a fairly healthy community.
So when Dusenberry Martin Racing announced that they acquired the NASCAR license, I was pretty excited. Their leadership includes a veteran of those classic Papyrus Racing Games NASCAR games so I was hoping this would be a sign of good things to come from NASCAR ’15.
Then DMR mentioned that this year’s game was a carryover from previous license holders Eutechnyx who had already started development on NASCAR ’15 when they acquired the license. If you know the name Eutechnyx, you may recognize them as the developers of Ride to Hell: Retribution. Oh my.
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Game of Thrones – Episode Four Review: Old Wounds
After the last episode of Game of Thrones (A Telltale Game Series), I lamented the fact that it felt like the story was far too on-rails for my liking and that the Forrester clan were getting no hope spots in their continuing battle to save their House from being crushed by the combined forces of House Whitehill and the various Bolton and Lannister forces. While the latter doesn’t really change that much (it is a Telltale game after all), we finally see a glimmer of hope and a little comeback from Team Ironrath.
Given that we’ve been beaten down emotionally by Game of Thrones on TV and in the game, it was nice to have that little bit of hope.
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Her Story Review: Law & Order
Experimental games are a hit or a miss. I’m not entirely sure that you will ever find a near universal opinion on any game but games that find themselves outside the standard mould are especially prone to that. People will either absolutely love new and different games and mechanics or they will resoundly reject them.
I use that as the intro to this review because experimental is an appropriate catch-all term to describe Her Story. It’s a mystery game that sees you dig through old police interrogation videos to determine the truth in a 21-year-old case.
It might not have a proper win state. It might rely on FMV in the style of a, well, 21-year old video game. It might be a game that’s only combat is your brain against itself. But it’s easily the best game I’ve played this year so far.
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Tales from the Borderlands – Episode Two Review: Atlas Shrugged
I know these episodic reviews of Telltale’s games aren’t exactly the most timely but the increasing length of time between Telltale’s releases aren’t exactly speedy either. We’re getting to the point where I’m not exactly sure that Telltale will be able to complete Tales From The Borderlands during this calendar year since the gap between releases is just over three months.
So some three months after it was released, I’ve finally gotten around to reviewing the second episode of Tales From The Borderlands. It would have been a lot easier to review this is I felt any passion for this product but I’m not entirely sure that I don’t feel a little more passion than Telltale does.
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E3 2015: PC Gaming Show Trailer Roundup
For the first time, E3 had a dedicated show for PC gaming. At some point, I’ll probably pontificate over the dangers of a marketing event that was put together by a video game magazine that supposedly provides independent journalism at another time. For now, a lot of smaller developers brought their new wares to E3 through this new PC gaming show. If you’re a fan of indies and didn’t like what you saw on consoles, this was definitely the conference for you. If you’re looking for triple-As, maybe next year.
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Ride Review: Two Wheels Are as Good as Four
I have a mixed history with games from Italian developer and publisher Milestone. While I liked their kart-racing take on the World Rally Championship, WRC Powerslide, the more simulation-focused main WRC series has been a bit of a disappointment. On the whole, their four-wheel racing offerings have gotten mixed reviews at best.
On two-wheels, though, Milestone has a much stronger track record. While Metacritic shows a pattern of review scores in the 60s for the WRC games (I think I gave WRC Powerslide the best PC score on the internet), their MotoGP games have ratings in the 70s. Ride might not be backed by a big license but the motorcycle racing game does feel like Milestone’s attempt to create the first Gran Turismo-style bike game since Tourist Trophy.
So does Milestone’s first venture away from a licensed racing product in eight years live up to its two-wheel reputation?
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Game of Thrones – Episode Three Review: Words are Wind
One criticism that Telltale has faced since their renaissance with The Walking Dead is that their games have become quite formulaic. There’s a lot of talking, some needless quick-time events and a helix story structure that only diverges based on your choices for a short period before following the intended plot. But even with those complaints, Telltale is very good at telling their story.
The problem is that when you release games episodically, there’s an expectation for the climax inside the episode and to build the “season”-long story at the same time. The first two episodes of Telltale’s Game of Thrones have been serviceable as their own episodes but they haven’t rushed to build a story going forward. With Episode Three: The Sword in the Darkness, Game of Thrones properly drives us forward in the season-long narrative.
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Game of Thrones – Episode Two Review: Love’s Labour’s Lost
It took a long time but it looks like Telltale Games finally found its strong suit with The Walking Dead series. That story kicked off their foray into mature stories, strong characters and meaningful interaction. The gameplay around it wasn’t the emphasis but rather a means to get you to the next character moment.
While Telltale’s new Game of Thrones series didn’t debut at the peak of TWD’s excellence, they did a great job with the talking portions of the game. The memorable moments in the first episode came from the interactions of the two Forrester children who were talkers rather than fighters. The second episode of Game of Thrones has a little less conversation and a little more action but that doesn’t make it any less satisfying.
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Lara Croft and the Temple of Osiris Review: The Mummy Returns
As I finished up writing this review, I had to change the posting date of it. It read February 25th, 2015. I’ve had this review waiting to be written for a month-and-a-half. It’s hard to motivate yourself to write a review for a game that does so little to motivate you to play it. Basically, this game is the game that nearly ended et geekera. I had to overcome the challenge and finish the review but I couldn’t will myself to do it.
There are great games. There are terrible games. The worst thing that a game could be is perfectly average. Nothing particularly good. Nothing particularly bad. The only thing that it’s great at is making you go “That was a game.”
Lara Croft and the Temple of Osiris is the “sequel” to Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light, a game that is very well-regarded by gamers and critics. LCTOO is just a game. Nothing more, nothing less.
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ClusterPuck 99 Review: Drop The Puck
If there’s one complaint that I have as a primarily PC gamer, it’s that there aren’t many sports games on the PC. Sure, there’s FIFA and NBA 2K but there’s no Madden, no MLB (okay, it’s basically PlayStation exclusive but you know what I’m getting at) and no NHL. That last one’s really burning me because I willingly played those NHL game re-skins that EA was putting out for PC from NHL 07 to NHL 09. And, no, eSports doesn’t count because the vs. AI modes of MOBAs and CS:GO aren’t particularly fun and the AI kicks my ass repeatedly at SC2.
And that brings me to ClusterPuck 99. With sports games lacking on PC and licenses for pro sports costing an obscene amount of money, devs have to be creative with sports games. And that’s exactly what PHL Collective have done with ClusterPuck 99. They’ve taken the important parts of hockey and soccer and distilled it down to the essential experience. Then they went mental and added spikes and turbo pads and death. You know, the important part of sport.
et geekera 