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Free to Play Review: A Long Way to the Top
It’s only fitting that a free-to-play game gets a free documentary to go with it. Valve’s popular free MOBA, Dota 2, now has a quasi-companion documentary called, appropriately, Free to Play. However, it’s not really a Dota documentary and you don’t even need to like video games to like the movie.
While the title Free to Play implies that it’s a documentary about Dota 2 and its development, popularity and the impact its had on gaming, Free to Play is actually about eSports. The documentary follows three competitive Dota players, each with a different background, as they pursue the $1 million grand prize for Dota 2’s The International championship.
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BioShock Infinite: Burial At Sea – Episode One Review: Beyond the Sea
As someone who has BioShock on their personal top ten games of all-time list and top three of 2013, I had to go back to play the DLC that marries the two worlds of Rapture and Columbia together. But is Burial at Sea capable of properly combining two memorable stories and two memorable settings into one cohesive whole or does Burial at Sea come off as nothing but BioShock fan service for the sake of nostalgia?
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Little Racers Street Review: Top-Down, Bottom-Up
If you race it, chances are that I’m going to try to review it. That includes the recent release of Little Racers Street, former an Xbox Live Indie Game that was ported over to PC on Steam. I haven’t had the best of luck with top-down racing games but maybe this will be the one to change things for me. Maybe…
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The Walking Dead: Season Two – Episode Two (Spoiler-Free) Review: Trust Me
After establishing themselves as some of the best storytellers in gaming with Season One of The Walking Dead, Telltale Games certainly didn’t set the world on fire with either Season One’s 400 Days DLC or Season Two premiere All That Remains. While the pieces that made TWD great were there, the heart that made TWD special was missing.
Fortunately, despite having four games on the go right now, Telltale hasn’t bitten off more than it can chew. Episode Two of Season Two is a return to form for The Walking Dead series.
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Haven: Welcome to Haven Review
Well, I promised that I would go back and review old episodes of Haven and here we are. I figured that there was no better place to start going through 39 episodes of Haven that I haven’t reviewed than where it all started. At least until I review The Colorado Kid. Then you almost wonder how we get from there to here.
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Contrast Review: Now That’s Not Thinking with Shadows
It’s only appropriate that a game whose review on Valentine’s Day has a love story. Okay, that’s probably a bit of a stretch when it comes to Contrast seeing as the game is a puzzle platformer where a man trying to win back his family is only really of minimal importance to the game. However, it’s there so I’m calling Contrast an appropriate game to review today.
When Contrast was released, it certainly carried some big expectations. While Compulsion Games was a rookie developer, the game had been selected as one of two free games on PlayStation 4 at launch for PlayStation Plus members. Was Contrast worthy of such a distinction as being on of Sony’s featured launch titles?
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WRC Powerslide Review: The Spin-off Doesn’t Spin Out
Milestone’s WRC series and I have a long history. I’ve played each of the four games and reviewed the last three. The series has evolved from TV presentation to arcade presentation. It’s tried to be rally sim and tried to be a WRC-licensed Dirt game. Every time it makes a change, they take two steps forward and at least one step back.
With WRC Powerslide, Milestone has completely gotten away from proper rallying. Instead, Powerslide is a WRC karting game. While I’ve been looking for the proper WRC series to embrace being a proper rally sim, Powerslide proves that you don’t actually know what you want from gaming until you get it.
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The Stanley Parable Review: A Successful Experiment
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.
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Gone Home Review: A House is Not a Home
This year’s surprise hit game was a little indie game called Gone Home. The debut effort of a small indie dev made up of BioShock 2: Minerva’s Den devs is in a way inspired by BioShock but much simpler and focused. For many critics, the straight-forward focus on story made it near-perfect and the game of the year. Many gamers, though, didn’t find it as good as it was hyped up to be. So where does it fall on the spectrum?
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Doctor Who: The Time of The Doctor Review
The recent Doctor Who Christmas special marked a couple of milestones for the series. Not only did The Time of The Doctor mark Matt Smith’s final appearance as The Doctor and Peter Capaldi’s first appearance in the titular role but it was the series’ 800th episode dating back to 1963.
Given the hit or miss nature of many of the 11th Doctor’s adventures, would his final story at the helm of the TARDIS be another Moffat classic or would Eleven go out with a whimper rather than a bang?
et geekera 