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The Cave Review: A Domain of Evil It Is. In You Must Go.
The second-to-last week of January had a game I was very excited about. Strike Suit Zero was a gorgeous looking space sim. Having grown up on space sims, I was looking forward to a great space flight combat game. Then I actually started flying the titular Strike Suit ship and found myself quickly underwhelmed by twitchy controls and combat mechanics that didn’t work as advertised in the tutorial which resulted in a massive and frustrating difficulty spike.
Fortunately, there was a second big indie game release that week. Double Fine Productions released their much-anticipated The Cave. The developer is best known for their work on Psychonauts and they got a hand from popular games director Ron Gilbert whose resume includes the cult-hit Monkey Island series. Better than the team behind it was trailers promising puzzles, stories and dark humour. In other words, it ticked off most of the items on my checklist of things I like in games.
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How We Score Video Game Reviews
We’ve done a few video game reviews here on et geekera but we haven’t really explained what the scores mean. Sure, the scores at the end of the reviews are a reflection of the content of the rest of the review but we haven’t expressly said what constitutes a full endorsement and what is a game that must be avoided at all costs. Read the rest of this entry
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10000000 Review: What’s In a Name?
Another iOS port to PC. I’ve had such good luck with iOS games that why shouldn’t I pick up another iOS game ported to PC. After all, it’s not like Death Rally was an over-priced, under-performing game or Super Hexagon made me physically ill. Oh wait…
That brings me to the latest iOS port to make it Steam and subsequently make a dent in my wallet. 10000000 (that’s “ten million” because developer EightyEightGames doesn’t believe in commas… or spaces) is a puzzle-RPG hybrid that sees you fight your way through a dungeon with the ultimate goal of scoring 10,000,000 points in a run. When you find that tidbit of information, the game’s title makes a lot more sense, doesn’t it? Read the rest of this entry
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Primal Fears Review: Running Scared
I’m a huge fan of twin-stick shooters going back to the original twin-stick game for the home console, Ape Escape. When the PSN went down two years ago, one of my free game downloads was Dead Nation. I absolutely loved that game. It was an isometric camera version of Left 4 Dead. It wasn’t a zombie simulation as much as it was an arcade shoot-em-up.
When I picked up DNS Development’s Primal Fears, I was hoping for largely the same thing except with keyboard and mouse. The trailer showed that it was fairly arcade-inspired with enemies dying in massive explosions and/or bursting apart under a hail of gunfire. A trailer wouldn’t lie to us right? Read the rest of this entry
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Spec Ops: The Line Review: Do You Know the Enemy?
Despite having yet to play it, I named Spec Ops: The Line as one of my 12 favourite games of 2012. The game created a fair bit of discussion about its story which delved into the psychological effects of war on soldiers. I was amazed that a military shooter, a genre that usually omits any effort when it comes to storytelling in lieu of spending money on graphics and multiplayer content, was making waves over its plot and a complex sounding plot at that.
I figured that I couldn’t name the game one of my 12 favourites of last year without giving it a try. So when it went on sale during the recent Steam sale, I put my money where my mouth was to see if it was actually worth a spot on the blog’s de facto year-end award list. Read the rest of this entry
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Super Hexagon Review: My Eyes! The Goggles Do Nothing!
One of the surprise entries on many year-end lists was Super Hexagon. In a year where small indie games were more fondly thought of and better reviewed than many triple-A releases, it shouldn’t be a surprise that the one-man development team of Terry Cavanagh was able to produce a critically acclaimed game. However, I wasn’t sold on what appeared to be such a simple game so I had to pick it up and give it a go. Read the rest of this entry
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Dead Pixels Review: The 8-Bit Dead
Zombies. After the last year in gaming, I could understand if you’re a bit burned out on zombies. That doesn’t mean that the creativity in the zombie game genre is all used up. I have one more zombie game for you to consider. Dead Pixels is an 8-bit style throwback game which crosses the shoot ’em up style zombie game, like the Left 4 Dead games, with some more modern RPG-style mechanics. The result is a game that intentionally looks dated but plays fresh. The question is if this is one more zombie game you should add to your now vast zombie game collection. Read the rest of this entry
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