#pc
#pc
by Amr (@siegarettes )
Some games use their user interfaces to great effect. They become expressive tools that communicate mood, give tactile sensations, or reveal and obfuscate information as contributions to the narrative. Then there’s Frost, which gives a somewhat interesting digital deck building game all the fussiness of a physical board game.
by Amr (@siegarettes)
I’m a sucker for a good racing game. Hell, I’ll hang around for longer than I’ll admit for an OK arcade racer. So when All-Star Fruit Racing showed up looking like it had stolen SEGA All-Stars Racing’s drifting I jumped on it. Seriously, the drifting in those games is incredible.
All-Star Fruit Racing’s drifting, as it turns out, is not incredible. It’s not even good. In fact the driving in general is underwhelming and by trying to build on this middling foundation All-Star Fruit Racing ends up with an inconsistent and mundane racer.
by Amr (@siegarettes)
Racing games have gotten flashy. At some point people realized there can only be so much variation in the way you realistically simulate physics, so games started selling the fantasy of driving instead. So I half expected Wreckfest to start off with a five minute long introduction movie, with a woman’s voice reminded you how cool everything you’re about to be doing is. Instead I was booted into a straightforward menu. Here the events, here are the vehicles. Go drive them.
That’s reflective of Wreckfest’s approach as a whole. There’s a minor progression system to earn new cars, parts, and events, but it’s a surprisingly no frills affair, with a serious approach to driving. The focus on destruction and damage physics might lead you to think Wreckfest is an arcade racer, especially coming off Bugbear’s previous project, Ridge Racer Unbounded, but Wreckfest is a sim through and through. And while other sims have made headway by offering more casual play modes and flashy career modes, Wreckfest is content to let the driving speak for itself.
by Amr (@siegarettes)
I love being proven wrong. After doing this for a while you get a sense for how a game will generally turn out, and everything I’d seen of Vampyr didn’t give me much confidence. There was plenty of promises of meaningful choice and interlocking systems, big words that more often point to overambition than anything else. Vampyr definitely doesn’t escape that overambition. There are many rough edges–abrupt loading screens within open areas, dialogue playing over itself, oversights inside of main quests–these are only a few of the things that point to Dontnod reaching beyond their resources.
Despite that Vampyr has been surprisingly compelling. Its focus on conversation and investigation gives weight to the web of relationships within its cast. Character dialogue is limited, but the process of tracking down people, learning about them, and slowly coming to a greater understanding is deeply satisfying. Characters have tangible histories, and I often found listening to them tell their own stories as engaging as following my own.
By Amr (@siegarettes)
“You are dating every single student in the entire school.”
That’s how Heartbreak High starts. That’s just how damn popular you are. And of course, having done that, that means it’s time to break up with every one of them. The only problem? You’ve got to do it by the end of school, and there’s only 40 minutes left. What follows is a madcap sprint through dialogue trees and surprise minigames, as you play an anti-dating sim in fast forward.
It’s kind of wonderful.
by Amr (@siegarettes)
A lot of action games suffer from a lack of feedback. Copy Kitty isn’t one of them. Its got the type of feedback you get when you stick your microphone in front of your speakers, crank the volume, and fill the room with distortion. Its colors are overwhelming and obnoxious, garish in delivery, with several competing styles and guaranteed to compete for your attention with things get chaotic. I ended up playing it more by feeling than by sight.
Mulaka captivated me with its low poly art and mythical atmosphere. I’m a sucker for good mythology, and the stories of the Tarahumara, the indigenous Mexican tribe the game draws from, are definitely cool in their own right. It’s a beautiful mix of the strange and familiar. Mulaka’s shamanistic quest has plenty of recognizable beats, but its in the particular of the beasts and people that you meet that it stands out. There’s a lot of cool illustrated scenes and fantastical set pieces. Even the loading screens felt like they had interesting stories to share.
by Amr (@siegarettes)
For a while, Assault Gunners HD seemed promising. Mechs feel weighty, guns fire off with heavy feedback that makes even basic weapons feel substantial, and there’s the eternal appeal of collecting parts and building up your machine. But the longer I stayed with it the more the flaws began to dominate the experience and by the end of it Assault Gunners had become a chore.