#xbox one
#xbox one
By Amr (@siegarettes)
I started Airheart captivated by its beautiful world. A land set in the clouds, rendered in painterly style, populated with appealing mechanical designs. The story seemed intriguing too, setting up a journey through the clouds to the top layer, with revelations waiting for me. Instead I was surprised to find that Airheart was almost free of direction. Ascending cloud layers and upgrading my machine provided an implicit direction, but after the tutorial it was largely free of objectives or guidance. So I wandered the clouds, fishing, fighting bandits, and scrounging up enough money to try and push higher each time.
For a while this provided a pleasant grind. Flying about the clouds and catching fish almost put in the same mindset as thatgamecompany’s Flow. There was a similar relaxed vibe, and a back and forth between the layers that recalled the same changes in intensity. That all changed after the first plane crash.
by Amr (@siegarettes)
By the time I’d got around to playing games, I’d associated Atari more with middling licensed Dragon Ball Z games than their early videogame contributions. By the time the last generation ended, Atari had pretty much become a company failing to capitalize on those early games with middling remakes and reboots. So it’s a trip to see the Atari logo on a new game, let alone a new Tempest. Doubly so, considering it was just three years ago that the previous incarnation of Atari had threatened legal action against Jeff Minter for his work on TxK for its resemblance to Tempest 2000, a Tempest remake he created for Atari.
Given that context, Tempest 4000 almost feels like an apology to Minter. It’s recognition of the absurdity of the situation created by the previous holders of the Atari name, and an invitation to make it good by paying Minter to return to the well. And Minter isn’t shy about returning to the source.
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)
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)
Warhammer has got to have what is personally the most off putting, wretched and boring fantasy worlds put to pen and paper. Everything about it, from the aggressive focus on the ugliness of its world to the aggressively unlikable characters with ridiculous names spouting fake ol’ timey insults really represents everything that I personally dislike about fantasy as a genre. Warhammer: Vermintide II is one of the few games good enough to make me put up with that.
Innerspace is beautiful. Soaked in a palette of aqua, burnt sienna, gold and purple, Innerspace feels like a pastel filtered rendition of a sci-fi novel cover. Monuments of a past civilization reach across its landscapes, and waves crash across bodies of water that are both the ocean and the sky. There is no up here–earth and sea wrap around to create a world with no end. There’s no boundaries to reach, only deeper spaces to explore. And here is where both its wonders and frustrations begin.
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Sonic Mania is an incredible achievement. It’s a game I looked forward to since its announcement, and one that I had total faith in knowing the team behind it. It’s smooth, modern, and has great boss fights and a few surprises that I appreciated.