26 Dec

Tango Down

Merry Christmas! As the holidays roll through and the Steam winter sale does its worst, I’ve weathered the storm with only a few purchases here and there. Believe me, it could have been much, much worse. So what did I pick up?

Clear!

I couldn’t resist police XCOMtastic RPS tactics game of the year Door Kickers. I was a little worried that I would find that my relationship with tactics games had gotten It’s Complicated. I’m not a huge tactics junkie but I really enjoyed Valkyria Chronicles, and had a brief but enjoyable dalliance with Frozen Synapse. Would Door Kickers get to third base with me? Read More

18 Dec

One Step at a Time

The Legend of Grimrock is a cautionary tale about crime, punishment, and the power of teamwork. Like some kind of crazy mashup of The Hobbit and Prison Break, four alleged criminals get thrown into a mountain that’s meant to serve as their place of exile, only to find that the mountain is hollow, filled with cunning traps, teeming with horrific monsters, and arranged in a neat floor and grid system for easy cartography.

He Needs Another Eye!These four intrepid criminals decide to cast off their past life of crime or completely inappropriate incarceration (never really clear which) to work together to reach the bottom of Grimrock and find Smaug’s treasureĀ and peace for Sara Tancredi. I mean freedom. I’m pretty sure it’s actually freedom. I don’t know; I didn’t finish the game in three hours! Read More

11 Dec

Little Green Men

Let me start by admitting something that some people may find shocking: I am not a capital-A Alien kind of guy. I haven’t seen the seminal sci-fi film of that name, nor the sequel (Aliens) or any of the myriad of extraterrestrial films that followed (Alien 3: The Last Stand, Alien 4: The Lost World, Alienz in the Hood, Aliam Neeson in Abducted, etc). It is with this woeful ignorance of the franchise, this blank slate that I approached this week’s game, the much maligned Aliens: Colonial Marines.

Out the Airlock!I do know this much: this game got put through the ringer when it came out. The Internet exploded with negativity over something or other. People were unhappy. Rage was spewed. What was it all about? I couldn’t tell you. I didn’t end up following it that closely. But I was ready to get in there and tear Aliens: Colonial Marines a new eggplant-head-shaped orifice. Is it time to get on the A:CM hate dogpile train? Punch your ticket, let’s go. Read More

06 Dec

O Canada

Oof. I’m a day late and a dollar short, if you count a dollar as an hour of playtime on The Long Dark, a simulation survival game where you roleplay as a very inept Wolverine (the mutant, not the actual animal). I played until an untimely end three times, and have a save that currently sees me alive – if not well – on day 2. I’ve found a hunting knife and crafted a fishing line, though, so things look promising.

Sunrise

I picked up The Long Dark in the latest Steam sale because it looked like a survival game I could handle. I’ve played a few survival games here and there – most notably Don’t Starve and Sir, You Are Being Hunted – but I always found myself doing quite poorly. Would The Long Dark finally draw out the rugged Canadian survivalist I knew was always inside me? Probably not. Read More