02 Jun

Who’s Afraid of Gordon Freeman?

I’ve spent the past month trying to convince myself to play more of a game that will be 16 years old in a few months, but in the end, a little over an hour of Half-Life: Opposing Force was all I could muster. It’s not that Opposing Force is a bad game. It’s just that I didn’t want to keep playing it.

Dead guysSince I’ve summarily pushed nostalgia onto the ground, let’s give it a few kicks for good measure. I played some of Half-Life and found it decent, though, like so many games, I never finished it. I also found it more than a bit tedious. Read More

05 May

Learning to Fly

Well, I certainly didn’t intend to take a month-long break, but now that I’ve gone and done it, I suppose there’s nothing to be done but to forge onward. And what better way to do so than with first-person grappling game A Story About My Uncle? ASAMU was primarily on  my radar because it’s published by Coffee Stain Studios, the company behind the decent action-tower-defense games Sanctum and Sanctum 2, but more importantly the developers of the sublime Goat Simulator.

ASAMU is a game that is entirely based on movement and momentum. It’s a game where you fly through the air with a mysterious crystal-powered energy-grapple that emerges from your gloves and attempt to land on various rocks, platforms, and other bits of terrain. It’s a game where you repeatedly fall to your demise and try again. It’s a game where, ostensibly, there is a story about an uncle. Read More

25 Mar

Over the Line

I’m not a big fan of multiplayer shooters. I tend to spend most of my time either crawling through vegetation looking for a point of interest, or staring at the stats of the person who has just killed me and wondering what I could have done differently. It’s mainly a sad, contemplative experience, and it’s an experience I can easily attain by booting up various Battlefields, Halos, or Call of Duties that I own across multiple platforms. When I cracked the plastic wrap on Battlefield: Hardline, I resigned myself to another go on this melancholy merry-go-round.

Cop StuffI had heard only bits and pieces of the marketing for Hardline, but one of the things I’d heard was that they were going to deliver on a strong story for the single-player experience. I’ll admit that I scoffed. I’ve played my fair share of shooters, all of which have either complex stories based on a lore that I’ll never understand or essentially boil down to killing the right mans with a side of “isn’t war terrible” thrown in. While I’ve been impressed with level design and certain environmental moments that shooters have been able to present, the actual story, plot, and characters have always felt a bit amateur hour to me. Would Hardline be any different? Could it? 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