Our Year in Games – Part Two
Last week we kicked off a review of our last year in games, and today we kick on with part two. Hit the break to see what other thoughts we have from the last year in games… …
Our Year in Games – Part One
Welcome to Part One of Our Year in Games here at Reticule Towers. For the next four Sundays, we will be sharing memories and thoughts on what has transpired in our past gaming year. We aren’t limiting ourselves to talking about games released this year, anything goes. Have no fear though, we will be taking a look at Our Games of the Year at Christmas, though I doubt we will come away with a definitive verdict. …
Our Week in Games – Week 106
Welcome to the last normal edition of Our Week in Games this year. Starting next Sunday, we will be starting to run with Our Year in Games where we will look back at the games that have defined our year. This will lead on to Our Games of the Year on Christmas Day. With that, read on for Our Week in Games as we reach Week 106. …
Our Week In Games – Week 104
In a rather strange series of news posts it became apparent that Ubisoft had removed all their new releases from Steam earlier in the week. The reason why they felt they had to do this has not been fully discovered yet but the internet was rife with rumors of a fallout with Valve over the pricing of their games. Whatever the reason it seems to have sorted itself out as after a brief spell of wondering what to do with ourselves, the games magically appeared back on Steam yesterday afternoon.
Kevin
This week has been very busy on the gaming front. Now that my new PC is all set up nicely I’ve had some real time to sit down an play some good games and even get some recording done!
First off I managed about an hour of the surprise Evolve alpha, I was hoping for more but ended up missing it. It was good fun when it worked (it was very temperamental) but nothing to shout home about just yet as you would come to expect from an alpha honestly. Next up was Mark of the Ninja. I’ve been wanting to play this for ages and it’s been in my Steam backlog for… well, ages. Really enjoyed it and was surprised to realise it took me 8 hours to finish, seemed a lot shorter. That’s usually the mark of a good game in my books, something you can lose yourself in for a bit.
Finally I’ve been taking a look at Lords of Xulima early access on Steam. It’s an old school styled RPG with lots going for it, definitely worth checking out if you like your Ultima games. More to come on this very shortly and I managed to get some recording done too.
Oh yeah, and there’s Hearthstone, but that’s a given for any of my OWIG entries.
Jon
I spent a lot of last week playing Evolve and if you’ve read my preview on it (of course you have…) you’d know I think it has promise. I particularly like the a-symetrical nature of the combat. The success or otherwise of the title, for me at least, rests on maintaining this a-symmetry as the playerbase becomes more experienced and the characters progress and unlock more skills.
Rampaging monsters and hunters aside, i’ve spent a bit of time re-visiting an old love of mine; X-Com. Now the game is starting to look old, and if im perfectly honest with myself, it wasn’t the best looking game on release (though it was by no means bad, the styalised visuals hid an ageing engine very well), but the gameplay is still immense.
With the benefit of the 2nd wave options (a way to modify the game for extra playability) im going to give it another bash. ON classic ironman of course….
Our Week in Games – Week 103
Another week goes by, and it looks like all of us here at Reticule Towers have been busy with our day jobs (or Halloween parties). While Kevin and myself have managed to cover some of the news, we’ve not had a chance to delve deeper into anything else. We’ll have to get ourselves into gear though, in the coming weeks we will see Advanced Warfare and Assassin’s Creed Unity releasing along with some other big titles. While you ponder what you are playing next, hit the break to read the latest Our Week in Games. …
Our Week in Games – Week 102
It is a Sunday, and that means it is time for another edition of Our Week in Games here at Reticule Towers. Earlier this week Steph wrote a great piece about the variety of Wii U controllers which will be something that comes into greater focus when Super Smash Bros. comes out closer to Christmas. GameCube pad, Wii U GamePad or Pro Controller? Choices choices.
While you ponder that, and decide whether you will be buying a Wii U, I want you to watch the video below from Matt Lees about Destiny. It clocks in at just over twenty-minutes, but it is a must watch for anyone who wonders about the mechanics in the game. …
Our Week in Games – Week 101
Welcome to another edition of Our Week in Games here at Reticule Towers. It has been an interesting week as we figure out what, if any, response we will have to the ongoing ‘Gate’ incident that is taking place within gaming culture. We have decided that on some occasions, it is better to stay away from the fire rather than stick our hands in it. I will say this though; there are numerous sides to the initial argument over journalistic ethics and whether websites should cover cultural issues beyond just posting the latest AAA FPS trailer. The sad fact is, that room for any reasonable debate on these topics has been destroyed by a very vocal minority who have taken things to awful extremes. Our last comment on the ‘Gate’ incident will be this – take a look at this Eurogamer piece which which states that We cannot let this become gaming culture and the fact that the abbreviation of post-game phrase, Good Game (GG) will never quite sound the same again. I also wonder how the retail site GamersGate has been coping in the midst of all this nonsense.
With that, we resume normal service with Our Week in Games.
Our Week in Games – Week 100
Our Week in Games has reached the 100th normal edition (not counting crazy Christmas or E3 ones), so we decided to share some thoughts on what this Sunday adventure that we call OWIG means to us and what our highlights from the past editions has been. The first edition was way back in July 2012, and I for one am just happy that we have kept this going all this time. On to another 100! …
Our Week In Games – Week 99
One of the most intriguing things of the past week was the announcement from Microsoft that their next operating system won’t be labelled Windows 9, but rather will be known as Windows 10. For one, it shows that Microsoft aren’t afraid of throwing naming and numbering conventions out of the window (just look at the Xbox One), but the more important thing to keep in mind is that the new platform will ship with DirectX 12. You can find the details on that here, but I wonder how that might play into Kevin’s PC-rebuild project.
Elsewhere saw the launch of Shadow of Mordor which seems to have been receiving many plaudits around the gaming world. I haven’t played it yet, but I know that I should be. Further to that, we have Alien: Isolation launching on Tuesday. Anyone ready to change their underwear a bit more than normal? …
From the Archive – Do games have to be fun to be good?
The following words were written way back when in 2008 on my old, now closed, personal blog, evo-gamer.com. There were an attempt, of sorts, to answer the question – do games have to be fun to be good? I chose to write this after first learning about Pathologic, and with the recent Kickstarter campaign to bring the game back, I thought it might be an idea to resurrect this piece. Please note that this is an archival piece of work and is an example of what my writing was like when I was 20, in University and very likely, a little bit drunk at the time I wrote this. Proceed if you dare. …