I was browsing pop-culture standout, Rolling Stone and the top article on their ‘Feature Wall’ was a piece about Half-Life 3, the MIA continuation of Valve’s premier series. You know the legend of Half-Life 3 is serious when a site like Rolling Stone takes a look. …
There was a moment in the new (and awesome by the way) Doom which instantly reminded me of Half-Life. The moment came when I entered the core of the Argent Energy Tower, and I was sent back in time to Anomalous Materials in Half-Life. Bear with me, and I will explain all after the break. …
It’s that time of year when the big blockbusters launch ready for Christmas. I’m talking about games like Call of Duty and Assassin’s Creed…sadly though, we will only be covering one of those games in the coming weeks. We weren’t able to secure review code for Unity or Rogue here at The Reticule, so unless one of the team can afford to dig deep, they’ll be on the back burner. In brighter news, I’ll be having first thoughts on Advanced Warfare soon, while Kevin will be taking a crack at Dragon Age: Inquisition on the Xbox One.
With those few updates out of the way, let us get on with Our Week in Games. …
As I’m sure many of you will know, buying games on Steam is a very addictive experience indeed. With seasonal sales regularly knocking up to 75% off my favourite releases it’s no wonder I have accumulated over 50 unplayed games in little over a year. Now I wouldn’t really call myself a PC gamer in the sense that I play 95% of my games on console. The time I put aside to play any titles I own on Steam is fairly minimal comparatively and so I class myself as a console gamer.
All this time spent with a controller in my hand, my Steam backlog has been slowly mounting up to the stage where it’s getting ridiculous and I’ve decided to make a stand. So for the next month I will don the suit, learn the secret handshake and take my place as a PC gamer. Any time I would usually put aside for gaming will be spent tackling my Steam backlog and these articles will be documenting the highs and lows of my experience.
I decided to start things off with a classic and finally finished my first playthrough of the original Half-Life. I know, about time right? I needn’t say much about the game itself as most of you probably know more than me. It was interesting to see how big an improvement there was between Half-Life and Half-Life 2 especially in the story telling side of things. Gameplay was very familiar however and after finishing off Nihilanth I can happily say that I’m making good progress to reduce this massive backlog of mine.
Next up is The Binding of Isaac, a dark and bloodthirsty dungeon crawler from the makers of Super Meat Boy. While this game was interesting at first, after a few attempts and a few deaths it soon became monotonous. The continues repetition of enemies, rooms and random collection of items was not enough to keep me interested for long and after spending about two hours with The Binding of Isaac I have consigned it to the Recycle Bin of my desktop.
Game of the Week
Game of the week goes to The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition. This was recommended to me by a friend after hearing how much I enjoyed playing Deponia at the end of last year. Much like Deponia, this is an adventure game with a unique artistic style and a dash of humour in the gameplay. Although released back in 1990 with the updated special edition in 2009, it stands the test of time well and I have thoroughly enjoyed my time with it so far.
As a newly self appointed PC gamer, one problem I have noticed myself having with PC’s as a platform and also with Steam is immersion in the games I’m playing. Whether it be the fact that the screen of my laptop just doesn’t match the quality of my TV screen. Or maybe that I’m not as used to keyboard and mouse controls and have to focus on that more than I usually would. Or quite often when I’m playing a game and one of my friends will message me on Steam for a chat (which I’m more than happy to do), detracting from my gaming experience. Or maybe it’s just the fact that I know only an alt+tab away are all the videos, social media pages and sporting score lines that could distract me for hours. Either way there always seems to be something to take away my attention, a problem that I rarely have when playing my console.
It is a new year, and with that, we should all have plenty to look forward to, the FA Cup Third Round, Superbowl and Wrestlemania will all take place in the coming weeks and months. While I am certainly looking forward to those events, I have a few hopes for what I will occur in the gaming world over the next twelve months. Kevin is running through his Top 10 Games to look forward to, so my hopes will largely avoid specific games. Apart from my first choice of course. …
Black Mesa, for those who are unaware, is a fan made third party mod that aims to overhaul Valve’s original Half Life game. The 40 man development team say they wish to “create a more engrossing in-game world with more varied, complex environments and more challenging, realistic gameplay”. But Black Mesa is not just a mod for Half Life it’s a total recreation of the game using Valve’s very own Source engine, which makes it even more of an accomplishment and even more amazing when you see the final results. …
Black Mesa media! Yes, that Black Mesa! Screenshots! …
A host of new screen have been released today showing off Arkane Studios’ Dishonored, a title which I’ve been quietly keeping tabs on since I saw the first concept art emerge last year. The game is set in an industrial whaling city with a mix of high technology and mysticism known as Dunwall. You will play as a supernatural assassin in Dishonored and there is promised to be a very flexible combat system which will allow you to mix stealth, supernatural powers and brute force to achieve your goals.
The world has been created by Half-Life 2 art director Viktor Antonov, and the visual similarities with City 17 are subtle but noticeable. I also get a sense of inspiration from Fable III in some of the screen shots, maybe that is just me though. Hit the jump for all the images, and click on them to see them in all their full size glory. …
It emerged on the Steam forums a few weeks ago that there was a mysterious project known as ‘Ravenholm’ or ‘Return to Ravenholm’ that was being worked on by Valve and Arkane in 2006/2007. To put a stop to any wild theories about what this game was, Valve’s Marc Laidlaw spoke to Lambda Generation to clear a few things up about the title. Read on for more details. …
Half-Life: Dreamcast – PC Port Trailer – Mod DB
We don’t often look at the modding scene here at Reticule towers, but when something as obscure as a Half-Life: Dreamcast mod shows up as just being released, my attention is most certainly caught. The mod, developed by three man team of Revenant100, Barnz and Besli turns Gearbox Software’s unreleased Dreamcast version of the PC classic into a playable version on the PC. Hit the jump for more details …