Skip to main content

Review: GORDY

Sometimes, in the business of critiquing games, there comes a moment where you have to ask yourself if your expectations of the creators behind projects are too high. Are you holding people, and their work, to too great a standard? Would you be strong enough, focused enough, bold enough to make the choices that lead to this game existing in the first place? Can you really say that, in their position, you’d do better than they ever could? I think about all of that, and then games like GORDY fall into my lap to remind me that having standards is important too. Sometimes, games are hollow, ambling, and slapdash in their construction - being able to acknowledge those failings and examine them in detail helps us understand and celebrate how other games prevail where this particular experience fell short. And if there’s one thing to be said in GORDY ’s favour, it’s that it isn't lacking for teachable moments, however much I may wish it did. Developed and published by MyGrandfather Games...
Post a Comment

Kurt Talks E3


Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Post-E3 Games Showcase Era, Summer 2024 Highlights: Part II

In the ashes of the Electronic Entertainment Expo, amid the bloat and pretense of the games industry, always must there be a presentation... always must there be game trailers... and always must there be those who commentate. So it is that we find ourselves in the aftermath of this year's collected summer showcases, a cavalcade of announcements and information to parse in its wake. For my part, I set forth to note the games that stood out among the pack. Today, we go over the high points of the Future Games Show , the Xbox Games Showcase , the PC Gaming Show and, yes , even the Ubisoft Forward . Heaven help us all... Future Games Show The High Point: Duck Detective: The Secret Salami The premise of “riffing on the hardboiled detective story with talking cartoon animals” would be a fine selling point for a game in itself. The choice to also lean into a sticker book aesthetic, complete with characters hobbling around as barely moving objects in a scene? Now that's a fun time ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Review: MIND PORTAL

Release Date: January 12th, 2018 Developer: Daniil Titner Publisher: Daniil Titner Version Reviewed: PC Copy Purchased There's a saying in certain circles that you can make a good movie out of anything, but to do it sometimes you have to rip out the source material's guts.  The intent of that saying is, I feel, quite clear in its central focus - highlighting how some projects have to work harder than others to hammer competency out of flawed material - but I think the sentiment can also apply to other mediums, like gaming. Take, for example, the first-person platformer, a sub-genre which exists primarily as an extension of the first-person shooter genre being so prevalent for sooooo long.  Make no mistake, I like works like Mirror's Edge (or, say, Jumping Flash ) for at least trying to offer something different from the gun-toting norm, but the execution of such works tends to leave a lot to be desired (no matter how much time, energy and money is thrown at the d...
Post a Comment
Read more

Outlast Review

Thanks to my Patreon supporter and friend, Mark Aguirre, who is currently donating $5 to aid in the production of this and other written works by me. If you'd like to see more from the KURT OF CAMBRIDGE brand, please consider contributing to my Patreon yourself. I’ll be upfront in saying if someone came up and pitched Outlast to me, I’d be more than a little weary. See, while horror in gaming has seen years of experimentation and development enough to be given the benefit of the doubt, the idea of exploitative horror - i.e. horror stories predicated on using existing social issues or prejudices as an excuse to engage in wanton scenes of violence, bloodletting and other “extreme” concepts - is not as well-developed or as ingrained into game canon. Thus, a game where the core pitch seems to be “Let’s throw players into an asylum gone mad, sprinkle in some torture porn and inhumane experiments, and see what happens” is one that would catch me off-guard, to say the least. For...
Post a Comment
Read more