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Showing posts from May, 2018

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 ...

Review: RUSTY LAKE PARADISE

Developer: Rusty Lake Publisher: Rusty Lake Release Date: January 11, 2018 Version Played: PC Copy purchased for review When talking of horror media, the concept of fearing the unknown is key. It’s not exactly a novel sentiment, but I nonetheless maintain that it’s vital to understanding why a given work - film, literature, video game, et cetera - works at provoking a terrified response. For many, there’s an innate impulse to draw back and flee when faced with grotesque and incomprehensible imagery; we retreat to safety in a bid to keep calm whilst trying to make sense of our observations. This feels pertinent since, on top of everything else, Rusty Lake Paradise is remarkably adept in its usage of horror iconography to evoke fear in the audience. It’s unsettling in mood, slow-burning in narrative progression, and quite effectively builds in suspense up to its finale. For the uninitiated: Paradise represents the latest work in the Rusty Lake series, sharing its name with t...

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...