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poekmon
Link to original post: A few games PC games out of the ordinary that I really liked and I think you should play them as well OKAY??
So I’m writing a blog. Like I used to. Huh. Haven’t been here in a while because Teran is obviously the devil incarnated and yada yada yada (nah jk). But I’m gonna make another attempt and you’ll have to excuse me if you find inconsistencies in my level of English. I’m still learning the language.
Onto the subject. Game reviewers today have a tendency (or a duty, depending on how you view it) to strictly target high budget, overhyped man-with-gun-kills-hordes-of-bad-guys-but-this-game-has-one-special-twist kind of games. And you can go to any video game discussion forum and you’ll find at least one topic made by some hipster complaining about this – mainstream games getting too much attention and whatnot.
So yeah, I’M HIPSTERING IT UP HERE. I’m gonna be honest, I’m not actually much of a “hardcore gamer” at heart. Just to name a few examples, I’ve played the Gears of War series for a total of 3 minutes, the Dead Space series for 2 minutes and the Modern Warfare series for 0 minutes throughout my life. The only home console I ever owned is a Wii and the only handheld console was a Gameboy Color. But still, I have a few gaming related experiences that I actually treasure as important memories of my life. I’m gonna go through a handful of the games that truly astonished me at times. They aren’t in any specific order. Or, well, chronologically I guess.
If you’ve ever heard of Peter Molyneux, you probably know him as a guy who claims to be a God among video game developers (but isn’t). Well, in this case the description is quite fitting as the whole point of Black & White is that you are God. The way this is done is quite clever: The game starts with a tiny village on an island of non-believers. One day when a child is in danger of drowning, the villagers start to pray to a god, which results in said god’s existence – you are that god. The goal is then to get as many people as possible to convert to your religion – this means that you have to impress believers of other deities enough to get them to join your side.
As the game goes on, you are given choices on how you want to play God. You can try to fulfil your believers’ wants and needs and get them to tell the good word about you and spread your good reputation to other people. Or you could just be an outright a**hole and destroy and murder to simply FORCE your villagers to believe in you – or else. The only way for humans to hurt you is to stop believing in you which is difficult when there’s fireballs raining down from the sky. The game’s aesthetics (very gradually) change depending on your alignment. Random rainbows appear if you’re good, seagulls become bats if you’re evil and so on.
I would say the game fits in the Real Time Strategy genre. So if you’re a fan of those, I would recommend it.
No, not Call of Duty Modern Warops IV 3. The original one. The single player campaign is played through the eyes of an American, a British and a Russian soldier during the second world war. Unlike most modern FPS games where you play as fearless muscle mountains, the NPCs in Call of Duty actually show emotions and personalities. There’s one notable example which is one of the most memorable moments I’ve had in videogames.
You are a Russian private who’s sent to fight in the Battle of Stalingrad. The Nazi forces have fortified the top of a hill and you’re told to attack it – without a weapon. You’ll find many of those on the ground as thousands of your comrades have already made an attempt to climb the hill but failed. In my experience, no historical documentaries or military reenactments have ever been able to convey the setting of a bitter war this well. It truly makes you feel for those who suffered.
As for the multiplayer component, Call of Duty 1 is the only FPS I have ever played online for a longer period of time. It’s so insanely simple – you choose one of ten levels, you choose one of two sides and you choose one of four weapons. There’s nothing else to it. But still, it’s so magnificently pulled off. The allied and nazi forces are well balanced and the maps are brilliantly made.
I haven’t played the game for about two years so I’m not sure if there’s a lot of activity online these days. But if you see the game on a Steam sale, I absolutely think you should get it and find out why the Call of Duty series has been so successful.
Myst IV – Revelation was the first PC game ever released on a single DVD-ROM, simply because of its huge size. The game is a point-and-click adventure but without the part where you pick up items. The whole game revolves around discovering environments and solving puzzles to proceed. The puzzles are never explained so you usually find yourself lost simply because you have absolutely no idea what to do next. If you aren’t an experienced Myst fan, you’ll probably have to peek at walkthroughs every now and then in order to complete the game (I’m guilty).
But this isn’t what makes the game special. You navigate by standing still at certain locations where you have a 360° panorama to explore and most of these hotspots look absolutely stunning, even by today’s standards. By limiting the number of possible viewing angles in the game from infinity to a couple of hundred, the developers have really put their effort into making those specific spot look unlike anything else.
Certain locations display a vivid and dynamic play of tiny events like bugs passing by or leaves moving with the wind while others are more barren yet extremely atmospheric which works perfectly in synergy with the musical score.
Still, I wouldn’t recommend this game to most people. Its tediousness and slow pace will probably cause you to quit unless you can really enjoy the game for what it is – a piece of art.
Lugaru HD is a fighting game made in 2005. First, I’ll give you a screenshot so that you can ask yourself what kind of gay*ss furry s**t this is. Ready yourself.
WHAT KIND OF GAY*SS FURRY S**T IS THIS!?
Yes, it’s true. The game looks absolutely terrible considering the fact that it was released in 2005. The game is really repetitive and the story is told though emotionless antropomorphic rabbits squeaking to each other accompanied with subtitles. In fact, the game isn’t really that great.
But there’s a factor I haven’t mentioned. Controls. Never in my life have I played a fighting game where moves are pulled out this smoothly and naturally. Fighting is done only with three buttons: dodge, jump and attack. What makes the fighting different is the fact that animations aren’t pre-programmed like in most 2D and 3D fighters – they adjust to your current stance and environment. This leads to hand-to-hand combat that actually feels natural.
There’s a sequel in development called Overgrowth which has a combat system similar to Lugaru. It’s currently in the alpha stage but it’s turning out pretty cool: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Re4zc47iq0
This game went from being a joke to becoming a worldwide success on mobile platforms. The concept as well as the storyline is told pretty well just in the title – you are being attacked by zombies and you need plants to defend yourself. It works as a tower defence game where you need to prevent the zombies from getting to the left side of the screen by strategically choosing and placing 50 different plants on your lawn.
At the start of the game, you might have a setup that looks a bit like this:
But after time, you’ll be able to discover new strategies like this one:
I found out about this game in 2009 just after it was released. Thought it looked cool and bought a copy. After a couple of weeks, all four of my younger siblings, my dad as well as three classmates were hooked. There’s something about Plants vs Zombies that just gets you. Oh, I know what that is. Fun. Yeah. It’s a really really fun game with a perfect learning curve.
The game is out on like, every current gaming system in existence (including phones). Do yourself a favor and play this.
If you’ve played this flash game already you know what it’s all about. If you haven’t, do it:
http://games.adultswim.com/robot-unicorn-attack-twitchy-online-game.html
Put on your headphones.
I’m not a big fan of horror games since horror usually doesn’t work when it’s mixed with a bunch of other gameplay elements (usually involving weapon usage). This is where Amnesia: The Dark Descent truly shines. You are not fighting off hordes of scary looking things – you are scared of having to fight at all simply because you can’t. The only way to survive when encountering an enemy is to run or hide.
When playing though this game, I had to take breaks every 30 minutes (I’ve heard a lot of other Amnesia players say this) to like, breathe. I would say Amnesia is currently the only horror game out there that can truly be called a horror game.
If you plan to get this game, I advice you to play it like the developers intended for full effect: Lights out, headphones on and no other people nearby.
So I’m writing a blog. Like I used to. Huh. Haven’t been here in a while because Teran is obviously the devil incarnated and yada yada yada (nah jk). But I’m gonna make another attempt and you’ll have to excuse me if you find inconsistencies in my level of English. I’m still learning the language.
Onto the subject. Game reviewers today have a tendency (or a duty, depending on how you view it) to strictly target high budget, overhyped man-with-gun-kills-hordes-of-bad-guys-but-this-game-has-one-special-twist kind of games. And you can go to any video game discussion forum and you’ll find at least one topic made by some hipster complaining about this – mainstream games getting too much attention and whatnot.
So yeah, I’M HIPSTERING IT UP HERE. I’m gonna be honest, I’m not actually much of a “hardcore gamer” at heart. Just to name a few examples, I’ve played the Gears of War series for a total of 3 minutes, the Dead Space series for 2 minutes and the Modern Warfare series for 0 minutes throughout my life. The only home console I ever owned is a Wii and the only handheld console was a Gameboy Color. But still, I have a few gaming related experiences that I actually treasure as important memories of my life. I’m gonna go through a handful of the games that truly astonished me at times. They aren’t in any specific order. Or, well, chronologically I guess.
If you’ve ever heard of Peter Molyneux, you probably know him as a guy who claims to be a God among video game developers (but isn’t). Well, in this case the description is quite fitting as the whole point of Black & White is that you are God. The way this is done is quite clever: The game starts with a tiny village on an island of non-believers. One day when a child is in danger of drowning, the villagers start to pray to a god, which results in said god’s existence – you are that god. The goal is then to get as many people as possible to convert to your religion – this means that you have to impress believers of other deities enough to get them to join your side.
As the game goes on, you are given choices on how you want to play God. You can try to fulfil your believers’ wants and needs and get them to tell the good word about you and spread your good reputation to other people. Or you could just be an outright a**hole and destroy and murder to simply FORCE your villagers to believe in you – or else. The only way for humans to hurt you is to stop believing in you which is difficult when there’s fireballs raining down from the sky. The game’s aesthetics (very gradually) change depending on your alignment. Random rainbows appear if you’re good, seagulls become bats if you’re evil and so on.
I would say the game fits in the Real Time Strategy genre. So if you’re a fan of those, I would recommend it.
No, not Call of Duty Modern Warops IV 3. The original one. The single player campaign is played through the eyes of an American, a British and a Russian soldier during the second world war. Unlike most modern FPS games where you play as fearless muscle mountains, the NPCs in Call of Duty actually show emotions and personalities. There’s one notable example which is one of the most memorable moments I’ve had in videogames.
You are a Russian private who’s sent to fight in the Battle of Stalingrad. The Nazi forces have fortified the top of a hill and you’re told to attack it – without a weapon. You’ll find many of those on the ground as thousands of your comrades have already made an attempt to climb the hill but failed. In my experience, no historical documentaries or military reenactments have ever been able to convey the setting of a bitter war this well. It truly makes you feel for those who suffered.
As for the multiplayer component, Call of Duty 1 is the only FPS I have ever played online for a longer period of time. It’s so insanely simple – you choose one of ten levels, you choose one of two sides and you choose one of four weapons. There’s nothing else to it. But still, it’s so magnificently pulled off. The allied and nazi forces are well balanced and the maps are brilliantly made.
I haven’t played the game for about two years so I’m not sure if there’s a lot of activity online these days. But if you see the game on a Steam sale, I absolutely think you should get it and find out why the Call of Duty series has been so successful.
Myst IV – Revelation was the first PC game ever released on a single DVD-ROM, simply because of its huge size. The game is a point-and-click adventure but without the part where you pick up items. The whole game revolves around discovering environments and solving puzzles to proceed. The puzzles are never explained so you usually find yourself lost simply because you have absolutely no idea what to do next. If you aren’t an experienced Myst fan, you’ll probably have to peek at walkthroughs every now and then in order to complete the game (I’m guilty).
But this isn’t what makes the game special. You navigate by standing still at certain locations where you have a 360° panorama to explore and most of these hotspots look absolutely stunning, even by today’s standards. By limiting the number of possible viewing angles in the game from infinity to a couple of hundred, the developers have really put their effort into making those specific spot look unlike anything else.
Certain locations display a vivid and dynamic play of tiny events like bugs passing by or leaves moving with the wind while others are more barren yet extremely atmospheric which works perfectly in synergy with the musical score.
Still, I wouldn’t recommend this game to most people. Its tediousness and slow pace will probably cause you to quit unless you can really enjoy the game for what it is – a piece of art.
Lugaru HD is a fighting game made in 2005. First, I’ll give you a screenshot so that you can ask yourself what kind of gay*ss furry s**t this is. Ready yourself.
WHAT KIND OF GAY*SS FURRY S**T IS THIS!?
Yes, it’s true. The game looks absolutely terrible considering the fact that it was released in 2005. The game is really repetitive and the story is told though emotionless antropomorphic rabbits squeaking to each other accompanied with subtitles. In fact, the game isn’t really that great.
But there’s a factor I haven’t mentioned. Controls. Never in my life have I played a fighting game where moves are pulled out this smoothly and naturally. Fighting is done only with three buttons: dodge, jump and attack. What makes the fighting different is the fact that animations aren’t pre-programmed like in most 2D and 3D fighters – they adjust to your current stance and environment. This leads to hand-to-hand combat that actually feels natural.
There’s a sequel in development called Overgrowth which has a combat system similar to Lugaru. It’s currently in the alpha stage but it’s turning out pretty cool: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Re4zc47iq0
This game went from being a joke to becoming a worldwide success on mobile platforms. The concept as well as the storyline is told pretty well just in the title – you are being attacked by zombies and you need plants to defend yourself. It works as a tower defence game where you need to prevent the zombies from getting to the left side of the screen by strategically choosing and placing 50 different plants on your lawn.
At the start of the game, you might have a setup that looks a bit like this:
But after time, you’ll be able to discover new strategies like this one:
I found out about this game in 2009 just after it was released. Thought it looked cool and bought a copy. After a couple of weeks, all four of my younger siblings, my dad as well as three classmates were hooked. There’s something about Plants vs Zombies that just gets you. Oh, I know what that is. Fun. Yeah. It’s a really really fun game with a perfect learning curve.
The game is out on like, every current gaming system in existence (including phones). Do yourself a favor and play this.
If you’ve played this flash game already you know what it’s all about. If you haven’t, do it:
http://games.adultswim.com/robot-unicorn-attack-twitchy-online-game.html
Put on your headphones.
I’m not a big fan of horror games since horror usually doesn’t work when it’s mixed with a bunch of other gameplay elements (usually involving weapon usage). This is where Amnesia: The Dark Descent truly shines. You are not fighting off hordes of scary looking things – you are scared of having to fight at all simply because you can’t. The only way to survive when encountering an enemy is to run or hide.
When playing though this game, I had to take breaks every 30 minutes (I’ve heard a lot of other Amnesia players say this) to like, breathe. I would say Amnesia is currently the only horror game out there that can truly be called a horror game.
If you plan to get this game, I advice you to play it like the developers intended for full effect: Lights out, headphones on and no other people nearby.
