Scary monsters and super creeps; Turtle Rock Studio‘s latest multiplayer game, Evolve, wants to know if you’re the hunter or the hunted. Set in the not-too-distant future on the otherworld, Shear, Evolve is an asymmetrical multiplayer combat game that pits four players against one. Human colonies are under threat after alien Monsters have started appearing and overrunning the planet. With colonists’ lives at stake, twelve Hunters are recruited to evacuate the planet and save as many people as possible.
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Narratively-driven video games have enjoyed a renaissance in the last couple of years, showing the wider population that the medium can be just as effective as films, TV and books when it comes to storytelling. And it’s not a niche market: everyone from indie developers to AAA studios are releasing games with strong focus on characterisation, immersive narrative and deep exploration of relatable themes. Of course, the flip side to that is not everyone gets it right. However, Life Is Strange, a new episodic game from developer Dontnod Entertainment, gets it very right.
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From clunky antiques like Maze Craze on the Atari 2600, to modern masterpieces like Grand Theft Auto 5, crime has always been a popular theme to build a video game around. But the vast majority of these games revolve around the criminal activity itself. Very rarely does a game focus on what happens after the criminal has been caught. The Escapists is a uniquely bold exception to that rule.
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In the dying days of the Golden Age of Adventure Games, genre stalwarts Lucasarts released a daring game that strode into the still-novel waters of three-dimensional gaming. That was Grim Fandango, the noirish tale of Manny Calavera, a lowly salesman with the Department of Death, peddling travel packages to the recently deceased. It was the last great adventure game put out by the studio, followed in genre only by the mostly forgettable Escape from Monkey Island. Written and Directed by Tim Schafer, Grim was something special.
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There are games that are influential from inception; seminal works that break new ground, creating a distinct flavour that can be tasted in the games they influence. Sometimes they share traits that are easy to spot as common, but it isn’t always obvious.
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Basketball is a weird sport. I played it for ten years during school and while I learnt skills, no one taught me to be tall. Because my bright and shiny basketball career was tragically cut short, I now write, but thankfully for me and everyone else under 7ft, the latest instalment of Visual Concepts and 2K Games’ long running basketball series is out now.
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As a secret minigame hidden within the forgotten racing franchise Project Gotham Racing, Geometry Wars has certainly come a long way. Top selling Xbox Live sequels, handheld spin-offs, studio closures and even a rebranded former publishing giant taking over the reigns. It seems the little shooter that could has seen everything.
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Indie developer Ivy games describes their latest offering as “hours of blissing out to buttery-smooth gravity goodness”. Although their description could be intentionally ambiguous, I believe it does the game a disservice, as there’s a lot more to it than just trying to grapple gravity.
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Over the last decade, Far Cry has carved out its own niche within the first person shooter genre of games. It has become famous for its wide open worlds, flamboyant characters, and over the top violence and mayhem. The latest installment, Far Cry 4, trades steamy tropical jungles for Himalayan mountainsides, but otherwise, promises to build on the success of its predecessors. Does it succeed? Let’s find out.
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Ah, Toad. The butt of many jokes for all those years, the little guys that followed Princess Peach around everywhere before crying in disbelief (again and again) as she was whisked away by Bowser, helpless and unsure of what to do next. Let’s be honest, they were never considered true heroes in the same vein as Mario or Yoshi, aside from a few cameos in Mario Bros. 2 or Mario Kart.
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