Ten to fifteen play hours after my last post, I’m back to follow up on the indie pc adventure game, Resonance. In WIHILA Resonance, I asked what this game could add to the gameplay of a generic adventure game that I’d not seen before. What I found was a little gem called Memory. Here’s a primer. Continue reading
After a meticulous and extensive selection process (read: I read everything I could get on my screen on the matter), I come to you with the first indie PC game of the column: Resonance. Rather than get bogged down in a discussion of what it means to be an ‘indie’ game, or the differences between PC games and console games, I’m going to start with a very quick but comprehensive disclaimer about my views on the subject. Continue reading
When I spoke about what I was looking forward to in Deus Ex, it was all about implicit gameplay choices and choosing to play a game the way you want to play it. When it comes down to accomplishing the goals of the game – the ‘get to checkpoint A’, ‘retrieve item B’, or ‘rescue princess C’ – there is value for the player (and therefore the game designer) in being able to choose how he or she gets there. This isn’t a new concept, but it’s no less important now than it has been throughout the history of games. Deus Ex has a few great examples of how the game designer can make this happen. Continue reading
As I sit down to write about my expectations for Deus Ex: Human Revolution, I instead find myself gaping at the shopping-list-length genre of the game: Action, stealth, fps, role-playing game (okay, so my shopping lists are kind of short). If genres are supposed to provide some up-front information about the game, what should I be expecting from Deus Ex? Repeated emphasis in reviews on open-ended gameplay and choices (and a similar focus in past games of the series, a long time ago though they may be) leads me to the interpretation that Deus Ex doesn’t necessarily strive to be all these things at once, but instead has the capacity to be whichever the player chooses as they play. Continue reading
Turn Based Living 