Two Year Roundup: My Content Around the Web

In which I attempt to paper over the cracks on my blog by suddenly posting most of the voluntary work I've done elsewhere.

Reviews

For a good year I was a regular reviewer over at The Reticule - packing this in was a difficult decision, but life caught up with me and I needed some more flexibility in my weekends (whilst still churning out written content every single day in a work capacity). Links to the originally posted articles are provided below, with a choice paragraph on some critical aspect of each game I reviewed.

PC Quarter 1 2011: Who will survive?

After questioning how a crowded first quarter may effect PC games sales (and maybe even the future viability of the platform), I predict which titles will thrive in the mad rush and which will get crushed underfoot.

So. The first three months of 2011 leave consumers spoilt for choice and there's an intense likelihood that no matter what you game on, you won't be picking up everything that dares to score a metacritic 8.5 or less until you can rent it, buy it second hand, or buy it first-hand off a shopkeeper who has had to sell his hands to subsidise the ridiculously low RRP you're happy to hand over. Anyway, here's a handy, completely opinion based guide to who will sink and swim on PC unless something gets shaken up, ordered from top to bottom in chance of survival. Just like the decks of the Titanic.

Quarter 1 2011, or Too Much Of A Good Thing

The holidays are coming, but don't expect any new toys until the new year...

Why, hello again...

It's the run up to Christmas once more, and that can only mean one thing: all those big-name titles you've been waiting for all year suddenly hove into view, a convoy of hope to a nation crippled by X-Factor finals. Your mother phones you for gift ideas and you send her a list of items number five through eight on your prioritised wishlist, because you know that you can bare waiting two months to play them. You sad, impatient person.

Nope, sorry. That's your biscuit-tin Christmas of yesteryear. For the second year running, the convoy of hope has recieved word that the Call of Duty juggernaut is on the same tarmac, and rather than tangle with its incomprehensible callsigns and impressive wheelspan, they've pulled over into the Welcome Break to enjoy some tepid tea and a crossword. Four down, eight letters. "Quaint British English semi-expletive". Bollocks.

Review: Lucidity

Point, Click, Curse.

It's old news, but let's take a moment to honour the fact that Lucasarts don't just make Star Wars games again. Ok, so news that Lucasarts are starting to make good Star Wars games again would probably be just as welcome, but a return to point and click seemed about as likely as EA suddenly becoming the lesser of two evils and well... doesn't hell seem slightly colder to you these days?

So here we have Lucidity, an obscure little game from Lucasarts that is arguably their boldest move yet. And whilst the resulting game has significant disappointments, it's an interesting little experiment and hopefully a sign that the new 'Workshop' division won't simply end up as an assembly line for point and click Special Editions.

Review: Darkest of Days

Causality and the American Civil War? Frankly my dear, Darkest of Days doesn't give a damn.

First Person Shooting is a crowded pastime, and in such a genre the breathing room for innovation seems to get narrower with every passing year. Sluicing through the killing floor comes Darkest of Days, a FPS that lets you rip into the space-time-continuum, treading the poorly beaten path travelled by Daikatana.

That's probably not a good sign.

Review: Saw

Konami's Saw game finally arrives, but is it video nice or video nasty?

The horror movie genre has always been peculiarly vulnerable to sequelitis and the Saw series is surely its most obvious victim. Still plopping out an annual Omen child to entertain halloween movie-goers, it was only a matter of time until horror gaming found itself knocked up with a little jigsaw-puzzler of its own.

Review: Mirror's Edge

A verdict on the other ultra-white first person title that's Still Alive...

I can't help feeling that Mirror's Edge isn't the smartest place to start out reviewing games.

True, its weaknesses provide ample material for criticism, cut-throat negativity and sardonic observations about the state of the gaming industry, but if you're looking to boil a product down to a simple good versus bad statement, slap a score on it and move on, there are definitely better places to start. The checklist for a quality title is left virtually unmarked by a game that feeds on cliches and frustrating mechanics, yet the few things Mirror's Edge gets right enter into some complex equation that results in one of the most importantly average games ever created.

"So I said what about ..."

Presenting a quick manifesto about - and apology for - the content of this blog.

About me and my writings:
Having recently graduated from the University of Sussex, Falmer with a 2:1 in English Language and Literature, I'm working on converting three years of writing about renaissance gender politics into something more contemporarily useless, ideally involving headshots and other genuine words that cause my spell-checker to redline.