The Videogames Tab

Talking of kooky tech in indie games, just saw this:

Voice recognition for NPC interaction

Very silly, but kinda practical in VR I guess.

(Got a feeling that whole game is mainly silly novelties though. 'Feed the carrot to the horse' schtick and all that :/)

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Virtual Reality chatter on a movie site? Got endless amounts of it here. Reviews over here

Hard to say. My experience with the first game -- when it first came out, when Yoda was about 10 -- has never been equaled. No such games existed then. Got it from my parents for our new computer (which had a CD DRIVE, OMG! ). I told the kids we'd play it the next day, so that evening I loaded it onto the computer and started it, to make sure it played properly and they wouldn't be disappointed. Started around 10 PM.

Next time I looked at a clock it was 3 AM.

My early days as a single mom were often sad and lonely, but those *many* hours spent with all four kids (ages 10, 8, 3 and 1) gathered around our one computer playing the original Myst are some of my best family memories. No walkthroughs back then. Just experimentation. We'd collectively figure things out (with me holding the 1-year-old and with the 3-year-old just watching on in fascination) and stayed up way too late too many times. What great fun that was! And I've bought more than 125 adventure games since then, hoping to recreate that same magic and wonder. Very few even come close.

Having said all that, each game release was almost like a Life Event after that.

Then they added URU... where you actually had an avatar ... and then URU Live, where you got to meet other crazy Myst fanatics in-game. Mixed feelings about that: great fun to see so many like-minded gamers from around the world, and to work together to figure out puzzles. But the immersive, lone-player games hold their own appeal, always.

And I still haven't ever completed Riven on my own... yet. I'm now replaying all the games from the Windows-10 compatible and upgraded versions of every game. What a great Kickstarter campaign this was! It was 1100% funded!

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Linda's Author Website
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Also, Cyan Ventures (offshoot of the original Cyan/Myst folks) is releasing a VR-compatible game this spring (also on PC and other platforms). Somehow this Kickstarter flew under my radar and I missed out, but I'll be buying the game:

If you've played the original Myst, there's nothing quite like that opening sequence. The book came pre-charged, so when I unboxed it and opened it up, it started playing immediately, which kinda spooked me for a second. But it looks JUST like the linking books we all came to love through the game.

Also, the smudges on the linking page are there on purpose. Not just to look ancient... but they're the "button" spots for fast-forward, rewind, pause, play, and stop. You can load your own videos and audio and pictures onto the SSD drive embedded in the book and play them on the linking panel if you want.

That’s funny hearing that, my mum played riven in the same way. She loved it - was really the first game she had played and we played it together when I was very young.

Downloaded Call of Duty: Modern Warfare Remastered. Free game this month.

Got slaughtered online.

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"A laugh can be a very powerful thing. Why, sometimes in life, it's the only weapon we have."

Suspect's Reviews

If you look at the success of Apex Legends, then I'd say yes. Possibly. If the game's good enough in the first place.

After Titanfall 2's sales disappointment (a game I own but have never even played) a lot of people didn't know what was going to happen with Respawn. A free to play Battle Royale game? That's the final kind of game Cliffy B's studio put out before closing and, well, they're also owned by EA...

Dunno if I'll ever play Apex Legends, but the game's had universally good reviews and seems to be doing great business.

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"Critics are like eunuchs in a harem; they know how the Tatty 100 is done, they've seen it done every day, but they're unable to do it themselves." - Brendan Behan

Yeah I'm happy for those guys. (And by the way you absolutely should get through the first 40 minutes of T2's campaign and then enjoy the rest, because it's grand ). It's def a medium-studio success story.

Ultimately though Apex seems to be a story of presenting a known gameplay format comprehensively. (T2 felt like a way more adventurous beast, purely because no one has slammed the parkour and vehicle-mech tropes together effectively - let alone been gone retro and tried to flesh out multiplayer & campaign. And, yeah, it only clung on by its fingernails :/)

I guess that's the other side of the equation. Can innovation ever actually get enough attention to wrestle people out of their comfort zones...

I guess you could dial my post back a couple of steps and say PUBG.

That genre had only really existed in a mod, got made by one Irish guy relocating to Korea and joining a middling MMORPG studio. A few months later it's the most played game on Steam.

PUBG begat Fortnite and pushed Epic (who really weren't a AAA developer, and existed mainly on sales of their engine) into the Rockstar league.

Yeah that'd be a good example. And gestated in the weird world of EA & mods as you say. It's kinda unlikely we'll see 'engine changing' innovation coming from that direction I guess, but genre twisting and passion projects def still can transition out for sure.

(Or go horribly wrong, like the Garry's Mod guy and Rust )

Finally bought Rocket League and played with a bunch of friends at a LAN party. This is probably the funnest game I've played in 5+ years

Devil May Cry 5

Going to be getting this. How hot is nico - the southern voiced brunette hillbilly. Probably the sexiest video game character of all time lol in my opinion - way better than Lara Croft.

You know you have been playing TLD too much when you are outside shoveling snow, you hear crows, and you think for a second "Oh, I better go find that, there might be an animal carcass to harvest."

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I played Yonder too much this weekend, and today when I saw a round manhole cover, I had the urge to plant a tree there.

This is the reason I'm a bit off lately.
Waited eleven years for this. It rocks baby!

I think I'll wait for a sale before getting DMC5. Never been a massive fan of the series, but I like what I've seen of the new game.

Not enough to bite this early though.

I saw The Long Dark for £6.99 in a PSN sale, so snagged it.

Haven't played the game since it was in early access on Steam.

Got this years ago and still playing it daily. Too much fun.

Oh yeah, Rocket League is fantastic. Maybe the most purely polished game I've ever played. It just feels like the best possible version of itself. I stopped playing it for a couple of years, almost, I think (or barely played it for a long time), and still picked it back up and got pretty into it all over again. Just a delightful little game, and the core matchmaking loop is easy and addictive. All-time favorite game.