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Friday 23 November 2012

Imagining Dunwall



Dishonored is a game. Most of us who play computer games regularly (and even those that don't) are most likely aware of this. It's a game which gives the player control of a character with the ability to knife people, teleport, possess living beings and peek at a bathing lady - amongst other things. It  has also been widely praised for its breadth of player freedom; not so much in terms of critical narrative choices (though there are a few of those too) but within the gameplay itself. Much like it's spiritual forefathers Deus Ex and Thief, Dishonored lets the player make gameplay decisions for themselves. Questions such as: "How shall I infiltrate this building?" and: "Do I want to kill all these people?" are important and actually answerable by the player. In this respect Dishonored recalls the playgrounds of late nineties, early 2000s PC gaming; it is a toy box in which the player can use the toys any way they wish. So there is Dishonored: very much a game. And then there is Dunwall.

Thursday 1 November 2012

Review: Deadlight



Here Lies a review I wrote for Critical Gamer about the XBLA (and now available on PC) game Deadlight. Its a mix bag of a game and though I remember shouting bad words at the T.V. quite a few times while playing it I also believe it to be a pretty unique vision of the inevitable zombie apocalypse. Visually stunning and quite scary/tense in places. Check out my thoughts after le break. 

A little bit of Halloween - HOME

This represents Halloween

Halloween past without much of a mention in my house. I've never been one to celebrate the "holiday"/festival (or whatever it is) but less so this year I seem to have completely missed it. There were no trick or treaters tentatively knocking on my door, nor did I watch any scary movies in an attempt to celebrate the wonderful feeling of being scared. I did however, without real forethought, end up playing a game.

The Steam Halloween sale saw a few really great deals but my purchases were pretty limited. The only game I bought which I really wanted to play was Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines a game which I missed when it was first released. I also bought Closure - a puzzle based platform game with what looks like quite an inventive conceit - and Home.