So. The PlayStation 3 lets people play games online and watch Netflix streaming for free. You run a competing console that charges for the same services. What do you do? You drop the price of your online service, offer it for free, or enhance your features to justify the price difference, right?
Xbox Live Indie-Dome is a weekly feature where we sift through the Xbox Live Indie Games Marketplace to find the best and worst... so you don't have to!
Welcome once again (and again, and again) to still one more edition of the Indie-Dome. This week has been… interesting to say the least. Just skip ahead to the likes of The ADVENTURES of CAPTAIN Becky to see what I’m talking about. Are you back? Okay, good.
So it’s been a weird week filled with weird games, but I like weird so it hasn’t been all bad. It’s actually been fairly middle-of-the-road barring a few exceptions. So anyway, these are the games that came out between August 16th and 22nd and this is what I think about them.
In the interest of full disclosure: I fucking loved Dragon Age: Origins. It was my game of the year of 2009 and it made my wife into a gamer, so it will always hold a soft spot in my heart. I would have that game’s baby and never ask for child support.
Aside from the nearly criminal visuals, only one thing bothered me about the game: Where did Morrigan go? Without spoiling anything from Origins, let’s just say that everyone’s favorite swamp witch left with something that belonged to the Grey Warden, and the recent Dragon Age II article in Game Informer hinted that I’d have to wait for the sequel next March to get the nail-biting conclusion.
Like Christmas coming on the 25th of December or Independence Day on the 4th of July, you can set your clock to the release of EA Sports’ latest Madden football title. Every 2nd Tuesday in August not only marks the beginning of the NFL season for many fans, it also signals the onslaught of autumn video game releases. Madden’s certainly a big deal; gamers buy new consoles for the next edition of Madden, for goodness’ sake.
There’s no question that EA Tiberon cares just as much about the game of football itself as they do their famous simulation based upon it, but the short development cycle usually allows for only a handful of small touches and refinements to be made over last year’s title. The question that arises every August is a simple one: is it better than the previous Madden, or should I skip this year?
Despite being published by Activision, Singularity was released with more of a whisper than a bang just over a month ago — but that doesn’t mean that this game isn’t worth shouting about. Singularity is a sci-fi, first person shooter experience, where you destroy mutants in increasingly creative ways and solve environment puzzles with the aid of your shiny gadget/weapon, the Time Manipulation Device (“TMD”), whilst jumping between eras in time.
There are few game series with a longer and more distinguished pedigree than Castlevania. Many now-adult gamers fondly recall playing the first game on the original NES when they were but wee vampire hunters. Decades later, a string of exceptionally well-crafted titles bearing the beloved Castlevania name graced the more portable screens of the GBA and DS and captured the hearts of old school gamers again. And of course, who could forget Symphony of the Night, the seminal entry that gave rise to the “Metroidvania” sub-genre. Simply put, Castlevania games carry lofty expectations.
Unfortunately, not every game in the franchise quite lives up to the prestigious family name (especially when they try to go 3D). So where does the Xbox Live Arcade exclusive Harmony of Despair fit into this large (and often dysfunctional) family? Hit the jump to find out, and fear not, gentle reader — I won’t bite.
Xbox Live Indie-Dome is a weekly feature where we sift through the Xbox Live Indie Games Marketplace to find the best and worst... so you don't have to!
Aaaaand I’m back. I feel much better now, thanks for asking.
It’s been an interesting week for indie games, I must say. There were some typical mediocre attempts at adding to an already over-saturated genre, some shining moments of awesome and even one very unique (and damn near coma-inducing) take on puzzle games. All-in-all, I’ve enjoyed seeing what bizarre/dull/idiotic/genius concepts the Live indie developers have offered up. Let’s hope next week is as varied as this one was.
In case you missed it, Hydro Thunder was a motorboat racing game from 1999 that Dreamcast owners still use as proof that there were good games for the system. A decade later, Microsoft has released the sequel Hydro Thunder Hurricane in the unenviable position of following up Limbo in their “Summer of Arcade.” How could Hurricane possibly live up to the expectations of the critically-acclaimed Limbo? I don’t think you’ll find anyone calling Hydro Thunder Hurricane an “experience,” but as a game, I believe it stands up incredibly well.
There are so many apt comparisons and analogies I’ve considered throwing at Red Dead Redemption, yet I seem to find myself repeatedly returning to one in particular.
Chances are that when you were a child, you pretended to be things that you were not — someone and somewhere exciting and spectacular. Red Dead, in many ways, feels like a modern-day realization of such childhood fantasies, a fulfillment of what the imagined “future” of video games often was for me, and may well have been for you. I don’t want to imply this in a hyperbolic sense. No, I mean simply that the way Red Dead Redemption allows and encourages immersing yourself in the nooks and crannies of its Western “world” often feels like the consummate you-are-in-this-place-and-it-is-yours sort of experience that I yearned for from games as a child.
Xbox Live Indie-Dome is a weekly feature where we sift through the Xbox Live Indie Games Marketplace to find the best and worst... so you don't have to!
Welcome back again, everybody. Rob Rich is taking a break this week, as he was a bit under the weather. So, being the good boss that I am, I stepped up to relieve his burden by handling the newest Xbox Live Indie-Dome… only to find such a small week of releases that he probably could have done it standing on his head in his own deathbed.
Oh well. Let’s get on to the games, shall we?
An epic tale has ended. The vile Archdemon has been defeated. The Blight is over. Ferelden has been saved. One would think now would be the time to kick back with a wench, a frosty mug of ale and just relax, right? Oh, silly Grey Warden – a hero’s job is never done! But is Dragon Age: Origins – Awakening worth strapping on the chainmail and taking up the longsword again? That all depends; what’s your tolerance for floating teeth and phantom models?
The folks at Bungie have wrapped up their “swan song”, Halo: Reach, and are moving onto whatever the hell they’re doing for Activision for the next ten years.
Seriously, they’re moving. Bungie’s got to be finished with everything at the moment, since they’re moving their whole office to a new location. If that’s not a sign the disk has been shipped off to Microsoft, I don’t know what is.
There’s also a shiny new trailer for the “Most Highly Anticipated Game of 2010,” so take a look for yourself. Also, email those folks a picture of you holding StarCraft II and flipping them off. Lying bastards.
[Via: NobleActual]
The early ’90s were a pivotal time in my game-playing development. While I enjoyed the likes of Mario and Sonic, and the home consoles they championed, I was also strangely curious of these “Pee See” games I had heard so much about. The rumored better graphics, excessive gore, and digitized breasts sold this pre-teen boy on the platform at once. However, outside of our old Windows 3.1 machine, my family never obtained a computer with which I could enjoy these games. Sure, I was able to play a few minutes here and there at friends’ homes when fathers would wander away from those glorious giant white and off-white boxes, but I was never quite satiated. Doom, Wolfenstein, Duke Nukem: they were nothing but words to me.
During last week’s Comic-Con spectacular, Bungie revealed two major additions to its already beefy Halo spin-off, Halo: Reach. Both should be familiar to Halo fans, but might not be quite what they expected based on previous iterations of the franchise.
In a move that should really surprise no one, the PC version of Fable III has been delayed to an undetermined later date.
A Microsoft rep told IGN that while the 360 edition of the game is on track for its October 26 release date, the two versions “are now on different schedules as we’re focusing on building experiences optimized for each platform.”
Given the fact that Fable II never saw the light of day on PC, I wouldn’t mind seeing a quick port show up a few months before the sequel comes out so PC gamers are caught up. Hopefully this gives Microsoft a bit of headroom in that department.
Please? …Plllleeease?
[Via: IGN]
Join the CFD! editorial staff as they bicker incessantly and vent their collective neuroses on air... and somewhere along the way they talk about games too.
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