I don’t have the nostalgia that a lot of people have for NES or SNES-era platformers: I was a late starter when it came to video games in my own home, with my first console being a PlayStation and my first game being Actua Soccer. Owing to this apparently “unfortunate” conflagration of events, I find … [Read more…]
WALKING DOWN THE STREET, I GET PUNCHED. Much as such an act of unexpected violence would serve as an assault on the senses, every sensory interaction with Get Punched is an assault on the player: from the aggressive soundtrack to the predominantly black and pink visual theme; from the spurts of pixels that accompany scenery … [Read more…]
Bastion‘s greatest strengths lie in its wonderfully consistent art direction and dogged insistence upon telling its story on its own terms. It is a testament to experimentation in how game narratives are conveyed in its focus on continuous storytelling, rather than relying upon breaking up the flow of the game with cutscenes or similar player … [Read more…]
There’s much to be said for candour on the part of developers concerning what they wish their game to be and how they wish to it to be experienced. In the PC port of the Xbox Live Arcade platform hit Super Meat Boy, Edmund McMillan and Tommy Refenes make it perfectly clear that one aspect … [Read more…]