Wednesday, May 29, 2019

Gothic II

An interesting mid-2000s 3D action RPG, from back when that was a newish thing, and with an open-world bent to it, as near as I can tell. The only thing is that by this point it is very outdated. The writing and voice acting is terrible. I would disclaim that as by today's standards, but no, it's just terrible.

The combat designers seem to have been going for something action-oriented, based around moving and slashing or swinging weapons in a certain direction in real time combat. I don't think it's totally successful, but it is an interesting attempt. I am reminded of The Witcher's tempo-based action combat.

Thursday, May 16, 2019

Fuel

Fuel is a Codemasters-developed racing game from 2009, the early middle part of the PS3/360 console generation. It's claim to fame is a gigantic open world--the biggest, per the Guinness Book--, for the time it was released, anyway. It's set in a post-apocalyptic American Northwest, from about the Canadian border down to about the Californian one, and from the west coast east past the Great Salt Lake.

The land is full of racing events that you can drive around to, on dirt bikes, ATVs, dune buggies, and Mad Max-style muscle cars. It's good aimless driving fun, somewhere on the spectrum between arcade and simulation racing. I hope to play more of it.

Tuesday, May 7, 2019

English Country Tune

I have no idea what the title is a reference to.

The game is a 3D puzzle game where you control a square tile that flips end over end to move in one of the four possible directions, and knocks balls around or pushes abstract beams of light to accomplish puzzle goals.

Levels are played out on cubic, three-dimensional boards, so its possible and sometimes necessary to go around a corner to another facet of the level in order to come at your objective from the right angle to affect motion in a certain direction or orientation as required by the puzzle at hand.

It's a brain-bender, for sure, but that's probably required to stick out in such a packed genre.

Darklands

Now this is a cool game that needs and update. It's a 1992 DOS game from Microprose, set in medieval fantasy Germany, and plays out like a kind of proto-Baldur's Gate crossed with a text adventure game.

I would be head over heels into this game if not for the fact it plays bizarrely slowly for a 27 year old game. I guess the emulation must be to blame. Either it's terrible, or it's completely faithful. Either way, it makes the game impossible to fully enjoy in this day and age, though I wish that wasn't the case. I just don't have the time or patience. I wonder if there's anything out there more modern inspired by it.