Life is a Mind Bending Puzzle

I have just finished Call of Juarez Bound in Blood. It is a more conventional shooter than the first game and takes fewer risks with the gameplay but it feels more polished overall. It is hard to talk about the Call of Juarez sequence however without commenting on the story telling: Some people loved it with one reviewer saying it is the "pinnacle of story telling in first person shooters " others hated it saying "The story’s a meandering mess of multiple villains, double-dealing women, faux-rugged heroes, terrible accents, sloppy racial stereotyping, and unmoving tragedy."  Personally I tend to agree with the more favourable assessment. I agree that the quality of the storyline is far below that which we have come to expect from literature or top notch Hollywood screenplays but this is a first person shooter video game  a medium that famously eschews any attempt at coherent storytelling The two Juarez games tell a multi-generational epic story and developers Tec...

Currently playing through Call of Juarez:Bound in Blood in between bouts of Lotro. I really liked the first Call of Juarez game and this sequel was a complete steal on sale from Go Gamer , Eurogamer's digital download service (still on sale as of 3rd October 2010 by the way). I am enjoying Bound in Blood so far. Just like the first game it features a very strong storyline which is in fact a prequel to the original. The Wild West setting is superbly done at least to my Hollywood trained eyes and top notch graphics and sound effects provide a great immersive experience. The quick draw bullet time mode has been expanded on with different effects for different situations but it no longer feels like an I win button. Partly this is because it no longer charges up automatically meaning that it is no longer a given that you will have it available whenever you need it. Another reason is that the enemies are a lot smarter and inclined to use cover which prevents the from being easy targe...

Now that I have abandoned all pretense at keeping up with modern gamign I can happily write about the old games I am actually playing :) Finished both Call of Juarez and FEAR this week. Both games are based on strong complex storylines that leave the player guessing right up to the end. CoJ's story in particular was clearly scripted in advance and could easily form the script of a movie in my opinion. FEAR's story is a little more confused but nevertheless engrossing.   Slow motion (bullet time) features strongly in the combat of both games but the impact is different. CoJ's quick draw mechanic is a bit annoying to use (you need to holster both guns and then draw to activate it) but is very powerful giving pistols the accuracy of a sniper rifle in slow motion. It feels almost like an "I win button" allowing you to pop three or four enemies with head-shots in a single activation. FEAR's fast reflexes mode seems more balanced, mainly because the enemies a...

Inspired by a video from Bombchu on Youtube I decided to review the games I have enjoyed from the last decade and pick my favourite game from every year. Nerd that I am this involved a lot of data crunching and heavy use of Excel but here are the main ground rules: 1. My sources of games are Wikipedia's "20xx in video games" pages . These pages give an unbiased and fairly comprehensive list for every year in a fairly standard format. I did spot a few omissions but none that would change my ranking. Example page for 2010  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_in_video_games 2. Windows games only and games are listed in the year that they were released. I believe Wikipedia uses the US release date.  3. I only consider games that I have played myself for a substantial time, long enough for me to form my own opinion.  4. I consider DLC and expansions to be the part of the original game.  I take them into account when ranking the main game.  4. Pleas...

... you don't keep up with all the new releases? As a gamer in my mid 40's I am becoming increasingly aware of the fact that I am getting to the point where the number of excellent older games that I haven't gotten around to playing exceeds the quantity of living hours remaining to me to play them in.  While this reflection on my own mortality might be depressing it is also wonderfully liberating. I find that I am less and less incensed at the future direction of gaming because even if the whole gaming industry collapses tomorrow morning then I can continue to enjoy many years worth of engrossing virtual entertainment by playing existing titles. This fun cartoon from xkcd highlights some advantages and disadvantages of being a retro gamer. Writing about five year old games is certainly not going to do much for the popularity of my blog but I guess I can live with that although I will admit is is nice sometimes to be part of the buzz that surrounds the latest greatest t...