When I started playing this game, I went into it with practically no expectations. Perhaps that is why I finished it with practically no objections. In its twenty-something hours, I had nothing but fun taking twenty-something Lara Croft through her first adventure. The visuals are stunning, the environments detailed and evocative, the difficulty of various challenges seemingly tailored to my taste. And then there’s the addition of skills to develop and tools to find, craft or improve, and for the first time, a sense of character to accompany Lara’s fancy moves. What’s not to like?
Category: Games
Dear Esther vs Gone Home
In the past few weeks, I played two short, experimental games: Dear Esther by The Chinese Room, and Gone Home by The Fullbright Company. The mysterious vibe, the focus on storytelling, the surprisingly fine audio and visuals and the undeniably unorthodox character of both games make it impossible to not draw comparisons, so that’s exactly what I’ll do.
The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings
I was thrilled when this game (hereafter TW2) appeared, yet it took me two years to finally play it from start to finish. And even after doing so, I can’t say for sure why it failed to lure me in the way its predecessor (hereafter TW), one of my all time favorites, did in 2008. A mystery by anyone’s standards, because TW2 has it all: the story, the visuals, the combat, the humor. It’s rare that I have so few (next to no) objections to a game. Yet if I was to choose one to replay, I’d still rather go to TW than to TW2.
Best of the Best
Yes, yes, I know it’s utterly uncool to brag – but come on, it’s the Best of the Best banner! In case you don’t know, one gets it as the award for finishing all the challenges in Mass Effect 3 multiplayer, which I finally did yesterday, after many months of dedicated gaming. Woohoo!
Mass Effect 3 Multiplayer
It took more than 15 years of gaming and internet presence, but it finally happened: I got addicted to an online game. The game is, of course, Mass Effect 3 Multiplayer. I’ve been playing daily for a couple of months now and the impressions have long since coalesced. There are good things and bad things about it, but overall it’s unbelievably fun, subtly competitive, and obviously, addictive.
Amnesia: The Dark Descent
I played “Amnesia: The Dark Descent”, a horror adventure released in 2010 by an indie game company called Frictional Games. It’s an amazing game and a definite recommendation – even if you’re as easily scared as I am. In the dozen hours of gameplay, cowardly stretched over roughly as many days, I gasped, squeaked, jumped and screamed; at several points it got so scary I honestly considered just giving it up, and near the end some of the imagery got genuinely sickening. In a good way, though.