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September 18th, 2013 Uncategorized 4 Comments »

The Indie RPG Bundle Review Project Begins

Indie RPG Bundle

If you’re at all a fan of PC games then you’re probably well aware of the trend of bundling various titles together for a “pay what you want” price point. Some bundles favor quantity over quality, but others, such as Bundle in a Box by Kyttaro Games, have proven themselves to take real-time in choosing the best games for a set. Their latest bundle is The Indie RPG Bundle and ends in just a few days (September 30th).

Buyers can nab eight games for $1.99 or higher. Of course, if you beat the average price then an additional five games are added. But are all (or most) of these games worth it? Kyttaro Games were gracious enough to share a bundle with us and as such we’ve decided to take a crack at reviewing all thirteen titles. With thirteen days of the sale there’s only one question on my mind: Is this even possible to do in time? We’ll see!

After this is all over, a new post will go live collecting all reviewed titles.

August 16th, 2013 Uncategorized No Comments »

You Need to Play Gone Home

Gone Home featured

Gone Home is the first full game provided by developer The Fullbright Company. Having never before played their Bioshock 2 DLC “Minerva’s Den”, I was unaware of their style or skill. It’s obvious that the team is incredible though as they have created a truly intriguing new game.

Playing Gone Home is so easy that it is likely fans of all genres (and non-gamers to some degree) would be able to play and understand it. This openness is important because the story included is one which many people will understand and empathize with.

Although it probably sounds sappy, I felt certain story segments paralleled my own life so closely that it was hard to continue playing for fear of what was to follow. It was just astonishing how normal – and therefore real – these depictions seemed. It was an experience far different from what the majority of games provide. Even if you don’t love it yourself, you’ll hopefully agree that Gone Home is a novel, worthwhile title.

July 10th, 2013 Uncategorized No Comments »

Is the Steam Summer Sale Tomorrow?

Steam Summer Sale 2012

Most likely, yes! Last year it started on July 12th (a Thursday). Tomorrow is July 11th (also a Thursday). Although we cannot know for sure, it does seem like a good time to start it anyway as it is a week after the Fourth of July. Then there’s the fact that no Weekly Steam Deals have gone live… although that was the case last week too. Perhaps the best bit of “proof” is that the Killing Floor sale also ends tomorrow but that could be meaningless as well.

In any case, I’m just really excited for the likely sale and ready to spend some money on games for myself and friends. If you’ve never weathered an infamous “Steam sale” yourself then be prepared for suddenly finding yourself wanting a ton of games!

If it does indeed begin tomorrow then I’ll make a post later showcasing my absolute favorite games that will currently have excellent discounts applied to them. There will be a lot considering Steam sales usually have 1,000 games and DLC on sale for the duration. Here’s hoping the Steam Summer Sale 2013 is right around the corner!

July 4th, 2013 Uncategorized No Comments »

Is Harvester a Good Game?

Harvester Logo

Recently I decided to finally try playing Harvester. Basically, it’s an adventure game which also makes use of FMV graphics. It came out in the mid-nineties and attempts to be a point and click title with real bite. Before playing it myself I had watched a few videos of the game and though it looked outrageously bad.

Playing it myself though I found it to actually be a very interesting, if definitely disturbed, adventure. Although I have only played a small segment of the game so far it seems like something I’m going to want to experience to completion. That is, unless future puzzles end up being intensely difficult. So far my gameplay has consisted of basically meeting the locals and coming to grips with the eerie American town.

Harvester Screenshot

What makes me like it after only playing for an hour or so? It’s all about the characters which inhabit the world. Each of them is in some way broken, disturbed, or at the very least unusual. Some are worse than others, with some having completely repellent attitudes and outlooks. All the same, I found them fascinating in their sickening selves and wanting to see how the story unfolded.

Again, I have barely played it, but so far I’m leaning toward the idea that Harvester is far better than people give it credit for. Here’s hoping that the puzzles don’t end up taking the tactic of having the “most implausible solution ever” like adventure games are sometimes apt to do. If so, then my excitement for it will definitely dissipate.

June 10th, 2013 Uncategorized No Comments »

E3 Impressions: Microsoft and Sony Conferences

systems

Today is day “zero” of E3 2013. Sony and Microsoft have both given their annual press conferences and, as expected, the focus was on the next generation of hardware. Both Xbox One and PlayStation 4 were given a great deal of attention via new and previously announced titles.

But who did it better? It’s safe to say that Sony’s conference was more entertaining overall, it wasn’t as perfect as some are now holding it up to be. In regards to new games, I felt like Microsoft tried a bit harder although I personally am not enamored with most of what they showcased. They brought a handful of new IPs that were not previously announced. This is always a neat thing because we are seeing new ideas come into play.

Sony revealed very few new games. Almost everything from the indies to Square Enix’s showcase were previously announced. Sure, many have probably never heard of the games they discussed for Vita or PS4 but I did and the showing felt very lackluster in that regard. Yes, it was great to see Final Fantasy come back (albeit renamed) as well as Kingdom Hearts III, but these are titles that have been on the back burner for years. We knew they would arrive sometime – 2013 just happened to be the year they came back.

What Sony did right was to address the controversy surrounding Xbox One and prove themselves to offer superior solutions. Aka – they didn’t change much of anything from the PS3. Used games work as we expect them to as does online “check ins” not existing. The only con here is that PS4 may require PS Plus to play online multiplayer games.

When it comes right down to it, both had good points, but everyone can’t help but be bothered by Microsoft’s corporate-minded rules. Consumers should be wary of this but overall I think both conferences work. Of course, I’d be lying if I didn’t have more fun overall with Sony’s.

June 6th, 2013 Uncategorized No Comments »

Goodbye, Gaming History

Chances are, you may have never heard of the websites I’m about to write about. This is not due to intense obscurity of subject matter but that they worked very hard to stay out of the public eye. However, on the internet it is impossible to be truly anonymous and the stresses of their efforts to create some of the most amazing gaming communities everywhere had taken a toll. Now, just during the year 2013, three sites are gone – presumably for good.

Read more »

June 4th, 2013 Uncategorized No Comments »

Backlog Beatdown : April-May

Although I know I will never sift through my ever-growing backlog, I still find it fun to try and beat games more often than I used to before joining Backloggery. Before then, I probably beat one game a month – if that. These days I’m doing my best to beat many more although tons of games still annoy me suddenly impossible spikes in difficulty right before the end.

Anyway, these are the games (in the order I beat them) between the last two months:

If you’ve been checking out this site at all then you’ll recognize almost half of these titles were reviewed here too. It’s been a lot of fun to recognize that there really is time for me to play games outside of my reviewer requirements. Of course, it’s still not as much time as I had before, but far better than nothing.

Of all the games, my favorites were Surgeon Simulator 2013 and The Yawhg, but Dysfunctional Systems, Slender: The Arrival, The Starship Damrey were close as well. That’s 11 games down and hopefully many more will be beaten before the year comes to a close!