Sunday, July 28, 2013

Antichamber

I picked up Antichamber after hearing very good things about it, and it going on sale with the Steam Summer Sale. The game is amazing.

This is the first time I've seen a menu this immersive. The only thing I've seen that comes close is Fallout 3/New Vegas. There are no menus, pressing Escape takes you to a room with a wall painted with the menu.

The controls are standard FPS, plain and simple (the only part of the game that is).

The graphics minimalistic, with mostly black and white coloring, with touches of color when it matters.

The story is as vague as it can be, with a portal-like picture system for describing interactions, and picture quotes on the walls to give you hints. Some much more useful than others, but almost all useful.

The main focus of this game is puzzles. Some logical, some oddly logical. Sherlock Holmes put it best - "When you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth." I don't want to get into too much details, but within the first 10 minutes of the game you'll get a feel for how the game plays out. They break every rule of level design, and it's mind-blowing.

The game took me around 7-8 hours to complete. There were only a few areas where I looked up what to do, only to realize I was very close to the solution, and just didn't realize it.

If you haven't tried it out yet, go get it! My only issue with it is that prolonged playing can make you a bit nauseous. About the same as I felt with Portal 1 and 2, or Prey.

Two spoilers below as far as game mechanics, so don't read on if you want to figure it out yourself.
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MINOR MECHANIC SPOILERS BELOW
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Alright then, here's a few tips to get you started and avoiding wasting time.
1) The map on the wall works like this:
* small boxes are solved rooms
* large boxes are unsolved rooms
* short stubs on a room means there's an exit you haven't taken yet
* arrows means it warps you to somewhere else
2) if you come up to blocks of a color that you haven't picked up the gun for, you'll need to come back. Don't waste time trying to solve something you're not equipped for.
3) YouTube will help you solve puzzles, but be warned that it's hard to find a single solution without seeing them play through 3-4 other puzzles on the way there

Wednesday, July 24, 2013

Bionic Commando Rearmed

So I picked up this game from the Summer Steam sale. Figured a bit of nostalgia would be fun, and it was... mostly.

The controls are standard, the graphics look like XBLA quality, the writing is silly, and the story is close to the original (for all I remember). The sound tracks are revamped versions of the original, so that was really cool.

The nice things they did:
* Allowed switching weapons on the fly
* Added weapon upgrades
* No longer required you to pick the correct com unit per level
* More hits before you're dead

The last level was brutally hard, and you'll use up quite a few lives just getting tot he boss. So I recommend revisiting each of the camps and stocking up on 1ups. This is really my only real gripe about the game.

After beating the game on normal, they unlocked the super hard mode. Yeah... I'm good.

Saturday, July 20, 2013

Gunpoint

So I picked up Gunpoint a few days ago on the Steam Summer sales. All it took were the patch notes and the trailer video and I knew I had to play it.


The graphics are about on par with Terreria.

The controls are simple, WASD to move, mouse to leap, and hold Alt to modify circuitry. The toggling to modify circuitry is a bit wonky, but you get used to it.

The sound effects are simple, and quite enjoyable. The sound of defenestration, quick smacking sounds, click/switches, leaping, etc. all work great.

The story was a written very well. It was a bit tough to follow, since it's doing a spy story with secrets and double crosses, etc. so I just went with whatever dialog options seemed enjoyable.

I beat the game in about 2 hours and paid $6 for it. Absolutely worth 2 hours of your time. Go get it.

Pro tip, you can incapacitate the body armor guards by knocking them out windows. Defenestration FTW!