Category Archives: Other games

2012 Top Games Round-up

  January 10, 2013 - 12:14 pm | EA, Game Reviews, MMO, Musings, Other games, Racing Games, Retro, Wargaming.net, World of Tanks
Leave a comment

What a year it’s been. The world should have ended, but we’re still here and going strong. And in gaming it’s been quite a trip too, with the market ever shifting towards the casual online scene and small developers really hitting it big. The trend for Indie games making it up there against the AAA titles has continued, with the dare-to-try-something-different approach that was seen in the 90′s.

Since I’ve stopped playing all major MMORPGs, I’ve had a lot of time to test a huge range of games this year, so without further ado, here’s my Top Games of 2012, in both single player and online.

Single player:

Without a doubt the highlight of the year has to be FarCry 3. Improving leaps and bounds over FarCry 2 (which was a stunning game in its’ own rights), the new installment puts you on a beautiful island somewhere between Japan and Australia – with the signs of early civilization and the ravages of World War 2 apparent at every turn. You’re one of a group of fun-loving friends that gets kidnapped by drug manufacturers with the intent on holding you for ransom. You escape, and what follows is a tasty exploration through a well-sculpted world of big guns, bad guys, vicious animals and bewbies!

The story-line is intense, the game drips open-world and everything just works so well, no matter what your playing style. Anyway, a full review will be up soon, so just know that FarCry 3 is a masterpiece of graphics, gameplay, guns and rich characters. Oh, and the ending will make you scream and force you to play again, which isn’t a bad thing at all.

Honourable Mentions – Single Player:

Among the quirky Indie games available, two stand out for me: Kerbal Space Program and Game Dev Tycoon.

Kerbal Space Program (Still in Alpha, but good enough to play) is exactly what it sounds like. Design your own rocket ships to conquer the solar system. Sounds simple enough, but this game is closer to rocket science than anything I’ve seen before. My brother and I have been running challenges between ourselves, setting goals and seeing who can match them first, and as he put it: “Sometimes the difference between getting a sattelite into orbit and blowing up on the launch pad is one rivet – you have to respect the guys that do this for real.” It’s a great little simulator, really worth a shot.

I spotted Game Dev Tycoon on the Windows 8 marketplace and decided to give it a try during one bored day at work. An hour later I was scrabbling for my credit card and got the full version. The premise is simple: it’s about 25 years in the past, with home gaming just starting to gain momentum. You’re one guy trying to develop his own games and make a profit. Do well and your company grows, and so does the technology. The nice thing about the game is the fact that unlike 99.9% of the silly games on the marketplace these days, there are no microtransactions, there are no “Invite your friends to play otherwise you can’t get this crucial piece of kit”. If you have Windows 8, go check it out on the marketplace.

Online:

This was a tough one, with tons of games really vying for top spot, but in the end I had to go for World of Tanks. Yes, it was not released in 2012, but I think it has finally matured enough to be called a product. New tanks, new maps, and a host of new battle types has turned it from a grindfest into a thing of beauty. I’ve already reviewed WoT in a previous post, so have a look there for the full details.

Honourable Mention – Online:

I was fortunate enough to Alphatest War Thunder, and now that it’s on public beta I can actually write something about it. It goes on the same lines as World of Tanks – a World War 2 simulator with planes instead of tanks. Great game modes – you don’t just get to shoot the enemy, you actually have to complete objectives – and an all-round fun game. I think the only reason this didn’t get top spot for me this year is because it does still have its flaws – loading times are atrocious and the player base is still too small – if selecting the EU server, you tend to wait quite a few minutes before a game is ready for you, and you tend to play with the same group of people over and over again. If you select All servers, then queues are much faster but you’re shit out of luck communicating if you don’t speak Russian. With a bit more development (some artifacting does occasionally occur, as well as some physics glitches, but it’s improving) and a bigger fanbase, this game can be huge. Well worth the massive download.

Dishonourable mention:

Need for Speed – Most Wanted. OK, so Criterion has taken over from Black Box as the developers of the Need for Speed franchise now. Does that mean that they have to take one of their old titles, put in real cars instead of the fictional ones they used to use, take away half of the things that makes the Burnout series so good, and then call it a Need for Speed title? Fuck no!

The astonishing thing is the reviews by all of the top review sites – they all rave about it! How much did EA pay them? Yes, the franchise has been in decline in the last decade, losing out to the true simulators and the true arcade racers, while frantically bouncing between the two trying to find something that works, but I think they were actually on to something with The Run. Now instead they give us a watered-down version of Burnout Paradise and expect everyone to love it. The handling model is terrible (compared to older NFS titles, and to Burnout for that matter), on the PC the graphics are good for some parts and then awful for others, the Autovista 2 is counter-intuitive on PC (can’t say for the console versions) and the game modes are severely limited.

And then another thing – most of the last few Need for Speed titles have had some form of storyline – The Run actually had a captivating one, one that sucked you in and made every position you won or lost on your journey feel like it meant something. Most Wanted? Nope, it sucks. The Burnout series had some interesting game modes and a vast array of races. Most Wanted? An average of 5 races per car, limited game modes. At least the cars are nicely modeled.

Criterion, go make arcade racers like Burnout and leave Need for Speed to the publishers that can turn out games like the legendary Need for Speed: Porsche Unlimited. The original Most Wanted was a crappy title, this one was utter shite (Unless of course you haven’t played Burnout, in which case it’d probably be OK for you)

Psst!

  March 13, 2012 - 4:30 pm | Oldschool, Other games
Leave a comment

Hey you! Do you like free games? Of course you do. Is it hard to find quality free games? Damn right it is.

So the guys over at Dev-Fire have created this awesome app that brings the best of free to your download queue. Think Steam for the free world, without the annoying resource hogging, and you get Game Downloader.

It features a clean interface and is portable too, so you can load it on your flash drive and carry it wherever you go. The bonus is (tested on Windows, so correct me if it’s not so on other platforms) that it downloads the full installers of the game, which you can then reuse on as many PCs as you want, unlike certain other platforms that makes you download everything over and over again.

Just select the your favourite game category from the dropdown, choose a game and click Download. Building your gaming repertoire has never been this easy!

Free MMO roundup

  December 5, 2011 - 1:28 pm | Game Reviews, Other games, RPG
2 Comments

As the holiday season approaches a lot of us will have some free time on our hands. And what better way to celebrate than with some free games! I’ve collected a list of the current free-to-play and freemium titles that can be played, either with a client installation or on a website, leaving out those that are in Beta or pre-release. As I get time to playtest I’ll add reviews to the links.

A:

  • 4Story - a fantasy-based PVP game with client.
  • Ace Online - a 3D sci-fi Shooter game with client.
  • Age of Conan – I actually played this one in Beta and at launch and it was HORRIBLE. Apparently they have now fixed the bugs, but not soon enough for it to be relegated to a freemium title. The free version is fairly crippled  - subscriptions are still available to unlock the rest. Of course, this is a fantasy game with a rather large client.
  • Aika Online - a fantasy adventure game with client.
  • Alganon – a fantasy RPG with client.
  • Allods Online - a sci-fi fantasy RPG with client – extremely popular.
  • Anarchy Online – an oldie, but still a goodie. A sci-fi RPG with client.
  • Angels Online – an anime-inspired fantasy RPG with client. Published by IGG, who has a ton of other small client-based MMOs shared under one login.
  • ArchLord – a fantasy RPG with client, heavily concentrating on PVP and seiges. Published by Webzen, who offers a range of other games with a shared currency that can either be earned or purchased.
  • ARGO Online - a steampunk fantasy RTS RPG with client. Heavily quest-based.
  • Atlantica Online - a fantasy RPG that uses turn-based combat, similar to Heroes of Might and Magic. Client based. A strong emphasis on player-created economy and crafting.

B:

(more…)

Driver: San Francisco play review.

  December 1, 2011 - 3:40 pm | Game Reviews, Other games, Racing Games
1 Comment

I was a big fan of the original Driver. I played it when it was first released, as well as the second installment, which was a bit of a disappointment. While waiting for Driv3r I even resurrected an old PC to play the original again. Driv3r hit the markets and got my attention for a full 30 minutes before nausea and horror made me uninstall it in a hurry. I skipped Parallel Lines purely because I did not want to live through the torture again.

Then Driver: San Francisco came out and, against my better judgement, I got it.

Once you start with the actual game you immediately begin to realise that everything’s not quite what it seems. Things get even stranger when you realise that you’re not quite who or what you think you are. Then the crows arrive and things get really freaky. The story is well put together, something rare in what’s essentially just a driving game. The storyline evolves well as you play through, with nice features like “Previously on Driver: San Francisco” when you load a saved game. It really lets you feel like you’re watching a story instead of playing it.

The game’s starting (and for the rest of the game for that matter) cutscenes are well done. It really gives you insight into what’s going on, with a bit of mystery, grit and WTF thrown in. Graphically it’s superb, with that 70′s movie feel to it. The city itself is well laid out, with a good mixture of obstacles, interesting pieces of road and the occasional off-road adventure. Driving through the city you can clearly see the transition between beachfront property, dense urban areas, slums and countryside. The buildings, road width, traffic density and vehicle types all zone really well.

Also new to the game franchise is properly licensed cars, with a stunning array of 140 vehicles to unlock and purchase – including trucks, beetles, class B rally, vans, supercars and everyday runabouts. The handling is exceptional, probably the best I’ve experienced outside of a racing simulator. The cars all handle like you’d expect their real-world counterparts would if you were a pro driver, and the fact that they seem to do awesome slides, jumps and traffic weaves as if by telepathy gives you more time to concentrate on the various scenarios that the game puts you in. The “special abilities” like boost and ram also feel quite intuitive and seems a much better model than having every car fitted with NoS.

Shift mode - it changes everything

Then there’s the feature that makes this title stand out from all the others – the Shift mode. With Shift you can jump from car to car as you drive through the streets, and later even quickly shift to anywhere on the game map. This adds a new dimension to the missions you’ll be doing. While doing a race, will you concentrate on trying to get the best time, beating the opponents with skill and your special abilities, or will you jump into oncoming traffic and try to take out your opponents before they can cross the finish line? Shift really changes the game.

Shift out and you're greeted with a bird's view of the city.

Now for the bad, which isn’t really that bad to be honest. The story is extremely linear. You have no say in the direction, and the story only progresses on the successful completion of your main missions. On the other hand, this is a driving arcade game, so expecting RPG-like choices and outcomes may be a bit too much. The other thing is that the side missions quickly become stale, it’s a basic repetition of about 5 themes. The Driver and Movie side missions are quite fun though.

Since installing this game, I’ve managed to unlock and buy 138 of the 140 cars, and done about 80% of the Driver and Movie missions. I’ve also finished the main storyline, which was long enough to keep you interested without being so long as to bore you. Altogether I honestly enjoyed this game more than any others this year, hence it deserves a full 5 stars and my recommendation for arcade game of the year.