Push The Button

A few quick gaming related subjects. Firstly, two reviews:

“Fads. Gimmicks. USPs. Hooks. Whatever you call them, you can just about guarantee these days that any first person shooter for the PC is going to have something a little bit “special” to seperate from the others. Half life 2 had the Gravity Gun, FEAR had hand to hand combat and bullet time. So it should come as no suprise to learn that Prey, also known as “The Other Vaporware” title from 3D Realms, has a fair few tricks up its Native American sleeves… ”

“Underneath the layers of cream and sauce, Prey does deliver a slice of jam filled sponguey goodness that certainly does fill a hole in the stomach of FPS gamers, and indeed, the welcome multiplayer does make a tasty, solid desert. However, the faults which Prey does have stop it short of being a great game, as opposed to a good one – If you haven’t played some of the big names coming out of the FPS bakery recently, you’ll probably prefer them over this.”

Food orientated review of Prey, over at The Mad Gamer – Hey, I was hungry at the time…

“Underwhelmed: 1)To fail to excite, stimulate, or impress. 2) Broken Sword:The Angel of Death. Sorry to start this review on somewhat of a negative note, but having just completed the latest adventure of our favourite Patent Lawyer/Bail Bond employee George Stobbart in the latest game in what most would say is THE name in adventure games, I come away thinking that something isn’t right.”

“So you see, here’s the thing. Even after all I’ve said, Broken Sword 4 is a really great adventure game. It’s another nail removed from the Adventure Gaming coffin, and it provides a fair few hours of good entertainment, and I can still reccomend this to any adventure game fan – and indeed, I implore them to at least try the game. The puzzles are tricky, the humor is clever, the music is still beautiful, and the adventure is all there. But as a long time Broken Sword series fan, I can say while it may be a great adventure game, it’s not a great Broken Sword game. It is the weakest in the series in terms of story and atmosphere.”

And a Broken Sword 4 review, also at TMG. Incidentally, considering the way it reads, it does get a slightly higher score than you might expect, which probably doesn’t do me as a reviewer any favours, but what can I say? I felt a little scorned at the ending really.

And finally this blog post, my first proper week of work at Uni started off with the task of making game that could be controlled using only one button. We called it LifeSaver, and it never did quite get finished. Firstly, we planned to put defibrilators in after two lives had been lost, and then the player would have to hammer the spacebar, but we couldn’t figure out how to impliment it in time. Secondly, there’s also no way to actually win at the moment. But the losing is all sorted.

Anyway, it’s pretty basic, and the rest of the game describes itself, but if you really want to have a look, download LifeSaver here. This week, I have my first set of lectures. Including all day Friday, with no breaks. Not even for lunch. Erk.