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Chaos on Deponia in Review

By on November 14, 2012 with 0 Comments

Chaos on Deponia is Daedelic’s second entry in their Deponia series, a series of point and click adventure games set on the titular trash planet of Deponia. Coming in cold to a sequel, like I did with this one, is never an easy thing to do, and there certainly were a few things I had to research so as to not be completely in the dark, but eventually the game’s sense of humor and hate-him-but-love-him main character Rufus won me over. If you’ve never played a Deponia game, but enjoy humor and strong puzzles, take the plunge and give Chaos of Deponia a try. A delightful world of trash awaits.

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Joost Goes Inside the Pitch

By on November 4, 2012 with 0 Comments

Joost van Dongen of Ronimo Games, and the creator of Proun, is one of the more forthcoming developers I have come across. Many of his articles on game development are very technical and surprisingly revealing, with a particular nod to his dissection of Proun’s sales statistics. His latest article delves into the process of pitching a game to publishers.

By no means is the article a tell-all of dirty secrets, but it does shed a little light on the difficulties that many developers face when trying to get to market, and why so many developers have in turn chosen the more arduous route of self-promotion and -distribution.

Electronic Super Joy Looks Fun

By on November 4, 2012 with 0 Comments

While I still think the whole “silhouette platformer” bit has been played out and resurrected beyond death, I might make an exception for Electronic Super Joy. Maybe it’s my fondness for super-hard platformers coming out, or maybe it’s just that I have a weird soft spot for the DDR-esque tunes, courtesy of ENVY.

Electronic Super Joy is set to launch on December 7, for iPad, Android, Windows, Mac, and Linux… yep, Linux.

Edna & Harvey: Harvey’s New Eyes in Review

By on October 31, 2012 with 7 Comments

I didn’t spend a lot of time gaming as a kid, very little, actually, but when I did, I played adventure games. My dad had a PC for his side business and I spent a good chunk of one year’s annual summer visit parked in front of that PC’s orange and black display, eating chilled Skor bars and playing Space Quest. In fact, due to a rather unfortunate lack of understanding of the concept of saved games, I got rather adept at playing the game up until the part where you had to ride your space motorcycle thingy across the desert and not hit any rocks. Eventually I learned how to save my game and could progress even farther in the story of Roger Wilco.

Since those days, adventure games have occupied a special place in my heart, with the combination of laid back style and ability to tell stories not easily told in other genres making them a genre filled with games that I’m always happy to try. Edna & Harvey: Harvey’s New Eyes is definitely laid back, despite the grisly subject matter, and it certainly has a story that would be difficult to tell in other genres. It’s also quite strange, yet endearing at the same time. It probably won’t be for everyone, but if you don’t mind your games being a little on the strange side, it’s well worth checking out.

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Telling Tales on Telltale

By on October 30, 2012 with 24 Comments

Walking Dead from Telltale iTunes Page

A couple of weeks ago, after all the great reviews here on No High Scores and a heartfelt recommendation from Lucy James, I bit the bullet and bought Telltale Games’ Walking Dead: Episode 1 for my original iPad. I figured it might put a bit of a strain on the hardware so before buying I looked at the iTunes page, which you can see reproduced above. It said nothing about iPad 1 compatibility issues in the bottom left where the requirements are, or the description, so I went ahead and bought it.

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Borderlands 2: Captain Scarlett and Her Pirate Booty in Review

By on October 26, 2012 with 8 Comments

I don’t know at what size or at what point what we traditionally call “DLC” gets magically transformed into an expansion pack, but make no mistake, Borderlands 2′s first piece of story related content, Captain Scarlett and Her Pirate Booty is a full fledged expansion pack, giving players thirsty for more Pandoran mayhem a healthy portion of new areas to explore, guns to find and enemies to kill.

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Worlds of Borecraft

By on October 26, 2012 with 15 Comments

World of Warcraft - a dull blade

Like most teenage video game addicts in the late 80’s, I fantasized about being able to play my favourite games online along with my friends and any number of random strangers. In those days doing such a thing on an average home computer was absurdly beyond the reach of technology. It wasn’t long before commercial multi-user games appeared though, such as Shades, a game I longed to try but sadly I was unable to convince my parents to invest in a modem for that sole purpose.

I eventually realised the dream while I was at university, where I started playing an obscure multi-user game called Nanvaent. It still exists, basking in the same text-based glory that it had back in 1996. I played Nanvaent and played it hard over the next seven years, eventually becoming a “creator” or coder. Indeed I suspect it was instrumental in my failing to complete my doctorate, and equally instrumental in ensuring I was able to salvage a career as a programmer from the ashes of my academic dreams. And once I’d made that switch, I never touched the game again.

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Dishonored Review: The Modern Day Thief Shuffle

By on October 25, 2012 with 6 Comments

Dishonored is a pretty good game. It’s likely not something that will have a lasting impact because much of this we already experienced years ago in the Thief series and to a lesser extent in the Assassins Creed games.  Sure, this time around you have better technology driving the game compared to Thief and there are those neat-o superpowers you have access to such as teleporting, animal and human possession, and the “go to” power of seeing bad guys through walls.

The bigger story in my view is that Bethesda has finally published an externally developed game that doesn’t suck.  The list of mediocre to downright bad games that Bethesda has pushed on the public that isn’t an Elder Scrolls/Fallout game is long and varied. And this stuff matters. Track records matter. Decisions matter.

New Vegas defined the term “buggy release”, Brink is love it or hate it, Rage was supposed to be this huge Bethesda/id success story and other (decent) games like Hunted: The Demon’s Forge sort of vanish upon release. Seriously Bethesda’s’ track record  here is spotty at best. Dishonored changes all of that and while I don’t think it’s nearly as good as its buzz would indicate, it’s clearly Bethesda’s best outside the studio project in a long, long time and the company deserves some credit for it. I hoped this distinction to go to Prey 2 but…well…yeah.

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XCOM: Enemy Unknown in Review

By on October 25, 2012 with 18 Comments

I finished XCOM: Enemy Unknown Tuesday night, so that means it’s time for a proper review. (I officially give up on the hyphen. From now on we’ll just pretend it’s there.) Before I get into that, however, a few words about the two recently announced pieces of DLC: Slingshot and Elite Soldier Pack. This is the 2k I know and loath. First, the Elite Soldier Pack is basically armor colors and a few more heads (three helmeted ones and a new hairdo). It’s content (particularly the armor tinting) that should have been part of the main game by default. Asking people to pay $5 for this is shameful. It’s the same nickel and dime for the least amount possible that we got from a lot of the Civ 5 DLC. The Slingshot DLC adds a new playable “hero” to the squad and some scripted missions. It’s not fair to judge sight unseen, but I am not enamored with the idea. I think it fundamentally misunderstands what makes this game good. It’s arguable that the weakest parts of XCOM are the parts where it’s scripted, which is thankfully uncommon, so trying to make people excited about three new council missions that have their own story arc isn’t the world’s greatest sell. Hopefully I’ll be proven wrong about that.

On with the review…

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How About a Crusader Kings II Contest?

By on October 24, 2012 with 35 Comments

Why yes, that sounds lovely.

Crusader Kings II is a wonderful game. I played the hell out of it when it was released — a month of non stop Crusader Kinging. With the release of the 2nd expansion, Legacy of Rome, I need to get back in the swing as I love that period of history. This isn’t Glory Days Rome but rather the Eastern Empire — Leo, Justinian and the boys.

In celebration of said expansion we are giving away five (5) Steam codes for Crusader Kings II. This is just the base game and not the add on. So if you skipped it last time around, now’s your chance to score a freebie.

To enter the contest reply to this post and tell us why you should win a free copy. Seriously. Why should I give YOU a free CK2 code? It’s that simple.

Winners will be chosen at random. Or maybe not.

Good luck!

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