A MOST AGREEABLE PASTIME
Video Games, Victorian Style
Tag: Review
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Black – The Fall makes me realize that we really need to come up with a catchy new term to describe these games that follow in the footsteps of classic side-scrolling action-adventure-platformers like Out of This World (aka Another World) or Oddworld. Although if I had to compare it to any other single similar game,…
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The Solus Project is probably best described as a survival/exploration/adventure game. You’re the last survivor of a crashed ship that was looking for a new habitable planet for humankind to relocate to, and you need to find a way to survive. Not only that, you need to communicate with your people so that you can get…
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Jettomero: Hero of the Universe is a game where I’m not quite sure who the audience is supposed to be. Its low-detail, cartoonish look certainly evokes the assumption that this is a game for children, which is not necessarily a bad thing. There are plenty of childish, family friendly games out there that are still fun for grizzled…
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Return to Zork was a sequel to the semi-popular series of text adventures in the 80’s, simply titled Zork. It was the first game in the series to actually have visual graphics, and was one of the earliest FMV games, sort of. The original floppy disk version (which came on a whopping 12 disks) actually only had animated GIFs of live…
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Well, this is a lovely surprise. Seemingly out of nowhere, Runic Games have come up with a title that’s easily one of the best of 2017. All I knew about Hob before I received the review code was that it was by the same developer as Torchlight. And after I booted up the game, I…
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Well, this is a lovely surprise. Seemingly out of nowhere, Runic Games have come up with a title that’s easily one of the best of 2017. All I knew about Hob before I received the review code was that it was by the same developer as Torchlight. And after I booted up the game, I…
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Not to be confused with other “Fall” games, like Black: The Fall, or apparently another completely unrelated game also called The Fall, this particular The Fall is more of a point and click adventure…sort of. The Fall is the fascinating story of a mysterious person future soldier who has crash landed on a mysterious planet. Mystery person seems to be injured…
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Not to be confused with other “Fall” games, like Black: The Fall, or apparently another completely unrelated game also called The Fall, this particular The Fall is more of a point and click adventure…sort of. The Fall is the fascinating story of a mysterious person future soldier who has crash landed on a mysterious planet. Mystery person seems to be injured…
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Marvel vs. Capcom Infinite is finally here and if the internet is to be believed, it’s the latest Mass Effect: Andromeda-type controversy, because OMG TWO CHARACTER’S FACES LOOK WEIRD IN CUTSCENES! I admit, there really are precisely two characters who have weird faces in otherwise incredible looking cutscenes. I was so distraught when I gazed upon these two…
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Marvel vs. Capcom Infinite is finally here and if the internet is to be believed, it’s the latest Mass Effect: Andromeda-type controversy, because OMG TWO CHARACTER’S FACES LOOK WEIRD IN CUTSCENES! I admit, there really are precisely two characters who have weird faces in otherwise incredible looking cutscenes. I was so distraught when I gazed upon these two…
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Symphony of the Night is not just hands-down the greatest Castlevania game of all time, but I also consider it one of the top 5 greatest video games of all time. It is not just the original Metroidvania, but it’s the pinnacle of subgenre. Great looking backgrounds and enemies, incredible level design, a large array of…
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Wowwwww, where did this game come from? I had heard nice things about it, but it didn’t look or sound particularly amazing. It really just looks like Journey, but underwater, and while Journey also surprised me with it’s endearing simplicity, it’s got nothing on the sheer beauty of the world of Abzu. I grabbed this when it…
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Wowwwww, where did this game come from? I had heard nice things about it, but it didn’t look or sound particularly amazing. It really just looks like Journey, but underwater, and while Journey also surprised me with it’s endearing simplicity, it’s got nothing on the sheer beauty of the world of Abzu. I grabbed this when it…
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I have a confession to make. I’ve never played Night Trap before! It sure seems like something I’d have played, doesn’t it? I’ve always wanted to try it, but I never had a Sega CD and I just never got around to playing the later ports. On the plus side, this means I went into this…
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I have a confession to make. I’ve never played Night Trap before! It sure seems like something I’d have played, doesn’t it? I’ve always wanted to try it, but I never had a Sega CD and I just never got around to playing the later ports. On the plus side, this means I went into this…
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If I’m honest, the main reason I bought Chibi-Robo! Zip Lash was for the sweet, sweet amiibo that came with it. I love Chibi as a character, but Zip Lash released to mediocre reviews, and I’m not that big a fan of 2D platformers anyway. Still, I thought that I may as well give the…
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If I’m honest, the main reason I bought Chibi-Robo! Zip Lash was for the sweet, sweet amiibo that came with it. I love Chibi as a character, but Zip Lash released to mediocre reviews, and I’m not that big a fan of 2D platformers anyway. Still, I thought that I may as well give the…
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If you’re anything like me and haven’t touched a Sonic game since the Sega Genesis days, then Sonic Mania and its return to the good old days of simple, but effective side-scrolling platforming probably sounded pretty good to you too. I’ve never really played any of the later 3D Sonic games, so I don’t really know…
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If you’re anything like me and haven’t touched a Sonic game since the Sega Genesis days, then Sonic Mania and its return to the good old days of simple, but effective side-scrolling platforming probably sounded pretty good to you too. I’ve never really played any of the later 3D Sonic games, so I don’t really know…
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The latest offering from Arkane Studios brings us yet another spiritual successor to System Shock and Bioshock, this time falling under the previously established brand of Prey, for what seems to be no other reason than for Bethesda to renew the rights to a series that was never all that popular to begin with. Despite the fact that…
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After I tried out Jotun on Sir Merriweather‘s recommendation, I knew I had to get this game too. Sundered, the latest entry from Thunder Lotus Games, promised to be a fast-paced, extra-challenging Metroidvania with some amazing looking hand drawn animation and environments, all set in a bizarre world that seems to be the product of dumping sci-fi,…
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The Last Door is actually technically two games, as it was released episodically over the course of two separate standalone seasons, but as they both make up a single complete story, let’s just call it all The Last Door for simplicity’s sake. Anyway, The Last Door is a point and click adventure game by The Game…
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The previews and the demo for the long-awaited Final Fantasy XV made it one of the most anticipated Final Fantasy releases in quite some time (even if I didn’t actually get around to finally playing it until eight months after it came out), but could it possibly live up to all the hype that seemed to promise…
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Monster Bash was one of those early 90’s games by Apogee, former king of weird PC platformers and shoot-em-ups. I think this was about the last game like this that they did before they became 3D Realms and started doing nothing but first person shooters (not that there’s anything wrong with that!). Monster Bash tells the thrilling story of Johnny…
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Super Castlevania IV finally brought Castlevania to the 16-bit world and did quite a fine job of it. Konami really went all out with this one, taking advantage of every bit of the Super Nintendo’s new technology. The backgrounds are highly detailed, animated, and often multi-layered. The vaunted parallax scrolling is also applied to the level in some interesting ways, making…
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Another mobile game? Has the world gone topsy-turvy? Slayaway Camp suckered me in by promising me piles and piles of puzzles, all with the theme of being goofy eighties slasher movies, and I’m pleased to say that it did not lie. Underneath all the blood and guts lies a very classic slide-the-block-around puzzle, the likes of which…
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Last Voyage is the previous game by Nightgate creators Semidome. Like Nightgate, it offers a selection of beautifully bizarre abstract and minimalist puzzles, along with some non-puzzle flying sequences. Last Voyage approaches things a bit differently though, with each chapter being made of entirely different sets of mini-games, and with a noticeably heavier emphasis on the abstract part. One set…
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Wow, has it been two whole years since Pillars of Eternity came out already? And Parts 1 and 2 of the expansion, The White March, have been out for about a year already too? Time sure flies when you’re having all this fun. Anyway, Pillars of Eternity brought us back to the wild world of CRPGs, in…
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Monument Valley was an amazingly well designed little puzzle game for mobile devices back in 2014. Its use of mind-twisting M.C. Escher-style environments, combined with a really beautiful minimalist art style and impressively effective touchscreen controls, made for one of the most memorable gaming experiences on a phone. For better or worse, Monument Valley 2 is very much…
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What is Dogolrax? Well, Dogolrax is game about you, a nameless human guy, being stranded on an alien planet called Dogolrax, which is named after an alien god that is also called Dogolrax. How did you get there? I don’t know. What’s going on with all the crazy aliens there? You know, I still don’t know. What do I know? Well, I…
A MOST AGREEABLE PASTIME 