With grand narratives, soaring musical scores, and top-notch voice acting among its commonplace traits, the debate over whether or not the video game is an art form has moved being a simple “yes” or “no” question, to prompting more nuanced discussions of what constitutes art within the boundaries of a constantly evolving medium. Continue reading at ChelseaNow.com.
Eisenhorn: Xenos is a project with lots of crazy ideas. Take a successful tabletop strategy game like Warhammer 40k, then adapt it into a sci-fi detective novel, then adapt that novel into a video game that has no strategy. Madness, or brilliance? It’s a lot of both. The character Gregor Eisenhorn appeared in a trilogy of novels that are considered by Warhammer fans to be among the best literary adaptations of the game. Certainly someone could make a terrific game based on them, but the game that was released this month is probably not what fans were hoping for. In the grim darkness of game design, hope is the first step on the road to disappointment. Continue reading at Geek.com.
The development team at Blue Isle Studios sure do love video games. Their new game, Valley, blends elements from half-a dozen recent hits and makes no effort to hide their inspirations. In it, an archaeologist stumbles into a mysterious valley, and almost immediately finds an experimental suit of power armor from a secret WWII army project. The player must restore balance to the fragile ecosystem of this once-idyllic valley, by mastering the enhanced running and jumping abilities granted by the suit, along with a gadget that grants power over the very forces of life and death! Continue reading at Geek.com.
The months ahead will see a glut of new video games scrambling to be the must-have holiday gift. However, recent releases have brought a swarm of titles that will keep players entertained until the big holiday rush arrives — and beyond. Among them are early Game of The Year contenders, high-definition re-releases of classics, and long-running hits that are still going strong, thanks to new content updates. Continue reading at ChelseaNow.com.
The new PS4 game Bound is about a pretty princess ballerina, but there is more to it than prancing around in tutus. It has does have prancing (and twirling and fluttering and capering), but the game uses ballet to tell a story about a crumbling family and a child’s use of dance to escape the emotional trauma of her home. Bound combines elements of “Empathy Games” like Papo y Yo with platforming mechanics and gorgeous motion-captured animation to create an experience that will cut deeply into many players. Continue reading at Geek.com.
Batman has been many things over the decades; a masked detective, a brutal vigilante, and a law-abiding role model for the good citizens of fair Gotham. Depending on the decade and the medium, Batman can be at home in Adam West’s satin tights, or Ben Affleck’s Robocop suit with a cape. Continue reading at Geek.com.
“What’s the best video game story of all time?” That’s a question which will lead to broken controllers, bloody knuckles, and Undertale fans getting thrown through Gamestop windows. Many players insist that the point and click adventure games of the 90s are the best examples of video game narrative. Arguably the best of that genre was Funcom’s The Longest Journey from 1999. Despite its acclaim, it took seven years for this game to get its sequel, Dreamfall. The sequel was an excellent game too, but it suffered from many problems, chief among them was a cliffhanger ending which was only recently resolved through a third game. It has taken 17 years for fans to walk this aptly named longest journey. Many players will discover the franchise through the new Dreamfall Chapters, and these people might wonder if they need to play the two older games before trying the new one. The answer is “Yes.” Continue reading at Geek.com.
