In the realm of video gaming, zombie titles are nothing new.
Seems like developers are just kooky for the undead buggers, which has greatly diminished their impact. The last good zombie games I’ve enjoyed were Left 4 Dead 2 from Valve, and Walking Dead from Telltale. Seriously, how many hordes of the dead can you blow away and have it still remain relevant and new?
State of Decay found a way.
This is a very different sort of zombie game. This isn’t the type of game where you just rush blindly into a zombie horde, guns blazing. Actually, that would be a very bad idea. This is a game about survival. Not only for yourself, but the people you encounter along the way. And in this game, decisions do matter.
There’s no hand holding in this game. You’re thrust into the proverbial water the second the game loads, and you learn how both zombies and living work.
You and your AI friend get your first “taste” of the outbreak out by a collection of cabins in the lake. You can either choose to fight or sneak past them, and while it’s not as relevant in this moment, Read the rest of this entry
I was late to the Minecraft game. Sure, I’ve heard about the “build anything you want” premise that the game has, but being more a MacBook person, I never got around to trying the title on PC.
That changed when the game came to the Xbox 360.
This version of the title is essentially “Minecraft Lite”, a smaller version of the PC world, with less mod options. For those unfamiliar with the game, it’s basically a giant virtual Lego set. Even moreso than than the actual Lego games (although Lego has created an official Lego Minecraft set). It’s a world where you can create, break down, relocate, and is fueled by the power of your imagination. It almost sounds like a marketing tagline, doesn’t it? But at least it’s true.
Pretty much everything can be affected in the world. If not reused in its original form, the elements can be used to create something else. It’s a world of ice and oceans, caves and mountains, forests and beaches. And it’s populated by a number of unusual inhabitants. When you start the game, you are very much on your own. No tools, nothing to Read the rest of this entry
Long-time readers may have noted a few years back that I mentioned a title called The Simpsons Arcade. It surprised me that a few hadn’t heard of the title, but considering the still dying arcades, and the fact that the arcade game never came to consoles (only a personal computer or two at the time), I suppose that it was understandable.
Recent readers may have noticed that just last entry I mentioned certain titles just ending up in “Licensing Hell”, meaning that companies lose the rights to popular film, comic, sports association, and TV characters, so chances of seeing certain titles are nil to none. I figured that this particular title was just simply one of those casualties.
And then guess what just randomly popped out of nowhere?
Like the X-Men and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles games before it, Konami pulled out another beat ‘em up based on the long-running dysfunctional family. I fondly have memories of going to the local Movieland after school (my local hometown video store had an amazing arcade) and playing as Bart until one day a group of students and I beat the game. Not that it was easy. Like other games of the time, it was designed to Read the rest of this entry
Long-time readers know that I love some serious Pac-Man. To me, it’s one of the top “pure” gaming experiences (Tetris being the other, and I could argue the original Super Mario Bros.).
I’ve largely played the majority of these, from maze chases to platformers. My favorites remain the original, Ms. Pac-Man, Pac-Man World, and the first Pac-Man: Championship Edition. I’m still waiting for Namco to get its priorities straight and just release a compilation of all the Pac games so I’ll have them all in one place, but that’s another discussion.
This year, the yellow ball has gotten two sequels (plus that ugly looking party game with the hideous character redesigns, and that miserable looking cartoon). While I’m yet to play Pac-Man: Battle Royale… a sequel to Championship Edition? What could possibly be left to do?
Pac-Man: Championship Edition: DX is utterly insane. It takes everything from the last update, and makes it faster, waking sleeping ghosts around the maze to create an out of control ghost train that shadows Pac-Man like an angry rainbow. When the tables are turned with an energizer…. Pac-Man goes on an out of control eating spree that destroys everything in Read the rest of this entry
For those of you familiar with my gaming interests and likes, the original Haunted House for the Atari 2600 was a personal favorite of mine (and still played on Game Room). It remains one of my “Top 5″ Atari 2600 titles (along with Adventure, Pitfall!, River Raid, and Yar’s Revenge), and I was a bit shocked when Atari announced a true sequel to the 2600 game this year. Curious, but cautious, I waited for the day to see this game, and with little (to no) fanfare, it has finally arrived. Does it need to remain regulated to the past, or is it worth another visit to the old Graves Mansion?
Yes, back in the day, those blocky Atari 2600 games actually had stories in their instruction manuals, and detailed ones to give a full background to foster one’s imagination for those primitive visuals. Haunted House, for its time, actually has a decent scare factor. The game can still make me jump now and then at times, which is a testament to its effectiveness.
So here we are with the new game, playing the grandchildren of the original hero. Surprisingly, there are more than enough references to the Read the rest of this entry
The Dread Pirate Guy
