Gaming
Stuart Houghton
It is almost a year since the release of Act II of Cardboard Computer's strange and opaque episodic game but Act III has finally been released. Has it been worth the wait?We last saw the nominal protagonist Conway succumbing to the effects of a mind-altering drug in the care of a doctor who lives in a forest that seems to exist between dimensions, having travelled there on the back of a giant eagle with a small boy who claims to be the eagle's brother. Conway still hasn't delivered his package and Lula Chamberlain is nowhere to be found.If you haven't played the previous acts then the above Read more ...
Simon Munk
There are many admirable things about Child Of Light. It's the game that the core team behind Far Cry 3 – the mega-action, gnarly dude first-person shooter ‑ went on to work on next. Yet, it's difficult to imagine two games further from each other.In Child Of Light, you play Aurora – a princess who falls into a deathly sleep to wake up in a dreamworld dominated by darkness. To return to her grieving father in the real world, she must defeat a wicked queen there. Able to fly, followed by a glowing, controllable orb of light and floating her way through a beautifully detailed landscape of giant Read more ...
Simon Munk
The core of a great videogame can sometimes be very simple indeed. The Trials series is based around the idea of leaning back and forward while accelerating and braking on a motorbike. Such simple controls, in this series, are turned into the ability to jump, push, roll and otherwise manoeuvre your lump of engined metal over a series of seemingly impossible obstacles – very much like "trials" riders do in real life.The series hit its stride with Trials HD for the Xbox 360 in 2009, and since then has retained that sense of knife-edge balance and dexterity needed to get up, over and under the Read more ...
Stuart Houghton
Noir Syndrome is a procedural detective game. That's to say procedurally-generated rather than a police procedural - the game is designed to create a random mystery for you to solve with each new game, and puts you in the worn-out shoes of a down-at-heel private eye who must catch a serial murderer who is cutting a swathe through the inhabitants of a big city.The game is rendered in a faux-retro 2D pixel art style and scored with a smoky jazz soundtrack that evokes just the right atmosphere for a gumshoe walking the mean streets. You have just two weeks to catch the murderer, and considering Read more ...
Simon Munk
With Wii Sports even elderly relatives could suddenly play videogames. The addition of motion control to Nintendo's console exPanded its audience far beyond traditional gamers. But then... nothing. Can Kinect Sports Rivals on the new Xbox One rekindle the excitement in waving your arms to control games?Videogames and technology companies go through fads. Right now, with Facebook buying Occulus Rift and Sony announcing Project Morpheus for the PS4, the trend is "virtual reality". Strap on goggles and as you turn your head, your virtual, in-game head turns to match. Except virtual reality Read more ...
Simon Munk
There is a grammar to most videogames. A crate, for instance, is almost always there to be opened and looted. These two free games subvert some of the basic rules of videogames to reinvent the "platform" genre. changeType puts you in a primary-coloured maze that immediately recalls classic Mario titles. But then lets you swap the properties of any two types of objects in the level, as long as you can see them directly to your left or right.This simple idea means you can immediately turn deadly spikes into safe-to-walk on blocks, but of course, those previously safe-to-walk on blocks are now Read more ...
Stuart Houghton
In the animated cutscene that begins Out There, the game lays out its basic premise. You are an astronaut frozen in cryonic sleep and then sent wildly off course by some mysterious event. You awake in an unfamiliar solar system with limited supplies of fuel and oxygen, a newly-acquired interstellar drive and a vague plan to reach a distant star.To reach your goal you must hop from one star system to another, gathering resources and discovering alien technologies to help you on your way. At first glance, Out There looks a lot like last year's indie hit, FTL. Unlike the tense, extended chase Read more ...
Simon Munk
Superheroes and videogames should be a match made in heaven – the primary colour characterisations; the non-stop action and combat; the backstories sketched on a napkin, but then gradually filled in over multiple issues; the superpowers, analogous to classic videogame "power-ups". It's strange then, that videogame superheroes have had such a tough time of it in general.It's also strange to see this third edition in the series floundering so badly in the wake of two inventive and original games that flamboyantly and successfully mixed freeroaming city exploration and action reminiscent of the Read more ...
Simon Munk
Flow states – experienced by athletes, religious zealots and videogamers playing Titanfall. This explosive action game is the most eagerly anticipated and hyped-up videogame of the "next generation" console war so far. It could singlehandedly transform Microsoft's slow start for its new Xbox One console. And while being deeply dull and reactionary in many ways, it encourages a gaming flow state of constant fun like little else in some time.In Titanfall two off-world factions vie for control of a planet. Both are armed to the teeth, not just with conventional weaponry, but giant "Titan" Read more ...
Simon Munk
Thief is the reboot of one of the oldest, and smartest of the stealth-action gaming series. Of course, as is customary in modern videogame design, the gameplay's been somewhat dumbed down. But it's not fatal here – leaving a stealthy and stylish successor that's a touch too repetitive.The Thief trilogy, which ran from 1998 to 2004, was a hugely influential set of stealth-action games. Splinter Cell and Dishonored, for instance, both owe a huge debt to the series' light and shadow-based stealth gameplay. But the series was difficult to master and slow in pace – with players required to Read more ...
Simon Munk
Dracula, the ultimate symbol of undead power, mystery and evil. As the anti-hero in this action-adventure sequel to the excellent Lords Of Shadow, you'd hope this would make for an epic adventure, or at least some toothsome plotting. Instead we get an enfeebled, old man as main character, a meandering, over-complex plot with ill-judged shock factor elements and far too many dull sections to plod through. It makes Twilight look like The Hunger or Near Dark in comparison.Dracula awakens from a long sleep weak and feeble in the modern world. In order to end his cursed immortality, a MacGuffin Read more ...
Stuart Houghton
Avoid: Sensory Overload is a racing game without a race. A litle bit of Wipeout, a dollop of Temple Run, a dash of Zaxxon and a hint even of Flappy Bird, it is a test of reaction times and nerve. At least, it is after a certain point.The first few levels of Avoid are almost absurdly easy. If you have played any kind of racing game or endless runner, or even if you have ever walked in a straight line at speed then you will likely ace the first few stages and even feel like you are playing in slow motion. This is a temporary state of affairs and if you push through (or just cheat and select a Read more ...