This deserves all the accolades going. A perfectly rendered tale of childhood best-friends-forever growing up and trying to make video-games. It is funny, well observed, and grim. It's sort of like Nick Hornby's "High Fidelity" for the 21st century. There's a desperately sad trope about how some men believe that women are a video-game where, if you put enough friendship in, you eventually get rewarded with sex. This is the tangled and twisted tale of how some people believe that, if you put…
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I'm a sucker for anything Star Wars. So when my Oculus Quest told me I could fight Darth Vader in VR, I leapt at the chance. I kinda wish I hadn't bothered. There is very little "game" here. It's barely an interactive movie. Walk forward until you step on a trigger, watch a very slow cut scene, wave your arms until something happens, repeat a few times, roll credits. That's it. There's nothing to explore, there are no choices to make, and no puzzles to solve. Parts of the game are gorgeous. …
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It is hard to get people excited about VR. Even at its best, it is an isolating experience - that's why Zuck is pushing the social features of The Metaverse so hard. But, worse still, it's hard to show people what the VR experience is like. If your friend buys a 4K laser projector, you can immediately understand the appeal of the massive screen. Even if you only see the photos of it on Facebook, you get what the experience is like. Games are different. While having a parasocial relationship…
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I was looking to buy the latest Zelda game for my wife as a present (Shhh! Don't tell her!) and it was SIXTY BLOODY QUID! For a video game! That seems extortionate. I remember, when I were a lad, video games cost... wait? Do I remember? Or is it just rose tinted glasses? I remember saving up my pocket-money for weeks on end, and getting an advance on my birthday money, in order to be able to buy Sonic 2 for the Megadrive. Let's check the archives... Sonic 2 cost about £40 when released. …
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Hello readers! Way back in 2015, I wrote a "Choose Your Own Adventure" game using Twitter. I think it is fair to say that it is the best computer game I've ever published. And probably the only time I'll ever be reviewed in The Guardian and Kotaku! Anyway, a year ago I was contacted by an art student. They wanted to adapt my game into a comic for their art class. How could I refuse? This beautifully styled, monochrome pages were the result: They also provided me with a rendering with…
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The philosopher Thomas Nagel wrote "What Is It Like to Be a Bat?" and attempted to show that we can never really understand another living creature's consciousness. I had hoped that Stray would answer the question "What is it like to be a cat?" But it doesn't. Frankly, it doesn't even try. It feels like the developers lost the courage of their convictions. Cats can see in the dark - but your avatar has to use a torch! Cats can follow scents - yet that's left unexplored. Cats are expert…
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I love Mindustry. It's like an open source version of Factorio - defend a base and build huge sprawling factories. One of the constraints is the limited number of resources on some levels. You need silicon to make alloy. But to get silicon, you need sand and coal. But what if you don't have sand and coal? Similarly, you need oil and titanium to make plastanium. But you might not always have titanium to mine. But lots of levels have scrap metal. Scrap can be melted down to slag. Then that slag …
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It always amuses me how rarely American actors are allowed to act. Ryan Reynolds stars as Ryan Reynolds - with the exact same delivery and intonation as all his other rôles. The same semi-improvised witty asides. The same fourth-wall breaking memes. Hey, look, it works for him and audiences seem to love it. I just think it'd be nifty to see him playing something other than Ryan Reynolds. Anyway, Free Guy is a fun, uncomplicated movie about the perils of cross-licencing GPL code within a …
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I got a student discount to buy a Google Stadia games system for £60. Seemed like pretty good value. But I didn't buy it - because Google refuses to tell me how much their ecosystem costs. Upfront Cost There's nothing on the main Stadia page which says that you need to pay £9/month to get the 4K version of games. Go on, take a look at https://store.google.com/gb/product/stadia?hl=en-GB. It says "features (including 4K, HDR, 60 fps and 5.1 surround sound) are service-, network-, device- and g…
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Blogging like it's 1991! I'm pretty sure that I had the shareware version of the original Monkey Island. At any rate, I remember the amazing graphics... But I don't remember getting further than the first few screens. I do remember a few years later, my brother and I completing the CD-ROM version of "Day Of The Tentacle" - by which time computer games had advanced so far that there was no compelling reason to go back to Monkey Island. Thanks to PS Now - the game streaming service from…
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I'm playing through the itch.io Bundle for Racial Justice and Equality. You can follow along with all my game reviews. I have mixed feelings about this. It isn't really a game - and admits as much - more of a low-stakes exploration simulator. It is gorgeous. I couldn't believe my laptop was capable of rendering some of the scenes that it did. It worked perfectly on Linux running Wayland. Overly moody and atmospheric with - thankfully - no jump scares. But it starts really badly.…
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I'm playing through the itch.io Bundle for Racial Justice and Equality. You can follow along with all my game reviews. This starts as a fun little logic puzzle, but quickly descends into frustration. Like Portal, you have limited array of actions and have to manipulate your environment in order to get move on to the next level. But it has a bit of a problem. It is so easy to get lost. There are a bunch of rooms which all look similar, and I found myself quickly running out of puzzles…
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