July 25th, 2009

This is good news, but it opens an old wound. There was much uncertainty surrounding the PC version of The Force Unleashed; gamers expected it, but Lucas Arts wasn’t talking about it. In May of 2008 producer Cameron Suey addressed the issue saying there would be no PC version of the game. He cited scaling issues:

“The PC being the gaming platform that it is, someone with a $4,000 high-end system would definitely be able to play the Euphoria, the DMM and really technical elements of the game. But someone with a low-end PC would have a watered down experience, they would have to turn all the settings down and it wouldn’t be the same game.”

That line was as much a load of bull then as it is now; if an Xbox 360 can run a game, so can a $500 PC built in the last two years. There’s a reason people are amazed to see CryEngine running on a console while still looking decent. The Force Unleashed is said to be coming this Fall, and I have a feeling I’ll be playing it using the PC I built in January of 2008 for $700.

The fangirl inside me is squealing right now.

“I understand you work for George Lucas, how has that prepared you for this loss here today?”

March 26th, 2009

Dude, box art!Sid Meier’s Pirates! is the 2004 remake of a game by the same name originally released in 1987 for the Commodore 64 during Sid Meier’s tenure at MicroProse. Arriving first on PC, this Firaxis-developed remake of Pirates! was later ported to the Xbox, the PSP and Mac OS X.

Sid Meier’s Pirates! is a genre bender of a game featuring aspects of real time strategy, turn based strategy, simulation, stealth, exploration, adventure, and even some even light role-playing elements. Though Pirates! could be described as an amalgam of “mini-games”, that would be selling it short. There’s more depth to it than that, and everything is tied together nicely by the main character’s objective which is tracking down the evil Marquis de la Montalban who has enslaved his family. Activities such as sword fights, ship-to-ship naval battles, upgrading ships, turn-based land battles, trading with port merchants, capturing cities, and earning fame and fortune surpassing that of nine historical pirates are the locus to reaching this goal.
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March 11th, 2009

The GraveyardThe Graveyard is a very short experimental game nominated for the Innovation Award in the 2009 Independent Games Festival. It was created as “An experiment with realtime poetry, with storytelling without words.” by developer Tale of Tales.

Not much more can be said without spoilers, which I’ll save for below, so give this game a play first by downloading the trial through Steam or, for Mac users, from this link. The entire game can be played in the trial, though $5 unlocks one feature. Think of it as a donation.
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March 3rd, 2009

Way back in April of 2008 I made a post talking about some of the games I was most looking forward to in 2008. Later, in November, I made another post reflecting on that list, what I’d actually gotten to play, and what I my impressions. Right now is that time of year just before games start getting announced en masse; GDC is just a few weeks away, and E3 has been moved to June this year, up from July last year. There are some PC games that we’ve known about for a while now which will probably be coming out this year, so I think I’m ready to share my list for 2009 right now.
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