A couple of EXTREMELY late game reviews...
Recently I've gone back to an interest in game design and programming, not that I've done a lot but Photoshop's always been my friend and I've taken a crack at Flash every now and then (at least when Adobe trial software doesn't fuck up, I mean, really guys, ALL the trials?), but since I'm currently as the British say "on the dole" and the Americans say "shitcanned", I've decided to take time between recruiters BEGGING for my skills (CRAWL! CRAWL, I SAID!!!) and give my weak multimedia skills some exercise.
This meandering intro means I've basically justified video game purchases as a growth tool, and bought some games recently. To wit:
The Orange Box - Having never played Half-Life, but hearing great things about it and Portal, I decided to give it a try. My fairly cheap 2007 laptop that's been burdened w/Vista is able to run it just fine, thankfully. I'm currently about 3-4 hours into the first Half-Life 2, and my favorite part has been the cinematic scope of some of the set pieces. The part where I'm whizzing down a river in my hovercraft, only to see a huge smokestack from up ahead crumble and fall, blocking my path, sticks in my mind the most.
And I'm a huge pussy, the headcrabs and zombies have only started popping up and there have been a couple of times where I'm frantically firing, yelling AHHH! AHHH! AHHH! like a mental patient.
Portal, of course, is fucking brilliant and deserving of all the praise it gets. I wish I had a high-end PC so I could see how it is with good graphics. BTW, most reviews say the main game takes 2-3 hours. It took me about eight. Just saying.
Geometry Wars - Four bucks that are well spent. I actually prefer this to most FPSeseses because I'm old (or at least too old to be writing a videogame-related blog post, most likely), and this hits the retro 80s spot just fine. I do think an investment in a cheap USB controller may be warranted, though, because after 10 minutes of play on the keyboard my hands look like I've been caught cheating in the Tangiers...
This meandering intro means I've basically justified video game purchases as a growth tool, and bought some games recently. To wit:
The Orange Box - Having never played Half-Life, but hearing great things about it and Portal, I decided to give it a try. My fairly cheap 2007 laptop that's been burdened w/Vista is able to run it just fine, thankfully. I'm currently about 3-4 hours into the first Half-Life 2, and my favorite part has been the cinematic scope of some of the set pieces. The part where I'm whizzing down a river in my hovercraft, only to see a huge smokestack from up ahead crumble and fall, blocking my path, sticks in my mind the most.
And I'm a huge pussy, the headcrabs and zombies have only started popping up and there have been a couple of times where I'm frantically firing, yelling AHHH! AHHH! AHHH! like a mental patient.
Portal, of course, is fucking brilliant and deserving of all the praise it gets. I wish I had a high-end PC so I could see how it is with good graphics. BTW, most reviews say the main game takes 2-3 hours. It took me about eight. Just saying.
Geometry Wars - Four bucks that are well spent. I actually prefer this to most FPSeseses because I'm old (or at least too old to be writing a videogame-related blog post, most likely), and this hits the retro 80s spot just fine. I do think an investment in a cheap USB controller may be warranted, though, because after 10 minutes of play on the keyboard my hands look like I've been caught cheating in the Tangiers...
posted by sixthdoctor at 4:44 PM
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