I'm about ten months late on this recommendation, which is right about when this was making the rounds on the gaming blogs, but I hadn't really gotten around to playing it until just the other night. Since then I've gone well past the 100-death mark, and that might be the most important distinction to make. If you play Spelunky, you're going to die. A lot. Basically, Spelunky is a side-scrolling platformer take on Rogue: the levels and items are randomly generated and placed, and your victory depends on luck just as much as skill. Maybe it's because I just played a bunch of pinball this weekend as well, but there's something about the way the game is structured that reminds me of it; No matter how sharp your focus one mistake can ruin all of your progress, and even though it's frustrating you know you can do better, and that keeps you coming back. It'll probably take a few deaths just to get the hang of the controls and get an idea of the mechanics, like how to successfully navigate one of the stores without an errant button press resulting in the shopkeeper blasting you with a shotgun, but once you do you've got a surprisingly deep time-waster that's perfect for short pick-up-and-play sessions.
Link, TIGSource Spelunky thread.
Link, Spelunky Wiki.
-K.
Monday, August 17, 2009
Play This Now: Spelunky
Thursday, August 13, 2009
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
What is Game? Doubleshot - Half-Life 2: Episode Two and Mirror's Edge
I have a review for Alone in the Dark in the pipes, but I think I may need a little more time to meditate on my time spent with it. I'll go ahead and say right now it wasn't very good.
In the meantime, I did some PC gaming over the weekend, getting through the pheonomial Research and Development made me want to go back and play through Half-Life 2: Episode Two again, and I finally cracked open the copy of Mirror's Edge I bought a couple weeks ago, which didn't take long to see it through to completion. Anyway, flashing lights and bright colors:
-K.
Wednesday, August 5, 2009
Play This Now: Research and Development
I had written a fairly lengthy introduction to this post consisting of my thoughts on the mod scene these days but reading it I realized it was just me yammering on like a deranged loony. So, instead, I'm just going to say that if you have Half-Life: Episode 2, you should really, really play Research and Development. It's a short but very clever "mod" (More like a level pack) that is much more focused on puzzles, more or less iterating on the style of puzzles found in the game already, with only a wee bit of gravity gun combat thrown in. It's very well-designed, very smart and very impressive, especially considering it was made by one guy. And it's free, go check it out.
Link, ModDB.
-K.