Video Games
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Coffee Talk’s central narrative is a mature and engaging construction, being highly character-driven. And the cast of characters is large, the characters themselves diverse, each featuring distinct aesthetics and distinct feelings – fear, bitterness, frustration and the like. Unravelling these characters’ depths ultimately becomes the driving narrative motivation; the player is largely tasked with establishing
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Replayability’s presence is absolutely a positive, though its absence is not necessarily a negative; shorter titles, those which do not feature great player choice, branching pathways, and multiple endings, have their proper place within the industry, offering ample enjoyment. But longer titles, those with robust replayability, offer their own enjoyment, distinct from briefer titles which
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Narrative sees dramatic and total emphasis within Call of Cthulhu, prioritized at the expense of gameplay. Forutnately, the narrative is a compelling one, adopting a sharp investigative tone, logical when considering the player character, his profession – Edward Pierce is a private detective circulating in 1924 Boston society. This circulation does not instantly translate to
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Amnesia: The Bunker’s central narrative is unintrusive, developed in a mostly unconventional fashion – discoverable documents dispersed throughout the game world, though environmental storytelling also has a prominent presence; formal cutscenes and protracted exposition sequences are absent, with roughly one in five of the documents featuring voice acting, which is mostly executed excellently, while the
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Far Cry New Dawn’s central narrative is a mostly grounded and human affair, revolving around the struggles of Hope County, Montana’s various citizens in the wake of the catastrophic occurrence which terminated Far Cry 5’s narrative. Some years have passed – the world is changed, though oppressors persist, in this instance a pair of corrupt
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The video game landscape upon Assassin’s Creed’s release in 2007 was vastly detached from the video game landscape of today, and this difference is especially applicable to the open-world genre, which has now ascended to a position of dominance. The genre was indeed thriving in 2007, though the great potentials attached to the genre were
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Amnesia Rebirth’s narrative is a nonsensical, muddled mess, rarely engaging, excessively abstract, poorly and lazily presented – after an immensely promising start, there is a rapid and constant descent into dull incoherence – very few are the positive attributes. The existence of this promising opening, meanwhile, only makes more frustrating that painful descent. Regarding this
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Trine’s central narrative is abounding in charm and whimsicality, though suffering from a relative dearth of originality – foundationally, it is simplistic, firmly adhering to the tropes of the fantasy genre, being a “fairy tale” of sorts. But life and humor are injected throughout, the narrative unfolding (predictably?) within a fallen kingdom, once renowned for
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Shadow of the Tomb Raider’s central narrative structure is largely devoid of any originality, the primary narrative motivation being a painfully overused one – the world is on the verge of destruction, threatened by an ancient force which, if not vanquished, spells doom for all. Responsibility for the world’s saving necessarily falls upon the shoulders
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The FPS genre is amongst the most popular genres of the present moment, countless titles releasing each year, though more than other genres, development of first-person shooters is largely dominated by larger, AAA studios; small indie studios mostly reject the genre, preferring instead to develop more artistic, creative experiences; a notable rift is in place.
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Being mere DLC, it follows that Far Cry 4: Valley of the Yetis is defined by restrained ambitions, though these lesser aspirations do not result in a dearth of enjoyability – far from it. The gameplay systems underpinning the base game were foundationally sound, excellent, so it follows that the systems here are sound and
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Video game studios develop sequels for a plurality of reasons, most commonplace being narrative continuance and gameplay refinement, though numerically the latter often eclipses the former; direct sequels, where one player character persists as player character throughout, where that player character’s narrative is directly continued from title to title: these instances are fairly minimized, frustrating
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D4: Dark Dreams Don’t Die’s central narrative is wonderfully and fiercely unique, passionately embracing a more gay, playful, and lighthearted tone, itself at odds with an industry which values and champions narrative bleakness, narrative darkness; in all facets of its construction, the tonally disheartening is broken with. D4, with this playfulness and constant insertion of
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The hastiness with which open world games have ascended to industry dominance is compelling and profound indeed. A much acclaimed, pioneer of the genre – Grand Theft Auto III – released little over a scant two decades ago, its release considered as a watershed moment for the industry, the release advancing that selfsame industry; Rockstar’s
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Far Cry 4’s technically and artistically beautiful open world of Kyrat is constantly in a state of motion, the game world teeming with life. This bustling nature directly enhances the joys of exploration, which constitutes a considerable portion of the overall gameplay experience. The ample animal presence is amongst the greatest communicators of this life;
Games With Grey 