Video Games
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Technically and creatively, Battlefield 4 remains a marvel, though the game’s strengths here are tempered by an uninspired narrative, which sees the player character, Recker, cooperating with his varied squadmates; their mission involves the leaping from creative environment to creative environment, each decidedly unique. From an Azerbaijanian village, characterized by brown deserts and dilapidated structures,
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Steam World Dig isn’t the type of game I would usually play; the 2-D genre to which it belongs is like this unexplored frontier for me. True, growing up I played ports of Donkey Kong Country and have had the obligatory exposure to the Mario games, but beyond those titles, I know next to nothing
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Crysis as title is amazingly open, that openness bolstered by excellent if repetitive world design. An admirable largeness of maps is present, which does distinguish the title from others in the genre, highly linear. The environments here are not exactly sandboxes, but their nature does facilitate a great degree of experimentation. But despite their sprawling
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Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon’s greatest narrative intention is apparent from the first: tell a quirky, eccentric tale, eliciting laughs and creating a more playful environment; here are no aspirations towards the grimy and gritty. A perfect balance is struck; despite the overbearing humor present within all facets of the narrative, the game never ventures
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Grand Theft Auto IV exists as a heavily character-driven title, abounding in figures both compelling and vile, each uniquely memorable. The protagonist, Niko Bellic, hailing from an undisclosed Eastern European nation, is instantly likable, much of his endearing powers stemming from superb voice-acting, which communicates much about his past and the land he departed from;
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Sniper Elite 3 falters narratively, an inconsistent, dull plot dampening potential successes. Part of this narrative failing is attributable to a lack of any ambition; the entire story can be condensed into one succinct statement – weaken Axis presence in Northern Africa during the heart of World War II. No intrigue ever really emerges, and
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Mirror’s Edge has a lot of heart. While never venturing towards the comedic or the juvenile, the game is characterized by a light-hearted playfulness, much of this playfulness manifest in the various cutscenes which punctuate the narrative. Animated in a cartoonish, stylistic fashion, these cinematics do much to distinguish the title from other games in
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Battlefield 3 begins with a bang; Blackburn, one of the primary playable characters, is seen fleeing from some violent unknown pursuers, rushing through the dense New York City streets before promptly leaping atop a subway car, evading one group of pursuers only to meet with a greater hostility: the train is bustling with enemies, eager
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The world-building of Metro 2033 marks its greatest strength, even as the precise history of that world is left rather vague. There is a brief cutscene on the title screen, which details a violent atomic bombing, devastating Russia and forcing its inhabitants to retreat underground, living in the tunnels of once-derelict train tunnels, now improved
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Thief is an incredibly immersive title, with a near constant maintenance of the first-person perspective. The master thief and protagonist, Garret, navigates the game world with ease, deftly climbing boxes to reach rooftops, climbing ladders, and scaling predetermined walls and structures. All of these actions are accompanied by incredible animations, which bolster greatly the immersive
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Faery: Legends of Avalon opens in a fairly routine fashion. The customizable player character is awakened from a period of protracted slumber and instructed by his king to traverse the varied lands, and right the varied ills that were then plaguing them. In efforts to this end, various worlds are visited, each distinctively different from
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Gears of War at times seems like a soulless game. The mechanics are competent but uninspired, while the environments are totally lacking in diversity and imagination, characterized solely by bland, muted browns and greys; the color palette is uninviting, with very little emphasis upon the creative. The majority of the game is spent roaming through
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Rage opens with a brief explanatory cutscene, detailing a world fallen and collapsed, the Earth turning into a desolate wasteland. The player character, an unnamed male, awakes from a state of stasis, seemingly frozen in time for hundreds of years. What was the point of his slumber? What precisely happened to Earth? These things aren’t
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Titanfall 2 is an interesting, ambitious game. The developers ceaselessly sought to push forward traditional shooter controls, giving the player great mobility and freedom of movement, and mostly succeed. Despite the relative complexity which might typically accompany such systems, here everything is very intuitive; wall running, double jumping, sliding – combining these abilities is seamless
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Titanfall 2 starts off fairly strong. We are swiftly introduced to our protagonist, Cooper, a plucky, ambitious sort desperate to break through, rise beyond his rank and achieve the much-coveted position of pilot, thus having at his command his own titan and companion; it seems to be his one dream. In these opening sequences, the
Games With Grey 