Looking forward : 2015 (PART 1)

I wanted to make a few posts about the games I am most excited about that are set to release this year, and seeing as its February and Apotheon has already been released I know that I am behind schedule...so i'll try to get this little series up as soon as possible.

DISTANCE by Refract Studios (Seattle, USA)
Status : Early Access for $20

A racing game set it a glowing Tron-like world, flying cars, cars getting cut in half, Split screen, LAN and an editor - I am really looking forward to this. It seems that they are considering their "early access" as a kind of release already and I couldn't really find the official release date on their webage but they are going to bring the game to PS4 as well, I would assume when that happens the PC version will lose its Early Access status.

Massive Chalice by Double Fine (San Francisco, USA)
Status : Early Access for ($30)
Release: Spring

A turn-based tactical strategy game where your bloodlines and marriages become an important part to creating new soldiers and heros in a battle that is going to take hundreds of years. I expect it to be like XCom with this new breeding / DNA mechanic. I recommend watching some of the many gameplay videos for this game so you can understand what its all about - like this one.

Firewatch by Campo Santo (San Francisco, USA)
Status : no early access or preorder.

From their webpage : "Firewatch is a mystery set in the Wyoming wilderness, where your only emotional lifeline is the person on the other end of a handheld radio."

Superhot by The Superhot Guys (Poland)
Preorder for $14
Release : Summer

From their site : "AN FPS GAME WHERE TIME MOVES ONLY WHEN YOU MOVE."

Started as a 7DFPS game jam game (which you can still play here) became poplular after being released on the internet, then was greenlit on Steam and launched a Kickstarter was funded within 23 hours and raised a quarter of a million dollars in total.... Expect good things.

Sunburn (iOS) & Framed (iOS)

We are moving at the end of the month just across town but this will be our first move with children and I am quite stressed out by the whole thing. I have been packing all weekend - trying to get most of it done early. 

Lately, I haven't really been able to sit down and calmly play something. My sessions are short or non-existent - I have been watching more movies though - I can do that while packing....

I did find time to play Apotheon for a few hours this weekend but mostly it has been small "breaks" from sorting and packing Sunburn and Framed, on the iphone and ipad respectively.

In Sunburn your crew has been scattered between planets, stuck in black holes, orbiting asteroids and it is up to you to rescue them, tether them do to you, balance your oxygen level and avoid flaming asteroids while doing so and then finally fling yourself and everyone tied to you into the sun to die a flaming death because no one should die alone. I love the cute style of the game juxtaposed with dark humor of the suicides and the little details like the screen shake and sound effects really make this feel like a finished thought through physics puzzler with character. It reminded me somehow of Little Luca which doesn't seem to be on the App store so don't delete it if you've got it! But it's still available for Android.

Framed is an interesting premise - by rearranging the frames in a comic book like scene you can complete the story, do it wrong and you can watch the outcome of the scene. I really enjoy the palette of this game and the animation - the mechanic of rearranging the story is good - some are as simple as 2 frames, others 6 which becomes more of a logic puzzle - but it loses it's luster after a few pages. There is no story, voice over or speech bubbles to read so I am now just playing with the sound turned off. It's still fun to watch but it left me thinking that it could have been so much more. Maybe Framed 2? You can watch a gameplay video here (spoilers!)

Both games are actually pretty good and fit my attention span right now, Framed snuck up on me - I didn't think I would like it as much as I do and the quick pace of the story made me want to play more each time I promised myself "one more page" - Sunburn had me stumped a few times and if it didn't have such a great space premise I think i probably would have given up on it by now, another thing that is strange about that is that it is the 3rd game to go though my hands this past week or so with an orbit / gravity mechanic.

While packing I have also been watching alot of video game review channels, Angry Joe is still my favourite but I found ProJared this week and have been enjoying some of his insights - both of their "Most Disappointing Games of 2014" are worth watching so I'll leave you with that : 

Apotheon (PC)

Apotheon was released today. I have had this one on my radar for about 2 years. Tonight I finally got to play and despite being in the middle of packing to move to a new apartment and quite busy with work - and already playing about 8 other games....I just had to make time for this. Check it out :

Already this striking menu is perfect - even though I was dying to play I sat and listened to the music until it looped at least twice.

"Die raider scum!" - Nikandreos.....apparently.

Some nice light effects and some tricky play; while holding the torch you 'pocket' your shield....

A glimpse of the local map.

Using different weapons and different strikes is important to kill enemies who wield different weapons and shields. Fun!

"Oh Zeus! Why?! My favourite brothel is aflame! No!!!" - Nikandreos (now equipping a skull splitting axe!) 

Here's a shot of the inventory. This is going to really fill out I take it in later levels. For now it's sparse but still seems like a lot for the first level. I hope they can keep up this diversity.

The world map : Awesomeness! (new background on my laptop!)

Looks like crafting is going to be a thing in this game too.....are there games WITHOUT crafting anymore?

Now toting a spear! I could have taken 100 screenshots of this first level I loved every bit.

I hope there are actual "secrets" that you need to find with your torch and throwing weapons. Oh, I forgot to mention throwing weapons? There are those.

Looks like we are going to get a little history lesson along the way too : excellent.

Just check it out, I haven't loved the visuals this much in a platformer since Guacamelee!

Shield block! Although I found the fighting a little awkward at first, I was pulling off some satisfying block, counter, roll, counter, combos by the end of the first level.

Oh, that's different, I thought I was going to convince them to help me and they would bestow their blessings upon me thereby giving me godly powers....I guess I'm just going to dish out a little moral smackdown on those deities....oh wait...huh?

I'm really excited, as I am sure you can tell. But this is all I had time for today. Tomorrow is a brand new day - and (since I am already not feeling too hot tonight) maybe I'll get sick tonight and have to skip work tomorrow, lying in bed and playing this....all....day.....

OTTTD (PC)

After playing One More Line on the recommendation of one of my students, I checked out the authors of that game and listed on their webpage is also OTTTD - (Over The Top Tower Defense), another game that has been waiting patiently in my Steam library to be played. I thought the look of the game was great and picked it up a while ago but never got around to playing it (or the demo which I had installed with an icon on my desktop for ages).

I just love the look of this game and this little cut scene is another great example of it's cute design.

The gore in OTTTD is a quite....over-the-top; as promised. This does get in the way of the action and if you feel that it's in the way too much you can turn the gore down - or right off. Loved these first levels, fighting shell fish - crabs and even dolphins with guns strapped to their backs....haha, great!

Unfortunately you can't zoom in or out as much as I would like, and there isn't any way to speed up the gameplay - you can rush some waves but no way to "fast forward" as in some other TD games. This is frustrating because sometimes you have a good setup and just have to sit back and wait .... and wait.... also there elements of different currency that have been carried over from the tablet version, which makes it all feel a little unbalanced and clunky - and wishing I could just purchase the 'coin doubler' to rebalance the game....

Oops, I wasn't concentrating and Flux Damage died.... I don't know if his abilities die with him like in X-Com but I was able to resurrect him with a little cash (just like in real life!). It does add another element to it - taking care of your heroes.

You can upgrade your equipment for each of your 'heroes.' I'll admit, knowing that this game is also on tablets it made me wonder if this is where the IAP come in - the unlocks seemed pretty pricey too.

I unlocked my third hero, and noticed that you can reshuffle his name (maybe it uses the same naming matrix that they use on their webpage : SMG )

Other than that it's a pretty normal tower defense game, really over-the-top splattering gore, place towers at predestined places, upgrade them with the cash you earn by killing enemies that come in waves and use your heroes' abilities to support your towers and hold out. I might revisit this one just to see the other characters or upgrade their skills and equipment a little - but I don't think there's enough originality to dethrone any of my favourite tower defense games. Would be good on a tablet and theres nothing really wrong with it (just sometimes the angle of the level hid the 'life' bar of the towers) - a solid TD game with humour and cartoon gore!

AltecApollyon : This Week's Gaming (Week 2 - 2015)

A new year; back to work and back to gaming! This week I've been trying to really concentrate on a select few games instead of the usual flipping between whatever tickles my fancy. Apart from the 'normal gaming' (ie. Agricola and Carcassonne on the iphone and testing a few apps here and there) I have keep the gaming to these : 

On the iPad : Shadowrun Returns - I tried this on the PC and then wasn't really hooked but thought that it would be a better fit on the iPad. It is but I have an iPad 2 and it sometimes suffers from lag and one in a while the app even closes on me. Luckily it saves often. The backgrounds are the main reason I am playing (similar quality to Transistor) I think they look amazing - the game itself is pretty straight-forward, RPG with turn-based action but the action isn't as engaging as X-Com or Transistor. I do like the detective idea and the world in general. I wonder how long I'll be able to put up with the lag on the iPad before I dump it....there are a lot of good RPGs out there - not counting all the ones I'd love to revisit.

On the PC : Metal Gear Solid : Ground Zeroes - A friend bought this for me. He said "some things just have to be played" - referring to the fact that I had never played a Metal Gear Solid game. I know about them sure, but I never had a Sony console and it wasn't until recently that the remastered HD versions appeared on the Xbox. I've played a lot of stealth games though and am a longtime fan of both the Splinter Cell series and Hitman - oh and Thief - I am interested to see what MGS still brings to the genre and how much it has changed (since it's been a while since I have actually played a 3rd person stealth game).

On the PC : Geometry Wars 3  : Dimensions - Once again though an arcade game takes up most of my gaming time. "Just one more try" is a sentence I hear myself saying more often with GW3. I love the aesthetic and the competitiveness of this thing. I just wish my highscores had been taken over from the Xbox into the Classic modes so I didn't have to prove my skill once again. This is a game that makes me dream of building a modern arcade cabinet.

Carcassonne (iOS)

I love that you just KNOW there's going to be an expansions released for Carcassonne around Christmas. This is an evergreen for us and a new expansion is great to keep us coming back. It took me a while to buy it because at the time it was the most expensive app I had (that's changed now...) but it was totally worth it and I wish I had bought it sooner! It lead to me getting my wife and our neighbors switching to ios so we could all play; now that's a successful app conversion! 

Torchlight II (PC)

Dropped in for a little Torchlight II tonight with the boys. It's always starts a little rough - figuring out all the shortcut keys and strategies that I was using, plus sorting though all the inventory crap - not remembering what equipment I was building towards.

Connection problems always seem to be a problem but once we figured out which mission we were going to complete things were a little better. I am always impressed by the diversity of the art work in Torchlight - good stuff always.

Wasn't a great session or anything but it's always a good vehicle to catch up with the boys, maybe if we do it more often they'll get better - until then, I'm back on Neuroshima Hex and Heavy Metal Thunder and there's always Geometry Wars 3....