The Return of the Nerd

Apologies for the lack of posting as my main computer has been out of action.  The cooling unit died due to overheating.  Irony is wonderful isn't it.

Expect soon, some Epic tales of whats been happening over the last few weeks: the start of university, the beginning of a project in the unreal engine and a good couple of games the good, the bland and the time consuming.

It's good to be back.

Steam Demos left side and even side

Steam has been rather generous of late with demos for R.U.S.E, Worms Reloaded, Recettear: An Item Shop's Tale, Amnesia; the Dark Descent and VVVVVV so go read my humble opinions written below and then go check them out, after all free is a great price.

Cthulhutech: Dark Corners of the Digital World

The Aeon war is fought on many fronts; the physical, mystical and the digital realm.  Cults, cops and citizens peer into the dark corners of the digital world.  Most is just noise, the sound of the mad and frightened, but occasionally there is glimpse of terrible truth.  Lurking in buried posts on abandoned boards, strange links, corrupted files and grainy videos lie new tomes of power.

A Tale of a Defence Secretary, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Voltaire and Videogames

Not too long ago, UK Defence Secretary, Liam Fox made a comment about about the upcoming Medal of Honor game by developers Danger Close and DICE, published by EA.  You can read all about it here and here.  He calls the product tasteless and urges that retailers ban it.  Having thought about this for awhile, and having seen a multitude of similar such items, I've decided to provide a counterargument and a commentary about expression in video games.

So what has Voltaire and Governator got to do with all this?

Look what I found: Recettear

While wandering the steam demo page I came across this little game.  I heard of it awhile ago when it was mentioned on the Rock Paper Shotgun site and now it has finally appear in a slightly more visible form.

The game is based on the concept that those merchants and traders in every RPG game are a bunch of greedy gits who will give you pennies to buy your slime and charge you a small fortune to by a +1 sword of pointyness.  You play the part of a girl named Recette Lemongrass who is unfortunately now in charge of a item shop due to her adventurer father not paying his loans, which are administered by a fairy named Tear (shes just a contractor).

It is essentially a game about buying low and selling high a variety of objects you might be expected to find in any standard RPG.  Some customers will always pay quite a lot and some will pay almost nothing, and if I'm not mistaken, this varies depending on the type of item they are buying.  Now the thing that makes this different and the part I've yet to have a go at is the fact that you can go to dungeons yourself to go grab some more bits to flog.  Every few days it seems you will have to pay back some of your loan making it a lot harder than just simply progressing along quietly.

The last thing I want to mention is that this game is adorable with the harsh tones of the loan shark fairy Tear to the klutzy Recette and the adorable look to world.  Definitely shaping up to be a purchase.

God of War Series Review: part 3

Before I move onto the grand finale of the series, time to have a quick look over the collection box set and ask two big questions:

What can we learn from a game design perspective?


And is it worth buying?

God of War Series Review: part 2

Let the button mashing and bloodletting commence just watch out for a nonsensical plot and hair pulling puzzles.