peterbmacd
2011
The resolution, humor, story, and complex gameplay all seemed to improve significantly in the sequel.
2012
Good voice acting, okay story, solid open-world, easy yet satisfying fighting gameplay,
2011
Amusing parody of a bad part of video games. Short enough not to get too annoying.
2011
A nice short little story with admittedly limited gameplay.
2016
Another lovely score by Austin Wintory and a wonderful atmosphere from ex-thatgamecompany developers. Maybe my favorite of his thatgamecompany/Giant Squid Studios work so far. It's like Journey but under the water, basically, with a similar focus on exploration and external story-/world-building without dialogue. Big fan of the vibe!
More of the same from The New Order.
2013
Hits similar notes to Uncharted for its grounded 'cinematic' feel and weird supernatural bits, and it doesn't feel all that unique of a third-person shooter kind of experience, but I found the gameplay satisfying enough to play through. The story and characters are much less engaging than Nathan Drake.
2012
Telltale doesn't get a lot of credit for pumping out what I consider pretty decent stories, at least on the level of a TV show (and better than some, surely). This was their big splash in the cutscene-style point-and-click adventure gameplay, but the story is engaging enough that I rarely minded how little agency I seemed to have. I enjoyed the ride.
2012
A mediocre shooter with a fairly compelling point it's trying to make. Only issue is that at the end of the day you still have to subject yourself to a mediocre shooter to get to that point. If Activision ever attempted something like this with one of their COD games maybe it would resonate more.
2012
A solid Portal-like game, both in puzzles and humor. Being directed by Kim Swift, who was the lead designer on Portal, comes as no big surprise. This one lacks some of that novelty but the different powers that are at your disposal mix it up just enough to be enjoyable as its own thing. Isn't a 'wow' of a game but I liked it.
A very solid horror vibe with a decent script by B:TAS writer Paul Dini. It's paced well, the easy fighting mechanics are punchy, and look of it is nice and grimy. One of the best comic book video games.
Expands what was good about Asylum--the dark vibe, Paul Dini's writing, and the solid easy fighting--into the open world arena. I may like it even more than Asylum since flying around Gotham is half the fun of being Batman in addition to the Rogues Gallery funhouse. And the story has a particularly 'epic' feel to it which I liked.
2013
As a kid I found Bioshock so compelling of a concept yet so terrifying with its dark and creepy atmosphere in 1st person POV that I couldn't get through it. I tried again with Infinite and the lighter image was much appreciated. The story's pretty wild and the shooting is fine. The aesthetic is the main attraction for me, though.
2012
I'm a sucker for British narration and storybook-y description, so this was right up my alley. The platform/puzzle element is easy, and I always played easy games, so this was enjoyable.
The LEGO game that got me back into LEGO games after a long time of not playing any. I played the original LEGO Star Wars (which was just the prequals) as a kid and had a blast, and then when this came out it was a nostalgia blast: I had been reminded that I loved LOTR and LEGO games at the same time. The gameplay is all the same, so you either like its very basic puzzle mechanics or not. The open world here is decent--you get to walk all around the big locations in the movies seamlessly, like one big theme park, and at a certain point I had played so much of this (and 100% a LEGO game for the first time) that I could draw a crude map of Middle Earth. Good times! I like the dance remix you can acquire with the Disco Phial: "BREAK the DAM! Release the River--the River!"