n+ is a stellar game! The gameplay is abstracted down to the purest action possible, utilizing only a few types of enemies and a handful of level-tiles it nevertheless manages to provide several hundred levels of intense platforming fun. Intense being the keyword. On certain levels in particular it became painfully obvious that I died [...]
So I just completed GTA. And, despite my earlier comments on how fun it was, it turned out to be a pointless exercise in nothingness. A huge number of people slaved over this game for several years and crunching for more than a whole year!, to give birth to this weird monstrosity. I liked many [...]
I’ve heard it argued how linearity is bad, that developers should always aim for open ended sandbox games rather than the linearity displayed in titles such as Half-Life 2. But that’s a gross oversimplification.
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The point of linearity is that it’s not actually a problem at all, there’s no “solving” it by making every game a [...]
Y’know, between Valve’s Half-Life 1 and the sequel I think HL1 was the superior genre-defining product. In HL1 you weren’t slowed down, there were no inescapable cutscenes of people talking for several minutes at a time. It’s not that HL2 was a step backwards, but maybe a sort of.. sidestep? They broke innovative new ground [...]