Bejeweled, a relatively standard game that many people play, can get old just moving colored blocks one space at a time. Puzzles and Dragons (P&D), an app that requires the internet, takes the common game that everyone enjoys and introduces creatures and monsters while maintaining the challenge of puzzle games.
While one has to realize that to review the entire BioShock series is sort of a ridiculous task in itself as it covers an immense and radically diverse amount of ideas, gameplay, and characters, one must also have to come to the conclusion that to not to do this review would have been extremely parasitic as well. Despite this terrible catch in the end, a hand was forced to write this review by the recent disbanding of the Irrational Games team, the creators of the BioShock series. Recalling that a man chooses while a slave obeys, and in an effort to do the game some justice and possibly influence someone who has not played any or one of the three segments of the series, a basic overview of its titles are provided.
The leaves of a thousand year old oak tree rustle in the wind, causing him to press his back more firmly against the small boulder he has taken refuge behind. It’s common knowledge that the forest is a dangerous place to be during certain times of the day. Turns out that a UFO landing is indeed one of those times.
In a world where everyone and everything is at a man’s fingertips, Chicago’s darkest secrets come to light. Aiden Pearce’s quest for revenge leads to forays into Chicago’s dark underworld of human trafficking, gang activity, and corruption. Although this story could easily have all of the fixings of a world-class game, Ubisoft failed to deliver with “Watch Dogs.” From the lackluster graphics to the poor driving mechanics, the game certainly is not the blockbuster it was made out to be.
While there will always be room for fantasy in video games, as they often are an escape from the toils of reality, there is an occasional need for the harsh and soul crushing reality of being a cog in the machine and slowly being ground to a fine dust by endless levels of bureaucracy. There are simply moments where instead of fighting dragons by yelling at them in their own ancient language or dealing with an army of fascists in anachronistic ancient Roman styled armor made from sports equipment armed only with a grenade launcher and your trusted cyborg dog, someone wants to experience the degradation of being a low level employee of a second world country’s border control. For gamers desiring that level of reality, “Papers Please” by Lucas Pope is the perfect game to experience that special feeling that comes along when someone is being simultaneously violated and ignored.
The game “2048” is currently sweeping across campus, but there is another game that is equally as addicting. “LHC” is the more science based cousin of “2048.” “LHC” is a physics-based collision game. Instead of colliding numbers like in “2048,” physics particles are smashed into each other in order to create larger, more impressive particles.
“Rock Paper Scissors” (RPS) is a classic free-to-play multiplayer strategy game with no anti-piracy restrictions. There are sites and applications available that allow players to game against a set program of moves or an AI, but the full version of the game can be downloaded for free off of any site where one can find instructions or off of any other player who already owns the game. The game was first created and released by some unknown indie developers in Asia during the Hang Dynasty, where it was called “Shoushiling,” which translates roughly to “hand command.” Eventually, as with many games from Asia, it grew in popularity with the Western crowd, who managed to import the game to their countries, translating it into many languages. The English translation was eventually retitled as “Rock Paper Scissors.”
In late 2008, Ubisoft released “Prince of Persia,” which was meant to be a reboot of the original series released in 1989. While the later reboot, “Prince of Persia: Sands of Time,” was met with more acclaim, “Prince of Persia” is definitely a game that can stand on its own.
“Depression Quest.” What kind of a game is this?!? There are no guns, no cars, no explosions, no air strikes, no invincibility mods, and heck, there are barely any graphics! In fact, the graphics are only just random pictures that pop up sometimes alongside the text that makes up the entirety of the interactive portion of the game. The whole thing is just a boring story about an average guy going about his day-to-day life and he never gets any superpowers or becomes an unlikely hero or finds out he is the Chosen One. He just eats, sleeps, goes to work, and does boring stuff in between. Who thinks that stuff is fun? Even old-school text-based adventures had more enemies than this stupid thing. The fact that the developers of this piece of garbage have the nerve to call it a game in a day and age where awesome titles like “Call of Duty,” “Battlefield,” “Skyrim,” and anything with Batman’s name on it rule the industry is an insult to everything that is awesome about gaming.
They engage the enemy in his own mentality. They chase his dreams, fight his demons, and live his nightmares. They are international secret agents. They are the Psychonauts. “Psychonauts” is a 2005 platformer from the deranged and brilliant mind of Tim Schafer. It introduces the player to a world where the greatest battles and adventures take place in the mental realm and the experts in such battles are part of an elite psychic force known as the Psychonauts. The player enters the story as a young psychic boy named Raz who sneaks into a summer camp for Psycadets (Psychonauts-in-training). Players are given free reign to explore the camp and are shortly introduced to the game’s other levels: the minds of those around Raz.