By Vermouth , 29th December 3:25 pm
It’s the time of year for the industry’s Game of the Year awards and all the usual suspects will be coming out with their usual honors and demerits for the best and worst of 2007. But I don’t have the editorial following of a big magazine or website so I thought a “i’m right and you’re wrong tone” wouldn’t be the right one to strike with my game of the year. So I enlisted the aid of my good friend Head881 to discuss the games and trends of 2007 in an email debate inspired by Slate’s Gaming club, which talked about the games of the year, rather than choosing one. What follows is our discussion.
» Read all of “Games of 2007: A Debate by Mail“…
By Vermouth , 29th September 7:23 pm
The Halo franchise has been something of a lightning rod amongst first-person shooters. Some criticize the game for getting too much praise, while others enjoy it’s somewhat unique style of combat that’s especially well tuned for consoles. As a matter of full disclosure I gave the first two games high scores of 9.7 and 9.6 respectively so I fall within the fan camp. If you’re a fan, this is the definitive Halo game to get, if you haven’t enjoyed the series then you probably won’t fall in love with this game - but you’re likely to get more out of this one than any previous Halo release.
» Read all of “Hail to the Chief: A Halo 3 Review“…
By Vermouth , 25th September 7:23 pm
This week Valve took the lid off of the Orange Box, allowing people who pre-purchased it to get in on the beta of Team Fortress 2. Playing the game again has been a hoot. It is a lot like Team Fortress (and Classic), only different in some key areas. It retained all that you like about the old game, 2 fort, Dustbowl, rocket jumping, flag running, engineers, and above all it maintains that feeling of tightly directed chaos that made the prior Team Fortress games great. But what it does differently is how it makes all the classes valuable, and it does away with some of the more spammy elements of the game. It also does a lot more to encourage playing as a team than the previous game.
» Read all of “Team Fortress 2 Beta“…
By Vermouth , 31st August 10:02 pm
BioShock is joy. From the moment I got BioShock, I was either playing the game, eating, sleeping or waiting to get back to playing it. The game is somewhat difficult to classify as it straddles the line between three genres. The guys at 2K Games would insist that it is a first person shooter for marketing purposes, but it’s also drawing on elements of role-playing and survival horror. The story, so often the bad news with respect to a shooter, is fantastic. Furthermore this game is presented in the most amazing way any next-gen game has yet presented itself. The gameplay has been a wonderfully emergent playground that allows you to mix genetic magic, conventional weapons and a weaponized environment in wonderful ways.
» Read all of “BioShock Review“…
By Vermouth , 19th August 7:01 pm
I recently made the move from Windows XP to Vista. I know, I know what you’re thinking - why? Well, truth be told, I was buying a new PC. It was primarily for gaming, but it just did not make any sense to buy a machine with XP on it, only to face the possibility that at some point in the future I will want a game that is for Vista only. It’s true that DX10 is Vista only, but because of budget considerations and poor midrange DX10 cards options, that didn’t really factor into my decision. All that being said the experience with Vista has had it’s ups and downs much like any OS. Vista was launched a bit before its time with plenty of annoying bugs and compatibility issues that needed to be ironed out. While there have been many updates, the system is still sorely in need of a service pack before this OS will be something I could whole-heartedly recommend. If you’re buying a new machine this still makes sense but if you’ve got a working XP box there is no real reason to rush out to upgrade your machine.
» Read all of “Windows Vista: A Gamer’s Perspective“…
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