Dan Q
This review originally appeared on Steam. See more reviews by Dan.
Fun, beautiful first-person-shooter. I disliked Bioshock and I hated Bioshock 2, so I was glad to discover that Bioshock Infinite is not terribly like either of them, but is something else – something more fun – entirely. Playtime was a little shorter than I’d have expected for a game of its price, but it was still worth having.
If you haven’t played it, you should. Or failing that; wait for it to be on sale.
This review originally appeared on Steam. See more reviews by Dan.
This game was so much better than I anticipated. I was given it as a gift by my sister, who raved about it. “It’s okay,” I thought, as I stuffed things into a fire and watched them burn, “But is this all there is to it?”
No: there’s so much more. This is a game about materialism; about finding the courage to step outside your comfort zone… and, yes, about serial arson.
Go play.
This review originally appeared on Steam. See more reviews by Dan.
Not so much a game as a semi-interactive ghost story in a beautiful, Source-powered landscape, Dear Esther is worth playing… so long as it’s on sale. The gameplay’s not long enough to justify a £6.99 price tag, and there’s almost no challenge at all in the gradual exploration of a Hebredian island and of the mind of the story’s narrator… but it’s still a great story.
Play it slowly. Take your time. Turn the lights off and have a glass of wine with this game. Make sure that you keep your eye on the screen, because there are incredibly subtle and short-lived elements that appear for moments, and then are gone.
But do play it. At least: if you can get it on sale.
This review originally appeared on Steam. See more reviews by Dan.
This game is just pure fun. It’s not easy, and there’s a lot of learning to be done, but it sort-of reminds me of playing NetHack for the first time, if NetHack were set in the Battlestar Galactica universe (or perhaps Firefly) rather than in the Dungeons of Doom. Seriously lots of fun, and great to “come back to”. You’ll never forget your first win.
This review originally appeared on Amazon. See more reviews by Dan.
It’s a stamp. It stamps. It looks like it’s going to dry out, but it doesn’t. It works, and it’s great.
The only thing it could have benefited from would have been the word “PAID”, the appropriate way up, on the top of the handle as well as the bottom, so it’s easier to double-check that it’s perfect before you stamp.
Otherwise: a perfectly good product at a perfectly fair price.
This review originally appeared on Steam. See more reviews by Dan.
Needless to say, I can’t recommend this highly enough. The pinnacle of the series of Civilization games still keeps me coming back time and time again.
This review originally appeared on Steam. See more reviews by Dan.
In an age where platform games are few and far between, and don’t “feel” like platform games ever used to, one game tries to make an exception. And it’s beautiful and fast and stylish.
This review originally appeared on Steam. See more reviews by Dan.
Good clean fun. Warning: addictive!
This review originally appeared on Steam. See more reviews by Dan.
Spectacular, deep, enormous, living world. And I just wanted to explore it, take on epic quests, carve out a legacy as an adventurer.
But then I took an arrow in the knee.
Seriously though: an awesome game. I spent 85+ hours playing it before I got to the end of the main quest line, and there’s still a lot I’d like to go back and do, so it’s one of the best value video games I’ve played in a long while. Go get it.
This review originally appeared on Steam. See more reviews by Dan.
Man, I play so much of this game. Whether you’ve got an hour to spare or just three minutes, there’s nothing like firing up Beat Hazard and blasting aliens to the sound of your favourite music, turned up nice and loud. And with the new DLC, Beat Hazard Ultra, it’s even more awesome (although the new points system takes some getting used to).
If Asteroids was invented today, by somebody who enjoyed Dance Dance Revolution, this would be it. Kick-ass.
…minding my own business, and some random guy walks in through the office door, looking lost. Nobody seems to get up to see to him, so I – in my new desk, which is quite close to the door – go over to greet him. “Is there;” he begins, sounding a little unsure of himself, “Is there a ‘Scatman’ here?”
Oh; fucking hell, I think. For some reason, I’m reminded of the last time somebody wandered up and confirmed my identity by addressing me by my “blog name”, and it turned out to be a scary stalker type. I try to think back about what libellous thing I might have said this week.
“Hi; I’m from Unigryw (another company in the Technium),” he begins, “I was looking at your web site -“
“Scatmania.org,” I reply, pronouncing the hyperlink with surprising clarity.
“Yes,” he continues, “I was hoping I could use your review of Nice ‘N’ Naughty on LocalTVi.”
So, I let him. Pretty much all the original content on my weblog is covered by a creative commons license anyway, but I just told him he could do whatever he liked with it. And if only LocalTVi had an RSS feed, I’d keep an eye out for my review appearing on it, too. I thought everything had an RSS feed, these days. Ah well.
This review originally appeared on Amazon. See more reviews by Dan.
Sadly, the dramatic graphical improvements over the previous ‘Larry’ games is countered by a significant reduction in playability. Most of the sub-quests come down to one of five or six of the same mini-games, over and over again. The scenes and situations that little Larry Lovage finds himself in are amusing, and after a while you’ll find yourself playing the games just to see more of the plot unfold.
If you like playing the same old “bash the buttons in the correct order” mini-games again and again, this’ll suit you. But if you’d rather just see the plot tick by you’re better spending your money on seeing a movie.
I saw Thunderbirds at the cinema last night. Jeez; was that awful. Unlike Bryn (who’s complained at length about the film already), I’m not a long-standing fan of the original TV series, and so the film didn’t ‘ruin’ it for me (although I did notice several major inconsistencies). Nonetheless, I still found the film to be quite abysmal.
The whole thing feels like a bad re-make of Spy Kids. It’s riddled with continuity errors (where did that door opening switch go?), conveniences (suddenly an electronic lock becomes a mechanical one later in the film, so that Parker can pick it), plotholes (The Hood states that he was born with his powers, then later states that he gained them after the Thunderbirds failed to rescue him), false geography (I must take that trans-Thames monorail someday), false physics (you’re landing that rocket how?), bad sound effects (reminiscent of 60s cartoons, but no, not authentic to the style of the original series), awful acting (look; I’m scared – look; I’m concerned – look… umm), characters with no common sense (let’s all leave the base undefended during this period of suspicious activity, for no reason whatsoever – and – my being a Thunderbird is a secret, so I’ll be seen to exit a disaster scene with them… in my flying car)…
The best thing about the film was the subtle and less-subtle jokes they made about the original series: “Look at him, like a puppet on a string!” says The Hood, as he uses his mind control powers on Brains. In another scene, with a close-up of a character’s hand, strings can clearly be seen supporting it (in the original series, the characters were puppets but for close-up scenes real hands were used).
It’s currently averaging 4.5 on the IMDB. I’d give it a 3, and it’s only that high because (a) I’m not a Thunderbirds fan and (b) I’ve seen a lot of awful films this last year.
This review originally appeared on Amazon. See more reviews by Dan.
As a professional software developer (and an avid fan of The Matrix), I can tell you what went wrong with this game: it was released too soon! While great in principle – and a fantastic idea – it is let down terribly by the fact that it looks and feels like it’s been released early in order to meet the film’s release date.
It needs another five months work to be of release standard. While it has some cool features, it’s buggy as hell, has some major user interface issues, and some graphical and AI glitches. I’d love to think that they’ll release an update patch to fix these, but as their primary market is console owners, I sadly doubt that this will happen.
I bought my copy on the day of it’s release. I’ll be selling it as soon as I find someone to palm it off onto.
This review originally appeared on Amazon. See more reviews by Dan.
The XP Suite of Operating Systems IS good, but why go for the Home edition? It’s fundamentally crippled. Most of the code remains the same as for the Professional edition, but the majority of the really useful features have been disabled.
Splash out a little more money and get the Professional edition.