Interesting Things on Steam
Descent: Underground… It’s Back!… It looks like a bunch of fans gathered together, got the license and are now bringing Descent back from the dead. And, hell, if it’s going to be as cool as Descent, as fun as Descent II and as smart as Descent3, I’m in. They even call themselves, Descendent Studios. I see what you did there. Now on early access for 25$. And, apparently, so is Aquanox, in Aquanox Deep Descent. There’s nothing much about it yet except saying it’s a reimagining of the original series and a return to the world. I haven’t played the originals but I was lead to believe they are pretty good shooters. Coming in 2017. Rocket League – Back to the Future Car DLCÂ just because I have to. I might want to actually play the game now…
Posted in Gaming, Less Interesting News by Eran with comments disabled.
Interesting Things on Steam
Smite is the third biggest MOBA of them all and some say it is the most interesting. I haven’t played it myself but I’ve heard it called more accessible, easy to manage and more fun to play than DOTA2 or League of Legends. It’s free as per usual but now you can have it with Steam achievements. Mars Colony: Frontier looks like a serious simulation of martian colonisation. Its tags also include RPG and Adventure so I hope it won’t be a NASA level serious simulation but something arcady enough and more enjoyable. Available now for 10$. Space Xonix is… pretty much like it sounds. It’s Xonix but in space. And completely bonkers. You claim territory just like in Xonix but then there are lasers and fireballs and lava and… just watch the video. Available now for 2$. Transformers: Devastation is a very colourful spectacle brawler starring our favourite set of Autobots and Decepticons and while all of these games always look like a kind of “mash buttons for glorious mass murder” simulator, it is so far getting great reviews from whomever plays it and I still have an affection for Transformers, even after Michael Bay. Coming Soon. Velocity Stream is an interesting concept of a space-like racer with crazy tracks because it is one player’s job to lay down those tracks in real time as the race progresses. I can think of a few problems with this but the idea is neat. I’ll wait for reviews. Available now for 15$. Alien Robot Monsters looks like Continue Reading →
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The Less Interesting Telegram
אז טלגרם מנסים להיות טוויטר ואני בודק איך זה יכול לעבוד. אם יש לכם טלגרם, אפשר לעקוב אחרי עדכונים תכופים יותר כאן. עוד לא יודע איך לשלב את העדכונים האלו פה אבל בטוח מישהו יוציא תוסף בקרוב.
Posted in Less Interesting News, Practice, Thinking Out Loud by Eran with comments disabled.
Interesting Things on Steam
The Flock is an asymmetric “shooter” in which everyone plays a member of the flock trying to get an artifact, mark some beacons and survived without getting eaten by the other members of the flock before the round ends. It’s a rather basic gameplay loop and rather short rounds but the gimmick of the game is the limited population. Every time a member of the flock dies, a counter ticks down. When it ticks down to zero, the game will cease to function. It’s an interesting premise of planned obsolescence — as the developers put it, every multiplayer game winds down after a year or two, we’re just actively planning for it — and it kind of negates the idea of buying it later for very cheap. Right now, the responses are pretty mild with some even claiming this is not interesting enought to get enough players to play it for long enough to actually see the counter reach zero. My current stance on it is that I don’t really play multiplayer only games and this one does seem to be very light on content. It’s out now. Super Mutant Alien Assault is dubbed “The Citizen Kane of Super Crate Box Clones”. If you don’t know Super Crate Box, go right ahead. (You might also want to check out Muffin Knight). I’ll wait… Back? Good. From what is currently available, it does look like they’re taking it another step further, with more interesting weapons, special boss monsters, more level variety and distinct Continue Reading →
Posted in Gaming, Less Interesting News by Eran with 1 comment.
About Cheating
I’m not ashamed of it. I publicise it. Like recreational drugs, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with it as long as you don’t hurt anyone else or destroy your internal organs. Every time I think of cheating, I remember a point when I was still in high school and my big brother’s friend’s mom managed our high school’s computer classes so we could pretty much have free reign there during the weekends. So, we went there and played Diablo from dusk until dawn. And even then I had my hands in it deep and I knew exactly how to break the game’s economy in the player’s favour (the item dupe cheat still worked wonderfully). And one weekend, while we were playing, one of my brother’s friends called me over and asked me to explain to him how I cheated. He explained his philosophy on that. He said, that he finished the game, through and through, the way it was intended and now he was interested in doing it another way. And that’s completely ok. And there are also other reasons. Right now, I cheat in games for two reasons: the main one is that I don’t have a lot of time. I’m a working man (or as one might put it, a workaholic) and I have a wife and so my gaming time is usually limited to maybe an hour before bed, an hour or two in the morning and a bit more during the weekends. I can no Continue Reading →
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Interesting Things on Steam
Warshift is Battlezone reimagined. And it looks great. I especially love the ino-exo vehicles. However, it is very ambitious and it is still very early in development and it is being made by one man. Not one man and some contributors. Not one man, an artist and a musician. One man! So, if this doesn’t crash and burn, I predict it’s going to be one of the most talked about games of 2016 or 2017 (whenever it really comes out). Now in Early Access. XCom 2. It is now “Steam Official”. Coming in November 2015. Keen Dreams is… it’s Keen Dreams. A.K.A. Keen 3.5, it’s the weirdest of the bunch and now it comes with achievements and leaderboards. Coming on the 30th of September. Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime has been showing around for a while now and it looks great. It works single player but it’s designed as a co-op action game in which two people pilot a strange ship with lots of interesting weapons and tools in a very dangerous world. I’m really looking forward to it. And it’s coming 9th of September. The Flame in the Flood is a rogue like survival game with some interesting mechanics, shifting the pace and flow of the genres into something quite different. And it’s made by Bioshock, Halo and Rock Band veterans so it has some merit from the start. This will surely be interesting. In Early Access “soon”.
Posted in Gaming, Less Interesting News by Eran with comments disabled.
The Creative Things We Do
גייב, מהצוות של ‘פני ארקייד’, כתב לאחרונה רשומה מאוד מעניינת בבלוג שלהם. בקצרה: אחד הדברים האחרונים בקומיקס היה סיפור קצר על עולם בו אבות המשפחה אחראים על הגנת הבית כי כל המפלצות מתחת למיטה וכל הפחדרונים שבארונות אמיתיים וצריך להיפטר מהן והסיפור עוסק בילדה קטנה שצריכה להתמודד עם זה כשאמא שלה חולה ואבא שלה כבר לא מסוגל להתמודד עם המטלה הזאת. הרשומה עוסקת באבא של גייב. הוא מספר על איך אבא שלו בא איתו פעם אחת למשחק גולף של הצוות והקשיב להם כשהם דיברו, בשיא הרצינות, על הרקע של העולם של הסיפור, על מה מקור המפלצות, על סוגי הנסיבות שיכולות לצוץ סביב הצורך להגן על הבית, על עיצוב המפלצות והדמויות בסיפור. הוא ישב והקשיב על איך הם מדברים על “דמיון ו-make believe” בצורה רצינית לחלוטין. ובתור בן אדם שעבד בתאגיד כל חייו, היה לו קשה להבין מה הבן שלו עושה. אני מציע לקרוא את כל הרשומה למרות שהיא ארוכה כי היא מאוד מעניינת, בעיקר לטיפוסים יצירתיים שעוסקים בהמצאות מוחלטות. הוא מדבר הרבה על איך זה להסביר את העבודה שלנו, את היצירה שלנו, את מה שאנחנו משקיעים בו את החיים שלנו, ל… מחוסר מילה טובה יותר, מוגלגים – אנשים שלצערי אני חושב שפשוט יש להם דמיון פחות מפותח. ואולי המשפחה שלנו תתמוך בנו בכל מה שנרצה לעשות אבל אלא אם כן יש להם את הנטייה לזה בעצמם, הם כנראה שאף פעם באמת יבינו איך זה, יבינו את התהום בינינו לבין שאר האנושות או את הסיבה למה אנחנו עושים את כל זה. ולכל אחד יש את הסיבות שלו. גייב עושה את זה Continue Reading →
Posted in Art, Gaming, Geekdom, Humanity, Me, No Category, Thinking Out Loud by Eran with comments disabled.