HarneyDashBarrow
Still impressive how the developers were able to wring out nearly all-original plotlines for mario sports games, where the main franchise roster is relgated to being very minor characters. Forever stuck, be it from cheesing the AI or the silly goal of maxing out my character's stats. Camelot put so much effort and variety put into such a relatively small title that it's still inspiring.
2016
A freeware experience that's more than the sum of its parts, goofy visuals and writing stringing it throughout. One of the most compact worlds filled with detail (I think the entire map is indeed shaped like a pyramid). One of the few best showcases for the rougher, western associative relative to RPGMaker in OHRRPGCE (what an acronym).
2004
A game that's said to have been the foundation of games focused towards action shifting to linear theme parks or so. The scripted dialogue and interactions being cutscenes in name only makes the desire for the developers to tell a cinematic story more prominent. Each of the 12 segments have a pacing similar to the Modern Warfare games of CoD, down to the high energy escort or defense, and an NPC giving the goodbye for the next ride.
Ended up having the most fun when it was just the player hopping around in combat corridors/arenas, and the quiet platforming sections that were guaranteed to start at each 'chapter'. Lost count of how many areas I wished to explore deeper of the buildings and residences, and then see a tiny sliver in the level geometry occluding, unloading sections. Despite the engine's surprisingly scalable nature, Half-Life 2 was still the sort of game meant to be run on a Pentium 4 and an HD 6570.
I now understand why Dear Esther ran on Source.
Ended up having the most fun when it was just the player hopping around in combat corridors/arenas, and the quiet platforming sections that were guaranteed to start at each 'chapter'. Lost count of how many areas I wished to explore deeper of the buildings and residences, and then see a tiny sliver in the level geometry occluding, unloading sections. Despite the engine's surprisingly scalable nature, Half-Life 2 was still the sort of game meant to be run on a Pentium 4 and an HD 6570.
I now understand why Dear Esther ran on Source.
2000
My first knowledge of this came from one of Michael Cusack's first animations from 2012 where everyone is watching E3, excited for the third iteration of Half Life or Left 4 Dead. Gabe Newell enters on stage and announces Ricochet 2.
It's like the rolling ball minigames from Mario Party but it looks like a royalty free Tron. A thrown disc automatically attaches to a specific number of vertical levels. Feels like there is an odd, juttery delay of throwing a disc, so I'm not talking about any internet latency or said discs not being hitscan.
Ricochet is multiplayer only, including a server browser with slim choices. Near empty aswell.
Of all the moments of Valve picking up whatever mods they came across, this and Day of Defeat really shows that case. Or this was just a mere tech demo ("What for?", not sure).
Would play a Ricochet 2 though. Am certain that this could be expanded into a 'real' game, and so on.
It's like the rolling ball minigames from Mario Party but it looks like a royalty free Tron. A thrown disc automatically attaches to a specific number of vertical levels. Feels like there is an odd, juttery delay of throwing a disc, so I'm not talking about any internet latency or said discs not being hitscan.
Ricochet is multiplayer only, including a server browser with slim choices. Near empty aswell.
Of all the moments of Valve picking up whatever mods they came across, this and Day of Defeat really shows that case. Or this was just a mere tech demo ("What for?", not sure).
Would play a Ricochet 2 though. Am certain that this could be expanded into a 'real' game, and so on.
1998
The "archaic"/old school FPS design and first person platforming is what keeps this from being overly tedious. Also of note is how quaint the linear scripting feels, at times almost being able to be broken with ease. Xen was mostly fine except for when an area started spawning endless enemies, or relying on the floaty platforming that added even lower gravity.
Curious to know how much the Xash3D pathtracing mod changes the visuals up with just lighting alone. One thing I noticed is how rough the lighting is, with the flashlight essentially being a small circle that moves around the environment.
Curious to know how much the Xash3D pathtracing mod changes the visuals up with just lighting alone. One thing I noticed is how rough the lighting is, with the flashlight essentially being a small circle that moves around the environment.
Very dumb and straightforward. Quite enjoyable in its simplicity. But what's not so simple is the stinger at the end!
2013
An exceedingly okay racer with a limited licensed soundtrack, "decent for smartphone" visuals, and one of the most odd microtransaction systems. The soundtrack is also fine, with instrumental versions of songs playing during races and a perfectly fine menu theme. How does a game this 'sub-Gran Turismo 4'-looking and feelng and sounding require over 20 gigabytes of phone storage?
The free-to-play system relies upon that standard 3 star system codified by Angry Birds, plus any race penalties adding onto a 'reliability gauge'. This means that cutting the corners over a slope divider is a penalty, as is braking/handbraking too often. A tedious machine.
The free-to-play system relies upon that standard 3 star system codified by Angry Birds, plus any race penalties adding onto a 'reliability gauge'. This means that cutting the corners over a slope divider is a penalty, as is braking/handbraking too often. A tedious machine.
Yeah the funny animals and mythical men may be cute and have whatever stat/ability attributes that mean something, but this game chugs and drains my battery faster than any 720p60 livestream of MLB The Show. Also hard to ignore the patchy translation.
2018
This sort of makeshift trilogy is one of the most archetypical game-shaped object to see on the Itch platform. A solo* developer wields Unity to make a statement on the nature of video games, with the major additive of their personal experience. I do not know who Thana Orchard/voidwaste is, but the developer being so willing as to bring lines of their life and embue the digital world with extra effects says something. "THE YV" caught my eye years back due to how it used a very bare set of tools and built a surreal area of bright colors and dancing models. The Unity-powered walking simulator may have been odd for core gamers to see sprout up in the early-mid 2010's, but as someone that's played with the built-in terrain and map tools: it was the perfect storm of convenience. All you need is the most basic of senses, and a new world comes out with maybe a flaw or issue or two. Enough to tell whatever story, with just the basic addition of sight and sound to elevate a walking simulator from being a short story or novelle. The natural evolution of 'Interactive Fiction'.
2008
Marble game for people who dislike marble physics and just want a nice little 3D platformer.
2014
Neat ambient synth EP with walking animations when you click on the screen of the music video.
2010
If you really want to play Quake 3, just grab CPMA and (QIIIA data), or OpenArena. If you want the arena game but refined beyond 1999, Xonotic and even Sauerbraten are right there.
This was originally released as a free-2-play game, but they quickly realized that a multi-billion dollar publisher cannot be satisfied with gamers seeing in-game banner ads. And thus an arbitrary paywall was created the very first moment Quake Champions was announced.
This was originally released as a free-2-play game, but they quickly realized that a multi-billion dollar publisher cannot be satisfied with gamers seeing in-game banner ads. And thus an arbitrary paywall was created the very first moment Quake Champions was announced.
TBD
An game-shaped object made for this new decade of the 2020s. This object and it's assorted libraries that make it will be incredible helpful for those learning about programming, especially of the C/C++ fare. Will be of great importance for education.
...Video game? Oh yeah, I honestly see this more as a tech demo. In terms of the player-side functionality, it's like a wonky Wolfenstein 3D demake for the Pico-8. And that's not far from the truth: on both the official Gitlab source page and Gitlab Pages, it's big targets had included two embedded console-esque devices like the Pokitty and ESPboy, and straight-up terminal output. The embedded devices are of an even more low-end tier than the Raspberry Pi, on par with a J2ME phone from 2003. It's indeed impressive, but the necessary compromises needed to run on all of these limited devices carries over to modern x86 computers. Major levels of sprite pop-in, and a soundtrack of stark sawtooth waves. The technical limitations are deeply self-evident within even the main menu and first level.
Anarch is a truly anarchist video game: it gets down to the gritty detail of function and resilience down to a legitimately admirable degree, to the point where it completely forgets that it was a political movement and not an activist's literary magazine.
...Video game? Oh yeah, I honestly see this more as a tech demo. In terms of the player-side functionality, it's like a wonky Wolfenstein 3D demake for the Pico-8. And that's not far from the truth: on both the official Gitlab source page and Gitlab Pages, it's big targets had included two embedded console-esque devices like the Pokitty and ESPboy, and straight-up terminal output. The embedded devices are of an even more low-end tier than the Raspberry Pi, on par with a J2ME phone from 2003. It's indeed impressive, but the necessary compromises needed to run on all of these limited devices carries over to modern x86 computers. Major levels of sprite pop-in, and a soundtrack of stark sawtooth waves. The technical limitations are deeply self-evident within even the main menu and first level.
Anarch is a truly anarchist video game: it gets down to the gritty detail of function and resilience down to a legitimately admirable degree, to the point where it completely forgets that it was a political movement and not an activist's literary magazine.
Genuinely surprised to see this sort of vintage computing layout and wonderful music all coalescing, and it's all Ren'Py. Understood less about the main story than the interesting references to Star Trek and warez, but the main plot's right there in the title.
It's nice, very touching nostalgia piece, a tribute for an era of computing a tad before me. Try it out, great freeware.
It's nice, very touching nostalgia piece, a tribute for an era of computing a tad before me. Try it out, great freeware.
I only played the Itch.io demo of this game, but I wanted to make note that googum made two video games explicitly based on the Virginia Tech and Sandy Hook shootings. That is all.