This blog is as much for me as it is for my followers. I wanted to share an update on some of my recent photography work and outline my plan for the future…… Read more
XCOM: Enemy Unknown & Enemy Within
Last year saw the release of XCOM: Enemy Unknown, a sequel to a popular gaming franchise from the creators of Civilisation. I didn’t expect to become a fan of this game, but (as with Civilisation) I ended up getting sucked in. This month sees the release of the game’s expansion: Enemy Within, so I thought now was a good time to take a closer look at this game…… Read more
Video Games as a Storytelling Medium
I wanted to take a break from my usual ranting to talk about something quite close to my heart. As part of the argument that games are (or at least can be) art, I’d like to look at something that I find particularly interesting: storytelling. In particular, I want to try and explain why video games have the potential to be the greatest storytelling medium of them all…… Read more
Rewarding Bad Behaviour
I like achievements. Achievements are a good way to add some challenge, variety and replayability to a game, as well as to make the player feel rewarded, encourage them to improve their skills and give them a sense of progress. So why do some games give you achievements for playing them badly?… Read more
Fix your Audio Settings!
This is a rant about something that has been getting on my nerves a lot recently; the fact that that developers (and not just indies, but big ‘triple-A’ studios too) seem to be happy to release a game without seemingly any effort going into the game’s sound design and/or without proper audio settings. Good sound design can tell you a lot about the game world and improve immersion for the player, but not everyone gets this right.
The thing that … Read more
Photography Feature: In the Night
One of the reasons that I love photography is that I am fascinated with light. I love to take pictures of interesting lighting effects, of shadows and reflections. I also love to capture things from unusual angles or perspectives and look at tricks and illusions that can be created, occasionally with Photoshop, but usually just with the lens.
One of my favourite activities, therefore, is night-time photography. And in this Photography Feature, I thought I would share some of my … Read more
Valve vs. The Next Generation
This week saw Valve (the developers behind games like the Half-life series and the Steam network) announce their new set of technologies that aim to bring the Steam gaming experience into the living room. Whether their intention was to simply expand their empire or to throw the gauntlet into the “Next Generation” of the console war, for me they’ve pretty much already won against the PS4 and the Xbox One. All without any fancy launch events and without announcing any … Read more
Photography Feature: London
For this weeks Photography Feature, I thought I’d share some of my favourite pictures that I’ve taken in my home city: London, England.… Read more
Review: Guild Wars 2
Blizzard’s MMO giant World of Warcraft is now 8 years old and it is finally starting to lose its players, yet it is still the most successful online game out there. A few contenders have come along, but whether they were not as well-made or well-written or just lacked whatever it is that makes WoW great, none of them has been able to take WoW’s crown.
But finally, we may have a contender; a game that I firmly believe certainly … Read more
Worms Retrospective
I used to really enjoy playing the Worms games when I was younger, but I feel that the franchise has become somewhat stale in recent years. Last year they brought out a new instalment: Worms Revolution, that finally tried out some new ideas, but it didn’t quite manage to renew my enthusiasm. I thought I would look back the series and see what it was that I liked and didn’t like, and perhaps suggest where there series could go … Read more
Mass Effect Retrospective
The games of Mass Effect Trilogy have become some of my favourite games of all time, but (apart from my discussion about the Mass Effect 3 Ending) I haven’t actually reviewed any of them so far. So this week I thought I would take a quick look these games and discuss what made great, as well as some of the issues that have plagued the series.… Read more
MICRO-transactions – The clue is in the title, people!
As I’ve already discussed, I am quite happy with the Free-to-Play game concept – where you can create an account, download and play a game for free, but you can buy extra stuff via in-game purchases. The best free-to-play games give unrestricted access to all features, with the upgrades being mostly cosmetic or for convenience. But this week I want to look, not at the concept itself, but at how developers should be handling these so-called micro-transactions and how much … Read more