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Video Game Lair
Thoughts of a Wandering Gamer

The Witness Impressions

1/31/2016

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The Witness is doing very well, and for that I’m ecstatic. It’s an artistic tour-de-force and a solid puzzle game, and I love that Jonathan Blow and his talented team were able to build something so beautiful. The problem is I don’t enjoy it very much…

When I first saw Jonathan Blow’s passion project take form, I was reminded of Myst. Growing up, I struggled to make sense of Myst’s obtuse environmental puzzles and mysterious story. I’ve always wanted to go back and experience it now that I’m armed with years of video game puzzle solving skills, but I never had the chance. The Witness was my chance to go back, to enter a world of mystery where every action led me down a different path and showed me another glimpse of its magical world.

But after playing a handful of hours, I’ve realized that my expectations were off. The Witness places its focus squarely on the puzzles -- puzzles that all take the same basic shape. Sure, the world is absolutely gorgeous, and there’s something forlorn about wandering about in complete solitude, but the game has yet to really draw me in. I’ve completed my fair share of the 600+ line puzzles that populate the world, and while I can appreciate how the rules build on one another, I haven’t found any sort of sublime satisfaction in completing a difficult puzzle. Instead, I’ve grown more and more frustrated as I repeatedly get stuck on a puzzle, solve it, and then move on only to find another series of similar puzzles in my way. I still want to continue forward, but I fear that I'll never find the larger meaning I'm looking for. The world seems like a living place; one that you’d expect to become a character itself. But instead, it’s just a sterile container for hundreds of puzzles that could have stood on their own.
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Granted, the game wouldn’t be nearly as attractive if it was yet another mobile puzzle game. If the game consisted of just the hundreds of line puzzles, I never would have tried it.

I think The Witness could appeal to a particular type of gamer. In fact, it obviously does. Jonathan Blow announced today on Twitter that it’s on pace to make more money in its first week than Braid did in its first year. The game has garnered overwhelmingly positive reviews from most of the games press including a perfect 10/10 from IGN. I just can’t help but want more. Perhaps I’ll find satisfaction as I dig deeper and unravel some of the larger mysteries of the game’s island, like a series of light beams aimed at an enormous peak. Perhaps this just isn’t the type of game I enjoy.

​Either way, The Witness is a unique type of game in many regards -- its content, its development, even its price point. I’d urge everyone to try it. Just know that it may be a different game than you expected.
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Dying Light Review, or It's Been a While 

1/25/2016

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It’s been a LONG time since I last hit the mechanical keys and wrote a game review, but here goes. I wanted to take a look back at one of my favorite games of 2015. No, not the Witcher 3 or Fallout 4 (though they’re both fine games in their own right) but a game that didn’t have the hype and fanfare of a major franchise sequel: Dying Light. If you haven't played it, I highly recommend that you fix that. Check out the review here! 
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Motorstorm RC Review

3/25/2012

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I wasn't sure what to expect from Motorstorm RC's small-scale racing, but after beating all the events and getting the platinum trophy, I can safely say this is an interesting direction for the series. Read my review to find out what has changed!
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Journey Review

3/18/2012

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Thatgamecompany, creators of Flower, Flow and Cloud, just released  their new game, Journey on the PSN. Put simply, Journey is an artistic masterpiece and an example of what games can be in their simplest form. Read my review to find out why you have to play it!
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One of the most memorable games ever.
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From 8-bit to Photorealism.

3/12/2012

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After seeing Quantic Dream's new tech trailer, "Kara," I found myself thinking about the evolution of visuals in video games. When video games first emerged as a form of entertainment, they were visually simple. From the late 1940s to the early 1970s, interactive electronic games took their first steps. From the Cathode Ray Tube Amusement Device to more recognizable games like Chess and Pong, video games had found a foothold in our society even if they weren't exactly popular yet.
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Pong
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Cathode Ray Tube Amusement Device, considered by many to be the first electronic game
The first home console, the Magnavox Odyssey, brought with it slightly more complex visuals and even a little color with the help of plastic overlays players could place on their TV screens, but it wasn't until 1980 and Galaxian that gamers were finally treated to color in a game. This was a significant step in the movement toward realistic graphics. How would we view Nathan Drake or the jungles of Crysis if games still lacked color?
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Galaxian
Jump now to the Nintendo Entertainment System, the home console that revolutionized the industry and jump-started a business model where platform owners license third party developers to make games for their systems. Games on the NES were capable of displaying many colors at a time and game art was now given more consideration. Games were still composed mostly of blocks of color, but the beginnings of texture and variety were beginning to make an appearance. The Super Nintendo succeeded the NES and launched game art into a new realm. Instead of swaths of bright colors, games now had realistic texture and variety. Jungles, mountains, spaceships and any number of environments could now be represented fully. Of course, gamers have always been able to populate the sometimes-sparse worlds of earlier games with their imaginations, but forward movement in graphical fidelity and detail was extremely welcome.
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Secret of Mana
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Super Metroid
The PS1 and N64 marked a giant leap forward and a step backward for graphics all at once. Games could now be rendered with polygons, allowing for wild new mechanics, but models and textures were simplistic and often ugly. Certain studios were able to strike a delicate balance between style and realism, but looking back, it's obvious that the first steps into the third dimension were rough and a focus on realism was usually a poor choice. There were some great games on both platforms, but the 3D visuals haven't aged well.
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Banjo Tooie
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Ocarina of Time
After the PS1 and N64 came the real powerhouses: the PS2, Xbox and Gamecube. Realistic textures, lighting effects and characters were starting to make an appearance. Developers had more horsepower to work with, and objects became less blocky. More advanced textures and techniques were used to make surfaces represent their real-world counterparts. Faces were now more human, no longer a series of rudimentary shapes. In all likelihood, even the best looking games to grace these systems will lose their luster in a few years if they haven't already, but I will always remember this generation as the first time games began to look slightly real.
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Ninja Gaiden Black
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Metroid Prime. My favorite game of all time
And now, after all these years, we've still got a lot of work left to do. Games like Uncharted 3, Crysis, Metro 2033, and many more are pushing the boundaries of realism. Just like every previous generation, these games will fade over time, and we'll probably look back in a decade and wonder how we ever thought they looked realistic. But for now, it's amazing how far we've come.
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Uncharted 3
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Crysis
Tech demos like Quantic Dream's Kara are always exciting because they give us a glimpse into the future. The whole point of games is to take us out of the real world, so exact realism isn't an attractive goal, but visual fidelity and realism are separate entities. Every step developers can take to eliminate seams, blurry textures, aliasing, frame-rate drops and awkward animations will allow players to become more fully immersed in a game's world. I don't want photo-realism, I just want fantasy worlds I can fully believe. We've come this far, and I'm excited to see what the next generation brings.
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Motorstorm for free?

3/6/2012

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In an unexpected act of kindness, it looks like Vita owners will be able to download Motorstorm: RC for free today only! The game has been getting some pretty great reviews so far and I can't wait to try it! Now if only I didn't have 8427 minutes left to go on the download. Curse you crappy hotel wi-fi!
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If you've got a Vita, jump on this opportunity!
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Stardust Review.

3/1/2012

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I've been playing a lot of Stardust on the Vita lately, and I'm loving it! Read my review here to see how it holds up to the PS3 version.
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GDC!

2/29/2012

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GDC is just around the corner, and I can't wait to head to the Moscone center in San Francisco again to check out the show floor! This year, I won't be going to the summits and tutorials, but I'm hoping to talk to plenty of people at developer booths and around the city. GDC is more about networking than game announcements, but the year-end awards ceremony usually has a surprise or two, and it's exciting to see the new tech that will drive the games of the future.

I know Epic will be showing off Unreal Engine 4 behind closed doors and I can't wait to see the reaction. Last year, the 3ds and Vita graced the show floor (though the vita was encased in bulletproof glass), and now that the handhelds are both on the market, I wonder which developers will be recruiting for future handheld projects. It doesn't seem like there will be any new gadgets on display, so the focus will be squarely on games.

I met a ton of people at GDC the past two years and I hope to meet many more this year!
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Plants Vs. Zombies Vita Review

2/25/2012

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Plants Vs. Zombies has landed on almost every platform in the known world, and now it comes to Vita. In many ways, the Vita is the perfect place to play this great game with its huge screen, touch controls, and easy sunlight-collecting capabilities. Read the whole review here!
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The Vita: Week Two.

2/23/2012

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Well, I've had one week with the Vita, and I'm becoming more and more impressed with the system each day. Using the touchscreen to navigate the apps is great, and even in the past week, Twitter, Facebook and Netflix apps have landed on the system, making it all the more useful. I've downloaded Stardust and Plants Vs. Zombies, and so far I'm loving the ability to jump out of one game and into another in a matter of seconds. The screen continues to impress me. I'm honestly waiting for a kindle app so I can read books on this thing! I think at this point, the Vita has left the PSP in the dust. It's a much more robust system, and I think there's a huge potential for future apps, and of course games on Sony's newest baby.
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Sorry PSP...
There are a few drawbacks though. 1. PS1 classics don't work on the system yet. Why wasn't this included at launch? I'm craving some good old RPG's, and the Vita would be the perfect way to play them. 2. The battery life, while respectable, could always be longer. If I'm playing games non-stop, I'm getting around 4-5 hours out of the battery. With how powerful the system is, this is expected, but I still want more. Since I can do so much on the system, I'm constantly using it, and therefore have to charge it often. Good thing the sleep mode is so efficient. 3. There still isn't a killer app. Sure, Uncharted was awesome, and I'm really excited to pick up Rayman, but those are both games that have been done before (Rayman's a direct port!). There isn't anything truly new out yet, and until Gravity Rush, I don't think there will be aside from some PSN games.

That's a pretty minor list of quibbles. Even though Uncharted is the only "killer app" for the Vita so far, I'm thoroughly enjoying every game I've played on the system. In a few months, I think there will be a few more "must play" games that help the Vita stand on its own as a desirable handheld. If the games keep coming, I'll have no problem calling the Vita my favorite handheld of all time. The GBA SP will put up a good fight, but in the end, I can just do more on my Vita.
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