I never played a game in my native language (Portuguese), best thing I got was subtitles, but even in those rare cases, I usually chose English subs to better keep track of the dialog.
Always thought that playing a dubbed game meant that I would inevitably loose something to the translation. But, today I learned that I might be missing something else by playing it as is.
Following the challenge from the wonderful folks of moddb this is my appreciation entry of favorite mods (in no particular order).
Join the fun and spread the good word about your favorite mod.
A few years ago, a friend of mine told me about Europa Universalis and Hearts of Iron series, how great they were and how grand it felt playing it. And expecting a better Total War or Civilization game I gave them a try and after a couple of hours trying to decipher 99% of the interface I gave up and filed those titles under the “games for spreadsheet fetishists” category.
Dishonored is, without a doubt, one my favorite video game of all time. Not only was it impressive with it’s unique style and level design, but it also carried one of the best gameplay/world/narrative idea that I’ve ever seen in a video game.
From a world that changes depending on your gameplay, through the narrative of underground loyalists against a tyrannical religious institution to the beautiful environments of a noble’s house heavily contrasting the streets and sewers plagued by rats and weepers. Almost everything in this game is themed on a Chaos vs Order dichotomy, and the mythos of the world is probably one of the most fascinating things about it all.
The first world war has always been something of an interest of mine, it is after all The Great War, the war to end all wars and I actually had two great grandfathers survive it, that left some interesting stories.
So, there’s no surprise that with the centennial commemorations a videogame was bound to appear (several actually). Ubisoft stepped in and released the indie-but-not-that-indie Valiant Hearts, a puzzle adventure.
As a little kid, one of my favorite pastimes was reading and playing Fighting Fantasy books, these were fantasy adventures about making critical choices, slaying monsters with d6s, acquiring loot and keeping your pinky bookmarking the previous page just in case of a “rocks fall, everyone dies” situation.
Depression Quest is a digital version of that, except not really.
A game that was on my radar for some time now, but only a year after its release was I really able to play it. Contrast is a 3d platformer, an incredibly stylistic one that oozes theme and a story that, while short and interrupted by a couple of shoehorned puzzles, was able to keep me interested.
Unlike Gone Home, this was a title I was genuinely looking forward to. The trailer was fun to watch with all its visuals and sounds emanating the same surreal comedy that carried Sam & Max throughout the years in my heart. What I got was a great half hour of fun and an hour and half of groaning noises and a desire to be playing something else.
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Earlier this week Double Fine’s COO Justin Bailey stated the following :
“There’s no need to obsess over Metacritic,” Bailey said. “We’ve basically seen Metacritic all but become obsolete right now… We get obsessed with it. Other developers get obsessed with it. The press gets obsessed with it. But it doesn’t really matter, as far as the sales of the game.”
I don’t like Metacritic, or number based reviews for that matter, and would honestly love that Mr. Bailey was right and the site would just crash and burn from the face of the internet, but his statement is a little dishonest and here’s why.
With little more than four hours of gameplay, is Gone Home the second coming of Jesus and/or the worst “videogame” ever that the internet makes it to be?
Betteridge’s law of headlines says no, but this game deserves some pretentious words from me either way (spoiler free as much I can).
Gone Home is an indie game that boasts a giant “Story Exploration Game” banner (it’s even the website title, go check it out) and while that may sound pretentious enough I found it rather fitting once I finished it.
Goat Analysis 