Survival Crisis Z
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| Thanks Moby Games. I'm too lazy to take screenshots. |
Now we all know James Silva is a lazy cunt who should stop making casual Xbox Live Arcade games so that he can finish the more superior looking Survival Crisis X. He should also hire some good artists (but who are the garbage men and woman of this blog to judge?). But you've probably read this on just about every blog you've seen feature this game, so let's just try and talk about the game itself.
This game was a little ahead of its time in 2004. It was released just before open world games officially became "a thing," and it manages to be better at it than 95% of the games that try it today. Also, until DayZ and The War Z are finished, this is probably the only game that's pulled off open world zombie survival well. It also has that old indie game quirk of having unlockable mini-games hidden in its files, like Asteroids, Columns, and a little text adventure game.
Did I mention that this game has balls? You can set the difficulty to "Hardcore," and the setting actually is hardcore. If your character dies under this setting, that's it, your character is dead forever and his profile gets erased. It brings back the fear of death that many recent survival horror games have forgotten about. Of course, the human/zombie sprites in this game look like ass, and I'm surprised there haven't been any mods (that I could find) that improved upon that, but if you can get over that, running around town, taking over strongholds, doing missions, and, uh, surviving is mega fun. Probably in the Top 15 of zombie games that are now plentiful this gen.
Cortex Command
This fucking game has been in development longer than Survival Crisis Z has been out, and almost as long as Duke Nukem Forever took. Now, does this game's quality reflect eleven years of development...? Not necessarily, but it's shitton better that Duke Nukem Forever is. This is probably the best side-scrolling strategy game since Worms: Armageddon, and it even surpasses it in several ways. The campaign mode is similar to Risk, except in how it's not a terrible board game and makes the idea of Risk fun. The menus and help windows keep getting in my goddamn way when I'm trying to click something on the world map, but the controls are, for the most part, fine when I'm actually in battle.
Superbrothers: Sword & Sorcery EP
Now my review of Zombie Survival Z kind of makes me sound like one of those retro-gaming faggots. I'd just like to make it clear that this is definitely not the case. Though there are indeed older gems that have withstood the test of time, I think games are slowly getting better. That said, shit comes from both sides of the spectrum; most games were bad then and most games are bad now. The difference between then and now is that many of the great games of yesteryear were by the big developers, whereas now it seems many of the well-made titles are coming from new developers, and even indie studios. Even then there's some bullshit. Some of the most successful indie games that have come out recently use crappy, big-pixel graphics in an attempt to look retro. That's weird, because when I think of almost any "good" retro-era video game, they all had great art direction and tried the best they could to push the hardware to present the most beautiful graphics possible. What these indie games are doing now doesn't look "retro;" it looks like shit.
Rant aside, Superbrothers: Sword & Sorcery EP isn't one of them. Some of the sprites do have a derpy over pixelated style about them, but as you can even see from the screenshot above, the designers have gone out of their way to render some fascinating environments... and that's not even a good example of what this game looks like. The animations are very fluid, and the moody soundtrack is on par with Sonic Generations as the best video game soundtrack of 2011.
The story is kind of your archetypal "collect this sacred something-or-other to save the world" affair, but it's presented in a neat way. In the first chapter, your character finds a magical book that allows you to literally read people's thoughts, which is often a tool in solving puzzles. There is also a fourth wall breaking narrator character simply named "The Archetype" who adds a so-called "quicky David Lynch" flavour to the plot. The gameplay itself is a mix of point-and-click adventure and timing based combat. It was designed with the iPad in mind, so everything is controlled with the mouse. You double-click or hold the left mouse button down in the direction you want your character move, and you use different motions with your cursor to manipulate the environment around you. When combat occurs, you are given two icons: a sword and a shield. You click the shield to block and click the sword to attack. Sometimes the shield icon will flash, requiring you to click in time to dodge an unblockable attack. Everything in the fight is based on timing, and knowing when you should either attack or defend. It's quite fun and does a good job of livening up the mood after bouts of wandering.
It is also one of those games that takes advantage of your computer's clock to affect certain aspects of the game. Parts of the game cannot be completed unless the Earth's moon is at a specific phase. You can change the date on your computer if you want to speedrun through, but you won't be able to achieve a 100% completion rating. Personally, I'm going to wait the fifteen days until the moon reaches the right phase to complete the third level, because, like I said, I have a fuckload of other games to play.
The Winner
All of these games are great and must be played, but out of the three the most honourable is...
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| *Cheers* |
When you were a kid, did you ever draw up stick wars inside your notepad while bored at school? Did you ever just look at the scene you created and wished there was a video game that allowed you to reenact that same scene in real-time? This guy did, and man does it feel good to finally do it. Command Cortex is a total riot, and can be played with up to four people, either cooperatively or competitively, which I highly recommend. The base building, the strategy, the destruction, the physics, the freedom to fight however you want (drop a crate filled with dozens of molotov cocktails on someone's base for maximum lulz)-- it all comes together to create the only game that could possibly take the throne in the genre Worms helped make popular. If this game sounds at all interesting to you, go buy it, seriously, like right now. Buy your mom a copy too, in fact, gift me a copy on Steam so I don't have to go to Risexual's house to play it.
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