Within the landscape of video games Skyrim is a mountain. An open-world pioneer that helped define the desire for the arctic and alpine, it’s hard to think of mountainous terrain in games without thinking of The Elder Scrolls V. Like many a mountain, Skyrim seems an unconquerable prospect. Its map is a symbol-strewn patchwork of […]
No, this hasn’t become an Assassin’s Creed blog. This is my attempt at a short diary series which explores video games’ greatest mountains. Mountains have long gripped our imagination, and, reaching beyond the crests of any city, call to us with a primal urgency. Why do we climb them? How do we feel when we […]
“That looks a bit crap,” my dad said whilst looking over my shoulder. I was playing some pixel-art throw-back, all blocky and two-dimensional. He wasn’t commenting on the subject or mechanics of the game, simply the visual fidelity – how it looked. My dad isn’t a regular player, but he’s seen games through the generations […]
A lot of recent RPGs appear to be obsessed over creating these large, cinematic experiences with vast empty landscapes that take forever to traverse. Larian Studios’ Divinity: Original Sin presents an alternative to this, one conscious of the genre’s history but unafraid to modernise. Isometric in viewpoint, turn-based in combat, and with an emphasis on […]
Transistor throws you into the deep end from the get go. You play as Red, a pop-music sensation in the futuristic city of Cloudbank whose night has taken a turn for the worse. Red comes into the possession of a mysterious weapon, the Transistor. No sooner as she does, a flood of robotic entities known […]
At first glance, Hack ‘n’ Slash looks incredibly familiar. You play an elf with a green tunic and a cartoon quiff. There’s an evil wizard, a small floating companion, and a colourful but corrupt land of forests and dungeons. It looks like Zelda, but appearances can be deceiving. The sword you begin your adventure with […]
Starbound’s garishly colourful 2D pixelart and intriguing blend of creation, survival and exploration automatically draws comparisons to 2011’s Terraria – but does this particular incarnation further develop the formula? Developed by indie studio Chucklefish, Starbound is a procedurally generated sandbox where you beam down onto planets, dig deep underground, mine ore and uncover lost treasures […]
Japanese developer FromSoftware’s Dark Souls makes no grandiose statements of hope or heroism. You begin the game as a wanderer, clinging to life in a new dark age, with civilization all but collapsed and humanity broken. The land has been scarred by the flames of untold wars and disaster, and now a blanket of darkness […]