Category Archives: Games

Game music: Quake III Arena

Quake 3 Arena OST CoverHaving already posted music from Doom and Unreal it would be rude to go a full year without adding the Quake series to the rolls. Some might go for Trent Reznor’s score for the original Quake, a celebration of rocky goth angst, but personally I prefer the more futuristic tone of Quake III Arena.
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Android Review: Avoid – Sensory Overload

Avoid Header

Apparently I’m in a mood for colourful, geometric infinite runners at the moment, and after yesterday’s review of Spheroid Cyclone I’m going to follow it up with Avoid – Sensory Overload, which I can only describe as falling down a psychedelic well made of insane. Fun, in other words, lots of it.
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Android Review: Spheroid Cyclone

Spheroid Cyclone

Super Hexagon. There, I said it. Since Terry Cavanagh’s dark thumb mangler you can’t make a geometry-based infinite runner without the comparison, regardless of what might have come before. But I can at least qualify it somewhat. Super Hexagon in 3D. Does adding an extra dimension add to the fun? We’ll see.
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When Trine met Lemmings

Life Goes On

“Trine meets Lemmings.” That’s the best way I can describe Life Goes On, but it feels cheap to make the comparison. Sure it involves a procession of poor characters mostly doomed to die for the good of the others, and the art style and gameplay is very much reminiscent of Trine’s, but Life Goes On is very much its own game.

The central hook is simple and beautiful – when you die in this platformer your corpse persists, becoming part of the scenery. The knights who came before you gave their lives to make a path across spikes, use their dead weight to hold down a switch or be a barrier to block the way.

The game is out soon on Steam but there’s already a demo available. Go play.
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The Little Adventure World That Could

TAW

In a demonstration that the world is a good and kind place full of nice people Treasure Adventure World just hit their $10K pre-order goal. Congratulations to the team and thank you to everyone who’s helped support the game.
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Oblitus is looking very pretty

Oblitus

I’ve touched on Oblitus before while previewing the very promising soundtrack, but since they recently announced they’ve just employed the talents of Sara Gross of Two Bit Art it’s looking better than ever and definitely worth mentioning again.
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Might and Magic X: Legacy

Might and Magic X

Having played a little of Might and Magic X: Legacy I think I can sum it up with three little facts.
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Dungeon Keeper for Android: Just… how?

Dungeon Keeper

After being voted the most hated company in America you’d think EA wouldn’t have any problem making a game about an evil tyrant building power, lording it over others, abusing minions and laying waste all who oppose them. But somehow they’ve managed to make their mobile release of Dungeon Keeper… bad. Really awful.
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Game music: Forza Motorsport 5

Forza LogoAs befitting any game that has anything to do with Top Gear, Forza Motorsport 5 has a soundtrack that can only be described as “epic”. Preferably while travelling at mach 2 with the skin being blown clear of your face and your spine partially liquefied by the g-forces, doing your best to scream “POWER!” before you spin off and end up sideways in a barrier.
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Enmusicing Dead Rising 3

Dead Rising 3

Gamasutra have a piece from Oleksa Lozowchuk, music director for Capcom, wherein he gives a breakdown of what went in to creating the soundtrack for Dead Rising 3.

To further support the tension of survival horror, we built a simple yet effective adaptive music system to feedback zombie threat to the user throughout the world … That being said, constant tension can wear down the user, so we provided some ear candy and reprieve from the chaotic wall of sound via diegetic music (world based) scattered throughout all 4 districts. As a player enters a location with memorable source music, the adaptive threat score recedes, temporarily giving the user a sense of relief from the hordes of zombies.

Definitely worth a read. Also, it’s nice to encounter a fellow comma-abuser once in a while.