David Daw has studied the history and future of television and has a master's in Broadcast and Electronic Communication Arts from San Francisco State University along with a BA in genre fiction from NYU. More by David Daw
Since even indie devs take time off for the holidays, there weren’t a lot of new games this week. Luckily, this month’s Ludum Dare about villainy produced enough games for two weeks of great games.
David Daw has studied the history and future of television and has a master's in Broadcast and Electronic Communication Arts from San Francisco State University along with a BA in genre fiction from NYU. More by David Daw
Last weekend saw another Ludum Dare 48-hour game jam. Dozens of teams raced to complete original games in two days on this Dare’s theme of Villainy. As a result we’ve got five great games that let you play the villain, often literally.
Alex is a freelance videogame writer who writers for PCWorld's GameOn. He likes Star Wars a lot, maybe a bit much. More by Alex Rubens
Not much has been said about Bioshock Infinite since its original unveiling at E3 2011. In fact, we haven’t really heard or seen anything beyond continued delays. That trend was finally broken last week in Los Angeles as I got hands-on time with the first three hours of the game. Thankfully, it didn’t disappoint.
As I sat down at my high-end PC and started the game, one thing was immediately clear: Bioshock Infinite is beautiful. Not in a “there’s bright colors everywhere” way, but rather that the team at Irrational pushed the hardware to its limits. The story opens with Booker DeWitt getting rowed to a lighthouse on a small boat by a chatty couple. He’s given a box that starts to give us our first indication of who he really is, but it’s not until later in the opening chapters that we really find out just who Booker is in the world and what his purpose is.
Soon after he exits the boat, he enters the lighthouse and sits in a chair that turns into a rocketship and shoots him into the sky and eventually, right into Columbia, a floating city in the sky. It’s a magical place, that somehow manages to operate just as efficiently as the rest of us do on solid ground, despite taking place on floating platforms.
Alex covers desktops, everything from fancy to practical. He's also an avid (addicted) gamer and loves following the industry. More by Alex Cocilova
The premise is a good one, if a little familiar: you're randomly thrown into the wilderness with nothing but a flashlight, a granola bar and your wits. Survive the zombie apocalypse. However, it isn't zombies that developer Hammerpoint Interactive needs to worry about; they need to fear their players.
I got a special hands-on with The War Z a couple months ago, and despite some obvious alpha game bugs, it looked pretty good. From what I heard from Executive Producer Sergey Titov, it was going to be awesome; a skill tree to build a character, socializing with other survivors in public safe areas, and microtransactions for cosmetic upgrades to clothes and weapons. Unfortunately, it's hit some serious snags.
The War Z has had some problems prior to release. Kotaku reported that nearly 3,000 people were banned without any reason, and many more were banned from The War Z's message boards due to a rather heavy-handed rules list (including barring posts that state why you quit playing).
David Daw has studied the history and future of television and has a master's in Broadcast and Electronic Communication Arts from San Francisco State University along with a BA in genre fiction from NYU. More by David Daw
People, I’m going to level with you: rot much unites this week’s games besides the fact that they’re all fun, fast, and available right in your browser. There is at least a totally coincidental theme connecting them, however; they form a nice alphabetical arrangement. Join us as we tour through letters P-T in the alphabet of free games!
