March 30, 2010 by Steve
This spoiler-filledAudio Visual Experience of Time Gentlemen, Please! contains bothpotential puzzle/adventuring hints as well as possibly directspoilers, up to and including the ending of the game. If you areinterested in playing the game and have yet to do so (check the lessspoilertastic article on the game),then you may wish to avoid this article. Otherwise, enjoy theexperience of this fun little indie adventure game. Also as asidenote, due to a bug with the game engine, no dialogue was capturedon the images until the last few images, when some setting changesfixed the issue (as a result, somewhat reducing spoilering but alsoreducing fun). Warning: potential spoilers below.
March 29, 2010 by Steve
So as I'm moving through my Steambacklog, my next games are the adventure duo Ben There, Dan That! andits sequel Time Gentlemen, Please! Both are old-school 2d adventuregames, harking back to classics such as Maniac Mansion, Loom, MonkeyIsland and Sam & Max (admittedly, none of which I have playedaside from the free Sam & Max episode on Steam).
In case you aren't familiar with the PCadventure game genre, they're dialogue-heavy puzzle/detective gamesof a sort. You walk around, talk to people, pick things up, interactwith objects and generally figure out ways to progress to your nextor overall objective. It's generally very simple to play, notrequiring twitch skills or muscle memory like most modern games andcan be taken at whatever pace you wish. The humor of the games areby far their biggest draw, with large amounts of clever,lighthearted, endearing dialogue. Of course, then the dialogue isthe main draw of the genre and allows it to stand out over say, anelectronic version of Clue. Other significant factors towards thefinal product include ambience, intelligent pacing and a basic yeteffective control scheme. The genre as a whole has a fairly rabiddedicated fanbase. This is in contrast to the majority of the gamingworld, who doesn't even know that the genre exists.
Read moreMarch 28, 2010 by Greg Noe
The First Hour generally writes two main types of reviews: first hour reviews and full reviews.
March 26, 2010 by Greg Noe
I loved Super Mario 64. It was the first game I ever played on what isone of my favorite consoles, and my memories of the game have stuckwith me to this day. The running, the jumping, the exploration of hugelevels, it was incredible. Mario made the best transition to 3D ever,well, until Ocarina of Timecame around. The next 3D Mario iteration was Super Mario Sunshine,which I was less then enthused about. I'm not sure if it was the waterpack gimmick or what, but I was never convinced that it would be worthplaying. Nintendo has finally delivered its third true 3D Mario game(well, two and a half years ago) with Super Mario Galaxy. While it is almost unrecognizable in terms of what a Mario game should be like, it plays just like Mario 64 did 14 years ago: awesomely.
Galaxy's gimmick is that instead of featuring one giant, flat plane, each world is made up of small, Little Prince-likeplanets and objects. Gravity and physics are now Mario's biggestfriend and foe, as you're constantly being challenged in new ways tojump and explore. I love games like Braid and Portal that challenge me to think and play different, Super Mario Galaxy joins that elite group, in my opinion.
SuperMario Galaxy 2 is due in less than two months, and it'll probably bethe first Wii game I buy at launch in over three years. I'd love tohave a first hour review of that game at launch (hint, hint, Nintendo),but I've got a first hour review of this game also on the back burner. Here's my full review of Super Mario Galaxy. I collected all 120 starsin the game which took me about 25-30 hours.
March 24, 2010 by Paul Abbamondi
Besides Super Mario World, SimCity was one of the first games I got for my Super Nintendo Entertainment System way back when. Countless hours were spent creating the most glorious cities…and then throwing total havoc their way. It was one of the first simulation games I’d ever played, and watching the seasons change, residential zones flourish, and roads fill up with traffic was extremely satisfying. Alas, I traded in my SimCity cartridge for something else (hopefully not Shaq-Fu) because I was young and stupid once. Now I’m just less stupid. Moving forward, I dabbled in later PC versions of SimCity, but never found any of them to be what I used to love. Maybe SimCity DS will be the one to warm the cockles of my heart?
Greg reviewed the DS sequel, SimCity Creator last year.
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March 22, 2010 by Steve
Time for a first hour review/chance totest out my capture card abilities. Today I'll be playing Armada, aDreamcast game semi-randomly selected from those in my possessionthat have not been previously played through. Well, I think Iactually played a few minutes of it when I got it, but nothing Iparticularly remember and certainly nothing particularly substantial. All I really recall is that it seemed to be received fairlypositively and was supposedly a fine multiplayer game. So anyway,let's try it out. If you want to follow along with the videoplaythrough, you can find it at my YouTube playlist.
March 19, 2010 by Paul Eastwood
If you didn't already know, Kingdom Hearts is a crossover series between Square Enix and Disney. As unlikely as that seems, the games have been quite popular. Two Playstation 2 games, a GameBoy Advance game that was later ported to the PS2 (I know) and a PSP game have come out of this union.March 17, 2010 by Steve
Here we have Mirror's Edge, a first-person platformer of sorts, released in late 2008/early 2009 by DICE/EA. I've been interested in the game for a while, starting from its strong marketing campaign, so I jumped on the chance to play it recently.
It can be briefly summarized that in Mirror's Edge, you are a runner, tasked to transfer information between groups looking to avoid the surveillance of an overbearing government and its allies. As escaping capture is of utmost importance, runners do most of their travel on free outdoor environments, especially rooftops. Thus the gameplay is largely parkour-based, emphasizing proper use of momentum, speed and techniques to accomplish goals. At its best, this leads to a smooth, sublime experience, reminiscent of games like Jet Set Radio, Shadow of the Colossus, NiGHTS, and the original Prince of Persia. Mirror's Edge takes the player further into that experience, locking you to a first-person view with constant reminders of your physical struggles with and against the forces of gravity and objects in your world.
Read moreMarch 15, 2010 by Greg Noe
Another year, another sports game. Gamers hear this every few months when the newest Madden is coming out, or the next iteration in a 2K series, or even for the Tiger Woods series. Sure, you updated the roster, but what did you really spend the last 12 months on? That is the eternal question for series with annual updates, and it's always one someone is forced to answer.
For 2K Sports' MLB series, 2009 was a rough year. The series was switching developers and reactions from the fanbase was generally bad. With Sony's rival series, The Show, growing stronger and stronger with every iteration, it was not a good year to take two steps back. 2K and Visual Concepts desperately needed to show that they still worth the MLB license they paid for: 2K10 needed to be the Comeback Player of the Year. If you believe Metacritic, they have definitely improved. 2K9 has a metascore of 64 with a user score of only 5.2, whereas 2K10 has a metascore of 76 but even more importantly, a user score of 8.0. The MLB 2K series seems to be back on the right track.
But I never played a previous iteration of the series, let alone 2K9, so I'm coming into this season as a rookie. I'm still expecting a lot though, my favorite baseball games are more arcadey, like Base Wars or the Ken Griffey Jr. series. Those games were just pure fun and the gameplay was great not because it was great baseball, but because it was a great video game. MLB 2K10, however, is realistic and trying to not let you realize that it is a video game. Quite a bit different than what I'm used to.
So here's my full review of MLB 2K10, this was a review copy provided to me by 2K Games. You can see read my "first hour review" of the game that actually follows me through about the first 10 hours of the game.
March 12, 2010 by Greg Noe
I will readily admit that Chrono Trigger is my favorite game of all time. I love the game to its full extent and no other game has really ever even come close to unseating it over the last 15 years. That's over half of my life, and considering the hundreds of games I've played, I think it is an awesome accomplishment that one has reigned for so long. I currently own three copies of the game, one for the Super Nintendo, one for the Super Famicon, and finally the re-release on the Nintendo DS. They each have their unique story that I will tell. I have chosen never to buy the PSX version for a few reasons.