Jonathan Leack
What a fun week it has been playing as Agent 47. I’m speaking about Hitman: Absolution, of course, the latest from the series where you’re tasked with assassinating targets in creative ways.
Just yesterday I shot a massive harpoon through someone’s face and swapped hot sauce for lighter fluid. The guy barbecuing hot dogs was in for quite the surprise when he doused his grill with the stuff. After playing so many action-oriented titles in the past couple years it’s nice to fall upon something that’s more slow-paced and methodical. I really invest myself in observing locations to plan my attack before putting it into action.
Beyond Hitman I just started playing the latest Tomb Raider. It’s been a great experience so far but I’m only an hour or so in. In a nutshell, I’ve witnessed Lara Croft go through one of the worst experiences of her life. Why couldn’t she just stay home and read CraveOnline on her PC instead of embarking on a dangerous adventure?
Paul Tamburro
As I wait to finally get my clammy hands on Pikmin 3 tomorrow, this week I have been dipping into my back catalog of Steam games.
First up, Facepalm Games’ The Swapper. Despite the unfortunately immature name of its developer, The Swapper is actually an intelligent puzzle game that is swiftly becoming a contender for my game of the year. Combining gorgeous hand-crafted clay graphics with unique gameplay that sees the player cloning themselves on the fly to progress through the Metroid-esque map, The Swapper also throws in an eerie back-story for good measure. Buy it.
I also took the time this week to play through Dear Esther, a short but moving game (if you can call it that) in which the player is tasked with doing nothing but walking through the beautiful seaside setting and piecing together fragments of the story told by the narrator. While it’s a little pretentious and its story is not quite as gripping as it thinks it is, it’s truly unlike any game you’ve played before, and therefore is worth playing if you’ve got a couple of hours to spare.
Joey Davidson
Now that Nintendo’s finally released one of the most sought after aging games of all time, I’m dumping so much of my life into EarthBound that I barely have time to do anything else. I picked it up on the Wii U’s Virtual Console last week, and I’ve already poured more than six hours into it. That’s six hours that I siphoned away from reviewing other games and working a few jobs.
The things that are striking me as so wonderful today are the music and atmosphere. These didn’t really register as all that amazing to me when I was 10 years old, but I’ve had Paula’s Prison Theme stuck in my head for three days straight. As for the atmosphere, well, EarthBound‘s art style and presence is hitting me just as hard as today’s games. That speaks volumes.
