HAWKEN has an FMV intro movie now. That makes some degree of sense, when you think about it; HAWKEN is really a spiritual successor to a singular moment in time. One single video, concealed by history (and general obscurity), captured the soul of the game long before it’s time.

I am, of course, talking about the FMV intro movie to the 2002 Xbox game Phantom Crash

It’s hard to really know where to come at this from, really. For me, at least, HAWKEN was a game that sort of encapsulated a very short, specific period of PC gaming — that short-lived genre of free to play shooters made in Unreal Engine 3 with a novel conceit but a short lifespan. You know, games like Loadout, Blacklight: Retribution, and my personal darling Super Monday Night Combat. I’m not actually sure how aware the wider gaming scene is of this short trend, but I was pretty sucked in by the whole thing: SMNC remains my most-played game on steam, after all. But whilst each game had a neat little selling point (from the gun customisation of Blacklight to the MOBA influences of SMNC), the genre faded without fanfare: usually due to the nasty business of the developers needing to actually turn a profit. …

I’ve needed escapism a lot in games lately. Between the… interesting political climate, flatmate disputes, money troubles, and Blood Bowl 2 causing me excessive hair loss, it’s sometimes nice to just get away from things for a bit. Games can be many things to many people — a competition, a way to experience power fantasies, or social spaces — but for me, lately, I’ve been valuing games that bring calm.

There are usually a few factors that are common in games I use to escape. Non-violence, is usually one; as is a sort of calm soundscape, vast distances of changing scenery, minimal mechanical interaction. Naturally, this has included things like No Man’s Sky, and Euro Truck Simulator 2 (riding through space to the sounds of 65daysofstatic has a remarkably similar effect to driving through Germany to the sounds of Dutch Radio stations), but this has also stretched to ignoring game content and simply riding around in World of Warcraft. It’s nice, then, to chill out. My gaming life is a full 50% made up of these long, chill-out sessions of games where I can just take a moment, think, and explore lands familiar and unknown. …

Over the last year or so, I’ve gotten into the habit of making these small, super abstract little maps in Source SDK. This usually happens at some obscene hour: creative energies hit me at odd times. It’s currently just past two right now, so I thought I’d jot down my process for tonight’s project, refu.bsp.

I’m going to speak at VideoBrains next Tuesday either way to properly discuss my thoughts on the Source engine, and it’s ease of modding. To put it briefly, though, Half Life 2’s editor is in effect a simple toolkit of boxes, textures and props; and over the last decade, I’ve become fairly proficient at using it. …

Last week, I was ready to publish a sort of “my thoughts on…” thing. A basic rundown of my first weekend with No Man’s Sky; I’ve been honestly pretty excited for the thing, and really wanted to put out my thoughts. It wasn’t anything particularly thought-provoking or heartfelt, but it was still something, it was still content (if generic) about a game I’m honestly in love with. So forgive me if I gush a little.
That plan all sort of changed about 5 systems into the game; when I landed on a world, a world I ended up calling Natalie’s Haven for reason’s I’ll get into later. Touching down on this pristine, pastel island world finally unlocked a lot of what I was feeling up to this point. In that moment, leg-deep in pink grass, on a lonely island on an alien world that nobody has ever (and in all likelihood, will never) step foot on — I started to get emotional. Generic “this is what the game is” wasn’t going to cut it. …

Hyper Light Drifter: A Delayed musing on the best game I’ve played all year.

I’ve Been Playing is a pseudo review series I intend to start this week, giving my thoughts on a title I’ve been playing over the last seven days. I’ll hopefully try to get one of these up every week or two. It’ll hopefully also get me to start mixing up my game-playing habits, and I’ll try and search out some more interesting, unique titles as time goes on.

Game Maker Studio is one hell of an engine, apparently.

My game of the year for 2015 was probably the Vlambeer twin-stick Nuclear Throne, a title developed live on Twitch over two years by five people. It’s nothing mind-blowing in terms of pushing gaming, but it was an addictive romp that hooked me in daily; and I was surprised to find it was built in an engine that people look down upon as a kid’s toy, taught in schools to teach game development to students. …