Archive for April 20th, 2012

Every six months or so I bug Tom to resurrect a game at our weekly gaming night, Shoot Club, because I have fond memories of being good at it. Usually it’s some old Half Life mod where you get insta-kills with the crowbar in death match. Or Screamer 4×4.

“What’s that motorcycle game I totally rocked last year? The one with the cool physics?”

“Trials HD. It wasn’t last year. And you didn’t rock it.”

I totally did, and since I’m annoyed with LBP this week for screwing up my home network with its [failed] updates, I’m just going to give some love to that game’s successor, Trials Evolution, which I played for the first time last night. This works out just fine since the motorcycle game and the sackboy game use some of the same muscles. There was a particularly sweet moment when I had to negotiate my Scorpion over two giant rotating gears, and somehow I cleared the obstacle without a fault on the first try. “How did you do that?” It was more of an exclamation than a question. I was surprised too until I got to the end of the track and realized I was using skills instilled in me by LBP. Jumping. Balance. Timing. So, thank you Sackboy, but you’re in the doghouse this week in favor of Trials Evolution.

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A few buildings in Modern Times are interesting, but they don’t share a common purpose. Two of them are prominent in the above screenshot: the business center in the foreground and the diamond cathedral to its right. These gleaming glass and chrome structures nicely symbolize both the good and the bad of the Modern Times expansion–they’re bright, they’re useful, and they’re powerful, but do they really belong on Tropico?

After the jump: they paved paradise and put up a business center Continue reading →

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If we’re going to look at the horror genre, of course we have to start with the one that started it all: Resident Evil. Old school purists might call me out over that, citing Alone in the Dark as the first survival horror game. Even older school purists might cite Sweet Home for the NES. Regardless, just as Capcom changed the action genre with Devil May Cry, the same is true for survival horror with Resident Evil.

After the jump, got a light? Continue reading →

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