Recent reviews by liquid courage

All in all, Anodyne is a pretty good game. For better or worse, it cribs a lot of its style from Zelda. Clear dungeon, get items, progress to new area, rinse and repeat. While I feel that it works for the most part, I think the best aspects of Anodyne are the outlandish game play elements and presentation.

The fighting in this game is fairly one dimensional, and virtually every enemy is best approached by attacking and retreating. Honestly, this gets old pretty quickly and with only one weapon to use, you don’t have much variety in how you play. Coupled with the game’s emphasis of platforming that relies heavily on timing, Anodyne can be a bit frustrating and is best played in short spurts.

The greatest strength of Anodyne is its surreal presentation. Particularly, it’s bizarre scenery and dream-like setting, blending mundane and fantasy characteristics. Anodyne does a good job of providing a backdrop that feels like you’re exploring the protagonist’s subconscious. The off-beat aesthetics of the game are carried into the game play as well, as you’re given a broom (of all things) to use as your weapon. Some of the ways you can interact with puzzles and levels is clever, and really helps to make Anodyne feel more original than a Zelda clone.

Having said that, the game is probably best reserved for a sale or bundle purchase. While it’s definitely flawed, Anodyne is worth checking out and I’m looking forward to seeing what the developers come up with next.

I’m terrible at puzzle games. The moment I find myself banging my head against a wall, I’ll just give up entirely. In fact, the Swapper is the only game in recent memory that I’ve not only finished, but played through a second time the next day. This game does nearly everything right. In fact, my only criticism is that it isn’t longer. The level design never feels obtuse and when I couldn’t solve a puzzle, it was because I had been over-thinking the solution. In fact, the seemingly simple mechanics of the titular cloning device are intuitive and they’re used in some pretty clever ways. But the game play is only part of what makes the Swapper the focused title that it is. Its stark, hand-crafted visuals really distinguish this game from its contemporaries. Where most developers default to derivative pixelated visuals, Facepalm Studios have chosen a form of presentation that is painstaking in its execution. I’ve always found stop motion animation to be fascinating– it’s one of those forms defined by its imperfection: the visible finger prints or smudges and tears on the models that really lend the Swapper an individuality that’s become increasingly rare in games these days. What more can I say? It’s a one of a kind game and hopefully it’ll get the attention it deserves.

Call of Duty is easily the best WWII game on Steam. The levels feel exciting, the music provides an excellent complement to the atmosphere; the level design and AI is great. The levels are all set pieces unto themselves, featuring a nice variety of scenery and objectives: shoot down planes, take out tanks, and kill Nazis by the scores. But I can’t really do justice to the game. The greatest strength of Call of Duty is that the game play feels both immaculately paced. Each mission feels like a fleshed out conflict that changes over the course of your playthrough, and the soundtrack lends each mission an air of significance. For its time, Call of Duty had some truly impressive set pieces. Each of the three campaigns brings a unique perspective and its own dynamics to the game, as the Americans seem to favor running and gunning over the Russian campaign, which feels more like a war of attrition. The first mission for the Russian army is perhaps one of the most intense I’ve played so far. As the Russian Army suffers heavy losses you make it out onto the battlefield without so much as a gun at your disposal. You dart through gun fire, saved ironically by Nazi artillery, which exposes a building. After taking the building by force, an artillery strike is called in. The salvos leave the several Nazi tanks in shambles, as the few Russian troops left scurry across the remains of a square in Stalingrad, you feel like you've actually pushed back the Nazi invasion.

I didn't get to this game until last year and it's still one of the best FPS/RPG crossovers I've ever played. The gameplay is just as compelling today as it must have been a decade ago, and I often found myself wanting to play one more level. Admittedly, it does have some pacing issues, and I feel like it suffers a bit from lack of an autosave feature. The level design is great, with each area presenting several means of progressing, and you rarely feel like you're forced to choose a specific play style or set of powers or weapons. However, in some respects, the game hasn't aged well. The graphics are painfully dated, but in Deus Ex's defense, its ridiculous plot and cheesy dialogue provides more than enough charm to overlook its faults. It's impressive to see a game that was made 10 years ago contains more choices (and perhaps more importantly, consequences) than many games made today. If there's any game in need of a remake, it's Deus Ex.

Legend of Grimrock is my favorite indie release this year. Many compare it to Dungeon Master, but I find it equally reminiscent of old pen and paper RPGs, requiring equal parts wit and might to survive. As you traverse the dungeon, you’ll encounter floors with deadly traps, vicious enemies, numerous puzzles and secrets. The puzzles are satisfying and require truly clever solutions in many cases. Similarly, combat requires guile and agility, and you must constantly be on the move, exploit enemies’ weaknesses where ever possible and avoid being cornered at all costs. One of the game’s few negative aspects is the absolute lack of any instruction (even the tutorial fails to explain game mechanics in any detail) and would perhaps benefit from a “show, don’t tell” approach. All in all, Grimrock provides a great amount of content at a price that’s quite reasonable. I’ve already logged about 50 hours and still haven’t uncovered all the secrets.

Beyond Good & Evil is one of the finest titles released by Ubisoft. Although it sold poorly at launch the game has since developed a sizeable following. Don't be fooled, the game's cartoony visuals belie a plot rife with conspiracy and social and political intrigue. The characters are surprisingly well-written. Jade, the game's protagonist, is notable as much for what she is as what she isn't. Jade is one of the few female leads that isn't overlty sexualized, often a problematic of video game writting. Rather, she is intelligent, strong, compassionate and unpretentious, a true everyman. In terms of gameplay, Beyond Good & Evil is a blend of action, adventure and stealth. What further sets it apart is its incorporation of photography into the plot and gameplay, breaking up the action and moving the plot forward throughout the experience. Certainly, fans of action-adventure games will find something to love about Beyond Good & Evil.

I'm not very good at strategy games. Luckily for me, there's Frozen Synapse, a squad-based tactical game that's one of the most addictive indie titles I've played all year. The style of FS is quite nice, with a quasi-cyberpunk setting, a simplistic graphic style that recalls Metal Gear Solid's VR missions and an electronic soundtrack that's pretty impressive in its own right.

Matches can be lightning fast or last days a la chess. Such is the beauty of the turn-based gameplay in FS. The multiplayer community is robust as of this review, and I get plenty of invites whether I'm playing single player or multiplayer. The multiplayer community is great. In the few matches I've played (and lost), competitors have never hesitated to give me tips on strategy. Community aside, there some great features, such as "light" and "dark" modes (which determine fog of war) as well as instant Youtube uploads, giving you plenty of reference for strategy and a way to showcase your wins

Far Cry 2 is the sort of the black sheep of the Crytek family. People tend to hate it, and not entirely without reason. The enemy AI is incredibly aggressive and virtually every NPC will stop at nothing to kill you, and they respawn constantly. The environment provides very little cover, making sleath attacks and escape quite difficult. But the atmosphere is excellent. The map is expansive and I often find myself wandering around the savannah in search of diamonds rather than trying to complete a mission. Your weapons are decades old, and as second-hand guns they are covered in a veneer of rust, they jam occasionally but they behave like left-overs of Russian arms manufacturing should. And then there's the dialogue. The Jackal, a character you will become familiar with through a series of tape recordings, is simply chilling. And while you begin with the intention of killing the Jackal, you all too quickly become a participant in the bloodshed. To sum up Far Cry 2 in a word: realism.

Doom is the first FPS I ever played and it's still one of the best. Shoot demons. Collect keys. Dry ♥♥♥♥ every wall in sight. Repeat. Of the Doom series, this has the tightest level design and the most satisfying ratio of wandering around the level to slaughtering everything in sight. Gameplay aside, Doom has one of the longest standing mod communities and there's a ton of mods to check out. New guns. New maps. New enemies. You'll never get bored of this game.

Now for the technical side: Steam launches the game in DOSBOX and frankly, the texture smoothing makes the game look even worse and the default controls are pretty terrible. Check out the "Modding or Configuration" section of the Ultimate Doom hub and use Zandronum. Playing in your native resolution and with sprites really compensates for the dated graphics. Not to mention, Zandronum allows for dynamic lighting, which looks really cool and is one of the few graphic improvements the game needed. You'll thank me the first time you walk into a pitch dark room.

Dirt 2 is easily one of the best experiences I've had with a racing game. The controls are fairly intuitive and the courses gameplay surprisingly favors finesse over sheer speed (especially on some of the harder courses, it really pays to master cornering). Dirt 2 offers several terrains, such as dirt, gravel, sand and pavement which provide plenty of variation in handling and mobility. The vehicle selection may be a bit sparse, but there are plenty of great cars here (the Mitsubishi Lancer and the Subaru Impreza are a few of my favorites) but they are well-balanced and choosing the right car for a course can make all the difference. The soundtrack, however, is god awful. The music is made up of terrible pop punk and electronic music, supposed to be edgy but ends up being totally overbearing and contrived. Along with the corporate logos plastered on everything, is one of the few faults of the game. Luckily, Dirt 2's fast-paced action more than makes up for its few shortcomings.