Time to trade in my beard for a tiara, let’s do this!
This review is part of the 2014 Sh*tty Game Review Fest - read about the event here.
Disney Princess: My Fairytale Adventure is a tough nut to crack. On one hand, I can see where the developers were going with this and aiming it for children. On the other hand however, they made this game incredibly difficult to talk about considering the fact that I’m a grown man reviewing a game meant to be played by adolescent children. While Disney Princess comes through as a boring and extremely monotonous for my mediocrely functioning adult brain, it could still conceivably be a solid title for kids everywhere, probably.
Respect and spoilers
You know who deserves respect? Anybody who finishes this game. Seriously. While we generally came away from Alundra with really positive feedback, some of those puzzles were either frustratingly difficult to the point of seeming almost unfair, or just trite and boring. Untangling word puzzles to talk to dead saints in a particular order isn't really anybody's idea of a good time, neither are some of those pillar-pushing puzzles. But hey, if you pulled it off and wanted to hear what we thought (or even if you gave up), click on the play button and find out.
What if Zelda could jump?
This time on Backloggers, I'm joined by two new guests, Chris and Jamie, to discuss our second retro game, the Playstation classic Alundra. On the block for discussion are some of the other games in the "Stalker" franchise (it's not what you think!) Working Designs legacy and our relative histories with their titles, and our familiarity with similar games, like the Zelda franchise.
Their new strategy game will be titled BlackSpace.
Ex-EA Tiburon senior developers Volga Aksoy and Jerry Phaneuf have founded PixelFoundry, occupying the roles of technical lead and creative lead, respectively. The two have also announced their new studio's first game, BlackSpace. In a change from their sports game roots, BlackSpace will be a real-time strategy game for the PC.
The hardcore RPG fan may have a new banner to rally around.
Starting life as an MMORPG, Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning has morphed into one of the more interesting original IPs to be released next year. The game is being developed by industry newcomer 38 Studios and strategy game developer Big Huge Games. These names may not carry much weight, but they have some serious big name talent working on Reckoning’s game world, most notably being revered fantasy author R.A. Salvatore and comic god Todd McFarlane who have created the game world and artwork respectively. Lesser known, but still a heavy lifter in his own right, is Ken Ralston who was the lead designer on Morrowind and Oblivion.
Available now for the Kinect on XBox 360.
If this fellowship had borne the Ring of Power, things may have ended very differently.
It’s plain to see what Snowblind Studios was trying to do with Lord of the Rings: War in the North. They wanted to create a game that would appeal to fans of the books and films while simultaneously creating something new – telling a tale that had not yet been told. I applaud them for attempting to strike out on a new path, but there is a big difference between expressing the intent to do something and actually following through with it and unfortunately War in the North falls short of their self imposed expectations and fails to innovate in any real meaningful way.