Steam Summer Sale!!!

It seems that Steam is again having  a sale bonanza and included in the sale are two packages I really like.

One is the, 20+ game, complete Valve package that contains all Valve games ever released for only $50, the price of a normal copy of Portal 2 (which is included)!

The other is the complete Telltale pack that contains 16 games for $50.

Both great deals, and there are many others individual games and packages. So go check them out at Steam.

Something Amiss

Something Amiss is a three part episodic adventure game that is freely available to play online. It uses a verb coin interface, though it does not really benefit from the freedom that that gives the player, and is made up almost exclusively of inventory based puzzles. It is set in current time in Washington DC and involves government agencies, anti-government groups, and one woman given strange powers from an experiment that was conducted on her.

Overall I found the game had some good points and some not so good points. The graphics for one are good in some scenes and bad in others and go all the way from realistic and obviously derived from photographs of actual places (with hardly anything changed) to ultra cartoony visuals with materialistic colour and detail. Additionally, while the story, interface, presentation, and gameplay are not bad, they all could use some work and never were particularly moving. But it is not a bad game, and if you are looking for something different from the AGS title then this might be something to look into.

My mini-review of Something Amiss.

What Makes you Tick

What Makes you Tick is a free indie graphical adventure game set in a Victorian style world filled with ingenious inventions, inventors, and villains. In the game you play Nathan who is in search of the retired professor and famous inventor Dr. Coppelius to warn him of some unknown impending danger. But will you be able to reach the professor before this danger gets to him itself?

I really enjoyed What Makes you Tick, with its good graphics, interesting characters, nice music and sound effect, and a beautifully drawn and realized world. The graphics are simple, 2D, and side-view with sparsely animated static backgrounds and they look fantastic. The puzzles are also great and are mostly inventory based, and are preformed in game with the use of a standard verb coin interface and a inventory system that allows the use of the same verb coin system on all of the items and combining items being a integral part of the game.

If you have enjoyed this review and want to pick What makes you Tick then head over to its official website where both it and its commercial sequel, A Stitch in Time, are available.

My mini-review of What Makes you Tick.

Technobabylon (parts 1-3)

Technobabylon is quickly becoming one of my favourite AGS series; And with three games already released in a little under eight months it is also quickly becoming quite a prolific series. Not that this has impacted its quality, if anything the series is only getting better. These games are being made by Technocrat and are moderately conventional but well polished and excellently well designed graphical adventurers; And are named, in chronological and release order, The Prisoner of Fate, The Weight of the World, and In Nuntius Veritas.

Technobabylon is set in a dystopian future where a tyrannical government is fighting a underground resistance group ans mysterious forces work from the shadows over Trance, a virtual world replacement for the Internet. Thus far we have been encountered two main characters; Latha Sesame, a unemployed, Trance addicted woman who seems completely insignificant but is being targeted for assassination by some unknown enemy; And Dr. Charlie Regis, An investigator working for the establishment and a technophobe to boot, who is being blackmailed by a mysterious stranger intent on controlling Dr. Regis's actions and using him to perform special tasks. Tecnobabylon starts when their worlds collide. It is also worth noting that the game seems moderatly inspiered by eXistenZ (1999) and copies a few of the main elements from the movie, though this does not seem to be mentioned by the game developer.

This series starts with Part 1: The Prisoner of Fate, in which you play as Latha who discovers that she is locked inside of her room and completely unable to contact that outside world; After which the entire game is her trying to escape from this one room improvised prison. The next game, Part 2: The Weight of the World, puts us in the role of Dr. Charlie Regis as we solve and prevent crimes as well as preform any duties required by our blackmailers. And then finally in Part 3: In Nuntius Veritas we are again in control of Latha and must again help her escape, but this time it is from a prison cell/waiting room of the city's law enforcement, CEL.

My mini-reviews of The Prisoner of Fate, The Weight of the World, and In Nuntius Veritas.

The local Trance in Latha's apartment as shown in The Prisoner of Fate.

A murder scene that you have to investigate in The Weight of the World.

The CEL holding area in In Nuntius Veritas.

Adventure Lantern Issue (June 2011)

Yes that is right, the eminently wonderful adventure game magazine Adventure Lantern is back after a hiatus with a brand new issue. In this issue I have two articles, the previously published Destination: Treasure Island (but with a moderate amount of improvements in this republishing), which is a great pirate themed Kheops adventure set as a sequel to Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island; And the never before seen review The Legend of Crystal Valley, an epic high fantasy adventure.

But of course I am not the only contributor and there are also articles for the intriguing Darkstar, the classic beginnings to the Still Life series Post Mortem, a new episode in the Telltale series Dr. Who: TARDIS, and another adventure from the makers of The Legend of Crystal Valley, Hotel, a myth, magic, and mystery filled adventure.



So what are you waiting for dear readers, go and pick up a copy from the Adventure Lantern website.

A puzzle from Destination: Treasure Island

The Legend of Crystal Valley

One of the best visuals from The Legend of Crystal Valley