I am a big fan of the Football Manager series, and I think that in many ways the new 2012 edition is one of the best versions of the game to be released for a few years. However, in my long-term career game I am starting to reach an impasse where I am going to struggle to achieve my desires.
This is a bit of a personal year in review, not just a run down of individual games which have come out this year. We will do something along the lines of a Game of the Year, this isn’t that though. This is a low-down on happenings here on The Reticule over the past year, and some of my personal highlights.
Last week I briefly talked about the legal obstacles indie developers are faced with when releasing titles in Germany. I have been able to talk briefly with Ivan Ertlov, an indie developer currently working on Into the Dark. Hit the jump for some thoughts from Ivan on this issue.
My word, what a time it is to be a gamer, we are being spoilt for choice in new games right now. The major titles normally get released around this time of the year, everyone is used to that by now, but this year it is something else as the number of major titles being released seems to keep growing and growing. There really is a mad crush of games all being released together right now, and judging by some of the sales figures we are seeing, people are happy enough to buy the games they want despite the current economic climate.
This is a story of how I joined the -=256=- clan and formed some life long friendships. It is a personal note that I want to share with the world.
Back in the summer of 2005 I was merrily playing Counter-Strike: Source, I frequented a group of servers frequently and formed a loose connection with the other regulars. There was a forum we chatted on, but there wasn’t a tight knit bond between us. It was a casual fling.
That summer saw the release of Battlefield 2, a game which sits comfortably in my personal top five. I had read good things about it in magazines like PC Gamer and I had quite enjoyed the demo of the Gulf of Oman map. The game was released and I started to play it in between my Counter-Strike sessions, I was oblivious to how my gaming habits were about to change.
The ridiculous thing about this retrospective is that I bothered to play Sonic the Hedgehog 2 at all. I love the damned thing of course, but I’ve reached the point where playing it is entirely redundant. It’s not like I expected to find anything new. In fact, I’m all but certain that there isn’t anything new to see. I’ve stumbled across every single route, bust open every box and collected every ring. I may as well sit beneath a bodhi…
I have long pondered the role of review scores, do people like them? If so, do they like scores out of 5 or 10, maybe a rating out of 100? What about An A-F scale, or perhaps something a bit more off the wall like ours?. Or finally, do people not bother with the actual rating and make do with the words of the review? Hit the jump for a poll and more words.
If you are in the open beta for Battlefield 3, you are going to be using the Battlelog system, for those of you who haven’t used it yet, it is in effect, a social hub for the game. I’m going to be talking about how it is used on the PC as I haven’t played around with it from a console players perspective.
This was originally intended to be a disclaimer at the beginning of my Rage review, but it spiralled out of control and now takes the form of an editorial about journalistic objectivity and the relationship gamers have with developers, thus ends the disclaimer to the disclaimer.
Forgive me a moment if I reminisce about a simpler time, a time when a kill in a game lke Battlefield 2 would result in a nice and easy two points. Getting a kill damage assist would grant you a point. Everyone knew where they were at, but now, you look at the beta for Battlefield 3 and people are racking up thousands of points in a round.