The pre-gesticular stage of The Reticular Cycle is upon us once more. A time of puffing and strutting and the gratuitous public display of our inner workings. Eligible mates – I implore you – position yourself downwind and ready yourself to receive a warm dollop of DuBBle, for I have another game idea. This is how the menu screen shall display itself – note the wonderful plumage:

Read the full story

I have been pondering a question for the last few days, and while it may be a little irrelevant to gaming as a whole, it certainly slots nicely into my definition of a worthy pursuit, or perhaps even something I want to spend my time doing. Of course, I consider gaming entirely worthy of my time, otherwise I wouldn’t spend quite so startling an amount of time doing it, but then, of course, you already knew that. What I would like to know, however, is why I consider it so. What does gaming have to offer, really?

Read the full story

If, like me, you’ve noticed a definite deficit of interesting or even English posts on The Reticule of late, you’ll, like me, reflexively blame my blogging buddies. I respect you for your ability to avoid self-reflection. This new entry on your RSS feeds is designed to rectify The Reticule‘s recent remissness. It’s a punishment – each of the culprits will be coerced into an analysis of the underlying themes of the text, to be presented in front of class next week. The presentation will be worth 10% of the course’s total marks. Today I review Naked War‘s menu screen. Menu Screen Reviews might become a feature if you like what you see when you click the button wot makes more words come up.

Read the full story

I have an idea for a little game, a Flash game perhaps. This might turn out to become a feature, it might be a one-off. I imagine this is what the main menu would look like:

Read the full story

You’re to blame. EA’s to blame. The journos are to blame. Your gran’s probably to blame. Infact she’s probably behind it all. Unless you’re a veritable saint of a man/woman/pensioner, I bet you’ve downloaded at least one game, CD or film without giving its creator due credit. And we all know all too well that the recent furor over DRM that publishers are becoming less and less in touch with their consumer base.

But these are not the only problems.

Read the full story

Half Life turned 10 a week or so ago, and it’s only fitting that the boys behind Black Mesa would release something (unfortunately not the bloody game) to commemorate the occasion. Just to give a bit of background; Black Mesa is a complete reimagining of the orignal Half Life, with entirely new textures, models and sounds. They’re basically rebuilding the game in the new Source engine, and understandably that’s taking quite a long time. I recently played through the original thanks to the Anniversary Deal on Steam, and I have to say I’m very, very eagerly awaiting this. Even 10 years on, it’s bloody good fun.

Hit the jump for their new media.

Read the full story

In this, the first of our regular Talkythinks features, we Reticule lot have a natter and share the resulting inane gibberish with you. It’s not a direct copy of RPS‘ Verdict, honest (it’s actually a lot worse). StalinsGhost wasn’t around to Talkythink L4D, but he was there in spirit, blessing it with his good grace.

Read the full story

A privileged elite thrust from a dying world, an exiled criminal making his escape with a bounty of fuel and fireworks, or over-reliance on GPS leading to a Sunday drive gone terribly awry. Form your own story – you’re in space and there’s gonna be ‘splosions before the end. This is Reset by chatroom regular and talented person RoBurky, and these are the words he has to say about his creation:

“‘Rest to Reset‘ by Trash80 (creator of the soundtrack to Darwinia) is one of my favourite pieces of music. This game is intended to provide an experience that supports that music, with everything that happens in the game happening in response to something in the music. Like an interactive music video. Or like Audiosurf, but with the experience sculpted just for this one track.”

Read the full story