With Dante’s Inferno right around the corner, why not spend your Friday butchering demons and classic works of literature at the same time?  Ok, so it’s not exactly a free game and you need either a PS3 or an Xbox 360 to play it but hey, I’m new to this whole free game thing.   Hell, I just got a PC that can play Torchlight.

Any way, Dante’s Inferno isn’t a bad demo.  It shows off the combat, the various settings, the basics of the plot and it lets you bust Death in the head with his (her?) own scythe.  It’s also fairly ridiculous, but that’s not always a bad thing.  PS3 folks will probably just laugh and go back to the God of War 3 demo that’s been floating around since June but all you 360 only fans that have always wanted to see what the fuss over Kratos was about, well, this is as close as you’re gonna get without dropping 300 bucks on a PS3.

And hey, there’s boobs and who doesn’t like boobs?

The Dante’s Inferno demo is available on the Xbox Live Marketplace and the PlayStation Store.

Yes, it’s another article about stylized graphics. Perhaps I could just say “Stylized graphics age better than graphics that attempt to be photorealistic” and end this article here.

Naah.

I think I’ll show you some comparative screenshots to prove a point that likely doesn’t need a strong argument anyway.

Firstly, let’s start with games from this year. Red Faction: Guerilla, and Borderlands. Borderlands is obviously very cartoony, whereas Red Faction was going for the more common photorealistic look. They both look good. Of course they do. They’re both brand new. But how will they look to us in another five years? Ten?

Let’s look at some older games for perspective.

Both Okami and Tomb Raider: Legend came out for the Playstation 2 in 2006. By this screenshot, they both look pretty good, although I feel that the full-motion cartoon graphics in Okami really would make this example stand out more than it does in a still shot.

Both Psychonauts and Jade Empire came out in 2005. At this point, you can really see that an attempt at photorealism that came only five years ago really looks dated compared to Uncharted 2 or Resident Evil 5. Psychonauts, in contrast, looks like exactly the same cartoony image it always has. It simply holds up better. Click on the image for the big version. You’ll see.

Lastly, let’s go back more than a decade to 1998.

The cartoon images in Grim Fandango sometimes look a big jaggy, but overall they look good. Take a look at poor Eli Vance and Dr. Kleiner in the shot on the right. There was a big leap in graphics between Half-Life and Half-Life 2, wasn’t there?

Yes, my point didn’t really need any proof. But here’s the proof.

I’ve been playing a lot of Darksiders the past couple of weeks taking a whirlwind tour through post-apocalyptic Earth as War, one of the four Horsemen.  Along the way I’ve killed many the demon, rode many the mile and amassed a collection of armaments and weapon enhancements to make Kratos proud.  I found the game to be one of the more enjoyable experiences I’ve had on my 360 in quite some time.

I must admit, given the great time I’ve had with the game, that I’m a bit surprised to see it ranking in the low 80’s on Metacritic.  Now, I know that Metacritic isn’t the best site to look at for such things having seen first hand how their internal translation system turns a C+ into a 58 thereby skewing a game’s perceived quality downward.  Still though even reading through the reviews the common criticisms seems to be that rather than come up with their own gaming mechanics, Vigil decided to instead lift mechanics of off popular gaming franchises, namely The Legend of Zelda, Portal and God of War.

Now, don’t get me wrong, Darksiders does just that, however I have to question whether or not knocking the game for it is a valid criticism.  I say this because we as game reviewers seem to be incredibly tolerant of this when it comes to sequels but incredibly intolerant when it comes to new IP’s.  Take Uncharted 2, for example.  Uncharted 2 is, hands down, the most thrilling experience I’ve ever had while playing video games but it is, at its core, just a refinement of the mechanics presented in the first game, which, by the way, were taken wholeheartedly from other games such as Gears of War and Tomb Raider.  It isn’t the mechanics though that make Uncharted 2 such a great game, although they certainly help, it’s the pacing, the voice acting, the incredible technical achievements that, when all bundled together, make the game so damn exciting.

While we’re on the subject of unoriginal games you don’t have to look much farther than Gears of War 2 and The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess.  Both games are sequels, both games build upon, or refine mechanics created in earlier games and neither do much to move the franchise into new territory yet both are very highly rated.  It seems that we, as reviewers, are more than happy with more of the same if those same mechanics are presented in the franchises we expect to see them.

On this, I gotta call bullshit.

Now, if you want to argue that Darksiders didn’t implement the cribbed mechanics in a compelling way then I think that’s a valid criticism.  Personally, I wouldn’t agree with you, but that’s just my opinion and what works for me doesn’t work for everyone.  Slamming the game because it uses game mechanics that we’ve come to love in other games is patently ridiculous.  Nintendo fans the world over always complain about the long lengths of time between Zelda sequels.  Fans are similarly vocal about wanting a more mature, more violent take on the franchise, although I personally don’t think Zelda is the place for blood and guts.  When it comes to Portal, Valve develops sequels according to their own strange whims and who knows when a sequel for Portal will be coming, if one does at all.   So we want more Zelda and we want more Portal and here a game gives it to us, wrapped in its own style with its own world, story and characters and we’re supposed to say “no thank you” simply because it didn’t come from Nintendo or Valve?  Yeah, again, I gotta call bullshit.

The simple fact is that not all studios can come up with a new game mechanic that changes the world of gaming.  It’s simply not possible.  There has to be room in gaming for studios that can take existing mechanics and build compelling games around them.  Why we’re tolerant of first person shooters, a collection of mechanics that hasn’t changed in years, yet not so for something like Darksiders is not only stupid, but hypocritical.  It also can’t be terribly comforting to budding, young game designers to think that the only road to critical praise lies in either creating a completely new gaming mechanic or in getting work on an established sequel.

Now, I’m not saying that Darksiders is perfect, but I do think it’s better than that aggregated Metacritic score would lead you to believe.  It’s certainly better than Gears of War 2 a game that somehow managed to use the same mechanics as its forebear yet take a step backwards at the same time.  I love Zelda and while I don’t feel that it is the appropriate franchise for blood and guts, there are times that I want to play a game that combines the mechanics of Zelda and the visceral feel of a game like God of War.  Darksiders does just that and I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that.

It’s easy, as a reviewer to fall into easy critical traps and I’m of the mind that knocking a game for using another game’s mechanics is one of those traps. If I go to a restaurant and order a bacon cheeseburger, I’m not upset that the chef took a beef patty, cooked it and then put cheese and bacon on it.  That’s what I wanted and while I may be happy to entertain some sort of alternate take on the sandwich, for the most part, I want what I ordered.  There has to be a place in gaming for bacon cheeseburgers where the only criticism is based on how good it tastes, the quality of the presentation and how well it fills you up.

Darksiders may not be incredibly original but it is one damn fine bacon cheeseburger.  For me, for right now, that’s more than enough.

Ever crave a low-resolution, ridiculously difficult game? Then Dungeon is for you. No, I didn’t get very far. Maybe you will.

Download Dungeon

I’ve often heard podcasters and other videogame journalists discuss 1998 in reverant tones. To hear many people talk about it, all the most amazing older games were released in 1998, and no year since has had such an amazing list of titles.

Let’s take a look at what games were actually released in 1998. Baldur’s Gate. Half-Life. StarCraft. Ocarina of Time. Metal Gear Solid. Thief: The Dark Project. Grim Fandango. Fallout 2. Resident Evil 2. That’s eight legendary titles, five of which launched their own very successful game franchises, the other three being sequels in successful game franchises. When you add Rainbow Six, Unreal, Banjo-Kazooie, and Final Fantasy Tactics into the mix, 1998 was one impressive year.

So let’s take a look at the decade between then and now and try to figure out whether 1998 is truly as good as it seems to have been. A sort of software release year death match, if you will.

1999.

Prince’s party year gave us Silent Hill, Planescape: Torment, Everquest, System Shock 2, Baldur’s Gate: Tales of the Sword Coast, and Super Smash Bros. for the N64. Not bad, but certainly no 1998. We also got Descent, Final Fantasy VIII, Ultima: Ascension, and Donkey Kong 64.

2000.

The Y2K year brought us The Sims, Deus Ex, Diablo 2, Baldur’s Gate 2, Thief 2, Icewind Dale, Resident Evil: Code Veronica, Vagrant Story, MechWarrior 4, Final Fantasy IX, and Majora’s Mask. A pretty good haul, but only two franchise-starters. Diablo 2 and Baldur’s Gate 2 were certainly both huge, but it’s no 1998. Sacrifice, Chrono Cross, Escape from Monkey Island, and The Longest Journey were also released in 2000.

2001.

The first year of the new milennium gave us Halo, Super Smash Bros. Melee, Max Payne, Ico, Arcanum, Grand Theft Auto 3, Devil May Cry, Metal Gear Solid 2, Advance Wars, Dragon Warrior VII, Silent Hill 2, Final Fantasy X, and the Throne of Bhaal expansion for Baldur’s Gate 2. Some good stuff, but it still can’t compete with 1998.

2002.

In 2002, we got Neverwinter Nights, Dungeon Siege, Morrowind, Battlefield 1942, Kingdom Hearts, Ratchet & Clank, Splinter Cell, Warcraft 3, Jedi Knight 2, Metroid Prime, and GTA: Vice City. Once again, slim pickings compared to 1998.

2003.

2003 brought us Beyond Good & Evil. Already sounding good. Also, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, Deus Ex, Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, Galactic Civilizations, Fire Emblem, Wind Waker, Mario Kart: Double Dash, Max Payne 2, SimCity 4, Civilization 3, Silent Hill 3, Devil May Cry 2, Jak 2, and the first Call of Duty. Good year. Comes fairly close to 1998. But Prince of Persia, KotOR, and Deus Ex don’t match up to Baldur’s Gate, Half-Life, Starcraft, and Metal Gear Solid.

2004.

In 2004, World of Warcraft came out. Also, Halo 2, Half-Life 2, Far Cry, Katamari Damacy, The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay, Fable, Killzone, Vampire: The Masquerade: Bloodlines, City of Heroes, EverQuest II, Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earth, Myst IV, The Sims 2, Thief: Deadly Shadows, Doom 3, Knights of the Old Republic 2, Metal Gear Solid 3, Prince of Persia: Warrior Within, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, Metroid Prime 2, Silent Hill 4, Jak 3, Final Fantasy XI, and Unreal Tournament 2004. Lots and lots of releases. But in my opinion, the big ones don’t quite reach the caliber of the games released in 1998.

2005.

2005 might be the first year that’s a true contender to 1998. A bit part of that is that 2005 is when the Playstation 2 really reached its peak. I’m still of the opinion that the Playstation 2 might be the best game console ever. In 2005, we saw the release of Guitar Hero, Resident Evil 4, God of War, Shadow of the Colossus, Psychonauts, Jade Empire, Indigo Prophecy, Civilization IV, Doom 3, Lego Star Wars, Dungeon Siege 2, Killer7, Call of Duty 2, Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones, Condemned: Criminal Origins, Mario Kart DS, Destroy All Humans, Meteos, Lumines, Nintendogs, and Guild Wars. Guitar Hero, God of War, and the Lego games became big franchises. Resident Evil, Civ, Call of Duty, Prince of Persia, and Doom were already big game franchises. And there are some other excellent games in the mix too: Shadow of the Colossus, Psychonauts, Jade Empire, and Indigo Prophecy are big favorites of mine. It really is amazing how many of the good games in 2005 were Playstation 2 games.

The sheer volume of games blows 1998 away, especially considering that 2005 also saw the release of GTA: Liberty City Stories, The Matrix Online, Quake 4, Age of Empires 3, Dragon Quest VIII, Advance Wars: Dual Strike, and a couple Warioware games. Call me a heretic, but I’m willing to say that 2005 was at least the equal of 1998, and if you like enough of the abovementioned games, you might consider it superior. Let’s keep looking at later years.

2006.

2006 is when the current generation of consoles showed up. This brought us a great list of games including The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, Gears of War, Oblivion, Okami, Dark Messiah of Might and Magic, Company of Heroes, Final Fantasy XII, Resistance: Fall of Man, Half-Life 2: Episode One, Titan Quest, Marvel: Ultimate Alliance, Prey, Chromehounds, Dead Rising, Splinter Cell: Double Agent, Star Wars: Empire at War, Dreamfall: The Longest Journey, Tomb Raider: Legend. The volume of games has gone way up. There were also a lot of sequels: Neverwinter Nights 2, Galactic Civilizations 2, LEGO Star Wars 2, Kingdom Hearts 2, Battlefield 2, Battle for Middle Earth 2, Guitar Hero 2, and Call of Duty 3. The Nintendo DS Lite also came out, and brought with it games like Metroid Prime Hunters, Brain Age, and New Super Mario Bros. Perhaps not quite as good as 2005, but the XBox 360, Nintendo Wii, and Playstation 3 were still new.

2007.

In 2007, we saw some downright amazing games. My “best-of” list includes The Orange Box, BioShock, Rock Band, Mass Effect, Halo 3, Super Mario Galaxy, Crysis, Assassin’s Creed, Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune, God of War 2, S.T.A.L.K.E.R., The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass, Call of Duty 4, Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles, and WoW’s Burning Crusade expansion. Those were the good ones. But there was also a lot of what I think of as fluff: The Witcher, Warhawk, Contra 4, Eternal Sonata, Heavenly Sword, The Darkness, Overlord, Lair, Stranglehold, Brain Age 2, Metroid Prime 3, Ratchet & Clank Future, Tabula Rasa, and Lost Planet. But even with the fluff, that first part of the list is seriously impressive for one year. It’s very hard to look at 1998 and make an argument that it was a better year than 2007.

2008.

2008 made 1998 its bitch. No More Heroes, LittleBigPlanet, Dead Space, Grand Theft Auto 4, Fable 2, Fallout 3, Left 4 Dead, Metal Gear Solid 4, Super Smash Bros Brawl, Rock Band 2, De Blob, Sins of a Solar Empire, God of War: Chains of Olympus, Supreme Commander, Red Alert 3, Mario Kart Wii, Boom Blox, Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, Gears of War 2, Resistance 2, Valkyria Chronicles, Far Cry 2, Mirror’s Edge, Prince of Persia, Saints Row 2, Call of Duty: World at War, Rainbow Six: Vegas 2, and the second Penny Arcade game. You might not like every one of those games, but if you do like video games, there’s going to be more than one in that list that you like. The fluff games in 2008 included Too Human, Army of Two, Condemned 2, Dark Sector, Crysis Warhead, Devil May Cry 4, Haze, Lego Indiana Jones, Lego Batman, Silent Hill: Homecoming, Wii Music. Even those aren’t horrible.

2009.

So how does this year stack up to 2008, 2005, and 1998? We’ve got Dragon Age: Origins, Street Fighter IV, Uncharted 2, Borderlands, Modern Warfare 2, Demon’s Souls, Brütal Legend, Trine, Torchlight, Batman: Arkham Asylum, Assassin’s Creed II, Left 4 Dead 2, Scribblenauts, Zelda: Spirit Tracks, Resident Evil 5, Ghostbusters, Assault on Dark Athena, F.E.A.R. 2, New Super Mario Bros. Wii, Red Faction: Guerrilla, Muramasa, Prototype, inFamous, Wolfenstein, Fat Princess, Galactrix, Halo Wars, Killzone 2, Bowser’s Inside Story, MadWorld, Fl0wer, Resident Evil: Darkside Chronicles, and the Punch-Out remake.

Wow. Just… wow. When you look at it this way, it becomes fairly clear that the quantity of games is going up, and the quality, while it may fluctuate from year to year, really isn’t going down. Very little fluff in 2009. The Conduit, Overlord 2, maybe Dead Space: Extraction and Muramasa. But even games like Bionic Commando and Still Life 2 seem pretty good, although I haven’t played either.

2010 is looking fantastic too, with games like Starcraft 2, Heavy Rain, No More Heroes 2, Alan Wake, God of War 3, Bioshock 2, Mass Effect 2, Final Fantasy XIII, and Alpha Protocol. Who knows what else will be announced?

For a game that was created from start to finish in 17 days, and was allowed to have no higher than a 100×100 pixel resolution, Vignettes isn’t half bad. Rather than say more, I’ll direct you to the Indigo Static website, where you can read the creator’s commentary.

Download Vignettes

One of the oldest game genres is the platformer, so named because you play a character that jumps to and from suspended platforms. Contra, Bionic Commando, Sonic the Hedgehog, and Super Mario Brothers all fall into this category.

I should make it clear here that I never got into Super Mario World or Mario 64, largely since I never owned those Nintendo Consoles. I know that those games were huge and everybody and their cat has incredibly fond memories of them, but alas - I don’t. I likewise never played any of the Tomb Raider games. Ever. Obviously, I am defective. Other platformer franchises lacking from my repetoire: Jak & Daxter, Ratchet & Clank, Laurel & Hardy.

In looking back at my favorite platformers, I’ve got to notice that all but one are 2D platformers. It just seems like the 3D platformers as a rule just don’t work as well. First-person platforming like Mirror’s Edge or the horrible platforming portions in the original Half-Life just don’t work. While third-person platforming in 3D games is generally better, it can fail pretty hard at times. The 3D platforming in games like Super Mario Galaxy and Psychonauts was mostly okay, but the platforming in Prince of Persia: Sands of Time and Star Wars: The Force Unleashed annoyed me so much that I had to stop playing both those games before I’d gotten a quarter into either.

So now, I’d like to share my own favorite platformers, going back as far as the early eighties.

• Jumpman (Commodore 64, 1983)
  
  Jumpman’s great strength was its variety. While in the game’s early levels the premise was as simple as running around, jumping over monsters, and colecting red dots, the later levels got far more complex and varied. In some levels, you had a gun, and the button would fire the gun instead of jumping. One level let you throw lances to kill a dragon. Many levels are very puzzle-like, containing triggers that open or close doors, add or remove sections of floor, or move floating platforms. In one level, you create an explosion each time you jump. And I remember one level that generated clones every five seconds who would follow your exact path in the same way as the shadow selves in Braid - if a clone touched you, you died, so you had to keep moving.All of the above is from memory, but reading through the wikipedia page now, I see that there were 30 levels in the game. I always played on “randomizer” so as to experience the later levels I’d never have reached if I were playing straight through.Jumpman is supposed to (eventually) be released for the Wii Virtual Console, but if you’re impatient, a fan remake is available here.

• The Great Giana Sisters (Commodore 64, 1987)
  The version of this game that my brothers and I always used to play was a hacked version. The sprites had been changed to make them look like Super Mario Brothers. The levels were far far different from the actual Super Mario Brothers game, but they were fun, and they were at some points very difficult. But I was 15 years old. I got very good at the game, and played a lot of it. My brothers and I still have fond memories of inventing stupid names for each of the game’s monsters.

• Kenseiden (Sega Master System, 1988)
  I never owned a Sega Master system, but I borrowed one from a friend for a few months when he’d moved along to some better console - perhaps a Genesis. My favorite game on the SMS was Kenseiden. You played a Samurai, fighting various monsters, spirits, and demons. Each time you beat one of the game’s bosses, you’d get a scroll which detailed a samurai sword technique. You could gain overhead slashes, running cuts, and higher jumps.The game’s sixteen levels also had branching paths - you could skip certain portions of the game and take the path you wanted. I don’t remember seeing this in any other contemporary platformers until Castlevania 3, a few years later.

• Double Dragon 2 (Nintendo, 1988)
  The Double Dragon series is half platformer, half side-scrolling beat-em-up. I’d played the original Double Dragon, and I later played Double Dragon 3, but what I really liked about Double Dragon 2 was the variety of moves available. I suppose I liked the game for many of the same reasons I fell in love with Street Fighter 2. The spinning hurricaine kick was easy. The super uppercut was harder, but still doable 90% of the time. The tough one was the jumping hyper knee.In Double Dragon 2, you could punch your enemy and get him into a headlock. From there, you could give him overhead elbows, knee him in the stomach, or throw him over your shoulder. You could also kick him straight out of the headlock. This allowed you to throw enemies over cliffs, instantly killing even the tougher ones. I used to go through entire levels trying to throw or kick every single enemy over a cliff. It was fun.

• Castlevania 3: Dracula’s Curse (Nintendo, 1990)
  Maybe it was just because Castlevania 3 was the first game in the series that I really got into, but I absolutely loved this game. Maybe it was because you could pick up extra traveling companions along the way - there were 3 extra characters, and depending on the path through the game you chose, (branching paths!) you could pick up Syfa, Alucard, or Grant. Grant was a pirate character who could climb on walls, Alucard was a vampire and could throw fireballs and change into a bat, and Syfa was a wizard who could cast various spells instead of throwing axes and knives. Awesome.

• Castlevania: Symphony of the Night (Playstation, 1997)
  I played Symphony of the Night on my Playstation and was immediately blown away. Amazing game. The game’s music was better than anything I’d ever heard. And the addition of RPG elements such as leveling and equipment changed Castlevania in a fundemental way that has carried through in all of its successors. Although I hear a lot of hype today about how Borderlands is changing things up by combining RPGs and Shooters, Symphony of the Night did that more than ten years ago when they combined RPGs and Platformers. They also added in Street Fighter like movements in for casting spells and using certain items’ special abilities. The number of secret spells and abilities in the game is huge. And hidden areas are absolutely everywhere. I don’t think there’s any platformer that I’ve put as much time into as I have Symphony of the Night.

• Super Mario Galaxy (Nintendo Wii, 2007)
  Mario Galaxy is the only 3D platformer on this list. While games like Trine and LittleBigPlanet run on a 3D engine, they’re still fundamentally 2D in their gameplay. Super Mario Galaxy is a truly 3D platformer, harking back to Mario 64. The levels are incredibly varied, allowing for flying levels, underwater levels, 2D levels, ray surfing levels, and even a Monkeyball level. The power-ups are equally as varied, and you can complete the game without being forced to complete the 30 most difficult levels. Personally, I only got 96 stars.

• Trine (Playstation Network, 2009)
  
  Yes, I rave about Trine quite often. I love the game. It definitely belongs here amongst the ranks of the best platform games I’ve ever played. You’ve got three characters, each of whom go up in levels and gather loot synchronously, and you can play with two or three players should you be so inclined. The game’s puzzles tend to have more than one solution, so if your wizard dies, it’s likely that you can get across that chasm without creating a magical bridge. Plus, the game has some very doable trophies, and it’s fun for me to think that there’s a game out there other than Plants versus Zombies in which I’m actually capable of getting 100% completion. A platinum trophy? Geez - I’ve never yet even gotten a gold one. Sign me up.

This is the wackiest version of Final Fight I’ve ever seen. Back in the day, I was one of those guys in the arcade who dumped tons of quarters into Final Fight and beat the game. I generally would play Guy. Occasionally, Haggar.

In this version, you’re fighting Skeletons and Mongols instead of gang members. It’s weird. Check it out.

Play Final Fight

Most game settings are just fluff. Even some of the games I really like have dreadfully generic settings. When you read about Borderlands, the description of Pandora sounds really interesting. In the game, it’s beautiful to look at, but doesn’t have much character. The world in Dungeon Siege is huge, but kind of boring. Even the world in Bioshock which so many people rave about didn’t grab me. The dynamics and the backstory behind the Little Sisters and the Big Daddies are intriguing and have a lot of potential, but I’d have liked more. More complexity, more history, more… something. I guess that Bioshock 2 is going to give us a lot of this, but imagine if there had been a plasmid that allowed people to breathe water and thus leave the underwater city into the ocean. Andrew Ryan would protest and even outlaw their departure and they would become their own independant faction, raiding for supplies and becoming a new enemy to fight. That’s one idea - I could come up with these all day. i’ve become sidetracked, but my point is that I wish they’d have taken the setting further.

So what about the game settings I do like?

Ultima
I first entered Sosaria when I got a copy of Ultima III for my tenth birthday. Sosaria was a crude world, like the worlds of Ultima I and Ultima II before it. Later, I played Ultima IV, which introduced the world of Brittania. Somewhere between ultima IV and Ultima V, I fell in love with Brittania. Between those two games, I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that I’d spent a thousand hours in Brittania. Don’t be shocked - I’ve heard of at least one person who took 15 years to finish the game. On summer vacations, I’d spend all day playing, and stay up until well after midnight.

The game’s crude graphics didn’t exactly lend a vivid sense of realism, but they forced me to use my imagination in the same way that reading a book does. As I travelled south down the coast from Britain to Paws, I imagined the seashore, and envisioned what that must look like. When I exited the eighth level of a dungeon into the Underworld, I thought of just how dark the sunless world must be, and imagined the dank smell of stagnant air. Travelling through the poisonous swamps near the village of Cove brought to mind visions of The Swamp of Sadness from the Neverending Story, except with more disease and rotted overgrowth. The game’s poor graphics forced me to use my imagination. To me, that was a vivid world, and I grew to know it well.

Starcraft
Starcraft doesn’t have much in the way of landscape - just different maps that you fight on. But somehow, the setting calls to me. It’s a space opera, and the races are far more interesting than Klingons, Wookiees and Sebacians. When Starcraft: Ghost was annnounced, I was very excited to enter that world and see Mutalisks and Ultralisks up close. Walking amongst Protoss pylons in top-down Starcraft is one thing, but to envision a Terran Command Center lifting off or a zergling ambush from first-person perspective is fairly exciting. I would absolutely love to see a game in the Starcraft setting that is not a RTS.

Beyond Good and Evil
It’s not the geography of Hillys that calls to me, but rather its inhabitants. In real life, we think of ethnic diversity in terms of Caucasians, Asians, Africans, and Hispanics. On planet Hillys, the inhabitants aren’t only the human descendants of Apes. They’ve also descended from pigs, rhinos, cats, sharks, and hippos. The notion seems so wildly creative.

Half-Life 2
The opening of Half-Life 2 expresses so effectively the oppressive atmosphere that exists in City 17. The people of planet Earth have been conquered by an alien invasion, and the cities are nothing more than internment camps - even the names of the cities have been taken away. This is an excellent example of the “showing rather than telling” technique of authorship. They show you the horribly oppressed people and then put a crowbar in your hands and let you fight for them.

The story is as epic as the Star Wars trilogy and the setting as rich as any I’ve seen. This page does a fantastic job of laying out the timeline, filling in the backstory, and putting forth theories as to the motives of the mysterious G-Man. I’m eagerly waiting for Half-Life 2 episode 3, mainly to see where the story goes.

Oblivion
I never played Morrowind or any of the other Elder Scrolls games before Oblivion. But when I heard all the buzz about Oblivion on a discussion board I frequent, I had to try it. Oblivion is one of the most atmospheric games I’ve ever played - from the sunny mountain peaks to the swampy villages to the eerie Ayleid ruins.

Tamriel is one of those game worlds where I can easily envision the routes from place to place. The game locations seemed like real places to me. The game’s landmarks and road signs are distinct, and the terrain is varied such that I can find the way from Bruma to Chorrol without even having to consult the map.

Dragon Age
Perhaps more than any of the other game worlds listed above, the world of Dragon Age has been fleshed out wonderfully. The circle of mages that are watched over by templars to ensure that their magic doesn’t enable them to be posessed by demonic forces. The dwarven caste system, so rigid, so unfair. The seven old gods being gradually corrupted by the darkspawn, leading to blights. The enslavement of elvenkind by humanity, which has been abolished, and which has lead to the current split in the elven race. It’s all so intriguing - I’m totally absorbed in this world and its story.

I’d be interested to hear comments from other readers - what is your favorite video game setting?

I really love PC Gaming. I tend to play the vast majority of my games on the PC, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Peoples’ main objections to gaming on a PC tend to be twofold: firstly, that gaming PCs are too expensive. Secondly, that installation and troubleshooting in a Windows environment are a pain. I’ll certainly agree that consoles are easier to use, but in my opinion the advantages of gaming with a PC far outweigh the disadvantages. Plus, I hate playing shooters without a mouse.

As far as expenses, I tend to spend roughly $1000 every five years or so on a new gaming PC, and perhaps I’ll upgrade my graphics card once for each PC. So we’re talking about maybe $2500 or so each decade. Ten years is a long time - it averages out to about $20 per month. And gaming is by no means the only thing I use the PC for. Best of all, when you do get a new PC, the old one is likely still viable for other things. I’ve turned my old gaming PC into a media server, and I use it to store all my music, movies, and photos.

People rave about the great graphics on their 1080p displays when they play XBox 360 or PS3 games, but I haven’t played a game in 1080p on the PC in years. I’m currently running games at 1680×1050. If you have a decent graphics card, you can boost the graphics on a PC well above 1080p without much trouble. And if it’s a newer game that’s more graphically demanding, the PC will scale. You can change your graphics options to achieve a balance between graphics and performance.

Also, games on the PC tend to be $10 less than their console counterparts. If you play a lot of games, those increments of $10 will start adding up, making your investment in the PC a good one.

Another thing I really enjoy with the PC is the ability to replay older games using mods. Whether it’s replaying the original Baldur’s Gate using EasyTutu, running Thief: Deadly Shadows with improved textures and remapped mouse controls, installing Circle of Eight’s mods for Temple of Elemental Evil, or using the wealth of modifications available for Oblivion, user-created mods have greatly increased the replayability of some already excellent older games.

One of the few shortcomings I see with PC gaming is that aside from the few games that implement the terrible Games for Windows Live system, PC games have no achievements. There are Steam Achievements for a few Steam games such as Plants vs Zombies and the Half-Life 2 episodes, but PC games tend to not have the same online connectivity as XBox 360 and even PS3 games. But services like Raptr now provide desktop clients and gamercards that you can post online. I use Raptr’s desktop client, and have coded the gamercards on the left sidebar of this site to read data directly from Raptr so that I don’t have to do anything manually. Unless I play a PS3 game like Trine.

Call me a PC fanboy, I don’t care.