The Gun That Won the West

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I wrote a few articles in the past talking about some of my favorite firearms in video games, and after replaying Half Life 2 and seeing Father Grigori using the Winchester rifle I realized I needed to dedicate an article to the Wild West classic that didn’t stay dead. The Winchester rifle is an iconic firearm in western period pieces, designed for horseback riding and utilizing a lever-action reloading system that, while used by many guns at the time, nowadays is almost synonymous with the Winchester name itself. It’s a high-powered single-shot rifle with an iconic appearance, and that’s more than enough… [Continue Reading]

The Helminth Illness

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Fuck you, infested stuff.

There’s a new Warframe in town, the annoyingly hard to get Nidus. He comes with a half good, half awful quest to get his blueprint and can only be obtained via the C rotation of rewards on a pain in the ass mission. Nidus’s update, the Glast Gambit (weird title, right?) came with a lot of ups and downs. The ups mostly being a new sparring weapon after the first two were released three years ago and the impressively good abilities Nidus has, the downs mostly being the second half of the Glast Gambit quest and the research costs of… [Continue Reading]

The Floating Nut Sack of Suckiness

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The Floating Nutsack of Suckiness is probably one of the most useful things around. It happily floats behind you, sucking loot towards you and minding its own business. Give it a shotgun and it will shoot things. Give it more shields and it’ll buff you when your shield runs out. Give it an ammo case and it will convert dropped ammo you can’t use into dropped ammo you can’t use. Let it die in a fiery explosion and it has a chance of giving you rare items. I’m of course talking about the Carrier. The Carrier is one of a… [Continue Reading]

How to Design Enemies That Are Truly Scary

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There are many, many enemies in video games designed to be scary, and I wanted to take some time to talk about ways to make enemies that fulfill this trope without resorting to “cheap” tactics like jumpscares or making them speedy OHKOs. Note that this article is mostly interested in “normal” enemies, not single boss-like monsters (like Spider from LIMBO) or full-fledged NPCs (like Pyramid Head from Silent Hill). Also I’m not an art major so my focus is on game mechanics and AI behaviors, and less on appearances. One of the scariest monsters I’ve had to fight in any game was… [Continue Reading]

The Tenno Queen of the Pixies

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This involved waiting for day/night cycles on Earth.

I joined Warframe during the Specters of the Rail update. Not long afterwards, a new character was added, whose construction involved collecting ingredients on various planets, mainly Earth. This was great for newbie me, because it meant loads of high level players were around to do the harder mission types, like Mobile Defence and Survival. I would also see people actually taking their time on missions, something that would become a rare sight later on in my Warframe adventures. But eventually, I moved away from Earth and made my journey around the solar system. I saw a handful of people… [Continue Reading]

The Planeswalker Helm

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First banner art

The Planeswalker Helm? That ugly-looking Medic helmet? Yes, that helmet that looks like the gutted-out carapace of a deformed shellfish slapped onto the Medic’s head. The Planeswalker Helm is a promotional item for for people who pre-ordered  Magic: The Gathering – Duels of the Planeswalkers 2012. It’s based on Garruk Wildspeaker, a planeswalker, which is a sort of powerful ascended being in the Magic: The Gathering lore. Garruk himself is a 8 feet 2 inches, 480 lbs beast of a man who’s a warrior-druid that wields a pretty sweet axe and prefers the wild. About the only connection he has… [Continue Reading]

Fixing Killing Floor 2’s PvP Mode

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About a month ago I received this shifty-looking email: There were more than enough red flags to just delete it, but I agreed despite not knowing who they were. I’m glad I wasn’t my normally-apprehensive self, because it turned out to be Tripwire and now I’m signed up to playtest the much-maligned Versus Mode in the near future. I’m looking forward to getting to weigh in on a mode that I’d really like to succeed. And I thought I could take some time and write an article on my current thoughts of Killing Floor 2‘s Versus mode and what problems it… [Continue Reading]

Refunct

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Refunct is, by design, simple. Astonishingly so. But that’s all it needs to be in order to be fun. It’s a first-person 3D platformer at its most pure. The objective of the game? Colour everything in and bring the world to life. It’s a giant blank colouring book you can freerun in. What’s not to love? The red beacon leads to a big red button, which when you step on it, reveals more white squares and another button… And another button… And another- But the game is happy to let you loose in the world and let you go where… [Continue Reading]

Absolutely Drawful

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Most of your games will look like this but probably funnier.

I’ve always considered myself somewhat good at art. I can draw a stick figure, at least. I can also draw lots of other things if I put my mind to it, and really, the only things that hold me back are the fact that I only ever seem to draw on shitty paper with a biro and my own self loathing. Being good at drawing runs in the family… apart from my poor dad, who can’t really draw a stick figure. But none of that matters. Not when Drawful is around! Drawful is a game featured in the Jackbox Party… [Continue Reading]

Hello 2017!

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Yeah, I know Volt, that really does sound like a stupid system. What if a Grineer guy needs to get in?

Oh look! It’s 2017! 2016 has finally buggered off! Yay! Confetti! Balloons! Celebrations! People walking home all tired and drunk because they stayed up too late last night! Even more people sleeping in because of late night partying! And a bunch of people just living out their lives and not caring. I’m in the latter group. I’m a boring person who doesn’t smoke, drink, take drugs, gamble or do anything interesting. The biggest risk I’ve made recently was charging my laptop for five minutes at 9pm so I could finish a mission and I managed to lose. Hence why I’m… [Continue Reading]