09
Dec
30
2009 Art Review
2009 was a great year. I had the opportunity to watch/play/read/listen several great games, films and books. This list is what I could remember.
Games
Most, but not all, I finished
- Braid - PC
- Broken Sword: Shadow of the Templars - Wii
- The Beatles: Rockband - Wii
- Dawn of Discovery - Wii
- de Blob - Wii
- Dragon Age - PC
- Drakensang: The Dark Eye - PC
- Machinarium - PC
- Neverhood - PC
- Planescape Torment - PC
- Race Driver: GRID - PC
- Torchlight - PC
- The Witcher - PC
Movies
- 5cm Per Second
- Akira
- Amadeus
- Army of Shadows
- Citizen Kane
- Cowboy Bebop
- The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie
- Doctor Zhivago
- Drag Me to Hell
- Ghost in The Shell
- The Hangover
- Helvetica
- Home
- The Hurt Locker
- Lady Vengeance
- The Manchurian Candidate
- Oldboy
- The Sinning
- Star Trek
- Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance
- Tokyo Godfathers
- Up
Books
Some of them I used the audiobook
- David Allen - Getting Things Done
- David Allen - Making It All Work
- Malcolm Gladwell - The Tipping Point
- Malcolm Gladwell - Blink
- Malcolm Gladwell - Outliers
- Peter F. Hamilton - Fallen Dragon
- Peter F. Hamilton - The Dreaming Void
- Peter F. Hamilton - The Temporal Void
- Raymond Kurzweil - The Age of Spiritual Machines
- Stephen King - The Dark Tower: The Waste Lands
- Stephen King - The Dark Tower: Wizard and Glass
- Umberto Eco - Foucault's Pendulum
And 2010 might be even better.
09
Jul
20
Planescape Torment
On my new RPG/Adventure wave, I've finally got the guts to test Planescape: Torment. It's a 1999 title and I heard a lot about it's storyline and very unique style. Well... I can tell: it's story is fantastic and the game is really unique.
Unique. The main character, The Nameless One, cannot die (he is already dead). The first travelling companion is a floating, disembodied skull named Morte (which the main magical power is taunting enemies!).
Unlike most RPGs, Planescape: Torment focus on story developing instead combat. The text behind the game is rich and imaginative providing a plausible story and a lot of fun. It was clearly a game way ahead of its time from a narrative perspective with its multiple ways to respond to any given character with dozens of sub categories. If you complete this game I'm almost most certain that you will write an review somewhere!
On the artistic point of view, the game is a masterpiece: the visual (consider its a 1999 title) is superb, which dark (and often rather sad) environments, tons and tons of dialogue lines and descriptions and the music itself, wow, I can only describe it as epic. Each character is memorable and they are so linked to the storyline that I could not tell anything about them without revealing the story itself.
On the technical level, the designers also made great decisions. The camera is much closer than its "cousin" Baldur's Gate, every new piece of information that might prove useful is recorded with Nameless One's comment, you cannot die.
It's a must have. Full stop.
09
Jul
6
The Witcher
A game just done right. High quality comes from two sources: originality (uniqueness) and perfection. The Witcher is not original: it's a RPG with the same dynamics from KotOR and other RPG/action games. But CDProjekt guys perfected it. It is important to say that i played the Enhanced Edition and not the original game.
You play the lank-haired Geralt of Rivia, a monster-killing mercenary known as a witcher who travels a medieval fantasy kingdom in search of jobs. Geralt is, basically, a battlemage who can freely switch between using a pair of great big swords to slay beasties and firing off spells with elemental magic signs.
The story is the great point. It doesn't use clichés and old used magic (well... except the amnesia thing). Its original and mature. In its original form, The Witcher's plot was intriguing and its characters interesting. The witcher Geralt is the most developed of all of the characters, and he carries the game on his mutated shoulders. Geralt is a true hero, and his place in RPG history is not to be taken lightly.
The Witcher stands out as a complex RPG with unique mechanics and an interactive, dynamic combat system. Add in mini-games to occupy downtime and a satisfying character progression, and The Witcher becomes one of the most rewarding Western RPGs in recent memory, giving Bioware some worthy competition.
Beyond the few odd graphical glitches, the rest of the game looks very good with a high quality fantasy art-style you will recognize as something from the Middle Ages, but it also has the right flair when needed as well as the right amount of fantasy when it is needed. The spell effects are also of high quality and one of the better looking graphical effects that come to mind in a RPG since Oblivion. Of course nice spell effects are not all that important if the rest of the game does not live up to the graphical potential, but it does.
One of the better offerings in the genre and worth picking up.
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