I don’t know if games are just getting shorter or easier or if developers are just getting stingier with previews, but I remember a time when I couldn’t install, play through, and uninstall two demos in under an hour. To save you a little time, here are my thoughts on Ankh and TimeShift. The former is more a curiosity really, unremarkable other than the fact it’s a proper, old school point-and-click adventure game. Vivid characters and amusing dialogue make it a decent enough offering from the small German studio, but it’s no Grim Fandango. More interesting, in fact, is the “online riddle” to accompany the game’s website, created by the makers of the fantastically infuriating Notpron.
TimeShift is a high concept action game in which you play Swift, the world’s first chrononaut, equipped with a quantum suit that allows you to slow down, stop, and reverse the flow of time while engaging in futuristic firefights. Although it sounds like a new experience, it’s really just a blend of elements we’ve seen before in Prince of Persia’s time-reversal, F.E.A.R.’s adrenaline, and Max Payne’s bullet-time. Each of these games weaved one element into the gameplay seamlessly. From this demo it was too short to tell, but aside from puzzles designed round the — err — time shifts, the whole system feels rather clunky. Oh, and if your graphics card lacks a nuclear-powered core, don’t expect much from the framerate either. Or is that some sort of special time effect? I can’t even tell.
Speaking of temporal shifts, I stumbled upon this touching trailer for a love that could never be, a relationship spanning time, Brokeback to the Future.
Toby plugged a photo of me into this facial recognition site and I’m rather proud of the result to be honest.
A JCR forum post reminded me that I’d been intending to direct facebook addicts towards the Cambridge division’s facebook song. I consider it a vast improvement over the indie whining of Facebook Friends or the hip hop stylings of Facebook Livin from our transatlantic brethren. Peace. Out.
4 February 2006 at 5:31 pm
I wonder if they will be showing brokeback to the future in the arts picturehouse?
Incidentally, it wasn’t lufa who posted that, but is a ruling song:D
4 February 2006 at 5:37 pm
Oops, it was Lucy. I clearly read the “lu” and then switched off, especially since it was you who replied to that thread… :”>
4 February 2006 at 8:16 pm
What, you’re proud to look like a mixture of Harrison Ford, the Dalai Lama and Andie MacDowell??? :))
But I want this thing to be rubbish anyway. They told me I’d look like Kirsten Dunst. Or Katie Holmes. :-@