Snapshots #2: calm & havoc
Someone will find it unlikely, but I’m still dealing with the system restore a month after (and waiting to upgrade to Windows 7): to have to download the newest version of any program every time (maybe waiting for hours on eMule) makes you tired hence I’m going forward with the work only within snippets of time and sometimes during weekend. Conversely, after the old crap of the last time, I’m currently falling prey of the almost uncontrollable desire to get and play to whatever taste like “contemporary”.
Let’s start from Braid, the little gem made by indie developer Jonathan Blow first released on Xbox and then (on April 2009) on PC. A clever and very well made mix (for the few screens I’ve seen so far) of platformer and puzzle game, Braid is something coming closer to interactive poetry than entertainment. And I must admit I’m having a hard time not classifying it as “art”, being myself persuaded about the fact that video games can’t be art for several reasons (choral development, economic factors etc.) for some time now.
Just talk about paradoxes&coherence: I have never been particularly fond of the Street Fighter saga but I’ve basically played to all the games from the main series, in 2D as well as in 3D in the arcades as under emulation (SF 1, SF II, SSF II, SF III, SF EX, …). Maybe it’s because I’m particularly bound to Capcom, but I’ve felt the obligation to try this Street Fighter IV too after having read and seen all sort of things about it during the past months. And I can confirm: the Japanese developer succeeded in reproposing the same, worn and boring 2D beat’em up stuff by putting it in a modern context (styled 3D with magnificent special effects) and adding up some features (the Focus Attack) that will take me a lifetime to learn to exploit as it should be 
And talking about welcomed returns there is this one of Serious Sam HD: The First Encounter too, ie the “remixed” version of the original game that in 2001 mocked serial FPSes that were taking themselves too seriously and which (ironically) became a series itself that will get a third episode in the upcoming future. Funny, bloody and dull as always, even though the things I remembered about SS were a little more difficult starting sessions compared to the first screens of this “HD” version…
Related posts
- CPU upgrade, from T6400 to X9100. Because 3 GHz are way better than 2 GHz…
- Capcom best selling series mark the history of videogames
- Street Fighter IV at 2 millions, waiting for the PC version
- Street Fighter IV won’t come to USA arcades
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