PC

Here's the full interview with Greg Rice, producer at the great indie studio, Double Fine Productions! If you're not already aware, Double Fine is the home of gaming legends Tim Schafer and Ron Gilbert. Their past console successes include Psychonauts and Brutal Legend. Their more recent games include the downloadable wonders Costume Quest, Iron Brigade, Happy Action Theater, and Stacking!

....Oh yeah, and they raised millions on Kickstarter in mere days to fund their upcoming adventure game; and don't you know that Greg had a huge part in this!?

Thanks for watching, and enjoy!

When Easy is Too Hard

HIGH Finally beating the game after a solid hour of continuous failure.

LOW Unavoidable special attacks.

WTF The last boss comes out of nowhere, plot-wise.

Attack of the Sidewalk-Surfing Cube Gleamers!

HIGH Winning a four-player game of graffiti by a single "tag."

LOW All these years later, I still suck at the nearly-impossible Downhill Jam.

WTF They didn't just preserve "hobo-bothering" as an objective, they added more of it?!

The guys at Extra Credits look into incorporating imbalance in a game. Ironically, imbalance is just the thing that when worked into character classes, weapons, tools and gameplay rules can wind up giving both the wet-behind-the-ears newbie and grizzled veteran new strategies as each plays and progresses through a game.

Survival horror games aren't what they used to be. Once upon a time, they were about survival and horror. It makes sense. It's what the genre is called, after all. These titles would encompass qualities of mystery and exploration as the player fought to stay alive with every step. Over the years, they've increasingly become about action, gunfights, and an overload of cheap jump scares. I prefer the former, despite a plethora of the latter.

Falling Short of Inspiration

HIGH The impact of a perfectly-aimed tank round on a punk riding a trike.

LOW Getting stuck in the level geometry three times per game.

WTF No team deathmatch? In an FPS?!

Numbers Game

HIGH Mopping up a roomful of baddies with a buddy in short order makes you giddy.

LOW My low level runthrough gave me +5 Gray Hairs.

WTF Me: "Did we just murder the Ninja Turtles?"

No Sympathy for this Devil

HIGH Finally figuring out how to get that woman to climb into the bath so I can electrocute her!

LOW Why is Satan's son involved in a boss fight?

WTF Whoever edited these kill videos may have a slight gore fetish...

Psycho in the Car with Pistols

HIGH Figuring out, after multiple deaths, how to take down a whole level in seconds.

LOW The queasy, terrible stealth level.

WTF Almost every moment of this game is a WTF.

I was listening to a podcast recently (and I've heard this same thing multiple times from other people over the last week or so) and I was shaking my head at the way the speakers were discussing recent Events Which Shall Not Be Named. Over and over, they were so insistent that reviewers are "getting paid off" for good scores.