Narration is not something you often see in games. For fans of film, narration as a means of exposition is something that is not unheard of. In games, especially outside of cutscenes or story moments, is not something that is often explored. At least I thought it wasn’t, until I played this year’s indie darling, Bastion, and discovered my love for narration all over again. Of course, Bastion is a much smaller game that doesn’t leave as much open in terms of exploration or choice. It made me wonder, could Bastion-style narration work in an open-world game? READ MORE
I never need a reason to re-read a good chunk of the Penny Arcade archive. At least once every six months or so, I’ll whittle away an afternoon by clicking on a random date and reading onward. When they finally started putting the comics out in print form with the collected trade paperback volumes available at retail, it was all over. I own each of them and they’re practically hanging off the spine because PA’s gag-a-day format makes it so easy to pick up and hard to put back down. Gabe and Tycho just celebrated their 13th anniversary as the creative team behind one of the most wonderful and enduring pieces of internet humor ever. READ MORE
Ubisoft pulled off an amazing feat. They created a game with a great concept but flawed execution, took notes about what people did and didn’t like and then came back to us with Assassin’s Creed II, a game loved by just about everybody. With Brotherhood, they added the ability manage a whole team of assassins and a more rewarding combat system. It should be no surprise that Revelations is a game full of incremental improvements over its predecessor, and when you’re following up a game as good as Brotherhood, you don’t need a monumental jump in quality. It is enough to revisit Ezio and Altaïr as the overarching story moves forward. READ MORE
This week was totally crazy. In the new episode, we discuss the revelation-free Assassin’s Creed: Revelations, the totally-gorgeous Rayman Origins, the pretty-good Super Mario 3D Land, the pleasantly-iterative Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 and… um, Gemini Rue for some reason, even though it didn’t release this week. Oh, and join the new Snackbar Community Steam group!
Everyone does Top 10 Games lists. The problem with those? Usually, they’re full of games that earn a place because of nostalgia or industry significance. Here at Snackbar Games, we like being a little more practical: if you’re looking to just have fun, what games should you pick up and play today? This time, we’re looking at one of the best consoles for aging gracefully: Nintendo’s SNES. READ MORE
