Meep!
Hiya, I'm Daniel Mears and this is my blog. For the moment, it mostly consists of brief game and music reviews I have written for the University of Sheffield's Forge Press.
Also, please feel free to give some of my music (of the indie/electro/pop variety) a listen on the aptly named "My Music" page.
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Category Archives: Gaming
Fract – IGF Student Showcase
Fract is all about its world. The mere sight of it – polygonal, vibrant and bestowed with an otherworldly sheen – is enough to end any argument about whether or not games are art. No other being shares Fract’s world with you, yet since its environment is possessed with such life, it never feels empty. Its world is constantly in motion; whilst beams of energy pulsate overhead, square shards descend from a sky lined with them, at one point your environment even reveals itself to be a vast music visualizer. Continue reading
Posted in Adventure, Gaming, Indie
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Super Meat Boy – Review
Ladies and gentlemen, I’m proud to say I’ve just completed Super Meat Boy… *awaits applause*. Shit, you know I’m lying don’t you, you know that I’ve only beat ‘the light world’ and thus haven’t seen my way through to ‘the real end’, I’m a fraud, a failure! *dumbfounded expression*. Oh you had no idea what I was on about in the first place.
Super Meat Boy is the perfect example of a platform game, so called because the aim of the game is to hop-skip your way across these platforms to the end of each level. Sounds idyllic doesn’t it? Well it would be if these levels weren’t also populated by giant circular saws, which all choose to situate themselves in the most unforgiving and perilous positions. It’s as if these whirring death-wheels feature more prominently than the platforms themselves. On a side note, if you’re the sort of sadistic soul craving more flavours of death, rest assured there are many more to be had. Continue reading
Posted in Gaming, Indie, Platform, Reviews
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The Penumbra Collection – Review
In 2006 indie developers Frictional Games released a tech demo called Penumbra showcasing a new sort of game, the first-person adventure. Like in the point and click adventures, the player progresses using his intellect; but unlike those games the player is immersed in an eerie 3D environment, so amazingly life-like that it could even simulate physics! Continue reading
Posted in Gaming, Horror, Reviews
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Malos Tiempos – My Worst Experience In A Game
The worst experience I’ve had would have to be in Eve: Online. Strangely, until my friend and I were talking about Eve a few weeks back, I had absolutely no recollection of it. Whether that’s because I was so traumatised by it, or because I simply have a bad memory, I’m not sure. Continue reading
Posted in Gaming, Irrelevance
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Amnesia: The Dark Descent – Review
Maybe it’s because as I write this review the student’s union has assumed it’s Halloween costume, or that recently I’ve been indulging in an unsafe amount of horror films… but wait, there is a reason why I believe horror ought to be better represented in gaming, and its because in a game you ought to not merely witness horror, but instead experience horror. Amnesia: The Dark Descent, a first-person adventurer from the indie developers Frictional Games undoubtedly proves this theory and should be held as an exemplar to any daring enough to approach horror gaming. Continue reading
Posted in Gaming, Horror, Reviews
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Lionheart: Kings’ Crusade – Review
The similarities are all too obvious: Lionheart owes a great deal to Creative Assembly’s popular Total War series; not only does this game visit a setting already depicted in Medieval: Total War, but the tutorial would have it seem that the game plays identically to it as well. This is a game where you play the role of a general, send tiny men to grisly deaths, and very occasionally, pause for thought and think “hmmm I could totally flank those Swordsmen with these badman Knights Templar”. Continue reading
Posted in Gaming, Reviews, Strategy
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Kings Bounty: Crossworlds GOTY Edition – Review
If there is something that cannot be denied about ‘Kings Bounty: Crossworlds Game of the Year Edition’, it is that it provides you with a good number of hours for your pennies. It contains both its recent predecessor ‘Kings Bounty: Armored Princess’ and a heap of new content in the shape of two new independent campaigns and extra stuff added onto Armored Princess’ original campaign. Continue reading
Posted in Gaming, Reviews, Strategy
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