Summer Games
Trenched
If you’re interested in new games out now, Trenched is one that seems tailor-made to my special nerd preferences. It’s got tower defense, third-person-shooting, mechs(!!!), mech-customization, an insanely deep cache of guns and turrets for your mech, and what has captured the meme-verse of the internet: analog salutes. Oh, and it’s made by Tim Schafer’s studio, Double-Fine, so it also has perfectly-tuned humor and creativity. A must-play if anything in the list above piqued your nerd-boner.
From Dust
Summer is the perfect time of year to release arty-games, a rising trend which yields more and more downloadable games every year. This year From Dust and Journey are stepping up in this category. From Dust has a special place in my heart, as its from the creator of my favorite-game-of-all-time: Out of this World. To boot, gameplay revolves around one of my favorite subjects, geology! With creator Eric Chahi’s artistic touch, players guide worshiping villagers to their holy destinations via the Earth’s geologic processes. The prevailing sentiment is that this game shouldn’t look as good as it does.
Journey
Journey also has a pedigree developer. From the creators of flOw and flOwer, Journey is an experimental multiplayer game where you wonder the dessert towards a far-distant mountain, and along the way you encounter unnamed and mute players from around the world. You can help each other, but you cannot communicate, so it will be interesting to see how this existential gameplay will turn out. The draw here (as always with developers thatgamecompany) is the unique touch on the art and sound of the game. While flOw’s aesthetic was very basic-but-elegant, flOwer expanded on the visual real estate by adding fully realized 3D environments. With even more time, and even more of a budget, I’m sure Journey will take it a step further.
