Wednesday 15 February 2012

This game was Made For Me: Dear Esther

Dear Reader,

It's hard to talk about Dear Esther, surprisingly. The game, once a mod for Half Life 2 and now a full-fledged indie production, has received critical acclaim, and has proven a financial success so soon after its release. Indeed, I bought it mere minutes after it was released on Steam. I sat waiting with my tantalized memory... the aged visions of the last and frayed teasers of the new, intermingling in my mind as a vision of what was to come.


I am a man in love, and thus a release on the day of that was going to take second place. I spent the evening with the woman I love and I saw a fantastic, good old-fashioned ghost film. Though I had spent the day up till the purchase and download of Dear Esther, waiting for it to unlock, once I had it I knew I need only wait till the night.

With my love heading off home and myself sitting alone in my room, I turned off the lights and the volume suitably high. I sat in darkness, waiting, as the screen loaded. The room seemed so much louder, the whirr of the fan of my laptop amplified in my ears. Yet the game did load, and I found myself soon, standing on the edge of an island.

Monday 6 February 2012

Why Valve will never tell us about Half-Life 3

I think it's impossible for Valve to even say "we've been working hard" without people immediately jumping to speculation about Half Life Episode 3, or even Half Life 3. Seriously, it's starting to get ridiculous. Which is why I am not even going to go into why it may or may not be happening, but go into why Valve won't even say what's going on.