Category: Discussions

Death Stranding Design Review – Showing what went wrong with MGS V by doing it again

KinglinkLeave a comment

I’m Kinglink and this week we are going to look at Death Stranding. This was originally on the PlayStation 4, it has come to the PC and it’s time to talk about it.

Though, I do have to leave a little disclaimer here. I worked at Sony for about 6 years on MLB the Show and left Sony about two years ago. I want to be upfront about this because you should know if there’s any potential bias, but I can say I don’t believe there is. This is just for you to best judge my opinions.

There was a little overlap when I reviewed games and was working at Sony, but I chose to review Steam games to avoid any potential bias, and sure enough Sony has now come to the PC.

 

Read More »

Kongregate: Site Review – A Eulogy for the home of incrementals and more.

Kinglink

Hello, I’m Kinglink and this week we’ll be doing a Site Review for Kongregate.

If you’re a fan of Kongregate, we’re going to reminisce about it, but if you’ve never heard of it, let me quickly explain the site.

Kongregate is a video game portal, at least that’s what it’s called but really it’s a site for hosting web games, much like youtube is a host for videos. Developers can upload their flash games and players can browse, play, and enjoy any game for the minor inconvenience of a few ads.

Read More »

Design Review: Ni No Kuni 2 – When valuing the players time allow them to value your game

Kinglink

Hello, I’m Kinglink and today let’s do a design review on Ni No Kuni 2, which is one of the most impressive Japanese RPGs I’ve played in a very long time, possibly for the entirety of this console generation.

As always rather than just review the game we’re going to focus more on why Ni No Kuni 2 stands out and what it does that elevates it above other games in its genre. That genre is Japanese RPGs or JRPGs and they become kind of standard fare, they’ve been around since the 80s and most stick to the same tropes.

Read More »

Achievements and Trophies – Do they matter?

Kinglink

Hello, I’m Kinglink and today, I want to talk about Achievements. So I just did two videos on bigger concepts than just games, and sadly they may never be my top videos. I like putting out content I want to talk about. Today though, I’m going to put the game designer hat down for a bit and talk about something I care about passionately and why I do. It’s still a bit of a design review, but more focused on my personal experiences and opinions on achievement.

November 25th, 2005 was an important day especially in the world of gaming. On that day Xbox 360 was launched, and while many things are important about that one console, the one that I think mattered the most to me was this.

Read More »

Design Review: Player Choice – Choosing Your Own Adventure to better games

Kinglink

Hello, I’m Kinglink, and today we’re talking about a Design Review on Player Choice with a little bit of a Choose Your Own Adventure focus.

Last week I talked about Morality Systems, such as the ones you would find in Mass Effect, Fable, and Catherine. If you’re interested, check that video out, I’ll link it at the end here, but the short version is each game came up a bit lacking due to the morality systems and how those systems might limit what players would choose with Catherine being the best of the three.

Read More »

Design Review: Morality Systems: Fifty Shades of Non Grey

Kinglink

Hello, I’m Kinglink and today we’re doing a Design Review on Morality Systems or Karma Systems with a focus on Player Choice.

This series has previously been focused on comparing one game to another, and don’t worry we’ll still be doing that today, but I want to look at a specific feature of three different games. Just to call them out ahead of time, I’m going to be talking about the original Mass Effect trilogy by Bioware, which will effectively represent much of Bioware’s earlier games here, Fable by Lionhead Studios, and Catherine by Sega. I’ll be putting up chapters for each.

I could talk deeper about almost any of these games but we’re going to focus on the topic today, rather than the games themselves, and perhaps we’ll return to these games at another time.

Read More »

Design Review: Hitman 2 – What makes Hitman so addictive?

Kinglink

Hello, I’m Kinglink and this is a Design Review of Hitman 2.

Previously I’ve called this series How – blank – Works? The idea was to dive into the design of the game, and I still intend to do that, but I have been critiquing the design more than talking about the exact mechanism because many specifics tend to be held close to the chest by the companies. So with that said, I think Design Review is probably a better term. It also allows me to tackle more meta topics than just specific games.

Today we’re tackling Hitman 2. The Hitman franchise has been the quintessential stealth game for a long time, but with the recent release of Hitman, and now Hitman 2, I find these two entries move toward a puzzle game, Even IO Interactive has said this, and going back and playing the originals, this series has had some ties to the puzzle genre, but the recent two releases have changed their primary genre.

Read More »

How Doom Eternal Works: The Tale of Two Versions of Hell

Kinglink

Hello, I’m Kinglink and well, I think it’s time we look at a more recent game. How Doom Eternal Works?

I think Doom Eternal needs no introduction, but let’s give it one anyway. This is the newest game from id Software, and once again id Software has released a new first-person shooter that has made people stand up again and take notice. With their recent release of Doom in 2016, they have made a resurgence as one of the major names in the FPS market.

Read More »

How Planet Zoo Works: Can a video game really compare to a real zoo?

Kinglink

Hello, I’m Kinglink and today we’re going to talk about How Planet Zoo Works.

Planet Zoo is another game from Frontier Developments, the same company that previously released Planet Coaster and Jurassic World Evolution. In Planet Zoo you own and operate zoos and try to achieve certain goals. There’s a variety of modes including a storyline following a couple of characters, a franchise mode that allows you to go online with your zoo and more.

Read More »

How Outer Wilds Works? Why does it’s exploration surpass Outer Worlds and No Man’s Sky?

Kinglink

Hello I’m Kinglink and today we’re going to talk about How Outer Wilds work?

Outer Wilds is a game released last year by Mobius Digital. If you haven’t played it, it’s a space exploration game. Your player is an astronaut and they also are about to be given a spacecraft to go to other planets in the star system and explore the worlds you find.

Now before we dive in here, I’m going to theme this video with a focus on space exploration. I’m going to be talking about Outer Worlds a bit, which is a game from Obsidian Entertainment. But there’s another example we’re going to talk about. If we say large scale exploration, is there a specific game that comes to mind? One not regarded too well? For me, I have to talk about No Man’s Sky by Hello Games. It’s just the perfect example of how not to do exploration.

Read More »