PixlBit

Penelope and the herd are beautiful, they look like they're right out of Skyrim

I wish the best for you, Nicole!

For the next episode regarding my favorite game of 2013 looking back in hindsight.

Back in 2013 I couldn't stop singing the praises of Bioshock Infinite, but in 2016 I don't look back on that game with nearly the same reverence. I tried to play through it again and realized I don't like the combat as much as I thought, and the story only worked on me once. Which is fine; it was a fantastic story with interesting characters and no expense spared in the production values. Elizabeth's AI programming, the soft body simulation of her dress, and her animation in general were all serious achievements of design and programming.

I don't want to rewrite history and act like Bioshock Infinite wasn't a great game, but I don't necessarily think it stands the test of time like I expected it to. With all that said, remember back to 2013 when all anybody on gaming websites could talk about or write about were articles Bioshock related for at least 3 months. People were dissecting that story and debating over it for months afterwards in a way nobody did with The Last of Us or any of the other major releases. Remember how that term "ludo-narrative dissonance" suddenly became a part of gamer's vernacular, for better or worse. Very few games ever command that kind of interest from such a wide swath of people; Bioshock Infinite was quite the zeitgeist. All of that has to be worth something.

Looking back, my favorite game of 2013 was Metro Last Light. It stands the test of time in every way. It's gorgeous to look at, even with the vanilla version, let alone the upgraded Redux version. The atmosphere is unmatched in its bleak and rainy depiction of post apocalyptic Moscow, and the stealth-survival-shooter gameplay is still really solid. Of all the 2013 games Last Light is the one I'm still totally in love with and playing to this day.

Honorable mentions to Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons, and Tomb Raider!

P.S. I honestly thought I would pick Tomb Raider, but the Russkie simulators speak to me in a way even Lara Croft can't.

That looks amazing!

Love the pictures! Especially the dragonfly shot you have.

I liked Space Marine a lot. When I was playing through that game I actually put earbuds in and listened through entire Sabaton albums while playing that. Julian knows what Sabaton is like, and it ended up setting up a great mood to mesh with Warhammer 40k.

I did a whole user review of Alien Isolation on Pixlbit back in 2014 after I finished it. It was a really awesome game but the length doesn't do it any favors. You end up seeing the same level design mechanics over and over. There's always another generator to prime, another quarantine to lift, and a new door to get through. The most frustrating thing is that the story is interesting and there are a lot of cool moments peppered throughout the game all the way to the end. But there's a bit of fluff in between and you have to get through it if you want to see the payoffs. It isn't the kind of game where you could play the 1st 8 hours, see everything you need to see, and then quit. It has an interesting world, fantastic stealth gameplay, suspense and dread in the best ways, but the level design and moment-to-moment gameplay finds every possible way to drag the overall story out and keep you playing.

It was great to hear Nick back on, but it was too bad the conversations at the end were lost; I'm interested in hearing more about PixlCross' development. I'm also interested in hearing more about Patrick's game design studies and what his classes are like so far.

I haven't blogged or commented in a little bit but I come bearing good news. I was accepted and enrolled into DigiPen for this fall! I'm finally transferring from my community college and I got into my top choice school that I had my sights on this whole time. Right now I'm sorting out financial aid and student housing for when I move from Colorado to Washington state when classes start.

I'll be in their bachelor of science in computer science program that has a focus on real-time interactive simulation. Making games with a focus on building engines from scratch including graphics engines in 2D and 3D, real-time rendering, creating the physics, AI, networks, and gameplay. DigiPen also has a fine arts program, an audio engineering program, music production, another program specifically for game design students that isn't science intensive like mine is, and another program for animation. All the students from these different backgrounds can work together to make games, it should be really interesting.

Congrats on passing your test! Such kitties much cute <3

I just finished Underworld tonight and I really enjoyed it! I liked the use of Norse mythology too, especially the very end when you see what the Midgard Serpent really represents and what Natla's plan is. I liked that story quite a bit.

I ended up playing Rise of the Tomb Raider on 360, and I was surprised with how good it looked and how well it ran on these last gen consoles.

Thanks! School's been really busy but I've been lurking and listening to the podcast and seeing what people are writing for BaD this year. I finally wrote a blog a few weeks ago to update everyone on how school's been going and what games I've been into. It had been a really long time since I'd written a blog but it was pretty fun and it kind of comes back to you like riding a bike.

I'm so glad things are starting to coalesce into this new kind of paradigm where you're more comfortable in a new environment, feeling more secure in your job, and looking forward to new possibilities. Press on, enjoy the good days, and weather the bad ones.

I enjoyed Rise of The Tomb Raider so much that I wanted to go back and play some of the previous Crystal Dynamics games in that franchise to see where they've come from. I played through Anniversary, the remake of the original TR and I liked it quite a bit. There was one tomb that I really hated and don't ever want to play again, but the game as a whole was really cool and controls pretty well, looks nice too considering it's kind of old now. I finished that one a couple weeks ago and I've been playing through Tomb Raider Underworld recently and I think I like it even more.

It's fun to trace the tech, animation techniques, and design sensibilities in the newest TR reboot games back to these previous games that Crystal Dynamics did. You can play these older games and totally see the things they took forward into the reboot games, and it's helping me to appreciate the new design choices they made for the reboots games, and all the new tech they created for them. I'd be interested to hear what you think of this but to me they basically seem to have been creating these pretty solid, fun, and underappreciated Tomb Raider games for years, and somehow when they made the jump to the 2013 remake they really upped their production value and refined their design into something that's finally broken through to a bigger audience. Anniversary and Underworld are really awesome, but these two newest Tomb Raider games have really delivered AAA action adventure games that can hold their own against the very best the industry has to offer.