This post is going to be fairly… spoiler-heavy. Or, at the very least, revealing — about a game that’s better played while it’s still mysterious and strange. If you haven’t played Betrayer, I urge you to check it out before reading any further. Or if a more general overview would help, I’ve got you covered over here. Today, we’re going to get into the meat of Betrayer. We’re going to talk about things that I couldn’t (or didn’t want to) bring up in my more surface-level review. I’ve finished a second playthrough, mulled over the experience for almost a month, and now I’m
Author: scwiba
As Spoiler-Free a Review of Betrayer as is Possible
Betrayer is not what you think it is. Even if you’ve seen screenshots or watched trailers, it’s still probably not quite what you’re expecting. Which is actually great, because half the joy of Betrayer is the slow process of discovering just what the heck it is. When you wash up on the shore of this strange land, some surface details will be immediately apparent. The first-person perspective. The striking monochrome visuals. The profound lack of information or context.
Ascendancy II is (Maybe) Coming
Two years ago, in the early days of this blog, I wrote a post about Ascendancy II. It was in part a celebration of Ascendancy, the people who created it, and the immense role the game played in my childhood… and in the other part it was a vaguely bitter and definitely melodramatic rant about The Logic Factory saying they might develop the sequel to Ascendancy on a platform I had no access to. So — pretty on par with the quality and professionalism you should expect from the first year or so of my blogging career. Here’s the weird
Silent Storm — Mission 19: Drop the Hammer!
We’ve got work to do. We finally know what the ultimate goal of Thor’s Hammer was. And where their base is. But we’re on the clock. Their grand plan is even more ambitious than we thought. It’s not the panzerkleins or the beam weaponry alone that they’ll use to take over the world. Any moment now, they’ll be launching a weapons platform into orbit. It’ll be capable of hitting any place on Earth — wiping any city, or country, from the map if they oppose the Hammer. That orbital weapon is preparing for launch as we speak at the Hammer
Tower of Lies — A Doom WAD by Yours Truly!
Tower of Lies is a single hell-themed map for Doom II where you start in the bowels of Hell and scale your way up a tower and to salvation — or so you hope. It’s an experiment in making the player feel as though he or she is going up and up the floors of the tower without actually using 3D floors. Instead, it’s all done with teleporters and visual tricks. General consensus is that the experiment didn’t work, but that it’s an atmospheric map (largely thanks to Mark Klem’s “Simple Solutions”) with some cool visuals and fun set-piece moments.
Silent Storm — Mission 18, Part 3: Bob’s Bergers
The winding, labyrinthine halls of Berger’s factory all lead to this last corridor. All his men were guarding this final room.
Silent Storm — Mission 18, Part 2: Split Up, Gang!
We’re surrounded. I guess we should have taken a peek inside before we all shoved through the door. And shut it behind us? That too.
Silent Storm — Mission 18, Part 1: Never Trust Switzerland
Let me get this straight. You couldn’t make it as the hero in dumb action movies, so you decided to be a dumb action hero in real life. …more or less. Uncle Petr, owing us a favor, lets us raid the building. Not only that, but he doesn’t even get upset when we start rifling through locked containers! And firing weapons inside! And breaking into the top secret documents in the basement!
Memento Mori II
Doom turns 21 tomorrow. That’s right — my baby is gonna be old enough to drink. Before it turns to a life of debauchery and sin, though, I thought we’d take a look back at the baby pictures. Or the toddler pictures, more like. This is Memento Mori II, one of the earliest — and greatest 32-level megaWADs of all time. What can I say about it that hasn’t been said before? I have to confess that I didn’t play the Memento Mori twins when they came out in ’96. I didn’t touch them until 2002 when I first got
Silent Storm — Mission 17: The Calm Before the Silent Storm
And there’s our guy: Down on the factory floor, we have a little chat with Sinitsyn.