Just Cause 2 - by @timepoorgamer

With a few exceptions, the single player games I tend to like usually have a deep, fairly engrossing story that can draw you in. Often, this story will be accompanied by some good voice acting. Just Cause 2 is not one of these games. That doesn’t mean I don’t like it – far, far from it.

Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem

“I can’t think of what I’m going to write this week,” I said to Gray on Monday.

“Don’t worry mate, you’ll think of something,” was his reply. And then, on Monday night, I see that Denis Dyack is starting a Kickstarter project for Shadow of the Eternals, what he’s billed as the spiritual successor to Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem, and - bing! - there’s my subject. Nice how things work out like that sometimes.

Rockband

On 2^nd April, Harmonix, the creators of Rock Band, released Don McLean’s American Pie as a new piece of downloadable content for Rock Band 3. The timing of this particular release can’t have been coincidental, as it represented the final piece of weekly DLC for the Rock Band series – it really was the “day the music died”. Since the first downloadable tracks came out for the original Rock Band in late 2007, Harmonix has pumped them out on a weekly basis for 281 weeks. Just think about that for a moment. That is some truly epic post-release support there (and yes, of course, they will have made money on that content). For the past couple of years or so, the content has only been compatible with Rock Band 3, but anyone who has a copy of that, can download any of those 281 weeks’ worth of stuff, safe in the knowledge it will work (apart from a few Metallica tracks which have just been removed for licensing reasons).

Okami (Part 2)

As Amaterasu, you travel across Nippon with your companion, the tiny celestial envoy Issun, who provides most of the comic relief, particularly if he's talking to a lady who's taken his fancy. The game's initial hook is its visual style, which takes traditional Japanese water colours as its inspiration. The animation of Amaterasu is wonderful, with flowers sprouting up behind her as she travels across Nippon. Over time, you will converse with various gods who will imbue her with powers that she has lost during her long sleep which, in true Metroid-vania style, will open up pathways to areas you have been able to see but unable to access. You'll meet a wonderfully varied cast of characters, the majority of whom who are unable to see Amaterasu for who she is, but will converse with the ever chattering Issun. Doing favours for these people, as well as feeding the friendly animals, will earn you praise, which can unlock more life, or alternative abilities, RPG-style.

Okami (Part 1)

Greetings! I’m Toby, otherwise known as @timePoorGamer. Gray has kindly agreed to let me write the occasional column on his excellent website, so I’ll be chipping in from time to time with some kind of game related stuff. I’m going to be taking things in a more retrospective direction than Gray, so we shouldn’t crossover on subject matter too much. I have a tendency to write a lot, and he’s told me to keep them fairly short, so let’s see how this works. First up:

Ōkami (part 1 of 2)

Ōkami is the most beautiful game I have ever played. Yup, even in these days of high definition gaming, I have yet to see something that caught me in the same way it did. Sure, there are games now with better graphics – the gorgeous Skyrim being a great example – but with Ōkami there’s beauty in the entire package that’s not found in the same way anywhere else. It’s a game that gets frequently mentioned in the “Are games art?” debate; I’m not going to get into that here (do games even need to be art?), but if you are familiar with it, you’ll know why.