About > Video Games
If you think we play Angel of Darkness non-stop, you’re dead wrong. The KTEB people were long-time gamers way before the release of AoD. And we haven’t changed a bit.
This is a list of our most favourite video games, pick chosen by the KTEB members.
IN THE WORKS
- Age of Empires/Age of Mythology
- Alone in the Dark
- American McGee’s Alice
- Beyond Good and Evil
- Bioshock
- Broken Sword
- Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth
- Condemned: Criminal Origins
- Dead Rising
- Deus Ex
- The Dig
- Duck Hunt
- The Elder Scrolls
- Full Throttle
- Gears of War
- Ghosthunter
- Grand Theft Auto
- Grim Fandango
- Half-Life
- Heavenly Sword
- Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis
- Legacy of Time
- Legend of Zelda
- Leisure Suit Larry
- Lemmings
- Little Big Adventure
- Maniac Mansion: Day of the Tentacle
- Metal Gear Solid
- Monkey Island
- Myst
- Penumbra
- Peter Jackson’s King Kong: The Official Game of the Movie
- Portal
- Primal
- Prince of Persia
- Psychonauts
- Roller Coaster Tycoon
- Rule of Rose
- Rune: Viking Warlord
- Sam & Max Hit the Road
- Silent Hill
- Simon the Sorcerer
- Splinter Cell
- Super Mario
- System Shock
- Thief
- Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune
Want to learn a bit about history, and recreate famous military campaigns? Or would you rather build an empire and crush all your enemies? Either way, this is a great strategy game with, quite literally, years of replay value. Construct from the Stone Age upwards, control an entire civilisation, and build a wonder of the world if the mood takes you. Age of Mythology takes things further still, allowing you to create strange creatures from myth and legend, and with the right expansion pack you can summon a Titan or two, and stomp all over your opponents. Both series come with a huge list of campaigns to play, you can build your own maps, and also play online. Ideal for the power-crazed megalomaniacs among you.
It’s Alice In Wonderland as you’ve never seen it (aside from possibly in your nightmares). Set years after both books by Lewis Carroll, you find yourself playing as an older Alice with, after the death of her parents, a much more morbid outlook on things. Alice is rallied by the White Rabbit to save Wonderland—now radically changed—from the tyrannical rule of the Queen of Hearts. The game is rife with imagery and metaphors based on Alice’s psyche: making Wonderland a terrifying, macabre place. The game is by no means perfect (with perhaps just a tad too much work being put into the environment rather than gameplay in areas), but is pure eye candy heaven for anyone with a twisted streak in them. Or just sheer heaven for the person twisted through and through.
The year is 1960, and a plane crashes in the Atlantic Ocean. You are the sole survivor and escape death at sea by swimming towards the nearby lighthouse and making your way down into the city of Rapture, where safety is a rare luxury. An enjoyable blend of combat and puzzle, this first person shooter sees you travelling all over the underwater city and unravelling its chilling tale. The plot is beautifully crafted and extra effort spent exploring yields insight into all the different faucets and stories interwoven into the overall plot. Even those who find scary games too much should try this one: scared and freaked you will be, when enemies suddenly appear behind you or disappear into thin air, but you will definitely be left reeling at the sheer ingenuity you can use to protect yourself. Choose the impossible: choose Rapture.
A traditional point-and-click adventure game that sees George Stobbart (an American with a penchant for sticking his nose in) and Nico Collard (a headstrong French journalist) join forces and uncover historical artifacts, organisations, creatures—you name it—while being fought every step of the way by law enforcement and crime syndicates alike. A game perfect for anyone looking for an immersive challenge; with storylines that will have you eager to learn more and puzzles that might well see you pondering for several hours.
Zombie outbreak leading to characters trapped in a mall. Sound familiar? Yes, it probably does, but as the game states several times it has nothing to do with that film. Playing as Frank West, photojournalist, you have 72 in-game hours to survive in the mall before the helicopter comes to take you away. You can spend 72 hours unravelling the mystery of the outbreak, rescuing survivors, killing psychopaths, trying on different clothes, killing zombies with any of the 115 weapons available, or trying for the Zombie Genocider achievement. Or, if you don’t feel up to facing zombie hordes, you could just spend 72 hours hiding yourself away in the safe room. But where’s the fun in that…?
A game series that, for the uninitiated, is quite simply mind blowing. With vast areas to explore and numerous quests to become involved in, it’s easy to feel like a kid in a candy store with no idea which sweet jar to shove your hand into first. With so many areas, quests, strategies, techniques, spells, weapons, armour, enemies, allies—well… nobody’d blame a humble player for using the Elder Scrolls Wiki. Getting lost is inevitable—so inevitable, the games come with handy maps to pin on your walls!
Grand Theft Auto (GTA) is a well-known, successful game. With good reason—it’s a must for any game collection. Starting as the underdog, work your way up the criminal ranks; gaining respect and connections to help you survive. The beauty of GTA is that there is more to it than just missions. Especially in recent instalments, most of the fun is to be had seeing the sights and driving as fast as your current car will allow. GTA provides players with not only immersing plot, but also immersing environments. There’s always something new to see, somewhere new to explore. GTA also makes a much cheaper option to paying to take your frustrations out on a punch bag: simply turn on the console, find some armour, and feel all that stress melt away…
Something’s rotten in the Land of the Dead. Or so it says on the packaging anyway. Manuel Calavera, a friendly skeleton stuck working in the Department of Death, is called to solve a mystery that is clever, thought-provoking, stylish, and beautifully crafted. Both the music and artwork are a fusion of Art Deco and Aztec influence—the environments are luscious, the story amuses and surprises in equal measure, and the game is a near-flawless mystery adventure that will quite literally take you to the edge of the world. Careful that you don’t fall off though.
Half-Life is, without a doubt, a classic first-person shooter game. Playing as the ever-silent Gordon Freeman, a Theoretical Physicist, you try and escape the Black Mesa compound—after an experiment goes horribly awry—hoping that help is on it’s way. A blend of outright combat and subtle puzzles makes the game diverse, and the plot (whilst for the most part will have you sat in your seat accepting the happenings) will leave you simply blown away. Y’know… provided you don’t succumb to headcrab invasion, Vortigaunts, or fall off a ledge and find yourself falling forever into the sky of an alien planet. A re-play of this game is essential: you’d be surprised where those Suits can turn up…
A young warrior, Nariko, and her clan are at war with a tyrannt leader, who wants to overrun their lands and gain possession of the highly coveted heavenly sword. Nariko’s clan protects the sword, knowing of its power: that any mortal who wields its power is consumed by it. Nariko is faced with the decision to run or protect her people, and in so doing, she takes control of the sword. As the power of the sword burns through her, she learns that this is more than just protecting her clan; it’s destiny. A game by Ninja Theory; if you think the graphics look vaguely familiar, then you are correct. They were done by the same folks who created Gollum in Lord of the Rings.
‘The only hope for the future lies 37,000 years in the past
‘—visit the glittering city of El Dorado, the peaceful Shangri-La and the lost city of Atlantis on your journey as Gage Blackwood on a puzzle-filled race against time to save the future equipped with only a chameleon suit—allowing you to take the guise of anyone you meet—and Arthur the Artificial Intelligence. A game that feels and works like a game from the popular Myst series, combining 360° panoramic, pre-rendered CGI environments with live-action cut scenes, the third game in The Journeyman Project series sees you sent travelling through time—meeting historical figures and learning about different and long-forgotten ways of life. Fear not if you find the Myst series daunting and challenging (and dare I say boring): Arthur provides the game with much-needed humour, in-game help and is always at hand to help fill you in on any important events from the previous games. Of course, if you find him annoying, you can always turn him off…
Original and unique. Very clever and darkly humorous, with more serious sub-plots in the background for those who wish to go further into it. Almost perfect, but only because there’s no such thing as perfection.
A world away from the original game of the early 1990s, the new Prince of Persia series delivers the classic elements of love, adventure and the fight against evil in some truly innovative fashions. The first trilogy followed the Prince through his quest to erase his mistakes with the powerful Dagger of Time before finally learning the most important lesson of all—acceptance. And now, a new story has started with new characters and a new interpretation of the series’ famous ‘rewind’ gimmick as ‘Prince’ and Elika battle the corruption destroying her land. Whichever installment you play, Prince of Persia will take you on a captivating journey through the ancient Middle East.
The Roller Coaster Tycoon series is one among the most creative and fun of the strategy Tycoon genre, which allows you to build, design and run your own theme parks, either to meet set level objectives, or to simply free-play and see where your imagination takes you. Each game contains a huge range of objects, roller coasters, and assorted shops and stalls, with both games and expansion packs increasing in difficulty and fun as the series progresses. You can build your own coasters from scratch too, and watch your guests’ reactions to both your management and designs. Want to play nice? Make them happy with a wide range of facilities and rides, in a creative and beautiful park. Want to be mean? Make them unhappy by denying them food, drink and toilets, and not letting them go home. Or just make them sick on really rough rides. Mwahaha!
Perhaps trying to emulate Silent Hill, Rule of Rose is survival horror of grainy graphics, shadowy environments, and cutscenes that play upon the gamer’s deep-set fears. A young woman finds herself in the world of abused orphans who are creating whatever sense of control they can, in any way they can, no matter how vicious the games may become. Forcing her to become subservient to them, the children begin to remind her of her part in a forgotten story of broken promises. An intelligent, thought-provoking, heart-breaking story, Rule of Rose is a victim of media hysteria that saw its release cancelled in the majority of Europe—a little-known gem.
Viking lore brought to life, taking the young warrior Ragnar on a challenging journey at the will of Odin. From the humble village of Wotenkeld, through the underworld, and across the mountains, the struggle to avenge the death of his father turns into a battle to prevent the god Loki from unleashing Ragnarok upon Midgard. The environments rival the early Tomb Raiders for size, exploration and atmosphere, you must beware the innumerable beasties lurking along every step of your journey, and use your Runes carefully. A violent viking tale that will take Ragnar to Hel and back. And then some.
Look up the word “disturbing” in the dictionary and Silent Hill will be there at the top. Silent Hill 2 is, by consensus and in our opinion, the best of the series in terms of story-telling. Precisely because such depressing and gritting stories are what truly mess with your mind. The characters in Silent Hill and Silent Hill 3 have an equally terrible background, manifested in the disturbing imagery of the environments. Accompanied by Akira Yamaoka’s atmospheric and emotional music, this series reaches your heart, grabs it, twists it, drains it of blood, and eventually tosses it to the ground, where it keeps bleeding.
Before Harry Potter appeared and became the coolest thing, there was this kid with a pointy hat called Simon who got sucked into a world of magic and fantasy, full of slimy goblins, rude dwarves, inept demons and evil pirates. The games are a parody of fairy and fantasy tales, such as: Rapunzel, The Princess and the Pea, The Story of the Three Bears, Chronicles of Narnia, The Lord of the Rings, and many more. You thought Shrek did it first? I don’t know about the third and fourth installments, but the first two are classics.
No other stealth game has ever managed to be as “sneaksie” as the Thief series. Modern video games of this genre don’t quite accomplish the mission of immersing the player in a situation of absolute secrecy. The darker aspects of the games, and the misanthropic nature of the main character are superbly combined with plenty of hilarious enemies and situations, which is proof that there was a lot of love and dedication involved in the creation of each Thief game. Thief: Deadly Shadows is also a good game, you taffers—the Shalebridge Cradle owns my sanity.
Think the opening sequence of Raiders of the Lost Ark, but with more jungle, a lot more gold, a hero who is the quintessential everyman, and with bad guys who have automatic weapons. Join Nathaniel Drake, sidekick Victor “Sully” Sullivan, and journalist Elena Fisher on an adventure in South America to find El Dorado. You’ll explore many different ruins and environments in a style of gameplay similar to Tomb Raider and Prince of Persia. Unlike those games, though, you’ll also be shooting it out in a number of gun fights. This is an entertaining game for the PS3 filled with humor, adventure, and a lot of heart.
