The past weekend I attended the LevelUp Play event held at the KL Convention Center organized by Level Up KL. So what is Level Up KL ? From their site:
LEVEL UP KL is a biggest game festival in Malaysia organized by Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation (MDEC), with the mandate to spearhead the digital economy in Malaysia. The goal is to create a platform for gamers, public, game developers, corporate and esports to leverage on the biggest entertainment market as key economic growth for the region.
Blood and Truth from the London Studios who brought us the cool PSVR tech demo London Heist is a short but fun story driven action shoot em up. Here’s my review on how this game brought the experience of being an action star in your living room.
Sprint Vector(SV), developed by Survio, was an impulse purchase after hearing lots of rave reviews about it. I had to go through a lot of trouble just to get it from the US store. Luckily it was all worth it. From the same studio that brought us Raw Data, Sprint Vector is a completely different genre from their debut title. To describe it would be like a combination of Mario Kart and it’s zany obstacle race course with the gameplay of Mirror’s Edge powered by the Move controllers.
Released back in May 2017, Farpoint, developed by Impulse Gear was one of the first VR first person shooter game on the PS VR to fully utilise the PS VR Aim Controller. While the initial reviews were mixed but one thing was clear, those who used the VR Aim Controller was totally blown by the experience. Read More
Announced earlier this year, the Nintendo Labo has to be one of the quirkier and innovative accessory to be launched for the Nintendo Switch or for any console in recent times. Slated for release in April 2018, Nintendo Labo offers an initial 2 kits which contains a game cartridge, pre-made cardboard cut outs along with other construction tools to assemble a toy dubbed the ‘ToyCon’ that works alongside the JoyCon and Nintendo Switch display that provides an interactive building and learning experience for children. Read More
Doki Doki Literature Club! (DDLC) is a visual novel developed by Team Salvato for the PC platform and was later released on the Steam platform which had since shot to popularity with overwhelmingly positive reviews. To be honest, I’ve never been a fan of visual novels and only played one for a little more than five minutes just out of curiosity. Having said that, I’ve heard a lot of buzz on DDLC for the past couple weeks on how it is not what it seems and decided to give it try since it was free on Steam. How can DDLC with it’s seemingly light hearted theme and visual style could belie a disturbing twist.
From the studio that brought us the critically acclaimed puzzle platformer Limbo, comes Inside. Inside follows a nameless boy evading unknown pursuers as he traverses from the country side into a large mysterious industrial complex.
The game has zero dialog and the story is conveyed solely through the boy’s actions and visuals of the game. Throughout the game little is known about the pursuers nor the boy’s motive in the game and the player is left to fill in those gaps. Game controls, like Limbo, follows the four basic actions, moving forward, backward, jump and a trigger action which activates when he is near a gear or a switch.
Inside introduces new game mechanics every other level which makes each chapter of the story unique and challenging. These chapters themselves transitions seamlessly to the next. Unlike Limbo however, Inside is more forgiving in the sudden death department, but each time the boy meets his untimely end, it is often animated with gruesome effect.
The overall theme and atmosphere in Inside is reminisce of Valve’s Portal with it’s large sprawling industrial complex. The visuals and aesthetics in this game is top notch and will certainly leave a lasting impression long after you finished the game. Inside‘s sound design deserves some praise as it really adds to the eerie feel of the game.
I took about 4 hours to finished the game, though it’s not a long game but the story and ending leaves you thinking about it long after the game credit ends. Inside is certainly a game to be experienced.
