My first experience with Firewatch was not a pleasant one. I initially found the story and gameplay to be rather dull, the dialog felt unrealistic and forced, and navigation felt like a tedious chore. After spending about an hour with the game, I promptly uninstalled it, declaring that it simply "wasn't for me." However, after dwelling on it for a while, I decided that maybe I was a little hasty to dismiss the game so quickly. I went through the trouble of downloading and installing the game again just so I could give it another shot, and I'm really glad I did.
[img width=576 height=396]https://i.imgur.com/ZBOvEKR.jpg[/img] Source is CyberEagleWarrior on DeviantArt
One of the most beautiful aspects of gaming is the sheer magnitude of ideas that have been tried. At this point it would be rather difficult to find ideas for games that have not been at least attempted. The PC market is especially rich in these ideas, given its long history and how many games can be made that just do not work too well on consoles. Simulators are ones that are especially deep in this regard. Everything from goats to the insanity of dwarves in various styles of fortresses has been tried. Few of these simulators have the raw humor and character that the Tropico series has. Tropico is more of a hybrid type of game, where the bulk of the gameplay involves the city building aspect. There are plenty of tools for a more sadistic player to keep control of their communist island paradise. Management of a banana republic has, and maybe never will be, as fun as the Tropico series has made it.
We are now less than a week away from the end of the month! After tallying up recent donations, it appears that we are still behind in reaching our goal. With our donors' generous pledges, we are just over 63% of our goal! We will be taking donations for the fund drive through February 28th (you can donate here: http://www.rfgeneration.c...m/index.php?action=paypal), so be sure to donate during this time to get in on the raffle of great prizes donated by our staff. You can check out a list of all the raffle prize lots HERE.
The staff at RF Generation would first like to take a moment to thank those who have donated since last week's update:
Thanks to all who donated! Please remember to PM me the email address you donated with, so that we can properly thank you during our weekly updates and provide you with the proper number of raffle tickets. If you donated recently and do not see your name, you may have donated after I pulled numbers. If you don't see it, PLEASE send me a PM and I will check on your donation status.
Hey everyone! I tried something new with this review, especially since the game is so new. If you like this format of blog post, please be sure to let me know in the comments!
P.S: I realize things look a little "washed out" in places. My brightness is up, since my TV is a little dark. I'll be sure to fix that for next time.
World War I has recently piqued my interest in a major way. I've been studying the events of the "war to end all wars" for past few months as I honestly knew nothing about it previously. Recently reading All Quiet on the Western Front and A Farewell to Arms made me want to dig deeper into this historical catastrophe. After much reading, and watching countless Youtube videos, I sought out a copy of EA and DICE's WWI shooter Battlefield 1. I played through the campaign recently and I thought the game was very interesting and enjoyable. However, I was left scratching my head at some incredible omissions by the developers, namely the countries involved in the playable campaign.
[img width=200 height=313]http://www.rfgeneration.com/images/games/E-050/bf/E-050-S-01070-A.jpg&sizex=200[/img] Well, this Dragon 32/64 game is certainly off everyone's radar, but I don't have a Dragon 32. Or the Cassette Drive. Or British.
Being in video game retail for so many years now, I can easily say one of my favorite parts of the job is finding and recommending obscure titles to customers who had no idea such games existed. I love digging up and collecting gaming oddities myself, and every time I find a list of such titles I bookmark them to compile and search for later. When I thought I'd have the time to keep it up, I originally started a forum to track these, but it turns out I can't get to it nearly often enough to keep it relevant. (Sorry!)
Hopefully I'm not alone here on this, so in that spirit here's another list for those interested:
It's been a little while since the guys got together, and while Crabby couldn't make it, Bil and Duke catch up on the last year. As usual, we also tackle your questions, which always prove to be... interesting. Also, big thanks to our new mystery editor. While they prefer to remain nameless, we are deeply grateful.
The RF Generation annual fund drive is moving along and we are now at the midway point of the month. After tallying up recent donations, it appears that we are a little behind in reaching our goal. With our donors' generous pledges, we are just over 39% of our goal! We will be taking donations for the fund drive through the month of February (you can donate here: http://www.rfgeneration.c...m/index.php?action=paypal), so be sure to donate during this time to get in on the raffle of great prizes donated by our staff. You can check out a list of all the raffle prize lots HERE.
The staff at RF Generation would first like to take a moment to thank those who have donated since last week's update:
Thanks to all who donated! Please remember to PM me the email address you donated with, so that we can properly thank you during our weekly updates and provide you with the proper number of raffle tickets. If you donated recently and do not see your name, you may have donated after I pulled numbers. If you don't see it, PLEASE send me a PM and I will check on your donation status.
Castlevania is a series I never really got into. I didn't play it any on the NES or SNES when I was a kid, and it wasn't until Symphony of the Night on PS1 that I finally gave it a try. In an attempt to fill this gap in my gaming experience, I played through Super Castlevania IV. My initial impressions weren't great, since Simon felt very heavy to control, but... did it grow on me?
We interrupt your regularly scheduled program to bring you February 2018's edition of RF Generation's Site News! In this issue, we remind you to PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE donate to our annual Site Donation Drive, announce our March 2018 community playthrough title, and of course, thank those members who sent in submissions to our site and registered approvals during the first month of the new year. Thanks for keeping it on Channel 3!
REMEMBER: If you have any news about upcoming events or topics that you think the site needs to hear about, please PM singlebanana and put "RFG Site News" in the subject line. Who knows, maybe your news will make our front page!
Over the years, MANY games based on the Star Wars franchise have been released. Some to great acclaim, like the Rogue Squadron series on the N64 and GameCube, or the original Star Wars Battlefront games during the 6th generation. Others haven't fared so well. Many SW universe games have been lost to time, like the Jedi archives. Where does Star Wars on the Game Boy rank among the list? You'll have to watch to find out!
As you may of you know, our site is currently conducting its annual fund drive to help with the server costs for 2018. So far, we have had a good turnout and I am happy to report that with our donors' generous pledges, we are just over 18% of our goal! We will be taking donations for the fund drive through the month of February (you can donate here: http://www.rfgeneration.c...m/index.php?action=paypal), so be sure to donate during this time to get in on the raffle of great prizes donated by our staff. You can now find a listing of all of the raffle prize lots HERE. However, the staff at RF Generation would first like to take a moment to thank those who have donated so far:
Thank you all! Please remember to PM me the email address you donated with, so that we can properly thank you during our weekly updates and provide you with the proper number of raffle tickets. If you donated recently and do not see your name, you may have donated after we pulled numbers. If you don't see it, just send me a PM and I will check on your donation status.
Many of us have memories of flipping through the pages of our favorite gaming magazines eagerly digesting every word and picture to find out what was happening in gaming. Publications such as EGM, Nintendo Power, Gamefan, and GamePro gave us reason to frequently check our mailboxes and news stands. Flipping through the pages of these magazines can take us back to the times of our youth, but collecting gaming magazines presents it's own share of issues and takes up valuable space that could be used for games. So what can you do? Many of us have an old tablet lying around, so with a little work, we can turn that old E-reader in to an EGM reader!
It's a new year and with that comes New Year's resolutions. In January, the Playcast Crew resolved to play Night School Studio's indie darling, Oxenfree. In this month's Playcast join hosts, Rich (singlebanana) and Shawn (GrayGhost81) as they discuss the game's story, its mechanics, the music and sound, and get super philosophically deep into the game's overarching question: "If you could go back and change a decision in your life, would you?". In this episode, the guys also discuss their gaming related New Year's resolutions, their thoughts on Nintendo's latest creation, Nintendo Labo, and their current literary consuming endeavors. How does Oxenfree compare to other freedom of choice titles like those developed by Telltale Games? What's in the game's title? And what "weird" hang-up does Rich have when it comes to playing remakes? The answer to these questions and many more in this month's episode of the RF Generation Playcast. You won't want to miss it!
Some of you may have noticed that this episode has arrived a bit earlier than usual. The reason is because our good friend and site member, Kevin (Buried_on_Mars), who some of you may know from the show or follow his podcast Retro Fandango, is doing a 48 hour Twitch charity fundraiser this weekend. Shawn and I discuss the fundraiser on the show and we wanted to make sure to get the word out to our listeners in time, since the broadcast is this weekend. Please be sure to listen to this portion of the show and to learn more about Kevin's goal, please check out the following link: https://buriedonmars.word...ream-on-february-10-11th/
As always, we are happy to hear your thoughts on this game on our discussion page (linked below). We will respond to your comments and are always happy to discuss the game more. We hope you enjoy our show. Please be sure to rate and write a review of the show on iTunes to help us increase our listenership. Thanks for the listen!
Happy Super Bowl Sunday, and welcome to another edition of RF Cinema! This month we're looking at our first documentary, Indie Game: The Movie, from 2012. This wasn't the first documentary about video games, but it was one of the first that gained huge popularity by focusing on three of the most well-received independent games at the time, Braid, Super Meat Boy, and Fez. Just as indie games were starting to become more noticed by the mainstream media and their quality was starting to improve, it was an insightful look into what it takes to make a video game with a small team.
This is a movie that really doesn't have any spoilers. Most gamers are familiar with these games, their developers, and the success they achieved, so there's really nothing to spoil. But I figured I'd mention it all the same.
