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About
I am a British male, I like movies, books, poetry, music and videogames. My favorite thing about videogames is their artistic qualities; stuff like sound design, art direction and that general pith, I especially love stylized games with a touch of retro and the macabre. Follow my personal twitter, it might be a laugh.

I owe roughly 43% of my brain to Klei Entertainment and Playdead Studios.
Hideo Kojima, Chris Nolan and Ken Levine can fight over the rest.




- Antony Davies, Age 21 and a half
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9:30 AM on 01.01.2013   //   DaviesAntony

Happy New Year dear readers, I hope you all had a wonderful night and here's to a fantastic 2013!

For those interested (HA!) here's my top 5 games of 2012, Yippee!


5. Spec Ops: The Line



Yager Development this year showed that shooters can be more than just power fantasies with "badass" patriots gunning down foreign threats and making it home with just enough characterization for the Medal of Honor or whatever. Spec Ops is a fairly inoffensive 3rd person shooter at heart but where it excels it's writing; being a gripping "war is hell" drama, exploring mature themes and going against what we've all come to expect is breath of fresh air that we all needed. Well done Walt Williams, well done Sir!



4. Mark of the Ninja



Klei Entertainment are rapidly becoming one of my favorites and they really hit a home run for me here, combining some of my favorite gameplay elements with a wonderful art style and some frankly brilliant animation. The writing and story aren't going to win any awards any time soon and sometimes the controlling/mechanics take a dive but sometimes it's good just to have something genuinely fun to play and nice to look at.

2D Sidescroller? - I love it
Ninjas? - I love it
Stealthing missions? - I love it!



3. Borderlands 2



What is there to be said about Borderlands 2 that hasn't been said already. It's genuinely funny, plays well, has some retardedly brilliant characters, looks an absolute dream and is better than it's predecessor. I had a lot of fun with the original Borderlands and like a truly good sequel, Borderlands 2 has improved in almost every way and for that I love it, if Borderlands 3 keeps the trend going I may well end up in a fun induced coma.



2. Dishonored



Bethesda take a bow, their ludicrously wonderful fantasy adventure Skyrim was easily my Game of the Year 2011 and this year they are the publisher of Dishonored. Beautifully stylized, very well written and with some genuinely brilliant characters and moments within the game Dishonored really captured my imagination and damn near stole my heart. If they'd included a way of switching to third person for the platforming/free-running sections a la AssCreed this game would be perfect. Arkane Studios now has my undivided attention.



1. The Walking Dead



Because really what else could it have been?

When I picked up Dishonored I was 100% sure it was my game of the year, until I got into The Walking Dead.This game is beautiful in every sense, every character is well defined and has their own special place in my heart. I'm sure everyone who's play TWD will agree that it is truly a force to be reckoned with and is a new benchmark for the videogame industry and art in general.

I'm really struggling for ways to describe the brilliance of this game, The Walking Dead is beyond words, all I can say is that if you haven't played it yet, do it, now. Telltale Games, you did well kid.


Thanks for reading, Happy 2013 x










10:43 AM on 12.31.2012   //   DaviesAntony

Well it's that time of the year, New Years Eve, so here's another arbitrary list of some videogames that some chump did and didn't like playing.

Anyhow, I'm going to get drunk and play videogames, so without further ado; in order of offensiveness:


5. Halo 4



Halo has been by far and away my favorite shooter series since the first one released back in 2001, I found the sci-fi setting interesting, the gameplay tolerable and the story bearable and overall Bungie did a great job. However, Microsoft got a hold on the IP and 343i homogenized the franchise, cut campaign time down to a substandard level and ripped the multiplayer from other, more competent franchises, essentially making it "CoD with aliens" but shit. Luckily Sgt. Johnson was killed off before 343i could get there dirty grabbers on him.



4. Silent Hill HD Collection



Konami proves that it's just as out of touch with gaming as ever by doing the unthinkable and ruining what is considered the best survival horror game ever. With ludicrous voice acting, the removal of the scarybollocks fog (aka the reason I couldn't walk home from a friends house after playing the game and I slept on his floor like a babygirl) and dirty muddy contrasting that makes the game look like a wet hessian sack full of poo and failure.



3. Home



Ok, here's where I'm going to have to defend myself.
At only $2 on the Steam store and from humble indie beginnings, having Home on this list at all is probably going to be seen as the most evil thing I have ever done, but deal with it. Home is a "survival horror experience thing" that comes from small time indie dev Ben Rivers, it's a short experience where you walk a lot and that's about it. Like the narrator from Bastion the endings aren't as smart as they lead you to believe, I will say that the atmosphere is superb but that's the only praise this game is getting.
Compared to Jasper Byrne's similar looking but far superior Lone Survivor, Home looks terrible and makes me wish I'd donated those $2 to panda's or some shit instead. Benjamin, I am disappoint.



2. Amy



The above face is probably enough to let you know what I think about this steaming pile of wreckage. Amy is by far the most repulsive survival horror game that I have ever had the misfortune to play, and no not in the good way. What's truly terrifying about Amy is that it exists and has probably made a profit, some fairly interesting audio gets lost under a torrent of bad PS2 era graphics, shitty aesthetic, buggy gameplay, some of the worst controlling I've ever dealt with, items and characters phasing in and out of the nether, and the most spastic AI that gets pinned on the fact the titular character is autistic, nice try VectorCell you dirty French bastards.



1. Family Guy Back to the Multiverse



Family Guy Back to the Multiverse can go fuck itself with a rusty coat hook.
It's shitty gameplay, offensive nature, retarded story, ugly visuals and controls that are at best as good as Amy's make me angry and the fact it got nominated for an Annie award makes me sick.
The game is downright offensive, making homophobic and racist comments with no punchline. Seth McFarlene and his writers should really be kissing their families goodbye (if they haven't left them for this shit load of fuck) and planning a life of charity work, because that's the only way that they can pay back humanity for their crimes against intelligence. I'm embarrassed by the fact that this game exists, for those of you that want to experience this load of shit I suggest getting a copy of The Simpsons Hit and Run, smacking your head against a wall a couple of times and stopping gameplay every 15 minutes to shout "blackie", "queer" or any other choice slurs you can think of.

FFFFUUUUUUUU-











From one trailer, two thousand conspiracies are formed

As everyone must be aware by now due to articles by DToid,Joystiq and a 60+ PAGE DISCUSSION THREAD AT NEOGAF, there was a little something up at the recent VGA's. A previously unheard of studio known as Moby Dick released a trailer for a little something called The Phantom Pain, or as it's now known; Metal Gear Solid 5.

With there being literally no information about the game aside from the kick-ass trailer, fans have taken it into their own hands to decode the messages that may or may not lie within, and so far things are looking a little sketchy (asside from playing the trailers audio backwards, which is complete bollocks). I mean between Snake, Raiden/Raikov and Burnt Face Man look-alikes, possible Volgin and Mantis reappearances, coincidental mo-cap photo's and a light sprinkling of Bad Robot even I'm Starting to wonder.



For starters the studio's website, mobydickstudio.se, was only registered very recently, and is suspiciously bare (although on second thought this could be due to the recency of the site registration). Also the game is being produced by someone known only as Joakim Mogren, and even I'll admit that the whole Joakim/Kojima anagram seems to be a bit too much like coincidence.



Joakim "Kojima Project Ogre" Mogren

Now normally I wouldn't bat an eyelid at this, I mean it's Kojima, the man's by no means sane, but I'd recently blown the dust off of my Playstation 1, bought MGS 1 and the HD collection and started working my way through the series (Just finished Snake Eater, started Peace Walker whilst waiting for MGS4 to arrive). Either way, I am now suitably intrigued and regardless of whether this turns out to be Metal Gear Solid 5, some weird viral promotion for Ground Zeroes or a whole new IP by a legitimate company, I am quite certain that I will be picking up a copy of The Phantom Pain (If that is your real name!)











9:51 AM on 11.21.2012   //   DaviesAntony

Whilst browsing the internet earlier on I found a blog entry which contains details of Playdead studios (creators of the indie game Limbo) second game.
Curious to find out more I headed over to their official website and came across an advertisement for the collectors edition of Limbo, and it was for sale at Amazon for a stupidly low price (around £15 in the UK, not sure about the USA).



The special edition comes with a stylish case, some cool art prints and a sticker of the player characters head, and as I am someone who would have willingly paid £15 for the game alone this was a steal for me.
As I was entering my Paypal details I got to thinking as to why I love Limbo so much, it is definitely one of my favourite games, despite it lacking many of the features which I enjoy in videogames;
I like my games to be colourful, Limbo is black, white and grey.
I like my games to have a rich story, Limbo's story is one line that's shown on the box,
I like my games to have complex characters and villains, Limbo has a small child and a big spider.

This being said, I think my appreciation for Limbo stems from something more than just the visual and the written, it is the aesthetic and the feelings that the game provides that really draws me in.
Between the bleak background art, the moody lighting and Martin Stig Andersen's chilling ambient soundtrack, Limbo is brought to life. Mix in the tight gameplay and the ludicrously sly traps that can sometimes make the game play like a black comedy and you get a formula which simply tastes of success.



In short, I love Limbo because it is fucked up.

It is also the same reason I love Adventure Time, to me that show has many similarities to Courage the Cowardly dog, which at it's core was messed up. It wouldn't surprise me if that show was revealed to have been written by inmates at a psycho-ward.

I mean, how many of you guys have lost sleep because of this guy!?



There are many ways to create horror, the jump scares of Dead Space and Resident Evil and the crushing dread of Amnesia and Silent Hill are both excellent when executed correctly, yet videogames as of late seem to have lost the ability to be subtle, with many "horror" games going for cheap and poorly executed jump scares and shying away from the much more effective method of inspiring terror in the player through the rare ingredients of atmosphere and pacing.

What's even rarer in videogames however, is showing restraint.

Nearly every horror developer seems to just want to go:
"Look, look how clever we are and how much money we spent on brilliant writing, here you go have it all now and then maybe you can have some more guns, it's what you nerds like isn't it?
Huh? No, I've never heard of context is that some kind of gore engine?"

The only 2 recent examples I can think of where a game has just created a world and let the player get lost in it are Amnesia and Limbo, and before then Silent Hill 2. These were games that were happy for the player to just get stuck in and have the story come to them as naturally as possible (well for Amnesia and SH2 anyway, it's laughable to think that Playdead has a writing department).

Hopefully though this is all a phase due to the HD generation and the acceptance of videogames as an art form in the public eye, and the release of Playdeads "difficult second album" (currently known as "Project 2") will herald a new age of colour, fun and pant-wetting fright. So come on Playdead Studios, is this your "Colour and the Shape" or is it going to be your "Room on Fire"?










10:30 AM on 11.12.2012   //   DaviesAntony

Short answer - Yes

To quote Deal or No Deal's crazy man Noel Edmonds "It's not how you start, it's how you finish". Ok, so it's not the best example and it's not even video game related but the message is the same (and Noel used to host his own house party so that's got to be worth something!)



A big gripe that get's presented often is that lack of thought, effort or money that goes into a video game's ending, and that's completely understandable as it can be very frustrating to spend many hours with a character or a group, enduring struggles and living the high life together, just for the last impression the game leaves you with to be an unfulfilling, lacklustre pile of tripe pulled from a writers arse.

The game I find that particularly sticks out to me for this was Rockstars 2011 detective game LA Noire. I picked the game up late after it's release and from the start of disc 1 to the end of disc 2 I berated myself for not getting it sooner, I found the story of Cole Phelps engaging (when he wasn't following noir film clichés) and I enjoyed the interactions between him and the characters around him. It was a game that made me feel like a grade-A genius for solving a case, and made me want to improve whenever I mishandled a case.

However, with the insertion of the final disk and the introduction of the "grand overall story" I quickly lost interest. The retarded story, coupled with an out of place shooter section lead to a crushing disappointment which was only then topped by a pointless unfulfilling ending. The game had set itself up to be my game of the year, but instead it now joins the mediocre brigade, where it has quickly become forgotten. I almost wished I had lost the third disc before I got to it, which is something that a developer should really not want said.

Cole Phelps about to be flushed down a drain, maybe the ending was a self aware parody?


Now, on the other end of the spectrum, Bungie's Halo: Reach sets an example that I feel should be at least considered (please bear with me on this one).
I have long been a fan of Halo, with Halo 2 being my favorite in the franchise, but I personally believe that all of the Halo games on the 360 are just par for the course. They were safe and took no risks, constantly living in the shadow of greater things and for that I am forever disappointing. I picked up Halo: Reach preowned 2 days after it's release as I felt that it would be beneficial for me to at least give it a go as it was a prequel to the first ever game I got for my Xbox many years ago.

To my surprise it did not pull a George Lucas, and in itself was a competent game, I felt that same feeling for it that I did for the other 360 Halo's, half joy, half boredom.

That was until the end. (SPOILER ALERT)

Throughout the course of the game you get beaten, shot at, and watch your squad mates die around you, and finally, watching the Pillar of Autumn leave to start Master Chief's story you think "it's my turn". What follows next however isn't some half-baked cinematic, but an interactive sequence where you desperately fight off oncoming waves of Covenant with only one objective. "Survive".
I was stunned, being able to limp about, pick up weapons and shoot the horde's around you, all of it only prolonging the inevitable.



I was shocked, a game which had been an exercise in mediocrity had suddenly gripped me, slapped me about and made me actually feel something.
It was almost touching, if only the rest of the game had been as good.











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