Great news about Steam: in anticipation of Portal 2 later this year, the device has been modified to dispense Portal for $0 until May 24th. If you haven’t played this yet, you absofuckinglutely must download it now.
There’s not much else to say… one of the seminal games of our time available for free, legal downloading? Why are you still here?
[ Superior ] Epic Legendary
There are only so many variations to the Platforming model, but when the market was saturated with this genre, we gamers were treated to every possible iteration. Whether they were inserting RPG elements like in E.V.O. or pushing the model to its limit like in Kid Chameleon, developers built some amazing experiences from the “Platformer” scaffolding. One game that demonstrates this particularly well is Enix’s Hack-and-slash platformer\City-building Sim ActRaiser. And so, let’s ROMinisce.
Superior [ Epic ] Legendary
Before we resorted to classifying games in the megahybrid genre of “Action,” there was “Action-Adventure” and its sub-category - the iconic “Platformer.” These games were the mainstay of the industry through two decades of evolution, and the trademarks of this genre are ubiquitous in gaming as a whole. From Pitfall! to LittleBigPlanet, the best Platformers have always pushed us to the jump-landing, ledge-grabbing, death-defying limits. Since you and I both have a masochist deep down inside, let’s ROMinisce about a Genesis gem: Kid Chameleon.
Superior [ Epic ] Legendary
Being a creative medium, a fresh idea like Spore is well-received in the game industry (even if it’s tantamount to a five-part minigame). Long before YouTube was flooded with “Creature Creator” penis-monsters, evolution was the focus of a now obscure 1993 title published by Enix known as E.V.O.: Search for Eden. Combining Platforming with Role-Playing, creationism with evolution, and science with mythology, this classic game remains distinct and downright fun.
NFOpocalypse’s resident RPG expert reviews Captain Comic 2, a little known sidescroller from the 90s which was written by Michael Denio and released only on the PC, and rants about how modern game stores are boring.