Hi all,
I'm an Interaction Designer from Malmö, Sweden. I was born in 1985 back in
Poland, which at the time was still part of the Soviet Union. I don't remember
much of it because the system fell before I was 5, but you hear stories... When
I was 15 I moved to my mom in Sweden, and I still live here. If you want to read more about my life besides gaming, visit http://cousken.wordpress.com/
I'm a very passionate gamer and always aspired to make games, hence my
choice of education. My adventures with video games started when i was so
little i don't even remember my age specifically, with my .... black box
imported from china that played games O.o i don't know what the hell it was, it
had cartridges and a couple of levers, joysticks, and it played that game where
you swing on ropes in a jungle to jump over lakes and avoid crocodiles.
Soon after i played mainly on my friends Commodore 64, which i can imagine waws
pretty annoying for him as he was much older than me at the time, and was
probably more interested in other things that some kid from the neighborhood
that wants to play games on his system all the time. My first real 'computer'
was an Amiga 600, which got me a long way into becoming a hardcore gamer. I
remember the nights spent at Mortal Kombat, Lemmings, Premiere and Super
Frog.... Interesting fact - original games where unavailable in Poland at that
point, so i got all of my games from my family in Austria.
Then at some point my dad got our families first PC so he can do work on it. I
wasn't really allowed to use it because my dad didn't want me to 'mess it up'.
But i had an uncanny knack at taking care of the device, which i still have,
making me the family’s and their friends PC technician :/ I remember when he
first brought the thing home. It was disassembled, and he didn't have a clue
about computers (still doesn’t), so he went to get a couple specialists to do
it for him, leaving me alone in the house with the computer. When they came
back, i have already managed to assemble and start the PC, to everybody’s
amazement. It didn't have an OS yet so the technicians came in handy anyway.
Right now i own my very own 'pimped out' pc. You know the kind; it runs Vista
in Dual Boot just to be able to play Crysis on Highest. I'm originally a
hardcore Amiga fan boy, heavily participating in the 'Amiga/Atari' wars back in
the day. Right now i can't say that i have an aliment. I'm mostly a PC gamer,
but i own almost all of the consoles currently available at the market.
Besides the PS3, because in my opinion it had a pretty worthless exclusive
games library, which is only recently starting to improve. I'll probably get it
with the releases of games such as Little Big Planet and Heavy Rain. My
favorite console so far, besides the PC if you consider that a console, is the
Nintendo Dual Screen.
I really dig the way this site is being run, and i plan on supporting it as
much as i can by participating on it actively. I'm probably going to
concentrate on reviews of less popular games, such as older games or
Independent, or what i call 'Alternative Games'. I'm very much interested in innovation
in games, so i'll report to you every time i find something unique. AAA titles
already get so much coverage i don't think my opinion will even go noticed in the
crowd. So don't expect me to review games like GTA4, even if it might happen
every blue moon. Also in my reviews i'm not going to state how the games is,
what features it has, because there is so much information about it out there
already. Instead i will try to give you my honest opinion of the game, what
works well in it and what doesn’t, and give it a recommendation if i deem it
worthy ;)
I think this is the longest 'About Me' i have every written. But it is about
games, so it's not hard to find stuff to write about.
This post relates to: What are you playing this weekend?
I've been playin a lot of indie games demos which i found on the net via a site called Manifesto games. They're really bringing in the innovation which i have been so looking for in games the recent years. I can wholeheartedly recomend you to check some of them out, and join the forum thread which i stared about Indie Game reviews.
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Kudos let me explore an interesting area usualy not adressed by computer games - what to do with my life? It's core gameplay is choosing activities for the day or the near future, one by one. Based on what activity you choose, you are awarder points in different areas, such as Happiness, Boredom or the like. At that aspect it is very similar to The Sims, without the graphical represention aspect.
Everything in this game is pretty easy to figure out, you won't spend more than 15 minutes learning the controlls or anything. It's very much like the life or dating sims so popular on flash portals. Yet there is something more to it that made me play it for much longer than i would any ordinary dating sim. The game makes you think and reflect on an important question - What do to with your life? I think it was the idea of the cretors to inspire gamers planing their virtual careers to maybe think about theirs as well. As such, the game recievies 'kudos' from me for at least trying to adress real life issues and not just beeing entertainment.
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I’m not going to talk about what the game
is about or how you control the characters yada yada yada, instead i’m
going to cut to my opinion of it directly. I’m around 50% into this
game, and yet to play my favorite movie, The Last Crusade. I do so hope
Sean Connery is well represented!
LEGO Indiana Jones is one of the most directly fun games i’ve played, especially in multiplayer. It appeals to my sense of playfulness, exploration and finding secrets/rewards. It is in my opinion a game that is an evolved form of the good old platformer games like Mario & or all of it’s hellish offspring. As i see it this game is meant to be enjoyed with a friend. It’s fun on my own but much more so when you are two, as most of the riddles and secrets need to players to find. Also, the game features full friendly fire, and when you kill your friend he drops a little of his money which you can also pick up. It’s hard to define what makes things fun, or what fun is. If i would be to compare it with any other product, i would compare it with kids toys or Viva Pinata. It has the same appeal, and also a lot of great humour. There simply something satisfying with smashing everything in a room with a shovel, making it explode into lots and lots of coins. Also, this game features a little asian boy doing a lot of manual labor and heavy lifting while a well dressed american man is chasing him with a whip, and a character whos special move is screaming very loud. You’d think that you can’t do so much graphics-wise with lego bricks, but this game proves that wrong. I’m playing the PC version, and the graphics could be described as PS2 models with X360 shaders. The game works very well with motion blur and distance blur (simulating what the eye focus on) and the whole bunch… Not once have i been bothered by the low polly of backgrounds or anyting, on the contrary, i was impressed several times with how well the technology is used to create a good visual experience. I am yet to try any other version than
that of the PC , but i think that this games is perfectly fit for the
Wii, it has the direct fun appeal that Nintendo are trying to promote.
I’m probably going to check how the game is on my Ds, that might be
interesting as well, but i’m afraid that the graphics will loose a lot
of it’s appeal. The PC version might be a little bit hard to control,
so i connected my Xbox controler to it and now it’s no problems The game is really cheap too so i can recommend you to check it out. If you like casual gaming and have a friend nearby to play with, i’m pretty sure you will not regret it.
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