Hello and welcome to Gamechanger, a blog all about
video games. My name is Naomi and I will be your humble reviewer on this blog.
I have been gaming since I was a child and now I want to share my hobby with
you, my dear readers.
On this blog you will of course find my thoughts and
reviews on new and old games. But I will also highlight a few of my favourite
ones and will talk about recent game news and my most anticipated games of the
year.
I hope you will enjoy this blog and be sure to leave
your thoughts on my posts in the comments section.
This year on November 11 the game Dishonored 2 will see the light.
Dishonored 2 is the sequel of the game Dishonored, that I mentioned in a previous post. This game was teased last year at a big American gaming convention called E3. We, the viewers, were show a cinematic trailer based on a mission in the game. We were then given the promise that the game was being developed but no release date.
For almost a year we were given almost no information about Dishonored 2, aside from the information that was given us after this first trailer. That information being that you could play as Corvo, the royal protector or as the grown-up princess, now Empress, Emily Kaldwin and that the game was set in a new location.
Then this June it was time for E3 again. I stayed up until 3 am so I could watch the panel of the gaming company developing the game, because this time I was not going to miss the trailer like I did last year. Then at the end all us fans were rewarded with a brand new trailer and even some gameplay previews. And most important, we were given a release date.
So, ever since June I have been counting down the days until November. Luckily the developers have given us more gameplay previews, a comic book series and a novel to bridge the time.
Let us hope that the game turns out to be, what it promised to be.
But I already know one thing: I will be playing as Emily the first time I start-up the game, because she is what made me even more excited about this sequel.
Today I will be talking about a few of my favourite games, listed in no particular order. I have played a lot of games over the years but there are a few ones that really stuck with me.
1. Half-Life 2
Half-Life 2 is a game released in 2004. In the game the player character Gordon Freeman wakes up after a years-long slumber to a dystopian future where the earth is ruled by an alien race that is slowly harvesting all of the earth's resources. Gordon is the key to success to defeating the aliens once and for all.
I like this game because of the simple but effective worldbuilding, the developers made sure that the world works. Compared to newer games it is really simple, but while playing Half-Life 2 I understood why it was so popular when it was released. It will forever remain one of my favourites.
2. Dishonored
Dishonored is a game released in 2012. In this game you play Corvo Attano, Royal Protector of the Empress. You return from a long journey in search of a cure of the rat plague that has been devastating your city. As you report to the Empress she gets assassinated and her daughter kidnapped. You are blamed for this crime and thrown into prison. Months later you are given the chance to escape by some loyalists of the Empress and your quest to find the princess and to avenge her mother starts.
Dishonored is really up there in the list of my favourites, I even have a small dishonored collection at home. I know I mentioned worldbuilding in Half-Life 2 already, but this game goes beyond just creating a simple world. The developers created a living and breathing world with many different cultures and background characters who all have their own voice.
I love how much you can explore in this game. I have played it so many times and yet I still discover new things, sometimes stuff as silly as a poster I had not seen before. But what sets this game apart from all the others is that you do not have to kill the 'bad guys'. You can either take their life or destroy their life in another sneakier way, but in the latter option they stay alive.
3. Gone Home
Gone Home is a game released in 2013. Here you play Kaitlin, a girl who has just returned home from a trip through Europe. But when you arrive home, you find that no one is there to welcome you. In this game you make your way through the house and explore. By exploring you put together the story of your sister, the story of your parents and their lives while you were overseas.
Gone home is a very basic game, there is no action, there are no scary bits, it's just you discovering the history of this family with a special focus on the life of your sister. It is a touching beautiful game that you can either rush through or you can take your time to read everything and pick up every item.
Guild Wars 2 is not a new game, but neither is it an old game. Guild Wars 2, also abbreviated as GW2, is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game, or MMORPG, that is played around the world. The game is not as big as the other well-known MMORPG World of Warcraft, but that does not mean the game is lesser to it at all.
In Guild Wars 2 you start the game by creating your own character. You can choose between 5 fantasy races, ranging from humans to anthropomorphic cats. After that grand decision you choose your profession, this decides what powers you have, and then you can go on and customize your character to your wishes.
After completing the character creation part you get thrown into the world of Tyria, the setting of the game. As you level up you go through the personal story of your character, which is different for each race, with the climax being the battle against the evil dragon that is threatening the peace of Tyria.
But this is only just the beginning to a much bigger story. Your personal story sets the stage for a continuing story with new worlds and new villains to fight. A story that is currently still in the making and updating as I am writing this.
I started playing the game last year in the summer of 2015 after the game had been made free for all to play, with some features of the game behind a 'pay once to play' wall. I had never played an online game like this before, because I often feared they would be full of teenage boys throwing slurs at each other. But I am happy I got past this fear and tried it out anyway.
The game immediately sucked me in with its gorgeous graphics and environments and has yet to bore me. It also did not take long for me to buy the upgrade to get access to all the features and I have not regretted it at all.
You do not have to be a die-hard gamer to play this game, you can play it at your pace and you can do what you want, within the limits of the game of course. You don't even have to play the personal story if you do not want to do it! Also, the community is generally nice and people will not shy away from thanking each other when others help them in-game.
In general I would highly recommend this game, as I think this is a better introduction to MMORPGs than World of Warcraft.
