Brendon's Video Game Blog

     Hollow Knight is a 2017 metroidvania developed by indie studio Team Cherry. It is available on every current and last generation platform. Hollow Knight is praised across the board from it's combat, exploration, and lore, however I believe the games strongest attribute is its art style. The game is entirely drawn by hand, all the animations, character design, and environment were done by one guy, Ari Gibson. Every single frame of the game is full of talent and beauty. At a glance, the game appears to be cartoony and almost childlike, but once the player begins their descent into Hallownest it quickly becomes clear that the game is pretty depressing and dark. According to some random reddit thread, Hollow Knight is animated at thirty frames per second, while the game itself is locked at sixty frames per second. Each character's animations/movement looks very smooth.

  Satisfactory is a factory sim game with open world survival crafting aspects developed by Coffee Stain Studios and was released on September 10th 2024 for Windows although console ports are currently in development. It is 3D from a first person perspective and the visual style is pretty realistic with a hint of over the top cartoonyness. The game is set on an unnamed alien planet and you play as a “Pioneer” working for the mega-corporation FICSIT. You are tasked with extracting and refining the planet's resources by building giant automated factory systems to then ship to outer space.       I really like this game. In the span of 3 days I have racked up 30 hours of playtime, I only took a break to do this assignment. I’ve never played a factory sim game before so there was a pretty steep learning curve during the first couple hours of gameplay. I did end up watching a couple YouTube tutorials on how to make super efficient assembly lines and eventually I sta...

  Return of the Obra Dinn is a mystery/puzzle game created by solo developer Lucas Pope and was released on October 18th, 2018, for Nintendo Switch, PS4, Xbox One, Windows, and Mac. The game is in a first person perspective and takes place in England, in the year 1807, after a trading ship, the Obra Dinn, mysteriously went missing at sea years before the game’s start, sails into the port. You play as an insurance auditor employed by the East India Company, who is the company that insured the Obra Dinn. Soon after boarding the ship, it is clear that there is not a single living soul aboard, apart from your own. Equipped with a ledger that has the names, occupations, and countries of origin of every passenger on one page, and a photograph of every passenger on another page, it is your job to match the identity of every single soul with their picture. Another tool granted to you is a magic pocket watch with the words “Memento Mortem” engraved on it, meaning “Remember Death.” This po...

           Left 4 Dead 2 is a co-op zombie horde shooter created by Valve Software released on November 17th, 2009 for Xbox 360 and Steam. The premise of the game is very straightforward, if you are playing as a survivor, left click when zombies are behind your reticle, and never let go of the W key. If you are playing as a zombie, kill the survivors and don't get shot. Obviously that is a very dumbed down explanation of the game as it has many deep systems and mechanics; L4D2 is a classic example of "Easy to learn, hard to master." As the four survivors, you will have to travel through semi-linear levels, called “Chapters”, to reach the safehouse which serves as a checkpoint and ends the chapter. Campaigns are made up of multiple chapters, with the final chapter usually ending with the survivors escaping and making it to temporary safety. Throughout the levels, players will be able to find various guns, melee weapons, bombs, and healing items to aid t...