Day 84 - Everybody's working for the weekend

I had a day off yesterday.  Not from work... no, I still had to go trailing there and back.  No, it was a day off from the book and the blog.  I was home by about 7:15, and I could have done something on it, but I just fancied having a little rest.

Instead, I switched on my recently-neglected XBox 360.  I really haven't given it much time at all lately, and there were a couple of XBLA games I fancied checking out from their poorly-titled Summer of Arcade.  The first game I tried was Deadlight.

Standing here is all well and good, but what the hell do I do now?

If you haven't heard of Deadlight, it's the latest in a seemingly endless stream of zombie games.  You don't need me to tell you that the market is on the verge of hitting the saturation point when it comes to games featuring zombies.  If they're just in there because "OMG ZOMBIES!" then it's a bit wearing.  But if it's a good game and the setting is used well, then we can always take another one.

Deadlight is a good game.  You know what it reminded me of, just a little bit?  Flashback.  I think the animation is the main reason for that, but the game itself is a side-scrolling platform game where you have to solve puzzles while avoiding the zombie outbreak, all the while searching for your family and safety.  I haven't played all that much of it yet, but what I have played was enjoyable and it's presented really well.

The other game I tried was Dust: An Elysian Tail.  This game is also a side-scroller, but it's very different from Deadlight.  It's a fast-action beat 'em up with RPG overtones, levelling up, items to collect and a shady merchant, apparently on his holidays from Resident Evil 4, who you can buy useful items from.  It's got some beautiful graphics, although a few of the monsters are a touch dull.  But that's being a bit harsh and nitpicky.

The whirling Dust Storm attack is great, but it makes for crap screenshots.

You play as a trinity of sorts... you control Dust, the main character, but your sword is alive and talks, and there's an odd flying thing called Fidget who accompanies you with her terrible voice acting.  In fact, I reckon the voice actor was also responsible for the voices in Trouble Witches Neo.  That's not a bad thing... those voices were so bad they were good, and this is heading in that direction too.  It doesn't detract from the game at all, and I'm looking forward to playing it some more.

So there you have it... what I did on my day off.  Well, you have to keep it current sometimes.  And in doing so, it's good to see that in these days of first-person 3D ultra-realistic games there's still plenty of room for classic side-scrolling action.  A good game is a good game, simple as that.