Recent content by Lem

Generally browse Steam and see what takes my fancy. Sometimes I'll see a friend playing a game and want it, or they'll ask me if I'd like to play multiplayer (that's how I got Rocket League), but mostly I'll see what I want on any given day.

I think there's an important balance to be struck. Clearly, some people bring more skill to a game than others so you have to have difficulty settings. I like a game to be challenging, but if I have to spend more than 20 minutes trying to do the same thing then I'm going to get frustrated.

Paradox interactive make the best sprawling strategy games by far. They made Cities:Skylines, and my personal favourite - Stellaris. I can play their games for hours and hours at a time. They also don't neglect the corners of games that sometimes other developers do, like music.

After 2016 was such an amazing year for games, 2017 seems to have tailed off a bit. But I could have been completely wrong! What have I missed? I've really enjoyed Prey so far this year, but apart from that nothing stands out.

I'm a bit like you - I watched a few people play games before I actually got to play one. The very first game that I actually bought with my own money was Pokemon Blue for the Game Boy. I remember counting out all the coins that I had saved on the counter, and having trouble picking them all up...

All depends. On a work day, maybe only half an hour or so - just something to wind down in the evening. But at the weekend, or on holiday I might clock up five to ten hours. I play poker a lot online, and that tends to rack up the hours. Also, Stellaris is an absolute sink for time! If I'm over...

Hardest game I ever played was far and away Snake Pass. It's the only game that I've genuinely rage-quit. The game itself is so cute - you have Noodle the Snake and his sidekick Doodle the Bird, and they make their way through this cute cartoon world that looks a lot like Spyro the Dragon...

If you didn't pay for the game in the first place, then micro-transactions are absolutely a thing that I can get on board with. I don't mind at all playing a game for free on my phone, and then being asked to pay for upgrades or something like that. However, if I paid for the game in the first...

It's got to be either FPS, or real time strategy games. I'm quite picky when it comes to my FPS games - I really like Doom, but I'm not so sold on Halo or COD. I can play most real time strategy games though. I love building up an empire or an army over time, managing my resources and then...

I've watched a bunch of eSports, but my favourite by far is Starcraft 2. There are so many different lineups that you can have, and the game is as easily complex as sports played irl (I'm looking at you, curling). There are so many tactics, and ways that the game can play out. It's genuinely...

My favourite fact about Minesweeper is that it looks different in different countries. In most of the world, it has flowers instead of mines, because in places where there are actual minefields it's a bit insensitive to have a lighthearted game about them.

It's a seriously old shout, and I'll probably get a bit of hate for it - but my most useless game is SkiFree that was bundled with Windows in the early nineties. If I'm remembering right, there wasn't even a scoring system, you just skied for a bit until you got eaten by a bear. Or, you could...

It's an oldie, but a good one - my favourite music is from Transport Tycoon. I know that that game came out in like 1991 - but it's got a really odd jazzy soundtrack that's properly off-beat. It goes really well with the overall zaniness of the game. They kept it for Transport Tycoon Deluxe in...

Far and away my favourite boss is the Spider Demon from Doom. I don't mind if it's the classic one, or the one from Doom 2016. There's something wonderfully malevolent about the boss. In classic Doom she was awesome and unstoppable - it was great to wander round this huge playing area being...