REVIEWS
5 adventure / survival themed computer games
Since I went to Scouts as a child I always had an interest in survival skills. Perhaps its the doomsday outlook about the future in the media or the consumerist society where you buy everything you need rather than having the skills to do it yourself.
Everyday life doesn’t offer much opportunity to actually use these skills. Even on my adventure travels I only used survival skills a handful of times. So here comes the virtual world to the rescue:
Miasmata
Miasmata is a first-person survival adventure game developed by Joe and Bob Johnson under the studio name IonFX. The player attempts to navigate across treacherous terrain and past various threats in pursuit of medicinal plants or fungi that may cure him.
“Surviving in Miasmata is not about the ending or the story it tries to tell, but the journey. The journey will be tough. The journey will be a trial of patience and will. The journey will be perhaps one of the most memorable you’ll have in a PC game this year.” - IGN
The Forest
The Forest is an open world survival horror game for PC. Build, explore, survive in this first person survival horror simulator. Enter a living, breathing forest with changing weather patterns, plants that grow and die, tides that roll in and out with the day/night cycle. Below ground explore a vast network of caves and underground lakes. Chop down trees to build a camp, or start a fire to keep warm. Scavenge food to keep yourself from starving. Find and plant seeds to grow food.
Survive
Wilderness survival simulation game. Try to survive and travel to safety. You need to decide how you spend your time and what action is most crucial for you now in order to survive: building a shelter, finding food, water, traveling, collecting firewood.
Day Z
It is an open world survival video game by Bohemia Interactive. The game places the player in the fictional post-Soviet state of Chernarus, where a mysterious plague has turned most of the population into violent zombies. The player must scavenge the world for food, water, weapons, and medicine, while killing or avoiding zombies, and killing, avoiding, or cooperating with other players in an effort to survive the outbreak. The player begins equipped with only simple clothes, a road flare and a rag.
Fallout
Fallout is a series of post-apocalyptic Retro-futuristic role-playing video games. Its atompunk retrofuturistic setting and artwork are influenced by the post-war culture of 1950s America.
As the sole survivor of Vault 111, you enter a world destroyed by nuclear war. Only you can determine the fate of the Wasteland.
A simulation of a future post-nuclear war scenario. The War and subsequent nuclear Armageddon has severely depopulated the country, leaving large expanses of property decaying from neglect. Virtually all food and water is irradiated and most life have mutated due to high radiation combined with mutagens of varied origins.
With a large portion of the country’s infrastructure in ruins, basic necessities are scarce.
Barter is the common method of exchange, with bottle caps providing a more conventional form of currency. Most cities and towns are empty, having been looted and deserted in favour of smaller, makeshift communities scattered around the Wasteland.
https://www.youtube.com/embed/GE2BkLqMef4
Update:
The Witness
The Witness is a 3D puzzle video game. Inspired by Myst, the game involves the exploration of an open world island filled with natural and man-made structures. The player progresses by solving puzzles, which are based on interactions with mazes presented on panels around the island or hidden within the environment. The player will have to determine the rules of each puzzle from visual clues and audio recordings scattered around the island. Jonathan Blow, the game’s lead designer, desired to create a game around non-verbal communication, wanting players to learn from observation and to come to epiphanies in finding solutions and leading to a greater sense of involvement and accomplishment with each success.