Shadow of the Tomb Raider may have ended the three-game arc of Lara Croft’s journey to becoming the Tomb Raider we all know and love when it released last fall, but each month since then, Crystal Dynamics has continued to deliver a variety of new adventures for Lara (and the player) to traverse through with
PAX East 2019
The Messenger is one of my favorite games from last year as it is so cleverly designed both from a gameplay and story standpoint. What seemed like a cool gimmick with the instantaneous 8-bit to 16-bit transitions becomes a story point that adds both Metroidvania and light puzzle-solving elements to what was seemingly just a Ninja Gaiden
The BoxBoy games have always piqued my interests. I love spacial puzzle games and have always thought that BoxBoy would be a fun game to play. Since the series launched in 2015, there have been three games that all launched on the Nintendo 3DS. The most recent being Bye-Bye BoxBoy, I kinda thought I missed
I’m a huge fan of horror films but, for whatever reason, horror games have never really clicked with me. I can’t exactly pinpoint why that is. I tend to get tired of the repetitive trial and error nature of first-person games in the genre. However, I found my short time with Layers of Fear 2 to be
This might lose me some “gamer” cred, but I’ve never played a Streets of Rage game. Not that I can remember anyway. There is a small chance I played the first or second games from the beloved beat ‘em up series on my uncle’s Sega Genesis but I was a Nintendo kid. My beat ‘em
I’m a huge fan of the original Dragon Quest Builders, so the second entry in the spinoff series, Dragon Quest Builders 2, came naturally to me when I got to go hands-on with it at PAX East last weekend. Dragon Quest Builders 2 makes some solid improvements to its Minecraft-like formula while retaining what made the first entry so lovable. Fans have
Love and relationships have long been a topic explored in video games, but in the last few years indie games in particular have really seemed to be able to explore the topic in more experimental and emotional ways. As indie games have often focused on building narrative experiences or unique ways of storytelling rather than
I’ve always had a thing for mini golf: Both the real deal and video games. I think it’s all because my older cousin Jake showed my brother and I this online flash putt-putt game based off Live Savers candy. We were obsessed. I’ve been a sucker for mini golf style games ever since. I actually
When it comes to the depiction of war in media (and with games specifically), World War II in particular is a period in history that has been pretty well-trodden in a variety of different genres. From several Call of Duty titles and even to last year’s Battlefield V, the events and conflicts that have shaped World
As soon as I got the green light from the Editorial Team here at DualShockers that I’d be one of the staff writers going to and covering PAX East 2019, there was only one studio that I had to see while I was there—Yacht Club Games. I simply love Shovel Knight and each free expansion
Coming into Kitfox Games’ booth at PAX East, I thought I knew what dating sim/dungeon crawler Boyfriend Dungeon had to offer. Even so, and even as just a demo, to have the concept as a tangible thing was unexpectedly delightful to me. After a bit of hands-on time with a demo of the game, I felt
In Super Crush K.O., not only is there a massive invasion of AI swarming the Earth, but your cat has been kidnapped. You as the player character certainly have your priorities straight. From Vertex Pop of Graceful Explosion Machine fame, this beat-em-up/shoot-em-up follows that title’s philosophy of remixing familiar game genres with a colorful and
Needless to say, I’ve played my fair share of Dauntless over the past year. I find that every time I jump back into the game, it’s more compelling, more satisfying, and just plain fun. Not to mention, there has been a slew of content in just a years time. Dauntless may still be in beta on PC, but it’s
If you had told me a month ago that the first game I’d play at Yacht Club Games’ booth wouldn’t be Shovel Knight: King of Cards, I’d probably would have been very confused. Yacht Club Games is one of my favorite developers in the business. I’ve bought Shovel Knight five times for myself, plus as
My friend Logan knows me incredibly well. We were friends growing up but I moved. He later stumbled across me on Twitter and we have been friends ever since. We’ve podcasted, partied, and traveled together since that fateful Twitter interaction. Logan knows my taste in games so well, that he often tells me “You’ll like
Another PAX East has come to an end and all of us are very tired. But nevertheless, we escaped the show floor and took some time to each individually talk about the games that made the biggest impressions on us. Each of our staff writers in attendance got to play a wide variety of games
I have played my fair share of fighting games in my life. Admittedly though, that “fair share” hardly deviates from the known quantities. I’m talking about the numerous Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat, and Tekken games that have graced our consoles for years. Sometimes I’ll get crazy and check out something like Guilty Gear Xrd Rev
Back in January, Dauntless developer Phoenix Labs announced that they’d be bringing their free-to-play action hunting title exclusively to the Epic Games Store for the time being. In a recent interview with Robin Mayne, the co-founder of Phoenix Labs, he explained why the team decided to launch the game on the Epic Games store for their action
In the time I spent playing Heave Ho on the show floor at PAX East, I probably failed through the first couple puzzles at least a good two dozen or so times. Normally in that type of scenario when you’re trying to complete a particularly-challenging puzzle it can lead to frustration, but in the case of Heave
When it comes to recent trends in games as of late, one of the absolute best trends has been the resurgence of ninja-themed games. Last year, The Messenger blended the old-school gameplay of Ninja Gaiden with challenging Metroidvania gameplay, while more recently titles like Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice took fast-paced combat to new (and more difficult) levels. That
Building up energy is the key to the Nindies-featured Creature in the Well, a new dungeon crawler hack-and-slash game from Flight School Studio. With pinball-like combat mechanics, Creature in the Well adds a unique spin to the genre, though the PAX East demo that I played left me questioning how much further the final game will
I see a lot of game announcements, pitches, and ideas come across my Twitter feed. Some are hits, some miss the mark of my personal interest, and others just stick with me. Some are so unique in their presence that I kinda have to pay attention and keep the game on my radar until they
The offerings from Annapurna Interactive at PAX East 2019 couldn’t be any more different from one another, yet they all inspired similar emotions and feelings. Wattam, Outer Wilds, and Sayonara Wild Hearts each showed no shortage in creativity, all provoking intense curiosity of what these games have to offer further in. Wattam is a unique
Since its release last summer, Dead Cells has emerged as a cult hit thanks to its challenging roguelike gameplay and addictive Metroidvania elements, and with the game having been such a success, developer Motion Twin seems to be moving ahead on continuing to support the game while also exploring the potential of Google Stadia. Speaking in
There is something about the fusion of one-hit kills, zany weapons, rapid fire repetition, and scoreboards that creates an utterly addictive loop. The Hotline Miami series is near-and-dear to my heart. The more recent release Ape Out also vibes with me on a deep level. These games get stuck in your brain. They take over
A favorite common memory that Until Dawn players surely share is the experience of sitting together with friends and collectively choosing paths for their presumably doomed characters. That title from Supermassive Games took familiar horror film tropes and somehow blended them into something fresh and novel—and the studio’s next title, Man of Medan, appears to
As much as I love action-RPGs as a whole, few have ever quite stood out to me in the way that Biomutant has. I was already pretty much sold on the idea of playing as a mutated raccoon-like creature with a sword back when the game was first announced, but after having played a little bit
The previous titles in the Borderlands series are getting a 4K facelift. During a PAX East stage presentation riddled with technical problems and dad magic tricks, Gearbox ran a trailer for an ESRB-leaked Borderlands: Game of the Year Edition, along with a look at an Ultra HD version of The Handsome Collection. Borderlands: Game of the
It’s been a long journey for release for Media Molecule’s Dreams, but the game creation platform is taking a step closer. In the midst of PAX East 2019, Media Molecule announced that the previously-announced Early Access period will begin on April 16. This trial period is coming after a formal beta and will focus primarily
Since its debut back at E3 2016, Days Gone is a game that I have been optimistically looking forward to, despite some of the trepidations that others (and myself) have had about some of its qualities. A post-apocalyptic world where players have to fight for survival against waves of the undead is far from a new