While all games are undoubtedly passion projects to their developers, it is always overwhelmingly clear when you are playing something that the developer regards as their baby. Games like My Dog Zoro’s Linelight or Tom Happ’s Axiom Verge are clearly labors of love and — despite faults the underlying game may have — it is hard not
Reviews
Nine Parchments is the kind of game you play when you’re with a few friends and you want to have a drink. There’s no convoluted story to pay attention to, there’s not much in the way of mechanics, and the moment-to-moment gameplay is accessible to anyone. All of these things make Nine Parchments an incredible cooperative
Everything about polish studio Bloober Team’s newest psychological horror game is saturated and oozing with strange and anomalous juices that make you question your sanity. It is psychological chaos refined to its purest and most potent form, and so preternatural in its haunting that I sincerely am left wondering what’s in the water in Kraków.
Despite their influence on video game history, Capcom subsidiary Clover Studio was only around for less than three years following its formation. Although God Hand would be its last game and Viewtiful Joe was the studio’s longest-running series before officially closing their doors, 2006’s action-adventure title Okami would be considered Clover Studio’s legacy project. Unfortunately, Okami was an art-centric product that got lost
Anyone who knows me knows that I love the Dead Rising series; it is one of my favorite franchises of all time, with the first Dead Rising one of my favorite games ever. So, last year when I heard Dead Rising 4 announced at E3 2016 and that fans would be returning to Willamette I was excited. Unfortunately, having played
With virtual reality’s popularity growing the demand for creating a game in every genre is inevitable. While there are plenty of VR sports games that you can play, I have never been able to find a virtual reality American Football game to play on my HTC Vive. Thankfully, Truant Pixel has developed 2MD VR Football. In
Leave it to Aksys Games to add one more Falcom developed title to 2017 with Tokyo Xanadu eX+ for PlayStation 4 and PC. If you haven’t already, please check out my review of the original Tokyo Xanadu that released on PlayStation Vita — this will give you a good idea of the differences between the
Glitch City is nothing short of an unmitigated disaster. A dark, sci fi-punk twist on both New York City and Tokyo, Glitch City — and for that matter, the rest of the world — has fallen into a state of disrepair. Glitch City may even be worse-off compared to the rest of the country, with
What’s it feel like to go on an actual adventure? Growing up I always liked to imagine what it was like to visit different worlds and meet new intelligent races. For me, the easiest way to experience this was by playing RPGs. Over the years, I’ve seen the genre take a more realistic approach to
There’s something about picking your dream car, customizing its looks, and drifting it through the mountains like Sean Boswell in The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift. Finding the corned on a windy-back road or timing your shifts in a drag race down the boulevard feel rewarding and badass. It’s only when you take a
As the 2017 gaming year comes to a close, its safe to say that 4K gaming is in full swing; between the 4K-built PCs, PlayStation 4 Pro, and Xbox One X, all three systems fully capable of running varying degrees of 4K output. As gaming hardware becoming more powerful, demand for capture cards to keep
The minigames have always been an integral part of the Mario Party titles, seemingly being the only thing that stayed consistently good and fun as the series got more experimental — a constant factor, frustrating longtime fans. While I have actually found things to like in the newer Mario Party games, even being a fan of
Apollo Deckard — named after Apollo Creed from Rocky and Rick Deckard from Blade Runner — is a creative soul; he loves creating and listening music, playing video games, and his blonde-haired wife who he just got married to at the local museum. He works as a blogger right now, but he’ll probably get promoted
I think I’ve finally figured out why I like racing games so much: they are good pallette cleansers. In a world full of similar first-person shooters, platformers, and open-world games, racing titles often times help me get away from the tired and the mundane, as much as I like the aforementioned genres. Not only that,
Star Wars Battlefront II should’ve been the Chosen One. After the lackluster response to 2015’s Battlefront, Battlefront II seemed to have the breadth of content and an added campaign to please that those who felt slighted from the first game wanted in the sequel. At its best moments, Battlefront II is the game that we hoped it would be with some
Since 1979, the gaming industry has made fourteen attempts at creating a Superman video game worthy of your time and wallet. While many of these games were a valiant effort (except Superman 64) fans of the Man of Steel never received an actual Superman game per se; Megaton Rainfall is the superhero game no one wanted. But, I am
With no exception, Chicago-based developer Jackbox Games sets the gold standard for local multiplayer party games. Obviously, this includes the newly-released Jackbox Party Pack 4 – the latest iteration of the series, packing together a diverse and largely Twitch/livestream-inspired bundle that was an instant hit with both gamers and non-gamers I brought to the table.
There’s a group of gamers who seem to crave niche titles that otherwise won’t receive much attention from the larger gaming population. These gamers don’t necessarily want what’s popular or what’s on everyone’s most anticipated list, and they like it that way. Luckily, NIS America has come to give this group what they want and
Visual Arts and Key are well known in the visual novel community for being the developers of some of the greatest stories ever told, which are usually ones that make your heart ache and eyes water. Recently, we’ve seen the company have a larger presence in the west and it has led to them looking
I will admit, and I made it quite clear from my review of Life Is Strange: Before the Storm’s Episode 1: Awake, that I wasn’t the biggest fan of how Deck Nine portrayed a high school friendship. Similarly, I just didn’t believe in the relationship between Chloe and Rachel. To me, the introduction into the
If there’s one developer who knows how to make a dungeon crawler it’s Demon Gaze II‘s Experience. Time and again we’ve seen solid dungeon crawling games, such as Stranger of Sword City and Operation Abyss: New Tokyo Legacy. But one title that has stood out to me was their 2014 release of Demon Gaze on PlayStation Vita. The game
Microsoft is on the verge of a new console release, and no, it’s not a jump into the next generation. Instead what we have here is a super-charged mid-cycle refresh known as the Xbox One X. With its release, the “X” cements itself as the new top-shelf option within the Xbox One family and, for
Earlier this year I had the pleasure of reviewing the Nintendo Switch, initially handing the fledgling console a then-controversial 6.5 out of 10. Even still, my final wording on the console was somewhat critical: “the Nintendo Switch has potential — it’s up to Nintendo to show how far that potential can reach.” As we quickly
Raid: World War II is a disaster. Even with some of its more redeemable qualities, it’s hard to recommend over other phenomenal World War II shooters this year like Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus, and Call of Duty: World War II. The game seems like a culmination of too many ideas that never come together. Developer Lion game Lion clearly
Have you heard of Zwei: The Ilvard Insurrection? Don’t beat yourself up if you haven’t. It’s the second entry in the series from Falcom, the developers of Ys and The Legend of Heroes. Originally released in Japan in 2009 for PC, Zwei is an action series that many gamers might have missed. With that said,
The Summon Night series has always been a bitter pill to swallow for western JRPG fans. Many of the entries in the mainline titles have never been localized besides Summon Night 5 on PSP in 2016. The series commits to a well-told story with a large cast of characters that are featured in multiple spin-offs
B.J. Blazkowicz has been killing Nazis by the dozen for over twenty-five years, but he’s never been much more than an avatar for the player to take out their aggression on one of history’s most loathed regimes. MachineGames set out to change that with Wolfenstein: The New Order by giving Blazkowicz distinct traits and a unique personality
For years the Assassin’s Creed franchise has been the subject of delays, devotion, and non-numeral entries in the series leaving a bad taste in players mouths leaving fans on a constant emotional roller coaster ride. Finally, ten years after the launch of the first game, Assassin’s Creed: Origins makes a meaningful mark on history – a
Gust is a developer who doesn’t seem to want to be known for continuously building off of the same Atelier IP forever. More recently, the developer has chosen to expand their focus onto new IPs in different genres, but still they all seem to have that Gust charm. Fans of the developer know what to
It’s late at night, and your friend is missing, you go out to look, but there isn’t a living soul to be seen. You are entirely alone, but you sense that someone or something is following. Still, you press on with only the idea of your lost friend in sight. Suddenly an enormous spirit can