Loopmancer
After dying nine times I finally beat Loopmancer‘s first boss. The crawl to get to him was grueling. I had savaged dozens of rank-and-file enemies with a bar stool and a fire axe and a pistol. Often their bodies would comically fly in all directions and spray blood once their health bar was empty. I’d been hit by a few cars, fallen off platforms, or didn’t connect with a jump. At...[Read More]
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge pretends as if the last twenty years of gaming hasn’t existed. It imagines a world where Konami did not stop churning out sequels to Turtles in Time and licensed titles were still told by way of beat ’em ups. Tribute Games, a stalwart developer of classic-inspired titles, has lived up to its name with Shredder’s Revenge. Desp...[Read More]
Silt
Silt is a tremendously evocative adventure, taking players into the furthest mysterious depths of the ocean. It’s just a damn shame the journey is over so swiftly. Denying the allure of Silt‘s aesthetic and atmosphere is an impossible task. Nearly every screen of the game grabs at the player’s attention with inky black animations and the grey tones of underwater horror spilling f...[Read More]
Souldiers
For developer Retro Forge, Souldiers is an extremely safe bet for a first game. Studios can throw all the money in the world at a game and there will still be a large pocket of players that constantly gravitate towards any game looking like it could be played on a plastic cartridge. Since Souldiers crept its way onto my radar I’ve been intrigued at how this “retro-inspired Soulslike Me...[Read More]
Evil Dead: The Game
Thankfully, Evil Dead: The Game is not a mediocre game glued together solely by its use of a beloved license. Evil Dead is an undeniable classic. An important piece of independent film-making. Its sequel a brilliant swirl of grotesque horror and slapstick comedy. The third film, Army of Darkness, is a middle finger to big budget films and a wonderful twist on the fantasy genre. Directed by Sam Rai...[Read More]
ScourgeBringer
ScourgeBringer delights itself in pulling no punches. Players will die at a furious, brutal pace. Whether it be a massive beam of energy, undodged bullet, or the bite of a lowly insect, dying feels bad. ScourgeBringer doesn’t care. Your angry tears and tightly gripped controller mean nothing outside of a lesson that this was your fault and you could do better. Being moderately experienced wi...[Read More]
Eiyuden Chronicle: Rising Review
Taking Eiyuden Chronicle: Rising at face value may be difficult for some. Meant as a spin-off or prologue or introduction to players before the arrival of Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes potentially sometime next year, Rising sets its sights as a “full game” despite its initial appearance. There is a world where I could imagine Rising as a free-to-play mobile game that gatekeeps prog...[Read More]
Weird West
The five interconnected stories of Weird West will have players’ choices rippling throughout the narrative. In this world of cannibalistic tribes, occult magic, and eldritch horror, tumbleweeds and dusty saloons hardly feel significant. Yet a strength of Weird West is its ability to balance both the Weird and the West. Packed with Arkane veterans, it’s little surprise that WolfEye Stud...[Read More]
Ghostwire: Tokyo
Ghostwire: Tokyo thrives on pushing the malleable boundaries of open world games. I’m unsure how many players will go into playing Ghostwire: Tokyo expecting a wide, open city packed with collectibles. How many playing this will have experience with Tango Gameworks’ The Evil Within series and its rapid emphasis on larger explorable spaces? Within the first hours, Ghostwire: Tokyo provi...[Read More]
Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin Review
Final Fantasy has been a series of constant evolution. Whether those changes be incremental or borderline genre shifts, the beloved RPG namesake feels virtually timeless. In the past 15 years, the fluctuating expectations of what makes a Final Fantasy game have been stretched to their breaking point. Is it a turn-based RPG? Is it a hybrid MMO? A buddy roadtrip adventure? I often think players over...[Read More]
Lifting the Fog from Ghostwire: Tokyo
Ghostwire: Tokyo has remained elusive since its slick, stylish E3 2019 debut. In the three years that have followed, the handful of moments where Tango Gameworks’ first non-The Evil Within game has appeared did little to lift the veil. This is from the studio founded by Shinji Mikami, the name behind Resident Evil. It looks steeped in Japanese folklore and horror. And the main character̷...[Read More]
A Musical Story
In my time interacting with A Musical Story I constantly wished to refer to it as A Musical Journey. A journey, while not inherently long, may take the player or reader or listener or viewer through a range of emotions and experiences. The acclaimed Journey, while brief, navigated players through a whimsical world and a silent, beautiful narrative. A story, meanwhile, may unfurl in a few moments a...[Read More]