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]
Gran Turismo 7
Gran Turismo 7 is not a game made for me. And yet, strangely, it is. In 2003, I bought my first car, a ’98 Chevrolet Malibu LS for $3500. A week or so after I had the car, I got into a fake drag race with someone else. My car was actually in reverse, so I went backwards while my opponent skirted forward. Laughter ensued. In the summer of 2005 I drove the car to Chicago to go to Lollapalooza ...[Read More]
Infernax
Weren’t Zelda II: The Adventure of Link and Castlevania II: Simon’s Quest weird anomalies? Two classic series, two polarizing games. But keep in mind… there was no standard in place after the first Zelda and Castlevania. Nintendo and Konami had no blueprint to follow from. A sequel could have literally been anything. A carbon copy. An educational game. A racer. A turn-based RPG. ...[Read More]
Dying Light 2 Stay Human
Dying Light 2 Stay Human‘s biggest triumph is that its open world feels both dangerous and highly exciting. As a fan of Dying Light and, by extension, Dead Island, Dying Light 2 checks the boxes of what we’ve come to expect of a game spawned from the popularity of The Walking Dead franchise. In 2022, zombies don’t feel as potent as they once were but that doesn’t mean a gam...[Read More]
OlliOlli World
OlliOlli was one of the first games I fell absolutely in love with at my first E3 in 2013. For the first time I had the opportunity to play games in their early-ish stages and, hopefully, speak with developers to form a picture of their aspirations. Roll7’s oddly brilliant idea of a 2D skateboarding game where tricks were dictated by flicks of the PlayStation Vita’s thumbsticks became ...[Read More]
Nobody Saves the World
As much as I want to compare Nobody Saves the World to The Legend of Zelda, I feel like doing so would be a great disservice to DrinkBox Studios’ latest genre retooling. Where Guacamelee! could be easily marketed as a Metroidvania, its Luchador hero’s emphasis on melee combat resisted the traditions of super missiles, swords, magic, space jumps, and transforming into bats. Nobody Saves...[Read More]
Introspection with The Artful Escape
The Artful Escape‘s swirling potpourri of foreign celestial bodies and magnificent narrative blueprinting serves a singular purpose: To move players. It’s bare-bones gameplay structure merely acts to propel the player towards one fantastical digital fresco to the next breathtaking zenith or soul-searching chunk of dialog. Developer Beethoven & Dinosaur seems keenly aware of their ...[Read More]
Rainbow Six Extraction
Tom Clancy’s name has been stretched in a multitude of ways. The franchises attached to the Tom Clancy’s brand have been equally stretched. Splinter Cell, Ghost Recon, The Division… XDefiant? The worlds inspired by the author’s works have often been relatively grounded, if not a bit out of the realm of belief. Years ago I read the massive tome that was Rainbow Six because I...[Read More]