Olija
After I wrapped credits on Olija I was a touch saddened that there was no option to continue, merely start a new game. It wasn’t that I felt robbed by the game’s eight or so hours of length or that I couldn’t dive right back in and hunt for more secrets. Rather, Olija thrusts itself upon players in a remarkable way, an amalgamation of concepts fused together in a tight package. W...[Read More]
Skul: The Hero Slayer
After a few dozen runs through Skul: The Hero Slayer I was surprised that the game kept managing to dole out new items and powers for my minuscule skeleton to use in his fight against the forces of good. Like many roguelikes, Skul needs a deep pool of variety to incentivize players to keep pushing through familiar fights and repetitive content. The game pushes a unique power-swapping mechanic that...[Read More]
Scott Pilgrim vs. The World: The Game Complete Edition
Ten years ago Bryan Lee O’Malley’s Scott Pilgrim comics were at the top of the nerdy game. Though Scott’s run on the page had come to a close, the Edgar Wright-directed movie was out and a Ubisoft-helmed game adapting the fight for love and against Ramona Flowers’ seven evil exes proved to be a bite-sized hit. After only a few years, Scott Pilgrim vs. The World: The Game wa...[Read More]
Watch Dogs Legion
Watch Dogs‘ identity crisis ended when the series decided to stop taking itself so seriously. The jump from Aiden Pearce’s revenge-fueled techno war to Marcus Holloway’s hacker rebellion was stark. Watch Dogs 2 is an infinitely more enjoyable game because it took the brilliant ideas of the original, stripped them of pretense, and used them for entertaining scenarios. Sure, I enjo...[Read More]
Chronos: Before the Ashes
Despite being a remake of the VR game Chronos and a prequel to Remnant: From the Ashes, Chronos: Before the Ashes is surprisingly accessible. Having never played the original game on VR and only making it partway through Remnant, I never felt truly lost. Chronos is a game that pieces together ideas from a variety of sources, attempting to mold itself into something more. Most will look at the game...[Read More]
Immortals Fenyx Rising
Immortals Fenyx Rising is fortunate in that it does not suffer from an identity crisis. During the process of covering and reviewing this game, “Breath of the Wild” will dance across the page of many writers’ work. It’s unavoidable, in the vein of comparing third-person difficulty with Dark Souls. Even having only played a few hours of 2017’s critically acclaimed game...[Read More]
Assassin’s Creed Valhalla
Assassin’s Creed Valhalla is at a crossroads. Bursting at the seams with content and technical prowess, it may remind players of Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag, released at this same time seven years ago. A cheery, cavalier game, Black Flag butted heads with the coming end of the PlayStation 3/Xbox 360 era and the introduction of the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. Valhalla, as you may ha...[Read More]
Mafia: Definitive Edition
Mafia: Definitive Edition is plucked from time. In ways, it is a time capsule, preserving a vision that first came to be in 2002. Yet as a remake, it acts as a more digestible, refined way to fall back into a classic or allow newcomers to experience it for the first time. Tommy Angelo, Mafia‘s anti-hero, is the typical scrappy rogue that graced a number of games around the Grand Theft Auto 3...[Read More]
13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim
When losing myself in the intricate narrative web Vanillaware spins in 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim, I couldn’t help but be reminded of playing Zero Escape: Virtue’s Last Reward on my PlayStation Vita. Like a good book, I would clutch my Vita in hand, poring over hours of seemingly convoluted text involving murder, time travel, end-of-the-world cults, and escape rooms. One thing kept me fro...[Read More]
Ghost Recon Breakpoint Episode 3: Red Patriot
A year ago, it may have been hard to anticipate how stuffed with content Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Breakpoint would be. Whether players grew attached to the game or not, its hard to deny that at launch, there was a lot to do. In addition to the previous episodic content drops, Breakpoint‘s expected and unexpected updates have rounded out Ubisoft’s initial promise of the Wildlands ...[Read More]
Iron Harvest
Let’s not beat around the bush. Iron Harvest‘s mechanized battles across a war-torn alternative history are awesome. Who needs tanks or spaceships or weird aliens when you can have steam-powered mechs clanking over infantry? This fascinating and approachable aesthetic will easily drawn any curious RTS player into Iron Harvest‘s world. What’s better is that tucked under this...[Read More]
Marvel’s Avengers
Among the flurry of fists, muon beams, and godly thunder of Marvel’s Avengers, I wonder how many people at Crystal Dynamics and Eidos Montreal spent their youthful weekends furiously mashing controller buttons to the droves of atrocious and amazing licensed games available during their childhood. Who was tarnished by The Uncanny X-Men? That barely competent brawler was one of the first insta...[Read More]