Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora Review
“Oh yeah,” I thought as I had to crouch to go under a door, “I’m ten feet tall.” Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora asks players one simple thing: lose yourself in this world, let it absorb you. There is a kind of poetry in a game that allows its players to inhabit a central character. Not just a character that stands on two legs and shoots guns or slays demons or triumphs ...[Read More]
The Talos Principle II Review
Eventually I will return to The Witness. The 2016 all-encompassing puzzle game consumed me for a couple weeks upon release. I think it was that moment I realized line puzzles existed within the environment. I had climbed a ladder and was overlooking the bay of the introductory area hours after wrapping it up and noticed a near-perfect circle formed by pieces of scenery. “Wait…” I...[Read More]
Gangs of Sherwood Review
One benefit of cooperative play is that we can often ignore certain pressing issues which affect the quality of an otherwise lackluster game. When you’re goofing off with friends engaged in the chaos of multiple combatants delivering flashy, devastating blows to a screen full of fodder, you often don’t notice grueling difficulty spikes. When playing solo, enemies can easily gang up on ...[Read More]
Loot River Review
Loot River is one of the first games of its type that I’ve played in quite awhile. A few days ago`when writing a prior review, the difference between a roguelike and roguelite eluded me. Anymore, the blanket term for either has glided its way into becoming increasingly defined as Soulslike. Nuance is a tricky beast when applying definition. A sickly-sweet romance with laughs used to just be ...[Read More]
Trinity Fusion Review
As I mentioned recently in my review of Have a Nice Death, the beating heart of a great (or at least competent) roguelite often reverberates in its first run. In the first ten minutes of Trinity Fusion, developer Angry Mob Games taught me the basics of combat and platforming, feeding new enemies to slice and dash through. I treated it casually, assuming at some point an impassable enemy or story b...[Read More]
Have a Nice Death Review (PS5)
After nearly a year of PC and Switch exclusivity, Have a Nice Death is finally arriving to PlayStation and Xbox consoles. Since its reveal, Have a Nice Death has intrigued me not only because I’m a massive fan of roguelikes but due to the game’s striking aesthetic. Because the genre has been so massively crowded these past several years, developers are having a hell of a time different...[Read More]
Cookie Cutter Review
Cookie Cutter‘s brazen attitude towards violence, sexuality, and legibility is one of its crowning strengths. Few games have insisted upon bathing themselves in such gratuitous displays without coming across as adolescent, edgy, or entirely thoughtless. But Cookie Cutter‘s carefully constructed aesthetic reminded me of such champions like Aeon Flux, Ghost in the Shell, Hotline Miami, a...[Read More]
SteamWorld Build Review
Whether it be theme park or simulated city, there is an allure to micro-managing hundreds if not hundreds of thousands of virtual people. For all intents and purposes, the player is a god. The capability of directly plucking a villager or a farmer out of thin air with a virtual hand or creating vast metropolises with a single sweeping motion has long been a gaming pastime. Yet SteamWorld Build is ...[Read More]
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III Review
Death and taxes. And Call of Duty. There are so few certainties in this brief life of ours. Perhaps with equal guarantee is the polarizing deluge of opinion surrounding the franchise which only grows more vocal each year. Since 2005’s Call of Duty 2 there has been a Call of Duty game released every single year. It feels like an impossible cadence but one a fleet of Activision-based developer...[Read More]
The Invincible Review
Unlike the open-ended, Delilah-less finale of Firewatch, I wasn’t disappointed when my choices made in The Invincible caused me not to cross paths with the indomitable, titular spacecraft. The red herring chase that was Firewatch‘s government conspiracies, murder mysteries, and star-crossed lovers all came crashing down in the final moments of the game. Any narrative expectations playe...[Read More]
The Expanse: A Telltale Series Review
Though absurdly unfamiliar with The Expanse television show, its praises have been sung multiple times by various members of my friend group. But shows are harder for me to dive into anymore, blame the thirst for binging or the mere fact that I’ve got too many games to play. However, I’m familiar with Telltale Games, both their triumphs and struggles. The Walking Dead is a seminal gami...[Read More]
Star Ocean The Second Story R Review
Earlier this year when I reviewed Sea of Stars, I couldn’t help but be transported back 30 odd years. Sabotage Studios’ tribute to a distinct era of RPG was both nostalgic and refreshing. The game evoked those most precious RPGs from the 16- and 32-bit era, where some of the most powerful gaming experiences originated from. But as developers experimented with better tech, two-dimension...[Read More]