God of War Ragnarök
At the age of 6 I lost my father to an incurable illness. This lingered over me in the final hours of God of War Ragnarök. A sentiment echoing in my mind. What would life be like had his tutelage been there? Would he be a good father? Remained with my mother? Taught me to be a better person? Hard to say. One of the few memories I have of him is sitting in a living room, playing Super Mario Bros. w...[Read More]
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II shirks revolution for refinement. For a series that has been burning at both ends for nearly two decades, sea change is hard to come by yet entirely expected by a large cadre of players and critics. Where does the franchise go from here? How does a first-class multiplayer prove itself digestible by the masses while striving for something different? The choice by Inf...[Read More]
Gotham Knights
The shadow cast by the Arkham games looms heavily over Gotham Knights‘ opening hours, often bleeding into the entire game. It’s been seven years since Rocksteady released Batman: Arkham Knight, leaving a massive hole for players wishing to take part in the Caped Crusader’s exploits. That shadow extends even further knowing that it has been almost a decade since WB Games Montreal ...[Read More]
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II Beta Impressions
In the final months of 2019, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare acted as a newly-formed appendage. Hours on end were spent playing Infinity Ward’s “‘soft’ ‘reboot'” to the detriment of my sleep and a horde of other games I would have otherwise played. Like many Novembers and Decembers, Call of Duty had its temporary hooks in me as many zeitgeist games often do. ItR...[Read More]
Serial Cleaners
After wrapping up Serial Cleaners I decided to dust off my digital copy of Serial Cleaner, a game I had bought years ago on sale and never played. “How does the original compare to the sequel?” I wondered. I considered hopping into the first game before playing Serial Cleaners so I could speak on how the two compared and contrasted. But instead, I decided a completely fresh perspective...[Read More]
No Place for Bravery
“Sing, oh Muse, the folly of Thorn, son of Dewr, who lived by the blade.” No Place for Bravery opens with this line, a throaty chant and booming drums accompany the text crawl. It instills an ancient sense of power into the player’s subconscious. Our main character is named Thorn and this introduction heavily implies that all will not be right, his folly worthwhile enough to be a...[Read More]
The Tomorrow Children: Phoenix Edition
When The Tomorrow Children released sometime in 2016 I never played it. However, before the game’s full release I spent hours with game’s beta. In my vast library of PlayStation avatars, I treasure the one I received for participation in Q-Games’ newest experiment. There was something so oddly inviting about The Tomorrow Children to me. Its Soviet-inspired world and writing added...[Read More]
Metal: Hellsinger Review
Is it the profound hope of most game developers to allow their players to embody a specific avatar? The common “joke” with Marvel’s Spider-Man was that it let players “feel like Spider-Man” in one form or another. And you know what? It’s true. I’m never going to web sling through New York City and Insomniac’s blockbuster allowed me to live out that p...[Read More]
Wayward Strand
During the three in-game days players spend on Wayward Strand‘s airborne nursing home, time does not stop. Much like the characters main character Casey interacts with, time is a valuable commodity. Miss a moment and it is gone forever… at least until you start a new game. Wayward Strand treats the passage of time as an unflinching force that constantly moves forward with no regard for...[Read More]
Broken Pieces
Broken Pieces evokes numerous other games during its opening hours–an often endearing quality when eventually those inspirations manifest into something wholly original. Resident Evil, Silent Hill, Alan Wake, Control, Gone Home, Alone in the Dark. Stephen King and H.P. Lovecraft began to rapidly trickle in as did a number of avant-garde thrillers. If anything, Broken Pieces cements itself in...[Read More]
The Last of Us Part 1
The Last of Us has defined the past nine years of Sony and the PlayStation. Released days after Sony’s legendary 2013 E3 conference, The Last of Us was an expression of years of work mastering how to craft games for a console. Three massively influential Uncharted games acted as the catalyst to Naughty Dog’s gritty, post-apocalyptic vision. Joel’s path towards redemption through ...[Read More]
Cuphead: The Delicious Last Course
The Delicious Last Course is, simply put, more Cuphead. Players should be able to judge their desires based on that statement alone. Plenty of games possess infuriatingly challenging boss battles, ones that border on sadistic with their flurry of projectiles and screen-sweeping attacks. But I personally feel that the boss battle has fluctuated in quality and consideration over the years. In the 8-...[Read More]