NHL 19
When given the opportunity to review NHL 19, I had my reservations. Not because I expected a bad game, but because I hadn’t laced up virtual skates in over ten years. My heyday of playing EA Sports’ NHL lasted from ’99 to ’01. Indeed, I hadn’t played the franchise since NHL 08, but I’m glad I gave NHL 19 a go. From the outset, I appreciated that EA Canada has ma...[Read More]
Shadows: Awakening
I actually first played Shadows: Awakening (S:A) back in 2014 when it was the first episode of what was going to be a larger Heretic Kingdoms universe. Hopefully I am remembering those details correctly. Regardless, I enjoyed what I played then, and looked forward to more, but didn’t hear about the game again until it resurfaced as Shadows: Awakening. Fast forward to present day, and the gam...[Read More]
Marvel’s Spider-Man
Your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man is back, and he’s never played nor looked better than he does in Insomniac Games’ latest Sony exclusive. Available this Friday for PS4, and best enjoyed on a PS4 Pro with 4K and beautiful HDR, Marvel’s Spider-Man is the most ambitious, polished, and must-play videogame starring the web slinger ever released. Indeed, we’re a far cry remo...[Read More]
Strange Brigade
Strange Brigade was a game that I completely missed hearing about this E3, but when I did finally discover it, I was immediately intrigued. You see, every year there are those standout titles, your “AA” games that don’t get the advertising, the coverage, and all the hype that your big franchises do. I have found over time that it’s often these AA caliber games that I like t...[Read More]
Phantom Doctrine
CreativeForge and Good Shepard team-up for a Cold War themed turn-based tactical strategy game that recently released on most major platforms, PS4 included. Inspired by successful franchises like X-COM, Phantom Doctrine (PD) dives into an alternate 1983 in which two shadowy organizations, The Cabal and The Beholder Initiative, are performing espionage ops against one another with the fate of the w...[Read More]
State of Mind
State of Mind is a story about the separation of body and mind. It puts players in control of multiple characters (although mostly as Richard Nolan and Adam Newman) in a mind-bending linear sci-fi story about a man trying to find his wife and son. The near future (2048) setting sees Richard, a journalist who works for West Berlin’s biggest news outlet, The Voice, waking up in a hospital, con...[Read More]
Unavowed
Wadjet Eye Games has made a name for themselves in the last several years with stand-out point and click adventures like the Blackwell series, A Golden Wake, Technobabylon, and Shardlight. Honestly, they are among the few companies that really have my attention when they have a new game to announce. Their latest endeavor, available today, is called Unavowed, which I recently had the pleasure of pl...[Read More]
Operation Red Sea
Following the success of Operation: Mekong from 2016, action director Dante Lam brings us another power military action movie with Operation Red Sea. Arriving on Blu-ray, Digital, and DVD next week from Well Go USA, Operation Red Sea is easily one of the most intense military action films I have seen in a long time. The story sees eight members of the Chinese Navy’s elite special ops team, J...[Read More]
Sonic Mania Plus
Sonic Mania wowed fans of classic 2D Sonic games last August, with many calling it the greatest Sonic ever released. It was the highest rated Sonic game in fifteen years. I originally scored it a 9.2 and loved returning to the look and feel of Sonic of years gone by. It was a digital-only release at the time, but in just a few short days the physical edition arrives for Switch, PS4, and Xbox One. ...[Read More]
NieR: Automata Become As Gods Edition
In 2010, Yoko Taro’s NieR was not particularly well received by most, but garned quite a cult following. Senior Editor Eric Layman reviewed it way back then. It did well enough to earn a sequel that has fared much better. Last year’s NieR: Automata is considered by many to be a top ten game of 2017, and it was heralded by our own Eric Layman in his original review. However, unlike the ...[Read More]
Mission Impossible 1-5 (4K)
Tom Cruise reprises his role as IMF Agent Ethan Hunt later this month in the sixth Mission Impossible film in twenty-two years. In anticipation for that, Paramount has re-released the first five Mission Impossible films, this time making their 4K UHD HDR debut. All five films were released earlier this week in multi-disc + digital format, and I was pleased to revisit these action espionage thrill...[Read More]
Ikaruga (Switch)
Ikaruga is forever tied to two things in my mind: Dreamcast and Treasure. The first home console the game made it to was Sega’s Dreamcast, and the developer behind it was Treasure. Originally an arcade, the awesome SHMUP was ported to Dreamcast in 2001 and later saw a release on the Gamecube and even Xbox 360 via XBL Arcade. Now, publisher Nicalis takes this timeless gem from Japanese develo...[Read More]