Dark Souls Remastered
Dark Souls changed everything. FromSoftware’s magnum opus seized upon a dormant, collective urge to challenge adversity with perseverance. When it was released in 2011, near the apex of the last console generation, gaming was in a comfortable malaise. Modern Warfare 3, Uncharted 3, The Elder Scrolls V, Battlefield 3, Skyward Sword; a deluge of sequels were logical moves, but none created a p...[Read More]
The MISSING: J.J. Macfield and the Island of Memories
I needed to put ten bricks on a scale. I canvassed the entire level, scouring every inch, and only came away with nine bricks. I examined everything again and reached the same conclusion; there were no hidden bricks to be found. I was dumbfounded until I remembered one of The Missing’s more gruesome features. I could chop my arm off, throw it on the scale, and qualify it as a brick. This wor...[Read More]
ASTRO BOT Rescue Mission
Modern virtual reality—2016’s beacon of Future Tech and one of gaming’s most dramatic gambles—has proven extremely difficult to get right. Games with a free-roaming camera tend to make people sick, equivalent AAA experiences (with exception) feel alarmingly brief, and generic shooting galleries dominate the landscape. Virtual reality’s general stability feels precarious when it should be prodigiou...[Read More]
The State of Tekken 7 / Season Pass 2 update
I underestimated Tekken 7. When I reviewed Tekken 7 last year, I concluded it was institutional progress and austere form cloaked in spectacle and absent of risk. Its periphery can’t keep pace with 2017 and its core feels like it’s running the same race Tekken already won almost a decade ago. This doesn’t stop Tekken 7 from being the best 3D fighter on current platforms, but it&#...[Read More]
Donut County
Press X Button to Deploy Hole. Raccoons enjoy garbage but are not arbiters of what is and is not garbage. Their fondness for trash theft and their default bandit fur creates an unsavory reputation, but it’s obvious that, if allowed, raccoons would steal anything that isn’t nailed down. They’re criminals, but nature isn’t subject to the laws of men and it’s deemed unwi...[Read More]
Yakuza Kiwami 2
Yakuza 2 was the game where you could punch a tiger in the face. Its 2008 release to the PlayStation 2, while a pleasant gesture from Sega, was buried under the prime of the next console generation. Its status as a sequel to a commercial failure, lacking the marketing budget and english dub of its predecessor, emptied the rest of the clip into its chances of success. On forums and through budding ...[Read More]
Guacamelee! 2
Guacamelee! delivered a piledriver to metroidvania’s modern revival. Games like Shadow Complex, Dust: An Elysian Tail, and Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet set a tone that Guacamelee would amplify with a frenzied mariachi band. Alien worlds, outrageous weapons, and hostile gunmen were replaced with Mexican folklore, lucha libre wrestling, and irate skeletons. When it was first released in 2013...[Read More]
Flap Jaw Space: Episode 1 (our 105th episode)
Flap Jaw Space, which technically remains DigitalChumps’ podcast, has rebooted. Rather than a lightly disorganized weekly (2010-2011) monthly (2012-2015) or quarterly (2016-2017) discussion of old and new videogames, we’ve moved on to a more focused, topic-based format. Perhaps you’ll be able to tell a difference. Maybe not! We’re going to try to get these out monthly. Topi...[Read More]
Okami HD
Okami is a dream on the verge of breaking through to reality. 2006, in the midst of next-generation hardware, was not an ideal time for its debut on PlayStation 2. Two years later, Okami’s “drawing” mechanics made sense on the Wii — right around the same time Wii owners became disinterested in third-party software. Okami HD, with PlayStation Move support in tow, quietly arrived o...[Read More]
Dead Cells
Dead Cells radiates confidence. It’s felt inside of its levels, a metroidvanian network of procedural generation that feels both distinctive and familiar. It’s visible in its roguelike impulses, delivering a smattering of weapons and power-ups and ensuring all of them are viable and fun to practice through every run. Finding Dead Cells proves to be as engaging as mastering Dead Cells, ...[Read More]
Detached
Detached is extremely satisfied with being in space. In the figurative sense, it provides simple-to-complex control options that allow the player to comfortably navigate all three axes of direction in virtual reality. You’re also literally always in space, the colossal vacuum of irradiated poison. Instant immersion, feeling like you’re there, is a priority and novelty for virtual reali...[Read More]
Tempest 4000
EAT ELECTRIC DEATH. Potent, perfunctory, and technically possible, eat electric death was the in-game banner for Tempest 2000’s Jaguar debut in 1994. Its meaning1 relates to the visual assault and neural overload induced by Dave Theurer’s 1981 classic Tempest, itself a mixture of then-novel vector display technology fueled by (what felt like) dangerous amounts of electricity. The sinis...[Read More]