Gang Beasts (Xbox One)
Melt down an action figure to its primordial goo. Shape the wreckage into an anthropomorphic body, and somehow keep the limited points of articulation. Insert it into a dangerous arena with three companion abominations. Inspire it with the will to live and the instinct to destroy. Add a silly hat. The eventual product is Gang Beasts, a multiplayer brawler more interested in coddling chaos than hon...[Read More]
A Dozen Hours With Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice
Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice is a large game. After around fifteen hours meticulous play I’ve only cleared three enormous environments and unraveled what, I assume, are the first threads that will lead to a deeper set of mechanics. What follows is a disjointed-but-hopefully-coherent arrangement of impressions of FromSoftware’s latest Souls-like game. Sekiro’s basics bear FromSoftwar...[Read More]
Hypnospace Outlaw
Y2K broke the internet. Not in a highly publicized tech rapture, but as a herald of the World Wide Web leaving its adolescence. From the Eternal September of 1993 up until the end of the millennium, what passed for the common internet was a loose collection of busted websites assembled by normal people. Primitive tools were used to fashion digital identities in an age when an online persona was a ...[Read More]
Devil May Cry 5
At one point in Devil May Cry 5, Dante bisects a large motorcycle in order to use each half as a melee weapon. After performing a maneuver in which each tire grinds his opponent’s face into pulp, he remarks how’s that for road rash? Another character, V, tranquilly reads and recites poetry from an actual book while a large cat and a bird of prey, both his pets/friends, fight in his ste...[Read More]
Ape Out
A gorilla will fuck you up. They are not violent creatures but, if sufficiently motivated, have the capacity to liquefy a human being’s internal organs. In the case of Ape Out, a top-down brawler by Gabe Cuzzillo with assistance from Bennett Foddy and Matt Boch, well-armed humans have imprisoned a gorilla and the gorilla wishes to leave. To prevent this, the humans try to confuse the gorilla...[Read More]
Resident Evil 2: The Ghost Survivors
Last month’s remake of Resident Evil 2 was not short on ways to draw tension from the player. Solving the labyrinthine police station, coping with the monstrosities in the sewers, and sorting out anthropomorphic plants at the Umbrella labs—combined with the duress of the calm Terminator, Mr. X—was more than enough to deal with. Combat was an added stressor, providing the player with a range ...[Read More]
FutureGrind
The penalty of aging and acquiring experiences is, eventually, it seems you’ve collected too many. Craving the new and the novel is no longer an attainable goal and personal ambition transitions from a thrill of discovery to the satisfaction of mastery. I am 35, which is either old if you’re younger or young if you’re older. From both perspectives I have been enjoying platforming...[Read More]
Resident Evil 2
In the peaks and valleys of Resident Evil, it is difficult to find a more respected high point than Resident Evil 2. Hideki Kamiya’s entangled directorial debut expanded the scope of Resident Evil and set a new standard for the flourishing genre of survival horror. In 2019, a new Resident Evil 2 has the same objective with a different plan. Objects of affection in 1998—cumbersome inventory m...[Read More]
Vane
Vane doesn’t like to follow many rules. It seems to care even less about the consequences. If its choices are perceived as deliberate subversions of common themes, Vane can feel like a freestanding revolution. If the exact same moves are recognized as obfuscating and inert, Vane can feel like a frustrating waste of time. Caught between Vane’s convictions are despairing performances iss...[Read More]
![The Eternal Castle [REMASTERED]](https://digitalchumps.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/capsule-main-facebook-120x120.png?x34000)
![The Eternal Castle [REMASTERED]](https://digitalchumps.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/capsule-main-facebook-80x80.png?x34000)
The Eternal Castle [REMASTERED]
The Eternal Castle [REMASTERED] adapts a past that never was to create a future that never came to be. This is a practical thesis for building a modern retro-themed game, but The Eternal Castle animates its esoteric references and strict guidelines with a euphoric nose dive into its revered generation. Four color CGA-style graphics align with the plodding, deliberate animation of Delphine’s ...[Read More]
Ashen
It’s exciting to witness Dark Souls’ influence spread across contemporary games. Watching Necropolis apply Souls’ ideals to a modern roguelike and seeing Salt and Sanctuary’s reproduce Souls in two dimensions have been two of the better surprises in a growing field. Ashen, the long-in-development Souls-like from A44, is both an unabashed clone and a defiant newcomer. Throug...[Read More]
Eric Layman’s Top Ten Games for 2018
Hi. Here are the best videogames from 2018. CELESTE Matt Makes Games Celeste succeeds by how effectively it mirrors and scales the relationship between player and its protagonist. Madeline’s resolve to ascend and conquer an intolerable mountain neatly overlaps with the hazards the player must endure across Celeste’s basic challenges and extremely harsh (and mostly optional) content. M...[Read More]