Below
Below’s opening moments follow a sailboat as it makes landfall on a dark and dreary island shore. It only lasts thirty seconds, but, in a medium that trains its audience to expect immediate feedback and gratification, Below takes an eternity to commence. This opening not only reflects Below’s history—debuting five years after its public announcement—but also acts as a measure for its i...[Read More]
GRIS
Gris is a visual language of emotion expressed through phrases of watercolor and animation. It speaks without saying a word and its message is as powerful and poignant as one can find in a visual medium. Gris neatly ties its narrative objective to the agency of its player and its protagonist, obliging the adverse label of puzzle-platformer with tricks as fleeting as they are clever. Unique in a cr...[Read More]
Just Cause 4
My name is Rico Rodriguez. I am a god. This is my fourth time assuming the powers of a god. I have been deposited in Solís, a faux (but very real to me) South American country, in order to depose someone named Gabriela Morales and annihilate The Black Hand. The former has connections to my late father while the latter is a band of mercenaries that has supplied endless henchmen to challenge me duri...[Read More]
Abzû
Abzu makes a powerful first impression. As an anonymous diver in a deserted, ambient world, it’s just you and cerulean water as far as the eye can see. Caught between a cel-shading paradise and photorealistic retreat, Abzu opens as a picturesque vision of isolation in the middle of the ocean. Even when it’s idling, Abzu is gorgeous. Diving below the water sets Abzu in motion. Austin Wintory&...[Read More]
Persona 5: Dancing in Starlight
Persona’s characters and themes have proven effective outside of their native territory. After labyrinthine adventures in Etrian Odyssey’s style of dungeon crawling and brawls with Arc System Works brand of 2D fighting, 2015’s Vita exclusive Persona 4: Dancing All Night poured Persona in the mold of a rhythm game. A dancing themed follow-up with the casts of Persona 3 and Persona...[Read More]
Persona 3: Dancing in Moonlight
Persona’s characters and themes have proven effective outside of their native territory. After labyrinthine adventures in Etrian Odyssey’s style of dungeon crawling and brawls with Arc System Works brand of 2D fighting, 2015’s Vita exclusive Persona 4: Dancing All Night poured Persona in the mold of a rhythm game. A dancing themed follow-up with the casts of Persona 3 and Persona...[Read More]
Game Tengoku CruisinMix Special
There was a time when it was a novelty for one videogame to acknowledge the existence of another videogame. When the shoot ’em up Parodius debuted on MSX in 1988, it gleefully lampooned other pieces of Konami’s arcade line-up. Parodius and its sequels would go on to parody the likes of Gradius, Castlevania, TwinBee, and Lethal Enforcers, creating a single publisher’s approximatio...[Read More]
Déraciné
Déraciné is narrative adventure featuring wholesome children, sinister undertones, and a projection of selflessness as the ultimate virtue. Depending on your perception, FromSoftware’s latest work can be either inside or outside of their menacing wheelhouse. The developers of the Souls series have, over the last twenty years, also created a downtempo macabre adventure, paragons of mecha, ost...[Read More]
Tetris Effect
Tetris’ sin was being born perfect. Since Alexey Pajitnov’s magnum opus made it to Game Boy, countless sequels and alternations have followed in its wake. Tetris II, Tetrisphere, The New Tetris, Sega Tetris, Puyo Puyo Tetris, and even two entries for Nintendo’s cursed Virtual Boy are among the dozens attempts to spin Tetris in a different direction. Capitalizing on Tetris’ ...[Read More]
Taiko no Tatsujin: Drum Session!
Taiko no Tatsujin is a rhythm game progenitor with sporadic appearances on this side of the planet. Forged in the Japanese arcade scene, the first console North American appearance, Taiko: Drum Master, came to the PlayStation 2 bundled with a novelty drum controller. This was significantly before Guitar Hero encouraged large rhythm game peripherals but slightly after Donkey Konga made a splash on ...[Read More]
GRIP: Combat Racing
GRIP: Combat Racing is defined by its effusive devotion to Rollcage and its sequel Rollcage Stage II. It is excellent at replicating Rollcage without bothering to address reasons why someone might not be into Rollcage. This level of purity is both amazing and irrational, and it creates an unstable duality that Grip seems unaware of its need to manage. Perhaps it’s unfair to throw this level of cri...[Read More]
Call of Cthulhu
The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. H.P. Lovecraft’s opening to Call of Cthulhu could (generously) be read as an antithesis of a modern AAA game. The amount of things an open-world game provides for the player is staggering, and it can often feel like its designers tried to include every idea they ever had. This sur...[Read More]