Bayonetta & Vanquish 10th Anniversary Bundle
Founded in 2007 and positioned to deliver four unique games for Sega by 2010, PlatinumGames needed to make a statement and establish a distinctive identity. Between oddball curiosities MadWorld and Infinite Space, PlatinumGames’ prized creative leads Hideki Kamiya and Shinji Mikami delivered Bayonetta and Vanquish to execute those goals. The former was an evolutionary leap from Kamiya’...[Read More]
Astral Chain
Playing Astral Chain is like playing PlatinumGames’ greatest hits all at once. Bayonetta’s stylish action is the cornerstone of its melee combat. The Wonderful 101’s ability to accentuate and extend that combat through novelty companions mirrors Astral Chain’s formation of parallel player-controlled characters. Precision cutting calls to mind Revengeance, weapon upgrading r...[Read More]
NieR: Automata – Game of the YoRHa Edition
Had no idea what I was getting into with this one. Why didn’t I read Eric Layman’s March/2017 review of NieR: Automata, where he broke down the game and laid it all out? Eric’s well-written GRE-like review of the game brought more questions than answers for me, which was only stoked by its inclusion in our Holiday Gift Guide 2018 video segment, where he tried to sneak in a 2017 game into GOTY cont...[Read More]
NieR: Automata
Nier was a demanding and ambitious game undermined by the reality that it wasn’t much fun to sit down and play. Seven years later, Nier: Automata seeks not to sterilize Nier’s affable idiosyncrasies, but rather recast them in a mold forged to withstand the torrent of institutional mischief delivered through director Yoko Toro’s unorthodox approach to game design. Translating Toro...[Read More]