Assassin’s Creed Valhalla
Assassin’s Creed Valhalla is at a crossroads. Bursting at the seams with content and technical prowess, it may remind players of Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag, released at this same time seven years ago. A cheery, cavalier game, Black Flag butted heads with the coming end of the PlayStation 3/Xbox 360 era and the introduction of the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. Valhalla, as you may ha...[Read More]
Spider-Man: Miles Morales Review (PS4 Version)
A single thought stuck with me throughout my entire playthrough of Spider-Man: Miles Morales: it’s familiar yet new. Miles Morales walks a spiderweb tightrope between being an ambitious sequel to the PS4’s best selling game and sticking to what made the original so special. While most people will gravitate towards the enhanced PS5 version of Miles Morales, the core gameplay loop and story Insomnia...[Read More]
Star Wars: Squadrons Review
There are a few fantasies that Star Wars fans dream of living out: to feel the force as a lightsaber-wielding Jedi, capture the galaxy’s most wanted as a cold and calculating bounty hunter, and, most of all, dogfight in the cockpit of an X-Wing . Star Wars: Squadrons fully embraces the latter, with some minor caveats. Offering a generous amount of content for its price, along with several differen...[Read More]
Mafia: Definitive Edition
Mafia: Definitive Edition is plucked from time. In ways, it is a time capsule, preserving a vision that first came to be in 2002. Yet as a remake, it acts as a more digestible, refined way to fall back into a classic or allow newcomers to experience it for the first time. Tommy Angelo, Mafia‘s anti-hero, is the typical scrappy rogue that graced a number of games around the Grand Theft Auto 3...[Read More]
Tennis World Tour 2 Review
Tennis has had an interesting foray in the video game world. While not as prolific as football and basketball games, tennis games have been a staple since the very inception of video games. While trending more towards the arcadey and easy access type of game, there is a healthy gap for good tennis simulation games. Enter Tennis World Tour 2. Tennis World Tour 2 takes the delicate balance of fun vs...[Read More]
13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim
When losing myself in the intricate narrative web Vanillaware spins in 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim, I couldn’t help but be reminded of playing Zero Escape: Virtue’s Last Reward on my PlayStation Vita. Like a good book, I would clutch my Vita in hand, poring over hours of seemingly convoluted text involving murder, time travel, end-of-the-world cults, and escape rooms. One thing kept me fro...[Read More]
Iron Harvest
Let’s not beat around the bush. Iron Harvest‘s mechanized battles across a war-torn alternative history are awesome. Who needs tanks or spaceships or weird aliens when you can have steam-powered mechs clanking over infantry? This fascinating and approachable aesthetic will easily drawn any curious RTS player into Iron Harvest‘s world. What’s better is that tucked under this...[Read More]
NBA 2K21 Review
As with every transition into a new console generation, we are in an odd period with sports games; NBA 2K21 not being the exception. The current-gen renditions of sports titles are usually a tad held back or “more of the same”, with most of the new and exciting features saved for the next-gen versions. NBA 2K21 does introduce some small changes to the current-gen version, but by and large, it̵...[Read More]
Spiritfarer
We all need someone to ferry us through the journey of life. Whether a loved one, a mentor, family, friends, or some other divined presence, guidance can help us through countless perils. From birth we are held, carried. Hopefully throughout the years, we won’t have to carry ourselves for the whole exhausting voyage of existence. But what happens after death? Do we have souls? Do our spirits...[Read More]
Othercide
Bathed in grey tones, stark blacks and whites, and pungent splashes of red, Othercide is a remarkable feast for the eyes. Its visual palette will burrow into the memory for years to come, a game that looks so distinct. I was afraid that, unlike its Gothic appeal, Othercide‘s gameplay would flounder under the weight of an unmatched aesthetic promise. Surely something this stylish couldn’...[Read More]
Neon Abyss
Neon Abyss works exceptionally well, despite a number of important flaws that would otherwise dull similar games in its vein. When crafting a roguelike, developers must rely on that careful balance of frustration and joy doled out by the Random Number Generator Gods. At any point, a run through a cave or laboratory or dungeon dance club can go flawlessly. Through sheer force of luck a player might...[Read More]
Warhammer 40,000: Mechanicus
Increasingly I have become convinced that the massive stable of games set in the daunting Warhammer 40,000 universe are meant as entry points for people to begin scooping up any other media the name appears on. After playing Warhammer: Chaosbane I felt no more knowledgeable about the world than I really did before. After all, how are demons and priests stomping around in the same universe and time...[Read More]