Romeo is a Dead Man Review
Being able to appreciate and enjoy the work of an auteur often falls on one’s ability to be enveloped by the unique way they process and express creativity. In 2015 I sat in a theater with my uncle and watched Robert Eggers’ The Witch. At the end of the film he apologized for not taking me to a different movie for my birthday. I was confused, surprised that he didn’t enjoy himsel...[Read More]
Dark Auction Review
Dark Auction would have been right at home on my PlayStation Vita in 2013, sandwiched between the releases of Zero Escape: Virtue’s Last Reward and Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc. Virtue’s Last Reward was my first adventure game by way of visual novel. I saw the universal praise the game received and, having a minimal number of titles on my Vita, decided to pick the game up. I was ob...[Read More]
Nioh 3 Review
After my time with Nioh 3, I’m fully convinced Team Ninja has crafted the best translation of FromSoftware’s beloved formula. And in an onslaught of games vying for their own slice of the genre’s crown, that’s certainly saying something. Since the original Nioh‘s release in 2017, there’s always been a kind of special sauce that has kept it above the pack of less...[Read More]
BrokenLore: UNFOLLOW Review
One of my gold standards for first-person horror games is Frictional Games’ SOMA. Released a few years after the studio’s own Amnesia: The Dark Descent, SOMA sailed to the top in a world that had become obsessed with slow-burn horror games. Layers of Fear, Outlast, and even Alien: Isolation worked to torment near-helpless players using horror both psychological and physical. But over t...[Read More]
SLEEP AWAKE Review
How often do you embrace the irresistible lull of slumber? How frequently do you wish, bleary-eyed, that you could stay awake? Exhaustion. Tiredness. Sleep eventually comes for us all. But what if falling asleep meant you were suddenly blotted out of existence? SLEEP AWAKE posits a cataclysmic phenomenon where humans are able to sleep but if they do, a worse fate than merely not waking up befalls ...[Read More]
MARVEL Cosmic Invasion Review
Tribute Games has proved their beat ’em up chops with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge. Evoking years’ worth of Turtles content from cartoons, comics, and games, Shredder’s Revenge was a near pitch-perfect beat ’em up. Tribute Games has a knack for crafting games that feel, well, like tributes to a classic style. It makes sense considering the team wor...[Read More]
A.I.L.A Review
Moments into A.I.L.A, the player is put through a harrowing escape nightmare. A monstrous madman chops through your hand with an axe, flesh no match for the sharp instrument. A shard of glass is wedged out of your foot, spurting blood. And, once you finally escape through a sewage line into daylight, a bomb goes off in the distant city that looked to be a place of refuge. And then A.I.L.A transiti...[Read More]
Constance Review
One cannot play Constance and absolutely ignore the rather large elephant in the room. Hollow Knight: Silksong was a dominant force upon its release in September. A game that had been anticipated for years and is currently absorbed in Game of the Year conversations en masse. For any similar game, being in the ripple of Silksong likely feels intimidating. The same will be said in November 2026 when...[Read More]
The Berlin Apartment Review
For 15 minutes straight, The Berlin Apartment had me in tears. The game had completely disarmed me, transforming a World War II story from mildly touching to gut-wrenching. After 30 years of narratives about one of mankind’s most pivotal periods, it feels like I’ve seen or played it all. But apparently The Berlin Apartment had a trick up its sleeve. But that moment in 1945 is but one s...[Read More]
Sektori Review
Back in 2017 I spent a handful of weeks attached to Housemarque’s Nex Machina. Released a month before the developer’s other game Matterfall, Nex Machina was a culmination of Housemarque’s mission statement of bringing the feel of classic arcades to modern consoles. Housemarque even went so far as to bring Eugene Jarvis–designer behind Defender, Robotron: 2084, and Smash TV...[Read More]
Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 Review
My greatest fear with Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 was that it would become another Modern Warfare III. Modern Warfare III was haunted by the omnipresence of Call of Duty: Warzone. While Activision’s battle royale cash cow and Fortnite rival has proven to be successful, it was never meant to sustain the foundation of Call of Duty‘s other pillars. Swiftly into Modern Warfare III‘s ca...[Read More]
ARC Raiders Review
In June of 2020 The Last of Us Part II released in a fundamentally tumultuous time. Society was ravaged by a global pandemic that threatened to topple the precarious balance of all aspects of our life. In the United States our broken and incompetent political infrastructure constantly fumbled the well-being of millions of people. The Black Lives Matter protests were in full swing after police call...[Read More]