If you’re anything like me, you’ve always looked at bone-crushingly hard games with equal parts respect and abject fear. From the NES days to now, we’ve always had that one game that other gamers point to as the pinnacle of difficulty. For some it’s the Souls franchise. Others point to the usual suspects like Contra,
If there’s one thing that I dig about the breadth of human creativity, it’s the willingness to smoosh two things together and hope that it works. Comic books are notorious for crossover events happening on a fairly regular basis. But movies, video games, and music are also rife with plenty of examples of cross pollination
Having grown up during the halcyon days of the original PlayStation yet totally separate from the hype that surrounded the library it sported was kind of weird. I had my eyes set on a Saturn being the rabid SEGA fan that I was in the ’90s, though that never came to pass until well after
Okay, I’m just going to put it out there and straight up admit that I have quite the affinity for platformers of many kinds. It was basically the genre that pulled me into video games proper, and I will still happily devour what I can get my hands on if the experience is enjoyable in
The Hyperdimension Neptunia franchise is one that has always flown under my radar for some reason or another. While the fanbase that surrounds it is quite dedicated, personally trying to approach the franchise is a challenge in and of itself. Regardless, a steady stream of games continue to be localized stateside. The latest spinoff title
Roguelikes and their ilk of varying degrees have always occupied a weird place in my life. On one hand, the skill required to keep at the “progress as far as possible and potentially ruining an entire run on a simple mistake” thing can turn a lot of more casual players off from the genre. On
Business sims are nothing new these days, but have you ever considered the angle of living out your “legitimate business in the front, thriving secret drug lord empire in the back” fantasies? Because that’s the angle that UK- based developer Dope Games is using for their debut title Definitely Not Fried Chicken. Admittedly, it’s not
If there’s anything to be said about game preservation and the prevalence of digital media, Scott Pilgrim generally tends to be at the top of most people’s minds. Honestly, who could blame them? It dropped in conjunction with the release of the 2010 film, only to be delisted from the PlayStation Store and XBox Live
It has arrived: the end of the year. A year that felt simultaneously gone in a flash yet unbearably long. It sure has been an…interesting…start to a new decade. In gaming, though, the year has been crazy. A brand new console generation has begun, and people are still struggling to be a part of it,
It should go without saying how pervasive classic Space Invaders is in pop culture and gaming history. But that didn’t stop Taito from doing almost anything and everything under the sun to mix up the formula to squeeze out as much from the franchise as they could. Arcades, home consoles, PCs, handhelds, and even smartphones
For a while there, it seemed fuzzy on whether or not we would see the Phantom Thieves of Hearts grace our screens in the West with the Dynasty Warriors-style game Persona 5 Scramble: The Phantom Strikers. Thanks to a leaked trailer dropped on YouTube, we now know that this game will be coming to the
If there’s one thing I’ve learned about certain creators in the industry, it’s that sometimes the more esoteric and weirder ones in the fold tend to push out some interesting games. Personally, my first foray into the minds of these so-called “weird” creators was through Hideo Kojima. Sure, it’s a cliche thing to say. But
Here’s a fun fact about my own life: I had never traveled by air up until very recently. Even then, it was a handful of flights to and from my home city. Each time I did, I was seated in coach along with the usual random smattering of people trying to get back home or
It should come as no surprise to most that the focus in the first-person shooter space lately has primarily been multiplayer. In between the dearth of countless battle royales on top of the already pervasive kill/death and objective-based multiplayer offerings, choosing to focus on a single player experience often seems like an afterthought.
Yu Suzuki seems to be going all in on making his Shenmue dreams come true. Because he’s going to be Executive Producing a 13 episode anime adaptation for Ryo Hazuki and his quest for revenge. Announced today during the Virtual Crunchyroll Expo, it was revealed that Shenmue: The Animation is currently in production. Telecom Animation
Here’s the thing. This isn’t the first time I’ve encountered visual novels as a reviewer or as a gamer. Admittedly, most of the titles that I’ve come up against possess some sort of gameplay element. Sometimes it’s pointing a finger at your opponent to prove your client’s innocence. Other times Japanese high school girls are
Battle royale games feel like a dime a dozen these days, but there have been one or two that I’ve come across that I actually dig. Tetris 99 is the first thing that pops into my mind here, naturally. Admittedly, I’m happy that there’s more variety here. But I’m sure that some people in the
It was hard to deny how pervasive horizontal shoot-’em-ups were in the late 1980s and early 1990s. These tough-as-nails quarter munchers were in many an arcade at that time. Because of that high difficulty, it took a high skill set to even be able to make any progression in these games. Didn’t matter if it
Delays. Story leaks. A remake of the first game for the current generation. Working on other IPs in their catalog. Releasing at the end of yet another console generation with its successor on the horizon. While the wait for The Last of Us Part II may not have been as bad as it has been
I’m no stranger to weird and offbeat media. Sometimes it can be nonsensical as hell, sometimes it makes pointed statements in very unconventional ways, and sometimes it just wants to exist in its own vibe. While I wouldn’t say that games centered around graffiti are something that’s flooding the market, the ones I have come
