Jusant was a game that immediately and intensely caught my eye upon its announcement at the Xbox Games Showcase this year. The title’s visual style was undeniably a huge part of that initial eye catch, but its premise was what intrigued me most: traversing a towering monolith of stone and unearthing the stories of the
So there’s an interesting thing that happens for me a lot as a game reviewer: I am handed a game that I do not personally like very much while I also recognize that it’s not doing anything wrong. A recurring theme in several of my reviews is that you have to evaluate games based on
I might not speak for everyone when I say this, but some would agree that the recent visibility of the beat-’em-up genre bodes well for fans of local multiplayer games. It’s a genre that I’ve found myself covering a lot in those same days, and I can’t say that I’m not enjoying its time in
Ahoy mateys, it’s your local pirate friend (I’ve been known to engage in a little pirate action of the swashbuckling variety….) here today. Break out the sea shanties, because we’re doing a preview today, and yarrrrr…. it has pirates. And cards! The game today is Cross Blitz, developed by Tako Boy Studios, a retro-styled deckbuilder
I found myself with a fair number of feelings when it came to Hammerwatch II. None of them were perhaps the ones the developers wanted, but as I’ve said many times, what is far more important than what I think about a game personally is what the game is trying to be. And in no
Match-3 puzzle-based RPGs have been popular ever since Puzzle Quest arrived back in 2007. It seems like a pretty natural formula to fall back on, only slightly impacted by the fact that as a rule, most of them have kind of been absolutely terrible. While the basics of the puzzle gameplay are solid (we have,
Have you ever played a game that gives you a constant feeling of deja vu? Be that because it resembles something you’ve played before or because it’s just a straight-up copy of another game? That is the exact feeling I experienced during my playthrough of the preview build for Eternights.
When the Wachowskis unleashed The Matrix onto unsuspecting moviegoers in 1999, there was little inkling of just how much its gun-toting, martial arts-flinging, slow motion-laden antics would persist in popular culture for decades after. Setting aside the flood of parodies and inspired works in film itself, video games were (naturally) quick to take inspiration from
It can sometimes be really difficult to tell if a given “maker” game is going to be really fun or really middling, and part of the problem is just that these games are not… well… games. That might sound incredibly mean, but it’s not actually meant as any sort of denigration; it’s just the reality
Growing up in the 90s, I was very familiar with Apogee thanks to their extensive shareware catalog. I spent many an afternoon playing the likes of Raptor and Dark Ages, but none stood out for me quite as much as Rise of the Triad. So of course I was excited to hear Nightdive Studios was
You know, there was a time when it was a safe bet that the release of a licensed game from nearly any franchise would be met with skepticism. Call it a relic of decades past, but there are some that still vividly remember seeing a game from your favorite franchise turn out to be a
Warring nations. Broken families. People that can turn into literal gods. A massive shift in tone, but still a familiarity that feels like returning home. A few weeks ago, we had the opportunity to visit Square Enix HQ in Los Angeles, California, to finally experience a greatly anticipated upcoming title years in the making: Final
I can’t express how excited I was when I was told I would get to preview Don’t Nod’s new narrative adventure game. Life is Strange is one of my favorite series and, given my affinity for visual novels and the like, this sounded like an amazing opportunity. However, I have to admit that Harmony: The
Every so often, my love of games trying new spins on the metroidvania formula leads me to misread a game. When I watched the first trailers for Trinity Fusion, I was expecting something in that vein. This was perhaps not entirely inaccurate, but it was mostly inaccurate. Sure, there are definitely aspects of the game
I’ve always been a fan of the occult. Fortune telling, folk magic, fell creatures from beyond, a world lurking just beyond our own. So when I saw Devolver was publishing a new game all about these themes, of course I was interested. The developers, Destructeam, are no newcomers either, having made Gods Will Be Watching
10 Years of the Tenno The game Warframe has a rags-to-riches story. After Dark Sector was released, developer Digital Extremes wanted to use the ideas that publishers had removed from Dark Sector and craft a game that was truly theirs. Unfortunately, at the time, science fiction wasn’t considered trendy, so after every publisher turned them
It feels like we really have already passed the point wherein we should be getting dozens of deeply felt YouTube videos about what makes a good roguelite game, or else we already have been getting them and I just happen to have somehow missed them over the past several years. The thought was on my
We were invited out to Los Angeles last week by developer Respawn Entertainment and publisher Electronic Arts to preview Star Wars Jedi: Survivor ahead of its April 28 release. After a three hour preview… we were yearning to play more.
Can you believe that I’ve actually never played Slay the Spire? I feel like I should have by this point, but I also feel like I have a general idea of the shape of it just by playing so many games that are derived from its basic formula. There’s a certain type of game, and
Ask any modern gamer about the trajectory of titles in certain franchises, and you’re more than likely going to hear similar things about the most popular franchises. On one end, you’ll have the Call of Duty or Maddens of the world pumping out endless sequels that are picked up year after year. On the other,
