14 Sep 2022
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Review: Tower of Fantasy

Every once in a while, something comes along to surprise you. You got the job, a freak thunderstorm appears out of nowhere, or perhaps best of all, you come across a game that defies your expectations. Tower of Fantasy is an action-oriented MMORPG now available on mobile and PC that aims to take on some
7 Sep 2022
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Hardware Review: Up-Switch Orion Gaming Monitor

What is it that we all want from our gaming handhelds? Long battery life? Comfortable to hold in our hands? All of our favorite games available on the go? Nah, it’s all about that big screen life, baby! Gone are the days of the big brick Game Boy with a screen the size of your
7 Sep 2022
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Review: Steelrising

It goes without saying that many developers have tried their hand at the Soulslike genre over the years. Generally speaking, the most successful of these attempts are those that take the familiar staples of the genre and reinterpret them to create an experience that’s fresh and engaging while still staying true to player expectation. If
6 Sep 2022
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Review: Final Fantasy XIV: Endwalker Patch 6.2 Buried Memory

After being one of our top 5 reviews of last year, Final Fantasy XIV: Endwalker continues to have opportunities to show why it made that list as it releases another major update for the game. With Patch 6.2 Buried Memory, FFXIV continues its newest narrative that delves into the world that players have come to
26 Aug 2022
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Review: Destroy All Humans 2: Reprobed

When it comes to remakes and remasters, one question that always seems to come up is, “How much content can be changed?” For some, a few tweaks and adjustments are perfectly acceptable in the remake of a classic game. Hell, maybe even massive changes are just fine, a la Final Fantasy VII Remake. For others,
26 Aug 2022
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Review: Aquadine

It’s been a while since I’ve played a true visual novel. By that, I mean a game that’s entirely text-based with no choices to make. There is something kind of nice about a title that has its own story to tell and just wants to do that, with the only deviation being who you want
12 Aug 2022
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Review: Cult of the Lamb

Last month we previewed Cult of the Lamb and I left off eager to see how its combination of roguelike dungeon crawling and base building held up in the full game. Now that I’ve had a chance to sit down with it properly, it’s time to see where it’s held up and where cracks have
10 Aug 2022
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Hardware Review: Nacon RIG 800 PRO Gaming Headset

If you’re a modern gamer, you very likely have or want to have headphones of some variety so you can enjoy your favorite games (and often their music) to their fullest without disturbing others. Particularly in the last decade or two, numerous companies have taken on the challenge of creating a good audio experience from
8 Aug 2022
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Review: Tyrant’s Blessing

Despite what seems to have become de rigeur for the gaming industry, making a game a roguelike is not actually cruise control for making it a game with endless content. In fact, I can think of a lot of games lately that have tried to keep themselves engaging by making themselves into roguelikes when neither
30 Jul 2022
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Review: South of the Circle

I’m a sucker for a good narrative adventure game, especially if it has a compelling story to tell. However, not all games within this genre are created equal, and titles like South of the Circle make this quite clear. That isn’t to say I had a bad experience during my playthrough, but suffice it to
27 Jul 2022
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Review: Azure Striker Gunvolt 3

Twenty years ago (holy crap has it really been that long?), the development studio Inti Creates got their start working on the Mega Man franchise with the much-beloved Mega Man Zero series. After producing a number of games in various different subseries in the franchise, Mega Man went into its famous content drought. But that
25 Jul 2022
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Review: Cartel Tycoon

For better or for worse – probably worse – the late 80s into the early 90s were a real time that actually happened. Some of us lived through them. And there was a time, perhaps not so long ago in memory, when there was a real sense of a sun-drenched lush paradise ruled over by
19 Jul 2022
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Review: Endling – Extinction is Forever

Both low concepts and high concepts abound in the wide world of video games. Some games have premises that could be the basis of full dissertations, and others can be immediately understood in a single, tantalizing sentence. Endling – Extinction is Forever, developed by Herobeat Studios and published by HandyGames, is thoroughly a part of
15 Jul 2022
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Review: Monster Hunter Rise: Sunbreak

As you may well know, Monster Hunter Rise was one of our top games of 2021, earning one of our coveted 10/10s. Many Monster Hunter titles get followed up with an improved “G” (for “guild,” in Japan) or “Ultimate” (in the US), and with the advent of the ease of patching that comes with modern
11 Jul 2022
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Review: Neon Blight

I do not, to this day, remember how I first learned about Recettear. But it remains, years later, one of my favorite games and an absolute delight to play through front-to-back. Sure, most of the characters were broad archetypes rather than being well-developed individuals with rich inner lives, and it was clearly a small title
3 Jul 2022
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Review: Sonic Origins

If there was any sort of competition for the most re-releases in popular media in comparison to the original Star Wars trilogy, the Genesis-era Sonic games are definitely up there. Hell, the fact that there have been multiple compilations since then signals to most gamers and even passing fans that SEGA knows how timeless the
30 Jun 2022
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Review: Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes

Despite what it may seem like, I am actually not an enormous Fire Emblem fan. I am, however, an absolutely unreserved massive fan of Fire Emblem: Three Houses. This isn’t to say that I traditionally have disliked Nintendo’s long-running second-party series of strategy RPGs, just that they have rarely risen above “well, that was fun
27 Jun 2022
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Review: Fobia – St. Dinfna Hotel

Despite their tried and true persistence as a popular genre, horror video games can sometimes feel a bit polarizing: you either love them or you hate them. Moreover, they have the tendency to feel somewhat insular as well, with many horror releases iterating and expanding upon the staples established by the genre’s most popular titles.
23 Jun 2022
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Review: Birushana: Rising Flower of Genpei

The last time I wrote a review for an otome game, I couldn’t help but point out how childish the genre’s usual tropes felt from the perspective of an older player. The satisfaction I craved from that particular story never came because I couldn’t shake the feeling that I wasn’t the intended audience. This never
18 Jun 2022
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Review: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge

You really had to be a certain age to fully understand the absolutely monstrous chokehold that the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles had on younger kids at the time. Since then, to a certain extent, many other IPs popular with their target audience have had a hard time replicating at the height of its popularity. Save