I almost forgot about Supermassive Games’ Dark Pictures Anthology. That’s not from a lack of quality – each title in the series to date has been very worthy – but it’s just that things move quickly in video games and the Dark Pictures titles don’t quite have the longevity behind them. I’ve never replayed one, and so, given the last…
There was a moment there where I thought that my issues with the big AAA-blockbuster space were with me. That I’d become jaded from having played far too many games, and seeing how the sausage gets made first-hand, and therefore I had lost perspective. Yet Pragmata then came and demonstrated…
If you were to ask me what genres I think developers should…
Resident Evil has always been a tale of placing corporate profit over…
Schools are excellent locations for horror. They’re a shared experience for most of us, so developers benefit from the familiarity and can play on that to set up unease. Attending school is also a highly emotional experience that covers the full gamut thanks to a combination of societal pressure and…
Read More
I am absolutely terrible at SHMUPs, bullet hells, and other such action game experiences. For this reason, I don’t generally play them. It’s not that I don’t enjoy them, it’s just that my progress through them is so slow – on account of my own lack of skills – that…
Read More
Every time Starship Troopers pops up as a topic, we get to “enjoy” the most surreal arguments on the Internet as a bunch of people argue that the film is not a satire of fascism, and that the book is not an argument for fascism. These are some of the…
Read More
Shin Megami Tensei V was already a good game. SMT V: Vengeance adds an entirely different narrative route that, while similar enough in the early stages, diverges drastically deeper into the game. The core is still a battle between angels and demons in a post-apocalyptic Tokyo that your protagonist is…
Read More
On the one hand, the extended Hyperdimension Neptunia property, which has been kicking around since 2010 and the PlayStation 3, has become a familiar comfort. With more than one game released every year (some are remakes, yes, but this is release #26 bearing the Neptunia name), you will by now…
Read More
Square Enix recently announced that it was cancelling some $150 million worth of games that had previously been greenlit as it shifts to more proven quantities and a strategy of being more selective in what it develops and publishes. What that means is that you should all enjoy SaGa Emerald…
Read More
Sand Land became an unfortunate curiosity on account of Akira Toriyama being attached to it, and it being one of the first releases featuring his work following his recent passing. As far as Toriyama’s work is concerned, Sand Land delivers all the whimsical energy that you expect from his distinctive…
Read More
Stellar Blade very much wants to be a merger of NieR: Automata and the Soulslike formula. It’s a flashy science fiction romp through a decrepit, decaying world, and the ambience is certainly going to be familiar to NieR fans. It’s also undeniably well-made. However, for all the comparisons people have…
Read More
I just know that people are going to make comparisons between Rise of the Ronin and Ghost of Tsushima, and that’s really quite unfair to Team Ninja’s latest. Already in previews I’ve seen nonsense like “while not a graphical stunner like Ghost of Tsushima”. Where Ghost of Tsushima was trying…
Read More
Given the almost fearsome reputation that Dragon’s Dogma has as a cult favourite (that actually sold better than most people realise), it’s easy to forget that the game wasn’t all that well received at first, and that its Metacritic rating is “only” 78/100. It was a fair analysis however, for…
Read More