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Most Recent: Reviews
The Starship Damrey Review: A Clever, Fun, and Terrifying Space Puzzler
The Starship Damrey is the first game to be released in America from Level-5’s Guild02 collection, their second set of 3DS collaborations with some of Japan’s most acclaimed developers. You might remember such games as Liberation Maiden, Aero Porter, and Crimson Shroud from Guild01, and the quality hasn’t wavered at all in this first installment of Guild02. Designed by Kazuya Asano and written by Takemaru Abiko, creators of text-based adventures in Japan, The Starship Damrey is something of a survival horror puzzle game, devilishly elusive and refreshingly difficult and frightening. Free of tutorials or any kind of explanation at all, the player is thrown into the story, forced to fight the claustrophobia of being trapped in a cold sleep chamber on the aforementioned starship, with only their wits to solve the mystery. (more…)
Posted in 3DS, Reviews, Top Story
Tagged The Starship Damrey
Monaco Review: What’s Yours Is Mine… But Not If I Go Alone
Monaco is an indie game by Pocketwatch Games, in which you and your fellow professional criminals spend some quality time together breaking out of – and into – various facilities. The game is top-down and done in simple graphics, with large pixelated characters and backgrounds. You can choose to take on each mission alone, choosing which character you want to play as, or team up with up to three other people, each of whom can play someone different. The multiplayer aspects of the game are a complete blast, but taking on the game solo can be a frustrating affair. (more…)
Steve Jackson’s Sorcery! Review: Choose-Your-Own Adventure Never Felt So Fun
Steve Jackson’s Sorcery! is a choose-your-own adventure game on iOS for iPhone and iPad. Developed by Inkle Studios, the first episode, “The Shamutanti Hills,” is now available. The game is based on a series of interactive texts written by Steve Jackson and illustrated by John Blanche, which were originally published in the early 1980s. They have translated well to the digital world, beckoning in a fresh new world of gameplay without sacrificing imagination. (more…)
Remember Me Review: Beauty and Innovation Marred by Misogyny
Remember Me, developed by Dontnod Entertainment and published by Capcom, snuck up on me earlier this month. It’s a third-person action-adventure game which relies heavily on melee combat. From the outset, it seemed to be the full package, with stunning visuals, a fascinating female lead character, and a compelling story. But is it a game worth remembering, or a game you’d rather soon forget? (more…)
The Last of Us Review: Nobody Wants to Be Here and Nobody Wants to Leave
When Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune was first unleashed upon the PlayStation 3, Naughty Dog managed to take the best aspects of the Tomb Raider formula and made it better by building on it with likable characters and Indiana Jones-esque hijinks. With The Last of Us, they have once again reinvigorated a flagging genre, the third-person survival shooter, by making it serious, personal, and scary.
Posted in PS3, Reviews, Top Story
Tagged The Last of Us
Animal Crossing: New Leaf Review: No Place Like Home
Let me get a little personal before this review begins. My regular, full-time job is that of an automobile claims adjuster. My day consists of assisting people whose lives have been turned upside-down by getting into automobile accidents. People react to these situations very differently, and at times I have no choice but to be a punching bag for some. The job, as expected, gets stressful. Hell, even the great Daniel Day-Lewis couldn’t handle what I do. A few times during the summer, I will take a Friday off and spend a long weekend at my parents’ lake house in Indiana. During those weekends, I fish, go on boat rides, watch a horror movie or two, and relax. Come Monday, my batteries are recharged and I’m ready to take on the claims.
Animal Crossing: New Leaf is my video game lake house. (more…)
Posted in 3DS, Reviews, Top Story
Tagged Animal Crossing: New Leaf
Pandora’s Tower Review: An Exquisite Passage
Pandora’s Tower is the third game published by Nintendo in Japan that has made it to North America thanks to the activist efforts of Operation Rainfall. It is also the one I was most excited for of the three. The strange, beautiful trailers filtering here from Japan intrigued me, and the combat system looked refreshing and different. While the graphics are limited on the Wii, the strength of both the gameplay and the narrative drew me in. When I finally played the game, it was even weirder than I’d expected, but even with the weaknesses, I felt my 25 hours were well spent. (more…)
Posted in Reviews, Top Story, Wii
Tagged Pandora's Tower
You Review: A Book I Wanted to Like
Austin Grossman’s latest novel, You, is a fictional story of video game developers set on solving a mystery embedded within their engine by their deceased friend. Grossman (who also wrote Soon I Will Be Invincible) has been a game designer for over 20 years, and gives readers a unique glimpse inside the world of the game developer. As Russell starts his new job at Black Arts, we get insight on the lives of developers, from how each game is developed (start to finish) to the relationships between those who create it. But in this story, we get even more – as Russell races against the clock to fix the bug that could potentially destroy the company, he goes back and forth from past to present and back, detailing his relationships with his current co-workers – and former friends. (more…)