Kingdoms of Amalur: Re-Reckoning has recently come out to... lukewarm reception. The biggest knock against the game isn't against its inherent quality—in fact I'd say it's aged quite well all things…
September 16, 2020 | 01:00 EDT
Nobody but Batman can make brooding on rooftops look super cool, and the Arkham franchise does a fantastic job at making you feel like you’re out there doing the same thing. It’s good to have the…
July 13, 2020 | 12:00 EDT
On Memorial Day, we celebrate the fallen heroes who have given their life to protect our country. These heroes of war are celebrated in video games by characters like B. J. Blazkowicz, famed Nazi…
May 25, 2020 | 11:00 EDT
The bullet-hell with Zelda-like overworld ITTA came from a development tale of personal struggle. Jacob Williams, a.k.a. Glass Revolver, began work on the game at a low point in life. The very…
May 4, 2020 | 11:00 EDT
If you like haunted houses as much as I do, Luigi's Mansion likely holds an extra pull for you. Though the series is dispersed by release dates, they all share a common core: the timid character of…
March 30, 2020 | 11:00 EDT
I walked into Death Stranding expecting to stumble. As much as I enjoyed Metal Gear Solid, I believed Hideo Kojima’s newest work would frustrate me more than entertain me. For a good while, my…
November 14, 2019 | 11:00 EST
In comedy, you come across a pretty common mantra: Commit to the bit. Obsidian does this in spades with its most recently RPG, The Outer Worlds. The studio skewers unchecked capitalism with its…
October 28, 2019 | 12:00 EDT
Have you ever wondered what it would be like to live in a world where one megacorporation controls almost everything in your life? Same here. That’s why I played Neo Cab, a near-future cyberpunk…
October 6, 2019 | 08:05 EDT
Borderlands 3 boasts having more than a billion guns for players to come across, and at times, it feels like that undersells the variety. The “best” guns are a mostly subjective decision, and your “…
September 30, 2019 | 11:00 EDT
The world of Nowhere Prophet takes a lot of inspiration from India, where lead developer Martin Nerurkar spent some time. More specifically, Nowhere Prophet seems to be a prime example of…
July 22, 2019 | 01:00 EDT
There's nothing better than sitting down and enjoying a long game—interesting characters, a complicated storyline, and more fantastic sights and monsters than you can shake a blitzball at. Final…
July 15, 2019 | 01:00 EDT
The sudden revival of City of Heroes, which began as a story of a secret private server operating for the past seven years, has been a literal homecoming for diehard fans of the popular superhero MMO…
May 13, 2019 | 01:00 EDT
Part of the fun for any post-apocalyptic setting is to see how far the worlds go in reshaping civilization. Many aspects we take for granted, from food to clothing to even pre-war relics of…
February 4, 2019 | 01:00 EST
There’s a lot of things that make Playground Games' most recent entry into the Forza Horizon series stand out as the strongest. The beautiful and huge rendition of the UK countryside is one of the…
January 14, 2019 | 01:00 EST
It’s hard to imagine a world without Call of Duty. The massively popular multiplayer, the iconic zombies, the blockbuster campaigns—they’ve all become integral parts of gaming’s annual release…
September 24, 2018 | 01:00 EDT
Metal Gear Solid. Those three words alone are enough to trigger huge waves of nostalgia and fuzzy feelings for gamers all over the world. It's one of the most influential and important games in…
September 3, 2018 | 01:00 EDT
Alexander Pope once said that "a little knowledge is a dangerous thing." Nowhere is this truer than the world of From Software's 2015 masterpiece Bloodborne. In the city of Yharnam, knowledge is at…
August 27, 2018 | 01:00 EDT
The 2013 reboot of Shadow Warrior is a weird and fun game for many reasons. The focus on silly humor, the referential easter eggs scattered throughout the game, the obscene levels of gore. They all…
August 20, 2018 | 01:00 EDT
Comedy is hard. Making a good comedy game is almost impossible. Writers, artists, level designers, and game designers must work in perfect harmony to create a cohesive, engaging experience. It’s not…
July 2, 2018 | 01:00 EDT
Probably one of the most talked-about elements of From Software's flawed masterpiece Dark Souls is its boss encounters. The game is an intentional throwback to retro-style gaming, so bosses are…
May 28, 2018 | 01:00 EDT
There's a crucial difference between the Crash Bandicoot and Spyro the Dragon trilogies: their hub worlds. The former has a world map in the first game akin to Super Mario World where you move your…
May 21, 2018 | 01:00 EDT
When EA announced that Battlefield 1 would take place during the First World War, it seemed like it was going to be a less than enjoyable endeavor. After all, most people know of WWI as this horrific…
September 4, 2017 | 11:00 EDT
Offering dozens if not hundreds of hours of gameplay in the base game alone, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is certainly not intended to be a game for those who want to run through and save the world in…
July 31, 2017 | 11:00 EDT
If you've ever played any kind of Role Playing Game like Skyrim or Dragon Age or Mass Effect, or for that matter, virtually any game that features non-hostile Non-Playable Characters, you may notice…
July 24, 2017 | 11:00 EDT
With a decade of experience in creating sci-fi environments for gamers across the world thanks to the Halo series, Bungie set their sights on even grander, more distant shores with Destiny. This time…
July 19, 2017 | 01:00 EDT
As the Xbox's flagship video game franchise and one of the most influential game series to date, Halo is known for many things. From recharging health systems to the popularization of console…
July 13, 2017 | 11:00 EDT
Twenty years and a fistful of days ago, LucasArts released a little game by the name of Outlaws. In case my previous two writeups on the game didn't make it clear, I love Outlaws. Honestly, it's a…
April 5, 2017 | 11:00 EDT
There's no emotion better for a developer than paranoia. When a gamer's paranoid, they're never bored, never looking away from the screen, and certainly never shift-tabbing to respond to Steam…
December 28, 2016 | 11:00 EST
It's impossible to deny the influence of Hong Kong director John Woo. From The Matrix to Cowboy Bebop, it seems a good majority of pieces of contemporary action media have little traces of John Woo…
December 14, 2016 | 11:00 EST
As far as design trends are concerned, I've been very surprised to see player accountability and choices come to the forefront in story-based games, such as Mass Effect and the numerous Telltale…
December 7, 2016 | 01:00 EST
Way back in 2007, the Wii was still young and desperately lacking the support of hardcore gamers. Previous attempts, such as Ubisoft's Red Steel, had been a disaster, and everything since had…
August 11, 2016 | 11:00 EDT
Gamers have sent a lot of robots to the scrapyard over the years. From Badinks to Gekkos and everything in between, pick up any science fiction game and there's a good chance you'll be smashing an…
August 4, 2016 | 11:00 EDT
In 2005, the legendary soldier Solid Snake infiltrated the Alaskan island Shadow Moses and destroyed Metal Gear REX, a bipedal tank with the ability to launch devastating nukes anywhere in the world…
July 8, 2016 | 11:00 EDT
For most gamers, a trip to Hell is as new and exciting as a trip to the supermarket. Devil May Cry, Super Paper Mario, Diablo—you name it, video games just love using the inferno for a backdrop. But…
June 2, 2016 | 11:00 EDT
Overwatch is a game with a lot of characters. And I mean a lot of characters. The roster currently has twenty-one unique heroes, all of which have vastly different weapons, appearances, and…
May 26, 2016 | 11:00 EDT
As a denizen of Southern California, Disneyland played a rather large role in my childhood. It's built up to be The Happiest Place on Earth, where you can be whisked into new and exciting worlds via…
May 19, 2016 | 11:00 EDT
Progression is one of the most difficult topics in game crafting. When you make a videogame, you want to make the player feel like what he's doing has an impact, give the perception that he's doing…
May 5, 2016 | 11:00 EDT
While I work on my review of Dark Souls III, I've been reflecting on the series at large. I've spent hundreds of hours of my life with the Souls games, and I've visited quite a few standout locations…
April 21, 2016 | 11:00 EDT
Through four games (five, if you count Bloodborne) in the Souls series, a few things have stayed consistent with Hidetaka Miyazaki's difficult action RPGs. From Demon's Souls to Dark Souls III, there…
April 14, 2016 | 11:00 EDT
I don't like Fallout 3 all that much. It's ugly, it's unwieldy, and the roleplaying is skin-deep at best. It's not the worst game in the world, but it certainly is far from one of the best. I just…
April 7, 2016 | 11:00 EDT
An awful lot of games ship with a Co-Operative mode of some sort nowadays, but Perfect Dark was one of the very few that also included an interesting twist on the concept called "Counter-Operative."…
March 26, 2016 | 01:00 EDT
From their roots as either guided storylines on consoles, to dialogue selections on PCs, role-playing games run the gamut in showcasing choice and consequence through dialogue and action—do you go to…
March 24, 2016 | 01:00 EDT
Halo: Combat Evolved stands today as a seminal achievement in first person shooter design. Much has been said about its campaign, its excellent enemy AI, its two weapon limit, and its grand…
March 23, 2016 | 01:00 EDT
I found a superior-quality gun and a better vest while after I jumped a group of unsuspecting rioters. They set themselves up on a street corner in between a broken-down truck and a couple of wrecked…
March 22, 2016 | 01:00 EDT
Getting people to experiment with different character builds and item load outs is a difficult task for game developers. Information is so readily available on the Internet, and fans of a game can…
March 21, 2016 | 01:00 EDT
The first time you play through Dishonored, it's very likely you'll treat it like a stealth game. And why wouldn't you? The game encourages sticking to the shadows, hiding corpses, or just avoiding…
March 17, 2016 | 11:00 EDT
Tropical islands aren’t anything new in video games, but they’re not that common either. Games might visit islands during their running time, but there is a tragic shortage of picturesque sandy…
March 4, 2016 | 11:00 EST
The PC gaming market in the 90s was oversaturated by shooters. Ever since Doom burst onto the scene, nearly every third shareware out there would be for some sort of shooter. Understandably, it would…
February 18, 2016 | 11:00 EST