Featured

Most game franchises don’t achieve immediate, unreserved success. Instead, properties are conscientiously cultivated, with each subsequent iteration demonstrating an interchange between developers and fans. Case in point: when Hyperdimension Neptunia emerged stateside in 2011, the ...

Over the last decade, indie developers have become increasingly enraptured by the Rogue-like. From turn-based descendants like Paper Dungeons and Quest of Dungeons or action-driven variants like Full Mojo Rampage or The Weaponographist, Rogue’s procedurally-generated ...

Mastering the intricacies of a complex combo system is one of the definitive ambitions of any fighting game aficionado. But for developers, balance is the Holy Grail, with studios often chasing after a meticulously tweaked ...

Typically, the industry employs an additive approach, with developers layering new gameplay mechanics onto pre-existing genres. But with the release of Sword & Soldiers II for the Nintendo Wii, Dutch developer Ronimo Games pares down ...

Like most Americans during the mid ‘90’s, I was distressingly unaware of the virtues of rally racing. Fortunately, that obliviousness was eventually upended by a procession of games like SEGA Rally Championship and Rally Cross, ...

On console, the Hyperdimension Neptunia series has provided a consistently engaging experience, blending amusing allegory, comical banter, and engaging play mechanics that are rooted in role-playing convention. But far more remarkable are the Console Patron ...

Much of the world uses watches and clocks to anticipate the appearance of a train. But in Japan, the railway system operates with such precision that timepieces can be set by the arrival of its ...

Modern hardware has the ability to render fantastical worlds. Yet, all too often that power is used to generate homogenous battlefields, dungeons, and cityscapes. Fortunately, that’s not the case with Toren, the inaugural effort from ...

Across the past two decades, Electronic Arts has become a dominant force in the arena of sports simulation. At one time, recreations of athletic competitions were single-shot efforts, until EA popularized a business model that ...

For years, Budapest-based Zen Studios has cultivated a near-faultless formula. Beginning with 2007’s Pinball FX and continuing through Pinball FX 2 and Zen Pinball 2, the developer strove to simulate the steel-orbed pastime, with each ...