Japanese role-playing games are often criticized for following formula too closely. But all too often, the person making this claim hasn’t played an entry in Gust’s Atelier series. After nineteen iterations across a twenty-year span, ...
Read More »The Alliance Alive review
The twilight era for gaming systems routinely brings about a software schism. On one side, there’s an abundance of shoddy shovelware that has curiously eluted quality control standards. Prompting by the size of the install ...
Read More »Jurassic World Pinball review
When Pinball FX 2 was first launched in 2010, the franchise earned a passionate legion of fans thanks to its technical prowess. While eschewing recreations of real-world machines, the series offered a prolific roster of ...
Read More »Aqua Kitty UDX (Switch) review
In the grand pantheon of arcade shooters, few are more prestigious than 1981’s Defender. While the William Electronics-developed coin-op wasn’t an immediate success (creator Eugene Jarvis has blamed the groundbreaking five-button control method), the game proved ...
Read More »The Longest Five Minutes review
To combat stagnancy in the crime, thriller, and romance genres, the directors of Pulp Fiction, Memento, and (500) Days of Summer shirked chronology. Each film ditched the traditional, linear approach to storytelling, inviting innovation by ...
Read More »Aperion Cyberstorm review
Rudyard Kipling once wrote that a person can’t have enough “red wine, books, or ammunition”. Although the adage was conceived long before gaming was envisioned, the third element accurately encapultes the thrill of a twin-stick ...
Read More »Mercenary Kings Reloaded review
With Mercenary Kings, looks are deceiving. Glimpse a few screenshots and you’ll likely assume that the Tribute Games’ title honors classic run ‘n guns like Bionic Commando and Contra. Certainly, Paul Robertson’s (Scott Pilgrim vs. ...
Read More »Switch Owners, Prepare to Be Insulted
The old adage of tongue being mightier than swords is rarely true for video games. With interactive entertainment, blades, bullets, and bare hands routinely get the emphasis, while words are habitually reserved for expositional purposes. ...
Read More »Gunhouse review
Occasionally, game designer can mimic bartenders, blending a few fundamental ingredients, and creating something quite exhilarating and exotic in the process. That’s certainly the case with Gunhouse, a quirky title that began as a PS ...
Read More »The Escapists 2 review
The methodical, multistep jailbreak might seem like an unlikely subject for a video game. After all, electronic amusements habitually indulge audiences with doses of carefree escapism rather than depict the myriad of meticulous steps leading ...
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