PC

Every respectable shoot-‘em-up has a hook. The Raiden series has its distinctive purple plasma beam, which moves like a giant serpent, before latching onto to foes and siphoning away their health away. R-Type’s distinction is ...

In the West, Nihon Falcom’s output is tarnished with the rare blemish. Notably, The Legend of Heroes: A Tear of Vermillion and Prophecy of the Moonlight Witch– the first two entries in the Gagharv Trilogy. Released out of order, both ...

One of the core causes of PC elitism is rooted in the availability of cutting-edge hardware. Even Windows-based machines with a mid-range GPU can outperform the current generation of consoles. But Sony and Nintendo’s systems ...

While players might associate platforming games with plumbers and hedgehogs, the genre has a disproportionate number of entries that take place in prehistorical eras. From B.C.’s Quest for Tires, Joe and Mac, Chuck Rock, Bonk, ...

In modern media, the skyscraper frequently hosts an inverted voyage to the underworld, with heroes scaling their way toward the malicious forces on the uppermost level. Whether it’s the original Die Hard, The Raid, Dredd, ...

The first-person dungeon crawl is an remarkably fertile genre, typically extending engrossing interpretations of Dungeons & Dragons-inspired, party-based prowls. But occasionally, skulking through homogeneous hallways and battling the same fantasy-themed enemies culled from Monster Manuals ...

Tokyo Tattoo Girls is the type of game that probably wouldn’t have been localized a decade ago. The reason has nothing to do with the appearance of some slightly risqué images; the game’s exhibition of ...

The ‘90s had a number of platform-game based luminaries like Mario, Sonic, and Crash Bandicoot. Unsurprisingly, their popularity inspired a surplus of second-rate copycats, with characters like Alfred Chicken, Zool, and Plok seemingly abandoned by ...

Gamers didn’t always have it so good. For years, only a fraction of Japanese titles made the journey West, leaving first-rate efforts like Secret of Mana 2, Mother 3, and Valkyria Chronicles III accessible only ...

Not long ago, games based on film properties were routinely awful. Defunct publishers like THQ, LJN, Acclaim, and Ocean Software become known for their slapdash adaptations, each company attempting to make a quick buck by ...