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OpinionImpressionsJohn Wick Hex Puts You Inside The Complex Mind Of An Assassin
In the John Wick movies, the titular character is not superhuman. He is bound, like all of his enemies, by the laws of physics. When he gets hit by a car, you see the effects of it on his body. By the end of fights, he is often limping and bleeding. When he gets stabbed,…
By Gita Jackson Published May 5, 2020 -
OpinionImpressionsMoving Out, A Game About Trashing Someone’s House
Moving Out is a new game out this week on PC, Switch, PS4 and Xbox One. It’s a singleplayer or co-op experience, full of wacky arm-bending and physics gags, and depending on how you’re involved with the process is also an eerily accurate simulation of the art of moving house. As we’ve reviewed previously on…
By Luke Plunkett Published April 30, 2020 -
OpinionImpressionsPredator: Hunting Grounds Is Only Fun When The Predator Is Around
Predator: Hunting Grounds takes the original film’s concept—a small squad of soldiers on a mission in the jungle are ambushed by a deadly alien hunter—and turns it into an asymmetrical multiplayer game. It seems like a logical and fun adaptation, but some mediocre gunplay and long waits bog the whole experience down. Hunting Grounds, out…
By Zack Zwiezen Published April 30, 2020 -
OpinionImpressionsThere Is Nothing Cathartic About This Spider-Killing Game
First-person spider hunting game Kill It With Fire is the stuff of nightmares. Here is the premise: the player is locked in a house filled with spiders. Squeaking spiders. Spiders that hide in drawers, under the toilet seat, and beneath cushions. These are spiders that screech as they tear ass across the room from one…
By Mike Fahey Published April 30, 2020 -
OpinionImpressionsXCOM’s Breaching Is A Door-Kicking Revelation
XCOM: Chimera Squad isn’t your normal kinda XCOM experience, and while in some ways (reduced scale, smaller missions) that’s a bummer, in other ways—namely the new “Breach” system—it has been an absolute pleasure to play. Nathan has played more of the game than I have, so definitely go and check out his impressions pieceif you’d…
By Luke Plunkett Published April 29, 2020 -
OpinionImpressionsHellpoint Is A Souls-Like With Some Cool New Ideas
Hellpoint wears its influences on its sleeves. It’s obvious that Canadian developer Cradle Games knew what it wanted to make—Dark Souls in space—and set out to do just that. I recently had the chance to try a preview version of Hellpoint on Xbox One, and while I often found it frustrating from a technical standpoint,…
By Ian Walker Published April 29, 2020 -
OpinionImpressionsNew Game From The Developers Of Her Story Is An Unsettling Trip Through Stolen NSA Footage
Telling Lies, the latest work of interactive fiction from Her Story creator Sam Barlow, invites players to curl up in front of their computer and comb through hours of leaked fictional National Security Agency footage. Mostly, that involves watching the game’s characters via their webcams and other video sources, everything having been captured without their…
By Mike Fahey Published April 28, 2020 -
OpinionImpressionsMy Video Game Ate My Homework Is A Sweet Graphic Novel About Games And Growing Up
In My Video Game Ate My Homework, a new middle-grade graphic novel from DC Comics and writer/illustrator Dustin Hansen, 13-year-old Dewey Jenkins’ science project is sucked into a malfunctioning virtual reality game console. Dewey and friends must navigate a digital role-playing adventure to retrieve the project and save Dewey from summer school. Check out an…
By Mike Fahey Published April 28, 2020 -
OpinionImpressionsSakura Wars’ Dramatic Intro Makes The Mech Battles Better
It took me an hour and a half to get to the first mech combat portion of Sakura Wars, the soft reboot of Sega’s long-running role-playing game series coming to PlayStation 4 on April 28. The first 90 minutes of the game is all about getting to know the characters and circumstances of this unique…
By Mike Fahey Published April 27, 2020 -
OpinionImpressionsNew GTA Online Missions Are All About Preparing For A Recession
Grand Theft Auto Online received a new update a few days ago that added six new missions. These missions are all about an old-time GTA Online character, Gerald, and his attempts to get ready for an upcoming recession. Five of them are good and one of them is the worst mission I’ve played in GTA…
By Zack Zwiezen Published April 25, 2020 -
OpinionImpressionsThe Trials Of Mana Remake Proves Square Enix Can Faithfully Redo A Classic ’90s RPG
The second high-definition remake of a 90s-era Square Enix role-playing game coming out this month is much more faithful to the original than Final Fantasy VII. Beneath Trials of Mana’s cartoonish 3D makeover and questionable voice acting, it’s the same simple, satisfying action RPG it’s always been. This piece was first published on April 22,…
By Mike Fahey Published April 24, 2020 -
OpinionImpressionsXCOM: Chimera Squad Adds Personality To The Series, But Feels Less Personal
Chimera Squad is a fitting subtitle for the new XCOM game, because it’s a chimera of a game. Sure, it’s got XCOM’s turn-based tactical head on its shoulders, but it’s being ferried about on Overwatch’s body by Divinity: Original Sin 2‘s legs. 12 hours in, I’m still having trouble deciding if this monster of a…
By Nathan Grayson Published April 23, 2020 -
OpinionImpressionsA Sci-Fi SimCity Is Exactly What I’ve Needed
A lot of people’s response to the pressures of all of this has been to retreat to the sunny skies and green pastures of Animal Crossing. Which is fine to a point, but after too long I find myself getting a little tired of the idealism, and start craving something a little dirtier, a little…
By Luke Plunkett Published April 22, 2020 -
OpinionImpressionsTrials Of Mana‘s Healer Talks Like A Baby And Pwease, No
There are six playable characters in the Trials of Mana HD remake that comes out this week. The only dedicated healer among them is Charlotte, the diminutive granddaughter of the Priest of Light. I’d rather my party die a thousand deaths than be subjected to her insipidly cutesy baby-talk. It’s a widdle too uwu. When…
By Mike Fahey Published April 22, 2020 -
OpinionImpressionsMario Maker 2‘s Final Update Would Be Better If It Weren’t The Last One
Super Mario Maker 2 received its big version 3.0 update today, adding a bunch of new items, characters, and a whole new mode for building entire worlds. There’s a ton of great stuff to play around with in it. But as a final update, it leaves a lot on the table. First the big stuff:…
By Ethan Gach Published April 22, 2020 -
OpinionImpressionsDestiny 2’s Guardian Games Is Another Boring Bounty Fest So Far
Destiny 2’s latest event is a generous but all-too-familiar bounty grind, and I’m not sure I have it in me to stick with it. Revealed last week, Guardian Games is Destiny 2’s spin on the Olympics. Instead of individual players competing to see who’s the best, players of a particular class—Warlock, Titan, or Hunter—pool their…
By Ethan Gach Published April 21, 2020 -
OpinionImpressionsI Need Much More Of Final Fantasy VII Remake‘s Dancing Mini-Game
Don’t leave a rhythm game fan hanging here, Square Enix. The Final Fantasy VII Remake dancing mini-game is too good to be limited to a practice round and one spectacular sequence. Cloud needs to move his body right. As I played through Final Fantasy VII Remake, former (sniff) co-worker Jason Schreier kept asking me where…
By Mike Fahey Published April 21, 2020 -
OpinionImpressionsThe New Animated Mortal Kombat Movie Is Just As Brutal As The Games
Mortal Kombat Legends: Scorpion’s Revenge, the new film from Warner Bros. Animation, begins with dozens of ninja being torn limb from limb. Hanzo “Scorpion” Hasashi’s young son is viciously slayed while the titular ninja helplessly watches. Fans of the fighting game’s over-the-top violence will be… pleased? This might get a little gross, folks. The first…
By Mike Fahey Published April 20, 2020 -
OpinionImpressionsFallout 76‘s Wastelanders Expansion Is Underwhelming So Far
Running down the hill from Vault 76 where I emerged a year and a half ago, I spot a couple hiking up a stone path. They are the first people I’ve ever seen in Fallout 76 in my over 100 hours with it. They ask me if the vault’s still open and if I’ve heard…
By Ethan Gach Published April 14, 2020 -
OpinionImpressionsCloud Can’t Close Doors
Final Fantasy VII Remake looks so damn good, and it’s full of tiny graphical flourishes. You can even see which color materia Cloud has equipped in his sword. That might be why it’s so much more noticeable to me that Cloud can’t close doors. I’m only eight hours into playing the game, so maybe Cloud…
By Maddy Myers Published April 13, 2020