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OpinionImpressionsThe New Sims 4 Stories Feature Has Me Making Sims I’d Never Create On My Own
Making Sims can take a long time. You have to hand-pick their personality traits and lifetime ambitions, which means you actually have to sit down and think about a particular character to play. That can take a while, and when I’m feeling particular, it’s taken at least an hour. It can be really easy to…
By Gita Jackson -
OpinionImpressionsThe New Game From Journey’s Creators Feels Like A Dream
In the new game Sky: Children of the Light ethereal figures prance and soar through gorgeous landscapes and crumbling temples. These characters hold candles and spread light throughout the world. At least, I think that’s what’s going on in ThatGameCompany’s first new game in seven years. It’s abstract. Out now on iOS and coming eventually…
By Mike Fahey -
OpinionImpressionsForget Everything You Know About Gravity In This Beautiful Puzzle Game
Playing Etherborn is like taking a hike through a series of colorful terraria that have been warped and torn apart by mysterious cosmic forces, causing gravity to shift like the sides of a Rubik’s Cube. It can be bewildering, but it’s never unpleasant—like a dream you can’t quite make sense of, but don’t want to…
By Ethan Gach -
OpinionImpressionsFinal Fantasy XIV Shadowbringers Log Four: Everything And Everyone Else
There are many ways to play through Final Fantasy XIV’s Shadowbringers expansion. I am playing as a goggle-wearing Viera Dancer, dancing and damaging my way toward the finish line. I can’t cover all of the job class changes, role-based questlines, and side content before my review drops. But other FFXIV players can certainly tell me…
By Mike Fahey -
OpinionImpressionsIn My Sims World Of Only Women, Marge Simpson Is Married To Taylor Swift
I’ll let you in on a secret: I only work in the games industry to bring it down from the inside, like the insidious woman-spy I am! Bwahaha! Mine is an evil laugh! Turns out that all those threads about me on various terrible corners of the internet had it right all along, and I’m…
By Kate Gray -
OpinionImpressionsThe Fire Emblem: Three Houses Battle System Is Elegant In Its Complexity
At its best, combat in Fire Emblem games is like an elegant game of chess. At its worst, it’s a morass of numbers that don’t feel like they mean anything. Three Houses leans more closely to the former than the latter, though it’s also easy to get lost in statistics and variables. Allow me to…
By Gita Jackson -
OpinionImpressionsBlazing Chrome Is A Fine Love Letter To 16-Bit Contra
I didn’t know I needed more Contra III in my life until I started playing Blazing Chrome The run-and-gun action platformer, out today on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Switch, and PC, is set against a backdrop of a futuristic world in which humanity has been overrun by an army of evil cyborgs. Blazing Chrome succeeds…
By Ethan Gach -
OpinionImpressionsA Mario Maker Level Where Mario Has Post-War PTSD
Oh, you’ve been playing nearly impossible kaizo levels or 20-second speedruns? Sounds great. Me, I just played a Super Mario Maker 2 level where Mario comes back from the army with PTSD. Mario Maker is not the best storytelling medium. In fact, Nintendo goes out of its way to make it difficult to create a…
By Chris Kohler -
OpinionImpressionsThe Messenger’s New Island DLC Is A Perfect Substitute For A Day At The Beach
It’s already mid-July, and I still haven’t made it to the beach. Maybe you haven’t either. The Messenger’s free Picnic Panic expansion can fix that. You won’t actually hear seafoam waves crashing along the shore or feel the grainy piles of hot sand beneath your feet, but Picnic Panic’s bright colors, catchy new chiptune-inspired melodies,…
By Ethan Gach -
OpinionImpressionsBlack Ops 4‘s ‘Apocalypse’ Brings Fan-Favorite Maps And Modes (And More Annoying Loot Boxes)
The undead apocalypse started spreading across Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 on July 9, bringing zombie-themed content that features brand new maps as well as plenty of nostalgia for Call of Duties past. Black Ops 4’s latest event “Operation Apocalypse Z” is currently exclusive to PlayStation 4, but zombies will infect Xbox One and…
By S.E. Doster -
OpinionImpressionsSega’s ActRaiser Successor Is Not Good
1990’s ActRaiser is a pleasant mix of basic top-down strategy and side-scrolling platforming action that’s simple and satisfying. Sega’s SolSeraph, released today for PC, PlayStation 4, Switch and Xbox One, takes the same basic concept as the Super Nintendo classic and turns it into an unwieldy mess. Sega’s surprise announcement of SolSeraph two weeks ago…
By Mike Fahey
