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OpinionImpressionsCode Vein‘s Character Creation Has All The Options
There are nearly 500 eyebrow options in Code Vein’s character creator. There is a lot of every option in the robust character creation toolset of Bandai Namco’s post-apocalyptic vampire adventure. Players begin by choosing a gender, one of the creator’s simplest options. From there, they can choose between 32 different premade characters. These serve as…
By Mike Fahey Published September 26, 2019 -
OpinionImpressionsMario Kart Tour’s Microtransactions Feel Gross In A Post-Apple Arcade World
Mario Kart Tour is a fine racing game. The graphics are lovely. The simple touch controls are fine once you get used to them. It’s overflowing with colorful Nintendo brand polish. Mario Kart Tour is also a free-to-play game with a microtransaction-fueled gacha collection mechanic and game options and rewards locked behind a paid monthly…
By Mike Fahey Published September 26, 2019 -
OpinionImpressionsThree Hours With The Last Of Us Part II
I emerged from my three-hour The Last of Us Part II demo session tense and anxious, a coiled fire hose of pent-up adrenaline. I’d just piloted a now-19-year-old Ellie through peril after peril, amassing a grisly body count along the way. Few of those kills were clean. Many were desperate knife flurries, death by a…
By Nathan Grayson Published September 26, 2019 -
OpinionImpressionsCode Vein Is The Chillest Dark Souls Clone
Bandai Namco’s anime vampire apocalypse adventure Code Vein is clearly meant to be a Dark Souls-style joint. It’s got that signature slower, methodical combat and massive, challenging bosses. Hell, it’s even got a Souls-like currency that can be lost when a player meets their untimely end. But Code Vein also has hot anime AI partners,…
By Mike Fahey Published September 26, 2019 -
OpinionImpressionsBleak Sword Does Action Better Than A Mobile Game Should
I was not aware that game developers were legally permitted to make action on mobile games that’s as good as the fighting in Bleak Sword. When it comes to games, touchscreen controls are a thing that we just kind of deal with in the hopes that someone comes up with an ingenious use for them,…
By Joshua Rivera Published September 25, 2019 -
OpinionImpressionsCat Quest II Is The Purrfect RPG For Pet Lovers (And Fighters And Mages)
The Gentlebros’ Cat Quest II, available now forApple Arcade and Steam, is exactly what I wanted from a sequel to 2017’s adorable adventure. It’s got more magic, more armor, more weapons, and more horrendous animal puns, tied together in one approachable action role-playing game. And this time around, dogs get equal screen time. The original…
By Mike Fahey Published September 25, 2019 -
OpinionImpressionsNoita Is A Delightful Game Where You Can Destroy Every Pixel You See
Noita, out today via Early Access on Steam, comes from some of the creators of the excellent indie games The Swapper and Baba is You. Both are puzzle games focusing on taking rules to their extremes, using the lenses of body-swapping and computer programming, respectively. Noita does the same, but without the puzzle aspect. Everything…
By Riley MacLeod Published September 24, 2019 -
OpinionImpressionsThe Surge 2 Is A Bit Of A Mess, But I Can’t Stop Playing
In The Surge 2’s worst moments, when too many enemies clutter too small hallways, it is a slog. But in other moments, everything falls into place, and it suddenly becomes one of the most addictive games I’ve played all year. The Surge 2 has absurd highs and damning lows, creating an inconsistent experience that I…
By Heather Alexandra Published September 23, 2019 -
OpinionImpressionsApple Arcade Is Mobile Gaming Without All The Bullshit
Entering into the busiest video game season of the year, we didn’t exactly need Apple Arcade, nor did we really want it, given Apple’s mediocre stewardship of video games for the past decade. What a shock, then, that Apple Arcade is one of the best gaming launches we can remember, and that we can recommend…
Michael Fahey & Stephen Totilo Published September 19, 2019 -
OpinionImpressionsCrying Suns Is Like FTL But With A Better Story
After raising over €72,000 in crowdfunded donations last year, Crying Suns is set to arrive on Steam tomorrow, September 19. Its art style and core mechanics both draw obvious inspiration from similar, years-old releases, with a narrative that constantly makes promises of answers over the horizon. Despite a dizzying opening determined to beat players over…
By Ian Walker Published September 18, 2019 -
OpinionImpressionsMutazione Is A Super Chill Game About Raising Plants And Talking To Mutants
Mutazione, an indie game from Die Gute Fabrik out tomorrow on Steam, Apple Arcade and PlayStation 4, does a lot of things well, but what really caught my attention was how it captured the magic of growing plants. To see a plant grow from a cutting into a fully formed plant, to see the sprouts…
By Gita Jackson Published September 18, 2019 -
OpinionImpressionsThe First Puzzle Quest Is Still The Best
2007’s Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords combined tile-matching puzzles and role-playing game mechanics to create an incredibly compelling hybrid game that was near impossible to put down. One sequel, several spin-offs, and countless copycats later, the Switch version of the original Puzzle Quest is just as captivating as it was 12 years ago. Launching…
By Mike Fahey Published September 18, 2019 -
OpinionImpressionsEverything You Need To Know About Ni no Kuni Remastered
This week, the charming role-playing game Ni no Kuni will come to three new platforms. On two of those platforms it’ll be all fancy and remastered, and on the third it’ll be portable. Here’s everything you need to know about this new release. What’s a “Ni no Kuni”? Good question. Ni no Kuni is a…
By Jason Schreier Published September 17, 2019 -
OpinionImpressionsApple Arcade Is Live In The iOS 13 Beta And It’s A Lot
While the $5-a-month Apple Arcade subscription doesn’t officially launch until Thursday, iOS 13 beta testers can sign up right now and dive into new games from some of the best indie studios on the planet. With nearly 60 games on the service so far, it’s an overwhelming amount of entertainment, all at once. Last week…
By Mike Fahey Published September 17, 2019 -
OpinionImpressionsZero Escape Director’s New Game Is Another Twisty, Captivating Mystery
When you play a video game directed by Kotaro Uchikoshi, you know you’re always going to get a few things. There will be tangents about fascinating pieces of science and mythology. The characters will frequently make terrible lewd jokes. And the story will be a sprawling tapestry full of twists, emotional moments, and ruminations on…
By Jason Schreier Published September 16, 2019 -
OpinionImpressionsSoccer Management Sim Is Surprisingly Artsy
I don’t know much about soccer, but I love how seriously its fans take it. I can’t count the number of Saturday mornings when I’ve been woken up by shouts coming from the English pub a block from my house when there’s a Premier League game. Football Drama, coming out Wednesday for PC and phones…
By Riley MacLeod Published September 16, 2019 -
OpinionImpressionsExtra ‘Realism’ Makes For A Slow-Paced Modern Warfare Beta
Activision kicked off Call of Duty: Modern Warfare’s multiplayer beta yesterday, letting PlayStation 4 players get hands-on with a softly rebooted Modern Warfare focused more on realism. Following up on last month’s alpha for Modern Warfare’s upcoming 2v2 Gunfight mode, the beta offers a taste of the standard multiplayer with 6v6 and 10v10 matches in…
By S.E. Doster Published September 13, 2019 -
OpinionImpressionsSix Hours In, Borderlands 3 Just Feels Like More Borderlands (And It’s Kinda Busted)
Borderlands 3 is almost certainly the game that you think it is. Six hours in, a lot of my feelings remain the same as they were when I first played Borderlands 3 at an extended preview last month. In a lot of ways it’s a time capsule, in some ways embarrassingly retrograde in its sensibilities,…
By Joshua Rivera Published September 13, 2019 -
OpinionImpressionsMy New Favorite Way To Play Pinball On Switch
Today’s release of Zen Studios’ Star Wars Pinball for the Nintendo Switch gave me an idea. I’ve been playing my Switch docked and connected to this cool little portable 15.6-inch Viotek monitor, and Zen’s Switch pinball games support vertical play, so what if we turn the portable monitor on its side? Perfection. There are plenty…
By Mike Fahey Published September 13, 2019 -
OpinionImpressionsKind Words Is A Game Where You Send Confessional Letters To Online Strangers
“I always read the stuff people send me the wrong way,” a stranger on Kind Words, a new PC game where you write and receive confessional letters. “I read it as if they are upset with me and don’t want to talk to me. They’ve always told me this isn’t how they feel, but I…
By Cecilia D'Anastasio Published September 13, 2019