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OpinionImpressionsZelda: Link’s Awakening‘s Chamber Dungeons Are A Big Disappointment
The appeal of a Zelda dungeon is in its intricacy. A good dungeon starts off feeling overwhelming, full of buttons and doors and strange obstacles. As you make progress, solving puzzles and acquiring items, it all slowly begins to make sense. You get a complete understanding of how the passages flow and the rooms all…
By Jason Schreier Published September 12, 2019 -
OpinionImpressionsFallout 76 Lets You Battle Royale In The ’Burbs
Fallout 76‘s Patch 13 is now live, and the update is great for fans of battle royales and bad for fans of not spending money on microtransactions. If both of those things describe you, well, there’s good news and bad news. First: The main attraction here is the new Morgantown map added to the Nuclear…
By Joshua Rivera Published September 11, 2019 -
OpinionImpressionsSome Of Monster Hunter World‘s New Gear Sure Is Ugly
Monster Hunter World’s latest expansion, Iceborne, is a massive addition to the base game. It adds tons of new monsters and brings back old favorites. That also means new armor, and while plenty of it looks badass, a few pieces are bafflingly terrible. Iceborne offers a lot of good armor sets. The Master Rank Tobi-Kadachi…
By Heather Alexandra Published September 11, 2019 -
OpinionImpressionsHaven Is A Sci-Fi RPG About Being In A Long-Term Relationship
Usually, video game romances are about hot and heavy beginnings or fiery ends. Even visual novels often focus on the new and novel, rather than relationships that are doing their best to withstand the test of time. Haven, set to release next year, is different. It’s a game about a long-term relationship—ups, downs, squabbles, awkward moments,…
By Nathan Grayson Published September 10, 2019 -
OpinionImpressionsFarewell Is A Fitting Goodbye To The World Of Celeste
Celeste is as perfect a platformer as has ever been made. Its mixture of charming visuals, fantastic music, and challenging levels added up to one of 2018’s best games. That seemed to be the end of it; the story was over, the mountain was climbed. But a final epilogue chapter, added this week, brings a…
By Heather Alexandra Published September 10, 2019 -
OpinionImpressionsGothic Platformer Offers Brutal Combat With A Side Of Religious Trauma
Blasphemous, the indie platformer that Spanish studio The Game Kitchen crowd-funded two years ago, is now available on every major gaming platform. While I wasn’t one of theKickstarter backers, I have been looking forward to this release for some time, both as a fan of difficult Souls-like games and someone who has long had a…
By Ian Walker Published September 10, 2019 -
OpinionImpressionsThe New Plants Vs. Zombies Shooter Is Off To A Strong Start
Launched last week into a special Founder’s Edition early access period, Plants Vs. Zombies: Battle for Neighborville might not have a lot of content yet, but it’s already a blast to play. If you enjoyed the colorful cartoony competitive world Popcap Games built with Plants Vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare and its sequel, you’ll probably love…
By Mike Fahey Published September 10, 2019 -
OpinionImpressionsGears 5’s Multiplayer Is Very Good, Too
In addition to its gripping, creatively risky campaign, Gears 5 also has a huge suite of multiplayer modes that also deliver. There are updates to old classics like Horde, as well as the new additions Escape and Arcade. Once again, widening the world of Gears pays off. Horde mode This co-operative multiplayer mode has been…
By Maddy Myers Published September 10, 2019 -
OpinionImpressionsI Can’t See Myself Enjoying The New Kirby Game Much Longer
Launched following last week’s Nintendo Direct, Super Kirby Clash is a free-to-play multiplayer game pitting multicolored Kirbys in medieval cosplay against massive bosses. I love the battles, but the game’s economy and endless upgrade cycle have me wondering how long that love will last. Nintendo calls Super Kirby Clash a free-to-start game, which is a…
By Mike Fahey Published September 10, 2019 -
OpinionImpressionsTen Hours In, Greedfall‘s Detailed Role-Playing Can’t Make Up For Its Unpleasant Setting
I have not enjoyed playing Greedfall, the latest role-playing game by Spiders. That’s not because it is a poor experience in terms of how it plays. Greedfall offers a BioWare-esque adventure with branching quests, companion characters, and exploration. Greedfall frustrates me because it’s a game of half-measures. In the nearly 10 hours that I have…
By Heather Alexandra Published September 9, 2019 -
OpinionImpressionsThe Sims 4 Gets Goddamn Wizards
Meet Lucretia Sand, witch. She’s the Sim I made for The Sims 4’s latest magic-centric expansion. Puns aside, she’s the perfect character to explore the latest game pack, Realm of Magic. Realm of Magic, which comes out tomorrow, is the latest game pack for The Sims 4. It adds a new area, new clothes, and…
By Gita Jackson Published September 9, 2019 -
OpinionImpressionsFire Emblem‘s ‘Lost Items’ Mechanic Is So Annoying
Even in the fantasy world of Fire Emblem, there is no way the students of Garreg Mach Monastery are so forgetful that I, as their teacher, need to ferry 100 of their lost items around a school campus at all times in hopes of finding their owners. Fire Emblem: Three Houses has a mechanic for that,…
By Cecilia D'Anastasio Published September 9, 2019 -
OpinionImpressionsFallout 76 Player Builds A Corn Maze To Welcome In Fall
Nothing says fall to me like a good fair. Something about fried foods and prized hogs just makes me want to roll in a pile of falling leaves and, best of all, wander in a corn maze. We’re not quite up to fall fair season in real life, but if you have Fallout 76, one…
By Gita Jackson Published September 6, 2019 -
OpinionImpressionsControl‘s Eerie Architecture Took Me Back To My College Days
I didn’t think that Control would have much in common with Allison Bechdel’s Fun Home, an autobiographical comic about her childhood in a funeral home and her later coming out as a lesbian. The comic strayed through my mind as I was walking around The Oldest House, though, and I now realize why: They both…
By Gita Jackson Published September 6, 2019 -
OpinionImpressionsRiver City Girls Is Like River City Ransom But With Girls
For decades, old-school beat-em up fans have been following the adventures of River City Ransom heroes Kunio and Riki, a pair of high school tough guys with a knack for rescuing their girlfriends from thugs. Wayforward’s River City Girls turns that tired formula on its head. It’s an utterly charming old-school brawler where the girlfriends…
By Mike Fahey Published September 5, 2019 -
OpinionImpressionsCatherine: Full Body’s Successes Make Its Reductive Gender Tropes Sting So Much More
“It’s aged nicely, with a sensual flavor, not unlike a fine wine,” purrs Trisha in Atlus’ Catherine: Full Body while sipping a glass of red, describing the “program” on the analogue TV on the bar next to her. A gentle haze of golden sparkles twinkle around the gigantic red afro puffs bouncing on either side…
By Natalie Degraffinried Published September 5, 2019 -
OpinionImpressionsBanjo And Kazooie Are A Puzzle In Smash Ultimate
At long last, Banjo and Kazooie are in Super Smash Bros. “At long last,” I say, because the bear and Breegull duo have been some of the most requested additions to Nintendo’s mascot-based fighter for years. As players puzzle their way through the fighters’ toolkit, they’ve come across a couple surprises and not as many…
By Cecilia D'Anastasio Published September 5, 2019 -
OpinionImpressionsWilmot’s Warehouse Is A Great Puzzle Game
When I first saw people on Twitter praising Wilmot’s Warehouse, a new puzzle game for computers and Switch, I didn’t get it. It looked like a game about moving blocks around, and I figured it was just about grabbing things from one place and bringing them to another. After spending some time with it, I’ve…
By Riley MacLeod Published September 4, 2019 -
OpinionImpressionsDisintegration Looks Like Destiny But Definitely Doesn’t Play Like It
If you follow video game news relatively closely, you probably know Disintegration as “that upcoming game by one of the co-creators of Halo” or “that game that looked a lot like Destiny in its reveal trailer.” In reality, however, the similarities are only skin-deep. Disintegration, a production headed up by former Bungie creative art director…
By Nathan Grayson Published September 3, 2019 -
OpinionImpressionsWoW Classic Brings The Community Back To World Of Warcraft
World of Warcraft Classic is teeming with life. Traders shout out their wares, offering much-needed magical items and equipment at reasonable prices. Adventurers form parties for protection against dangerous low-level foes. Earlier today a stranger came up to my mage and asked if I could conjure him water. I can’t remember the last time a…
By Mike Fahey Published August 30, 2019