Even if you only played the demo way back in the ancient days of the mid-'90s, it's hard to forget the thrill of flying in and out of cramped hallways, dodging lasers and missiles to steal a door key and then strafing downward (or is it upward?) back out of the room to safety. Descent celebrates its 19th birthday this month with a straight, bare-bones port on Steam—all 27 stomach-wrenching levels of the original. This particular version has some mouse issues, but a great game is a great game.
The only thing worse than knowing about an import game you’ll never get to play is receiving the inferior sequel that you do get to play. Such is the case with The Firemen 2: Pete & Danny. Originally released in Japan in 1995 on the PlayStation, the game was recently re-released as an import download on PSN, courtesy of MonkeyPaw Games. In a nutshell, the game is more or less an overhead shoot ‘em up that focuses on fighting fires instead blowing up aliens. It’s a novel idea to be sure, but one that wasn’t executed nearly as well as it was in the previous game on the Super Famicom (aka: Super Nintendo).
PolyPusher Studios, the Irish developer behind Montague’s Mount, describes its latest project as a “psychological rollercoaster ride through isolation, desolation, and one man’s tortured mind.” Its perception of the game it created doesn’t quite align with the game it actually released, where the rollercoaster is more like rush hour traffic, and the only tortured mind is my own. Montague's Mount is a first-person adventure/puzzle game about a man who awakens on the beach of a deserted fishing island, unable to remember who he is or why he’s there. Promising although the concept sounds, concept only goes so far without the execution to back it up.
After 2012’s disappointing Assassin’s Creed III, I was beginning to get burned out on the franchise. The idea of Assassin’s Creed III: Liberation on the PlayStation Vita seemed interesting as it decided to tell the story of a French-African heroine named Aveline, but the draw wasn’t enough to get me to invest in a Vita solely for that game. However, with tales of Assassin’s Creed IV restoring faith to much of the series’ fan base, I grew curious once more. In an attempt to rediscover my interest in the Assassin’s Creed franchise, I went into Assassin’s Creed: Liberation HD – an HD port of 2012’s Vita adventure – with some optimism. Thankfully, I wasn’t disappointed.
As a huge Halo fanboy, I’m happy to take any non-Master Chief content the good brand managers at Microsoft are willing to toss out there. After getting fairly hooked on the Halo novels, and finding that the universe created to support a space marine shooter was actually pretty interesting, I’ve often pined for actual games that use this setting in completely new ways. Halo 3: ODST was a fantastic side-step and Halo Wars reportedly made a great effort at a console RTS, but the latest attempt to get Halo characters not wearing green body armor on your Xbox, Halo: Spartan Assault, smacks of an easy cash grab.
Just imagine that you’re one of the most unlucky people in the world for a moment, and you’re walking along and a cute girl asks if you want to have a free try with a small lottery machine. Now let’s say you win for the first time in your life, and that prize just happens to be a transformation into God. That’s how the story goes for Renya, and unfortunately, it’s the last bit of luck you see throughout the rest of the game.
It’s fascinating to go back to the original Sonic the Hedgehog after so many years and so many new entries in the series. These days, everyone wants to convince you that Sonic is a game all about speed. Without it, it’s simply not the same – not like the original titles on the Genesis. What the original game has reminded me of is that Sonic is a platformer first and foremost and a game about speed second. Very rarely does Sonic hit breakneck speeds in his debut; more often than not he’s taking calculated jumps in a sidescroller that’s merely more mobile than the one that features his Italian plumber counterpart.
Forza Motorsport 5 is probably one of the most beautiful games I’ve played to date. Honestly, it’s not uncommon for me to stop paying attention when I should be braking into a turn, simply because the beautifully crafted background grabbed my attention -- much like a gorgeous woman gracefully striding past me on the sidewalk. And, just like how I often walk face-first into a sign or lamp post while gawking at a stunning woman, my Forza 5 car often slams into a concrete barrier while cruising at 200 mph with my focus on the magnificent graphics as opposed to the course ahead.
Halo games have continuously fumbled the stories that justify Master Chief and crew blowing everything up. Somehow amongst this mess of in-game cut scenes, a colorful and interesting sci-fi universe with tons of potential was cobbled together, ready to be harnessed by a real pro. Karen Traviss has worked wonders with Halo’s raw materials in the final installment of the Kilo-Five trilogy, Halo: Mortal Dictata, giving us an action-packed book with moral quandaries and personal relationships injected throughout – intensely better than the clunky narratives the games foist on us.
Oh, Space Harrier, how should I describe you? Should I compare thee to an endless runner? Thou art more lovely and insane. Rough controls do tire the limbs of any gamer, and this title’s fun supply is far too short. But the eternal summer of my nostalgia for this game shall never fade, nor will the death of the ‘80s cast shadows upon its uniqueness.
Licenced games can be a real crapshoot, but surprisingly enough, this one didn't make me go quackers. I'm not very familiar with Disney or Donald Duck in particular, but this game turned out to be decent enough by its own merits.
I am not a Zelda fan. Even in the early days, the series never really grabbed me. Oh, I played the original Legend of Zelda and its immediate sequels/prequels for the NES and SNES respectively. Other than that first game and Link’s Awakening on the Game Boy, the many entries in the franchise have never held me long enough to finish them. And I’ve tried. Oh, how I’ve tried! So based on what you’ve read, you would probably assume that I’m the worst person to review The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds on this website. Maybe you’re right, but I think I’m the best person to write this review because of my lukewarm reception to the series. So let’s move on and see who’s right, shall we?
There’s a special place in hell for JRPG fans. Their sin? Playing the same game with the same story over and over without complaining once. I suppose there are worse crimes than this, but there is a sort of masochistic glee in which JRPG fans partake in their vice. Perhaps we love grinding and crafting so much that we don’t really care about the story too much – despite our claims that we play these games for the tales they tell. Perhaps it’s the newness of the dungeons or the shiny equipment that makes the tedium of saving the world over and over remain novel. But, despite these tropes, this genre seems to continue on, and sometimes even with some of the most loathed archetypes and clichés, JRPGs can rise to heights other genres can’t.
It’s getting late again, and not to mention, cold. I’m doing my best not to head farther east to satisfy my curiosity about that peninsula, and I’ve got to resist or I’m going to die – again. I’m hoping to make it through the winter. With what I’ve learned from the last few times I’ve survived that long there is a chance I might make it, but then I find an entirely new way to screw it up – again. And so it goes over and over, slowly learning, slowly progressing, slowly making it through another day all to fail and start back at the beginning – again. Somehow, the repetitive advancement through the generated worlds of Don’t Starve stays engaging and challenging for quite a while, until you will inevitably be unable to force yourself to toil through the opening days – again.
Looks can be deceiving, particularly in the case of 3D Galaxy Force II. After watching a bit of footage of the game, I thought I was in for a fantastic Star Fox-like experience, piloting through space, taking down enemies and battling epic bosses at the conclusion of each level. While these are things you’ll do throughout the game, it never exhibits the finesse of the Star Fox series and the imprecise controls ensure that most players aren’t going to get much out of this particular 3D Classic.
Hot off the heels of Banjo-Kazooie, Donkey Kong 64 was Rareware's second platform adventure on the Nintendo 64. Requiring use of the Expansion Pak accessory, the game promised to not only ape Super Mario 64, but provide a bigger, prettier adventure. With five characters, huge worlds, and hundreds of collectables, there's a lot packed into this little cartridge, but that also unfortunately becomes its downfall. This would typically be the point where some crack would be inserted about driving the player bananas, but this article is 100% guaranteed to be free of all monkey-related puns. Honest.
Altered Beast was Sega’s showcase game for the Genesis debut, doing its best to attract extreme-minded 90s teens with its muscular protagonist who could transform into kick-ass werewolves and dragons. Although I was smack dab in the middle of the game’s focus group at the time, I was dorkier than Sega ever imagined and wasn’t interested in the least. With M2’s 3D conversion of Altered Beast hitting the 3DS, I figured it deserved another chance, and boy am I completely indifferent about my experience.
If there was one thing that Techno Soft did very well in the 16-bit days, it was shoot ‘em ups. It all started when they created Thunder Force in 1984. It was released on the NEC PC-8801 and several other Japanese home computers at the time, but never saw the light of day in the US. The game featured an overhead free-roaming viewpoint and the goal was to destroy the enemy’s shield generators, using your main shot for air targets and the bomb shot for ground targets in each stage. While it’s tough to gauge the game’s popularity from back then, it apparently did well enough to warrant a sequel. Thunder Force II was released four years later for the Sega Genesis in 1989, making it the very first shoot ‘em up on the system.
Call of Duty: Ghosts set out to be a fresh start for Infinity Ward. In some ways it is just that – Ghosts introduces a brand new story line that will undoubtedly take them a few titles to complete as well as a few game types in multiplayer that are new to the Call of Duty mold. When all is said and done though, this latest entry doesn’t draw me back to the series and if anything, it only proves why the formula has grown so stale over the past few years.
As an SNES kid, there’s a sizable selection of Genesis classics that I’ve never had the opportunity to play. With the exception of the first game, the Shinobi series unfortunately falls into that category. However, thanks to Sega’s recent efforts to 3D-ify some of their classic Genesis titles, I’ve finally been able to give Shinobi III: Return of the Ninja Master a shot. I’m happy to report that not only is this title still fantastic today, but that M2 has done a phenomenal job in bringing this game to the 3DS.
As Sony and Microsoft battle it out for a new generation of consoles, the place where things are most crucial is with the exclusive titles. With both consoles on a somewhat level playing field, everything comes down to the games, and the Xbox One has a strong first showing with Dead Rising 3, a title that gives a good look at what the new machine can do while also highlighting some things that could be improved.
Despite the variety of games classified as brawlers, they typically fall into one of two camps: Those that have deep, complex mechanics and require thoughtful, strategic combat decisions and memorization of enemy tactics, and those that are simple, fun, and generally don’t require a whole lot of thought. These are games like Streets of Rage, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, or Musou games like Dynasty Warriors. Senran Kagura Burst falls squarely into this second camp, but that doesn't mean it’s not a unique experience. Senran Kagura Burst is probably the most Japanese game I've ever played, and that’s really saying quite a lot.
I would love to say that I’m a huge fan of the Disgaea series, however, I’ve never played a single title within the saga until Disgaea D2: A Brighter Darkness. If there was ever a game to make me fall in love with a series though; it would be this game. I entered this lengthy saga with my mind wide open, and I fell in love with a punishing and grindy game that continually made me go back for more. This colorful adventure (colorful in more ways than just its palette, I assure you) proves that a deep combat system coupled with childish and quirky humor can be crafted into something beautiful that will entertain for hours on end.
In the early ‘90s, a new video game console was only as strong as its launch titles. When we look back at a console’s history and wonder what attracted us to it, often it’s those first games that we think of and say, "that’s why I fell in love with that system." Nintendo understood this concept when they released the Super Nintendo. Included among a shortlist of launch games was the flight simulation, Pilotwings. Beginning as an early tech demo in 1988 to show off the Mode 7 graphical capabilities of the 16-bit system, Pilotwings was developed into a full-fledged game that allowed us to take to the skies in a way never before possible on a home console.
Season Two of Telltale’s the Walking Dead pulls no punches with its first episode. Within minutes, I was reminded that the universe of The Walking Dead is no joke. I was happy that the narrative is strong: an extremely gripping tale filled with a lot of memorable moments and even more memorable characters. The gameplay is also much improved, though technically, the experience leaves something to be desired on Xbox 360.
