#review
#review
by Omar (@siegarettes)
You’re about to give a speech to the incoming class when you suddenly begin to hallucinate, turning everyone around you into a grotesque, gltiched out mess. Welcome to “graduation”, where you’ve come to realize the nature of the world around you. None of it is real. In fact, as certain classmates of yours will inform you, the school and the entire world around you is a simulation, a product of a misguided digital idol named Mu. In her attempts to bring happiness to others she’s trapped hundreds of people in a virtual highschool, having them relive the same three years over and over. So far so anime.
By: RJ (@rga_02)
Otome games aren’t my thing. I don’t hate them, but I haven’t played one until now. So I came in assuming that this game was nothing about yaoi pretty boys that just happens to be set in 1800s Japan. Which I was looking forward too, because that premised sounded pretty funny in my mind. I didn’t get that plot though; instead I got quite an adventure.
by Kieffer (@kiefferwilson)
What responsibility do video games have to report on the historical past? As a medium allowing for interactivity between the player and the virtual space, video games allow players the ability to interact with historical spaces, and become embodied within historical characters. Within the last couple of years this has been a responsibility that games have answered to. Last year (2016), 1979 Revolution: Black Friday gave players choice during the Iranian Revolution, and a couple of years earlier, Valiant Hearts: The Great War had players bounding through the relationships of World War I. Herald, the debut episodic game developed by Wispfire, is a new game focusing on the tensions between Europe and India during the 19th century. As of now only two of four episodes are released, which is what I will be reviewing.
by Omar (@siegarettes)
I don’t enjoy Rain World. I don’t appreciate its hostility, the way it alternates between small moments of wonder and long stretches of frustration. I don’t enjoy the way it disrupts exploration, forcing you to inhabit the same area for long periods, feeling away on the edges of it until you can decipher its obtuse demands and wander into a solution. Its environments are filled with visual noise, making interactable objects difficult to spot. The platforming is imprecise and often unreliable, a constant liability when hounded by the threat of predators and rain. And its map is laid out in a sequence of sewer-like piping, areas twisting into each other that make it difficult to create an internal sense of direction.
I also find it hard to fault Rain World for any these aspects, as they all form a coherent, intentional core.
By: David (@friendshipguy_)
• Super Bomberman R
• Developer - Konami
• Publisher - Konami
• Nintendo Switch
Good news: it’s our first Nintendo Switch review! In not so stellar news: I mostly feel the same way about it that other’s do. Super Bomberman R is the first title in seven years to get some form of a physical release, making it seemingly feel like a full, robust game unlike the past downloadable titles that were a core Bomberman experience based around its traditional form, and Bomberman: Act Zero if we’re really going to bring up that game. For the first game in seven years, Super Bomberman R does a lot of things okay, and a lot of other things really, really not-so-well, mostly fumbling in the single player/co-op story and lacking a full bodied multiplayer experience that one would expect from a near full-price physical release.
By: RJ (@rga_02)
This review was made possible through the support of our Patreon.
As I finished hogging up the Taiko machine at Round One, it was time to go back home. What game do I play on my commute back? Taiko of course.
by Omar (@siegarettes)
Upon starting up Desync I could immediately hear someone somewhere beginning to write a thinkpiece about how with the release of Desync and nuDOOM shooters are finally returning to their glorious past. But while DOOM learned from, and subsequently owes a debt to, the last decade of shooter design, Desync fails to do the same.
by Omar (@siegarettes)
There are few feelings more satisfying than a good parry. Bleed 2 knows that, and not only does it center itself on it, it brings the best version of the parry: the one that can reflect missiles into an enemies face.
That’s what makes Bleed 2 work. The slow motion gunplay, the agile character, the two color bullet system – it all complements the parry. The parry changes the way you approach levels. It makes it smarter to be the aggressor, forces you to run towards bullets to create breathing room. The best moments in Bleed 2 are the ones that play with that. They create tension as you rally bullets until your opponent drops it, then have knock them out of the air with a quick response to their dive attack. Or they have you defend an ally by parrying a car out of the air.