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Lonesome Village Brings a Sense of Home to a Quaint Setting

 In Lonesome Village community is key. This particular one, the Ubhora village was once thriving and happy, but is now empty,  victim of a cult devoted to an ancient god who kidnaps and locks up every villager in the ancient…

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SkateBIRD captures the arcade-y nature of Tony Hawk games

The resurgence of skating games brings me a lot of joy. When I first encountered Glass Bottom Games’ SkateBIRD at PAX East 2019, I was enamored by the jolly and goofy take on the skating game as someone who played…

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Turnip Boy Learns the Wrong Lessons From The Legend of Zelda

If I never played a game with a ghostly maze forest in it again, I would never miss it. There’s nothing really fun about them. Even the more benign lost woods varieties, that are just straight up mazes, really just…

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The Mellow Vibes of Skate City

For full disclosure, the PR representative of this title is a personal friend of the writer. Skating was more than doing tricks for me, it was a mode of transportation and a part of my identity. I have so many…

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My Mind is a Prison, My Cellmate is Loop Hero

I’ve probably spent more hours playing Loop Hero over the past few days than I have any game that I’ve played for leisure in a similar span of time. I’m seeing pixelated ratwolves in my nightmares. I hear one of…

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30XX Impressions – Jump’n and Shoot’n Still Feels Great In This Roguelike Sequal!

Battery Staple games were released 20XX back in 2014. This game took the historic gameplay of Capcom’s legendary Mega Man X franchise and infused it with the rogue-like genre’s essence. The result was an incredibly fun action platformer roguelike that…

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Voidigo Mixes Ratchet and Clank and Monster Hunter to Break Away From the Roguelike Pack

It was around my third or fourth run, while I was trading fire with a strange flower with a hunting rifle while a pair of pig men with shotguns closed in, that I realized that Voidigo might be special. The…

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I’ll Take One Nagoriyuki, Please

My relationship with Guilty Gear has always gone the same way for the past almost 20 years. A game gets announced and looks incredible. I consume every bit of media I can about it up to launch. I buy the…

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Skul: The Hero Slayer’s Roguelike Mechanics are Terminally Old School

I’ve become quite infatuated with SouthPAW Game’s and Neowiz’s Skul: The Hero Slayer. As a roguelite, the die-till-you-win grind is front and center, but the simple side scrolling beat-em up gameplay makes hopping back into each run a breeze. It’s…

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Final Fantasy XV & The Open Road

“It’s not about the destination, but the journey along the way.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson The open road is one of my favorite places to be: listening to music, wind blowing through my hair, and smelling the local scents. One…

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Mobius Front 83′ Reimagines the Cold War as a Grueling Sci-fi Civil War

Often hiding in the “tactical wargame” subgenre of strategy are games that are less likely to make you feel like a battlefield commander and more likely to make you feel like you’re solving a puzzle cube. Whereas XCOM is the…

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Grindstone is Still Very Good in 2021

As games about blood-raging berserkers go, Grindstone is probably the most brain-tickling. Kratos never spent much time plotting his next move. Conan was never concerned about his killstreak. Jorg, with skin covered in ice and demeanor covered in gloom, is…