The PS2 era was a wonderful time for 3D platformers. With the heightened power of a new console and those early teething issues largely resolved, the genre flourished: games like Jak and Daxter, Sly Cooper, and Ratchet and Clank opened the doors to colourful new worlds rife with things to …
Koei Tecmo’s stated aim with Samurai Warriors 5 is to reboot the franchise: keep the fundamental Warriors action-strategy game intact, but with a new art style, new character designs, and a greater emphasis on storytelling. A few chapters in, it seems this reboot has been remarkably successful in those goals: …
Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning was one of the first games I ever got a platinum trophy for. I’ve never been much of a trophy hunter, but when this dropped in 2012, something about it just grabbed hold of me and made me want to see and do everything there is …
The “Jaws effect,” named after Steven Spielberg’s terrifying shark-murder-fest, refers to the way that Jaws transformed an entire generation’s perception of these teethy sea beasts into something resembling horror. Ocean conservationists have been battling against misconceptions around sharks since the release of Jaws in 1975. Despite those efforts, this deeply …
I often found myself markedly impressed at the scale of Biomutant. It is a game developed chiefly by a mere 20 developers, some of whom are alumni of Avalanche Studios, the team behind the Just Cause franchise. Yet despite the relatively small development team, the world they have created is …
Resident Evil Village is more than just a bold new gothic horror-influenced direction for the series; it’s a reflection on horror as a whole. Resident Evil has traversed a few different horror subgenres over its years. What started as a B-movie survival horror turned into high-energy, science fiction-infused action horror, …
Returnal should not be a roguelike, and I say this as someone who rather enjoys that genre. It’s a remarkable game in so many ways: full of the sort of frantic yet precise action that Housemarque is unrivalled at creating, but on a whole new level of scale and ambition, …
This morning, Sony and Insomniac shared a new trailer for the upcoming Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart, putting the newest Lombax, Rivet, front and centre. Rivet’s been part of Rift Apart‘s marketing cycle since the game was first announced, but we haven’t had confirmation of her name until now. The …
Koei Tecmo has four more combatants for the upcoming Samurai Warriors 5, with the legendary African samurai Yasuke among a handful of newcomers. Like everyone in Samurai Warriors, Yasuke is a larger-than-life depiction of a real-life figure—in this case, a man who was brought from Africa to Japan as part …
Aster of Pan isn’t your typical post-apocalyptic story. Sure, its world is a harsh one where survival is hard-fought and communities fiercely protect their own with strict rules and a heavy distrust for outsiders. But it’s also full of humanity, hope, and its fair share of humour; where the common …
