Tales from the Borderlands was a quality game. The set pieces were brilliant and the characters were magnetically charismatic. It highlighted the exact strengths a narrative-driven experience needed to succeed and, crucially, established the tone needed to satisfy existing Borderlands fans as well as newcomers. This new sequel is devoid …
It took over 30 years for Ron Gilbert and Dan Grossman to finally be able to create their continuation to the Monkey Island franchise, and while there were other Monkey Island games released post-Monkey Island 2: LeChuck’s Revenge, they were completed and released post Ron Gilbert’s departure from LucasArts. As …
Even without any personal nostalgia to draw from, there’s always something enchanting about rural Japanese settings in games. From Persona 4 to Root Letter, Boku no Natsuyasumi to The Kids We Were, it’s not an uncommon backdrop, but one that always comes with its own unique magic. It’s that same …
I caught up with Wadjet Eye’s Dave Gilbert for a quick Q&A about his next game: Old Skies. If you’re a fan of point-and-click adventure games, there’s a good chance you’ve heard of Wadjet Eye Games—and if you haven’t, do yourself a favour and look them up. They’ve been consistently …
Ah, the good old time paradox, bane of every temporal traveller and source of many a narrative twist. But what if time travel was so ordinary and so commodified that paradoxes were just a risk to be mitigated while making bank off people wanting to go back in time to …
As game developers go, Wadjet Eye founder Dave Gilbert is pretty open on social media about what he’s working on, sharing in-progress snippets, and whatnot, so the fact that he’s been developing a new project isn’t exactly a huge surprise. All the same, it’s nice to finally have a formal …
The Sorrowvirus: A Faceless Short Story is a frustrating game. Part of that is the sort of deliberate, atmosphere-building user-unfriendliness that you often find in horror games; part of that is puzzles that are more tedious than brain-bending. But most of all, Sorrowvirus is frustrating because it’s an intriguing, original …
Content warning: Central to Martha is Dead are themes of child abuse, mutilation of dead bodies, self-harm, torture, and mental distress. By extension, this review touches on those same topics. Martha is Dead is a tricky game to review, at least on Xbox One, because there are two very different …
Primordia — originally released on PC in 2012, and now landing on Nintendo Switch — isn’t your typical post-apocalyptic adventure. Sure, it stays true to the genre’s bleak atmosphere and cataclysmic set design, it’s not really interested in questions about how the world died and the struggles of people continuing …
From Dingodile to Roadhog, from Saxton Hale to the inhabitants of Pandora’s moon in Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel, Australian characters in videogames often lean heavily into caricature. And fair enough, too—for a culture where sarcasm is the standard way of talking, where the most severe swears are used as everyday greetings, …
