A retired literature professor stumbles upon her police officer son’s case notes, notices a connection to an obscure Elizabethan play, and—despite her son’s insistence that she stay out of it—manages to solve a murder investigation. Harriet “Harry” Wild has a knack for detective work, it turns out, as well as …
A decade since the last new game in a series with a dedicated fanbase—and with the bankruptcy of one studio and formation of another in the meantime—there’s some weight on the shoulders of Rune Factory 5. With expectations riding high, it’d be easy to get overly ambitious, to try to …
Shibuya is a place that a lot of videogames have taken us to over the years—in fact, I think we might be close to running out of three-digit numbers for fictional versions of the Shibuya 109 building. Of all the interpretations of it, few leave the mark that Ghostwire: Tokyo …
I am loving this new subversive streak from Tetsuya Nomura and Kazushige Nojima. They’ve worked together plenty as a creative director/scenario writer duo and often push the bounds of creativity (whatever jokes you want to make about what Kingdom Hearts has become, it remains a fascinating concept). But more recent …
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 …
The original Submerged was a remarkable game, if a divisive one. It set out with the singular goal of crafting a relaxed yet thought-provoking experience, as you explored the submerged ruins of a climate change-affected city and played witness to a bittersweet story of survival and togetherness. Some found it …
Pure adrenaline and meditative calm might seem like polar opposites, but—as anyone who’s ever tried their hand at an extreme sport will know well—they can be different sides of the same coin. It’s not a balance that videogames are great at finding, generally speaking. Not Grand Mountain Adventure: Wonderlands, though—this …
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 …
The first ten hours of Dying Light 2 are rough. The player is restricted to the Old Villedor section of the map, a run-down shantytown whose human inhabitants are barely holding on due to the effects of “The Fall”, the catastrophic event that is responsible for the hordes of undead …
I don’t think anyone anywhere loves anything as much as Kazunori “Kaz” Yamauchi loves cars. The opening credits for Gran Turismo 7 is a 10 minute montage that runs through the history of car culture, produced with the kind of overwhelming love with which a parent produces a slideshow to …
