Anno 1800 Review – The Prettiest Spreadsheet
At the heart of any European town founded before the 19th century lies a church. It’s the same with Anno 1800. At the center of your city sits a magnificent cathedral, its spectacular steeple reaching for the heavens and illuminating the…
Pendragon Review – History Repeating
Pendragon is a fascinating but flawed experiment in procedural narrative. Legends are slippery things. One tells of Arthur, the once and future King of Britain who united the realm against the Saxon invaders. Where historical fact is elusive, literary fancy…
Lumines Remastered: Groove Is In The Heart
Seconds after I started up Challenge Mode in Lumines Remastered, Mondo Grosso’s “Shinin’” perked up and the energetic sounds of an acoustic guitar began to weave around a trance beat. I dropped my first block, and quickly cleared the first sparkling…
Ghost Of Tsushima Review – You Khan Do It
If a youthful obsession with Japanese samurai cinema and an audiobook version of Musashi have taught me anything, it’s that if you want to be a great swordfighter, having a connection to nature is important. Skill with a weapon isn’t purely driven…
Travis Strikes Again: No More Heroes Review – Short On Heroics
Relentless absurdity and hyper-stylized action have been core tenets of the No More Heroes series. It never cared for making much sense and instead embraced its own ridiculousness with bold self-awareness, a staple of director Suda51. The slimmed-down hack-n-slash spinoff, Travis Strikes Again,…
Semblance Review
Bend to your will Semblance is a game that relies on your enjoyment of the satisfying feeling that comes with the act of reshaping objects and environments. The game’s world and its unnamed blobby protagonist are as malleable as playdough, and…
Whispers of a Machine Review – Hushed Greatness
In Whispers of a Machine, a retro-styled point-and-click adventure, interesting themes and mechanical elements relating to human augmentation are stapled onto a recognizable framework. Your character, murder investigator Vera Englund, has access to cybernetically augmented abilities thanks to some neat future-science,…
The Crew 2 Review – On The Road Again
After 30 hours, The Crew 2 has left me with a lot of wonderful memories. They aren’t filled with the kind of emergent stories you get from exploring an open world and its systems, nor are they moments that involve goofing around…
The Golf Club 2019 Review
The first two Golf Club games from HB Studios were capable and compelling golf sims, but they lacked the punch of the official PGA Tour license. Thanks to a new deal, HB Studios now has the license, and this–along with…
Mega Man X Legacy Collection 1 + 2 Review: Mega Museum
Be a hero and a Zero. Mega Man and Mega Man X are related, but only just. Whereas Mega Man is plucky and wholesome, Mega Man X is often melodramatic and grim. The two series are joined by some loose themes and for…
Nier: Automata Review
The post-apocalyptic world of Nier: Automata thrives on its mysteries. Its ruined Earth setting is a playground of mayhem where fashionable androids lay waste to less sophisticated looking robots. Its premise of a never-ending war is initially straightforward. But if you know…
Bloodstained: Curse Of The Moon 2 Review – Twice In A Blue Moon
The first thing you should know about Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon 2 is that it features a playable corgi named Hachi who pilots an enchanted mecha-tank. The second thing you should know is that the classic Castlevania homage is in every…
