Author: David Carter
Double Dragon Revive, which follows Ninja Gaiden’s own 2D revival with the fantastic Ragebound, sounds more like a series tribute band than a formal reunion tour. It puts its own twist on everything, including how it looks, sounds, and plays, rather than playing the hits the way you remember them. After hours of its off-key wandering, all of those elements not only fall short of my admittedly low hopes for a new Double Dragon, but they also begin to solidify the notion that perhaps we should take a little more time between tries to bring this series back to life.…
Ninja Gaiden 4 is what I hoped it would be in a lot of ways. Two of my all-time favorite developers, Team Ninja and Platinum Games, collaborated on it. It builds on the combat from Ninja Gaiden 2, which I believe has the best action in the series. It also has a ton of little details that make it a little more approachable without compromising the hard-as-nails difficulty that die-hard fans like me expect. Although I would even go so far as to say that this battle system is among the best I’ve ever seen, Ninja Gaiden 4 falters in…
For Pokemon lovers, the Nintendo Switch era has been frustrating. Slow but steady progress was made as Game Freak honed their concepts for how combat, exploration, and capture should seem in a completely 3D world, starting with Sword and Shield and continuing through Pokemon Legends: Arceus, Scarlet, and Violet. However, there has also been a significant decline in the general polish, look, and performance of those three games throughout this timeframe. I’m pleased to say that Pokemon Legends: Z-A ends that slide on almost all counts. By converting its meticulously developed turn-based fight system into an action-based one, it successfully…
There are aspects of Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 that I truly enjoy and others that I truly dislike, much like the idea of actually becoming a vampire. Creator Unquestionably, The Chinese Room has done a fantastic job of transcending its usually linear and slow-paced universe to provide us with an open world, streetlight-drenched Seattle that is delightful to explore, along with positively stunning narrative and voice acting. However, fighting never goes much beyond being simply decent, and this nighttime excursion is kept from greatness by a lack of reward for both technical and narrative decisions. The slice of…
Based on my brief experience with it, Enginefall’s strongest point is that it lacks the instantly recognizable characteristics of survival, extraction, and battle royale games that it seems to be emulating. You might not get as far as you would in other games right out of the gate if you have a Tarkov or Fortnite experience. The quantity of small things you’ll need to learn to make wise decisions is daunting, yet this early learning curve is also a result of creative systems that produce a faster and more hazardous pace than others. The beginning of each Titan Train run…
The multiplayer action in Battlefield 6 revolves around layers. There is the infantry layer, where groups of soldiers engage in foot-to-foot combat; the land vehicle layer, where tanks and armored vehicles reshape the front lines with formidable weapons that can destroy infantry and bring entire buildings to the ground; and the sky layer, where a few flyers control the air and can destroy ground forces. In addition to being incredibly unique, each layer is also incredibly well-made, and they all seem to blend harmoniously. Although it takes a bit too long to obtain the better equipment that makes your loadouts…
Cecil is the seventh playable character in Invincible VS. Intelligence agent Cecil Stedman was unveiled in a gameplay video below by Quarter Up, the company behind the 3v3 tag combat game based on Robert Kirkman’s Invincible. To learn more about Cecil’s operation and the Invincible VS story mode. Following Cecil’s statement, we now know that eight playable characters in Invincible VS have voices provided by the actors who portrayed those characters in the wildly successful animated series on Prime Video. They are Atom Eve, Bulletproof, Thula, Rex Splode, Battle Beast, Omni-Man, Mark Grayson (Invincible), and now Cecil. The official Cecil…
Bloober Team, the developer of Cronos: New Dawn and the remake of Silent Hill 2, is working on several new projects, such as Layers of Fear: The Final Masterpiece Edition, a disorienting horror game for the Nintendo Switch 2, and several smaller games from its subsidiary Broken Mirror Games, including an enigmatic Switch-only game codenamed Project M. Although the year is almost over, the Masterpiece Edition is still listed as coming in 2025. However, according to the company’s most recent investor briefing, it is a “complete edition,” which likely includes the base game along with new content and the updated…
Even with all of their antiquated problems, I still have a thing for 3D platformers, which comes out whenever a game like Super Mario Odyssey manages to ingeniously revitalize the genre. Although Yooka-Replaylee, which remixes a platformer that was already drenched in nostalgia, falls well short of that standard, it does manage to elevate the adorable but unmemorable journey of Yooka-Laylee from 2017 to a more capable level. In addition to removing a lot of bloat and unsuccessful ideas, the original has addressed my main complaints, which included camera problems, clumsy controls, and a lack of quick travel. However, this…
Many of us occasionally experience recurrent nightmares, such as the one in which we go to school in our undies, the one in which all of our teeth fall out, or even the one in which we go to school in our undies and all of our teeth fall out. But Little Nightmares 3 isn’t the kind of nightmare that keeps coming back to haunt you at night. The only notable change to this puzzle-platforming sequel is a co-op mode, but it doesn’t really alter the structure and instead seems like a disappointingly uninspired retread of the two shadow-soaked adventures…