Republique’s first episode is both incredibly successful at selling its world and the potential its narrative begins to touch on, and at breaking it down by inserting outdated gameplay elements that stand out among its otherwise impeccable vision. I’m no less interested in seeing where Republique goes with future episodes, but I’m certainly much more cautious of how it decides to get there.
Read MoreMadameBerry’s 3AM is a game about and within the pockets of restlessness that creep up on us during ungodly hours of the night.
Read MoreHere’s a proposal: the satisfaction of Titan Souls is not in your success, but in proving that you are capable of it.
Read MoreAs hard as it might try, there is no mistaking Oceanhorn as anything but a knock-off, and not a good one at that.
Read MoreUncanny Valley scratches at the surface of some of the most internalized and adaptable fears of modern society, but doesn't go deep enough to leave me more than mildly perturbed by its gloomy theatrics.
Read MoreDyscourse, a tale of island survival and the folly of static choice.
Read MoreThough it would seem self-evident from its nostalgia based advertisement, proclamations of historical knowledge, and general retro theming, I remain unclear as to what Life of Pixel actually wanted to be.
Read More9 Clues 2: The Ward is Artifex Mundi jumping the proverbial shark.
Read MoreInk’s concept really is dead simple in principle, but there is something wonderfully delightful about a game that is entirely about making as big of a mess of a given level as you can by means of so many gooey psychedelic colors.
Read MoreCubetractor is like a game of tug of war where the opposing team is throwing rocks at you. Except the rocks are lasers and nobody actually remembered to bring a rope.
Read MoreAaru’s Awakening feels like the regrettable result of a game attempting to ape its peers in the absence of its own identity.
Read MoreThe Darkness II is emblematic of so many of the worst narrative and design concepts of gaming as a medium.
Read MoreOases feels like flying in a dream.
Read MoreLife is cruel and unfair, but damn if it doesn’t look beautiful as it’s burning down around you.
Read MoreDeadpool is as passionate as the comic fans who never expected this to actually happen, as unpredictable and delightful as the character which spawned it, and as sure to horrify ignorant parents as you could possibly hope for.
Read MoreThe Next Penelope could have so easily been great simply iterating on its most rudimentary levels rather than trying to reinvent itself with each stage.
Read MoreRead Only Memories is adorable and cheesy and holds itself together with an acute awareness of tone and by subverting a genre it clearly loves to death. It might be fluffy and lack a satisfying payoff, but Read Only Memories tries so hard and has such an enormous amount of heart that I’d sooner embrace it than write it off for such comparatively meaningless qualms.
Read MoreThese games are weird, and awkward, sometimes completely beyond categorization, and represent some of the coolest games I had the chance to play this year.
Read MoreI have been in love with Cut the Rope since I got my first touch device so many years ago. It was the first game I played on a smartphone and the one that forever sold me on the merits of touch based game design, but where that game represented the peak of a then emerging platform, Magic is little more than another entry in a series I haven’t heard discussed in a very long time.
Read MoreI might feel worse about the depths of Imagine Me’s failure if it didn’t seem so apathetic toward aspiring to even moderate quality (or functionality). Everything feels empty and tedious, leading you in circles until either the game breaks or you stop playing. Imagine Me is sloppy and dysfunctional, but I couldn’t say it seems to actually care.
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