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  • Always Sometimes Monsters Review
    Reviews
    • PC
    Always Sometimes Monsters Review

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    Always Sometimes Monsters is a game about choices, consequences, and inevitabilities.  As a modern day RPG and life sim, it pits players against the challenges of poverty, broken relationships, and difficult decisions whose effects aren't always immediately obvious.  Its characters face tragedies ranging from drug overdoses to attempted suicide, gambling addiction to starvation, and yet most maintain an air of hope and humor that makes exploring this world both tragic and heartening.
  • The Last Tinker: City of Colors Review
    Reviews
    • iOS
    • PC
    The Last Tinker: City of Colors Review

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    While 3D platformers in the vein of "collectathon" classics like Banjo-Kazooie and Donkey Kong 64 have faded over the past two console generations (if you're looking for slap-stick 3D platformers it's basically just the Ratchet and Clank and the Sly Cooper franchises keeping the tradition alive), there are a number of independent game developers currently working on games designed with this nostalgic style in mind. Leading the charge of the resurgence is Mimimi Productions with their 3D platforming adventure, The Last Tinker: City of Colors.Debatably, what led to the decline of the old collectathon games was how tedious they became after awhile. Finding every golden puzzle piece or golden banana felt like a chore, and players were literally locked out of new areas until they scrapped previous areas clear of these golden collectables.  The Last Tinker deals with this issue simply by not forcing players to find the golden paint brushes that are hidden within the game's environments. 
  • The Walking Dead: Season 2, Episode 3 – In Harm’s Way Review
    Reviews
    • iOS
    • PC
    The Walking Dead: Season 2, Episode 3 – In Harm’s Way Review

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    My biggest issue with The Walking Dead Season Two premiere was how similar it felt to the first season's opener. Clementine started with a companion of sorts, encounters an emergency, meets some people, and then chooses to let one live or die. It had elements that set it apart from Lee Everett's original story, but it largely seemed like Clementine was literally, not just figuratively, mimicking his legacy.Now, between the second and third installments of season two, things have definitely diverged.My description of the first episode mirrors the rest of the game's first season. There was wandering around, getting into bad situations, but not a definite plot. The meandering felt more dramatic and less dramatized. It was a story of survivors simply surviving. The "plot" was Lee and Clem's developing father/daughter relationship, not an external conflict.
  • Aerena: Clash of Champions Review
    Reviews
    • Android
    • iOS
    • PC
    Aerena: Clash of Champions Review

    By

    Aerena is a free-to-play game of strategy, where being two moves ahead of your opponent is the key to victory, much like Chess. But where Chess is a medieval-themed game, with knights and kings and queens, Aerena (or Ærena as the developers sometimes spell it) is a silly blend of steampunk and Saturday morning cartoons.With players selecting three out of ten characters as their champions, they must do their best to destroy the enemy player's massive battleship. Where chess is a calm game of strategy, Aerena is more akin to a Monster Truck Show, with champions blasting one another to pieces all while an announcer shouts out the entrances of additional champions to the fight.The reasoning for the titular "arena" misspelling is apparent as soon as the battlefield is glimpsed. Taking place in the aether, or Æther (get it now?), of the realm, the conflict is high above the earth, literally within the clouds. Each player has their own giant warship (currently there are five in the game to choose from) and must destroy their opponent's ship in the ensuing battle. 
  • Kentucky Route Zero: Act 3 Review
    Reviews
    • iOS
    • PC
    Kentucky Route Zero: Act 3 Review

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    We've been driving back country roads of rural Kentucky for over a year now, although it's only been one night in-game.  What started as the final delivery of antiques truck driver Conway and his straw-hatted dog, Blue (or Homer), has turned into a circular expedition for an ever-growing group of nomads with nowhere preferable to go.  Shannon Marquez remains determined to see Conway to his destination after her mysteriously vanished cousin Weaver led them to each other.  Young Ezra and his gigantic eagle companion, Julian, have joined up with the trio when they're not transporting cabins between the forest and museum.  And shortly into Act III, two new additions appear, rounding out the group to seven souls in search of Dogwood Drive off the Zero.Like Act II's interim chapter Limits & Demonstrations before, developer Cardboard Computer provided fans with a free, short lead-in to Act III with The Entertainment.  Arranged as an amateur play written by Lem Doolittle and set by the now-recognizable Lula Chamberlain, The Entertainmentis the perfect appetizer to what Act III will offer players.  It's flooded with dialogue and new characters who pour their mundane woes into the bottom of a whiskey glass.  Much like Conway's simple desire to make his final delivery, the barflies of this pre-chapter have modest dreams: a poolside vacation, a faithful husband, an honest living.  It's only in brief snippets describing the "strange boys from Hard Times" Whiskey that we are reminded of the surreal world Kentucky Route Zero is set within, and the reality of what awaits these characters outside their seemingly average troubles.  
  • Full Bore Review
    Reviews
    • PC
    Full Bore Review

    By

    Full Bore comes out of the gate looking like just another retro-platformer, and within the first few minutes of play I was already cooking up various "fully boring" puns to use in this review. But then I noticed that an hour had flown by, and then another, and I realized I'd been pulled into the mystery of its strange underground world - and that there's a lot more to this game than first meets the eye.You play Full Bore as either Hildi or Frederick, slightly high-strung boars enjoying a dreamy nap on a warm summer's day. But fate has decided that this day will be more interesting than most, and before you know it you're cast into the bowels of a bizarre, subterranean realm, where you're accused of stealing a hoard of gems belonging to what is apparently a great boar mining magnate. Irritated by your impertinence, he sets you to work in his mine, digging up gems to replace the ones he (mistakenly) believes you've stolen.
  • ReignMaker Review
    Reviews
    • iOS
    • PC
    ReignMaker Review

    By

    I have a confession to make: I didn't play Tower of Elements. As a big fan of match-3 genre mashups - and more importantly, match-3 genre mashups that try something new - this is a fact I'm pretty ashamed of. But over the last week, that shame has lessened.I've fallen in love with ReignMaker, better known during its development cycle as Tower of Elements II. As you can probably expect from a game with a previous moniker such as this, the core gameplay should be familiar to anyone who enjoyed the original Tower of Elements. Players will defend their tower (tower… defense?) using match-3 magic. Each match you make will send bolts of magic flying horizontally down the lane that the matched gems occupy. If an advancing enemy is coming down that lane, they'll take damage and ultimately die.It may sound simple on paper, but it's maddeningly fast-paced in execution. You'll be dealing with a large grid of gems, and the enemies won't slow down just because you're having trouble making that perfect match. ReignMaker is a game of quick thinking; of keeping an eye on marching enemies while struggling desperately to find the matches that will obliterate them.