It took me a long time to become even halfway decent at Forestrike. The martial arts action game, from Olija developer Skeleton Crew, has a unique twist in that it lets you see what will happen in most battles and then practice your strategy accordingly. It turns the act of combat into a type of […]
Hear me out: Kirby Air Riders isn’t a racing game, it’s an art tool with a racing game tacked on. The game, out now for the Nintendo Switch 2, is the follow-up to the quirky Kirby-flavored kart racer released in 2003 on the GameCube. It features Smash Bros. creator Masahiro Sakurai’s round, pink, utterly charming […]
In one particularly memorable sequence in Demonschool – the new tactical RPG from Necrosoft that, after a few hiccups, releases on November 19th – I throw a doll at a zombie’s head, dispatch it with a roundhouse kick to the jowls as I watch my friends sweep demons off the floor in vortices of blood, […]
I remember being blown away by the 2024 reveal trailer for Possessor(s), the new game from Hyper Light Drifter developer Heart Machine. The trailer features a striking art design, where an animated 2D character explores and fights in side-scrolling environments with gorgeous 3D backgrounds, and it’s all set to moody, powerful music. The final game, […]
With Tetris Effect, designer Tetsuya Mizuguchi and his team at Enhance, Inc. managed to make something old feel new. There are few things as well defined in video games as the falling blocks of Tetris, and yet with the studio’s trademark immersive sound and visual design, the game was transformed into something else, with every […]
Though my 100-plus-hour completed save file would beg to differ, The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is an unfinished game. Think of it like Korean barbecue. Without the kimchi, rice, sprouts, or sauce, it’s just meat – tasty meat to be sure, but not a complete (or healthy) dinner. Hyrule Warriors: Age of […]
We’re living in a wonderful period for puzzle games. Seemingly everyone, from The New York Times to Linkedin, has fun puzzles to play, so every morning I have plenty of options to accompany my first coffee of the day. Lately, though, much of my daily puzzle time has come from an unlikely source: the Playdate. […]
It took me a while to get into Ball x Pit. The new roguelike blends elements from games like Breakout, Vampire Survivors, and even city builders, creating a complex mix of ideas. But as is the case with many roguelikes, once I figured everything out well enough to get a taste of my first win, […]
We are saturated with superhero media to the point where even self-criticism has been done to death with franchises like Watchmen and The Boys. But with its debut choice-driven narrative adventure, AdHoc Studio has managed to find a unique angle for the superhero genre. In Dispatch, the story focuses on an office-based lackey and corporate […]
It only took a few notes from the Plants vs. Zombies menu music to transport me to a long-forgotten world of sunflowers, pea shooters, and not being able to put the dang game down for one second. First released in 2009, the colorful strategy game was an instant hit, adding to developer PopCap’s enviable lineup […]