Crawling through the murky tunnels of the Russian metro system never ceases to terrify. Growls and footsteps echo through the deafening silence as darkness enshrouds the area, keeping you on constant guard. Monsters lurk all over, always stalking you extensively before striking. A flashlight and lighter are your only means of illuminating the shadows, their…
Thomas Was Alone tells a heartfelt tale of friendship. Developed by Mike Bithell (the PlayStation ports handled by Curve Studios), it follows a group of sentient artificial intelligences in the form of quadrilaterals as they attempt to escape – or rather, “emerge” – from their confines. It begins with Thomas, a newly formed AI longing…
In the process in reviewing Monaco: What’s Yours Is Mine, I was unable to finish it. The final levels proved too difficult. I spent hours trying to finish just one of those last stages only to fail every time just on the cusp of victory. I had reached my limit; it was devastating. But also…
Bit.Trip Presents… Runner 2: Future Legend of Rhythm Alien is the lost episode of the Bit.Trip series. It details the events that took place between Bit.Trip Runner and Bit.Trip Fate, wherein protagonist CommanderVideo is transported to another dimension – the third dimension. Yes, the series has moved to the present, discarding the endearing retro-aesthetic of…
Though Studio Ghibli’s involvement only went so far as composing the music and a few animated cutscenes, Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch feels like a classic Ghibli film. The enchanting world and charming characters, its heartwarming tale of loss and acceptance; it feels like a product of the studio’s talent. But Level…
Playing Antichamber is a test of patience. Its clever puzzles and abstract, Escher-like environment perplex at every turn. Conventional logic does not apply here, the sterile scenery continuously subverting expectations and rules before introducing more to follow. It perplexes and dumbfounds you at every turn, causing more than a few colorful exclamations after some of…
Beautiful, elegant, minimalist: those are the traits of Cipher Prime, makers of acclaimed puzzle games such as Auditorium. All of their works follows those three tenants, both in gameplay, visuals, and music. In Auditorium, you manipulated colored streams of sound that produce symphonic music once directed to corresponding canisters. A grey background and a few…
In the ten years the Ratchet & Clank series has been around for, developer Insomniac perfected its formula. With the series distilled to an exact science, where do they go next? How do they keep the series fresh? The answer: tower-defense. Ratchet & Clank: Full Frontal Assault is a multiplayer-centric entry in lieu of 2005’s…
High definition visuals are exactly what Okami needed. The original PlayStation 2 release was and is still gorgeous; time hasn’t harmed it in the slightest. But the move to current-gen consoles breathes new life into Okami. Developer Hexa Drive took an already strong foundation and fortified it to the point of flawlessness. Okami HD is easily the definitive version of Okami and one of…
A few months ago, I played Limbo, Playdead’s gloomy, award-winning platformer. It was going swell at first. Traversal was simple, the atmosphere was appropriately thick with tension and mystery, and the visuals were beautiful. Unfortunately, the game was riddled with nigh-unavoidable “gotcha!” deaths — seemingly scripted death sequences that can’t be dodged without prior knowledge…
