Shovel Knight Review

As a person who grew up without a SNES and didn’t play a lot of those old school difficult games, I still appreciate the hell out of Shovel Knight.

Playing Shovel Knight can either be seen as a time machine to the glory days of the 8-bit era or as a modern-day resurgence of a lost genre. As we are seeing with a lot of smaller indie games, Shovel Knight takes cues from classic platforming games while showboating a certain flavor of its own. Elements from Mega Man, Mario, Zelda and even Ducktales are obvious, but they don’t define everything Shovel Knight is about.

Transistor Review

Usually when a video game doesn’t outright tell you the purpose of your every move, it’s either a poorly made game, or a revolutionary, near-masterpiece of media. Thankfully, Transistor is one of those particularly surprising games that decides to be different and comes out as one of the most talented pieces of media to have graced gamers this year.

Both aesthetically and auditory, Transistor impresses with rare art direction and jazzy tunes. The game is an abstract piece of art right down to its uniquely told uncommon story.

Rather than showing what is behind the curtains from the very start, Transistor lets the player dabble in the realm of confusion right up until the point where it all makes sense. Sure, those first few hours players will carry the weight of bewilderment, but if you give Transistor the respect it deserves and enough time to amaze you, it will not disappoint.

Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor Review

Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor is what Batman: Arkham City would be if Batman was a mass murderer.

The Binding of Issac: Rebirth Review

The Binding of Issac: Rebirth is a challenge you won’t be able to get enough of, even after you’ve traversed its world ten times over. In a truly perfect manner, The Binding of Issac asks its player to learn and discover how to succeed rather than just handing them success. Experimentation, risk vs reward, clever actions and fierce reactions are all needed to understand and survive Issac’s demon ridden basement. Rebirth is a masterful video game that  balances luck, skill, challenge and fun into one solid indie game experience.

Make no mistake, this “simple” indie game stands as a competitor with the big blockbuster titles. 

Super Smash Bros for Wii U Review

Nintendo captured lightning in a bottle with the original Smash Bros on the Nintendo 64. Ever since, we’ve had one Smash Bros game on every Nintendo home console since then, and they’ve all been special in a way no other game can match. The Wii U entry in the series manages to continue that trend while also fixing problems some players had with Super Smash Bros Brawl, creating one legendary fighting game.

With every addition to Smash, you anticipate new characters, stages, items, and modes, but you also expect the gameplay to remain mostly untouched. The main game of knocking your opponent off-screen to win is unsurprisingly unchanged. Smash is probably the only game that can have sequels that feel exactly the same as their predecessor. So what do you change in order to make the game better than the last? Simple, go nuts.

The addition of eight player smash mode is the best thing they could have possibly add to the mix. When you think of Smash Bros, you think of a fun, four player fighting arena that is the go-to game for parties and sleepovers. No one asked or thought about eight players on-screen at once, but it works perfectly. Online play doesn’t feature eight player matches, but this franchise is best experienced in a room full of friends scrambling for victory. Whether you play with two or eight people, it is just endlessly fun, and eight players makes for one crazy experience. 

Bayonetta 2 Review

Bayonetta is that girl you’d be skeptical to take home to meet your parents. On one hand, she is confident and true to who she is, and you love her. On the other hand, you know that your parents might not approve of a woman who is so “rhapsodic” about herself.

That pretty much sums up the entire Bayonetta video game experience. Bayonetta 2 is a guilty pleasure game that knows that it is ridiculous, sexy and you won’t necessarily go showing it off to your mother.

Nidhogg Review

I fell in love with Nidhogg within the first five seconds of my first match. Nidhogg is a classic reminder that local couch multiplayer games should never disappear as a genre. It is just too fun of a game that should be played with a room full of people waiting for their turn to try their hand at virtual fencing. 

Akiba’s Trip: Undead & Undressed Review

*The following review is rated M for Mature due to suggestive themes, sexual somethings, ensued animated violence, mild language and being kind of inappropriate overall* 

Akiba’s Trip… Get it? “Akiba’ STRIP!” GET IT?! When you use such a play-on-words in the title of your game, you give yourself the responsibility of creating a whimsical or at least comical tale. While Akiba’s Trip does have a nice sense of humor, that humor doesn’t go too far and fails to redeem the game for its lackluster gameplay, flavorless story and monotonous characters. The biggest crime that this game commits is its portrayal of the popular Japanese locale of Akihabara. The busy and lively city is reduced to a barren and almost lifeless wasteland littered with repeats of the same five character designs.

In typical video game fashion, a random nobody off of the street quickly finds himself caught up in business he shouldn’t be apart of and get supernatural abilities. The protagonist in Akiba’s Trip gets turned into what is essentially a vampire who doesn’t need to feed off of people’s blood. The evil organization who is turning people into these “Synthisters” need to be stopped, and thanks to the efforts of the protagonist, his group of otaku friends and a mysterious young girl, they can be defeated. Expect that to be as deep as the story goes, because other than that, it is a standard affair to anyone who has ever played a video game that has come out of Japan. The characters in our little band of heroes are “one trick ponies” whose personalities have been used in many anime, manga and video games. Depending on who you spend your time with on missions and in combat, you’ll get a different ending. You have to commit to a character very early, because it doesn’t seem like you can change your mind towards the halfway point of the game because it doesn’t give you the option to do so. It hardly matters though; even depending on your preference of one of the female hollows characters, the story doesn’t benefit from your pick. 

Ultra Street Fighter 4 Review

Years ago, Street Fighter 4 brought new life to the fighting game scene. It revitalized the genre and even today, Street Fighter 4 is the most popular fighting game on the planet. The add-on of Ultra doesn’t change the methodical formula too drastically, and instead it adds small factors in the guessing, spacing and mind game that is Street Fighter.

Strider (2014) Review

Alright, here is a game for fans of old school platforming. Strider is a reboot of the long dormant, but not forgotten Strider games first found in arcades back in 1989. Main protagonist Strider Hiryu is a ninja who works for the Strider organization, tasked to assassinate Grandmaster Meio. Strider is a good platformer, but a few things hold it back from greatness. Often stylish and fast, Strider still slows itself down with its level design and frustrating segments.