Reviews

Anthem Live Stream: What Freelancers Do and Finding Old Friends

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Not long after the patch claiming to fix the PS4 stability issues went live, I played through a pair of missions on my continuing quest through the Anthem campaign!

Make sure to never miss a stream by following my channel and turning your notifications on! You can also follow me on Twitter and Instagram for stream updates and other cool stuff posted daily!

Buy Anthem Now From Amazon.com

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The Networks Review

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The Networks by Gil Hova and Formal Ferret Games is a worker placement board game built around the novel concept of running your own television network. Over the course of five seasons, you’ll battle competing cable networks for the most viewers by adding new shows, hiring stars, and landing ad deals. On top of all that, there’s no room for complacency, as audiences grow tired of shows over time, forcing you to constantly keep your lineup fresh.

Its elevator pitch is one of the most compelling I’ve seen for a board game in quite some time, even as someone who doesn’t like watching television. But how well does its theme translate to the tabletop?
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Anthem Live Stream: Preventative Precautions and See in the Dark

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I know Anthem has been roasted by the press and the gaming public, but is it ACTUALLY as bad as people make it out to be? I’m enjoying my time with it so far and we played through a few early missions together on stream in this video!

Make sure to never miss a stream by following my channel and turning your notifications on! You can also follow me on Twitter and Instagram for stream updates and other cool stuff posted daily!

Buy Anthem Now From Amazon.com

[Purchasing through this Amazon affiliate link gives me a small commission without adding any extra cost or effort to you. Thanks for your support!]

Ticket to Ride: New York Review

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The original Ticket to Ride is my all-time favourite board game. I really enjoy that game’s balance of accessibility and strategic depth. Over the course of play, there’s a lot of interesting decisions to make, from determining which colour cards to draw, to knowing when to place your trains on the board, to finding alternate paths to your destination when a jerk has blocked your path. In spite of my love for that first game, I haven’t really ventured much beyond it. I have the 1910 Expansion, and I’ve played Ticket to Ride: Europe a few times, but that’s it. Based on what I’ve seen of the other standalone games and expansions, there wasn’t enough new or unique there for me to venture beyond my comfort zone.

Enter Ticket to Ride: New York. The latest entry in the series is also the smallest. With a playing field that only covers the south side of Manhattan, this iteration of the game is meant to deliver the thrills of the original in a package that can be played in about 15 minutes. I love the idea of having a quick version of Ticket to Ride to play, but does anything get lost in the distillation process?

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Wargroove Impressions

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[NOTE: Based on backlog and life circumstances, I don’t think I’m going to finish the Wargroove campaign any time soon. As such, this is an impressions piece based on my time with it instead of a formal review.]

“If you want a new Advance Wars so much, why don’t you make it yourself?”
– Nintendo, probably

With Nintendo’s military strategy game still on ice a decade after we last saw it, Chucklefish steps up to this hypothetical challenge with Wargroove. Take the Advance Wars gameplay, set it in a Fire Emblem like medieval setting, and watch the profits roll in. But does it offer anything more than just a repackaging of tried-and-true ideas?

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Daemon X Machina: Prototype Missions Impressions

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First making its debut at E3 2018 as part of Nintendo’s E3 presentation, we now have the opportunity to try out Daemon X Machina for ourselves thanks to a demo on the eShop. Having never really played Armored Core or any other mech game for that matter, I wasn’t really sure what to expect. By the end of the hour-ish demo, I got a pretty good sense of what this game was about and whether this was something I’d interested in picking up someday.

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Yoshi’s Crafted World Demo Impressions

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Following the thread left by Yoshi’s Wooly World, Nintendo goes back to the craft supplies drawer for Yoshi’s Crafted World. Based on what we’ve seen from the demo, any sort of art supplies appear to be fair game this time around. But is there more to this Nintendo Switch platformer than the addition of paper, cardboard, and buttons?

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Tetris 99 Review

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The battle royale sub-genre of games has a new competitor in town. Going beyond the bounds of the shooter, The Tetris Company and Nintendo surprised the world with Tetris 99. Exclusive to the Nintendo Switch, 99 players enter one room and battle in block-dropping warfare until only one remains. Tetris in its base form is one of the greatest games of all-time, but how does it translate to the modern battle royale format?

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Blade Strangers Review

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Even before Super Smash Bros. Ultimate hit the scene, the fighting game market was getting pretty crowded on the Nintendo Switch. From the Street Fighter 30th Anniversary Collection, BlazBlue: Cross Tag Battle, ARMS, Dragon Ball FighterZ, to the slew of classic Neo Geo fighters in the eShop, getting your pugilistic fix wasn’t much of an issue.

One of those pre-Smash titles that jockeyed for position was Blade Strangers by Nicalis. With a roster comprised of indie game characters from different franchises, it aimed to carve a niche for itself with a unique roster and a streamlined combat system. Does this fighter have the chops to stand as a worthy challenger?

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Hori D-Pad Controller (L) (Zelda) Review

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D-Pad Left Joycon

As soon as the Nintendo Switch was revealed, the lack of a d-pad on the left Joy-Con struck me as an immediate issue. While I understand the appeal of having buttons in that space instead so that it could act as a quasi-second controller, the lack of a d-pad has greatly impacted the games I play portably. From fighting games, to puzzle games, to the myriad of indie games that the Switch has been blessed with, a sizable portion of my library were played with less-than-ideal controls.

Many DIY mods exist to solve this problem, but Hori and Nintendo have an official solution as well. The D-Pad Controller (L) replaces the four face buttons with a proper d-pad and is sold at a fairly reasonable price. The two different versions of this controller in North America include one that’s The Legend of Zelda themed, and another that’s Super Mario themed. But does it lose more than it gains in the process?

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