70+ characters, including every single playable character from past iterations. 100+ stages. 800+ songs. Virtually no game has gone to the lengths that Super Smash Bros. has in order to earn the Ultimate moniker. The numbers are certainly there, but does the package come together to create the definitive Super Smash Bros. experience?
I never gave Pokemon Red/Blue the time of day upon its original release in the 90s. As an overly-conscious teenager, I perceived myself as being too grown up and mature for a kids game. This perception was only amplified by the fact that my little brother was obsessed with Pokemon at the time. I tried his copy of Pokemon Blue for a few hours just to see what the hype was about, but I dismissed it far too soon.
Many years after the fact, Pokemon X would be my gateway to the franchise. From there, Pokemon Go was the game that made me a fan. Though I’ve technically been to Kanto before, Pokemon Let’s Go Pikachu/Let’s Go Eevee is the first time I’m visiting the region with an open mind and open heart.
Before I began streaming, I dismissed the Elgato Stream Deck as an expensive gimmick. At its regular price of $150 US/$220 CAD, you are paying a lot for what simply appears to be nothing more than 15 buttons. Once I started getting into streaming, I felt that I could manage my stream just fine with a keyboard and mouse.
With many hours of streaming under my belt now, I’ve begun to understand where a device like the Stream Deck could come in handy. I use my keyboard for hot keys, but I can’t unbind them from their default functions. For example, I want to type in a new numerical value to adjust the volume of the game. All of a sudden, my scene quickly flashes and ends on the wrong view because those same numbers are mapped to my different scenes. I’ve streamed for far too long with a muted mic because I didn’t realize it was muted. For a production-heavy show like Boss Rush, where I’m the host and the producer, I spend too much time not engaging with the crew or the audience because I’m too busy looking at the screen trying to cue up the next video or manage all of the visual elements that go into our game shows.
At this point in my streaming career, I knew that I needed more buttons. There are alternatives to the pricey Stream Deck, such as phone apps that offer similar functionality, or DIY solutions that can be done for much cheaper. You can even buy a cheaper Stream Deck featuring only six buttons. But when the original 15-button model went on sale as part of Black Friday, I scooped one up immediately.
Peter Parker is no stranger to video games. Having starred or appeared in dozens of titles throughout history, most of them have been terrible, as he’s largely been tied to sub-par games made as side products in support of something else. But if there were any character that was most deserving of the Arkham treatment, it’s the web crawler. We’ve seen glimpses of how good he can be through games that fell a bit short of greatness, but the potential has always been there due to the character’s inherent design and the lore around him. Finally, thanks to the good folks at Insomniac Games, Spider-Man was given the time and love needed to fulfill the promise of what a Spidey-centric game could be. The results are fantastic.
For years, Blizzard toiled behind the scenes on a successor to World of Warcraft. Codenamed Project Titan, it never saw the light of day in its intended form. Instead of throwing it all away, elements of that project were carried over to create the hero shooter we now know as Overwatch. With its hype hitting a crescendo in the summer of 2016, I picked up a copy just to see what it was about. I didn’t really “get it” back then for reasons of my own doing, so I never really covered it. Now that it’s my current obsession, let’s take a look at how the game fares in 2018!
[NOTE: I did not play the game in VR at the time of writing, so I don’t touch on it or factor it into my current opinion of the game]
Tetris is the closest thing we have to gaming perfection. Universal appeal, easy to learn, difficult to master, and inherently designed in such a way that you’ll never win, but you can always do better. Feel free to make a case for any other game, but Tetris being the highest selling game of all-time with no signs of slowing down decades into its never-ending lifespan is a testament to its greatness.
How do you reinvent gaming’s equivalent of the wheel? If you’re Tetsuya Mizuguchi – most famous for his work on trippy games such as Rez and Lumines – you change the context of what the Tetris experience is through flashy visuals, modern electronic music, and VR support. I can’t speak to the VR side of the game, but the sheer act of playing the block-staking action in Tetris Effect becomes less about exercising your brain and more about being absorbed in the feeling that the entire experience creates.
As much as I love Advance Wars, I understand why the series has laid dormant for over a decade. At a root level, the franchise’s game mechanics simply weren’t built for the long haul. Fighting with replenishable nameless and faceless units led to levels that could drag while also lacking emotional weight.
Advance Wars and Fire Emblem are both turn-based strategy games made by the same company, but the latter’s focus on individual characters with names, faces, skills that develop over time, and the threat of a shortened lifespan makes for an easier-to-renew franchise with each set of fresh faces to care about. Eventually, fighting with the same tanks and planes got stale, to the point where Nintendo disastrously attempted to resuscitate Advance Wars with a gritty reboot that sank the whole franchise to this day.
When I first saw Into the Breach, I came into it with expectations of it playing like Nintendo’s wartime strategy franchise. Even with the latter’s design faults, it’s been so long that I’d be okay with it as long as I got to manage units on a battlefield again. What it ends up being is a really clever twist on the formula that breathes new live into a formerly-stale concept.
How do you take what is arguably the greatest video game of all-time and translate it to a tabletop gaming experience? Tetris Link may certainly look the part, but this isn’t a game where you wipe blocks out of the well by creating lines. Instead, the basic premise of Tetris has been transformed into something new. Does Tetris Link do enough to stand on its own without alienating those looking for a more Tetris-like experience?
Yoku’s Island Express is one of the more novel game concepts you’ll come across. Playing the role of a dung beetle postal worker who is tethered to a ball, you’re tasked with delivering mail while also helping to prevent the apocalypse. Oh yeah, and while the game looks like a 2D platformer, you can’t actually jump. You traverse the entire world through walking and by launching yourself with pinball paddles littered throughout the island of Mokumana. Wait, what?
Long time, no see! Not having starred in a new game since the release of the fan-made Mega Man X Street Fighter in 2012, many feared that the Blue Bomber would never find his way back. Six years later, he makes his triumphant return in Mega Man 11. Absence makes the heart grow fonder, but is this game a welcome return for Mega Man?
In Third Person 