How low can you go? It won’t be easy with all of the enemies and obstacles in your way, but the guns strapped to your feet sure do help. Downwell challenges you traverse through a series of randomly-generated tunnels with only the ability to walk, jump, and shoot directly below you.
After the success of Super Mario RPG, I thought that a proper sequel was inevitable. Instead, Nintendo decided to go at it alone, leaving Squaresoft, Mallow, and Geno behind. Heartbroken by the change in direction, it took me almost 20 years to give Paper Mario a fair shake.
There’s two sides to every story. The Fire Emblem: Fates series of games attempted to tell both in its conflict between two armies. Getting the opportunity to bond with each and see the events from different perspectives was an interesting twist to the formula, but you had to buy the Birthright and Conquest campaigns separately. After you’ve finished both? Surprise! You actually have to buy and play the DLC to see what really happened! Both games and the DLC were great, but it certainly felt like a cash grab.
Fire Emblem: Three Houses could have scored a victory by simply taking that multi-sided campaign and stuffing it into one package. Instead, Nintendo and Intelligent Systems went above and beyond with this gargantuan game.
Growing up as a stubborn Nintendo loyalist, I dismissed any kart racer not named Mario Kart. Why bother with the rest when you already know the best? That ignorance would come back to bite me.
During my 2nd go-around in college, a classmate of mine introduced me to Crash Team Racing. With her PlayStation at the ready, we argued over which kart racing series was better while leaving me in the dust. Though this argument continues to this day, that classmate is now my wife and I guess you could count that Crash Team Racing session as our first date.
Mario Kart may still rule the roost, but there’s a segment of gamers who share a deep love and nostalgia for Crash Team Racing. And rightfully so, as even I have to acknowledge that Crash’s kart racer was a solid game. Decades later, Crash Team Racing gets the remaster treatment in Crash Team Racing: Nitro-Fueled.
Super Mario Maker proved to be a revelation. Providing players with intuitive tools to create their own levels in the Mushroom Kingdom, they broke the boundaries of Nintendo’s own level design ethos while pushing the limits – and oftentimes breaking the limits – of what was possible within the game’s toolset. Long after the Wii U died, the Super Mario Maker community seemingly held onto Nintendo’s ill-fated console longer than anyone else.
As mind-expanding as that first game proved to be, it wasn’t without fault. Limitations within the tools made it impossible to recreate every facet of the 2D Super Mario experience, such as sloped hills among others. Finding good levels proved to be a chore due to the game’s poor filtering options. For players who simply wanted more Nintendo-created levels, they were gated behind a clunky 10 Mario Challenge mode that essentially made it impossible to experience them all without having to play repeats. Super Mario Maker 2 aims to not only address the issues of the first, but expand the scope of what players can create within the Mushroom Kingdom.
The original Dr. Mario is game that I like, but don’t love. The theme of having Mario cure viruses by smacking them with pills is great. Mechanically, you can create some interesting combos with the two-part pills splitting in half. However, that game becomes a slog the moment you have to put a pill in a bad spot. From there, you spend much of the level in a negative mindset, stressing out over the mess you made and how difficult it is to clean it up. It makes me feel more like a first-year med student rather than a world-renown professional such as the game’s namesake.
Dr. Mario World takes quite a few liberties in adapting the classic puzzler to mobile devices. Purists may raise an eyebrow at how much the game has changed at first glance, and I don’t blame them for that. However, I don’t think its gameplay is this title’s biggest cause for concern.
Educational gaming’s most elusive thief is at it again! Carmen Sandiego and her gallery of rogues are stealing some of the world’s biggest landmarks, and it’s up to you gumshoes to throw them all in jail. Two-to-four players take part in this competitive deduction game where you’ll arrest members of her crew while aiming to be the one who wins the game by arresting Carmen herself. Can you track her down before she slips away again?
Who needs an army when you have one-or-two shirtless heroes with big guns? Though it doesn’t make sense that the protagonists in the Contra franchise can’t find any backup (or clothing) on the planet to help them protect the Earth from an alien invasion, the circumstances made for some great action games in the 80s and 90s. Contra Anniversary Collection compiles most of the games released during the franchise’s peak years, including the long-absent NES original and a few international versions with a few unique twists.
The sub-genre of tabletop games where you stack things until they fall over goes deeper than Jenga. I’m not throwing any shade at the classic, but it’s so ubiquitous that I feel like many don’t know anything else beyond it. For example, Animal Upon Animal is a fantastic alternative, where players stack animal-shaped blocks on top of each other. Another game that’s attempting to topple the Jenga empire is Verti-Go. Does it have what it takes to carve some time out of your schedule to give it a chance?
[NOTE: I’ve sampled a little bit of everything that the game has to offer, but I’m not gonna be able to spend enough time with some of the game’s more involved single-player content to provide a thorough judgment on the game. As such, I’m keeping the scope of this piece just to the parts I’ve played so far.]
Ever since the release of Mortal Kombat 9, NetherRealm Studios has set the gold standard for what a complete fighting game should be. Sharp visuals, tons of single player content, and combat – er, kombat – that’s appealing to casual and competitive players. They’ve never rested on their laurels either, as the Mortal Kombat and Injustice games have introduced a number of innovations to the genre, from a Variation system where different versions of the same character will have altered move set and costumes, to the ability to leverage background objects as weapons or jumping-off points in battle.
Based on NetherRealm’s glowing track record, Mortal Kombat 11 should have been as close to a guaranteed home run as one could get in the genre. Based on what I’ve played, it reaches or exceeds those lofty expectations.
In Third Person 