review

Yoshi’s Crafted World Review

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After creating the masterpiece that is Yoshi’s Island, Nintendo decided to take the Yoshi platforming games in a different direction. Starting with Yoshi’s Story and continuing with Yoshi’s Wooly World, the difficulty of these titles were seemingly toned down to reach a younger or more casual audience. While I don’t think there’s anything fundamentally wrong with that approach, Nintendo’s execution of the concept has left a lot of room for improvement.

Yoshi’s Story is a snooze for level designs that are completely devoid of anything interesting to do. Yoshi’s Wooly World makes some improvements thanks to its charming art style and a solid back half, but the first half of that game also equates accessibility with pedestrian level design. Did Nintendo finally bridge the gap between fun and accessibility with Yoshi’s Crafted World?

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Power Rangers: Battle for the Grid Review

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For a franchise rooted in hand-to-hand combat, you’d think that the Power Rangers would have a larger foothold in the fighting game space. Save for a bad SNES fighter with the most legendarily overpowered fighting game character of all-time and a mobile game that I think is doing well, they generally steer clear of the genre that probably makes the most sense.

Finally, the world is getting a Power Rangers fighter in the modern era. Published by nWay Games and developed with the help of professional fighting game players Clockw0rk, ShadyK, and Justin Wong, Power Rangers: Battle for the Grid aims to provide the thrills of a Marvel vs. Capcom style fighter at a fraction of the price.

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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!

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Anthem, Review Scores, and Evaluating a Game on My Own Terms

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Will be the first to admit that review scores play a heavy role in my game purchasing decisions. From the moment I got my first GamePro magazine in 1994, checking the opinions of critics before plunking down the funds on a game is a must. It sucks to spend so much on a game and not have it meet your expectations. Most recently, I cancelled my Crackdown 3 preorder after reading the reviews and watching its Metacritic score crash to a 60 out of 100.

Having said that, Anthem came out not long after and also was smacked with a 60 out of 100 Metacritic score. With the BioWare pedigree behind it, this seems like an even bigger disappointment than Microsoft’s exclusive offering. Yet, here I am, playing Anthem and generally having a good time with it.

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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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