Video Game Reviews
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Continuing the trend defining The Lost and Damned and the base GTA IV, The Ballad of Gay Tony is fascinated with place, its evocation. Atmosphere and immersion are palpable, and Liberty City remains a monumental achievement in world design, brimming with believability and clever, astute attention to detail; the game world is transportive indeed, placing
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Dust: An Elysian Tail’s art direction and world building are brimming with creativity and originality; the game is set apart visually and atmospherically. Though fantastical in nature, it does not neatly adhere to the conventional fantastical mold, rejecting the influences and contributions of such great men as Tolkien, whose presence is still fiercely felt today.
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Assassin’s Creed III’s narrative is unprecedented in scope and in ambition; it is a major triumph, decidedly epic in construction. Consider most obviously the opening prologue, total manifestation of epicness. Spanning roughly five or six hours in length, it is fair to describe the prologue – and by slight extension the entire narrative proper –
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Shadow of Chernobyl is riddled with flaws; the title’s sole saving grace is relegated to gameplay, a profound if muted construction, a construction mired in inconsistency, the game’s defining attribute. For the entire experience is a constant sequence of highs and lows, resulting in a strange – if almost magical – unpredictability. But imbalances exist
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Close to the Sun’s art direction is easily its finest achievement; the core explorable environment, the ship Helios, is striking indeed. It would be totally inaccurate to describe the space as beautiful – or, more rightly consistently beautiful. For beauty is frequently rejected, rejected in favor of atmospheric, almost oppressive moodiness. Reflecting this, the exploration
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Lil Gator Game is boldly, refreshingly playful; bleakness in all its forms is rejected outright – the game is set apart. The narrative marks greatest manifestation of this playfulness, though it is an endearing playfulness rather than an alienating one – all vestiges of obnoxiousness are rejected outright, too. This obnoxiousness is displaced by sincerity
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Assassin’s Creed: Revelations’ conservatism is its greatest failing; departures from the established series formula are slight, signaling originality’s painfully-felt absence. Some pushbacks inevitably exist, of course, and greatest departures – greatest injections of vigor and emotion – are intimately connected to the narrative proper, confined in ambition though still seizing upon epicness despite that confinedness.
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Given their status as remakes, it follows that Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire evince a fixation with oldness and newness both; innovation exists alongside iteration. The same skeleton underpinning the original Ruby and Sapphire is claimed and replicated here – foundationally, the originals and their lovingly-crafted modernizations are similar, intimately so. Such excessive similarity superficially
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The Lost and Damned’s central narrative is decidedly character-driven in nature; the cast of characters is exhaustive and diverse – see most notably the player character, Johnny Klebitz, a figure defined by his complexity, a complexity which serves a distinguishing function – he is both alike and unlike the various other members of the Lost
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Resident Evil Village’s core narrative is a flawed if promising construction. Greatest flaws stem from narrative delivery, while greatest narrative strengths lie within content; in this regard, the narrative is characterized by sharp division. The opening is an impactful and immersive one, introducing many of the core players – the player character Ethan Winters among
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The Missing is a bizarre admixture of derivativeness and innovativeness. Foundationally, the game belongs to the thriving puzzle-platformer genre, inheriting the tropes and mechanics inherent to said genre – herein lies greatest derivativeness; the game adheres too closely to this blueprint; originality suffers; genius is fleeting. Expectantly, then, the game places occasional emphasis on platforming
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When considered alongside its immediate predecessor, Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood is defined by relatively constrained ambitions; epicness is rejected. Far from a failing, the narrative ultimately benefits from its hyperfocusedness, the core plot spanning a scant six or seven years, while Assassin’s Creed II’s narrative unraveled over some winding two or so decades; succinctness is totally
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Coffee Talk: Episode 2 possesses an astonishing degree of charm and heart; the game’s defining attribute is its overflowing sincerity. At the heart of this charm, this sincerity, rests the core narrative, a rather profound construction indeed, frequently dwelling upon profound matters and featuring traditionally profound characters – all throughout are successes. Complementing these inherent
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Adam’s Venture: Origins is a decidedly unoriginal and decidedly ambitionless title; dullness and forgettability abound, dominate. The narrative proper embodies these two negative principles in equal measure, though damnably dullness and the unmemorable exist alongside a plodding pacing, a ploddingness which never disappears; traction is never gained, even as the narrative reaches its conclusion after
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Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs is a self-styled horror title which is rarely horrifying; rather than being defined by tension and dread, the experience is defined by a damning boringness – dull forgettability abounds; player engagement is fleeting. Much boredom springs from the environments explored, mundane and boring all, the environments collectively characterized by their
Games With Grey 