Virginia needs to go back to film school
From the room of VHS tapes, to the security footage, to the bat sanctuary, to the theremin performance, to the camera’s final, extended retreat up the rickety helix of a spiral staircase; Act IV confronts us with scenarios that test and limit our perception.
Verge is too smart to be a nostalgia trip, but it also, ultimately, sticks to executing the familiar with style. If it didn't look so damn good, it'd be easy to say we've seen it all before.
Hotline Miami 2 force-feeds you sleaze
[S]adly despite its lofty aims The Deer God doesn't gel, doesn't coalesce in any holistic way. Its disparate parts don't align toward the same end: the karma system doesn't mean anything here , just like the pixel art doesn't mean anything, and the roguelike bits don't mean anything. They're tangential to theme and subtext and meaning. They're words that don't string together into a coherent sentence. This is not in itself damning, but The Deer God could've been more than dumb fun, and it wants to be more than dumb fun.
Bayonetta 2 erects some of the most solid fighting mechanics and phantasmagorically gonzo visuals in gaming to date—certainly, something as compulsive and massive as this boosts the Wii U to the front of the pack—and through its formal choices communicates a singular, unfiltered vision of sexualization.