Justin Nation's Reviews
Strangely enough this isn't my first rodeo, back in the day I wrote for the N64HQ as well as a few other outlets on freelance gigs but then when the HQ closed I decided to step it up and started The 64 Source. As the first word of a follow-up system to the N64 began to swirl I then decided to venture out into completely new territory and started OperatioN2000, where I had very little regular reputable news to share. With no other options I decided create my own content focused on profiling key developers and their current relationship with Nintendo or "dream games" where I saw opportunities for Nintendo to dust off classics or recently-made games and do something new with them on improved hardware.
This was all going pretty well until my wife and I decided to have our first child and I then decided that it was time to hang it up and focus on my family. As I closed down both sites I did decide to partner with Billy Berghammer, another former N64HQ writer, who had created his own site, PlanetN2000. We agreed to move over the relevant content from the older sites to his and on top of that I had taken a grad school class in programming in ColdFusion and decided to offer to code the front-end and back-end for a new version of his site. Through these efforts the newer and more complete Planet GameCube was born! While I would occasionally contribute to that site, helping do things like working out Louie the Cat doing rumors and other odd things, I eventually decided to stop as my family obligations grew.
While I had continued to follow Nintendo through both the Wii and Wii U eras my TV time was limited enough that I began playing more PC games again. It is in the PC space that I began to play a number of independent games and they started to be the games I enjoyed the most. Between their lower price, their often less traditional gameplay and approach, and their great variety I was hooked!
With the launch of the Nintendo Switch I was already excited by the possibilities. The portability factor alone meant that I would have far more options and places I could play away from the TV, and games like Breath of the Wild looked impressive. With my oldest daughter poised to start her senior year in high school and my youngest finishing out junior high I started to see an opportunity to get back into amateur games journalism once again with what is now Nintendo World Report as well but I'd initially just thought about writing some editorials periodically. Then, right before the launch of the system, Nintendo had their Nindie-focused presentation and I saw my two most beloved gaming worlds colliding. The games I had been playing on my PC could now be played in a portable way and on Nintendo hardware! Being the type who tends to work against the normal current the concept behind Nindie Spotlight was born!
As a life-long fan of the beat-em-up genre there's just something simple and satisfying about a good brawler, letting you blow off some steam kicking ass and taking names...
Read full review
While it has a slick look and strangely compelling story the elements don't quite come together
Read full review
As you may assume with a Nintendo system platformers are roughly a dime a dozen and though Metroidvanias aren't as abundant their average quality has been impressive...
Read full review
One of the original scandalous and exploitatively violent games on the PC an eon ago, the name Postal has a certain degree of deserved reverence...
Read full review
To be clear the issues its sibling had with driver AI inexplicably crashing and taking themselves out of races remains...
Read full review
My family and I have become massive fans of the Jackbox games over time, having played through each party pack at some point...
Read full review
On a general level interactive fiction titles haven’t been my cup of tea...
Read full review
When you’re young your imagination can truly be a powerful (and sometimes scary) thing...
Read full review
What’s interesting with indie games is their consistent ability to seem familiar at first but then consistently surprise you by defying expectations...
Read full review
When it comes to strategy games we’re finally to the point where the Switch has a fair amount of diversity...
Read full review
Somewhat of following the general concept that anything can be reinvigorated and possibly improved with the inclusion of zombies we have Dustoff Z, which reaches back to the likes of the classic Choplifter for inspiration while throwing in modern progression and conveniences as well...
Read full review
With a variety of titles proving that the tight and challenging strategy of a roguelike can make for compelling play it’s not hard to see some of Ring of Pain’s influences...
Read full review
More often than not I find that I’m not much of a fan of “interactive novels” on the Switch...
Read full review
Having been introduced to the Shantae series on the Switch and enjoyed the hell out of each entry thus far a throwback title sounded interesting...
Read full review
We’ve been blessed with quite a variety of shmups on the Switch, and with such diversity it can sometimes be easy to assume you’ve seen it all...
Read full review
There's nothing wrong with sometimes playing a game that has one core idea in place and just asks you to run with it...
Read full review
While I've generally found first-person exploration adventure-type games like this to be a drag in their pacing I do appreciate that in this case the game has taken on a quasi-historic element of a member of the press chasing down the Zodiac killer to add interest...
Read full review
With an interesting steampunk / futuristic look with huge skyscrapers and vehicles flying through the clouds people were excited by early looks at Cloudpunk...
Read full review
Following up the previous delectable outing on Switch, CSD3 is back with a new somewhat silly story with your empire having been reduced to rubble and starting over in a food truck...
Read full review
While the Metroidvania genre had at one point been thinly represented on the Switch we're now at the point where there are enough top-tier titles available that making a big splash is getting tougher...
Read full review