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!
While there are plenty of retro arcade shooters out there, many of them quite good even, I'll at least give Spacewing War credit for going in a direction that sort of sidesteps the competition by going full-on Gameboy with its look and feel...
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When it comes to collections of retro classics it’s always a bit hard to know how to score them...
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This is one of those games that left me feeling a bit bewildered in terms of how I felt and what to say about it...
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First and foremost I'll give EleMetals credit for going all in on its head banging style...
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Survival games are always a bit of a mixed bag for me, sometimes getting too hyper-focused on the mundane act of staying alive, other times simply too brutally tough to easily enjoy...
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Originally impressed by my time with it when I played the demo for it from Steam Next Fest, Souldiers is a Metroidvania I’ve had my eye on without a doubt...
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While I love blasting off faces and racing to the finish line, there’s absolutely something to be said for slowing down and taking in the beauty of the world...
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Bless the indie developers who are determined to take ideas that may sound a bit crazy in concept and run with them, revealing potential new avenues of play to enjoy!
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As a fan of both classic adventure titles and games with a unique sense of time and place, Lamplight City is an easy layup for me in some regards...
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There's no question in my mind that Atari has done something wonderful going into their back catalog and rejuvenating what's becoming quite a collection of their classics...
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Undoubtedly chill and charming, the lack of challenge and nuance in the game's title fishing lets it down...
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As long-time readers will well know, I'm a fan of novel ideas...
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Maybe it’s the 80s kid and 90s twenty-something in me, but I’ll admit that when a game features a slice of life from my own heyday, made clear by your character working in their mom’s video rental store, it can quickly get my attention...
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Too often in the indie space I've found that games that bill themselves as being horror in some way have generally failed to deliver, or at least deliver in a convincing manner...
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While earlier on the Switch struggled to get its beat-em-up groove on, the past few years have at least been kind to the system, though genre fans would likely argue more would always be better...
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Sometimes one of the most effective ways to break out from the pack with a tried and true formula like turn-based RPG action is simply to break out some weirdness and Pinku Kult does just that...
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With its comic book style, big swings at filling its adventure with humor, and some unusual characters and situations, Buck Bradley 2, much like its predecessor, can't be faulted for not trying...
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Having grown up spending far too much time and money in the arcades of old, the Pac-Man series is near and dear to my heart...
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While strategy and simulation titles remain a staple in the PC space, more often than not they tend to struggle on consoles...
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