Hardcore Gamer
HomepageHardcore Gamer's Reviews
The Castle Doctrine has innovation oozing out of every pore. By combining well-developed puzzle design with massively multiplayer strategy, the game is simply unlike anything else on the market right now.
It’s a shame that the terms “masterpiece” and “genre-benchmark” are thrown around so haphazardly, because when a title that truly personifies those words like Bravely Default comes along, they seem cliche and hyperbolic to use.
Tomb Raider remains one of the better action games to have been released in the last twelve months, and it gives the next generation consoles some life in a rather dry time. This is without doubt the definitive console edition of Tomb Raider, but the completeness and subtle visual enhancements are not enough to warrant another playthrough.
Joking aside, there's a valuable comparison to be made between Broken Age and Broken Sword: The Serpent's Curse. Both are throwbacks to the golden age of point and click adventures made by creators who helped define that era.
Nidhogg is a polarizing game. Experiencing it the way it's meant to be played (via local multiplayer) is a fantastically fun event.
Don't Starve is a fantastic, huge, deadly ball of entertainingly gothic survival. It requires a self-motivated player to get the most from it, but once you start to learn its systems, each game lasts a bit longer than the previous one, and the ability to experience more of the world reveals more secrets and avenues of exploration.
If you're getting tired of swords and sorcery, or just looking for meaty tactical battles, few RPGs will satisfy you better.
The PC port of Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance has its share of issues, but it still gets the nod over its console counterparts. While there are only six different resolutions, it does support native 1080p along with various graphical options that should have fans joyful just how sharp Raiden can look.
Whether you'll like this title or not is entirely dependent on your willingness to accept games that attempt to "say" something. Even agreeing or disagreeing that the point was sufficiently met isn't as important as the mindset one comes in with.
Adventure games thrive on compelling stories and a solid sense of logic, and Violett has neither. More criminally, the logic underlying the game's systems seems to be broken, making it nearly unplayable.
CastleStorm comes with an easy and complete recommendation, and it is one of the special games that can be enjoyed by just about anyone. It's Angry Birds meets tower defense meets beat 'em up meets crack cocaine levels of addictiveness in a hodgepodge amalgamation of stuff that absolutely should not work as well as it does.
I adore Stick It to The Man, and if you enjoy the anarchic humor in Paper Mario and Psychonauts, I have a feeling you will too. It's a unique, funny, occasionally brilliant experience full of colorful characters and creative puzzles. If you like your entertainment quirky and featuring love-lorn balding yetis, pick this up. I can guarantee it'll stick with you.
Max: The Curse of Brotherhood doesn't break any new ground, and should have had the option of using the Kinect for the drawing mechanic, but still delivers. It has rough edges, but overcomes most of them because the platforming is done well.
There's a lot to love about Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag Freedom Cry. Its darker theme and moments of genuine sadness make for a captivating adventure, while the "new" lead character and his evil-thwarting machete serve the most satisfying form of justice.
While there's an intriguing setup here, 'All That Remains' starts the new season off slowly and fails to deliver a sensible and concrete outlook at the future. There are notably fewer meaningful choices to be found and the action scenes are without much suspense as Clementine is far too susceptible to be grabbed by a walker.
We're simply not used to having real emotional reactions to video games. Sure, some titles are getting better at it, but for the most part that's something truly lacking in the medium.
Those who loved the original Peggle will easily get their money's wortht out of its sequel. While it's basically more of the same with a different twist thanks to the use of different power-up masters than before, it never wears out its welcome.
Gomo takes an hour or two to play through. There's nothing wrong with short experiences, and sometimes they're preferred, but when there is nothing special about this game, it is harder to justify a purchase.
Speedball 2 HD is a faithful remake of the 1990 classic. It retains everything that made the original game fun, but much of its design feels outdated as a 2013 release.
Nihilumbra is the kind of game that many will look over because they think they've played things like it hundreds of times before. It's not.