Digital Chumps
HomepageKingdom Hearts 3 delivers the conclusion to the story started nearly 20 years ago in extraordinary ways. It has the best gameplay of the series, wraps up all the storylines and still finds room for some surprises.
FutureGrind forges, destroys, and rewrites neural pathways until gray matter is shaped to command its style of acrobatic vehicular platforming. Uniracers meets Trials is an easy shortcut, but it undersells the succinct density and progressive challenge of its level design. FutureGrind has the goofy novelty and formidable sincerity of what's expected from a platformer in 2019.
Like the pearlescent shimmer across its desert surface, Vane is difficult to observe and define with precise clarity. Its world presents either an invitation to wonder or a provocation to explore and it's often seized by the tension pulling in opposing directions. Vane can be brilliant and subversive or confusing and frustrating and it's impossible to separate its intentions from its misfortunes.
The Eternal Castle [REMASTERED] prevails through its devotion to the garish glitz and grime of its early 90's apocalyptic techno/retro-future. It's a complete aesthetic that romanticizes graphical antiquity and idealizes a parallel with the maximum of its era's volatile culture. The artifact of The Eternal Castle may be invented and artificial, but it's no less effective in proving its power.
Dark Souls serves Ashen's premise but does not define its conclusion. By instilling senses of community and devotion inside its narrative, Ashen proves Souls' discourse expands beyond punishment and brutality. Once separated from its inspiration, Ashen has plenty to show off inside of its common space.
Below's maddening edge is an open rebellion to its quiet sophistication. It's loaded with intrigue but resistant to modern methods of approach, creating a Rorschach test where losing patience with its internal contradiction is as credible of a reaction as relishing its idiosyncratic isolation and adversity. Ultimately, Below is a curiosity in which gratification is dependent on personal resolve.
Gris is watercolor wonderland fashioned to explore and confront elements of despair and anguish. Its communication through sound and motion paints visually arresting moments and creates intimately powerful movements. Concealed inside all of this is clever and versatile platformer, an asset Gris is confident to hold as collateral for the sake of its delicate heart.
Just Cause 4 lives in the mystique of a simulation that is concurrently shattering apart and performing as designed. Agency and Chaos are rival gods condensed into a single protagonist who uses the world's most outrageous toolbox to violently and preposterously address its most rote objectives. Limitations are explosive fuel for superpowers, somehow balancing the equation that allows Just Cause 4 to make sense.
Clearly, the future for Spider-Man videogames has never been brighter.
Persona 3: Dancing in Moonlight is the latest emphatic return to beloved characters and themes from Persona 3. While its energy is relentless and its rhythm mechanics are capable, it's hard to deny Dancing in Moonlight is a product picked, borrowed, and assembled from existing Persona games. It's a performance that moves but a show that doesn't go anywhere.
Game Tengoku CruisinMix Special is a friendly opportunity to visit with a videogame-about-a-videogames pioneer. As a six-stage shoot 'em up, Game Tengoku is stretched as far as $30 can take it. As a peak into the ultra-novelty of 1995's Japanese arcade scene, it may be priceless. It is both Important and Good that Game Tengoku is now somewhat localized and available.
Just like Elder Scrolls Online initially received its fair share of criticism due to the fact that it failed to resemble the wildly popular Skyrim, I feel as if Fallout 76's primary crime to most is that its resemblance to the previous games in the series is lacking. After spending about 30 hours with the game in the first week of its release (yeah, I don't get out much), I can honestly say that despite some very annoying bugs that absolutely need to be addressed, the game is both a wonderful online experience and an underrated solo adventure if you enjoy the exploration aspect of games such as No Man's Sky. I feel if they continue to support the game and develop the parts of it that are analogous to sandbox MMOs, it could be fun for years to come.
Déraciné subverts Japanese horror tropes as easily as it conceals the limitations of virtual reality. By casting the player in an active and passive role in its narrative, it juxtaposes agency with accountability as it creates a tranquil, sinister story. Déraciné is a return FromSoftware practicing their talent inside of darkness, but mercifully away from Souls.
Tetris Effect is a euphoric balance of intensity and serenity. Rarely do games manage either with stability, let alone perform both in concert. Tetris Effect's audio and visual assault is as powerful as its score-chasing quest for order and perfection, leaving the player overwhelmed with raw optimism and kaleidoscopic emotion. Tetris never required a sequel, but it now feels inseparable from Tetris Effect's compliment.
Taiko no Tatsujin: Drum Session! is a bright and cheery arcade drumming classic digitally packaged without the physical equipment normally used to play it, conceding a DualShock 4 as the solitary drum to bang across dozens of energetic pop anthems. It's a fun, albeit plain, rhythm game that you can imagine being even more fun with the hilarious drum controller that isn't included or available in North America.
Football Manager 2019 takes the series to a whole new level and finally brings in some long needed refreshment. What we have is easily the most accessible Football Manager in recent memory but one that can still many moons to master.
GRIP: Combat Racing is a contemporary adaptation of Rollcage and its sequel Rollcage Stage II. This is a tremendous achievement for fans of Rollcage and a charming but narrow curiosity for everyone else. By splitting the difference between monument and movement, GRIP remains confident in its limitations.
While there is some fun to be had, especially in local multiplayer, the overall experience is more underwhelming than not. That makes this game very difficult to recommend to all but the most rdent kart racing or Nickelodeon fans. Even within those camps, who are more apt to overlook flaws with NKR, the experience leaves a lot to be desired.
Call of Cthulhu is an emphatic character sheet fed to a game deficient of opportunities for self-expression. Imagine if, instead of a dramatic exploration behind the power and poison of enlightenment, Lovecraft only wrote a flat outline. Call of Cthulhu is eldritch horror without emotion or agency, and its madness is entirely mundane.
The more important question, as always, remains if the the story and gameplay are to your liking or not. To that end, I’m more on the reserved side of the equation, finding some value in both elements, but not enough to give this remaster a strong recommendation.