Ori and The Blind Forest: Definitive Edition Review

20161210111738_1Despite how Ori and The Blind Forest was instantly on my radar the moment I saw it, seeing as how it was shown off as a lavishly beautiful metroidvania game, it’s taken me quite a while to finally play it. It came out, was received well, but I never wound up buying it until over a year later, and after the release of an updated “Definitive” version. My reasoning behind this was that I knew just enough about the game to be worried about whether or not I personally would enjoy it, and for good reason. (more…)

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Dust: An Elysian Tail Review

headerI originally planned on opening this review with an anecdote about how the “Indie” movement for the game industry has more or less ended and how the novelty and value of being a game made in terrible personally inflicted conditions means very little unless a publisher picks you up and shows you to the world. The industry in general has a discoverability problem, and when it comes to the fifty games released on Steam every week, it becomes all the worse… Anyways, here’s a game made by the animator for Jazz Jackrabbit. (more…)

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Lococycle Review

wallpaper_4_-_Splosion-smallTwisted Pixel is a company I certainly gained a fondness towards during the time where the Xbox 360 was my platform of choice. Their games were fun and creative and each offered something new while remaining consistently enjoyable. Though when it came to Lococycle, the reception was pretty cold from the majority of outlets for reasons I did not read, as I knew I’d pick the game up when it was cheap enough, and $2 is the cheapest I could hope for. But for those looking for a TL;DR and do not want to scroll down, this is by far the studios worst title and one I can hardly recommend. Onto the why!

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Marlow Briggs and the Mask of Death Review

marlow01Let me lay down a scenario before diving into this… examination of what I consider to be one of the most amazingly unnoticed non-indie titles in the past few years. You have ZootFly, a team of about fifty Slovenians who, after making a series of under the radar titles in the mid to late 2000s. 505 games, a publisher who has one of the oddest track records for titles I’ve seen when you consider their European releases. And a dream to create a character action game that is best described as if you mixed that Tomb Raider XBLA game with God of War. It is Marlow Briggs and the Mask of Death and… I am super excited to be talking about it!

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Mark of the Ninja Review

motnmain_1920x1200Mark of the Ninja is the last game I played on my Xbox 360 before I put it away for the foreseeable future. Not this version, I bought this after I let the console stay dormant for two months before getting a free copy in a Humble Bundle. Which means I own three versions of this game, something I can’t say about anything aside from the first three Sonic games, which I actually own about four copies of… Damn, I didn’t even realize that until just now! Okay, okay, let’s talk about them Ninjasks named Mark.

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Jade Empire: Special Edition Partway Review

NA_JADE_EMPIREThere comes a time when games are long, have problems that become apparent early in playing them, and feel like a time sink that will amount to the same conclusion, more or less.  Jade Empire is one of those titles, and as I’ve hit 13 hours in the game and chapter three out of five, I no longer wish to continue, and feel as if I have a good amount of things to say about the oft forgotten Bioware title. As part of a new segment that will hopefully survive through my very spur of the moment decision making, called Partway Reviews. In which I review a game after getting to the point where I no longer wish to continue playing it, but still feel like saying things. (more…)

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Dust: An Elysian Tale Review

Dust-An-Elysian-TailNote: I re-reviewed this game in 2015. Please disregard this original review.

It is a weird feeling to try and critique a work that was mostly done by one individual, but in a setting where they are not likely to ever be aware of it. Especially after they poured three years of work into a project that was lucky enough to get funded by Microsoft, a move that Sony seems to be all about nowadays. But did a wise man not say that all games should be judged sternly and fairly, regardless of their origins or creative team? Yeah, probably, but I should probably start talking more directly about Dust: An Elysian Tale.

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Iron Brigade (Trenched) Review

games_ironbrigade

As I have stated before, I dislike multiplayer that has me directly connect to people online . Oh sure, I can have some couch co-op with a friend who only ever comes over once every two weeks to a month, which was the reason it took me 9 months to beat Rayman Origins. And at the same time, I dislike games, or any medium, when they focus on modern warfare. But, because I am a tad nutters, I wanted to see if Double Fine could make me give two scraps about the applicable subgenre. And, well, they tried at least.
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Comic Jumper: The Adventures of Captain Smiley Review

After the surprising popularity of ‘‘Splosion Man, Twisted Pixel decided that the only logical follow up for two near dialog-less titles is to create a game that is trying to make you laugh more than anything. And one about comic books, no less. And I assume that their intention was to tangentially relate games and comics for many of its audience, and I can safely say that it worked. Yet Comic reviews are an idea that I will probably never do, so let’s just take a gander at a game about comics.

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‘Splosion Man Review

Twisted Pixel Mondays

Let’s keep up these Twisted Pixel Mondays, while trying to keep unique criticism going! Six months after their first title, Twisted Pixel brought forth the far better received ‘Splosion Man. It was a nearly universally praised title, but does this title warrant the praise? Find out what I think!
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