From the moment an Uncharted movie was announced over 10 years ago, I was half in the bag. I really enjoyed Mark Wahlberg in The Fighter (still his best performance) and the credibility of what a director like David O. Russell could bring to the table was exciting (see also Silver Linings Playbook) despite Wahlberg…
Category: Game
Resident Evil: Village Has a Ball Going ‘Back to Formula’
I don’t play a lot of Capcom games. The last one I played outside of Resident Evil was the Dead Rising series. Those games are driven by strong gameplay ideas, the ludicrous story turns filled with thin characters with tons of personality and labyrinthian navigation systems. That DNA carries over here with the Labyrinth navigation…
Did Last of Us Part II Deserve Game of the Year? 2020: Gaming in Review
What does it say about the industry to reward The Last of Us Part II? Is it an endorsement of crunch? Back in March, Jason Schreier wrote about an industry problem that surrounds the game. Developer crunch. People working long hours, often unpaid overtime on games that are too long, are announced too early and…
“All This Way” The Last of Us Part II – Review
Developer: Naught Dog Publisher: Sony Interactive Entertainment Announced: 12. 1. 2016 Released: 6. 19. 2020 (3 years, 6 months, 18 days later) The Last of Us Part II was announced in 2016. Three years into development and three years too soon. There were no discussions of a real life pandemic except from Bill Gates. I…
Old News: Evo Shields now a Permanent Fixture in Apex Legends
Introduced in a recent community event, it looks like the armor is here to stay. By William Hume UPDATE: July 15th, 2020 We reached out to sports garment company Evo Shield via Twitter: “We do not have any involvement.” The fourth major event in Apex Legends has concluded but a piece of equipment is staying put-…
With Red Red Dead Redemption II Rockstar is due for a Reckoning
It took me a year and a half and a stay at home order from a pandemic to do it, but my Red Dead Redemption II campaign is finally complete. It is a long game to say the least. It felt even longer because story wise the game is overburdened and unfocused. Setting wise it…
For Its Third Game, the Russian First Person Shooter ‘Metro Series’ Takes a Bold Uneven ‘Exodus’ Into a Semi-Open World
Developer: 4A Games Publisher: Deep Silver Release Date: February 15th, 2019 Availability: Now Available on Steam and For Free with Xbox Game Pass 10 years have passed between the release of the original Metro 2033 and my completion of Metro Exodus. The series has never been a landmark, and it’s baseline visuals (except on PC)…
Is the Outer Worlds Just Fallout: Lite?
Getting a crew together to make a Western RPG game in half the time it takes to make a Bethesda piece shines in its professionalism and smoothness but conceptually points to an *as well, growing creatively bankrupt video game industry. The eighth generation of consoles has not produced as many games in quantity or quality…
‘Gears 5’ Is a Surprisingly Subtle Step-Forward for Industry Representation
By: William Hume Following protagonists Marcus Fenix and his son J.D., Kait Diaz steps into the campaign shoes of the billion dollar franchise, whose newest installment is simply titled ‘Gears 5′. There’s a simple evolution at work here. In all of the interviews with the developers, they simply & calmly remark at how the selection…
‘Gears of War’ 1-4 Franchise Review
From Director Rod Fergusson and The Coalition Microsoft Games Studios Presents A game built on Unreal Engine 4 with multiplayer by Splash Damage In the 8th generation of console video games, I got to hand it to Phil Spencer & Xbox. It is inaccurate to call a billion dollar company like Microsoft underdogs, but it is interesting…
‘Control’ Distances Itself from Remedy Classics
Developer Remedy/ Publisher 505 Games Rating: 4/10 To Control or not to Control, that is the question. It is also a gameplay choice marred in Remedy‘s 4 year development cycle and a change in publisher culture. The result is a surrender to a host of problems from a decades worth of industry game development. Loosely…