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Sean Phillips

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Exophobia (Xbox) Review

I’m just going to cut straight to the chase: Exophobia is a barebones metroidvania-style FPS set on a crashed ship with its main redeeming quality being its pixel art style.

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Star Wars Bounty Hunter (Xbox) Review

I’m gonna start this review with a hot-take: I don’t think Episode II: Attack Of The Clones is a bad Star Wars movie. In fact, out of all three prequels, it’s actually my favorite of the three films. Yes, some parts do drag but they weren’t enough to soil my enjoyment of the movie. I loved how it expanded on Coruscant in the beginning (Yes, I liked the diner scene and, yes, I’m OK with something like that existing in Star Wars) and the entire Geonosis battle sequence is a visual spectacle of sheer beauty. However, I never played any of the games based on Episode II growing up as they were on systems I didn’t own, like the Gamecube and Xbox as I still had a N64. Thankfully, thanks to the folks over at Aspyr, one of the games I missed out on has got a second chance at life with the remastering of 2002’s ‘Star Wars Bounty Hunter’ and, I gotta say, this game is a mixed bag.

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Neckbreak (Xbox) Review

I remember first hearing about this game when it went under the title of Project Downfall and thought it looked like a fun first-person shooter, but that’s as far as I got with the game as it was, at the time, a PC exclusive. Now, with it getting a console release under the new name of Neckbreak (or, as I called it by accident, Neckbrake), I’m happy to say that, outside of a few small issues I had, the game was worth the wait.

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Disney Dreamlight Valley Review

What happens if you take Animal Crossing and inject Disney into it? Well, outside of a modded Animal Crossing, you get Dreamlight Valley. A fun, though a bit tedious, game from Gameloft that sees you traveling to the titular valley in order to restore it and reverse a curse that caused the villagers to lose their memories living there.

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Parkitect: Deluxe Edition (Xbox) Review

Way back when I was a young pup, I used to go to Hersheypark every summer and it was a fun experience. Riding the Trailblazer, getting soaked on the Canyon River Rapids, and being whipped around on the Whip, Hersheypark was amazing. But, like most things in life, I ended up growing out of it and stopped going but, deep down, I still enjoyed amusement parks and wouldn’t mind going to one again. The original Roller Coaster Tycoon on PC helped in this regard and I put about who knows how many hours into it, designing my own theme park and creating fun roller coasters. So, when I heard about the console release of ‘Parkitect’, I was excited and I had hoped for another fun roller coaster sim but, alas, this wasn’t meant to be.

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Avatar: Frontiers Of Pandora (Xbox) Review

I’ll be honest: I am one of those fans of the first James Cameron’s Avatar movie (as of this writing, I still haven’t seen the sequel yet), although I will admit it’s not a perfect film and I do agree that the story itself wasn’t that memorable. However, that really didn’t bother me as the film was just downright gorgeous to look at and I think the tech behind the film is amazing. But, I haven’t seen or even thought about the series since I last watched the first movie, way back in 12th grade, so when I first heard that Ubisoft was making an Avatar video game, it was one that I just went “Cool” and really didn’t think much of it. Even when it was officially revealed as ‘Avatar: Frontiers Of Pandora’, I still was just “Cool” and, again, didn’t think much of it, especially when it was released last year. But, after finally being able to play the game, I have to admit something. This game? Kinda flew under my radar as it’s not a bad game! It’s not perfect or anything and I do have some issues with it but, overall, it’s a surprisingly fun game!

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Teardown (Xbox) Review

As the owner of the failing Löckelle Teardown Services, you thought you were getting a simple job to teardown a house to make way for a mall, only to be hired by a criminal investigator to gather evidence on the person who originally hired you, along with other dubious jobs coming from other customers. A surprisingly complex plot for a, sadly, mediocre title that shows its hand too early.

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AVGN I-II Deluxe Review

It’s no secret that many of us, myself included, grew up watching The Angry Video Game Nerd on YouTube. Created by James Rolfe and Mike Matei, the series is still going strong and still has fans excited for the future, even though I will personally admit that his recent episodes weren’t the best. So, like all long-running franchises, you know there’ll be merchandise and, today, I want to focus on the video games, in particular ‘The Angry Video Game Nerd I-II Deluxe’, which combines both ‘The Angry Video Game Nerd Adventures’ and ‘The Angry Video Game Nerd Adventures 2: ASSimilation’ into one package, along with a third game ‘The Angry Video Game Nerd in Tower Of Torment: The Final Chapter’. Is this package worth your money or should you spend your money elsewhere (Couldn’t think of a good AVGN quote, sorry!)

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Turok 3: Shadows Of Oblivion Review

I have a little bit of a special history with the Turok games as the first two were some of the earliest games I reviewed when I used to work at an online radio station called The Cove Radio. I knew there was a third game from old Nintendo Power articles but, at the time, there was no way to play the game outside of buying a used copy for the N64 or emulating it. However, thanks to the wizards at NightDive Studios, the game has been fully remastered and is available on all next-gen consoles and, for the first time, PC. Was it worth the wait? Well, outside of a few issues I have, this is honestly my favorite of the trilogy*.

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Crash Team Racing: Nitro ReFueled Review

With the success of Crash Bandicoot: N-Sane Trilogy, Activision is taking us back to the tracks with the long-awaited remastering of Crash Team Racing with Crash Team Racing: Nitro-Fueled and this is easily, without a doubt, one of the best kart racers.

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