Staff Article Lists

I do enjoy a good mystery. There’s something to be said for that moment when you figure out the culprit and are rewarded for your diligence. I love games like Ace Attorney where humor meets murder mystery, leaving you smiling as much as it leaves you thinking. So when the opportunity to review a detective game where you play as a dragon came along, I was all for it.

When you start this game, you are dragged along the floor by a large, mysterious creature. When this blue-eyed creature greets you from the shadows, telling you we’re going to play a game, it bears an uncanny resemblance to Inscryption’s first chapter. This is perhaps everyone’s favorite part of Inscryption, the grim atmosphere, playing a game of life or death with an unknown creature that narrates your encounters in their game. Inkshade successfully captures that feeling of being trapped with an entity that treats this situation with the same callous amusement as someone pulling the wings off flies. 

Space-faring ship warfare with friends is a great hook for a game. Even since videogames have been a thing, people have wanted to fly around outside of our Earthly orbit and take fiery, laser-powered shots at one another. What’s surprising is that it hasn’t been done on the carefully crafted scale that Wildgate does it at. Five ships with 1-4 person crews all spawn into a battlefield filled with hazards, loot-filled PvE opportunities, challenges, and a game-winning artifact to capture. Pilot, protect, and power up your ship’s arsenal all whilst the constant threat of opposing ships sits somewhere within the nearby space you occupy as they all try and reach the same goal: capture the artifact or take out all other ships to win the match. Wildgate, at its core, is a fun & super engaging team-based extraction shooter that facilitates some really epic moments with your buddies, but comes with a pretty steep learning curve to achieve success. After 7 hours in the skies around the Wildgate with various crews, I can say that I did come around to understanding and appreciating the mission Moonshot Games had with Wildgate, but there are some areas where I wish they’d tweak some decisions to better the gameplay experience for all skill levels.

Something’s…off. You arrive in a mysterious world in control of a mysterious “Batter” character. Suddenly, you’re approached by a semi-terrifying cat-like character named “The Judge” and tasked with purifying the world you’ve been thrown into. Oh…okay, you say, unaware of the repercussions of your actions in this virtual world. How often do we go along with whatever a videogame places in front of us? This is the basis for “OFF”, a remastering of the original 2008 classic that inspired many RPG concepts after it, including the incredibly popular “Undertale” game. After playing through it, I can see why the uniquely unsettling nature of this game could be the seed that produced such thought-provoking concepts Undertale tackled later on. I wasn’t sure how I felt about OFF until about 2/3rds of the way through the story, when it all started to tie together more tangibly. After that, it became very clear how this little game became so influential.

Previously, I talked about Elestrals when I covered the Elestrals Clash! Kickstarter a while back ago. Now, the highly anticipated digital client for the TCG is finally in early access and available to the wider public. It’s still rough around the edges but it shows a lot of promise and now that I’ve had a bit of time with it, I’m excited to talk about it. 

Let’s be real: When you hear the term ‘Match 3’, your immediate reaction is probably an eye roll, followed by a groan and utterance of “another one?” and I wouldn’t blame you. One look at mobile game stores and you’ll find enough games from that genre to make a ladder long enough to reach Tatooine and still have enough to reach back here. But, what if I were to tell you there are some good match-3 games out there and what if I told you there’s one that mixes that genre with the dungeon crawling RPG genre? You might think I’m crazy, but it’s true! It’s called Roguematch: The Extraplanar Invasion and it’s, quite easily, one of the better, if not best, Match-3 games I’ve played since Bejeweled 3.

I’m going to freely admit that this was a bit tricky review as the city builder genre was never something I really got deeply invested in. They’re fun games and a nice break from the FPS genre, but that’s the extent of my enjoyment of them. So, I’m going to be approaching this title as a casual player and one who enjoys playing these games to just relax. With that said, The Wandering Village does succeed in that area, but does slightly stumble in a few key areas.

Picture this: It’s a peaceful day in the city. You’re about to have lunch with friends when suddenly an enemy overwhelms you all with dark spiritual power. That’s the beginning of Atomic Owl. The latest from publisher eastasiasoft and developer Monster Theater, Atomic Owl sees players step into the wings of Hidalgo Bladewing, the prince of the Bladewings who just returned from a dangerous mission to chow down on ramen with his friends. Only for things to go horribly wrong as the malevolent Omega Wing appears and conquers Judanest, but not before imprisoning Hidalgo and corrupting the aforementioned friends. Two years later, Hidalgo is freed by Mezameta, his now sentient sword and two embark on a quest to stop Omega Wing. 

Relic developed one of my favorite strategy games, the Dawn of War series. So when they announced Earth vs. Mars, I was taken aback that they were making a turn-based game instead of an RTS. Announced earlier this year, it was a departure from their usual style of gritty real-time violence. Earth vs. Mars is a turn-based strategy that feels intimately familiar to those who played games like Advanced Wars, Wargroove, or Tiny Metal. Units consist of infantry, tanks, artillery, and helicopters, led by commanders with special abilities you charge up by winning fights and capturing points. There are two things I noticed that expand the formula.

Widespread love of quality word games has permeated throughout the history of puzzle pastimes. Whether that’s games like Hangman, Crosswords, Scrabble, Boggle, or more recently Wordle, there are limitless variations on finding joy in parsing together pieces of our collective vocabulary and alphabet to accomplish various goals. Entering the scene is a mix of many of those games in “Birdigo”, created by screenwriter John August (Corpse Bride, Charlie’s Angels) and developer Corey Martin (Bonfire Peaks, Pipe Push Paradise). You’ll guide various birds along their migration paths by crafting words using a custom “deck” of letters that you draw from at the start of every turn. Utilizing a healthy dose of Balatro-like elements to boost your scoring power as you guide your bird along a roguelike migration path to reach their final destination, Birdigo excels at providing a simple game concept with satisfying scoring devices and a “one more round” addictiveness that makes it hard to put down.