25,358 community articles
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One of the mini-arcs I've had going on during the Indie Game of the Week's tenure is getting over my general aversion towards scrappy RPG Maker projects, especially those of a freeware nature and/or visually rough presentation. It's not so much that I'm putting on airs with regards to the high standards a game needs to pass before I deign to bless it with my insightful drivel, but rather that t...
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When the Evercade was announced it seemed like something that I'd wanted for a long time but had never been done right before. It was a new cartridge based system that put old games back into print, legally, in physical form for reasonable prices at a high quality. The team at Blaze did an incredible job of designing decent hardware at a good price point and then licensing out games from publis...
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One evening when I was bored I found myself paging through the Xbox store looking for something cheap and not very stressful to play. I love video games and I love great video games but sometimes I just want something where I can turn off my brain and not worry about my reflexes and just zone out without concentrating too hard. Not finding anything cheap that appealed to me after a few minutes...
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Decided to spend the second half of 2021 checking out some renowned visual novels . Sometimes my ideas aren't any more elaborate than that. I've tried to discuss the following games in as spoiler-free a manner as possible, with a very spoilerish section at the end for my final thoughts on where the story goes. Welcome once again to the land of visual novels, where extreme violence and flagrant...
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Author's Note: There are spoilers in this blog related to Halo 4 and 5. Yo, Where Did All The Prometheans Weapons Go? Where the Hell is all of this shit? It would appear the internet is still buzzing about Halo Infinite's multiplayer. A glance of any video game forum or social media platform will unveil a smattering of largely positive chatter about the game's many modes and customization optio...
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(With no product page for this game on the site, I decided to write this relatively short and un-scored review as a blog post on the franchise page. It’s about a rather niche game, but hopefully there will be readers find it interesting. Played in Japanese on Switch） Even after two pieces of Virtual Reality Experiences based on Laid-back Camp came out, Have a Nice Day is still marketed in Japan...
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Playerunknown's Battlegrounds , now known as PUBG, is a phenomenon to say the least. The game went from being the undisputed king, changing the very shape of video games to this day, to being an evanescent afterthought in that very same space. Giant Bomb even crowned it as Game of the Year , in a pretty controversial turn of events. If you still play the battle royale (BR) genre that it has soa...
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Okay, full transparency here: I’ve been trying to write something about Genesis Noir off and on since I played it in August. As so often happens, nothing stuck. But I’m giving it one last try here because it’s an interesting game that deserves to be talked about. Since it’s possible that something else could push it off my year-end list, I want to give it its due here. Point and click. Jazz mus...
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Singularity Remember when Activision made video games Developer: Raven Software Release Date: June 29, 2010 Time Played: A little under two hours Troubleshooting: some foolery if you want the FOV reasonable (I recommend Flawless Widescreen) Dubiosity: 2 out of 5 Would rather play than : Call of Duty Warzone Would I play more? I already did play another hour or so and may get around to finishing...
arbitrarywater (Premium member)
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I was legitimately excited when Balan Wonderworld was announced. I feel like that’s important to say, because at this point the game is kind of a joke and a meme and it’s popular to make fun of it, which I’m going to do some of, but it wasn’t always that way. A new 3D platformer from Yuji Naka, backed by the financial might of Square Enix was a very enticing prospect. Yes many of Naka’s more re...
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Games aren't just competing with each other for eyeballs and revenue. They're competing with every other activity and product that people could spend their time or money on. And the competition is fierce. I can pay several dollars a month and get access to a few thousand films. I can put down £10 and unlock a library of tens of millions of songs. So, games companies have had to concoct some cre...
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At the risk of losing what little credibility I have as a reviewer, I'm partial to the occasional food analogy to describe particular roles that the wide range of Indie games might have in my video gaming diet. Many are like Lunchables: miniature approximations of much larger meals that are sufficiently moreish despite their relative smallness and/or cheapness. Others are like sushi: delectable...
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It’s Thanksgiving in the US today and even though I’ve been a vegetarian for almost 5 years this is the holiday I most associate with meat. Turkey meat may be popular on sandwiches, but cooking a whole bird in a home oven can be difficult. People have burned their houses down trying various methods like cooking in brine or roasting over a fire, but even for those who just stick it in the oven i...
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Psychonauts in the Rhombus of Ruin is a weird little project. It came out in 2017 on PC and PS4 VR as a short experience that bridges the stories of Psychonauts 1 and the sequel. It takes place immediately after the end of the original Psychonauts and resolves that game’s cliffhanger, though in a way that makes the timeline a little confusing. Nonetheless it’s a fun piece of Psychonauts storyte...
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Psychonauts is one of those games that I bought over and over with the intention of playing it but never got around to. I think I bought my first copy for the original Xbox after it dropped in price at my local game store. At that point I was much more focused on PC games so I never actually played the thing, but I did want to. My second copy was bought on Xbox 360 digitally via that console’s...
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I posted this on my Twitter already, but here's a YouTube version that's higher in quality. The only downside is that it doesn't loop. Also, a GIF.
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What Is G String? This is definitely something "different." Right off the bat, I'm going to give everyone about three minutes to get out their giggles over the fact I'm talking about a game titled " G String ." It doesn't help that the developer, who is one person, refers to their updates as varying bra sizes with the latest titled "B-Cup Update," but hey, who am I to judge? Okay, are you done...
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The follow up to Caravan of Courage: An Ewoks Adventure improves upon the previous movie in every way, but for all the craft does still have the rough edges of a vintage made-for-TV movie. (review and timestamps will be based on the Disney+ version of the film) So Disney+ was on offer for a reduced price for one month recently and I took the bait. Knowing I was on the clock for a month (I am no...
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Command and Conquer: Renegade Also hey surprise the soundtrack to a Westwood-era C&C game is very good Developer : Westwood Release Date : February 26, 2002 Time Played : A little over two hours Troubleshooting : Fun fact, all of the fan patch improvements are straight up just INCLUDED in the version of Renegade available on Origin. Dubiosity : 1 out of 5 Would I play more? Potentially? I am no...
arbitrarywater (Premium member)
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It's little wonder that I've found myself hankering after a classic Grand Theft Auto experience recently. News on the release of (and subsequent negative reaction to) the remastered " Definitive Edition " of the trilogy has been ubiquitous in the games press, reigniting a desire within me to return to the games that caused me to fall in love with the franchise almost two decades ago. They are o...
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I realize I'm about two explormer reviews away from an intervention at this point, but nevertheless the Indie Game of the Week franchise finds itself with another exploratory action-platformer dealie on the docket, this time courtesy of Swedish studio Decemberborn Interactive. Cathedral 's a throwback that wears its inspirations on its sleeve - Shovel Knight , if the screenshots weren't enough...
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Action Squad is a 2D interpretation of “tactical” shooting with a lazy difficulty balance and an inelegant mode of play that may leave you wanting. Killhouse Games released the first Door Kickers in 2014 and my attention was caught by it immediately. With an aesthetic drenched in the gunmetal grays and dark blues of tactical police games that had come before - SWAT 3: Elite Edition having been...
