25,358 community articles
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Game : Four Quarters 's Loop Hero . Release Month : March. Quick Look : Here (Brad/Jan). Started : 10/01. Completed : ?/01. I've been on the outs with run-based games, otherwise known as roguelike s or roguelites, for some time now so I initially wasn't going to give Loop Hero a look in. However, since the Epic Game Store was generous enough to include the game as one of its recent giveaways, I...
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Yesterday was an Amico kind of day for me. I wanted to play games but I didn’t want to play anything overly complicated or taxing. I was looking for some accessible quick fix fun, the kind we used to have back in the 8-bit era where gaming didn’t require 10 mapped buttons or 3D camera control. The exact kind of gaming experience that the Amico is selling itself on. I started out with Mighty Goo...
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If there's one thing that 343 Industries does better than any other developer, it's reinventing itself. Between 2011 and 2015, Microsoft's powerhouse released four different Halos, but compare any two of them, and you'd think they were the fruit of different studios. Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary was a loyal, by-the-book remake of the original game. On the other hand, The Master Chief Collec...
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The Game Pass Gambols is my chronicle of attempting to at least sample every game released on Game Pass in 2022. Mighty Goose came out in 2021 but I wanted to play it so I'm including it anyway. Game: Mighty Goose Game Type: Run 'n Gun Time Played: Approximately 4 hours. Completion level: Rolled credits. Messed around with New Game+ but did not complete. Approachability: High. It's very simple...
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The Dredge of Seventeen - my 2017-focused blog project for the previous year - is now done and dusted and mostly unread, and yet I find myself with a hard-drive full of smaller 2017 games that I couldn't quite get around to in time. That's going to be a mini-theme of sorts for the Indie Game of the Week for the foreseeable future; I'm almost hoping I don't find anything worthwhile since that'll...
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Hi my last blog took me too long so let’s get this done with. I’ve got like two dubious FPS blogs I need to write after this. Order is pretty loose for most of these. Honorable Mentions: Star Trek Voyager: Elite Force, Quake, Brigador, Battletech, Total War Three Kingdoms These are some games I played this 2021 that I couldn’t fit on this list. I recommend them. 10. Grandia II So hey, I’m going...
arbitrarywater (Premium member)
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I agree with the general sentiment that 2021 was a “weaker” year for video games in the relative scheme of things. Yet not only did I enjoy the 10 games on my GOTY list , I also think 2021 was a quietly deep year, with interesting and varied games well past my top 10 ( psst, every year has good games). I played more than 10 games that were well-made and/or did something interesting, but many of...
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What does it mean to be the “year of” something? It doesn’t mean that thing is the highest selling. Within the video game sphere 2020 was the year of the PlayStation 5 even though the Nintendo Switch sold more units, because the PlayStation 5 captured the attention of the gaming world and became an object of desire among the frenzied masses who battled bots and scalpers more vicious than any fu...
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This is more of a list post. I'll go by the points below as a definition and comment on each element individually: -Higher than average difficulty - This is as old as games but if we include a boss focus, I suppose Ninja Gaiden, Ghouls 'n Ghosts, Shinobi, Castlevania and the like are good early-ish examples. -ARPG w/ character creation, shops and leveling - Well this one goes far back. In Japan...
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I want to dedicate this entire list to a personal friend that is no longer with us. He was a man by the name of Bryce . A big, lovable guy who would always have your back. Incredibly charismatic, a creative soul, and a life of the party, he looked up to me as inspiration, and I looked to him for aspiration. One of his hobbies was drawing, and he had a penchant for it; his art collection can be...
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Previous entry: Fantasy Life Online I dove into my backlog of mobile games for this next entry of Mobile Game of the Week. MGOTW? Doesn't exactly roll off the tongue smoothly. Anyway, I've discovered a few things. The first is that a bunch of the games I've played have now been discontinued, meaning I'm unsure if I can still mention them here. They've made a lot of cool stuff out there and then...
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This week, Zelda (of Legend of Zelda fame), joins fellow Nintendo character Mario in justiceleaguecanada's Video Game Hall of Fame as the second entry. She is also the first female to be inducted. Next week's character will be another classic Nintendo character, one everyone probably knows.
justiceleaguecanada (Premium member)
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A lot of words have been written about the death of the “AA” game. “AA” games are games that don’t have the enormous budgets of what have come to be known as “AAA” games, massive projects that soak up tens or hundreds of millions of dollars, but still have the backing of large publishers and enough budget behind them for serious marketing budgets and frills like licensed music and well known vo...
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The Game Pass Gambols is my chronicle of attempting to at least sample every game released on Game Pass in 2022. Game: Olija Game Type: Puzzle/Action Platformer Time Played: Approximately 5 hours. Completion level: Rolled credits Approachability: Medium. It is fairly intuitive and very easy but its graphic violence and dire tone might be unpleasant for many. Should You Try It? : If you read a r...
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Here were my favorites that came out this year: 10. Voyage (local) – an intriguing 2D adventure game. It doesn't give you much direction, but it's pretty easy to figure out where you're supposed to go and what you're supposed to be doing. Excellent art style. 9. Operation Tango (online) – I always love games that have this hacker/agent concept (like Hacktag or Clandestine). However, Operation T...
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Game : mrkdji's StarBoy . Release Month : May. Quick Look : N/A. Started : 09/01. Completed : 09/01. Whether it's due to game jam s or the developer having their attention split five different directions at any given moment, there's a huge number of tiny Indie projects out there that seem to be inspired by one great idea taken as far as it alone can go, like a "wouldn't it be cool if" notion cr...
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2021 was a strange year. The first part of the year shows most of the big budget games that had mostly finished development during the pandemic and released in a good fashion. The second part of the year had multiple releases that showed big budget games developed during the pandemic but needed more development time. While the bigger developers had issues, this gave a lot more room for the indi...
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A little over a month ago, Jeff posted what was ostensibly a review of Halo Infinite to the site. More resolutely, it was an article about the obsolescence of professional reviews in a world where games like Halo Infinite are effectively free. Or at least, part of them is free, and part of them is the cherry on top of an affordable subscription service that critics would already recommend. Jeff...
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2021 was a big year for me. I started my clinical psychology internship and moved. I also stopped playing Path of Exile after a roughly 5-year streak of sheer obsession. Here's what I played (and loved) instead. 10. Cruelty Squad I didn't finish Cruelty Squad, and I have no plans to. I wish I liked it more. Still, it makes my list due to sheer audacity. It is an ugly and difficult game that mak...
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Game : TrampolineTales's Luck Be a Landlord . Release Month : January. Quick Look : N/A. Started : 07/01. Completed : 07/01. And now, almost immediately, this (*last) year's Go! Go! GOTY! moves into the tiny, weird, obscure, Indie stage of its catch-up gaming mission. I'll be frank: ever since my backlog blossomed from a manageable pile to the continents-wide landfill Earth had become in WALL-E...
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Welcome to Indie Game of the Week: 2022 Edition! January's going to be a busy month with all this GOTY business afoot so I've decided to start with something slow and gentle to ease us into the new year. I discovered Sigono's Opus franchise last September with the second game, Rocket of Whispers , and was charmed by its unusual but accessible gameplay mechanics focused around an emotional core...
