Let's talk games.
In Sekiro, if you’re having trouble with a mandatory boss fight, the only thing you can do is keep failing until you master the timing and overcome the wall. While this might sound eerily familiar to veterans and would-be veterans of Souls, it’s actually emblematic of the divergent philosophies driving the games.
The Witness feels like an amateur attempt at science fiction. There’s an image but no imagination, nothing anchoring the initial idea into something resonant and real.
While the lavish spectacle and surprising heart of Alita make it a great time at the theater, uneven performances and a mediocre script squander its potential.
Everyone I know who’s seen mid90’s says the same thing about it. “I liked it, it was good,” goes the common refrain, and while nobody I’ve talked to thinks it’s terrible, none of us call it great either.
I share this anecdote as a public thank you letter to Conri, the GM and designer of the Stellar Age ablegame, and the rest of the Devil’s Luck Crew for enabling me to have this heartwarming interaction with a complete stranger. I consider it a privilege to be able to act as an agent of inclusivity, evangelizing the stream to anyone who will listen, especially since I know that there are people out there like this GameStop employee who need to know that it exists.
Once again, join Dyllan, Harry and myself as we talk the new God of War for PS4, overuse the word “interesting” and generally goof off about games!
Detroit: Become Human might be the Quantic Dream game that finally changes [Drew’s] opinion of the company.
(Header image from HorizonZeroDawn.com) GameFes has a podcast now! Join Dyllan Rodrigues-Miller, Harrison Weger, and myself as we talk one of our favorite games from last year, Horizon Zero Dawn, and what it means to us and the industry as a whole. And come back next week! We’re going to be talking the new God of War. Horizon Zero Dawn: Complete […]
God of War IV is the latest example of a welcome trend in the modern game industry, where an established gameplay model is used as a vehicle to tell a moving, emotional story. It works for Spec Ops: The Line (third person shooter), Horizon Zero Dawn (open world action/adventure), and Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice (hack’n’slash action) and it certainly works here.
A certain kind of player will absolutely relish this challenge. You probably already know if you’re the kind of player I’m talking about–and if you are, by all means, buy this game.
Now, you’re probably wondering what about this game makes me so conflicted–since so far so good, right?
A YouTube search will show you rage video after rage video after rage video of people trying to get over the mountain, swearing like sailors as they try to claim that sweet, sweet reward. From a voyeur’s perspective, their pain is wildly entertaining. But I wanted to know what it felt like as the player.
It doesn’t matter if Finding Paradise fundamentally needs to be a game— what’s important is that artists like Kan Gao are starting to tell more mature stories using the medium. There’s a real emotional heart to Finding Paradise, and it’s every bit as resonant a mediation on the human condition as any novel, film, play, or other form of “high art.”
While the big N is being light on details, a totally real and in no way fictitious leak on /v/ today revealed that Nintendo was going back to the same source material as Odyssey. Considering the immense success of their previous literary tour-de-force, the next game in the much lauded Super Mario series will be a prequel entitled Super Mario Iliad.
The developers of the Devil May Cry remake have provided something that is, in my opinion, a massive and significant rarity in the video game medium; a well thought out, accurate, and deeply respectful portrayal of mental illness, specifically psychosis or psychotic mental illness (or some symptoms of it at least) in this case.
The scavenger hunts also demonstrate why Nintendo deserves the best game direction award, as The Champions’ Ballad is a virtuoso demonstration of non-combat difficulty.
Netflix has already renewed Castlevania for an eight episode second season, which I’ll definitely be bingeing on release day. Hopefully it won’t take an entire year, as we’ve been given barely a taste of things to come. What we have is bloody intriguing though, so I recommend you check it out. It won’t take too long and it’s a great time while it lasts.
Game FES 