Genre 101 looks at the past and present of a game genre to find lessons about what defines it. In this installment, Henry Skey joins Graham to discuss the foundational elements of the scrolling shooter. READ MORE
April 2014
One of my very first Unplugged columns covered the deluxe version of Cheapass Games mainstay Kill Doctor Lucky. I’ve been a fan of James Ernest’s quirky game design philosophy for a while now, but my only experience with one of his flagship titles was not a favorable one due to one or two problems that really dragged it down. Fortunately, a new card-only version of KDL has eliminated these and made casual homicide fun again. READ MORE
New releases on the Vita may be slowing down lately, but publisher NIS America is doing its best to keep system owners happy. By the end of the summer, the company will have released four separate games on the system in 2014, and Demon Gaze, the second, follows the release of the well-received Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc. How does it stack up with previous NIS releases, as well as other dungeon-crawlers?
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I didn’t have much luck last week in the health department. I woke up one morning to find myself covered in hives (a disgusting first for me), only to visit the hospital a few weeks later with what felt like a broken toe. So, with my skin feeling like it had a mobile sunburn and my foot not letting me put any weight on it, I stayed home from work for three days. The first day was a blur; a combination of medication-induced hallucinations and not much food. But on the second day I started to feel better. I took a long, three-hour nap and woke up to a magnificent feeling. READ MORE
In the past, the Mario Golf series has been defined by two separate, equally-viable tracks: the console one, focusing on party play and maintaining a low barrier to entry, and the handheld one, crafting a more personal experience with progression and customization. We live in a different world than we did when the series last appeared on the Game Boy Advance and GameCube, though, and now a handheld game has the potential to be both of these things at once.
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