Fantasy Life is a game about filling up bars. A collaboration between Level-5 (Dragon Quest IX, Ni no Kuni) and 1-Up Studio (Mother 3, Professor Layton and the Last Specter‘s London Life mode), it’s filled with fetch quests, grinding up skills and crafting items and equipment. These aren’t ways to pad the game length or diversions from the main attraction — they’re the reason you’re here — and it’s not ashamed of that for a second.
And that’s okay, because Fantasy Life is a really good game about filling up bars. READ MORE
Developer Shin’en has become known for two things during its long run of supporting Nintendo download platforms: fast-paced shooters and quirky games that get a lot out of limited hardware. Art of Balance is certainly representative of the second group, a simple-on-the-surface stacking puzzle game with a zen-garden aesthetic that allowed for some cool water and lighting effects in a minimalist environment. The first game was a WiiWare standout, and after a foray on the 3DS eShop, the franchise heads to the Wii U in a form clearly shaped by the experiences developing both previous entries. READ MORE
In this episode, Andrew shows Henry and Graham the perils that lie within The Evil Within! Also in this episode: the North American arrival of Vib-Ribbon, the Japanese arrival of the New Nintendo 3DS, the retail arrival of Skylanders: Trap Team and the supernatural survival of Alien: Isolation.
To watch the show and chat with us live, check out this page every other Thursday at 8 p.m. Eastern and follow us on Twitter for special streams.
Most of the time, it’s the object of a review to evaluate a game on its artistic merits, like what it’s trying to communicate and how it goes about delivering on that vision. With some games, though, like this fourth installment of the Skylanders series, what we’re looking at is undeniably a product: a collection of bullet points loosely tied together and pressed on a disc for consumption by mass-market shoppers. That’s not necessarily a bad thing for every game, but it does make the “film criticism” school of reviews largely inappropriate.
So I’m going to follow Trap Team‘s lead and package together some bullet points for you. READ MORE
Looking to play some new games with friends this holiday season? While 2014’s already brought us gems like Mario Kart 8, Fibbage and Starwhal, there’s more great stuff to come. Check out these six titles!
Screencheat
PC, October 21
If you’re a fan of local multiplayer, you’ve been there: in split-screen games, you sometimes can’t help but look at opponents’ screens to see where they are and what they’re doing. Screencheat turns this into a mechanic, forcing you to find people that way because they don’t actually show up on your own screen. It may be a bit tough for people to get their minds around for a while, but triangulating positions this way is a fresh idea, and we’re interested to see how it pans out.
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