The Guilty Gear series has always been the blueprint for many “anime-style” fighting games. It set the standard on how games with this certain kind of technical, combo-heavy fighting scheme should look and feel. Arc System Works has gotten this formula down, releasing successful games like BlazBlue and Persona 4 Arena with the same kind of charm. However, many still consider the Guilty Gear series to be one of the best. What Accent Core Plus does is finally give those PS2s a rest, and allow fans of the series to finally play it on a modern console. READ MORE
Haemimont Games, the modern steward of the Tropico franchise, seems like a natural fit for a mafia economic simulation; after all, running a corrupt island dictatorship seems like it’d be fairly similar. Of course, a re-skin of Tropico 4 wouldn’t be that interesting, and it’d be avoiding the most exciting (and, in real life, probably the least common) part: the shootouts. READ MORE
On paper, Special Forces: Team X should be great. Take Gears of War multiplayer, add Call of Duty-style perks and loadouts and give the whole thing a Borderlands paint job. All three of those games are enjoyable, but when you mash them together, the end product just ends up feeling bland, and like it started its life as a free-to-play game whose transition to full title was never really completed. READ MORE
The original Dead Space came out of nowhere and surprised almost everyone with its careful blend of third-person shooter gameplay and atmospheric horror. After a fantastic sequel and some interesting spin-offs, Visceral Games returns with Dead Space 3, the supposed last game in a trilogy. This time there’s a greater focus on expanding the formula from the original two games, with more open environments, a weapon crafting system and a healthy dose of side content, giving us the biggest Dead Space experience to date. Unfortunately, bigger isn’t always better. READ MORE
17-Bit’s Skulls of the Shogun has been a highlight of indie festivals and competitions for a few years now. The turn-based strategy game is, even before release, known for its pick-up-and-play nature and subtle tactics. Its transformation into a multi-platform, Windows-8-and-Windows-Phone-showpiece project has caused it to take a bit longer to get to our hands, and also raises inevitable concerns about development priorities. We’re happy to say that it had little effect on the game itself, and that the full release of Skulls delivers on a lot of the promise of that earlier work. READ MORE
