YAR: the Forgotten Throne will see you “Choose your path as a Warrior, Volkhv, or Archer and journey across the lands of Borea in a story-driven open-world RPG. Uncover the source of the darkness poisoning its forests and wildlife...
Culdcept the First (also attributed as Culdcept the First Saturn Tribute) is a very fun game, that does show its age. This is basically a re-issue of the 1997 Sega Saturn game that mashes together deckbuilding (think Magic: The Gathering) and boardgames (such as Monopoly).
Sometimes a game will hit your feed that is completely unexpected. That is the reaction I had when I discovered Map Map - A Game About Maps (which I'll refer to as Map Map from here on out). It is a puzzle exploration game where you take the role of a young cartographer setting out on a relaxing journey to many unknown islands.
Welcome to an adventure across the land of Raoah! Help guide Hira on this metroidvania quest across a land that is being choked by corruption. Can you help Hira return peace to Raoah with the help of the companions he meets along the way, or will the world fall into desolation? Only you can help out in Fallen Tear: The Ascension!
Let me tell you about this cozy game my daughter and I are playing together called Outbound. Now, I've been following this game from the initial Kickstarter back in April 2025 to its full release in May 2026. The best Mother's Day gift for myself and my first ever collector's edition in a physical copy!
In OVER REQUIEMZ Yuhiru is thrown into the castle of Oz and is immediately accused of trying to assassinate the King and shoved into the dungeon. Not only is she treated like a criminal...
Today we’re looking at what has rapidly become an absolute favorite in the open-world RPG genre for me. An interesting story, memorable NPCs, stunning visuals, and a setting absolutely dripping with flavor, Dread Delusion sets its tone immediately and sticks with it.
...and I have been playing NHL games since. It didn't matter whether it was EA or another game like 2K in the 2000s; I loved hockey games and still do, but is NHL 27 a step in the right direction?
Asdivine Knot is the latest title in the Kemco JRPG library. Following protagonist Verselio, who's on the run from the church that they once served, he'll be accompanied by an odd selection of party members as they all find a reason to band together…
Nivalis Nights is an experience that gives a strong sense of what a talented team of visionary minds can create. Nivalis Nights crafts a living breathing painting of neon basked splendor with a futuristic new art style of game that is both beautiful and urban futuristic.
When I get to use my birthday as an excuse to take a day off of work (technically yesterday I took off - had to get my license renewed. Boy was that fun) and play some video games.
Just to kick this off - yes, I was making up a word there in the title. However, Devolution is a word, so I took some creative liberties with it. I feel that it is only fair, since I really did not care for the changes I saw in the latest release of Dead Space, either. I originally posted this over at Digitally Downloaded.
I will spread out the posts a bit this week and next while trying to ramp up some new content. In the meantime, the Dead Space theme continues with the iPad version of the game.
The name confused me at first. Was this the original Dead Space remastered for the iPad? Without a sub-name added to the title, I was unsure when it first came out. That being said, I loved the original Dead Space enough to give this a go and see what it was all about.
I have a soft spot for horror. Horror movies, horror stories and yes - horror games. Horror obviously comes in a lot of different shapes and sizes, whether it's a 'killer car' in a Stephen King novel, or a chainsaw wielding movie maniac or battling the zombie hordes in a video game. Probably my favorite horror series from the video game world was Tecmo's amazingly atmospheric Fatal Frame series. I have played plenty of other games that find ways to build tension as well - Eternal Darkness, Resident Evil, Silent Hill, Clocktower - and my recently purchased Amnesia for the computer. One that I bought some time ago and only recently played through was Dead Space. It got uniformly excellent reviews from both critics and gamers.
This is certainly more 'Aliens' horror than 'Texas Chainsaw' - you wind up as part of a spaceship crew that lands on a space station. What starts as a fairly routine maintenance run turns into a quest for survival against an unknown horror. In some ways, the backdrop sort of reminded me of Doom - the science fiction setting and sense of isolation oozes throughout the game, though instead of a hardened marine with automatic weapons, you're a repairman with a suit that helps keep you alive, and a plasma cutter that's going to do more than slice pipes.
You get separated from your crew early on, and find yourself surviving different horrors throughout this ransacked space station. There are bits of audio and video evidence everywhere, helping you to piece together what happened during the station's final hours. In some places the electrical is fine, in others you wind up moving through dark passages with just your suit's flashlight to guide the way. With part 2 coming out soon, it was past time I gave the original a play-through, and here's what I found:
Graphics - 9:
Almost a 10. I'm just stingy on 10's, and there were some moments of slowdown/stutter during a few of the more frantic moments. But so close to a 10. Where to begin - for starters, I loved the hud and overall layout. Seeing your health represented by bars on the back of your suit's spine, and your ammo on your weapon were slick design choices that kept me immersed in the game instead of looking off to the corners of my screen for other data. The lighting is fantastic throughout. In some places you're bathed in light, giving the scenery an appropriately science fiction feel, but most of the time lighting works against you, hiding enemies and making you wonder (sometimes aloud): was there something moving over there?
The antagonistic necromorphs look cool - and often gruesome. They move toward you in varied fashion, using unique attacks that are well represented (and often grotesquely so) onscreen. If you blow one's leg off (more on that in a bit), it crawls toward you along the floor. There are also some really cool scenes where you are outside of the space station that I want to take a moment to give special mention to. Several of them were strikingly beautiful, and I found myself pausing (which is something of a mistake because you're on a timer) and really appreciating the view that looked like it was pulled from a great movie.
Sound and Music - 10:
Going with a 10 here. Bits of music compliment the scenes beautifully. There is also a lot of voice acting that's very well done and helps to advance the story, both through audio files or interactions with other characters. The story is good, but this really goes the extra mile in helping to sell it. The sound effects however, are the best part of the overall presentation. This game delivered a lot of genuine scares, and while the lighting and the unique monsters certainly did their part, it was the sound effects that had me nearly jumping off of the couch (who am I kidding? There were times I did startle quite a bit physically). Whether it's electric buzzing, monsters scraping along nearby, conversations cut short by an attack - the atmosphere was incredible and the sound track was one of the primary reasons for this.
Gameplay - 8:
Aiming works well, the puzzles in the game work well within the context of the story and environment. Combat feels a bit unique because in most games - you're looking for the headshot. Here? Sure, that's going to work on some creatures - but the fact that you can blow off limbs to alter their movement and attacks as well as maybe finding other more vulnerable spots on them than the head, really adds a nice layer of depth to the combat mechanics. There were some mini games that added variety to the gameplay, but they never felt quite as polished as the primary game. Puzzles work well within the context of the game. There's also a currency system, which is cool for purchasing ammo, weapons and suit upgrades. Beyond that, you can modify equipment and armor at work benches, using nodes to customize it a bit - do you want more power, higher ammo capacity, better rate of fire? Up to you. There is a lot of fetch quests and backtracking, which works within the storyline but does sometimes feel a bit repetitive. There are a couple of neat environmental situations built into the primary objects as well as you find yourself walking outside of the airlocks to reach sections of the station maybe not otherwise accessible. You have limited oxygen and there's a neat sort of vacuum of sound while you do so. It also exposes you to some beautiful space backdrops in the game Anti-gravity sections provided some nice change of pace, but felt a bit clumsy at times and the objectives were not always obvious to me in there as my perspective would prone to change based on which surface I was walking on. I was not a big fan of those sections, and felt like they could have been more fun.
Intangibles - 8:
Great game. Very spooky. It was really well-made. I've heard a lot of mixed opinions about multiplayer, and I'm on the fence there. I think it's great when a game offers online multiplayer, because once you have done everything you can with a solo campaign, there's not much more reason to hold onto the game if you can't go online and play it with friends in some way. I've heard that's a big part of what EA is doing with part 2. Then again, a bit part of what makes Dead Space so effective is that sense of isolation. I get the feeling that multiplayer may be fun, it just won't feel like 'Dead Space'. Either way, this game doesn't have it, and while you can play through a few times, and look for things you may have missed initially, the game does not change a great deal on subsequent playthroughs. You get carry over of currency and enhancements, and this access to new gear is cool, though I didn't find the next playthrough nearly as intense. Maybe because I was overpowered from the new game plus, or just because I knew my way through the levels, but I blew through my second round pretty fast compared to the first.
Overall - 8.75:
Simply put - this game was amazing. I remember reading about it in Game Informer well before it was released, and there were things that caught my eye, but I was far from sold. If you enjoy third person action games, science fiction storylines or strong horror elements, this game is definitely worth a look. Especially since it can be found fairly cheaply now. I'm glad I tried it out, and am now very anxiously awaiting the release of Dead Space 2.
