Game Review
Playstation 4
Dustin Nichols
2018-03-07
Yakuza 0 is the latest in the popular SEGA franchise, and the first created specifically for the PS4. The game is actually a prequel to the original Yakuza (on the PS2 system). It takes place in the 1980's and tells the story of the simultaneous rises of series mainstays Kazuma Kiryu and Goro Majima. In the game, you control both men independently on separate-but-intertwining adventures. Kiryu is a low-level member of the Dojima Family and also the muscle for a loan shark...
Game Review
Playstation 4
Dustin Nichols
2017-03-07
Final Fantasy XV is the latest console release in the long-running series, and a culmination of a decade's worth of development. You star as Prince Noctis Lucis Caelum, the rightful heir to the kingdom of Lucis, within the fictional world of Eos. The kingdom and the magic crystal under its power have been taken over by the empire of Niflheim after negotiations between the two sides turn out to be a con job by Niflheim, with the express purpose of gaining the Crystal and the...
Game Review
Nintendo DS
Dustin Nichols
2017-02-07
Trace Memory was one of the first games I ever bought for the original DS, some 13 or 14 years ago. I only played through it the one time (before my ex-wife stole my copy), but I remembered it being a fun point-and-click puzzle adventure, one of my favorite game genres. Recently, I decided to buy another copy to see if the game still held up and if it was as fun as I remembered.Trace Memory has you playing as a young girl named Ashley Robbins, who has been summoned to the...
Game Review
PS VITA
Dustin Nichols
2017-01-23
Psycho-Pass: Mandatory Happiness is a visual novel based on the hit anime of the same name, and in fact takes places within the first season's timeline. It is set in a future version of Tokyo, where people are imprisoned not because of crimes they have committed, but their propensity to commit crimes (called "latent criminals") using a personality scanning device known as the Psycho-Pass. In the game, you control one of two members of what is essentially the police force,...
Game Review
PS VITA
Dustin Nichols
2017-01-03
This is another visual novel-style game on the Vita, a genre the system is very friendly with. Described as "Phoenix Wright for adults" online, a series you know I love, I had to check it out. In Root Letter, you play as Takayuki (although you can change the protagonist's first name), aka Max, a nickname he earned in school due to his intense personality and "Max Mode" (more on that later). Max is about to start a new job, but before that happens, he finds some old letters...
Game Review
Playstation 4
Dustin Nichols
2016-12-19
Mafia III is the latest installment in the popular Mafia franchise and takes the series in a bit of a different direction. You play as Lincoln Clay, a black man returning home to New Bordeaux (a fictionalized version of New Orleans) from the Vietnam War in the year 1969. While some see him as a hero, others see him as a monster, thanks to strong racial intolerance that was still very prevalent during the time period. Lincoln decides to enough is enough and decides to help...
Game Review
PS4 - Playstation Network
Dustin Nichols
2016-11-14
Gone Home is a first-person adventure game from the Fullbright Company, a small game developer based in the pacific northwest. The game takes place in 1995 and you play a college student named Kaitlin returning home to her parents (her father Terry, a sci-fi writer, and her mother Janice, a wildlife conservationist), only to find they are not home, and the house is in disarray, with the family having moved recently. On the door, she finds a note from her younger sister Sam,...
Game Review
PS4
Dustin Nichols
2016-11-01
Akiba's Trip is a quirky game out of Japan and the first game I've ever played that involves you defeating your enemies by stripping their clothes off. You play as a high school boy named Nanashi (although you can change this to whatever you want) who goes in for a job interview, only to find out he's really there to be turned into a Synthister by an evil corporation located in Akiba. The Synthisters are similar to vampires, except they feed on energy and emotion rather than...
Game Review
3DS eShop
Dustin Nichols
2016-10-18
Spirit of Justice is the brand-new installment in the long-running Ace Attorney series, a series regular readers will know I have a strong love of (ask to see my tattoo sleeve sometime), so I went in with a positive outlook on the game before I even started to play. I was not disappointed.In this installment, for the first time ever, you not only get to control the titular Phoenix for cases, but also Phoenix's long-time apprentice Apollo Justice as well as semi-newbie Athena...
Game Review
PS4
Dustin Nichols
2016-08-22
The Ant-Man DLC came free to those who pre-ordered the base game, and is a quick-but-fun re-imagining of one of the scenes from the hit Marvel movie of the same name.In this add-on, Scott Lang's best friend Luis (Michael Pena, who reprises his role from the movie with brand-new dialogue) joins forces with Lang, Hank Pym, Hope Van Dyne, Janet Van Dyne and ANT-thony in order to defeat Yellow Jacket at the Pym Technologies lab.If you've seen the movie, you probably know what to...
Game Review
PS VITA
Dustin Nichols
2016-08-09
ZTD is the long-awaited third (and reportedly) final game in the Zero Escape franchise, the other two being 999: 9 Hours, 9 Persons, 9 Doors and Zero Escape: Virtue's Last Reward. Although this is a brand-new game, it is actually a prequel to VLR. Well, that's not completely true. ZTD is really something of an anomaly because while it is meant to be a prequel, it is also a sequel at the same time. Without giving anything away, several characters and events happen over the...
Game Review
PS VITA
Dustin Nichols
2016-07-26
Visual novel-style games can be hit or miss. As you might have seen with my previous reviews, they can either wind up really well-told stories featuring colorful characters and great twists/turns. Other times, they can wind up a complete mess where you can barely comprehend what exactly is going on. Fortunately, Steins;Gate is in the latter category. While it’s not a perfect visual novel, SG on a whole is a fantastic experience that always kept me guessing.In this game,...
Game Review
PS4
Dustin Nichols
2016-07-11
Uncharted 4 is the first in the series to be created exclusively for the PS4 and, unfortunately, is expected to be the final game in the vaunted series. Knowing this, playing through it was something of a bittersweet experience, but that's not to say I didn't love every second of the ride.The story takes place several years after Uncharted 3, with Nate and Elena settling into a quiet life of non-adventuring, with Nate now being a diver for a legal salvage company. However,...
Game Review
PS VITA
Dustin Nichols
2016-05-23
Norn9 is from the same company that brought us Code: Realize, and very much follows the same pattern. This is a visual novel-style game, which means it is 100% story-based with little in the way of gameplay.In this game, you control one of several students aboard the Norn, a giant spherical spaceship that is traveling across the world. Each student on-board has been specifically selected and given a superpower that will aid them not only in survival, but will be used in what...
Game Review
PS VITA
Dustin Nichols
2016-04-25
For most gamers, Code: Realize might not be the way to go. It is not a traditional game in any sense, but rather a visual novel. "Visual novel" is a term used in gaming often, especially for point-and-click style games, but Code: Realize is an example of the true definition of the term.In this adventure, you star as Cardia, a strange girl who wakes up alone in a mansion, left alone by her dad with a promise that he will return when he can "fix" her. Cardia has a gem...
Game Review
Playstation 4
Dustin Nichols
2016-03-14
Marvel Avengers is the most recent installment in Traveller's Tales long-running LEGO series and, while no new ground is really broken here, what it lacks in new stuff, it makes up in sheer volume.Unlike Marvel's last foray with TT, LEGO Marvel Superheroes, Avengers does not have an original story; instead, the levels are faithful recreations of major events from the Avengers and Avengers: Age of Ultron films. Also, instead of brand-new voice recordings for the story, audio...
Game Review
Playstation 4
Dustin Nichols
2016-02-24
After a somewhat lackluster outing with Unity the folks at Ubisoft decided to go back to the drawing board and focus on what made the series great in the first place, resulting in Assassin's Creed Syndicate, possibly the best entry in the series since Revelations.This time around, and for the first time ever, you control two new assassins, Jacob & Evie Frye, twins living in Victorian London. Although they are both children of a former Assassin and both members of the...
Game Review
Playstation 4
Dustin Nichols
2015-12-09
The Wolf Among Us is not so much a game as an interactive graphic novel. The closest to a normal game genre I could compare it to would be a point-and-click game (Think Myst, Still Life, The Moment of Silence, etc.), but even then, it’s not quite the same. This game is a reimagining of some of the most well known fairy tale-type characters, set in a fictional part of New York known as Fabletown. Sheriff Bigby Wolf (aka “The Big, Bad Wolf”) is put in charge of keeping...
Game Review
Playstation 4
Dustin Nichols
2015-11-18
At first glance, Mad Max might seem like a licensed-game-quick-cash-grab, similar to games that come out right around the same time as a big movie that bears the same name and characters. Considering it released the same week as Mad Max: Fury Road released on home video, thinking that would be understandable. However, the reality is the game was in development even before Fury Road went into production and, much like everything else with his creation's name on it, George...
Game Review
Playstation 4
Michael Murakami
2015-09-30
Bloodborne is the latest installment in the Souls series from creators From Software. Keeping in line with its spiritual ancestors, Bloodborne is a supremely punishing game that rewards perseverance and skill in equal measure and presents a world oozing with atmosphere and Lovecraftian horror that begs to be explored. For those of you uninitiated in Demons'/Dark Souls' school of pain, Bloodborne is a game supported by two major mechanics -- self-rewarding exploration and...
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