Posts

Sony boss Jim Ryan has shot down reports that the company will be sidelining Japan somewhat over the course of the PS5 generation. Wherever you are in the world, and whether you like it or not, the United States is the primary market for both PlayStation and Xbox. It’s where it will sell the majority of its consoles and make the most revenue. However, that doesn’t mean the rest of the world is an afterthought....

This summer’s multiplayer beta for Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception was the most successful beta ever in the history of the PS3. The demo not only served as a proving ground for Uncharted 3’s multiplayer component, but it also whet the appetites of players the world over - who are eager to jump back into Uncharted. Last Saturday, Naughty Dog, in conjunction with Subway restaurants, launched a promotion that granted players access to a new Uncharted 3 multiplayer demo....

If one were to highlight a single genre as having the most clout right now it would have to be the Multiplayer Online Battle Arena, or MOBA for short. To be fair, MOBAs like League of Legends and DOTA 2 are not a relatively new concept, but their popularity as of late has inspired a number of different copycats. But, while League and DOTA may be king of the PC MOBA, there is a completely untapped market ripe for the picking in the mobile space....

Thanks to The Witcher series, CD Projekt Red became one of the most respected developers in the world, which is why Cyberpunk 2077 became one of the most hyped games in recent memory. The game does a lot of things well, but its legacy has been rightfully tainted by an absurd amount of bugs that make it unplayable at times, especially for those who are using older PlayStation and Xbox consoles....

Nier often gets praised for its story and music, but another one of its strengths is the environments you get to see and explore. The world of Nier Replicant ver.1.22474487139… can be truly astonishing to take in. There are many areas present in Nier Replicant, and most of them will stop you in your tracks and have you observe the scenery in awe. With Nier’s gorgeous art direction, even the harsh deserts and rusty factories can look truly incredible, which is why fans of the series will never forget the first time they stepped foot in any of these locations....

Anime and video games have a complex history, with a lot of regional and audience gatekeeping on both sides that only combine into a much worse threat with the ever-elusive adaptations from one to the other. Oftentimes these titles become hidden retro gems due to poor western sales or review bombs, and other times they just can’t live up to their source material. While the crossover between anime and video game fans is pretty broad, there haven’t been a lot of successful industry crossovers, save for aesthetic events in otherwise unrelated games....

Developers rarely recover from a bad reception at launch. Some of the best games of all time were complete failures on launch day, however. From server issues to bugs and glitches, players have experienced several horrific launches over the past twenty years. Many developers are caught off guard by demand, and others do not have the time or resources to produce a quality title. Whatever the cause, studios continue to lie and deceive the gaming community with clever marketing and promotions....

Improved visual fidelity is a desirable trait in video games. Video game developers are continually raising the bar for photorealism, bringing almost picture-perfect experiences. Realism relates to lighting effects, character models, environmental textures, and more. Needless to say, designing a photorealistic video game isn’t easy. In the first-person viewpoint, players put themselves in the shoes of a video game character or a customizable avatar. This point of view is associated with the view of the player’s character....

There’s something special about first-person shooters. Perhaps it is the idea of seeing everything through the character’s eyes that makes the player feel more engrossed in the world, or maybe it’s the rivers of blood that tend to go hand in hand with the genre. Regardless of the reason, it is clear the perspective is here to stay. Even as technology evolves, first-person shooters are adapting. The most recent trend in gaming, the battle royale, has a couple of entries that employ the first-person viewpoint with titles like Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 and Apex Legends....

The Playstation 4 is filled with a great catalog of games. While there are plenty of them that are short and sweet, the system is known for having plenty of big single-player campaign games. Notable examples of this are games like God Of War, Horizon: Zero Dawn, and Marvel’s Spider-Man. These games take days, if not weeks, to complete thanks to them being filled with content. But they are also far from the longest single-player campaigns of the PlayStation 4 era....

The follow-up title for Marvel’s Avengers is obviously far off. The game itself has only been out for a bit, and there’s a number of follow-up DLC that’s still set to release over the coming months. While everyone is most excited about the new heroes slated to join Marvel’s new gaming universe, it’s really the quality of the new villains that hold the game’s success and playability in the balance....

JRPGs are well known for their monstrous length and Persona 5 is no different. The vanilla version of the game offers around 100 hours of content while the Royal edition packs in another 30 or so more just for good measure. Given the huge time investment needed, ensuring that time is spent effectively is essential for those hoping to escape the labyrinth that is P5R with their sanity still intact....

With almost 900 Pokemon in existence (and well over that if all regional variants, Mega Evolutions, and alternate forms are included), there are bound to be some shinies that are just disappointing. Sure, there are outright bad shinies, like the infamous sickly green that many Pokemon adopt when shiny. But, less attention is given to the shinies that are just underwhelming. There are some Pokemon that are so cool ordinarily that they must have cool shinies, but they just kind of…exist....

It’s usually a toss-up between the Batman: Arkham series and Spider-Man PS4 over which is the better superhero effort in recent times. Spider-Man PS4 benefitted from a more laid back image, stemming from the open-world gameplay and the “happy” attitude of the main character. However, there are multiple problems with logic in this game. These haven’t aged all that well either, and those who take notice of these issues will agree they don’t add up....

Genshin Impact is one of the biggest games at the moment, with a shocking amount of newly added content, especially for a FTP game. But, as players get higher and higher Adventure Ranks, the amount of content starts to rapidly dwindle, and the flaws with the current Resin system become more and more clear (which is hopefully changing soon). That said, it’s not like there’s nothing to do once a player runs out of Resin for the day, especially considering there are multiple ways to refresh it....

Fable, the incredible original Xbox-exclusive RPG, has been around for almost two decades. The land of Albion offers players a beautifully realized fantasy world, but with that comes an almost intimidating amount of lore, characters, and secrets. Fable is not only a renowned game because of its seminal gameplay and storytelling (which is often underrated today), but also because it can be an overwhelming experience for first-time players. Due to that, many players want some idea as to what they are diving headfirst into....

The Castlevania anime started in 2017 and had a better than average run on Netflix. It is one of the most faithful adaptations of a video game to date from both the anime side of things as well as live-action content. The developers did a pretty good job at wrapping up each season’s plot along with dangling some nuggets for the future seasons. While that is also mostly true for this fourth and final season, it also felt like they were rushed....

North American CS:GO legend Spencer “Hiko” Martin has officially signed to 100 Thieves’ VALORANT roster, joining as the organization’s team captain. Known for his lurking, unrivaled aim skills and his crazy clutch pop offs, Hiko is a name that nearly every Counter Strike fan will know, his history in the game dating back to Counter-Strike 1.6. The thirty-year-old has made his rounds through the scene, playing for the likes of compLexity Gaming, Cloud9, iBUYPOWER, Team Liquid and most recently, Rouge....

The subject I like to write about most concerns this industry’s history. I just published an article about canceled games called 25 Console Games That Were Canceled For Crazy Reasons. It was a true passion project for me and I’m not just trying to draw attention to it for promotion’s sake. It also has ties to today’s topic. That’s because forgotten games, or overshadowed games, whatever you want to call them, come out on the very cusp of being canceled....

According to an announcement made by publisher Atlus, sales of real-time strategy adventure 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim have surpassed 400,000 units. This total represents a combination of both physical and digital sales. 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim released in Japan for the PlayStation 4 on November 28, 2019. It came to the rest of the world nearly a year later, on September 22, 2020. Atlus West’s localization team attributed the delay to difficulties caused by the COVID-19 pandemic....