Crash Team Racing: Nitro-Fueled has finally arrived, taking off with some real steam (nitro?) after being praised for its high skill ceiling and faithful track design/visuals. All of your favorite courses are here from both the original Crash Team Racing from the PS1 and Crash Nitro Kart on the PS2. Out of the huge variety of courses in the game, it can be pretty tough to narrow down a list of ten favorites....
Every new console generation comes with a new wave of gear to amplify your gameplay experience. That’s especially true for headphones, which seem to be getting better and better as time goes by. But what makes any one type better than another? Since there are so many brands out there, each with their own designs and capabilities, it’s important to figure out what you want first. Some of the factors you should consider are whether you care about comfort or style, and performance or battery life....
Japanese RPGs host some of the greatest soundtracks in gaming history. Nobuo Uematsu’s familiar scores in Final Fantasy set the highest standard possible for video game music. However, he is one of many names that has contributed to a legacy of quality music in gaming. To include Japanese RPGs, as well as titles heavily inspired by them, these games hold some of the best music in gaming history. Some of their legacies have been preserved through remixes in other games....
The 1990s was a period of time that offered all kinds of memorable entertainment; video games were certainly no exception. Nevertheless, many breathtaking video games from the ’90s — which have not been forgotten by die-hard fans — bode in the shadows of irrelevance, although they could be rebooted to the delight of all gamers. The following ’90s games span several genres, but they should all be points of nostalgia for veteran gamers and intrigued younger ones....
The Nintendo Switch couldn’t have asked for a better launch title than Breath of the Wild. Revitalizing The Legend of Zelda and Nintendo alike, BotW was arguably everything a video game should be, prioritizing player freedom above all else. As deserving of its title as masterpiece as the game is, however, Breath of the Wild’s characterization didn’t quite live up to the Zelda franchise’s reputation. Aside from Link and Zelda themselves, the Champions were more caricatures than nuanced characters....
Nintendo is a video game company that has dozens of impressive and popular franchises that are exclusive to their consoles, chief among them being the Super Mario series. It’s been incredible to watch the games evolve over time, yet how the core mechanics have largely remained unchanged. A constant of the series is Princess Peach, an important figure in Mario’s life who he’s often trying to rescue, but she’s slowly transformed into a strong video game heroine in her own right....
FromSoftware Games is a video game studio well known for creating some of the most challenging video games in history. These games have gotten so popular that they’ve even spawned their own subgenre, aptly titled Souls-like games. However, it is undeniable that at the top of this pyramid are the games created by FromSoftware themselves. These games are revered for their incredible world and unrelenting challenge. Outside of the areas the players must go through to complete the game, there are also a couple of optional areas that expand upon the game’s lore, areas that are arguably one of the most challenging levels of the game....
The Atari 2600 is considered a second generation console, being among the first wave of hardware to utilize cartridges. Of its peers, the console is by far the most successful and has the largest library. Some are probably too young to have played the Atari 2600 in its heyday, but those who did fondly remember the days they spent playing the likes of Kaboom, Pitfall, Space Invaders, and many more. To celebrate Atari’s revolutionary gaming system, the following ten memes will make one either long for childhood, or make them feel bad they were born in a later generation....
2001 was an incredible year for gaming. Just saying “2001” brings up images of timeless classics like Metal Gear Solid 2: The Sons of Liberty, Silent Hill 2, and Grand Theft Auto 3. However, you should not forget Nintendo. This was a big year for the company. Both the Nintendo GameCube and Game Boy Advance launched during this magical year, and with them came a plethora of titles published by the company....
The Fallout series has had many memorable factions throughout each of the games. Some factions might be known for their outfits while other factions are known for their characters. Major factions such as the Brotherhood of Steel can be found in multiple games in the series, while some factions such as the Gunners are only found in one game. Most of the characters in the Fallout series have a connection to the factions in the series, whether negative or positive....
Persona 5 Strikers memes are popping up everywhere now the game has finally released worldwide, after being available in Japan for a year. There has been plenty of time for some great content to be made. A huge wave of hilarious and highly relatable Persona 5 Strikers memes surrounding Joker and the Phantom Thieves can be found all over the internet. The Persona fandom is at it again, creating some of the funniest content out there....
The Elder Scrolls VI is likely still years away at this point but that hasn’t stopped fans from getting excited about what the game could be. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim was a mega-hit and took the already popular franchise and planted it in the headspace of the general consumer. That game was sold on dozens of platforms because it wouldn’t stop selling. It wasn’t perfect and had plenty of issues fans made rather apparent....
He’s got a camera and he knows how to use it, Frank West is Dead Rising’s unlikely hero. When Capcom’s zombie-themed franchise debuted in 2006, Frank quickly struck a chord with players as he was quite unlike most protagonists from Japanese publishers, a result of Dead Rising aiming to appeal to a Western market. Since then, Frank has become something of a minor icon in the gaming industry, but what is there to know about the character besides the fact that he can turn anything into a deadly weapon?...
Remedy Entertainment has been around for almost twenty-five years, holding with it a rich history. From 1996’s Death Rally to 2019’s Control, the developer has proven itself as one of the best studios around. A company does not simply emerge with such a reputation without decades of hard work and interesting stories, however. For a company that prides itself on immaculate storytelling, it may be surprising to see the stories behind the games be just as interesting....
The sport of mixed martial arts can be as entertaining as it is difficult to fully understand when one is watching for the very first time. As the name suggests, it incorporates various forms of combat styles from boxing, Karate, kickboxing, wrestling, Jiu-Jitsu, and more. Just like the real thing, EA’s UFC 4 is a game that can instantly be entertaining but very difficult to master. There are a lot of mechanics involved when it comes to learning the game’s systems, and EA has done an admirable job of capturing the tactical feel of the sport and putting it into video game form....
Papers, Please is a 2013 hit that included mechanics such as choices that matter, time management, and organization tactics. It’s an addictive game, but with all the years that have passed, fans may have been craving the next big thing to give the same satisfaction. While Lucas Pope created another unique gem in 2018’s Return Of The Obra Dinn, it’s a different type of playstyle compared to Papers, Please. Sifting through papers and organizing a desk may be frightening to those with office jobs....
While films based on Hasbro toys exist to push merchandising to a wider audience, they are not immune to the obligatory movie tie-in treatment either. Both G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra and the entire Transformers film trilogy received release-date-focused video games that were better off not existing. Can veteran movie-tie-in developer Double Helix Games overcome this stigma in their attempt at delivering a modern spin on the Battleship series, with a game that doubles as a shooter and a naval strategy game?...
Though they haven’t been in the business all that long developer Nihilistic Software has become known for taking popular console franchises and bringing them into the handheld market. Unfortunately, their first Vita title, Resistance: Burning Skies, was a poorly received, watered down version of Insomniac Games’ popular, Sony-exclusive franchise. Despite less-than-favorable reviews, though, Nihilistic was given the task of taking Activision’s Call of Duty franchise, and bringing it too to the PlayStation Vita....
There’s a very good chance when you start Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel, you’ll have no idea what’s going on. The introduction to the third Borderland’s characters and story is as confusing and all-over-the-place as the game itself unless you’re a diehard fan of the lore and characters of the series. If you are though, The Pre-Sequel might be worth a look. By its title, platforms, relative quick release date after Borderlands 2, the inclusion of the franchise’s most likable and crazy robot Claptrap as a playable character, a low gravity moon setting and the fact that Gearbox Software didn’t make this one, it’d be fair to be skeptical of Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel....
The words “new” and “different” in the video game industry have become the equivalent of the words “tasty” and “fresh” in fast food advertising; they’re used so often that they’ve lost much of their original meaning, and it’s becoming hard not to automatically respond to them with skepticism. Upcoming games in the Call of Duty franchise get faced with this kind of skepticism more often than most, thanks to the series having earned a reputation for not changing much between each annual release....
