In 2005, I played a lot of multiplayer games on my Xbox over LAN thanks to the ease of setup my college dorm provided. The games we played most were undoubtedly Halo 2 and the first two Battlefront games. Halo 2 really set the bar for how multiplayer systems should work, and Battlefront provided the epic scope that games like Battlefield would expand on. Very few experiences match up to the times when my friends and I would experience the chaos of a Star Wars battle, and it...
Halo 5: Guardians is what Xbox One owners have been waiting for. It houses a massive campaign that can be enjoyed alone or with a group (except not the players sitting next to you). It has a huge degree of replay-ability thanks to situation-based story content, varying difficulty levels, and collectibles. It has the largest multiplayer array in franchise history. It has the Master Chief. It has Nathan Fillion. It has inter-species love letters. Halo 5 is the powerhouse title...
We’ve all had the plastic instrument phase. That time in your life where you did nothing for days on end besides mash away on your plastic guitar listening to the same four or five songs on repeat. That one Guitar Hero or Rockband game will always be your favorite, and those four or five songs remain engraved in your mind forever, always coming back to you when you pick up that familiar plastic instrument once more. For most of us, playing Guitar Hero is like riding a...
When I was in grade school, I spent a large amount of time during our recess period drawing, due mostly to the winter weather keeping me from bounding out the door to the playground. While I’m not any sort of art savant, I was pretty good at drawing things young boys draw. Space ships. Dinosaurs. Sonic the Hedgehog levels. Yeah, I was a SEGA kid for the most part, and my love for Sonic has never wavered. I wasted plenty of paper learning to draw the characters and...
Review: 3D Realms Anthology – Part IV I saved the final part of this series for what may be the crown jewel of the 3D Realms legacy: Duke Nukem. Actually, I saved shooters in general for this part, including a few you may not have heard of thanks to Duke’s storied history, but even with those, Duke Nukem is still the king of shooters in this collection. I’ll start with the other shooter games, and save Duke for the end. It pays to be the king, baby.
Review: 3D Realms Anthology – Part III For our third part of the 3D Realms Anthology Review, I sat down to play a number of platform and puzzle games featured in the collection. Some of them resemble a few games from part II, while others seemed to be aimed at the younger crowd with educational elements. 3D Realms really targeted a wide variety of game types when they put together this collection. Each group of games I play seem to play right into the different styles I...
Review: 3D Realms Anthology – Part II: After all those SHUMPs in Part I of my review of the 3D Realms Anthology, a change of genre was definitely welcome. For Part II, I decided to check out a selection of side-scrollers and adventure games. The side-scrollers I chose feature shooting mechanics, similar to Metroid or Metal Slug, and the adventure games are reminiscent of Zelda. You have to give 3D Realms a lot of credit for trying out so many different genres when growing...
Review: 3D Realms Anthology – Part I: 3D Realms (or Apogee Software, LTD as it was known officially) is a company that needs little introduction. Anyone who played games on the PC in the 80s and 90s has most likely played a game from 3D Realms at some point, be it intentionally or by virtue of their friends. They were champions of the shareware style of game distribution, allowing users to try out their many titles for free (on a limited basis) before buying. Often...
Bullet Hell. A common accolade and complaint leveled at the Shoot ’em Up genre games (sometimes called SHUMPs by people with an affinity for acronyms). Plenty of games have paved the way in the years since the days of Spacewar! and Space Invaders. The game type usually has two pillars that every game that aspires to the genre must follow: the player must shoot as many enemy units as possible while avoiding sizable return fire or numerous obstacles. I’ve played...
Following up on last week’s PlayStation release, Yacht Club Games has also launched their side-scrolling platforming adventure Shovel Knight on the Xbox One. I had the opportunity to follow-up my review of the game by playing much of the Xbox One version, and I’m happy to say that the experience is nearly identical to the other versions, while also including platform-specific features such as Achievements. This release, much like PlayStation versions, features...
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