NBA Playgrounds is not NBA Jam. It’s like NBA Jam insofar as Playgrounds offers a two-on-two, rules free (mostly) basketball romp. But it’s not NBA Jam, even if 968,000 Google results for “NBA Jam Playgrounds” plead otherwise. The 1993 NBA of NBA Jam is not the 2017 NBA. Midway’s basketball icon came into existence with… Continue reading NBA Playgrounds (Xbox One)
Videogames rarely engage with such grandiose cynicism. Robots in Nier Automata, post-human apocalypse, form emotions and feelings, as much as their circuits understand and process those concepts. Their society then fails. They separate into warring clans. Their attempts at peace falter. They repeat every human mistake. Nier Automata doesn’t like humanity. Its storyline and characters,… Continue reading Nier Automata (PS4)
This remake of Sega’s Wonder Boy III treats the game with more reverence than is likely deserved. In doing so, Wonder Boy turns into an aesthetic spectacle. Dragon’s Trap harnesses the pop-art of the charming, mischievous fantasy lost behind the original Master System’s synthetic neon color palette. With stellar animation, providing the agency of a… Continue reading Wonder Boy: The Dragon’s Trap (Xbox One)
A laid back update to the NES 8-bit original, Blaster Master Zero’s gentle pace and satisfying gun toting evokes the feeling of a grade school daydream. It’s sensational in its absurdity, sending a small child into a futuristic world of limited logic and barely credible monsters, all to rescue his pet frog. Of course this… Continue reading Blaster Master Zero (3DS)
Bolivia’s population exceeds 10 million people. In Ghost Recon: Wildlands, most of those 10 million deal cocaine. Ghost Recon doesn’t have time to develop characters, or it simply doesn’t care. The four American soldiers dropping into Bolivia to deal with the illicit drug trade serve as blank canvases, optionally painted with stars and stripes during… Continue reading Ghost Recon: Wildlands (PS4)
Days after Moonlight – a film about the internal struggles of a young gay black teen living in poverty-riddled Miami – won the Oscar for Best Picture, the videogame industry countered with Horizon Zero Dawn. It’s a game about killing robot dinosaurs, and takes itself seriously. The comparison isn’t fair. Hollywood recently gave us eight… Continue reading Horizon Zero Dawn (PS4)
Clever. Adorable. Passive. Ambient. So many adjectives fit this delightful little gem. Hidden Folks isn’t more than a miniature handheld plaything, like a stress cube on a touch screen. Yet, the special outpouring of personality within the design acts as a signature – the Amsterdam-based dev team playfully speaks through their work. There’s nothing to… Continue reading Hidden Folks (iOS)
