Modern esports offer nothing comparable to Windjammers. There’s no rest in this digital pseudo-sport. It’s dressed in flashy neon colors with steroidal athletes impossibly slinging a disc toward one another, trying to sink said disc into a wide goal. Windjammers is a constant blast of intensity, demanding white-knuckle controller gripping and fists pumping in the… Continue reading Windjammers (PS4)
All of Gran Turismo Sport is about luxury. It’s also quite smug about it. There’s a nose-in-the-air huff to Sony’s driving sim. The opening video montage scans gold car parts with high-tech lasers. Soft piano keys strike in the background. Vintage 8 and 16mm racing clips intercut, celebrating automobile history, yes, but just those who… Continue reading Gran Turismo Sport (PS4)
Time travel is a central mechanism to Fractured but Whole. That’s appropriate. The UbiSoft production skims 20 years of South Park lore. From the surreal early seasons, filled with miniature pets and gay dogs, to the languishing of recent safe, centrist-leaning parody, including PC Principal. Maybe it’s the development timeline; Fractured but Whole is classic… Continue reading South Park: The Fractured but Whole (PS4)
Knack commandeers a tank partway through Knack 2. He steals it when rummaging through an important archaeological dig site. A tank is counter-intuitive to the importance of the dig, the explosive shells in particular. The little bundle of triangles blasts away from the driver’s seat, knocking over scaffolding, sheds, equipment, and more. Knack is a destructive… Continue reading Knack 2 (PS4)
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)
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)
Tia, a German Shepherd/Akita/Other mix, came to us by way of mail. No, not in a box. Our mail carrier found Tia walking loose in the neighborhood and brought her to our door. Once the door opened, Tia jumped on the living room couch and in that instance, she was ours. She didn’t enjoy containment.… Continue reading The Last Guardian (PS4)
To a certain extent. GalGun is harmless fluff. While the premise objectifies the female form to infinity and plants a guy in the middle of hyper-romanced schoolgirls, there’s no real harm being done as a stupid testosterone-driven fairy tale (with a $100 download for undressing options). So stupid, so heightened, so absurd, and so self-aware… Continue reading GalGun: Double Peace (Vita)
Clever puzzle/stealth effort, mixing the contained energy of Pac-Man with the stealthy electronics of Metal Solid: The VR Missions (minus Hideo Kojimas bloviating dialog). Better, it’s held within an attractively pure world, minimalist but still rich in corporate context and engaging British dialect. Arguably familiar, capturing a bit of Valve’s slicing humor from Portal, yet… Continue reading Volume (Vita)
Mafia III begins with a striking developer message, confirming the depiction of racism to come. Set in the 1960s deep south, Mafia III’s judicious use of epitaphs and slurs warrants the alert. In game, ambient conversation constructs an uneasy society, struck by communism’s grip, Vietnam, MLK & JFK’s assassination, and the “worrisome” influx of anyone… Continue reading Mafia III (PS4)
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