There are a lot of things that I want to appreciate about Sword Art Online: Hollow Realization. I want to appreciate the marriage of RPG action and visual novel storytelling. I want to appreciate the way it candidly addresses the past trauma its characters have been through. I want to appreciate its devotion to imitating…

As a survival shooter with only two modes, Killing Floor 2 is naturally short on gameplay variety. Yet what it delivers, it does well–namely, uncomplicated, arcade-style zombie shootouts. Staying alive is simply a matter of fending off the undead using whatever weapons you have on hand while effectively managing the space around you. And while…

The first few levels of Super Mario Run will make any Mario fan feel right at home, with the series’ polished aesthetic, and Mario’s characteristic agility, present and accounted for. Gaming’s foremost plumber has even picked up a few new tricks that, ironically, make him seem more acrobatic despite Super Mario Run’s simpler-than-usual controls. The…

There’s nothing quite like the thrill of a daring escape. You’ve exhausted your options, had your epiphanies, and applied your knowledge under the extreme pressure of imminent death. It’s only in the aftermath, as your heart rate slows, that you realize how close you were to failure. But you succeeded anyway. I Expect You to…

Pokemon Sun and Moon, the latest iteration in the 20-year-old monster-battling franchise, provides some of the biggest and most welcome changes to the series yet. While the story is disappointing, the core catch-’em-all gameplay shows how the simple concept of “capture Pokemon, level up Pokemon, and beat the crap out of other people’s Pokemon” has…

I have to hand it to Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2 for tapping into the latent dreams of people who spent their teenage years drawing Goku on their notebooks. A lot of games offer the ability to create an original character and take part in an established fictional universe, but most of them don’t allow you…

Dragon Quest Builders serves as the jumping-off point for a new tale in a new period using an old setting–the storied land of Alefgard from the first Dragon Quest. It’s an alternate reality that begins where the original game ends, but with a twist: the hero from the first game didn’t defeat the Dragonlord. No…

Eagle Flight is a first-person VR shooter set in a dilapidated version of Paris where you pilot an eagle using your head. If that isn’t quirky enough for you, it’s also a multiplayer-centric game where you shoot other eagles with supersonic screeches. I’m susceptible to virtual reality motion sickness and can gladly say that I…

Since the shift to current-generation consoles, 2K’s WWE series has steered away from the arcade-style formula of its extensive lineage. It’s clear that developers Yuke’s and Visual Concepts want to forge their own unique path to a simulation style of wrestling video game, iterating further and further in this direction with each passing installment. Much…

If Suda 51 represents one of a scant few auteur game designers, The Silver Case, finally released on Western shores in this remastered form, is basically his student film, a statement of intent and trajectory rather than its own cohesive masterwork. As such, The Silver Case has a few of the elements that fans have…