Why today feels like a quiet turning point for video games

Industry-changing shifts are easier to spot in hindsight, long after hundreds of little decisions steered video games into a new epoch. The parallel rise of downloadable content, post-launch patches, and in-app purchases happened over years. Today is different. A significant amount of change is happening all at once, and you can see it in real […]

Kentucky Route Zero Feels Like Home – For Better And Worse

Kentucky Route Zero is, unsurprisingly, a game about Kentucky. But it’s not a game that romanticizes the state or makes it something it’s not. If anything, it places Kentucky under a microscope, revealing its many socio-economic flaws. Debt, addiction, communities destroyed by corporate expansion, a healthcare system fundamentally designed to destroy the poor – all […]

Desperados 3 feels like a turn-based game built for speedrunners

Desperados 3 is the first game, in a year filled with attempts at shaking up the tactical formula, to truly find something new in a pile of old ideas. It successfully blends stealth puzzle mechanics with methodical, XCOM-style action. But it goes even further, slathering on excellent motion-captured animations, top-notch voice acting, and a map […]

Final Fantasy 7 Remake feels massive — and more importantly, fun

Playing the first two chapters of Final Fantasy 7 Remake, it becomes clear just how massive an undertaking Square Enix’s remake of the classic role-playing game will be. In addition to beautifully recreating Midgar and making the members of rebellion group Avalanche feel like real humans, the first two hours of Remake both stretch out […]