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Review – Mega Man X
Even if it has been mentioned before, it bears repeating: I love Mega Man. I hold the NES titles in such high regard that I view them as a benchmark for similar titles on the console. In terms of challenge, control, and length, I feel it’s those games were the absolute sweet spot. They’re not perfect, but I think they’re…
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Review – Doom (2016)
I reacquainted myself with Doom back in high school after I discovered the wonders of the zDoom platform. I remember, at the time, telling a friend of mine that I’d rather play Doom than a modern shooter like Halo, which was relatively new at the time. He scoffed, either chalking it up to hyperbole or nostalgia. Years later, and I…
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Review – Coffee Crisis
The beat-’em-up genre is one of the simplest formulas in gaming. During the early 90’s, following the release of Final Fight in the arcades, the genre exploded and found itself host to all manner of licensed tie ins. If you had a super-hero, action movie, or mascot that you needed to cram into an interactive format, the conveyor-belt beat-’em-up was…
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Review – Never Stop Sneakin’
I have a pretty severe distaste for Metal Gear Solid, but I will readily admit that it is stylish, which is probably a big factor in its lasting popularity. It copied its MSX predecessors’ palette of cool blues and greys, giving it a cold and sterile appearance, then bloated it out into full 3D. It really owned its blocky, pixelated…
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Review – Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders
The follow-up to Maniac Mansion drops the horror/sci-fi pretense to attempt full comedy. It features a tabloid writer looking for an escape from his job. Or something. Honestly, Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders could do with a head shake. But it is a SCUMM adventure game, so it's not all bad.
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Review – Maniac Mansion
Whenever I explore a new facet of video games, I have a tendency to go in hard. If there’s some revered series or sub-genre that I’ve yet to touch, I’ll dive right in from the beginning and blow through as many titles as possible before my endurance is expended. So of course I had a point-and-click adventure phase, what (formerly)…
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Review – Army Men II (PC)
1999 was probably the best year for the Army Men series before it was buried under a deluge of hastily developed titles. Army Men II was among the games released that year, and while I wasn't hot on the first title, Army Men II makes some substantial improvements.
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Review – Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater HD
I’ve got a history with the Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater series. In my pre-adolescent days, I had the delusion that skateboarding was exactly as high-flying and exciting as it was depicted in those early Playstation titles. I still have the resulting friction burn scar on my elbow. My last encounter with the series was Tony Hawk’s Underground 2, which was where…
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Review – Fallout 2
I admit it, I’m part of the unwashed filth that was first introduced to the Fallout series with Fallout 3, but since I first dug into that game, it had been my intention to visit the games that had initially spawned the franchise. Fallout 1 frustrated me by placing my character in borderline unwinnable scenarios. In Fallout 2, I couldn’t…
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Review – Wonderboy: The Dragon’s Trap (Remake)
There are a lot of very good reasons why the Sega Master System isn’t as well known as the NES — its comparatively small library of games, its atrocious standards for cover-art, the belief that basically every game was as ugly as a fermenting banana and controlled like trash, the fact that its controllers were maddeningly uncomfortable and the pause…
