Reviews

The Talos Principle 2 Review - Machine Learning

Video games often deal with the end of the world and thinking about how cool it might be. Like, sure, it sucks that most everyone has to die horribly for the end of the world to take place, but those of us who survive might get to shoot evil marauders or rotting mutants or giant bugs. Or maybe there are evil marauders, rotting mutants, and giant bugs who are trying to bring about the end of the world, and you can shoot them to prevent it. In any event, the idea of finding fun settings that let y

Lords Of The Fallen Review - Dark Slog

There are a lot of elements that might be said to define Souls-like games, but high on the list has to be the genre’s particular approach to pacing. As a group of action-RPGs, they’re defined first by periods of growing, ratcheting tension. You fight through long areas filled with tough enemies, with each one dropping "souls" that you can spend to level up your character, which you risk losing if you die before you reach a safe place where you're able to spend them.

Following the build of tensi

Thymesia Review - Hunter Homage

A lot of games have drawn inspiration from the works of From Software, with varying degrees of success. While many developers look to emulate that high degree of challenge that comes from the likes of Dark Souls, Bloodborne, and Sekiro, they often miss the fact that it's From's thoughtful, tight gameplay and deliberate encounter design that makes these games fun, not just a punishing difficulty. Thymesia, a 3D action game that draws heavy influence from some specific From titles, manages to stri

Rollerdrome Review: Skate Or Die

When I was losing hours to Roll7's latest side-scrolling skateboard platformer, OlliOlli World, I never said to myself, "I wonder what this would be like if my skater had a gun." Roll7 obviously did, though, and the result is Rollerdrome. Though it makes departures from the skating games that Roll7 is known for, Rollerdrome nails what's most important about them: it's an easy game to play that makes you feel awesome while you're playing it.

Rollerdrome is similar to Roll7's other titles in that

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Destiny 2 Starcat Guide - Where To Find Each Collectible In Season Of The Wish

The Season of the Wish takes Destiny 2 players back to the Dreaming City for the first time since before the launch of The Witch Queen and resurrects some major elements from way back in the Forsaken expansion. One of those things is the quest to find cosmic kitties hiding within the Dreaming City. It seems that each week during the Season of the Wish, new Starcats will appear within the city, requiring you to track them down to unlock Triumphs and earn some specific rewards.

Locating all the S

Actually, The Legend Of Zelda Movie Shouldn't Include Link At All

As soon as the news of a movie adaptation of The Legend of Zelda broke, there was one question that swept the discourse: Should series protagonist Link speak? A lot of people are very passionate about the possibility of the movie putting a voice in the head of the perennially near-silent protagonist, with many claiming that he should not, in fact, say anything.

And one can't help but think of the "Well excuuuuse me, Princess!" cartoon adaptation from 1989 that filled the Link void with "attitud

Alan Wake 2 Is About The Pain Of Realizing You Might Not Be Good Enough

Captivating as Alan Wake 2 often is, it can occasionally get a bit ... cringey. But not in the wild, over-the-top moments where cheese and kitsch meet murderous intent (you know the scene I mean); Alan Wake 2's funny, weird moments channel the best of stories such as Twin Peaks, leveraging an absurdity and surrealism that actually makes the story more human. It's when Alan Wake 2 takes itself seriously that it starts to become a little hard to stomach.

Remedy Uses Alan Wake 2 To Let Us Know It Still Cares About Quantum Break

Warning: This article contains some vague spoilers for Alan Wake 2, but you might consider them spoilers nonetheless. There are also a bunch of spoilers for Quantum Break.

I admit to being a Quantum Break Enjoyer, despite Remedy's time travel-slash-TV show action game receiving a mixed reaction from just about everyone else on its release (GameSpot awarded it a 6 at the time). Flawed though it might be, Quantum Break still delivers on the things I like about Remedy in general. It's a game with

The Talos Principle 2 Ending Guide

Though The Talos Principle 2 is an excellent puzzle game, it also has a pretty extensive and branching story. As you explore its world, you'll have plenty of opportunities to interact with other characters, offer them your opinions, and even post on social media. The whole game concerns some philosophical debates about the future of humanity and its place in the world, and your conversation choices about those debates will shape parts of the narrative as you advance.

There are three main ending

Bungie Reveals Destiny 2 Season Of The Wish, Forsaken's "15th Wish" Five Years After It Was First Teased

Destiny 2's next season is the Season of the Wish, and it'll concern one of the weirdest elements of the game's lore: the powerful wish-granting dragons called ahamkara.

Bungie officially announced the season's name on Twitter after players completed a new puzzle in the Imbaru Engine, one of the activities that are part of the current Season of the Witch. The new season kicks off on November 28.

Completing the final puzzle unlocks a cutscene that hints at where the story is going, and it's act

In Alan Wake 2, Remedy Refreshes The Multiverse Idea By Making It A Villain

Remedy's approach to the multiverse manages to stand apart from that of other media, because for Remedy, the multiverse isn't just a way to cash in on well-liked characters or to draw fanbases together. In the RCU, the multiverse is an oppressive force that now looms over all these stories. It spawns dark forces and corrupts and twists people, or pulls them out of their lives and traps them in nightmarish new realities. For Remedy, the multiverse isn't a setting or a gimmick--it's a villain.

The Talos Principle 2 Sphinx Statue Guide - All Sphinx Puzzles And Stars

The Talos Principle 2 has its fair share of secrets, and chief among them are the special extra puzzles hiding in each of the game's 12 main areas. Snoop around a big and you'll find large statues, or monuments, to each of the game's three spectral characters: Pandora, Prometheus, or the Sphinx. Figuring out how to solve these riddles rewards you with stars, which are essential to unlocking some of the game's most interesting secrets.

The Sphinx's puzzles aren't quite as tough as those tied to

The Talos Principle 2 Pandora Statue Guide - All Pandora Puzzles And Stars

There are a whole lot of puzzles in The Talos Principle 2, and some of them aren't obvious. Hidden in each of the game's 12 main areas are two statues that carry puzzles of their own, each depicting either Pandora, Prometheus, or the Sphinx. Solving these side puzzles unlock additional secrets in the game, but they can be tough to master--some are among the most difficult The Talos Principle 2 has to offer.

Of all the secret puzzles, the Pandora statues tend to be the most vexing. They require

The Talos Principle 2 Review - Machine Learning

Video games often deal with the end of the world and thinking about how cool it might be. Like, sure, it sucks that most everyone has to die horribly for the end of the world to take place, but those of us who survive might get to shoot evil marauders or rotting mutants or giant bugs. Or maybe there are evil marauders, rotting mutants, and giant bugs who are trying to bring about the end of the world, and you can shoot them to prevent it. In any event, the idea of finding fun settings that let y

Bungie Touts "Bigger" Vision For Destiny 2's Final Shape, But Doesn't Confirm Delay

In the wake of layoffs that reportedly affected 8% of its workforce, Destiny 2 developer Bungie intends to bring changes to the game's upcoming content, including its next expansion, The Final Shape. However, Bungie did not confirm reports that The Final Shape is being delayed to June from its previously announced February launch date.

In a blog post on its website, Bungie said that it intends to make changes to The Final Shape based on recent player feedback.

"In the weeks ahead, you'll be he

Alan Wake 2 Ending Explained - Everything You Need To Know And Where Things Might Go From Here

Alan Wake 2 presents a twisting story, one that's both a nebulous mystery and actively altered by the otherworldly power of the supernatural Dark Place and the writings of Alan Wake himself. Especially in the final moments, things can get a bit confusing, as Saga Anderson's and Alan's tales intersect and the two execute a plan to stop the villainous Mr. Scratch.

Here's what happened in the ending, what it implies about the future, and everything you might have missed in the disjointed plot of A

10 Outlandish Lies Of P 2 Sequel Ideas That You Wouldn't Expect But, Admit It, They're Great

In hindsight, it's so obvious. Ebenezer Scrooge is assaulted by ghosts for his past sins and hauled away to the spirit world to account for them. Put a Threaded Cane in that guy's hand and the Souls-like basically makes itself. Imagine searching the world for the ghosts of Christmas past, present, and future in order to murder them. Imagine a horrific and huge Tiny Tim waiting for a boss fight at Bob Cratchit's house, mutated by the vicious disease that afflicts him as he succumbs to a fate he c

Destiny 2 Horror Story God Roll - The Best Perks For PvE And PvP

The yearly Halloween event, the Festival of the Lost, is back in Destiny 2, and with it comes a slate of guns you can only earn during the event. This year's Festival sees the return of an old Halloween favorite called Horror Story, but the auto rifle has gotten a serious refresh in 2023 that can make it great for new Stasis loadouts.

There are a lot of possible combinations for Horror Story, but it works best when you can take advantage of some of its great new perks and put it to work in a sy

Skull Island: Rise of Kong Review

Here's the thing about King Kong: He is not just an ape, he's a giant ape. It's his defining feature in the 1933 movie that birthed him and the ultimate cause of his tragic demise. Picking up people, climbing skyscrapers, fighting dinosaurs — being huge is King Kong's whole deal. Skull Island: Rise of Kong is bad for a lot of reasons, but the main one is it's a game that lets you play as an iconically large gorilla and somehow manages to make him feel exceedingly average. Rise of Kong portrays King Kong in the most bland way possible, and then it matches that mediocrity for everything else around him.

Lords Of The Fallen Review - Dark Slog

There are a lot of elements that might be said to define Souls-like games, but high on the list has to be the genre’s particular approach to pacing. As a group of action-RPGs, they’re defined first by periods of growing, ratcheting tension. You fight through long areas filled with tough enemies, with each one dropping "souls" that you can spend to level up your character, which you risk losing if you die before you reach a safe place where you're able to spend them.

Following the build of tensi

Destiny 2's Best Character Has Taken Center Stage Once Again

Since the conclusion of the campaign of Destiny 2's 2022 expansion, The Witch Queen, it's been obvious that we haven't seen the last of Savathun, the Hive God of Cunning. The villain's messages and machinations have been left around The Witch Queen's signature location, the Throne World, and while players brought down Savathun at the end of the expansion, she's still been a looming presence, capable of returning at any time.

With the Season of the Witch, Destiny 2 finally brought Savathun back

Destiny 2 Still Has A Major Story Clarity Problem In Season Of The Witch

Warning: Spoilers for the conclusion of the Season of the Witch's story to follow.

The conclusion of the latest Destiny 2 story arc, Season of the Witch, had some pretty high stakes going in.

After channeling Hive magic for weeks, Eris Morn resisted succumbing to temptation and permanently becoming the Hive God of Vengeance. Instead, Eris severed the immortality of Xivu Arath, the Hive God of War, and stopped herself from becoming humanity's new worst enemy, despite prophecies of that dark fut

Destiny 2 Is About To Make It A Little Easier To Get The Exotic Armor You Want

Bungie is rolling out a series of mid-season tweaks to Destiny 2 on October 17, and among them is an adjustment to the costs for Exotic armor focusing that should make it easier for players to enhance their character builds.

The details were released in Bungie's latest This Week in Destiny blog post, where it outlined some slight adjustments to some specific Exotic armor pieces and weapon archetypes as well. The adjustments to Exotic focusing make the entire endeavor a little bit cheaper, lower

Destiny 2 May Have Just Given A Hint About What's After The Final Shape

Destiny 2's upcoming expansion, The Final Shape, marks a watershed moment for the game. It'll bring to an end the game's current, long-running story, the "Light and Darkness Saga," a story Bungie has been telling since the release of the original Destiny back in 2014. But the end of the saga isn't the end of Destiny 2, and with the conclusion of the story in Destiny 2's current season, the Season of the Witch, we might have gotten a substantial hint of what we can expect in 2024.

Though the Sea

Trials Of Osiris Rewards This Week In Destiny 2 (September 23-27)

It's an exciting time to dive into Trials of Osiris in Destiny 2, thanks in part to the fast-paced and highly competitive PvP mode feeling even more energetic with the arrival of Arc 3.0. The high-level event is back this weekend, and with new weapons such as the shotgun The Inquisitor and combat bow Whistler's Whim, there are some great prizes up for grabs if you feel like gathering your fireteam for a flawless run.

Here's where you'll play Trials of Osiris this weekend and what weapons you ca
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