When I think of developer MachineGames, I think of dual-wielding shotguns in its Wolfenstein games, sprinting down tight corridors with guns blazing as the walls get a fresh coat of Nazi blood. After all, MachineGames’ entire portfolio up to this point has been built on the brazen revival of Wolfenstein–a …

Shadows of the Damned is a game where protagonist Garcia Hotspur’s gun is called the Boner, and he refers to vine-like blockades in the hell as “demon pubes.” It’s a game that confidently wears its video-game-y-ness on its purple leather studded sleeve, right next to Joy Division’s lyrics “Love Will …

When I first saw the Kunitsu-Gammi: Path of the Goddess’ reveal trailer last year, the gameplay made it seem like Capcom was returning to the hack-n-slash action of Onimusha. The style of the trailer was rooted in a fantastical and monstrous Sengoku Japan setting, and a masked hero, armed with …

14 years ago, Disney’s Epic Mickey was released exclusive to the Nintendo Wii, which is the only place it’s been playable since. It is, at the moment, shackled to the Wii–480p resolution, motion controls, and all. If you want to legally play the game today, you’d have to get your …

Grief is messy. It’s complicated. It’s noisy. Or, at least, that’s how Abubakar Salim described grief to me when we sat down to play Tales of Kenzera: ZAU, the debut game from his studio, Surgent Studios. On the surface, Tales of Kenzera: ZAU is a confident and vibrant 2.5D metroidvania, …

Developer Slow Bros. is not afraid of leaving its fingerprints all over its debut game, Harold Halibut. And I mean that literally: Every character, texture, piece of furniture, article of clothing, floorboard, button, door, and even the screws that hold everything together were physically crafted by the developers and then …

The first time I ventured out into the vast open land of Dragon’s Dogma 2, I was accompanied by my three companions as we followed a lead on a missing young boy, suspected to have been dragged off by a pack of wolves. As I pursued the trail, my crew …

If there’s anything Mortal Kombat has always been known for, it’s the crack, crunch, spurt, and gurgle of its graphic violence. But over the last decade, the franchise has become just as synonymous for its Hollywood-caliber cutscenes and epic storytelling, and that’s exactly what Mortal Kombat: Onslaught, NetherRealm Studios’ new …

Mortal Kombat has morphed and changed many times in its 30 years of existence. But through its various iterations–from 2D to 3D, with beat-em-up spin-offs and even a reboot in 2011–its identity has remained consistent with its two core tenets: scandalous and over-the-top violence, and dark, dire, and melodramatic storytelling. …

Mortal Kombat has morphed and changed many times in its 30 years of existence. But through its various iterations–from 2D to 3D, with beat-em-up spin-offs and even a reboot in 2011–its identity has remained consistent with its two core tenets: scandalous and over-the-top violence, and dark, dire, and melodramatic storytelling. …