All posts tagged: Games Review

Forestrike review: it trained me to become an incredible pixelated fighter

Forestrike review: it trained me to become an incredible pixelated fighter

Published by Webster

It took me a long time to become even halfway decent at Forestrike. The martial arts action game, from Olija developer Skeleton Crew, has a unique twist in that it lets you see what will happen in most battles and then practice your strategy accordingly. It turns the act of combat into a type of puzzle game, but one that still requires fast reflexes and precision decision-making to be successful. And it has successfully turned me into a solid fighter — at least in the realm of a pixelated video game. You play as a martial arts student named Yu, who, despite being relatively green, is tasked with ridding his homeland of an evil empire. To do this, you mostly travel across the landscape beating up bad guys. Forestrike has a roguelite structure, meaning that each time you play the levels and scenarios change slightly, and also that you’re going to lose a lot. But that losing is also inherent to the premise: This is a game about constantly learning. Along the way you’re accompanied …

In Kirby Air Riders, expression is more fun than racing

In Kirby Air Riders, expression is more fun than racing

Published by Webster

Hear me out: Kirby Air Riders isn’t a racing game, it’s an art tool with a racing game tacked on. The game, out now for the Nintendo Switch 2, is the follow-up to the quirky Kirby-flavored kart racer released in 2003 on the GameCube. It features Smash Bros. creator Masahiro Sakurai’s round, pink, utterly charming child participating in short races where the main feature isn’t so much about how fast you go, but how well you can manage the winding courses while fighting the cutest rogues’ gallery ever committed to polygons. Unlike in other kart racers, Air Riders has no acceleration button. Instead you’re automatically propelled forward, requiring you to negotiate the track with the brake button that you can use to drift around corners. You can also use the brake to charge your kart (known as a “machine”) for an extra boost of speed at the expense of halting all forward momentum while you charge up. To add another interesting wrinkle, Air Riders is stuffed with different kinds of machines with different properties. Those …

Possessor(s) is a fast-paced action game that gets off to a slow start

Possessor(s) is a fast-paced action game that gets off to a slow start

Published by Webster

I remember being blown away by the 2024 reveal trailer for Possessor(s), the new game from Hyper Light Drifter developer Heart Machine. The trailer features a striking art design, where an animated 2D character explores and fights in side-scrolling environments with gorgeous 3D backgrounds, and it’s all set to moody, powerful music. The final game, which came out this month, wasn’t quite as awe-inspiring as that initial trailer made it seem, and I almost quit it — but I’m really glad I saw it to the end. In Possessor(s), you play as Luca, a girl who is possessed by Rehm, a demon from another realm. After a catastrophe strikes, Rehm saves Luca’s life by creating legs for her — but from then on, Luca serves as a host for Rhem, meaning they can talk to each other all the time and occasionally see into each other’s memories. The two have a contentious relationship. They bicker constantly, which sometimes made them difficult for me to care about. But over the course of the game, their relationship …

The Playdate is a great indie puzzle machine

The Playdate is a great indie puzzle machine

Published by Webster

We’re living in a wonderful period for puzzle games. Seemingly everyone, from The New York Times to Linkedin, has fun puzzles to play, so every morning I have plenty of options to accompany my first coffee of the day. Lately, though, much of my daily puzzle time has come from an unlikely source: the Playdate. Panic’s little yellow handheld is best known for being home to oddball indie games you can’t find anywhere else, many of which utilize a crank to play. But it has also amassed a library of excellent puzzle games that are playable in quick bursts. It makes it easy to stick a Playdate in your pocket and grab it when you need to kill a few minutes; this is particularly useful if you’re someone, like me, who is actively trying to avoid reaching for your phone in those moments. Here are a few of my recent favorites. Like the Playdate itself, Lexgrid feels like something from an alternate universe. It’s sort of like a word search crossed with a crossword puzzle. …

Last Defense Academy makes confusion part of the fun

Last Defense Academy makes confusion part of the fun

Published by Webster

The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy starts off by asking a simple question: what happens when you pluck a handful of colorful teenagers from their homes, plop them in a state-of-the-art school filled with every convenience, then force them to fight for their lives? Your guide as you navigate this question is an unsettling and creepy-cute mascot that knows more than it’s let on, and there’s an overarching mystery to the world that you can’t quite put your finger on. If you, like I, answered “Danganronpa!” — as this premise sounds very much like the plot of the quirky and irreverent murder-mystery series from Spike Chunsoft — then congratulations! We’re both totally wrong! And after 45 in-game days with LDA, I still have no idea what’s going on, and I love it. I’m going to be gentle with myself and you for thinking LDA is another entry in the genre of high school-themed killing games. After all, it was developed by Kazutaka Kodaka, creator and writer of the Danganronpa franchise, in collaboration with Kotaro Uchikoshi, …

Despelote is a picture-perfect portrait of childhood obsession

Despelote is a picture-perfect portrait of childhood obsession

Published by Webster

For a kid with an obsession, it’s impossible to think about anything else. When I was really into skateboarding, every piece of architecture was filled with a potential for tricks that I could never actually pull off. When I was on a quest to complete Super Mario Bros. 3 on my own, any piece of paper became a sketch of a new level. For eight-year-old Julián in the new game Despelote, that obsession is soccer, and it becomes the backdrop for a sweet, and short, slice-of-life drama about passion and memory. Despelote is set in Quito in 2001, just as Ecuador is on the verge of qualifying for the men’s World Cup for the first time in its history. The story follows Julián through the qualifying stages, as he goes about his life — or tries to, at least. There’s a lot going on at the time, as the country is still dealing with the effects of an economic crisis. Soccer becomes something of a relief valve, a hopeful story to follow during difficult times. …

Shotgun Cop Man is a weird-as-hell platformer about arresting Satan

Shotgun Cop Man is a weird-as-hell platformer about arresting Satan

Published by Webster

Shotgun Cop Man is a strange platformer. You play as a square man with a round, bald head who’s chasing Satan to arrest him. At the beginning of each of the game’s nine worlds, Satan gives you the middle finger. And you don’t just use guns for fighting, but for traversal as well. You start each world with two guns: a rapid-fire but weak pistol and a more powerful shotgun that only has three blasts. When you’re on the ground, your ammo constantly refills, meaning you essentially have infinite ammo. But when you’re in the air, if you run out of bullets, you won’t get a refill until you touch the ground. This all matters because there’s no jump button. That means you get into the air by shooting your guns: the pistol lets you hover, while the shotgun can rocket you upward to reach high platforms. You can aim in any direction, so the shotgun can blast you backward and forward, too — it’s a speedy and fun way to get around. It’s all …

Bionic Bay review: mixing floppy physics with hard sci-fi

Bionic Bay review: mixing floppy physics with hard sci-fi

Published by Webster

Wandering through Bionic Bay’s dark alien world is unsettling and awe-inspiring. There are massive structures with no clear purpose and autonomous factories filled with whirring saw blades and devastating lasers. It’s grim and unforgiving, with little light and harsh shadows that give everything a sinister tone. But then you step on a bomb and your character bounces off of walls like a pinball, and you realize it’s a game of contrasts. Bionic Bay is a curious blend of two very different genres. On the one hand, it’s an atmospheric side-scrolling adventure in the mold of Inside and Limbo, filled with disturbingly stunning environments to explore. At the same time, it’s a hard-as-nails platformer like Super Meat Boy, with elaborate physics that will have you dying repeatedly while trying to find the best route through deadly obstacles. Somehow, the disparate vibes come together surprisingly well. What first drew me to Bionic Bay was that dark world. It’s mysterious to the point that I still don’t actually know what it is you’re doing or why. But that …

In Haste, you gotta go fast

In Haste, you gotta go fast

Published by Webster

Haste: Broken Worlds takes the relaxing loop of sliding down and leaping off hills from iOS classic Tiny Wings and turns it into a thrilling, high-speed, and 3D roguelike. In Haste, you play as Zoe, a girl who typically delivers letters but has found herself mysteriously transported to the new worlds you run through. When I say run, I mean it: Zoe cannons through the game. Levels are filled with rolling hills, and your goal is to leap off the upslopes and land on the downslopes. The better your landings, the more you’ll increase your speed and build a boost meter that can be used for things like a burst forward or a grappling hook. Image: Landfall You’re incentivized to keep your speed up. The faster you complete a level, the higher grade you’ll get; higher grades give you better bonuses of things like “sparks,” which you can use to buy items. Throughout the vibrant, procedurally generated levels, you’ll also have to avoid obstacles like rocks, giant Sarlacc-like pits, and machines that shoot lasers and …

Blue Prince review: it will steal your time just like Balatro

Blue Prince review: it will steal your time just like Balatro

Published by Webster

I know, I know. It’s become a bit of a faux pas to describe one game using another and yet I am compelled. After a few hours with Blue Prince, I realized this game elicits the same feelings in me as Balatro. Not because it has anything to do with cards or passive-aggressive clowns named Jimbo, but because those hours I played passed as breezily by completely unnoticed as they did when I was knee deep in the poker roguelike. Blue Prince is a time-stealer and as with Balatro, you will be happy to be robbed. Blue Prince is an architectural puzzle mystery game from developer Dogubomb. In it you play as a young man who inherits his uncle’s magical mansion. On your first day at the house you receive a note laying out the rules by which you will earn your inheritance. This house has 45 rooms. Find the secret 46th room that’s not displayed on any of the mansion’s blueprints (get it, Blue Prince / blueprints) and the house is yours. To find …