Frank Wood
This author account hasn't been claimed yet. To claim this account, please contact the outlet owner to request access.
Writing For
MonsterVine 
KeenGamer Latest Reviews
A tumbleweed dances across a dusty desert, but this isn’t anywhere like we have here and now, because this one is covered in bandits, dinosaurs, mercenaries, monsters, and reasonably sized robots! The world ended once, one more time, and you are here to be a force of good among the remnants of civilization fighting back against a hard environment as well as the forces of evil humans. Thankfully, they aren’t the only ones with a robot.
Borderlands 4 is exactly what you’d expect, and that’s mostly a good thing. It’s loud, crude, and absolutely overflowing with guns, loot, and over-the-top explosions. Gearbox has doubled down on what makes the series click while fine-tuning the gunplay and adding a greater sense of freedom through its expanded movement system. It’s not perfect; some questionable UI changes and technical hiccups keep it from true greatness, but when the bullets start flying, Borderlands 4 is the most f...
Super Robot Wars Y is a celebration of the history of giant robots, bringing countless mecha and pilots together across time to fight back against a galactic force of enemies in tactical RPG grid-based combat. The battle animations are bombastic and eye-catching, but is the gameplay enough to make you not just look up cutscenes and let that be it?
Daemon X Machina Titanic Scion shakes off the comparisons to Armored Core by boldly reinventing itself. Instead of chasing bigger mechs, the sequel embraces smaller, faster Arsenals and drops them into an expansive open world packed with enemies, secrets, and massive boss encounters. Whether you’re tinkering with builds in the garage, teaming up with friends online, or testing your latest creation against towering foes, Titanic Scion finally feels like the series finding its own identity.
Killing Floor 3 is fun, frenetic, and a bloody good time. This series has come a long way since its initial entry, and Killing Floor 3 is a very strong entry that innovates on the core loop while delivering all of the gorey, zombie dismembering horde shooting you could want. It feels great to play, but it almost feels like the amount of content it brings to the table is a little bare for a full release.
Killing Floor 3 is fun, frenetic, and a bloody good time. This series has come a long way since its initial entry, and Killing Floor 3 is a very strong entry that innovates on the core loop while delivering all of the gorey, zombie dismembering horde shooting you could want. It feels great to play, but it almost feels like the amount of content it brings to the table is a little bare for a full release.
Dune Awakening is an ambitious survival crafting sandbox set on one of the most famously oppressive places in science fiction, the planet Arrakis, also known as Dune from Frank Herbert’s series of the same name that started in 1965 and spans 6 huge books in the original Dune series. Developer Funcom has games like Conan Exiles under its belt, but is Dune Awakening unique enough to stand out in a genre that is growing more saturated by the day? Short answer: This one is one of the best games...
After Rune Factory 5, which was a bit of a rough transition for the series as it made the jump to 3D, I was a little unsure if they would be able to stick the landing on the second attempt. I am happy to report that Rune Factory: Guardians of Azuma might be my favorite entry in this long-standing series yet, bringing a fresh new aesthetic, gameplay innovations, and a far better-performing game on PC.
SaGa Frontier 2 tells an ambitious, generational story that involves two major familial lines over the years and the way a mysterious object intertwines these stories. Originally a little bit of a messier experience, SaGa Frontier 2 Remastered smoothes out some of the rougher edges and adds some greatly appreciated quality of life aspects while also slapping a nice coat of paint on its beautiful watercolor art.
Combat has that serotonin feeding gameplay that I’ve always loved, but with a little bit less going on behind the scenes. Romancing SaGa 2 does a fantastic job of communicating to the player how these systems work and what you can do to influence them. They have added the timeline battle gauge that has been seen in newer SaGa entries so you can further strategize against enemies while you find the perfect party composition with the perfect formation so you can have the most lethal party possible. The feeling of learning a new, powerful skill during a hard battle is something that attracted me to the SaGa series long ago, and this time it is even more detailed than before. You can see if there are still more attacks to learn, which is very helpful when it comes to deciding what skills to keep on your characters and which ones to seal.