Jordan Helm
This author account hasn't been claimed yet. To claim this account, please contact the outlet owner to request access.
Writing For
Hardcore Gamer Latest Reviews
In all one's years of investing in open-world RPGs, I've come to the willing conclusion that there exists two camps of people who end up enjoying said formula. People that enjoy them for what the game shows them -- world structure, quest design, emergent mechanics -- and people that enjoy...
While the most obvious answer to the question of disclosing the expected playtime of a game is to offer a heads-up on how long it may take to see the end credits, there's a part of me that believes (or maybe wants to believe) there's another possibility. Perhaps it's some...
While notable absentees and a glaring lack of 21st century representation are hard to miss, Digital Eclipse's third entry in the Gold Master Series with Tetris Forever still stands as a welcome, at times eye-opening, look-back on the legacy of one of gaming's greatest IPs. A staunch reminder as to...
Bloomtown: A Different Story is a textbook case of a promising start brimming with such wow factor, inevitably undone as soon as you get past the introductory phase. An introductory phase that does a great job at not just setting up the world and its stakes, but making you voluntarily...
Mechanically-engaging and technically impressive when it wants to be, CYGNI: All Guns Blazing goes all in on spectacle with mixed results. Where its core energy-management system is an anxious-but-delightful thing to manage, it's most of what surrounds the gameplay that KeelWorks sadly don't fair as well on. Putting its immediate...
Ticking all the right boxes to keep one engaged, yet doing little else to stand out even in the confines of its own series, Cat Quest III provides a competent, at times charmingly so, quest for better loot and better opportunities to use it all on. How well you fair...
An easy-to-grasp premise coupled with a campaign with an abundance of clever twists and turns, Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess stands as one of Capcom's most interesting ventures into smaller-scale experiences yet. A game that doesn't shy away from its smaller stature, yet never feels like it's sacrificing the quality...
Nihon Falcom needn't have gone about overhauling things as radically as they have. But with a newfound energy and purpose to its real-time/turn-based hybrid of a premise, as well as a bountiful amount of new and returning mechanics to experiment with, Trails Through Daybreak is nothing less than another fantastic...
Even with its slightly unintuitive interface and occasionally-tedious boss encounters, V Rising does what so many survival-sandbox and loot-based RPGs alike get horribly wrong from the word go: having the base gameplay start from a point of enjoyment. While the task to build one's self up and survive the ongoing...
While its lacking narrative and world-building comes off a missed opportunity that, despite momentary hints, never properly materializes, Hauntii and Moonloop Games' admiration and understanding of collectathon-styled adventures is what keeps this latest journey through the afterlife feeling anything but lifeless. The two-tone aesthetic and use of light-and-dark contrast, specifically...
It would be an immense understatement to say Simogo have made the five-year wait for their follow-up release worth it. Lorelei and the Laser Eyes defies not just genre conventions, but that of tone, aesthetic and even presentation to craft a game of wild imagination and even wilder a delivery....
While many will feel it's one or two chapters short of a truly fleshed-out and fully-realized vision, Children of the Sun's short but lavish flair for the hyper-violent is one of both visual and audible delight throughout. With what might be one of the most interesting and quick-to-convince takes on...
