James Paley
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COGConnectedLatest Reviews
Musou, or Warriors games, get something of a bad rap among gamers. Reactions towards the latest Hyrule Warriors title were fairly mixed, with some people losing interest the moment they found out it was a Warriors game at all. I’m here to tell you that those people are wrong. Hyrule...
Ghostrunner
Platforming is, by design, a rather tricky business. You’re meant to be confounded, to be pushed to your limits at every turn. Every success should come on the heels of agonizing defeat, even if that journey started several games ago. Viewed in this rosy light, Ghostrunner is a landmark victory....
Star Wars games cover a lot of ground. RPGs, first-person shooters, platformers, and flight sims. Star Wars: Squadrons sits squarely in the final category. Unlike other AAA Star Wars games, this title is exclusively cockpit-driven space battles. To that end, there’s no mistaking what you’re in for. If you’re not...
To call time travel stories complicated is to label the ocean as damp. While this can be a cursed gift, sometimes there are real gems among the thumbtacks and red strings. 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim, the latest project from Vanillaware, pulls this off with easy grace. You are, almost at...
Mortal Shell
Dark Souls has cast a long shadow over the gaming world. Ever since its release in 2011, players and developers alike have been chasing that blissful high. Now, in this cursed year of 2020, I posit that we’re allowed to move on. No one’s making us re-skin and re-ship this...
Virtual Reality is both perfect for horror games and uniquely unsuited for the genre. You’re immediately immersed, with every stray noise and light flicker raising your heart rate. On the other hand, technical limitations can quickly pull you out of the simulation, reminding you that everything is going to be...
Playing Ghost of Tsushima has been a dizzy dance of expectations versus reality. At so many separate junctions, I’ve slammed into what I wanted to happen, blindsided by the actual events. This game wears the fresh skin of an open world RPG, one crammed full of crafting, karmic choices, and...
Skelattack
Most metroidvania games are all about exploration and a slowly rising power level that eventually smacks of godhood. Skelattack is a slightly different beast. This game is in the business of killing you, and business is booming. There’s a death counter I stopped paying attention to after it hit 150,...
Minecraft is basically the biggest game on Earth at this point. Hundreds of millions of people have played it in one form or another, and there’s no sign of the franchise slowing down anytime soon. So it’s only natural that Mojang would want to expand that empire into other genres....
Let’s get one thing straight right now: Objectivity will be nearly impossible here. I have a history with Final Fantasy VII that spans multiple decades. The original game changed how I looked at games, in general, for my whole life going forward. These characters, this story, and this world are...
Wattam
Katamari Damancy set a certain precedent for video games, namely that they can get really weird at a moment’s notice. This trend has continued apace for the studio’s subsequent releases, leading in an unbroken path to Wattam. In some ways, this is the jewel of their weirdness crown, a sparkling...
There comes a time in every game’s life cycle when it undergoes some big changes. After some shedding, molting, and a little quality cocoon-time, every game makes the long journey to its final home on the Nintendo Switch. That time has finally arrived for Children of Morta, and it’s a...
