Randy Kalista
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Writing For
Gaming NexusLatest Reviews
Kingdom Come is a walking simulator merged with an RPG that takes you down a Wikipedia black hole. Accepting its historicity and deciphering its cerebral game systems is like completing a religious rite.
Shadow of the Colossus is one for the books. Twelve years later, it's still a powerful, immutable, singular experience. A masterwork of the genre.
Origins was worth taking the year off. Egypt will be hard to top as a location. The series' dry, ironic, corporate sense of humor is still dull. But nobody can beat Assassin's Creed's architectural history lessons, even if you're still just stabbing folks and jumping out the window while you're...
While groovy from its soundtrack to its illustrated style, Serial Cleaner's ‘70s ‘stache and sharply defined stealth-action is often tiring. I'd rather have somebody else clean this up.
Pyre
Pyre teaches you to fight tirelessly for your freedom, but to question the definition of that freedom as well. I like the sports-combat a little more each time I play. And Pyre fetishizes the tools of the writer's trade, but more importantly focuses on the art and dialogue of good storytelling.
The Long Journey Home is a roguelike sci-fi survival simulator fueled on hope and hopelessness. Bring them home, commander. But be ready to die a hundred deaths before that ever happens.
LEGO City Undercover is a slap-happy LEGO GTA. This 2017 remaster of the 2014 Wii U exclusive now introduces the originally absent co-op play, while also jumping onto the Switch, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC. Easily my favorite LEGO game in years.
A buddy-cop duo, a gypsy-cursed clown, and a hopeful video game developer walk into a reboot of Maniac Mansion. Jokes ensue. Thimbleweed Park's sense of humor works best if you can easily laugh at easy laughs. It's a great throwback, but I don't expect today's adventure games to borrow much...
Torment looks like a future-fantasy Lord of the Rings, plays like a collection of extreme short fiction, and emerges as the most alien world I've discovered in decades. Be ready for the narrative equivalent of combat fatigue. But if you’re in the mood for a complex world operating under a...
Divide
Divide doesn’t excite, doesn’t surprise, doesn’t reach out, and doesn’t look in. It tests my patience, wastes your time, and can’t keep its eyes on the prize. The cool architecture is basically copy-pasted to death. And the gameplay, which is thankfully short on bullets, is still rehashed ad infinitum. It's a...
Everybody's gone to some kind of rapture in Small Radios Big Televisions. It's a rapture devoid of physical labor or mental exertion, but one of technological transcendence. It's a game of sensible puzzles, though a few still stumped me. It's a game owning its simple art style, but assembles itself in broad...
