Cass Barkman
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Writing For
Checkpoint GamingLatest Reviews
Star Wars: Zero Company is a cinematic tactics extravaganza of Star Wars storytelling and strategy.
The Prince of Persia series is in an odd place right now. Outside of remakes and mobile releases, after 2010’s The Forgotten Sands, we didn’t see a mainline Prince of Persia for fourteen years until the release of the excellent The Lost Crown in 2024. The Lost Crown itself suggested...
Discounty
Prior to my current job, I worked in retail for a decade. One of the few reasons I was able to leave the house during COVID was to stock shelves and hear customers complain about having to buy a second pasta maker because their first one was stuck at their...
Roguelikes and roguelites feel like an indie release staple at this point. Coined from the 1980 release of Rogue, the rise of small game studios, digital distribution, and the success of hits like Spelunky and Slay the Spire have seen a growing cornucopia of roguey releases for players to choose...
Steam nowadays often feels like an overwhelming tide of Early Access and newly released games vying for your attention (while Valve happily takes a massive 30% revenue cut from each). Against this storm of releases (get it), you still get the regular title that may not make it massive, but...
TRON is an odd multimedia series – starting with the Disney film TRON in 1982, it has been intermittently in and out of the cultural zeitgeist since, with TRON: Legacy being released in 2010 and this game being followed up by only the third film in its 43-year history, TRON:...
I’m midway through a run. My train barrels along the divine tracks, and heaven streaks past in the background. I carefully coordinate my motley assortment of dragons, angels and welps across its three levels, only for titanic enemy forces to come barging through the entrance. Spells fly, numbers flash endlessly...
In the 2012 book ‘Rise of the Videogame Zinesters’, game designer Anna Anthropy advocates for games as “personal artifacts instead of impersonal creations by teams” – games not as huge commercial entities but private, unique stories that have more in common with zines (small self-publications) than blockbusters. I open the...
Warside
While it’s almost 20 years since the world saw a brand new Advance Wars game (putting aside the seemingly great 2023 remake), a huge variety of indie game devs, likely spurred on by childhood nostalgia, have happily rushed to fill the spritely turn-based military void. Amidst the Wargroove’s, Tiny Metal’s...
Koira
Video games are an ideal medium to hang out with virtual animal companions. You’ve got games entirely centered on beloved furry friends like Nintendogs and the Pokémon series, as well as recognisable characters like Dogmeat from Fallout (rest in peace, mo-cap dog River), bird dog Trico from The Last Guardian...
The new title from Spanish developer The Game Kitchen, previously known for their ‘Blasphemous’ series, is simultaneously new and familiar terrain for the studio. The religious iconography of their previous titles is alive and well, but gone is their Metroidvania action to be replaced by the tactical stealth of trying...