Ben Reeves
This author account hasn't been claimed yet. To claim this account, please contact the outlet owner to request access.
Writing For
Game InformerLatest Reviews
Every adventure is a journey of some sort, but we are often so consumed with the destination we sometimes forget to enjoy the ride. Far: Changing Tides pushes you to soak in the small moments that can be overlooked in our rush to reach the peak. Okomotive newest side-scrolling platformer is a meditative odyssey full of trials and triumphs. But this pilgrimage is so powerful I was often content to forget about my end goal.
Mastering a martial art takes years – if not a lifetime. Disciples must hone their bodies to the point that they perform every attack, every counter, every movement with pinpoint precision. A skilled warrior must move without thinking. Likewise, mastering Sifu's combat system takes a high degree of dedication and practice. Like a true martial artist, you must push through the practice pains before you reap any rewards.
You wake up in a dark cabin, chained to a worn table. A mysterious man sits on the other side of the room. You can't see the details of his face through the darkness, but his crazed eyes pierce the shadows. Something under your belly lurches as he invites you to play a card game. The rules seem simple; you summon creatures to attack your opponent's army of foes, and you easily win the first few hands. Still, you can't shake the anxiety of what might happen if – no – when you lose. You play on, the eyes on the other side of the table slowly burning a hole in your stomach.
In an era full of 100+ hour open-world campaigns and games as service titles that can be played in perpetuity, WarioWare's 3-to-5-second microgames almost feel like a commentary on the state of the industry. On the one hand, Get It Together's microgames require split-second thinking, continually offer the unexpected, and feel refreshingly original. On the other hand, this ultimately shallow experience left me wanting more.
The early Crash Bandicoot games of the ‘90s were partially experiments in how to navigate 3D space. Crash didn’t freely traverse an open world; he marched down tightly designed digital tunnels. The camera zoomed in and out of the action and panned around the character, which seemed novel at the time. However, Crash’s movement was limited in ways that seem restrictive by today’s standards. In some sense, Crash Bandicoot’s gameplay was a product of those limits of technology as much as it was any single creative vision. And yet, those limitations helped produce one of 1996's most memorable platformers. Crash Bandicoot 4: It’s About Time proves the classic formula still works in 2020.
A decade ago, the original Super Meat Boy released into what almost feels like a different industry. Team Meat's hardcore platformer was at the forefront of the modern indie renaissance; games like Super Meat Boy helped show that even small teams of dedicated developers could make a big mark on the gaming landscape. A few years later, Team Meat announced the follow up, Super Meat Boy Forever, a pseudo-sequel that would take Meat Boy into the world of autorunners. Naturally, this raises a few questions: can Team Meat distill Meat Boy’s pixel-perfect platforming into a game where players are limited to a single input? And, does Super Meat Boy Forever have any chance of leaving the same kind of cultural mark on the industry as its forerunner? Now that I’ve played the game, the answers are clearly “Surprisingly yes,” and “No chance in hell.”
For many, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild was a revelation. Nintendo smartly rethought old conventions and delivered an adventure that felt new while holding true to the spirit of the series. I put almost 200 hours into Nintendo’s open-world epic, and after I’d put the controller down for the last time, I was hungry for even more. Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity delivers that "even more" while we wait for the true sequel. It’s far from a revelation, but it is an adequate diversion.
After archeologist Tasi Trianon’s plane crashes in the Algerian desert, she sets off on a journey across the sweltering sands in search of help. However, Tasi quickly discovers that there are holes in her memory. As she slowly uncovers the remains of her fellow party, she puts together the pieces of her fragmented past. Tasi’s suppressed memories are almost as horrifying as the ghoulish creatures that now stalk her from the shadows. Tasi’s journey is one of the most intense experiences I’ve had in a long time. Unfortunately, Amnesia: Rebirth’s puzzle design is equally as terrifying.
Last year’s Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night was a loving tribute to the PSone classic Castlevania: Symphony of the Night and its beloved successors, which were developed by Koji Igarashi. However, a year before the release of Ritual of the Night, Inti Creates released another game under the Bloodstained banner that looked deeper into Castlevania’s past for inspiration. Now, Inti Creates is back with Curse of the Moon 2, an incredibly straightforward sequel that feels largely similar to the first, and sadly suffers from many of the same flaws.
When Paper Mario debuted on the N64, it took the turn-based RPG battles from Square’s Super Mario RPG and wrapped them around a clever papercraft aesthetic to create a wildly humorous adventure. Over the years, the Paper Mario series has moved away from traditional stat-based RPG leveling and tried various new mechanics with mixed success, but its lighthearted antics rarely disappoint. In Paper Mario: The Origami King, Nintendo’s humor remains on point, but much like an actual origami figure, the rest of the experience is a bit hollow.