Latest Reviews
Demonschool
Namako explodes into a fountain of blood for what feels like the eighth time, and I open the menu and select Restart Battle. I’m fighting a giant skull and a pair of hands that looks like what I imagine Ocarina of Time’s Bongo Bongo would be if he were a...
Dispatch
Seven years after AdHoc Studio was founded by former Telltale Games, Ubisoft, and Night School developers, the studio has released its debut title. Dispatch is an original interactive narrative game that takes heavy inspiration from the games that made the genre a mainstay, and builds on them to deliver one...
Here at Shacknews, I’ve talked about Atelier a few times. GUST and Koei Tecmo’s item synthesis and cozy vibes RPG series has had a lot of ups and downs over the past few decades. If you’ve read my previous reviews, you might have a skewed perspective, as the most recent...
Lumines: Arise
Enhance has been making games for many years, but the team cemented its place on the gaming map with its mixture of puzzle games and stirring musical accompaniment. Tetris Effect remains a generation-defining reinvention of a classic franchise and, with that success in its pocket, now Enhance has given the...
Nintendo and Koei Tecmo have made a fairly loyal fan of me over the course of several Warriors collaborations and spinoffs this last decade and then some. I’ve been particularly enamored with the fact that KT isn’t just strapping fan favorite characters to the Musou formula. Instead, it is augmenting...
Mortal Kombat has been around for so long, it's easy to take it for granted. NetherRealm's newer fighting games have hit so consistently, setting the standard for what fighting games could be in terms of competitive contests and single-player stories. Older generations may have forgotten the series' humble beginnings, while...
Obsidian Entertainment has built a mood with The Other Worlds series. It’s one that positions corporations, executive manipulation, and rampant consumerism as a plague that haunts humanity well into our future in space, but in dark comedic fashion. The vibe continues into The Outer Worlds 2 where those nasty old...
I have to hand it to FuturLab. The developervery good at one specific thing, and that is creating structures absolutely caked with grime that only a good power washing will fix. The developer decided to stay with what works and build upon that with a sequel. PowerWash Simulator 2 is...
I put a lot of stock in replay value. When I was a kid, my parents tolerated more than supported my love of video games, so I only got new titles for my birthday, Christmas, and during the weekends when we’d make trips to the video store. That meant replaying...
Unless you’re sitting in the ludicrously small mid-section of a Venn Diagram comparing “Katamari Damacy fans” and “Apple Arcade subscribers,” you’ve probably been waiting upwards of 14 years for a new Katamari game that isn’t a remaster or wacky spin-off. And Touch my Katamari was a PS Vita game, so...
With the third installment in the Jurassic World Evolution franchise, Frontier Developments has delivered the ultimate fantasy to Jurassic Park/World fans: the ability to build and fully customize your own dinosaur theme park. With all of its new features and changes to existing systems, I’m convinced that Jurassic World Evolution...
Ninja Gaiden 4
You know, I never thought I’d want to play a Ninja Gaiden game that didn’t have Ryu Hayabusa front and center in some capacity, but Ninja Gaiden 4 makes a pretty good case for Yakumo of the Raven Clan. He’s the star of the show in this latest entry in...