VGW: Read Beyond the Headline
Yet again, we’re faced with a franchise reboot derided by seemingly overprotective fans. DmC marks a new beginning for Capcom’s Devil May Cry franchise- not only is it a completely new, non-numbered title, but it’s also been developed by an entirely new studio. Ninja Theory, the UK studio of Heavenly Sword and Enslaved fame, set [...]
The very concept of the Hitman franchise is one that capitalizes on the perceived dark side that we all like to entertain from time to time. Professional assassins aren’t necessarily the most likeable of people, but somehow, IO Interactive has had players coming back for more of Agent 47 since he debuted in 2000′s Hitman: [...]
If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then Nintendo should be absolutely giddy at the moment. Between Sony’s PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale and SEGA’s Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed, some of Nintendo’s most iconic franchises have seen their basic formulas utilized to create new yet familiar experiences that prove just how ingenious and enduring the original [...]
The last Borderlands 2 DLC, “Captain Scarlett and her Pirate’s Booty,” was a fun pirate-y jaunt with a rather lackluster cast. The eponymous Capt. S was too shallow a character to really hold the player’s interest, which was disappointing after the strength of the characters you run into and the writing supporting them in the [...]
Say what you want about Call of Duty, but considering its continued popularity, it’s definitely doing something right. The market-dominating series is now entering its ninth iteration, with Treyarch at the helm once again. Call of Duty: Black Ops II has been said to be the great shift in momentum that fans and gamers across the world [...]
Idea Factory’s Compile Heart division has done it again. Just like the Hyperdimension Neptunia series, their latest title, Mugen Souls, was made to appeal to a very specific crowd of Japanese animation fans who go crazy for moe (ultra-cute, for lack of a better word) girls and fantasy worlds. There certainly isn’t anything inherently wrong with [...]
With every critically acclaimed, best-selling AAA game, there’s always the inevitable spawn of “me-too” titles; games enthusiastic about the new ground set by these big titles that try and capitalize on doing more of the same. A most recent example was Inversion, a generic, cover-based shooter styled after Gears of War with half the charm [...]
Following the slightly stale experience that was Assassin’s Creed: Revelations, Ubisoft found one of its flagship series on the brink of franchise fatigue. Luckily for fans, Assassin’s Creed 3 innovates more than any entry in the series to date, completely steering clear of all-too-common issues that come with yearly releases in a franchise. By introducing [...]
When Okami first launched in 2006, it was lauded as gorgeous, creative, and most importantly, fun. Six years later, and Okami is still remembered fondly; Amaterasu is considered a Capcom icon, garnering her an appearance as a fighter in Marvel vs Capcom 3. Though Clover Studio is no more, Capcom isn’t done with everyone’s favorite wolf-god. Amaterasu, [...]
With the iconic James Bond franchise celebrating its fifty year anniversary, MGM has decided to pull out all the stops by not only releasing the first new Bond film since 2008′s Quantum of Solace, but also releasing Bond 50, a box set containing each of the 22 released James Bond films on Blu Ray. In [...]
You can almost hear the collective forehead slap when gamers hear “re-imagining” tied to a seminal game like X-COM: UFO Defense. Actually, we did with the XCOM first-person shooter announcement in 2010. That changed when Firaxis Games later revealed XCOM: Enemy Unknown to be the true spiritual successor to the original tactical-strategy game –– and [...]
While the ’90s might not have been a great time for arcades, it was a golden era for fighting games. The arcade was the only place to go to unleash the amount of time and money you had spent training on a living opponent, at least outside of the poor console ports back in the [...]
Current-gen Japanese games suck. You’ve heard it, I’ve heard it, everyone’s heard it. Whether or not that statement is true is a discussion that could span a week’s worth of articles as it is, but a more pressing question should be: why might that be the case? It’s true that many Japanese developers have struggled [...]