Category: Columns

Is this the last great game on the Wii U? Rob takes a quick dive into Paper Mario: Color Splash to paint you a picture of what you can expect.

This week as we finish up a brutal election time in our country we thought it would be best on some games that do their damnedest to help you forget reality. What MMOs truly take you into a fully immersive experience? Do any of them have such in depth world building that you simply do not want to leave? Well, here we present to you the Top Five Games to Forget About Politics!

I’ve felt a little lost this weekend. I don’t know whether it’s my age, the fact my children occupy most of my time or that my tastes are simply changing, but many games I have are failing to capture my attention. Several times on Saturday I attempted to play Guild Wars 2 only to login, stare at my character, and wonder what it is that I could actually do that would hold my attention for more than five minutes.

The fantastic world of hunters and beasts imagined by Andrzej Sapkowski and popularized in the series of Witcher video games by CD Projekt Red has a new collectible card game on the horizon – Gwent. Recently, the CCG entered closed beta. Rob spent a few hours playing over the past week. These are his first impressions.

With Blizzcon 2016 ready to kick off with the opening ceremony just about 24-hours from now, and with recent Internet breathlessness over the “leaked” image showing both a male and female Necromancer as well as a year’s worth of job postings for an “unannounced Diablo project”, the hype for a possible major Diablo franchise announcement has reached heights it hasn’t in many years.

I often think about how I’d love to play SWTOR – only re-imagined with the new landscape of MMOs in mind. But things like action combat or even a smaller set of active abilities probably aren’t going to ever happen for SWTOR, so where does that leave things for the future of Star Wars and online games?

Battlerite is important for us all. Not only is it a highly successful early access title, but it’s born from a developer’s continued passion for an idea, without the shackles of publisher constraints. It’s also a game that’s delightfully simple but devilishly addictive.

Last week, Nintendo unveiled their latest console, the Nintendo Switch. Previously known as the NX, the Switch is smart blend of home console, handheld, and mobile device. Even with the Wii U flopping badly enough to make Free Willy cringe, this is a development we should all pay attention to. Even if you’re not a Nintendo fan, if the Switch takes off, it could change the gaming landscape.

For anyone who follows games and the industry, you know there is a bit of a vacuum going on right now. In the early part of the 2000s, Xbox, Playstation, Mobile and even PC gaming experienced the biggest rise in user base ever. Console titles sold millions, MMOs took over the PC market, and money came in from all sides to build bigger and better games. Here we are coming up on 2017 and this decade has seen a drop off.

Next week, we’ll be attending BlizzCon 2016, the 10th such affair in the company’s long and storied existence. Last year’s convention was pretty intense, with Legion info, Overwatch, Warcraft movie goodness… it’s hard to imagine that 2016 could somehow top last year. But it’s the TENTH BlizzCon. We’d be fools to think that the Anaheim based studio didn’t have some sort of surprise up its sleeve.